Submitted at 12:32 PM April 11, 2012
Huffington Post on April 11, 2012released the following:By: Ginny Sloan“When federal prosecutors charged thelate Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) withfailing to report more than $250,000 inillegal gifts and home renovations, theyknew the stakes were sky high. Stevens,after all, was only the 11th senator inhistory to be indicted while in office. In2008, the prosecutions succeeded inconvincing a Washington, DC jury toconvict Stevens. A month later, Stevens,the longest serving Republican senator inhistory, was defeated in his bid for re-election by fewer than 4,000 votes; mostobservers think the conviction helped tosway the election. Stevens died two yearslater in a plane crash.Thanks to a two-and-a-half yearindependent investigation ordered by the judge in the case, Emmet Sullivan, andfinally released several weeks ago, wenow know how prosecutors won Stevens’conviction: they cheated. They violatedhis constitutional rights by intentionallyconcealing evidence that they knew wouldhave supported Stevens’ claim that heintended to pay for all work performed onhis house. They hid documents and theyallowed a cooperating witness to testifyfalsely to the jury. The investigators’ 514-page report is a chilling reminder that noteven the most powerful leaders in thenation are safe when federal prosecutorsignore their duty to seek justice, andinstead pursue victory at any cost.Sadly, the Ted Stevens case was not anisolated incident. Although the failure todisclose evidence is a constitutionalviolation that by its very nature often goesundiscovered (anything that thegovernment chooses not to disclose to thedefense generally remains unknown), westill know it occurs with disturbingfrequency. For example, a 2010 USAToday investigation documented 86 casessince 1997 in which judges found thatfederal prosecutors had failed to turn overevidence that they were legally required todisclose. A number of organizations havereached similar conclusions about thefrequency of these violations.I have tremendous respect for the menand women who serve as federalprosecutors and believe that the vastmajority of them act in good faith to fulfilltheir constitutional and legal obligations.However, it is difficult for even well-meaning prosecutors to understand whatexactly those obligations entail in the faceof murky rules and conflicting standards.When violations are occurring by eventhose prosecutors who intend to seek justice, something must be done.Legislation offered by Senator LisaMurkowski (R-AK) gives Congress theopportunity to address this seriousproblem. Senator Murkowski’s “TheFairness in Disclosure of Evidence Act” isa bipartisan proposal that would requirefederal prosecutors to turn over todefendants all evidence favorable to theircases, and would provide appropriatepenalties when they fail to do so. Passageof the bill would ensure that defendantsreceive all information to which they areconstitutionally entitled, and would creategreater consistency in federal prosecutionsby eliminating jurisdictional disparities.The Constitution Project has long beendedicated to protecting constitutionalsafeguards in the criminal justice system,and the Murkowski bill is an importantstep towards doing just that. Its safeguardsare the bedrock of our system andabsolutely essential in protecting thepublic from abuses of the governmentpower to deprive individuals of theirliberty and even their lives.We recently released a statement from140 criminal justice experts from acrossthe political spectrum calling on Congressto adopt legislation to address the problemhighlighted in the Stevens case —legislation that is consistent with theFairness in Disclosure of Evidence Act.More than 100 former federal prosecutorsare among those joining the call,including: Stuart Gerson, former ActingU.S. Attorney General under PresidentClinton; Larry Thompson, former DeputyAttorney General during President GeorgeW. Bush’s first term; former FBI DirectorWilliam S. Sessions; and famous authorScott Turow.These experts point out that federalcourts, the Department of Justice andother entities have for years tried to fix theproblem, only to articulate inconsistent orinadequate standards, making it difficultfor individual prosecutors to determine thescope of their obligations to discloseinformation. The group concluded, “Onlyfederal legislation can adequately addressthese continued violations by federalprosecutors, creating a uniform standardfor what must be disclosed and whatremedies will exist for non-disclosure, andsending a strong message to the DOJ thatthere will be consequences when federalprosecutors violate their discoveryobligations.”Congress has the power to preventanother injustice like what happened toSenator Stevens from occurring. It shouldact swiftly to pass the Fairness inDisclosure of Evidence Act, creating clearstandards for what information federalprosecutors are obligated to disclose to thedefense and providing appropriateremedies when prosecutors fail to do so.”————————————————————–Douglas McNabb – McNabb Associates,P.C.’sFederal Criminal Defense AttorneysVideos: Federal Crimes – Be Careful Federal Crimes – Be Proactive Federal Crimes – Federal Indictment————————————————————–To find additional federal criminal news,please readFederal Crimes Watch Daily.Douglas McNabb and other members of the U.S. law firm practice and write and/ or report extensively on matters involvingFederal Criminal Defense, INTERPOLRed Notice Removal, InternationalExtradition and OFAC SDN SanctionsRemoval.The author of this blog is Douglas C.McNabb. Please feel free to contact himdirectly atmcnabb@mcnabbassociates.comor at oneof the offices listed above.
