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House Votes to Hold Miers and Bolten In Contempt, and Grants Itself Power to Pursue the Subpoenas
The issue over subpoenas to former White House aides Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten related to the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys that the President asserted they could simply ignore under a claim of Executive Privilege has come to a head in the House of Representatives. Following a Republican walk-out from the chamber, the Democrats…
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A Tale of Two Witnesses
The hearing before the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee was not very edifying as Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee tried to defend their veracity in occasionally sharp questioning from Congressmen, and neither man ended up coming across as particularly believable in my opinion. From the outset, the hearing was simply a perjury trap, or…
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A Barrage From the Scruggs Defendants
Any federal criminal prosecution will trigger motions from the defendant, and the hotly-contested prosecution of Dickie Scruggs and two other lawyers from his firm, his son Zach and Sidney Backstrom, has resulted in a veritable barrage of filings from the defense. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3) requires that most substantive motions that go to…
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Reply Brief in KPMG Related Case
We have seen the different briefs filed by the parties in the government’s appeal of the dismissal of charges against the thirteen former KPMG partners and employees by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. There was the government’s initial brief here, followed by several briefs of the appellees (here, here, here, here, and here) and some…
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Lerach Draws a Two-Year Prison Sentence
William Lerach became the first partner from law firm Milberg Weiss to be sentenced for his role in paying kickbacks to representative plaintiffs in class actions in which the firm served as lead counsel. U.S. District Judge John Walter sentenced Lerach to two years in prison — he will serve about eighteen months of that…
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Injunctive Relief to Avoid Tax Crimes
Tax Indictments seem to always be in the news around April 15th (see, e.g, here). So it is interesting to see tax issues coming up this time of year – a time when people are often in the preliminary stages of preparing materials for filing their tax returns. There, of course, was the Wesley Snipes…
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Settlement in Merck Drug Case
A press release of the DOJ reports that "Merck & Company has agreed to pay more than $650 million to resolve allegations that the pharmaceutical manufacturer failed to pay proper rebates to Medicaid and other government health care programs and paid illegal remuneration to health care providers to induce them to prescribe the company’s products…"…
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Which Government Office is Behind This One?
Ben Kuehne’s Indictment (see here) is not signed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. For the most part, the signatures are from folks at the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section. The Southern District of Florida Blog discusses that this indictment comes from D.C.. The Miami Herald reports that…
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What Will Come of All the Subprime Investigations
With the subprime mortgage meltdown undermining the balance sheets of companies ranging from bond insurers to banks and brokerage firms, the possibility that fraud crept into the market is being explored by the SEC, the FBI, and the Department of Justice. According to various media reports, the United States Attorney’s Offices for the Southern and…
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The Smoking Syringe?
If you’ve ever been tempted to say "I’ve seen everything," then the absurd theater that took place in the Rayburn House Office Building between Roger Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee should give you pause. With a phalanx of cameras and reporters at every turn, Clemens visited a number of Congressional offices to pitch…
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