Letter of Apology

US District Judge L.J.Senter on Wednesday issued an order disqualifying Lumpkin & Reeves, PLLC from representing Thomas and Pamela McIntosh in McIntosh v. State Farm. The order was the latest pursuant to his April 16 opinion and order disqualifying the SKG firms and “any other associated counsel.”. He acknowledged that he intentionally used broad language in his April 16 order because it was unclear at the time to what extent other lawyers were involved, and that he would consider requests for relief on a case-by-case basis. In this case, he made it quite clear that Lumpkin was involved, and he sharply criticized the firm for “two glaring omissions” which failed to honestly describe its previous role in the litigation. He concluded:

This Court is not going to turn what should be straightforward litigation into a continuing and time-consuming exercise of reviewing attorney conduct. There is sufficient involvement with the KLG-State Farm Katrina litigation cases to qualify Lumpkin as “other attorneys associated as counsel for the plaintiffs by these [disqualified] firms.”

Fomer Alaska Republican state Representative Vic Kohring was sentenced last week to 42 months in prison by US District Court Judge John Sedwick in Anchorage for taking bribes as part of a scheme to keep Alaska oil taxes down. In November 2007 a jury convicted Kohring of bribery, attempted extortion, and conspiracy for soliciting and receiving multiple cash payments from executives of VECO Corporation, the now-defunct oilfield services company that was once the state’s largest, in exchange for his vote on a key oil production tax proposal and his agreement to lobby other legislators. Kohring is the third state Republican legislator to be sentenced to prison in the ongoing corruption investigation. Two top VECO executives and one former
lobbyist have already pleaded guilty. The VECO executives, former CEO Bill Allen and VP Rick Smith, are also cooperating and have implicated US Sen. Ted Stevens and his son, former Alaska state Senate President Ben Stevens; they have denied wrongdoing. US Rep. Don Young is also under investigation.

Kohring’s defense strategy was to claim the money he accepted was just gifts from friends, not bribes. At the sentencing hearing, he was defiant in proclaiming his innocence. His attorney characterized him as being like Andy Griffith, to which AUSA Joe Bottini responded, “”I don’t remember any episode of that show where Andy Griffith took cash from anybody” (Anchorage Daily News, DOJ).

At the request of the US Attorney’s Office, on Monday in Los Angeles US District Judge Robert Takasugi dismissed all charges against Eutiquio Sauceda of Downey, California and Gabriel Camacho of El Monte, California. The two men had been indicted in 2003 on counts of conspiracy and making false statements to a US government agency for allegedly falsely certifying the quality of parts used by commercial aircraft, NASA and the Pentagon; the alleged incidents date back to 1999. They had been scheduled to go on trial next month. No reason was given for the dismissal, but Camacho had turned down a plea that would have involved no prison time. Both men were managers at Temperform USA, a subsidiary of Hydroform USA. The men had been accused of ordering their employees to falsely state that parts had been properly heat treated. Temperform and Hydroform were also indicted; Temperform pleaded guilty in September 2004, paid a fine and closed down, but all charges against Hydroform were later dropped (San Francisco Chronicle).

US District Judge Arthur Tarnow last Thursday denied the request of acquitted former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino to order the government to pay his legal fees and to sanction prosecutors for disclosing records Tarnow had ordered sealed. Convertino was indicted in 2006 on conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury counts in connection with his alleged presentation of false evidence and concealment of exculpatory evidence in the prosecution of two Detroit men accused of being terrorists. The men were convicted but the verdicts were thrown out by government request after the USAO investigated and determined that the terrorism charges were baseless.

After Convertino was acquitted on all counts by a jury last October, he moved in January to have his defense costs reimbursed on grounds that the DOJ’s decision to prosecute him was “vexatious, frivolous or in bad faith.” However, Tarnow ruled that Convertino had failed to meet “the defendant’s heavy burden” to show that the government acted in bad faith by indicting him. He also noted that his order sealing the records applied to the trial, and that the sealed records had been introduced after the trial in response to Convertino’s attorney fee request. The records allegedly showed that Convertino had repeatedly lied about his credentials (ABA Journal, Detroit News).

As expected (earlier), Emperor’s Club booking agent Temeka Lewis pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiracy relating to prostitution and money laundering, in connection with the prostitution ring operated out of the club which serviced Eliot “Client 9″ Spitzer. Her plea was entered in Manhattan before US Magistrate Judge Theodore Katz; she read a prepared statement admitting that prostitutes traveled across state lines to meet with clients. Her plea agreement calls for cooperation with prosecutors; her attorney said that she has not yet testified before a grand jury and is “ready to receive direction from the government.” She could be sentenced to as much as 25 years in prison but under sentencing guidelines she could serve 16 months or less depending on the level of her cooperation. It is still not known if Spitzer will be charged, but as the NYT notes, with her co-defendants apparently close to plea deals, Lewis’ cooperation could very well take the form of testimony against Spitzer or others not yet indicted. More here from Reuters.

“Few could run with him, and none were better.” — Dan Rather, who hired Stone at KHOU in 1961. The Houston Chronicle has the obituary here.

US District Judge Vanessa Gilmore on Monday scheduled retrials for former Enron Broadband Services executives Joseph Hirko, Rex Shelby and Scott Yeager. Hirko and Shelby will be retried on November 3, 2008, while Yeager’s retrial is set for January 12, 2009. In March, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit ruled that Gilmore was correct in refusing to dismiss most of the remaining charges against Hirko and Shelby and all the remaining charges against Yeager (earlier) after jurors were hung on many counts; the three were acquitted on some counts. Attorneys for all three defendants indicated on Monday that they will appeal the Fifth Circuit ruling to the US Supreme Court and will ask Gilmore to delay the retrials if a hearing is granted (Houston Chronicle).

In an opinion published Monday, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the convictions and prison sentences of Joya Williams and Ibrahim Dimson for conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets. Williams, an executive assistant at Coca-Cola in Atlanta, was convicted in February 2007 of taking confidential trade information from Coke and trying to sell it to Pepsi through her friend Edmund Duhaney and Dimson. Pepsi contacted the FBI after being contacted by Dimson. Williams was sentenced to eight years in prison; Dimson received a five year sentence. Duhaney, who pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors, was sentenced to two years in prison.

The appellate court rejected Williams’ claims that the presiding judge violated her Sixth Amendment rights by limiting her cross-examination of Duhaney and improperly instructed the jury on the meaning of reasonable doubt. The court also rejected Williams’ and Dimson’s claim that their sentences were unreasonable compared to Duhaney’s two-year sentence (AP/Forbes).

Temeka Lewis, primary booking agent for the Emperor’s Club, reportedly will plead guilty in US District Court in Manhattan this week to charges of money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit interstate travel in aid of racketeering, in connection with the prostitution ring operated out of the club. Three others have been charged and two of them are also said to be near plea deals. The fate of favorite customer Eliot “Hoist by His Own Petard” Spitzer apparently has not yet been decided (NYT).

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the dismissal of a 64-count indictment against Daniel Chapman and Sean Flanagan, two attorneys charged in 2003 in what was described as a complex securities trading scheme, because the prosecution withheld 650 pages of potentially exculpatory evidence, lied about it, and turned it over only after the indictment had been dismissed. US District Judge James Mahan dismissed all the charges in 2006 and ruled that a retrial would prejudice the defendants. The appellate court also refused to order a retrial. In the decision, Judge Kim Wardlaw called the Nevada USAO’s actions “prosecutorial misconduct in its highest form; conduct in flagrant disregard of the United States Constitution; and conduct which should be deterred by the strongest sanction available” (National Law Journal).