Source: The Washington Post
April 12, 2009
By Carrie Johnson, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Justice Department team charged with prosecuting former senator Ted Stevens miscalculated by not seeking more time to prepare for the high-stakes corruption trial and fell victim to inexperience and thin staffing, which contributed to its alleged mishandling of witnesses and evidence, according to interviews with more than a dozen lawyers who followed the case.
Last year's compressed trial timeline forced government lawyers to jam their preparations into seven weeks and intensified a series of challenges: the late addition of a new lawyer; an aggressive adversary who deluged them with requests for documents; and a skeptical judge whose behavior turned unpredictable, then punitive.
The difficulties led U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan last week to dismiss a conviction against Stevens, a Republican who represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate for nearly 40 years, and to turn the tables and initiate a criminal probe of six of the prosecutors.
Former prosecutors, defense lawyers and onetime Justice Department officials also described more chronic liabilities in the department's Public Integrity Section: Once the "A Team" for fighting corruption in state legislatures, judges' chambers and Congress, the unit in recent years lost staffing, strong supervision, some of its varnish and its insulation from politics.
Only days after the case against Stevens collapsed, lawyers inside and outside the department were chronicling its demise and picking apart the skill of the prosecution team, at least one of whose members had watched cases fall apart in the past. But government officials and defense attorneys alike said they do not think that prosecutors in the Public Integrity Section or its leaders acted out of base political motivations.
The Justice Department, already laboring under well-documented episodes of political interference during the Bush years, is now facing intense scrutiny over whether it flouted the rules in one of the highest-profile cases of the past decade.
Prosecutors and FBI agents are hiring their own lawyers and pointing the finger at one another, even as a special prosecutor and the department's ethics watchdogs are trying to determine whether members of the team broke the law to cheat their way to victory or merely succumbed to lapses of incompetence, inexperience or lax supervision.
The six members of the prosecution team declined to comment or did not return phone calls and e-mail messages left with them and their friends. But department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said the unit has a solid record, having secured nearly 400 convictions since 2001.
"For more than 30 years, the Public Integrity Section has been effectively prosecuting public officials, regardless of political affiliation, who abuse their office and their obligation to the American people," Sweeney said. "Every day, in courtrooms nationwide, these prosecutors work under challenging circumstances to hold our public officials accountable for their conduct, and they will continue to do so."
The very nature of the section's mandate, to target corruption across the country, has posed recurrent challenges.
Former department attorneys, for example, cited chronic problems that have plagued the unit: competition and confusion with partner prosecutors in U.S. attorney's offices around the country. Federal prosecutors in the District, for instance, were consulted about the Stevens case starting in 2006 but declined to participate, thinking that the charges were shaky, according to sources familiar with the discussions. The assistant U.S. attorneys also considered overly aggressive the prosecutors' early plan, later abandoned, to get a warrant to search the lawmaker's D.C. area home, the sources said.
The government's path could have been eased had the U.S. attorney's office been part of the case, adding players who were familiar with the courthouse and the personality of the trial judge.
The Stevens case had been handled for years by Joseph W. Bottini and James A. Goeke, two career lawyers from the U.S. attorney's office in Alaska, and two attorneys from the Public Integrity unit, Nicholas A. Marsh and Edward P. Sullivan, whose prosecution of Alaska officials had led to charges that Stevens had failed to report gifts on his Senate ethics forms.
As the indictment loomed against Stevens last summer, authorities in the department's criminal division pondered whether to add a more magnetic courtroom presence to the team. Department officials decided to tap Brenda Morris, a feisty, sharp-tongued trial lawyer who had been serving as deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section, to put Stevens on the hot seat and to build rapport with the jury. But that required the other lawyers to spend hours schooling Morris on the nuances of the case, keeping them from tackling boxes of documents related to the case, according to sources close to the lawyers.
It was to be the most high-profile prosecution of Morris's career.
Four years earlier, Morris had run into trouble in a case she handled when a federal jury in Texas acquitted San Antonio criminal defense lawyer Alan Brown, who had been charged with tax offenses. In a subsequent civil suit filed by Brown, who alleged that FBI agents had wrongfully pursued him based on a sketchy account from his disgruntled secretary, the government ultimately paid Brown $1.34 million to settle the claim.
Brown and his lawyers say that Morris ignored warnings from local federal prosecutors who cast doubt on the credibility of a critical witness, an office assistant who peddled questionable information about Brown in a bid to win a reduction in the prison sentence of her boyfriend. A judge in San Antonio had thrown out the case before it went to trial, but an appeals court revived the prosecution, which Morris led.
"She is the race car driver who blew past the red flag," said Bill Reid, a lawyer for Brown in the civil wrongful prosecution case.
But last week, current and former colleagues of Morris defended her reputation and her ethics, saying they do not think that she would intentionally run afoul of the rules.
The Public Integrity Section has had five chiefs in six years. The latest is William M. Welch II, who was honored three years ago by the attorney general for exposing corruption in the Springfield, Mass., government. Welch, one of the six prosecutors now under investigation, did not play a major role in the courtroom during the Stevens case but took a more active posture after the judge raised questions about sharing evidence.
