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Make Sure You Go to Lunch When Your Client Goes to Jail
West Palm Beach (Fla.) attorney John Garcia learned the hard way that lawyers have to keep their distance from clients, especially when a client is involved in a significant drug dealing operation. Garcia received an 18–month sentence after pleading guilty to three counts of failing to file CTRs for cash transactions over $10,000 and one…
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Veritas Software Pays $30 Million to Settle Accounting Fraud Case
Veritas Software Corp. settled an SEC securities fraud action alleging that the company engaged in accounting fraud, including round-trip transactions with AOL to increase revenues. The company, which was acquired by Symantec Corp. in 2005, was also accused of smoothing out its earning through "cookie jar" accounts to keep up the appearance that revenue and…
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Revenge of the E-Mails, Yet Again
A dismissed complaint in a shareholder derivative suit against Mercury Interactive related to options backdating at the company shows once again the perils of writing things in e-mails that can come back to haunt you. Mercury Interactive is now a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard, and the California superior court dismissed the case alleging breaches of various…
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Libby Case To The Jury Today
The trial of I. "Scooter" Libby will reach the jury today with instructions being given to them this morning. The final arguments, described in the Washington Post here, have the jury deciding if Libby deliberately told a "dumb lie" or whether he was just a hardworking employee. Perhaps a subsidiary issue that the jury may…
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Who Really Deserves to Be Indicted in the Libby Case?
An opinion piece in the Washington Post by Victoria Toensing, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration and now a Washington lawyer, provides a long list of "possible" indictments resulting from the circumstances surrounding the Libby trial. It includes everyone from the prosecutor J. Patrick Fitzgerald, the CIA, to the DOJ. It…
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Cooperation Nets Probation
In yet another example of the wide disparity between those who went to trial and those who cooperated and plead guilty in Enron related cases, CNN Money reports that "two former energy traders" received sentences of two years probation and a fine. Is it too risky for an accused to go to trial in white…
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Plea in DOD Employee Corruption Case
A press release of the DOJ reports that "a former Department of Defense (DOD) employee, pleaded guilty to accepting illegal gratuities while serving as an operational support planner in the Future Operations Division of the U.S. Army Headquarters, Special Operations Command–Europe (HQSOCEUR)." This case comes out of the recent National Procurement Fraud Initiative. The case…
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Government Will Not Appeal Brown Case
According to CCN Money, the government has decided not to appeal the decision in U.S. v. Brown. This Enron-related case involved executives at Merrill Lynch. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversal of the conspiracy and wire fraud counts against the defendants was based on the use of the "honest services theory." (see here). Although the…
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Interim Prosecutor in Arkansas Doesn’t Want the Job If Confirmation Is Required
Arkansas Online (subscription required) is reporting that Interim USA Griffin has decided not have his name go forward for the permanent position if he has to go through the confirmation process. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez had appointed Tim Griffin in one of the recent surprise changes in U.S. Attorneys. Attorney John Wesley Hall questioned this…
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This Week in Libbyville
The case of I. "Scooter" Libby is likely to head to the jury this coming week with closing arguments set for Tuesday. The Washington Post has an interesting piece titled, "Almost Everyone Lies, Often Seeing it as a Kindness." The article speaks with Robert Feldman, "a social psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, who studies…
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