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The Latest in Operation Roaming Charge
The government issued a press release today here, describing the latest happenings in Operation Roaming Charge. Operation Roaming Charge is a national/international government operation focused on telemarketing fraud schemes. Back in October 2004, the DOJ stated here that 135 individuals worldwide had been arrested as a result of this Operation. They noted that: "The ongoing
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Defense Attorneys Look at Winning the White Collar Case
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) had a white collar track for those attending the spring seminar. Speaking on Friday of last week were a host of white collar criminal defense attorneys, including Abbe David Lowell, Jane Barrett, Tracy Minor, and John Keker. One fascinating presentation was given by Steve Peters. Although titled,
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Ebbers Seeks a New Trial
Lawyers for Bernie Ebbers filed a motion on Friday for a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal (here), Ebbers asserts that the court’s refusal to grant immunity to three witnesses — all former executives of WorldCom — denied him a fair trial. He
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Enron Broadband Fraud Trial Starts Today
The prosecution of five former executives of Enron’s broadband services unit (EBS) for securities fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering gets under way today in Houston. That unit tried to set up a trading market for broadband similar to the much larger energy trading unit at Enron, and for a while EBS gave Enron the cachet
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Coke Gets Slapped on the Wrist for Channel Stuffing
The Coca-Cola Company agreed to a cease-and-desist order from the SEC regarding channel stuffing by the company from 1997 through 1999. According to the Administrative Order (here) issued today, Coke used its Japanese subsidiary (Coca-Cola (Japan) Co. — CCJC) to pump up its syrup sales as volume began to diminish in 1996 in the following
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We Don’t Need No Stinking Criminal Background Checks
From fellow LawProg blog CrimProf comes a link (here) to a story from Newsweek (here) about how TIAA-CREF hired one Sonia Radencovich for a tech position without checking her background. It seems that Sonia came from a "preferred vendor" and TIAA-CREF assumed the vendor had checked her background. Unfortunately, under her other name, Sonia Howe,
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Problems Mount for the Government at Scrushy’s Trial
As the prosecution of Richard Scrushy moves inexorably toward its third month, the government did not have a good week before Judge Karon Bowdre. First, she dismissed the three perjury counts, which were added to the indictment last September, because of apparent coordination between prosecutors and SEC investigators immediately before Scrushy testified under oath in
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The Growing Attack on Sarbanes-Oxley Act Section 404
One of the goals of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was to require publicly-traded companies to improve their internal controls. Section 404 of the act seeks to accomplish that goal by requiring the CEOs of companies and their auditors to attest annually to the effectiveness of the corporation’s internal controls to ensure that financial statements are a
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Did Securities Class Action Reform Create a New “Pay-to-Play” Opportunity?
An article in the New York Times (here) discusses the role of N.Y. Comptroller Alan Hevesi, whose responsibilities include being the sole fiduciary responsible for the New York Common Retirement Fund, which has assets of $120 billion, as the lead plaintiff in securities class action law suits. The Common Retirement Fund was the lead plaintiff
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When Being Right Just Isn’t Enough
A recent decision of the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Miller (here) discusses a situation that points out the trap into which a defendant can fall under the plain error rule because counsel did not see the problem and object. Miller entered a guilty plea to one count of money laundering and one count
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