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Closing In on Milberg Weiss
The government’s investigation of securities class action law firm Milberg Weiss for alleged kickbacks paid to representative plaintiffs in lawsuits took a significant step forward with a plea agreement by retired real estate mortgage broker Howard Vogel. Vogel or members of his family served as the named plaintiffs in a number of class actions for…
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Former FDA Official
According to the Wall Street Jrl here, the former head of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is under investigation by a grand jury. What is perhaps interesting here is that this disclosure seems to have come out in a civil matter. The Washington Post (AP) here provides some details on the civil matter. It…
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Olympic Gold Medalist Arrested on Bank Fraud and Money Laundering Charges
Tim Montgomery won a gold medal in the 2000 Olympics as a member of the United States 400-meter relay team, and set the record for the 100-meter dash in 2002. That record was wiped from the books and he was banned from international competition for two years because of accusations arising from his involvement in…
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From Bad to Worse at Vitesse Semiconductor
On April 17, Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. announced that it placed its CEO, executive vice president, and CFO on leave while it conducted an investigation of the timing of stock options grants to the executives (see 8-K here). The SEC has begun looking at companies, such as UnitedHealth Group Inc., that engaged in what appears to…
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Were Prostitutes the Quid Pro Quo in Congressional Bribery Case?
The Wall Street Journal reports (here) that the investigation spawned by the bribery of former San Diego Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham has branched out to include looking into whether prostitutes were supplied to Congressmen and staffers by defense contractors. Cunningham has been sentenced to a 100-month prison term, and Mitchell Wade, listed as coconspirator #2…
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Libby Challenge to Fitzgerald Appointment as Special Counsel Rejected
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton rejected I. Lewis Libby’s challenge to the authority of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to conduct the investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity as a covert CIA operative. In a thirty-one page opinion (available below), the judge found wanting Libby’s statutory and constitutional challenges to the appointment of Fitzgerald…
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Former Patterson-UTI Energy CFO Pleads Guilty to Embezzling Over $77 Million
Jody Nelson was a senior financial officer of Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc., a Snyder, Texas, based oil rig company, for nearly ten years, and he seems to have spent a good deal of that time engaging in a series of schemes to defraud the company of over $77 million, an astounding amount of money. Nelson moved…
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Did a “Little Birdie” Chirp Inside Information?
The SEC filed civil insider trading charges against hedge fund manager Nelson Obus, Peter Black, an analyst at the hedge fund firm, and Thomas Strickland, who formerly worked at GE Capital. The inside information concerned the acquisition in 2001 of SunSource, Inc. by Allied Capital Corp. in a deal financed by GE Capital. According to…
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Rove Appears Before the Grand Jury a Fifth Time
White House adviser Karl Rove made his fifth appearance before the grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA covert agent, although this time the grand jurors themselves were different because the earlier grand jury expired in October 2005. In his last appearance, which came shortly before the indictment…
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List of Witnesses in the Bonds Grand Jury Investigation Grows
The number of witnesses keeps growing in the San Francisco federal grand jury investigation of whether Giants slugger Barry Bonds committed perjury in 2003 in his testimony before the grand jury investigating steroid distribution through Balco (Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative). In addition to previously disclosed subpoenas to Bonds’ personal physician and the Giants team trainer,…
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