Indeed, during the presidential transition period, incoming Justice Department officials heard complaints about whether career lawyers properly understood their obligations to hand over materials to criminal defendants, prompting Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. last week to call for additional training and oversight. The Stevens case, perhaps the starkest example of the troubles, brought the severity of the problem into the national spotlight.
Former prosecutors described public corruption probes as particularly tricky. Defendants are used to seizing the stage, they generally have the money to pay for top-flight defense lawyers, and they do not hesitate to pick apart the inner workings of cases or to cast aspersions on the motives of prosecutors.
Others said the Stevens case, along with the acquittal of former Puerto Rican governor Anibal Acevedo Vilá (D) last month, exposed deeper problems with a lack of supervision of the Public Integrity Section, which has experienced heavy turnover.
"In high-profile cases, particularly cases involving public officials, the vetting process has fallen down," said Thomas C. Green, a Washington defense lawyer who won Vilá's acquittal. "I think what happens is that they get caught up in the competition and there's no experienced voice of reason who says we cannot do this, we should not do this, we must not do this. These two cases could not have happened if the vetting process was in place and operating as it should."
But Gerald E. McDowell, who ran the Public Integrity unit for a dozen years, said that supervisors typically do not "nitpick" the work of their subordinates because there is not enough time, given caseloads.
In the Stevens case, signs of frustration began emerging early. At one pretrial hearing, defense lawyers hammered prosecutors with requests to produce thousands of pages of electronic evidence. Morris became flustered. "Just because he has 'U.S. Senator' before his name doesn't mean we have to drink out of a fire hose every time they call us," she said in court.
In another unusual twist, the conduct of public corruption unit lawyers was questioned by Chad Joy, an FBI agent from the Anchorage office assigned to help with the trial. In a 10-page whistleblower complaint, Joy reported seeing boxes of unprocessed evidence stacked outside Marsh's D.C. office, asserted that Marsh had misplaced a piece of evidence and lodged more serious allegations about failure to turn over materials to the defense. The complaint became public after the trial, fueling calls by Stevens's lawyers to overturn the senator's conviction.
Among other issues, Joy chronicled internal battles among the prosecutors about whether to turn over notes and argued that lawyers had delegated to his colleague, FBI case agent Mary Beth Kepner, the task of going over interview notes and deciding what should be redacted before handing the papers to the defense team.
Current and former prosecutors said it is highly unusual to delegate that task to an FBI agent because it involves legal questions and sensitive judgment calls for which prosecutors ultimately will be held responsible.
Compared with other Justice Department lawyers, those in the Public Integrity Section generally have been stingier about turning over materials to defense lawyers, former department attorneys said, and the section lacked clear rules on the question. It was a more difficult question in the Stevens case, with much of the evidence 4,000 miles away in Alaska.
One of the key questions now for ethics investigators and Henry F. Schuelke III, the special prosecutor appointed by the trial judge, revolves around a mid-April 2008 interview of the government's key witness, Bill Allen. Notes from that meeting in Alaska were uncovered earlier this month by the new Justice Department team examining the case, raising fresh questions about inconsistencies in Allen's trial testimony and prompting Holder to abandon the conviction.
"I always want to ensure . . . that if we make mistakes that we admit them, and that we then take the appropriate action," Holder said Thursday.
But, in a fashion befitting the strange and troubled course of the Stevens case, the people who are now the subject of "appropriate action" by authorities are the half-dozen men and women who prosecuted him.
Staff writer Del Quentin Wilber and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Paul Minor Denied Release by 5th Circuit and Justice Department
Source: HUFFINGTON POST
April 10, 2009
Brendan DeMelle
Justice Department officials told the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday that the government opposes the release of Paul Minor, the prominent Mississippi trial attorney currently serving 11 years in prison following his selective prosecution by the Bush DOJ. The 5th Circuit moved quickly to deny Minor's motion for release.
Minor remains locked up in the Pensacola Federal Prison Camp while his wife Sylvia's condition continues to deteriorate. "Her demise is imminent," according to an April 4 report from the oncologist monitoring the progression of her terminal brain cancer.
The wording of the 5th Circuit Court's denial does offer a ray of hope that the two might be reunited, but only if the Obama Justice Department moves quickly to support his emergency furlough. The 5th Circuit response indicates that the judges deliberating Minor's appeal agree that he meets the requirements necessary for a temporary furlough. Different from the release on bail that Minor requested, a temporary furlough could be granted for a period of up to 30 days, allowing Minor to spend time with his dying spouse and to say goodbye in a dignified manner.
The Bureau of Prisons and the Warden could grant a brief furlough for a bedside visit with an armed guard, if deemed necessary. With any luck, the BOP and Warden will allow Minor an extended visit to love and comfort his wife and family under the 30 day furlough statute. Any sense of human decency requires no less - especially when there are substantial questions raised in Mr. Minor's appeal that will likely require reversal of his conviction.
Curiously, the 5th Circuit judges based their denial of Minor's release on Judge Priscilla Owen's previous denial last year of Minor's request for release pending his appeal. Judge Owen recused herself from Minor's case minutes before the appeal hearing began last week in Austin, Texas.
Owen's recusal was appropriate given her close ties to Karl Rove, who is currently under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee for allegedly targeting key Democrats for prosecution, including Paul Minor, and for his role in the ousting of U.S. attorneys who refused to carry out the partisan bidding of the Bush administration.