2Federal Criminal Defense Lawyers
Submitted at 9:18 AM April 11, 2012
Associated Press on April 10, 2012released the following:“By MICHAEL BIESECKER, AssociatedPressRALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — As a youngpersonal injury lawyer in North Carolina,John Edwards earned a reputation forturning down multimillion-dollarsettlement offers on bets that jurors wouldaward his clients more money at the endof a trial.“The twelve souls who spend full days,full weeks, or sometimes long monthssitting only a few feet from you get toknow you almost as well as you knowyourself,” Edwards wrote in “FourTrials,” his 2003 autobiography. “Theytake in every movement, fact, word,hesitation, and glance. My faith in thewisdom of ordinary people took root inthe mill towns of my youth. But the juriesof my adulthood deepened that faith.”Now the former U.S. senator and two-time Democratic presidential candidate ismaking the biggest courtroom gamble of his life — that a jury will clear him of alleged campaign finance violations andkeep him from being sent to prison.Jury selection for Edwards’ criminal trialis set to begin Thursday in the MiddleDistrict of North Carolina. The sprawling24-county federal judicial district includesthe town where he grew up, Robbins, aswell as dozens of other small communitieswhere old textile mills now sit idle butevangelical churches are routinely full.U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C.Eagles, who was appointed in 2010 byPresident Barack Obama, will preside.She said she expects the proceedings tolast about six weeks.Edwards, who declined an interviewrequest through his lawyers, was indictedby a federal grand jury last year on sixfelony and misdemeanor counts related tonearly $1 million secretly provided bywealthy campaign donors to help hide hispregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, as hesought the White House in 2008. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and as much as $1.5million in fines.Before his indictment, Edwards rejected apotential plea agreement with federalprosecutors that would have allowed himto serve as little as six months and keephis law license, according to two peoplewith direct knowledge of the offer. Morethan a year after his wife, Elizabeth, diedof cancer, Edwards is now a single parentof two children, ages 13 and 11, who livewith their father at the family’s gatedestate outside Chapel Hill. Eldest daughterCate Edwards, 30, is a lawyer whomarried last year.A graduate of the University of NorthCarolina law school, John Edwards madehis fortune handling medical malpracticeand corporate negligence cases beforeturning to politics following the death of his 16-year-old son Wade in a 1996 autoaccident. Edwards was elected to the U.S.Senate in 1998 and was John Kerry’srunning mate in 2004. His law license hasbeen listed as inactive for more than adecade.For his part, Edwards has said he islooking forward to getting back in front of a jury, even though he’ll be the one at thedefense table.“After all these years, I finally get my dayin court and people get to hear my side of this, and what actually happened,”Edwards said on the steps of the federalcourthouse in Greensboro following apretrial hearing in October. “And what Iknow with complete and absolutecertainty is I didn’t violate campaign lawsand I never for a second believed I wasviolating campaign laws.”Regardless of the outcome, the comingtrial in USA v. Johnny Reid Edwards issure to set legal precedents for whatconstitutes a campaign donation underfederal law.A key issue will be whether Edwardsknew about the payments made on hisbehalf by his national campaign financechairman, the late Texas lawyer FredBaron, and campaign donor Rachel“Bunny” Mellon, an heiress and socialitewho is now 101 years old. Both hadalready given Edwards’ campaign themaximum $2,300 individual contributionallowed by federal law.Edwards denies having known about themoney, which paid for private jets, luxuryhotels and Hunter’s medical care.Prosecutors will seek to prove he soughtand directed the payments to cover up hisaffair, protect his public image as a“family man” and keep his presidentialhopes viable.Defense