Archive for the ‘Law’ Category

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Obit watch: September 29, 2023.

Friday, September 29th, 2023

Dianne Feinstein. NYT. LAT. WP.

NYT obit for Michael Gambon.

This doesn’t quite qualify as an obit, but I don’t have any place else to put it (other than a separate entry, which I’d rather not do) and I feel like it is close enough for government work. The Las Vegas Police department has made an arrest in a 27-year old cold case.

Las Vegas police have arrested a man in the deadly 1996 drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur, a long-awaited break in a case that has frustrated investigators and fascinated the public ever since the hip-hop icon was gunned down on the Las Vegas Strip 27 years ago.

But:

…the exact charge or charges were not immediately clear, according to two officials with first-hand knowledge of the arrest. They were not authorized to speak publicly ahead of an expected indictment later Friday.

The other point that I think should be made: an arrest is one thing. A conviction is another. More from the tabloid of record.

Edited to add: A two-pack (see what I did there?) of additional coverage from the NYT and the LAT.

“Dwight, shouldn’t you be linking to the actual Las Vegas newspapers?” Well, yes, except: the Las Vegas newspapers are generally not great. Though they have had some good columnists working for them in the past…but for the record, here’s the Review-Journal coverage.

Also not quite an obit, but within this blog’s area of coverage:

The husband of Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola was ferrying more than 500 pounds of moose and antlers from a remote hunting camp in Alaska when his small plane crashed shortly after takeoff earlier this month, officials said.

This is just a very preliminary report from the NTSB: we probably won’t get the full report for two years or more. And no, I’m not noting it because moose. RoadRich can argue with me in the comments if he knows more, but I believe this is one of the biggest killers of pilots out there, especially pilots of small aircraft: trying to take off with an overloaded aircraft, or an aircraft out of balance.

“The meat was strapped into the rear passenger seat area with both the seatbelt and rope and was loaded into the airplane’s belly pod, which did not have tie-down provisions,” the NTSB said.

Posted in Law, Movies, Obits, Planes, Politics, TV | 1 Comment »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#110 in a series)

Thursday, September 28th, 2023

This isn’t a normal flaming hyenas watch, as the subject isn’t quite a politician. But I think the exceptional circumstances justify this.

Jose Torres used to be a politician. At one point in his life, he was the mayor of Patterson, New Jersey. Fortunately, he was convicted of using city workers and city money to renovate a warehouse being leased by his daughter and nephew.

The workers’ labor was marked as overtime and paid for by Paterson’s taxpayers — a move that landed Torres in front of a judge, who later sentenced him to five years in state prison.

He spent 13 months in the joint. But that’s not why he’s a flaming hyena.

After the plea, Torres agreed to a forfeiture order that banned him from ever holding public office or employment in the Garden State. If he broke the agreement, he’d face a contempt charge.

Would you like to guess what happened next?

If you guessed “he tried to run for office again” take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square. Last year, he filed to run for mayor.

But it gets better.

When the Paterson city clerk rejected his petition, Torres sued, according to a statement from state Attorney General Matthew Platkin.

Yes! Not only did he try to violate the order, he actually sued when he was told he was violating the order.

Mr. Torres is now facing a criminal contempt of court charge.

“It takes remarkable brashness to flout a state court order and then attempt to strong-arm the city clerk, via civil litigation, into allowing an impermissible campaign to proceed,” [State Attorney General Matthew] Platkin said.
“That is bold. And, according to the grand jury, it is also indictable.”

I’m not sure “brashness” is the word I’d use. I think I’d call it “stupidity”. But oddly, it’s only the second most stupid thing I’ve seen this week.

(I’m still trying to decide if I want to link to the most stupid thing I’ve seen this week. It does relate to some of this blog’s areas of coverage – cocaine and aircraft. But the details are pretty R-rated, and I actually sort of feel bad for the subject.)

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: September 26, 2023.

Tuesday, September 26th, 2023

David McCallum. THR. Tributes from Deadline.

I was a little young for “UNCLE” first-run (and I don’t recall it being in re-runs on any of the Houston stations) and I’ve never been a big fan of “NCIS”. But I did kind of like Mr. McCallum. I have no idea what his politics were, which I think is worthy of praise in the current era.