Rove was reportedly "very impressed" with Priscilla Owen's judicial philosophy when the two met in 1994, and he agreed to shepherd her onto the Texas Supreme Court, collecting nearly a quarter million dollars in fees in the process. Ever since then, according to The New York Times, Priscilla Owen has been "guided by the hand of Karl Rove."
In the Texas Supreme Court race, Rove helped Owen amass a war chest of over $926,000 in campaign contributions from Big Business and the ranks of the Texas GOP. Owen then obliged some of her biggest donors by ruling favorably on their lawsuits with amazing consistency. The watchdog group Texans For Public Justice reported "more than $500,000 (37 percent) of the $1.4 million that Owen raised for her two Supreme Court campaigns came from lawyers and litigants who had cases in her courtroom... Owen's 11 biggest litigant-donors (including Enron Corp., Farmers Insurance and Dow Chemical) appeared in her courtroom 26 times. While these big docket donors prevailed an enviable 77 percent of the time before the court as a whole, Owen was even kinder - favoring them 85 percent of the time."
(Ironically, prior to her election to the Court, Priscilla Owen wrote articles and lobbied the Texas Legislature to eliminate partisan election of judges, arguing that they hinder the ability of courts to provide impartial justice.)
A member of the ultra-conservative Federalist Society, Judge Owen was finally appointed to the 5th Circuit Court by George W. Bush in 2005. Congress blocked her first nomination in 2003. A contemporary New York Times editorial stated that Judge Owen's "ideology drives her decisions," and that her nomination was "not by chance," because the Bush White House sought out judges like Owen for their "aggressive conservative agendas."
Another editorial from Owen's hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, chastised her "clear preference for ruling to achieve a particular result rather than impartially interpreting the law."
A 2005 New York Times article characterized Owens' nomination as "the latest reward of a partnership that began a dozen years ago when a prominent Texas conservative introduced her to Karl Rove, who was at the time a political consultant and emerging kingmaker."
According to the Times article, "Ms. Owen, Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove became close friends. Each year, Ms. Owen cooked a dinner of quail, a Texas specialty, for Mr. Bush, Laura Bush and other judges on the court, usually at Mr. Rove's home."
Given the near certainty that Rove was the chief strategist behind the Bush Justice Department's targeted prosecutions of Democratic fundraisers including Paul Minor, Owen's impartiality in hearing Minor's appeal was questionable, and she was correct to recuse herself. Why the 5th Circuit panel is relying on Owen's previous denial of Minor's release to deny him bail now is mystifying.
The Obama Justice Department should move quickly to review the circumstances of Minor's conviction. More immediately, given Mrs. Minor's condition, DOJ should grant Paul Minor an emergency furlough to say goodbye to his wife Sylvia.
April 10, 2009
Brendan DeMelle
Justice Department officials told the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday that the government opposes the release of Paul Minor, the prominent Mississippi trial attorney currently serving 11 years in prison following his selective prosecution by the Bush DOJ. The 5th Circuit moved quickly to deny Minor's motion for release.
Minor remains locked up in the Pensacola Federal Prison Camp while his wife Sylvia's condition continues to deteriorate. "Her demise is imminent," according to an April 4 report from the oncologist monitoring the progression of her terminal brain cancer.
The wording of the 5th Circuit Court's denial does offer a ray of hope that the two might be reunited, but only if the Obama Justice Department moves quickly to support his emergency furlough. The 5th Circuit response indicates that the judges deliberating Minor's appeal agree that he meets the requirements necessary for a temporary furlough. Different from the release on bail that Minor requested, a temporary furlough could be granted for a period of up to 30 days, allowing Minor to spend time with his dying spouse and to say goodbye in a dignified manner.
The Bureau of Prisons and the Warden could grant a brief furlough for a bedside visit with an armed guard, if deemed necessary. With any luck, the BOP and Warden will allow Minor an extended visit to love and comfort his wife and family under the 30 day furlough statute. Any sense of human decency requires no less - especially when there are substantial questions raised in Mr. Minor's appeal that will likely require reversal of his conviction.
Curiously, the 5th Circuit judges based their denial of Minor's release on Judge Priscilla Owen's previous denial last year of Minor's request for release pending his appeal. Judge Owen recused herself from Minor's case minutes before the appeal hearing began last week in Austin, Texas.
Owen's recusal was appropriate given her close ties to Karl Rove, who is currently under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee for allegedly targeting key Democrats for prosecution, including Paul Minor, and for his role in the ousting of U.S. attorneys who refused to carry out the partisan bidding of the Bush administration.
Rove was reportedly "very impressed" with Priscilla Owen's judicial philosophy when the two met in 1994, and he agreed to shepherd her onto the Texas Supreme Court, collecting nearly a quarter million dollars in fees in the process. Ever since then, according to The New York Times, Priscilla Owen has been "guided by the hand of Karl Rove."