attorneys and prosecutorsdeclined to comment about likely trialissues. But hundreds of pages of pre-trialmotions and hours of oral arguments inrecent months offer insights into theirlikely strategies.Abbe Lowell, Edwards’ lead lawyer,contends that even had Edwards knownabout the secret payments, his actionswouldn’t amount to a crime under federallaw because his motivation was keepinghis wife from learning of the affair, notinfluencing the outcome of an election.Lowell has said in court that thegovernment’s case relies on flawed legalreasoning, that the grand jury process wastainted and that the Republican federalprosecutor who led the investigation, now-congressional candidate George Holding,was motivated by partisanship.Lowell has derided what he calls thegovernment’s “crazy” interpretation of federal law whereby money that wasnever handled by the candidate nordeposited in a campaign account is beingdefined as campaign contributions.The Federal Election Commissionreviewed Edwards’ case and declined toseek charges or issue a fine. The defenseis likely to call two former FECcommissioners as expert witnesses.Edwards’ legal position is also supportedin a court brief filed by the Center forResponsibility and Ethics in Washington,a campaign finance watchdog group.“In the United States, we don’t prosecutepeople for being loathsome, we prosecutethem for violating the law,” CREWexecutive director Melanie Sloan said thisweek. “The real reason for these paymentsis obvious: To prevent Mr. Edwards’cancer-stricken wife from finding outabout the affair. This makes himdespicable, but not a criminal.”Much of the money at issue was funneledto Andrew Young, a former campaignaide once so close to Edwards thatAndrews initially claimed paternity of hisboss’s illegitimate child. Young and hiswife invited the pregnant Hunter to live intheir home near Chapel Hill and laterembarked with her on a cross-countryodyssey as they sought to elude tabloidreporters trying to expose the candidate’sextramarital affair.Young later fell out with Edwards andwrote an unflattering tell-all book, “ThePolitician.” Young and Hunter recentlyended a two-year legal battle overownership of a sex tape the mistressrecorded with Edwards during thecampaign, agreeing to a settlement thatdictates that copies of the video will bedestroyed.Young is expected to be a witness for theprosecution, while the defense is likely tocall Hunter to testify. Two of the lawyerswho represented Hunter in her civil suitagainst the former aide joined Edwards’legal team last month. After years of adamant public denials, Edwards
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Submitted at 9:30 AM April 11, 2012
MercuryNews.com on April 10, 2012released the following:“By Howard MintzWarning that merely looking up sportsscores or online dating services at work could lead to a prison cell, a federalappeals court on Tuesday reined in thefederal government’s power to prosecuteemployees who stray from their bosses’rules on using company computers.In a case against a Danville man, the 9thU.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found theJustice Department had gone too far inenforcing a nearly 30-year-old computerhacking law, expressing concern that on-the-job “minor dalliances” with Facebook and Google “would become federalcrimes.”The 9th Circuit, in its 9-to-2 ruling,limited the scope of the 1984 ComputerFraud and Abuse Act, saying it cannot beused to prosecute someone simply for theunauthorized use of information on theirworkplace computers. The decision setsup a possible showdown in the U.S.Supreme Court because federal courtsaround the country have ruled otherwise.The case has been closely watched bydigital civil liberties groups, which havewarned that prosecutors can bringcriminal charges for violating routinecorporate rules on the use of work computers. Redwood City-based Oracle,however, sided with the government in theappeal, saying in court papers that the anti-hacking law may be needed to punishemployees who steal inside information.But the court majority clearly wasconcerned that a heavy hand could slapcuffs on minor offenders.