Police are looking for the latest idiot to ignore zoo signs and barriers (and common sense) to get a videotape of himself spanking a hippopotamus at the Los Angeles Zoo. The crime is trespassing but the costs can be fair higher for the animals and the intruders. Hopefully, the police will find and charge this individual. Continue reading “Police Seek Man Who Jumped Protective Barrier To Spank Hippo In LA Zoo”
Category: Criminal law
The end of the trial of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort today proved controversial after the defense counsel made reference to the alleged selective prosecution by the Special Counsel. If accounts are accurate, it would seem a direct violation of the prior understanding with the court that no party was to make reference to selective prosecution and the Special Counsel investigation of President Donald Trump.
In a brief exchange with Judge T.S. Ellis III, former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort declined yesterday to take the stand in his own behalf. His defense then declined to present its own case and moved the trial to closing arguments. Given the highly damaging evidence offered by the prosecution, there is little that will be offered to actually refute the charges. The decision to waive testimony and a defense case can be a strong strategic choice in a case where the defense savaged the prosecution. That is not this case. Continue reading “Manaport Declines To Testify Or Present Defense in Alexandria Trial”
According to police, two lunch ladies in Connecticut were methodically pilfering cafeteria accounts as they served children in New Canaan. Marie Wilson, 67, and Joanne Pascarelli, 61, allegedly racked up roughly $500,000 over five years Continue reading “Lunch Ladies Allegedly Steal Almost Half A Million Dollars From School Cafeterias”
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the controversial statements of the judge presiding over the trial of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman. Judge T.S. Ellis III has raised growing concerns over his comments in court, particularly before the jury.
Here is the column: Continue reading “Four “Yutes” And Counting: Controversy Grows Over The Judge’s Comments In The Manafort Trial”
There is an interesting case out of New Mexico where Jazmine Ortega, 20, is facing a charge of two counts of aggravated assault against a household member with a deadly weapon. The weapon was a kitchen fork and it does not appear that she actually stabbed her boyfriend in the attack.
Lauren Cutshaw, 32, had a curious defense when she was stopped in South Carolina for speeding through a stop sign. Cutshaw assured the police that she did not have to be arrested because she is a “very clean, thoroughbred, white girl.” She then became a “very clean, thoroughbred, white” arrested girl.Continue reading “A”Very Clean, Thoroughbred, White Girl” Gets Arrested In South Carolina”
Below is my column in the Hill Newspaper on the latest “smoking gun” of obstruction in the form of Trump tweets. There continues to be a categorical refusal of many to acknowledge the implications of the interpretation being advanced to implicate Trump. There is also a failure to acknowledge that the Clinton campaign received more information was Russian sources, including Russian intelligence figures. The difference is the Clinton people were smart enough to use a cut out in the form of a former British spy.
While advocates continue to maintain that agreeing to go to a meeting to review promised evidence of crimes is a federal election violation, no case like this has ever resulted in a conviction that I know of. Indeed, I do not know of any case remotely similar to this case as being brought. The First Amendment implications should bar any such prosecution.
Here is the column: Continue reading “Criminal Tweets: Trump Critics Should Not Respond To Acts Of “Fake News” With Fake Law”
Whatever becomes clear after Rick Gates finishes his direct and cross examination is that Gates and Paul Manafort truly deserved each other. On the stand on his first day of testimony, Gates admitted to embezzling hundreds of millions from Manafort as he helped Manafort hide millions and lie to the government and banks. It was highly damaging testimony, but the most damaging in my view came earlier from Manafort’s accountants that he was in financial collapse — struggling to maintain an opulent lifestyle after his Ukrainian money machine was cut off with the flight of his main client.
Some headlines just write themselves. Carlton Henderson, 54, died this week after jumping out of a freezer and threatened employees with a knife while screaming “Away from me,Satan!” After he was tackled and the knife taken away, Henderson went into cardiac arrest and died. It was later discovered that he was the suspect in the 1988 shooting deaths of 26-year-old William Medina and 22-year-old Antonio Dos Reis.
Continue reading “Cold Case Suspect Dies After Emerging From Freezer”
For over a year, there has been an ongoing debate over the constitutionality of the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel. The claim is that Mueller constitutes a “principal officer” who should be nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate. Instead, defenders claim Mueller is an “inferior officer” who does not require such a process. Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia just gave Mueller an impressive legal victory in an opinion that swept aside this and two other fundamental challenges to the Special Counsel. The decision came as part of the grand jury investigation into Trump confidant Roger Stone.
While there are good-faith arguments that Mueller is no inferior officer given the sweeping nature of his mandate, I have previously expressed great skepticism of the viability of these challenges in light of the prior decision of the Court in Morrison v. Olson, which upheld the constitutionality of the Independent Counsel Act. That Act was allowed by Congress to lapse but the special counsel procedure is, if anything, stronger than the ICA since Mueller is squarely within the Justice Department and subject to its chain of command. This of course could well change with the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh is a long critic of Morrison. However, his past writings do not clearly establish that he would rule a Special Counsel to be a principal officer. However, this challenge is clearly designed to move up to the Supreme Court where Morrison is considered an endangered precedent, even before the expected addition of Kavanaugh.
Continue reading “Stone Cold: Mueller Wins Key Legal Challenge To His Authority As Special Counsel”
A A new discovery may have solved the long-standing mystery of who stole a Willem de Kooning painting worth more than $100 million. The theft in 1985 was a brazen crime by a man and a woman who cut out “Woman-Ochre” from its frame in November 1985. The painting was found a year ago at a home in New Mexico belonging to Jerry and Rita Alter. A newly discovered picture not only puts the couple in Tucson the day before the heist but it shows a striking resemblance to the suspects.
Below is my column in USA Today on the most recent claim that the tweets of President Donald Trump concerning the Special Counsel are acts of obstruction. Once again, there is a blind eagerness to claim a prime facie criminal case against Trump. However, the implications of such a charge are enormous. It would mean that a subject or target of an investigation could be criminally charged for publicly denouncing the prosecutors or their investigation. While it is certainly true that a president is not just any investigatory subject and has powers that do mean a menacing meaning to such tweets, it would radically extend the scope of obstruction into more ambiguous areas. In the end, this is still the exercise of free speech in this context.
Continue reading “Trump’s Tweets Are Cathartic and Costly But Not Crimes”
In a major building block for the prosecution of former Trump campaign head Paul Manafort, prosecutors put on the stand his accountant who demanded a grant of immunity because he admitted to filing returns for Manafort that he believed to be fraudulent. All however did not go as well for the prosecutors after the judge again lashed out at prosecutors of their effort to use Manafort’s opulent lifestyle to poison the jury.
Continue reading “Witness Admits To Filing Presumed False Tax Returns For Manafort”
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the Manafort trial and why Manafort is pursuing a high-risk litigation strategy over a plea deal. The strategy looks strikingly like a pardon pitch and it could be working. President Donald Trump took the rare step of commenting on a case at trial to not only praised Manafort but analogized his case to the treatment of Al Capone. He tweeted that “Looking back on history, who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone, legendary mob boss, killer and ‘Public Enemy Number One,’ or Paul Manafort, political operative & Reagan/Dole darling, now serving solitary confinement – although convicted of nothing? Where is the Russian Collusion?” Of course, both could well be guilty and both could find that a criminal count with a ten year sentence is just about the same as another in terms of its impact on your life.\
Here is the column: Continue reading “Playing The House: Why Manafort May Have Taken The Highest Risk Option”