In the Texas Supreme Court race, Rove helped Owen amass a war chest of over $926,000 in campaign contributions from Big Business and the ranks of the Texas GOP. Owen then obliged some of her biggest donors by ruling favorably on their lawsuits with amazing consistency. The watchdog group Texans For Public Justice reported "more than $500,000 (37 percent) of the $1.4 million that Owen raised for her two Supreme Court campaigns came from lawyers and litigants who had cases in her courtroom... Owen's 11 biggest litigant-donors (including Enron Corp., Farmers Insurance and Dow Chemical) appeared in her courtroom 26 times. While these big docket donors prevailed an enviable 77 percent of the time before the court as a whole, Owen was even kinder - favoring them 85 percent of the time."
(Ironically, prior to her election to the Court, Priscilla Owen wrote articles and lobbied the Texas Legislature to eliminate partisan election of judges, arguing that they hinder the ability of courts to provide impartial justice.)
A member of the ultra-conservative Federalist Society, Judge Owen was finally appointed to the 5th Circuit Court by George W. Bush in 2005. Congress blocked her first nomination in 2003. A contemporary New York Times editorial stated that Judge Owen's "ideology drives her decisions," and that her nomination was "not by chance," because the Bush White House sought out judges like Owen for their "aggressive conservative agendas."
Another editorial from Owen's hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, chastised her "clear preference for ruling to achieve a particular result rather than impartially interpreting the law."
A 2005 New York Times article characterized Owens' nomination as "the latest reward of a partnership that began a dozen years ago when a prominent Texas conservative introduced her to Karl Rove, who was at the time a political consultant and emerging kingmaker."
According to the Times article, "Ms. Owen, Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove became close friends. Each year, Ms. Owen cooked a dinner of quail, a Texas specialty, for Mr. Bush, Laura Bush and other judges on the court, usually at Mr. Rove's home."
Given the near certainty that Rove was the chief strategist behind the Bush Justice Department's targeted prosecutions of Democratic fundraisers including Paul Minor, Owen's impartiality in hearing Minor's appeal was questionable, and she was correct to recuse herself. Why the 5th Circuit panel is relying on Owen's previous denial of Minor's release to deny him bail now is mystifying.
The Obama Justice Department should move quickly to review the circumstances of Minor's conviction. More immediately, given Mrs. Minor's condition, DOJ should grant Paul Minor an emergency furlough to say goodbye to his wife Sylvia.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Mr. Holder and the Ted Stevens Case--Editorial
Source: The New York Times, nytimes.com
April 3, 2009
For eight years the Bush Justice Department cynically put politics and ideology above the law. So it is gratifying to see how Attorney General Eric Holder is handling the case against Ted Stevens, the former Alaska senator who was convicted last year on seven felony counts of ethics violations.
Mr. Holder announced this week that he would ask a judge to drop all charges against Mr. Stevens, a Republican, because of prosecutorial misconduct. Mr. Holder should ensure that the Justice Department gets to the bottom of what went wrong and subject other cases that have raised red flags to similar scrutiny.
Mr. Stevens was convicted of making false statements on Senate disclosure forms to hide an estimated $250,000 in home renovations and gifts, many from Bill Allen, an old friend with close ties to his state’s oil industry. The Justice Department says that prosecutors failed to turn over to the defense notes from an interview with Mr. Allen, a prime witness in the case, which conflicted with parts of his trial testimony.
Prosecutors are legally required to turn over evidence in their possession that would help a defendant prove his innocence. This revelation is only the latest in a series of instances in which Mr. Stevens’s prosecutors appear to have acted wrongly.
The prosecutors’ bad acts do not necessarily mean that Mr. Stevens was innocent of misusing his office. But in light of the prosecutorial wrongdoing, and the fact that Mr. Stevens lost his Senate seat last November, Mr. Holder was right not to choose to retry the case.
Mr. Holder, whose department is continuing to investigate the Stevens prosecution, now needs to determine whether the prosecutors’ conduct was so egregious that they should face their own ethics charges.
He should not stop with this case. Don Siegelman, the former governor of Alabama, and Paul Minor, a prominent Mississippi trial lawyer, have charged that Justice Department prosecutors engaged in unethical behavior in cases that led to their convictions. Both men claim that they were singled out for prosecution because of their affiliation with the Democratic Party.
Given the flagrant partisanship of the Bush Justice Department, it is especially reassuring to see Mr. Holder ignore party lines to do the right thing by Mr. Stevens. It has been far too long since the attorney general seemed interested in enforcing ethics and nonpartisanship in a department that has been shockingly lacking in both.
April 3, 2009
For eight years the Bush Justice Department cynically put politics and ideology above the law. So it is gratifying to see how Attorney General Eric Holder is handling the case against Ted Stevens, the former Alaska senator who was convicted last year on seven felony counts of ethics violations.
Mr. Holder announced this week that he would ask a judge to drop all charges against Mr. Stevens, a Republican, because of prosecutorial misconduct. Mr. Holder should ensure that the Justice Department gets to the bottom of what went wrong and subject other cases that have raised red flags to similar scrutiny.
Mr. Stevens was convicted of making false statements on Senate disclosure forms to hide an estimated $250,000 in home renovations and gifts, many from Bill Allen, an old friend with close ties to his state’s oil industry. The Justice Department says that prosecutors failed to turn over to the defense notes from an interview with Mr. Allen, a prime witness in the case, which conflicted with parts of his trial testimony.