“Minds have wandered since thebeginning of time and the computer givesemployees new ways to procrastinate, byg-chatting with friends, playing games,shopping or watching sports highlights,”Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote. “Basingcriminal liability on violations of privatecomputer use policies can transformwhole categories of otherwise innocuousbehavior into federal crimes simplybecause a computer is involved.”The case centered on the prosecution of David Nosal, an executive at Korn/FerryInternational, a San Francisco corporaterecruiting firm. Federal prosecutorsalleged that Nosal and co-workersillegally foraged in the company’sdatabase for information to establish arival company and charged him with tradesecrets theft and violations of the anti-hacking law.Even with the 9th Circuit ruling, severalcharges remain against Nosal, includingthe trade secrets allegations. But thecharges of unauthorized use of a computerunder the anti-hacking law became thefocus of the 9th Circuit legal showdown.Nosal’s lawyers, backed by the ElectronicFrontier Foundation, argued thatemployees should not face criminalprosecution under anti-hacking statuteswhen they have a right to use theircompany computers, but violate corporatepolicy on the type of information accessedon those computers. They insisted such abroad reading of the law could exposeemployees to criminal investigations forroutine violations of corporate policies.Orin Kerr, a George WashingtonUniversity law professor and expert on thestatute, said the 9th Circuit got it right.“What Kozinski is saying is that under thegovernment’s view, most people arecriminals,” Kerr said. “It’s an importantvictory for Internet rights. It limits thepower of the government to prosecutepeople for innocent activity.”The Justice Department declined tocomment. But government lawyers arguedin the appeal that Nosal was prosecutedonly because he was accused of using hisworkplace computer to steal hisemployer’s secrets. They denied a widerthreat of prosecuting people for surfingthe Web at work.Two 9th Circuit judges agreed, dissentingfrom the ruling.“This case has nothing to do with playingsudoku, checking email, fibbing on datingsites or any of the other activities themajority rightly values,” Judge BarrySilverman wrote Tuesday.“It has everything to do with stealing anemployer’s valuable information to set upa competing business with the purloineddata, siphoned away from the victim,knowing such access and use wereprohibited.”"————————————————————–Douglas McNabb – McNabb Associates,P.C.’sFederal Criminal Defense AttorneysVideos: Federal Crimes – Be Careful Federal Crimes – Be Proactive Federal Crimes – Federal Indictment
Federal Crimes – Appeal————————————————————–To find additional federal criminal news,please readFederal Crimes Watch Daily.Douglas McNabb and other members of the U.S. law firm practice and write and/ or report extensively on matters involvingFederal Criminal Defense, INTERPOLRed Notice Removal, InternationalExtradition and OFAC SDN SanctionsRemoval.The author of this blog is Douglas C.McNabb. Please feel free to contact himdirectly atmcnabb@mcnabbassociates.comor at oneof the offices listed above.
Submitted at 10:43 AM April 11, 2012
Bruce King, the owner of a Montgomery,Ala., tax preparation business, and five taxpreparers from Montgomery have beencharged with conspiring to defraud theUnited States and aiding in the filing of false tax returns, the Justice Departmentand the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)announced today. A federal grand jury inMontgomery returned an indictment onMarch 28, 2012, charging Bruce King,Jenika Williams, Antoinette Djonret,Nakesha Donaldson, Angela Smith andVonecia Orum with participating in ascheme to file false tax returns. Williams,Djonret, Donaldson and Smith have alsobeen charged with wire fraud andaggravated identity theft. The indictmentwas unsealed yesterday.
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April 11, 2012 - The Federal Crimes Watch Daily
The Federal Crimes Watch Daily is a daily newspaper that discusses current federal criminal issues written by a federal criminal defense attorney.
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