Jul 01, 2012 · We’ve posted a number of blogs about corrupt prosecutors and bad lawyers, but none quite like the allegations levied against Mr. Bergrin. Reportedly the son of a Brooklyn cop, Bergrin became a standout state and federal prosecutor and a legendary criminal defense attorney by being brash, tenacious, and possessing the “killer instinct.”.
May 03, 2022 · The Section’s public corruption work involves the investigation and prosecution of bribery, extortion, fraud, and embezzlement committed by elected and appointed officials, government employees, and those doing business with city, state, and federal government. The Section handles a variety of civil rights cases, including allegations that ...
Jul 21, 2020 · ES. The creation of a new anti-corruption office in Guatemala has raised questions about whether the body will have any teeth, with former prosecutors saying that it merely hinders high-level investigations by creating more red tape. On July 10, Guatemala’s Attorney General MarĂa Consuelo Porras appointed her current undersecretary JosĂ© Estuardo LĂłpez y LĂłpez to …
Apr 03, 2020 · A proposed new international anti-corruption court, conceivably located in Canada, could, by its very existence, deter the proliferation of the many kinds of corrupt practices that grow into kleptocracy and only very rarely can be curbed by the actions of domestic judicial systems. In most of the African countries listed, except South Africa ...
We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.
Get fresh updates on organized crime from across the region delivered to your inbox.
Lawyers unfairly have a bit of a bad reputation. Yes, some lie for a living and defend murderers for money -- but the system simply doesn't work without them. No doubt most are honest folk who do their jobs within the code of ethics all attorneys work under. But when lawyers do go bad, holy shit do they make the most of it.
Rhode Island estate planner Joseph Caramadre, apparently having had an epiphany that mortuary services and churches were hogging up all that sweet, sweet death money, started advertising in newspapers that he would hand over two grand to any terminally ill individual willing to furnish him with their signature and other pertinent info. Not content to wait for the near-dead to come to him, he also personally solicited the dying, paid visits to AIDS patients, and talked to the friends and families of the nearly deceased -- he got their information, and they got enough money to make all their bucket list dreams come true (assuming their bucket list consisted solely of "have a couple thousand dollars").
Being a criminal defense attorney often involves spending a decent amount of time in prisons, seeing as how the people who pay your bills happen to spend most of their free time there. So, what would be the absolute most unethical way to spend those visits?
By 2007, Bergrin had graduated to the prestigious moniker of pimp, when, after hiring a drug smuggler and the self-proclaimed "King of all Pimps" as his paralegal, Bergrin decided to make himself the heir to the pimp king's crown.
Sampson's replacement as the Attorney General's temporary chief of staff was U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Chuck Rosenberg. Rosenberg initiated a DOJ inquiry into possibly inappropriate political considerations in Monica Goodling's hiring practices for civil service staff. Civil service positions are not political appointments and must be made on a nonpartisan basis. In one example, Jeffrey A. Taylor, former interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, tried to hire a new career prosecutor, Seth Adam Meinero, in the fall of 2006. Goodling judged Meinero too "liberal" and declined to approve the hire. Meinero, a Howard University law school graduate who had worked on civil rights cases at the Environmental Protection Agency, was serving as a special assistant prosecutor in Taylor's office. Taylor went around Goodling, and demanded Sampson's approval to make the hire. In another example, Goodling removed an attorney from her job at the Department of Justice because she was rumored to be a lesbian, and, further, blocked the attorney from getting other Justice Department jobs she was qualified for. Rules concerning hiring at the Justice department forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy stated that Congress has the authority to subpoena Justice Department and White House officials including chief political advisor to the president Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. On March 20, President Bush declared in a press conference that his aides would not testify under oath on the matter if subpoenaed by Congress. Bush explained his position saying,
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel stated that some of the emails that had involved official correspondence relating to the firing of attorneys may have been lost because they were conducted on Republican party accounts and not stored properly. "Some official e-mails have potentially been lost and that is a mistake the White House is aggressively working to correct." said Stanzel, a White House spokesman. Stonzel said that they could not rule out the possibility that some of the lost emails dealt with the firing of U.S. attorneys. For example, J. Scott Jennings, an aide to Karl Rove communicated with Justice Department officials "concerning the appointment of Tim Griffin, a former Rove aide, as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, according to e-mails released in March, 2007. For that exchange, Jennings, although working at the White House, used an e-mail account registered to the Republican National Committee, where Griffin had worked as a political opposition researcher."