Prosecutors are legally required to turn over evidence in their possession that would help a defendant prove his innocence. This revelation is only the latest in a series of instances in which Mr. Stevens’s prosecutors appear to have acted wrongly.
The prosecutors’ bad acts do not necessarily mean that Mr. Stevens was innocent of misusing his office. But in light of the prosecutorial wrongdoing, and the fact that Mr. Stevens lost his Senate seat last November, Mr. Holder was right not to choose to retry the case.
Mr. Holder, whose department is continuing to investigate the Stevens prosecution, now needs to determine whether the prosecutors’ conduct was so egregious that they should face their own ethics charges.
He should not stop with this case. Don Siegelman, the former governor of Alabama, and Paul Minor, a prominent Mississippi trial lawyer, have charged that Justice Department prosecutors engaged in unethical behavior in cases that led to their convictions. Both men claim that they were singled out for prosecution because of their affiliation with the Democratic Party.
Given the flagrant partisanship of the Bush Justice Department, it is especially reassuring to see Mr. Holder ignore party lines to do the right thing by Mr. Stevens. It has been far too long since the attorney general seemed interested in enforcing ethics and nonpartisanship in a department that has been shockingly lacking in both.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Jury clears PR ex-governor in corruption trial
Source: Associated Press
March 29, 2009
By Manuel Ernesto Rivera, Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)--A jury found Puerto Rico's former governor not guilty Friday on all nine counts including conspiracy, money
laundering and lying to the FBI, concluding his monthlong corruption trial.
Anibal Acevedo Vila, who could have faced 20 years in prison if convicted, was the first governor to be charged
with a crime since the island became a semiautonomous U.S. commonwealth in 1952.
Acevedo made the sign of the cross as he heard the verdict and began to cry, as did former adviser Luisa Inclan,
who was also cleared of similar charges.
Judge Paul Barbadoro faced both defendants after the verdict. "This case has ended. You are free to go," he said.
The acquittal is a major blow to the U.S. Attorney's office, which prosecuted the governor in an election year likely
contributing to his defeat in one of the most lopsided elections in Puerto Rican history.
U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez said Friday that she respects but disagrees with the verdict. She also denied
that evidence was weak.
"The circumstantial evidence allowed for inferences to be made that the jury did not understand as such, but we
accept that," she said.
Jurors were not available Friday evening to explain how they reached their verdict.
Hundreds of Acevedo's supporters celebrated outside the courthouse, waving flags, singing, blowing whistles and
chanting "Innocent!"
Squeezing his way through the crowd, the ex-governor clutched a large Puerto Rican flag and jumped atop an SUV.
"I hope Puerto Rico learns from this lesson," said Acevedo, who also professed to having learned from his own
mistakes. "You defend the truth no matter what."
Current Gov. Luis Fortuno issued a brief statement asking Puerto Ricans to respect and support the jury's verdict.
Authorities last year accused Acevedo and 12 associates of participating in an illegal scheme to pay off more than
$500,000 in campaign debts.
One by one the associates began to plead guilty, leaving only Acevedo and Inclan to stand trial. One co-defendant
agreed to testify against Acevedo in exchange for having charges against her dropped.
Prosecutors presented some 30 witnesses, while defense attorneys surprised the courtroom earlier this week when
they rested their case without calling a single person to testify. Acevedo's lawyers urged the judge to dismiss the case
for lack of evidence.
In November, Acevedo lost to Fortuno in his bid for a second term. A month later, Barbadoro dismissed 15 of 24
charges against Acevedo, ruling that U.S. federal prosecutors improperly interpreted election laws.
A grand jury had added new charges in August, indicting him on four counts of wire fraud and one count of
conspiracy to commit money laundering.
March 29, 2009
By Manuel Ernesto Rivera, Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)--A jury found Puerto Rico's former governor not guilty Friday on all nine counts including conspiracy, money
laundering and lying to the FBI, concluding his monthlong corruption trial.
Anibal Acevedo Vila, who could have faced 20 years in prison if convicted, was the first governor to be charged
with a crime since the island became a semiautonomous U.S. commonwealth in 1952.
Acevedo made the sign of the cross as he heard the verdict and began to cry, as did former adviser Luisa Inclan,
who was also cleared of similar charges.
Judge Paul Barbadoro faced both defendants after the verdict. "This case has ended. You are free to go," he said.
The acquittal is a major blow to the U.S. Attorney's office, which prosecuted the governor in an election year likely
contributing to his defeat in one of the most lopsided elections in Puerto Rican history.
U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez said Friday that she respects but disagrees with the verdict. She also denied
that evidence was weak.
"The circumstantial evidence allowed for inferences to be made that the jury did not understand as such, but we
accept that," she said.
Jurors were not available Friday evening to explain how they reached their verdict.
Hundreds of Acevedo's supporters celebrated outside the courthouse, waving flags, singing, blowing whistles and
chanting "Innocent!"
Squeezing his way through the crowd, the ex-governor clutched a large Puerto Rican flag and jumped atop an SUV.
"I hope Puerto Rico learns from this lesson," said Acevedo, who also professed to having learned from his own
mistakes. "You defend the truth no matter what."