And this kind of made me choke up a bit:

“After returning from the hospital to their apartment, I asked my mother if she was OK before she went to sleep. Her answer was simply, ‘Yes. But I do wish we had had a chance to grow old together.’ She is 79, and dad just turned 90. The honesty in that emotion shows how vibrant their beautiful relationship and daily lives were, and that somehow, even at 90, Daddy never grew old.”

So did this:

Donations can be made to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.

Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.

(Mr. McCallum served in the British military. But his second wife’s father was a Marine who fought at Iwo Jima.)

Other credits include “The Master”, “Babylon 5”, “Hell Drivers” (which I have to admit sounds interesting: check out that cast), “A Night to Remember”, and “The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine, Women and War”.

Dick Clark, one-term Democratic Senator from Iowa. He was famous for walking 1300 miles during his 1972 campaign.

Matteo Messina Denaro, Italian Mafia boss.

In 2020, Mr. Messina Denaro was convicted in absentia for his role in the high-profile murders of two of Italy’s top anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in 1992, and for deadly bombings the next year in Milan, Rome and Florence that prosecutors believe were part of a Cosa Nostra strategy against the state.
He also received a life sentence for his involvement in the kidnapping and death of the 12-year-old son of a Mafia turncoat after the boy was strangled and his body was dissolved in acid, and in the death of a police officer.

He’d been “underground” since 1993, but was still running the “family business”. The authorities tracked him down because he was being treated for cancer:

Since he was not treated under his real name, they used national health service records to identify patients with similar conditions and narrow it down.

Posted in Law, Movies, Obits, Politics, TV | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#109 in a series)

Friday, September 22nd, 2023

I had to go to the eye doctor this morning, and the Robert Menendez story broke while I was there. My eyes are still a little messed up, and I’m kind of behind on this story – at this point, everyone and his brother is on it like flies on a severed cow’s head at a Damien Hirst installation – so some short random observations.

I’m impressed he was taking payoffs in gold as well as in cash, though I wouldn’t have left so much cash lying around the house. I absolutely believe you should diversify what you accept for bribes: cash, negotiable securities, precious and/or strategic metals, etc. I’m not yet sold on cryptocurrency as a bribery mechanism, though.

Sen. Menendez is actually a repeat hyena: I noted his indictment back in 2015, though I missed that the jury in that case hung and he wasn’t retried for reasons.

Speaking of the previous charges, the tabloid of record has an amusing run-down of those, complete with photos of “Bob’s Babes”.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: September 20, 2023.

Wednesday, September 20th, 2023

I didn’t find out about this until late last night, so I’m a bit behind. Apologies.

Two pilots, Nick Macy and Chris Rushing, were killed in an accident at the Reno Air Races on Sunday.

According to the reports I’ve read, both pilots had been competing in what’s called the “Gold Race” in the T-6 Class. The race had completed, and the pilots were in the post-race recovery period when they collided in mid-air.

Preliminary analysis from the Air Safety Institute. Reno Gazette Journal coverage. As the linked articles note, the remainder of the races was cancelled after the crash: this was the last year for the Reno Air Races in their current form.

Buddy Teevens, football coach at Dartmouth. He was badly injured in a bicycle accident in March, and died of complications from his injuries.

JoAnne Epps, acting president of Temple University. She was attending a memorial service when she collapsed. Ms. Epps was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

James Hoge, noted journalist.

Few editors at major American newspapers have been as young as Mr. Hoge was when he rose to the top at The Chicago Sun-Times, a tabloid aimed at a working-class readership. He became the city editor at age 29, editor in chief at 33 and publisher at 44.
He shook up the staff, strove for sprightlier writing and, like other newspaper editors in the 1970s, introduced new sections on business, food and fashion. “I am always agitating,” he said.
The payoff was six Pulitzer Prizes on his watch: two each for feature photography and criticism and one each for spot news reporting (concerning violence by young radicals in Chicago) and local news reporting (on new evidence in the 1966 murder, still unsolved, of Valerie Percy, a daughter of Charles H. Percy of Illinois, then making his first United States Senate race).

He was also behind the Mirage Tavern investigation, and went on to become publisher of the New York Daily News and the journal Foreign Affairs.

Aware that some council members fretted over his tabloid background, he had some fun with them, offering a mock magazine cover with the model Cindy Crawford and teasers like “sexiest ethnic rivalries.”

Roger Whittaker, British musician.

