A Suffolk Superior Court judge has refused to throw out the bribery case against the former probation commissioner, John J. O’Brien, ruling that there is direct evidence that O’Brien organized a fund-raiser for the former treasurer, Timothy P. Cahill, to help O’Brien’s wife get a job at the state lottery.

Judge Judith Fabricant concluded that grand jury testimony showed that O’Brien pressured his employees to donate thousands to Cahill in 2005 based on “his own well-founded perception that his doing so was the means by which his wife would obtain employment.”