Current Gov. Luis Fortuno issued a brief statement asking Puerto Ricans to respect and support the jury's verdict.
Authorities last year accused Acevedo and 12 associates of participating in an illegal scheme to pay off more than
$500,000 in campaign debts.
One by one the associates began to plead guilty, leaving only Acevedo and Inclan to stand trial. One co-defendant
agreed to testify against Acevedo in exchange for having charges against her dropped.
Prosecutors presented some 30 witnesses, while defense attorneys surprised the courtroom earlier this week when
they rested their case without calling a single person to testify. Acevedo's lawyers urged the judge to dismiss the case
for lack of evidence.
In November, Acevedo lost to Fortuno in his bid for a second term. A month later, Barbadoro dismissed 15 of 24
charges against Acevedo, ruling that U.S. federal prosecutors improperly interpreted election laws.
A grand jury had added new charges in August, indicting him on four counts of wire fraud and one count of
conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Friday, November 14, 2008
More Allegations of Misconduct in Alabama Governor Case
Source: TIME.com
Friday, Nov. 14, 2008
By Adam Zagorin / Washington
Next month in Atlanta, a federal court will hear the high-profile appeal of former Alabama governor Don E. Siegelman, whose conviction on corruption charges in 2006 became one of the most publicly debated cases to emerge from eight years of controversy at the Bush Justice Department. Now new documents highlight alleged misconduct by the Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney and other prosecutors in the case, including what appears to be extensive and unusual contact between the prosecution and the jury.
The documents, obtained by TIME, include internal prosecution e-mails given to the Justice Department and Congress by a whistle-blower during the past 18 months. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which investigated the Siegelman case as part of a broader inquiry into alleged political interference in the hiring and firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Justice Department, last week sent an eight-page letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey citing the new material.
Conyers says the evidence raises "serious questions" about the U.S. Attorney in the Siegelman case, who, documents show, continued to involve herself in the politically charged prosecution long after she had publicly withdrawn to avoid an alleged conflict of interest relating to her husband, a top GOP operative and close associate of Bush adviser Karl Rove. Conyers' letter also cites evidence of numerous contacts between jurors and members of the Siegelman prosecution team that were never disclosed to the trial judge or defense counsel.
The letter to Mukasey is a signal that Democrats intend to probe what critics call the "dark side" of the Bush Administration even after it leaves office, according to congressional sources. Besides the Siegelman prosecution, such investigations could focus on the authorization of harsh interrogation methods and the role of Karl Rove and former White House aide Harriet E. Miers in the firing of U.S. Attorneys.
Siegelman was released on bail earlier this year after a federal court ruled that his appeal raises "substantial questions." But the issue that turned the case into a national controversy was the allegation of political bias. Critics, including a bipartisan group of 52 state attorneys general, have raised numerous questions, including the allegation that Siegelman was prosecuted at the insistence of Bush-appointed officials at the Justice Department and Leura G. Canary, a U.S. Attorney in Montgomery whose husband was Alabama's top Republican operative and who had worked closely with Rove for years.
When the House Judiciary Committee looked into the Siegelman affair earlier this year, the DOJ issued statements, placed in the Congressional Record, maintaining that the case had been handled only by career prosecutors, not political appointees, and that Canary had recused herself in 2002, "before any significant decisions ... were made."
But new documents furnished by DOJ staffer Tamarah T. Grimes tell a different story. A legal aide who worked in the Montgomery office that prosecuted Siegelman, Grimes first submitted her documents to DOJ watchdogs in 2007, and now finds herself in an employment dispute that could result in her dismissal. Grimes' lawyer had no comment.
The documents — whose authenticity is not in dispute — include e-mails written by Canary, long after her recusal, offering legal advice to subordinates handling the case. At the time Canary wrote the e-mails, her husband — Alabama GOP operative William J. Canary — was a vocal booster of the state's Republican governor, Bob Riley, who had defeated Siegelman for the office and against whom Siegelman was preparing to run again. Canary also received tens of thousands of dollars in fees from other political opponents of Siegelman.
In one of Leura Canary's e-mails, dated Sept. 19, 2005, she forwarded a three-page political commentary by Siegelman to senior prosecutors on the case. Canary highlighted a single passage, which, she told her subordinates, "Ya'll need to read, because he refers to a 'survey' which allegedly shows that 67% of Alabamans believe the investigation of him to be politically motivated." Canary then suggested: "Perhaps [this is] grounds not to let [Siegelman] discuss court activities in the media!"
Prosecutors in the case seem to have followed Canary's advice. A few months later they petitioned the court to prevent Siegelman from arguing that politics had any bearing on the case against him. After trial, they persuaded the judge to use Siegelman's public statements about political bias — like the one Canary had flagged in her e-mail — as grounds for increasing his prison sentence. The judge's action is now one target of next month's appeal.
"A recused United States Attorney should not be providing factual information ... to the team working on the case under recusal," Conyers wrote to Mukasey last week. Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said only that "the department will review the letter." A spokesperson for Canary said she had nothing to add.
Beyond providing the e-mails, Grimes has given a written statement to the Department of Justice that Canary had "kept up with every detail of the [Siegelman] case." If true, Conyers told Mukasey, this raises "serious concerns" because "it is difficult to imagine the reason for a recused [U.S. Attorney] to remain so involved in the day-to-day progress of the matter under recusal."