Burning in Hell watch: Billy Chemirmir. I’d never heard of him, but he was convicted twice of capital murder, and was suspected of 20 more murders. His MO seems to have been smothering old folks.

Most of Chemirmir’s alleged victims lived in apartments at independent living communities for older people. The women he’s accused of killing in private homes include the widow of a man he had cared for while working as an at-home caregiver.

You could also classify this as part of the “fool around and find out” watch:

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot told WFAA that Chemirmir was killed after apparently making inappropriate comments sexual in nature towards his cellmate’s children. According to Creuzot, the cellmate allegedly beat Chemirmir, dragged him out of his cell and killed him while other inmates watched. No one intervened and Chemirmir may have been stabbed with a pen, Creuzot said.
“Even though they are on lockdown, apparently [the cellmate] somehow opened the door and dragged [Chemirmir] into the hallway and there were other prisoners who saw it and not one intervened and no one called for help,” Creuzot told WFAA. “He was basically there for 15 to 20 minutes before anybody with authority could figure out what happened. When they got there, they tried to revive him, but he died.”

Posted in Cycling, Law, Media, Obits, Planes, Sports | Comments Closed

I do love a good classical reference.

Wednesday, September 13th, 2023

Shot:

Chaser:

Look, I know this is a story of mostly local interest. I know this is from a second-rate tabloid newspaper, which has been covering it to excess.

But, wow, these people sound…bats–t crazy. I find it hard to pick out just one element to highlight how bats–t crazy they sound, though the horse’s head in the bed is certainly a favorite of mine. Then there’s the mysterious house fire.

Following the fire, recalled Tatyana’s friend, “The police were called to the house. Officers asked for Tatyana’s ID and there were four loaded guns in her purse. Police arrested her for gun possession.”

Two is one, and one is none. But what is four? I guess four equals two plus two, so four is two. And does she have back problems from carrying four loaded guns in her purse?

(I’m reminded of the old joke with the punchline, “Not a damn thing in the world, Officer.” If you haven’t heard that one, leave me a comment.)

Amazingly, that is not even the most shocking incident involving the couple and firearms. “Mark got arrested once,” said the friend, “because he was standing naked at the top of the driveway with an elephant gun. He had come after her with a knife and she had to run out of the house in her underwear.”

I have to wonder if the “elephant gun” was a real elephant gun, or if we need an “elephant gun” entry for the Journalist’s Guide to Firearms Identification, alongside the AK-47.

Also, is it just me, or are horse people as a general rule just…bats–t crazy? Not that I hang around the horsy set a lot, but I’ve seen more than a few horse cases on the TV court shows…

Posted in Guns, Horses, Law | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: September 13, 2023.

Wednesday, September 13th, 2023

Howard Safir, former NYPD commissioner and gun grabber.

In the final years of his life, Safir, who founded his own intelligence and security firm, has advocated for stricter policing on guns.
Last year, he floated the idea that those who purchase firearms in the city should be required to conduct yearly safety check-ins so authorities can make sure the weapons aren’t lost or sold off to unknown parties.

Neil Currey, noted bodybuilder. He was 34.

Brandon Hunter, former forward for the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic. He was 42.

Mike Williams, former NFL wide receiver for Tampa Bay and Buffalo. He was 36, and died as a result of injuries sustained in a construction accident.

Posted in Cops, Law, NFL, NYPD, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: September 8, 2023.

Friday, September 8th, 2023

And speaking of police: William Phillips has passed away, and this is one of the most interesting obits I’ve read in a bit.

Who was William Phillips? He was a cop with the NYPD. He was also corrupt.

He acknowledged that he partook in police corruption as a patrolman in the 1960s and early ’70s. When not golfing at a country club, flying his plane, taking ski trips, playing the horses or darting around town in his red sports car, he was walking a beat in Gucci loafers and collecting bags of cash from brothels, gamblers, drug dealers and others “on the pad” — cop slang for payoff lists.
Finally, he was caught by investigators taking bribes from Xaviera Hollander, the madam who wrote the best-selling 1971 book “The Happy Hooker.” Mr. Phillips wore a wire and went under cover to avoid prosecution. He joined Officer Frank Serpico and Detective David Durk as star witnesses at the hearings of the Knapp Commission, which detailed endemic police corruption in New York.

(On a side note, Xaviera Hollander is still alive, according to Wikipedia. She’s 80. And she has a website.)