Attorney General Gonzales, in a confidential memorandum dated March 1, 2006, delegated authority to senior DOJ staff Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson to hire and dismiss political appointees and some civil service positions.
Kevin Ryan (R) Though described as "loyal to the Bush administration," he was allegedly fired for the possible controversy that negative job performance evaluations might cause if they were released. John McKay (R) Was given a positive job evaluation 7 months before he was fired.
A number of members of both houses of Congress publicly said Gonzales should resign, or be fired by Bush. On March 14, 2007, Senator John E. Sununu ( R, New Hampshire) became the first Republican lawmaker to call for Gonzales' resignation. Sununu cited not only the controversial firings but growing concern over the use of the USA PATRIOT Act and misuse of national security letters by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Calls for his ousting intensified after his testimony on April 19, 2007. By May 16, at least twenty-two Senators and seven Members of the House of Representatives — including Senators Hillary Clinton ( D, New York) and Mark Pryor ( D, Arkansas )— had called for Gonzales' resignation.
On July 11, 2007, Sara Taylor, former top aide to Karl Rove, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Throughout Taylor's testimony, she refused to answer many questions, saying "I have a very clear letter from [White House counsel] Mr. [Fred] Fielding. That letter says and has asked me to follow the president's assertion of executive privilege ." Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) dismissed the claims and warned Taylor she was "in danger of drawing a criminal contempt of Congress citation". Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) took issue with the claim as well, telling Taylor
AttorneyBusters.com was created as a vehicle to encourage attorneys, judges, public officials and the media to perform their duties with ethics and responsibility, and promote laws that would discourage them from abusing special privileges. Certain privileges must be preserved, but used with responsibility and for the proper purposes intended.
Freedom of the Press should not mean that they are free from upholding their duty to report. It is the ethical responsibility of journalists to act as the eyes and ears of the public by reporting on the acts of public officials for all to know and then make an informed judgment.
Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said little about the connection between the various inquiries, beyond noting that “there is no allegation that has anything to do with the mayor anywhere” in those court documents.
In that case, a criminal complaint unsealed on June 8 charged Norman Seabrook, the powerful head of the union that represents New York City correction officers, with honest services fraud and conspiracy.
Judges do not have discretion not to disqualify themselves. By law, they are bound to follow the law. Should a judge not disqualify himself as required by law, then the judge has given another example of his “appearance of partiality” which, possibly, further disqualifies the judge.
Who is an “officer of the court?”. A judge is an officer of the court, as well as are all attorneys. A state judge is a state judicial officer, paid by the State to act impartially and lawfully. A federal judge is a federal judicial officer, paid by the federal government to act impartially and lawfully.
A void judgment is a judgment, decree, or order entered by a court which lacks jurisdiction of the parties or of the subject matter, or which lacks the inherent power to make or enter the particular order involved, State ex rel.
Fraud upon the Court. Fraud Upon the Court is where the Judge (who is NOT the “Court”) does NOT support or uphold the Judicial Machinery of the Court. The Court is an unbiased, but methodical “creature” which is governed by the Rule of Law… that is, the Rules of Civil Procedure, the Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Rules of Evidence, ...
Any judge who does such a thing is under mandatory, non-discretionary duty to recuse himself or herself from the case, and this rarely happens unless someone can force them to do so with the evidence of violations of procedure and threat of losing half their pensions for life which is what can take place.
A judge is an officer of the court, as well as are all attorneys. A state judge is a state judicial officer, paid by the State to act impartially and lawfully. A federal judge is a federal judicial officer, paid by the federal government to act impartially and lawfully. State and federal attorneys fall into the same general category ...