Last year Grimes gave the DOJ additional e-mails detailing previously undisclosed contact between prosecutors and members of the Siegelman jury. In nine days of deliberation, jurors twice told the judge they were deadlocked and could not reach a decision. After the panel finally delivered a conviction, allegations emerged that jurors had discussed the case in e-mails among themselves and downloaded Internet material — serious breaches that could have invalidated the verdict. But the trial judge ruled that the jurors' alleged misconduct was harmless.
The DOJ conducted its own inquiry into some of Grimes' claims and wrote a report dismissing them as inconsequential. But the report shows that investigators did not question U.S. Marshals or jurors who had allegedly been in touch with the prosecution.
A key prosecution e-mail describes how jurors repeatedly contacted the government's legal team during the trial to express, among other things, one juror's romantic interest in a member of the prosecution team. "The jurors kept sending out messages" via U.S. Marshals, the e-mail says, identifying a particular juror as "very interested" in a person who had sat at the prosecution table in court. The same juror was later described as reaching out to members of the prosecution team for personal advice about her career and educational plans. Conyers commented that the "risk of [jury] bias ... is obvious."
What's more, when prosecutors conducted their own investigation of suspected improper conduct by jurors after the trial, two of them were interviewed, despite instructions from the judge that no contact with jurors should occur without his permission. Those interviews were not publicly disclosed until nearly two years later, when the head of the DOJ's criminal division belatedly wrote all parties, including the appeals court in Atlanta, to inform them.
Further undisclosed evidence of prosecution team members speaking with jurors following the verdict emerges in Grimes' written statement to the DOJ. In it, she says a member of the team prosecuting Siegelman had spoken with a juror suspected of improper conduct — apparently at the time the judge was due to question the juror about that conduct. Grimes quotes the lead prosecutor in the case as saying someone had "talked to her. She is just scared and afraid she is going to get in trouble."
In his letter to Mukasey, Conyers calls this additional juror contact "important information," noting, "It is startling to see such repeated instances of federal prosecutors failing to keep the defense apprised of key developments in an active criminal case." He might have added that the judge was, in some instances, apparently not in on the secret either.
Find this article at: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1858991,00.html
Monday, June 16, 2008
A Case of Politics--Editorial
Source: The New York Times, NYTimes.com
June 16, 2008
Editorial
Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor, is asking a federal appeals court to throw out his conviction on dubious corruption charges. His appeal has some surprising backers: a bipartisan group of 54 former state attorneys general has submitted a brief on his behalf. Congress is also investigating charges that Mr. Siegelman was politically targeted.
Mr. Siegelman was the Democrats’ strongest candidate to retake the Alabama governorship, and Congress has uncovered evidence that the United States attorney’s office in Montgomery — with possible White House input — may have decided to prosecute him to undermine his campaign. The former presidential adviser Karl Rove, who has been accused of pushing to have Mr. Siegelman indicted, has been subpoenaed by both the House and Senate, but has refused to testify.
While Congress examines those allegations, Mr. Siegelman is asking the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, to reverse his case on the law. Mr. Siegelman was accused of reappointing Richard Scrushy, then the chief executive of HealthSouth, to a health care board in exchange for a contribution to a referendum campaign for a state lottery.
Mr. Siegelman was convicted of bribery and related crimes and sentenced to more than seven years, and served nine months before being freed on appeal.
Laws against bribery must be used carefully. It is not a crime for an elected official to appoint a campaign contributor to a position. If it were, many ambassadors and judges — and the presidents and governors who appointed them — would be in jail. And partisan prosecutors would have far too much power to punish elected officials they did not like.
For an appointment to be illegal, there needs to be an express quid pro quo — something the prosecutors did not prove in Mr. Siegelman’s case.
Even the highly partisan Bush Justice Department appears to be losing confidence in its case. It originally appealed Mr. Siegelman’s sentence, hoping to add more than 20 years. It recently withdrew the appeal without explanation.
Congress should compel Mr. Rove to testify. And it should keep investigating this prosecution and what role crass politics may have played. While it does, the 11th Circuit should cast a skeptical eye on this case, based on the law and the facts.
June 16, 2008
Editorial
Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor, is asking a federal appeals court to throw out his conviction on dubious corruption charges. His appeal has some surprising backers: a bipartisan group of 54 former state attorneys general has submitted a brief on his behalf. Congress is also investigating charges that Mr. Siegelman was politically targeted.
Mr. Siegelman was the Democrats’ strongest candidate to retake the Alabama governorship, and Congress has uncovered evidence that the United States attorney’s office in Montgomery — with possible White House input — may have decided to prosecute him to undermine his campaign. The former presidential adviser Karl Rove, who has been accused of pushing to have Mr. Siegelman indicted, has been subpoenaed by both the House and Senate, but has refused to testify.
While Congress examines those allegations, Mr. Siegelman is asking the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, to reverse his case on the law. Mr. Siegelman was accused of reappointing Richard Scrushy, then the chief executive of HealthSouth, to a health care board in exchange for a contribution to a referendum campaign for a state lottery.
Mr. Siegelman was convicted of bribery and related crimes and sentenced to more than seven years, and served nine months before being freed on appeal.
