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Do Prosecutors Need to be Governed By Ethics Rules?
Law.com reports on an bar investigation being conducted against a former Assistant United States Attorney. The essence of the bar complaint relates to alleged "misconduct in a witness payment scandal." But what really raises concerns here is that " [t]he Justice Department completed its investigation of [the former AUSA] in February 1998, but did not…
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Lawyer Pleads In BALCO Related Case
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles issued a press release that reports: "An attorney who represented a criminal defendant in the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative steroid prosecution pleaded guilty [Friday] afternoon to four federal charges, admitting that he leaked confidential grand jury transcripts of testimony from Major League Baseball players to the San Francisco…
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Nevada’s Governor Under Investigation for Corruption
Newly-elected Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons is being investigated by the FBI for possible bribery and unlawful gratuities received from a friend and campaign contributor whose company received substantial military contracts. Warren Trepp allegedly provided the gifts to Gibbons while he was in the House of Representatives, including a Caribbean cruise and private jet flight that…
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Another GC Bites the Dust in Options Backdating Case
The general counsel of another corporation pleaded guilty to charges related to options backdating at his company. Former Monster Worldwide GC Myron F. Olesnyckyj entered a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy and one count of securities fraud in the first options-timing case brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of…
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Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Clients of $22 Million
New York attorney Anthony Bellettieri entered a guilty plea to mail and bank fraud charges for defrauding clients of his real estate law firm located in White Plains. According to a press release (here) issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Bellettieri took the money from his firm’s bank…
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SF Chronicle Reporters Avoid Jail for Civil Contempt
The mystery about who leaked the grand jury transcript of erstwhile San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds has been solved, much to the relief of the two reporters who published stories based on the testimony. Sacramento attorney Troy Ellerman, who at one time represented Balco founder Victor Conte in the steroids prosecution, agreed to plead…
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Subpoena Fight Over New Jersey Legislative Records
The Office of Legislative Services (OLS) for the New Jersey State Legislature is fighting a federal grand jury subpoena seeking records related to possible conflicts of interest in the state budgeting process, according to an article in the Newark Star-Ledger (here). The investigation grows out of an earlier investigation of Medicaid and Medicare fraud at…
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BEA Systems Takes Its Options Backdating Hit, But No Heads Roll
Silicon Valley software company BEA Systems, Inc., announced that it is taking an accounting charge of $340 to $390 million for a number of options grants that involved backdating and other questionable employment practices to ensure recipients received favorable strike prices. According to a press release (here), the timing issues involved senior management at the…
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Libby Trial Ends With a Whimper
The big finale of the trial of I. Lewis Libby was something of a dud, with neither Libby nor Vice-President Cheney called to testify. Indeed, the last day involved no new witnesses, and Special Counsel Patrick FItzgerald did not even put on a rebuttal case, apparently unconcerned about not having the last word in the…
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Grand Theft Shareholders
Ryan Brant, the founder and former CEO of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., which inflicted the "Grand Theft Auto" videogame on the world, entered a guilty plea and settled an SEC action related to options backdating. Brant resigned as CEO of Take-Two in October 2006, as the company’s internal investigation of its options practices reached a…
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