Archive for April 9th, 2014

Banana republicans watch: April 9, 2014.

Wednesday, April 9th, 2014

Woo hoo woo hoo hoo! A great day!

Five former political leaders in the scandal-plagued city of Bell have agreed to plead no contest to corruption charges and could be sentenced to up to four years in prison for their role in looting the treasury of one of Los Angeles County’s poorest cities.

Let us all say the magic words together now:

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyenas!

(Yes, it is a plea. Yes, they are getting a lighter sentence than they would have if they had gone to trial and been convicted. Yes, they’ve already been convicted of other charges. Yes, it wouldn’t surprise me to see all the sentences served concurrently. But can’t you let me be happy, even if it is just for a short time? Thank you.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

NYPD Blues.

Wednesday, April 9th, 2014
  1. James E. Griffin, a former NYPD detective, settled his lawsuit against the department for $280,000. In 2005, Mr. Griffin reported what he believed was misconduct by a fellow detective to Internal Affairs: “…he had found the word “rat” scrawled on his locker and that other detectives in the 83rd Precinct’s detective squad in Bushwick refused to work with him. Although he switched units a couple of times, the reputation followed him; he was ostracized in each new unit, he claimed.“
  2. Jonathan Fleming was released from prison yesterday. In 1989, he was sentenced to 25 years to life on a murder charge. It turns out that the Brooklyn DAs office failed to turn over evidence to the defense, including a receipt that proved Mr. Fleming was actually in Florida shortly before the murder.
  3. Speaking of the Brooklyn DA’s office, “A review of homicide convictions stemming from the work of Louis Scarcella, a Brooklyn detective accused of framing suspects, has turned up a stash of old handwritten police notes that could exonerate two men convicted of a murder in 1985. One of the men served 21 years in prison; the other died behind bars.”
    More: “…two previously undisclosed eyewitnesses saw the September 1985 killing of a man named Ronnie Durant, but they named killers different from the two men who were convicted. The notebook could have affected the verdict; not turning it over to defense lawyers decades ago is a serious violation of the rules of criminal procedure, experts said.“

Edited to add: In the interest of fairness: NYPD Officer Dennis Guerra died this morning as a result of injuries he sustained during a fire on Sunday.

Officer Guerra, 38, and his partner, Officer Rosa Rodriguez, 36, had been on regular patrol in the public housing developments of Coney Island on Sunday when they responded to a 911 call of a fire in an apartment tower at 2007 Surf Avenue around 12:30 p.m.
They took an elevator straight to the floor and, when the doors opened, were immediately overwhelmed by noxious smoke. The officers collapsed unconscious in the hallway by the elevator where they were found by arriving firefighters.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law, Louis Scarcella, NYPD | Comments Closed