Laws against bribery must be used carefully. It is not a crime for an elected official to appoint a campaign contributor to a position. If it were, many ambassadors and judges — and the presidents and governors who appointed them — would be in jail. And partisan prosecutors would have far too much power to punish elected officials they did not like.
For an appointment to be illegal, there needs to be an express quid pro quo — something the prosecutors did not prove in Mr. Siegelman’s case.
Even the highly partisan Bush Justice Department appears to be losing confidence in its case. It originally appealed Mr. Siegelman’s sentence, hoping to add more than 20 years. It recently withdrew the appeal without explanation.
Congress should compel Mr. Rove to testify. And it should keep investigating this prosecution and what role crass politics may have played. While it does, the 11th Circuit should cast a skeptical eye on this case, based on the law and the facts.
Friday, May 23, 2008
House Panel Subpoenas Rove in Inquiry Into Justice Dept.
Source: The New York Times, nytimes.com
May 23, 2008
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee pressed its investigation of possible political influence in Justice Department prosecutions on Thursday by issuing a subpoena to Karl Rove, the former chief political operative at the Bush White House.
Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the committee chairman, said the subpoena was necessary because Mr. Rove had explicitly declined an invitation to appear voluntarily. Mr. Conyers and fellow committee Democrats say they want to question Mr. Rove about the dismissals of several federal prosecutors and ask whether he knows anything about the decision to prosecute former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.
Mr. Siegelman, who was convicted on a bribery charge, was released from prison in March pending an appeal after an appeals court ruled that he had raised “substantial questions” about his case.
Mr. Rove’s lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, in a letter to Mr. Conyers this week, said the chairman was “provoking a gratuitous confrontation.” Mr. Luskin asserted that Mr. Rove would not appear because he had been directed not to do so by the White House. Although Mr. Rove has left the White House and is now a political commentator, Mr. Luskin said that Mr. Rove “in these matters is not a free agent” and must comply with instructions from the White House not to testify.
Mr. Conyers has argued that Mr. Rove may not himself invoke any privilege on behalf of the White House but that President Bush could do so.
Mr. Rove’s lawyer also noted that the House committee was engaged in a similar conflict with Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, who has also declined to provide voluntary testimony about the dismissals of the federal prosecutors and has defied a subpoena. That issue has landed in federal court, and Mr. Luskin said the Rove matter should await the resolution of that case.
Mr. Conyers, in a letter to Mr. Luskin on Thursday, said that the request to Mr. Rove was wider than the one to Ms. Miers because it also sought information about the Siegelman prosecution.
Several Democrats have asserted that Mr. Siegelman’s prosecution was encouraged for political reasons by Republicans in Washington. Mr. Siegelman served nine months of a seven-year sentence before being released pending an appeal.
Mr. Rove has denied any role in the Siegelman prosecution in comments to journalists, but Mr. Conyers is seeking to put him under oath. The subpoena demands that Mr. Rove appear before the committee on July 10.
If he does not appear, as expected, House Democrats will have to consider issuing a contempt citation as they did for Ms. Miers.
May 23, 2008
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee pressed its investigation of possible political influence in Justice Department prosecutions on Thursday by issuing a subpoena to Karl Rove, the former chief political operative at the Bush White House.
Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the committee chairman, said the subpoena was necessary because Mr. Rove had explicitly declined an invitation to appear voluntarily. Mr. Conyers and fellow committee Democrats say they want to question Mr. Rove about the dismissals of several federal prosecutors and ask whether he knows anything about the decision to prosecute former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.
Mr. Siegelman, who was convicted on a bribery charge, was released from prison in March pending an appeal after an appeals court ruled that he had raised “substantial questions” about his case.
Mr. Rove’s lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, in a letter to Mr. Conyers this week, said the chairman was “provoking a gratuitous confrontation.” Mr. Luskin asserted that Mr. Rove would not appear because he had been directed not to do so by the White House. Although Mr. Rove has left the White House and is now a political commentator, Mr. Luskin said that Mr. Rove “in these matters is not a free agent” and must comply with instructions from the White House not to testify.
Mr. Conyers has argued that Mr. Rove may not himself invoke any privilege on behalf of the White House but that President Bush could do so.
Mr. Rove’s lawyer also noted that the House committee was engaged in a similar conflict with Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, who has also declined to provide voluntary testimony about the dismissals of the federal prosecutors and has defied a subpoena. That issue has landed in federal court, and Mr. Luskin said the Rove matter should await the resolution of that case.
Mr. Conyers, in a letter to Mr. Luskin on Thursday, said that the request to Mr. Rove was wider than the one to Ms. Miers because it also sought information about the Siegelman prosecution.
Several Democrats have asserted that Mr. Siegelman’s prosecution was encouraged for political reasons by Republicans in Washington. Mr. Siegelman served nine months of a seven-year sentence before being released pending an appeal.
Mr. Rove has denied any role in the Siegelman prosecution in comments to journalists, but Mr. Conyers is seeking to put him under oath. The subpoena demands that Mr. Rove appear before the committee on July 10.
If he does not appear, as expected, House Democrats will have to consider issuing a contempt citation as they did for Ms. Miers.
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