This one isn’t exactly a white collar crime, but it involves a person running for elected office and has a rather appealing bizarreness to it. Mark Albertini is running for the Republican nomination for Governor in Tennessee, and was arrested on the evening of July 20 for public intoxication. Early the next morning, Albertini entered a plea of no contest to the charge and was released. He promptly proclaimed his innocence, stating that he only entered the plea because he did not want to plead not guilty and go through the ensuing legal proceeding. Usually a plea of "no contest" is neither an admission nor denial of guilt — the equivalent of "whatever" in teen-speak — but it’s uncommon to enter such a plea two weeks before a primary election in the apparent hope that making the case go away quickly will look good. Albertini’s explanation, according to an article in The Tennessean (here), is: "I don’t think I was intoxicated in public. I only had a glass of red wine at lunch . . . This was a good four hours afterward." Apparently, Albertini was invited to leave a candidates function and was passing out campaign literature when arrested. Albertini has said he will drop out of the race "[i]f I get a slew of e-mails saying I should, I’ll honor that." Let’s hope the e-mail address does not become known to those who perpetuate Nigerian 419 scams, I’d hate to think what might happen. (ph)
Category: News
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Ralph Reed, a former lobbying associate of Jack Abramoff, lost his political race as Republican nominee for the office of Lt. Governor. (see NYTimes here).
(esp)
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National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) – Conference Call
Topic: Fighting Back Against the Thompson Memo: Can It Be Done? — The Implications of U.S. v. Stein (KPMG). Includes a Q & A Session.
Date & Time: Friday, July 21, 2006 — 12:30 p.m. EST
Speakers: Gerald B. Lefcourt & John "Rusty" Wing
Details: See here
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ABA Criminal Justice Section – Conference Call
Topic: The panel will discuss recent developments in the area of criminal tax enforcement, including the renewed attention on the conduct of tax professionals, evidenced in part by the case of US v. Stein (the KPMG case), enhanced IRS and DOJ enforcement efforts in the tax shelter area and in criminal tax enforcement generally, and emerging trends in matters concerning parallel proceedings in tax cases and the use of conspiracy charges.
Date & Time: July 24,2006 3:00 -4:00 P.M.
Speakers: Dana Boente, Cono Namorato, Scott Michel, Justin A. Thornton, Moderator: Tom Zehnle
Details See here
(esp)
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Blog co-editor Ellen Podgor has an editorial on Law.Com (here) questioning the use of laws such as the mail fraud statute (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1341) by federal prosecutors to reach a wide variety of conduct that may be of little real interest to the national government. The issue came to the forefront recently in a corruption prosecution in Chicago in which prosecutors failed to establish the mailing element for the offense, a seemingly innocuous aspect of a crime (see earlier post here) that resulted in the dismissal of a charge. Ellen raises the following questions:
Why has federal criminal jurisdiction become so commonly accepted that we can sometimes overlook the need for this federal jurisdiction hook? Why is it that a mailing is all that is necessary to bring many state criminal matters into the federal system? Could it be that overfederalization has made us oblivious to the importance of the unique role that the federal government should play in the criminal law system?
(ph)
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The American Bar Association (ABA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) have not exactly been on the same side on all issues these days. And this seems odd as DOJ is made up of attorneys and the ABA is an attorney organization.
For one, the ABA opposed the DOJ policy on waivers of the attorney-client privilege (see here)
And now the DOJ is proceeding against the ABA asking a court for civil contempt on a consent decree previously signed. According to a DOJ press release here, it sounds like the parties have reached an agreement. The press release states in part:
"The Department of Justice filed a petition today asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to hold the American Bar Association (ABA) in civil contempt for violating multiple provisions of a 1996 antitrust consent decree. The consent decree prohibited the ABA from misusing the law school accreditation process. The Department also filed a proposed order and a stipulation in which the ABA acknowledges the violations alleged in the Department’s petition and agrees to reimburse the United States $185,000 in fees and costs incurred in the Department’s investigation. The proposed order is subject to court approval. . . . "
Looking at some of the items on the list, like "-Obtain annual certifications from certain ABA staff and volunteers that they agree to abide by the decree and are not aware of any violations," – it sounds like the ABA may be implementing a compliance program.
(esp)
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Possibly Nothing.
But the NYTimes (AP) here presents an article that discusses whether some of Abramoff’s clients were able to meet with either Karl Rove or other administration notables in return for funds paid to Norquist’s group.
What is the price for access? And did the individuals all know about the money being paid? And who actually received the money, if money was paid? And was access obtained as a result of money passing hands. And is there anything illegal with this? – A host of questions so far.
(esp)
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While the government was busy subpoenaing the reporters who they thought may have leaked confidential Grand Jury secrecy material in the steroid investigation, they must have been surprised to find out that they themselves were the source of a leak. Adam Liptak in a wonderful NYTimes article here details how 8 pages that the government thought had been redacted from a document filed in court was actually available to the public. And the government response to this – well The San Francisco Chronicle notes here that the government calls this "an unfortunate error, one that we regret." Some thoughts here:
- The government needs to improve on IT. That someone can simply copy/paste a redacted document into a word processing program and obtain the content is pretty frightening. Will everyone who received redacted items from the government by email be pulling up the documents today to see if the same works for these items? This is more than "an unfortunate error."
- This gives us a clue into what types of things the government redacts. Defense attorneys have been known to receive documents with less than a line on a page because the entire page has been redacted by the government. Sometimes one has to wonder if all the items that were in fact redacted ought to have been – this allows us to judge the government redaction process.
- Should this "glitch" be investigated and people indicted? It is more than ironic that the government was investigating leaks only to find that they are leaking. It kind of reminds you of the saying – People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
- Grand Jury Secrecy is Important. It is important for the prosecution as it allows them to investigate without being subject to public oversight. It is also important for individuals, especially public figures – like sports figures and politicians, that they not be named until indictment (if there is one), as the mere mention of them being associated with a grand jury investigation can have a negative effect on their career. Leaks in grand jury secrecy cannot be tolerated.
- Now if this were a corporation that had committed this misconduct, would someone from the government be looking to see if they had a proper corporate compliance program in place? So was someone monitoring the IT department?
(esp)
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Upcoming Conference-
TWENTY-FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ECONOMIC CRIME
SUNDAY 3rd – SUNDAY 10th SEPTEMBER 2006
JESUS COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Price of Crime
The Identification and Control of Risks Associated with the Enterprise of Crime and Terror
For details see here –
Download 2006_symposium_programme_may.pdf
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Pellicano, former private eye to celebrities in Hollywood, is critical of the government case against him. Is Pellicano’s alleged illegal wiretapping similar to the National Security Agency (NSA) alleged monitoring without court approval? According to a Yahoo (AP) story here, Pellicano is mentioning this alleged government conduct in responding to the case against him. For some prior entries see:
"Die Hard" Director Pleads Guilty here
L.A. Divorce Lawyer Is a Subject of the Pellicano Investigation here
What Did Ovitz Know About Pellicano’s Peccadillos? here
The Private (and now Public) Eye Case here
(esp)
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American Bar Association President Michael Greco announced today the formation of a Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine. The news release here states that the task force will "examine constitutional and legal issues raised by presidents of the United States attaching legal interpretations to federal legislation they sign." It also states that, "[t]he task force will study thoroughly the implications of presidential signing statements for the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers and interpretation of laws." The work of this task force could have implications in the prosecution of white collar crime, most likely in the area of extraterritorial prosecutions.
(esp)
MattBray.net 