Then it gets weird.

Mr. Phillips may have been a hero to the public, but a homicide detective who saw him testify on television told prosecutors that he resembled the sketch of a man wanted in a cold murder case. Reports later emerged that the detective who had started the inquiry was a close friend of a police lieutenant who, believing that Mr. Phillips had identified him as a grafter, killed himself.
Mr. Phillips was arrested and charged with murdering a pimp and a prostitute in a Manhattan brothel at about 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 24, 1968. But from the start, evidence against him was contradictory. A half-dozen relatives and friends gave Mr. Phillips hour-by-hour alibis, placing him in three homes on a round of preholiday visits from 4 p.m. until past midnight.

The only evidence the prosecution had was the testimony of a man named Charles Gonzales, who was patronizing the prostitute at the time of the murder. Mr. Gonzales was also shot by the killer.

A drinker and a former mental patient, Mr. Gonzales described the killer as older, grayer and shorter than Mr. Phillips and with a “pockmarked Italian face.” He had initially picked someone else out of a lineup that included Mr. Phillips.

Mr. Phillps was tried twice. F. Lee Bailey defended him the first time: “…the jury deadlocked 10 to 2 for acquittal. Jurors said they had not believed Mr. Gonzales.” Mr. Phillips was convicted in the second trial. The conviction was overturned on appeal by New York state appellate courts (“It was later revealed that a juror had applied for a job with the Manhattan district attorney’s office during the trial, and that the prosecutors did not tell the judge until after the verdict.”) but the Supreme Court allowed the conviction to stand.

His options exhausted, Mr. Phillips became a model prisoner and a jailhouse lawyer. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees with perfect grades from the State University of New York, wrote legal briefs and taught law classes for inmates, ran a prison library, worked for charities and, with an unblemished record, became one of the state’s oldest inmates.

…

When he became eligible for parole after 25 years, his records were filled with recommendations for his release from wardens, college deans, judges and federal agents. Manhattanville College, in Westchester County, offered him a job. But the parole board denied his application. His defenders said it was because he had refused to admit guilt.
At another hearing, in 2003, he acknowledged being guilty of “reprehensible conduct” but not of murder. Parole was again denied. The board called Mr. Phillips “a criminal of the worst kind whose danger to public safety is in the highest degree.”
He appealed, and Justice Alice Schlesinger of State Supreme Court in Manhattan called the board’s ruling “perverted” and “contrary to the law.” She asked, “Does the board honestly believe that Mr. Phillips, a 74-year-old man, half-blind from cancer, who has helped countless people and learned and taught the principles of law to many, truly is a continuing threat to society?”

Another judge ordered his release in 2006, but the parole board argued sucessfully that the judiciary didn’t have that authority.

Finally, he told the board what he thought it wanted to hear, saying he was guilty and voicing regret. He was released in 2007, ending 32 years in prison.

…

The authorities over the years have agreed that the commission helped break a culture of police corruption. But the immediate fallout was minimal.
Dozens of officers were charged, while top police and city officials were not. Many prosecutions were dropped because Mr. Phillips’s murder conviction destroyed his credibility as a witness and to some extent undermined the findings of the commission.

I don’t know if he was guilty or not, and the paper of record certainly puts their own pro-Philips spin on things. But I think at the very least there was reasonable doubt.

“The entire case they had against me was the identification that I was a 5-foot-8 pockmarked Italian,” he said. “Do I look like a 5-foot-8 pockmarked Italian?”
He was six feet tall and, friends said, had a ruddy Irish face.

Posted in Cops, Law, NYPD, Obits | Comments Closed

DEFCON 31 news flash.

Friday, September 8th, 2023

By way of Hacker News, and I only discovered this 15 minutes ago so I haven’t had time to go through all of it yet:

“Snoop unto them, as they snoop unto us”.

Here’s the original description:

BLE devices are now all the rage. What makes a purpose built tracking device like the AirTag all that different from the majority of BLE devices that have a fixed address? With the rise of IoT we’re also seeing a rise in government and corporate BLE surveillance systems. We’ll look at tools that normal people can use to find out if their favorite IoT gear is easily trackable. If headphones and GoPro’s use fixed addresses, what about stun guns and bodycams? We’ll take a look at IoT gear used by authorities and how it may be detectedable over long durations, just like an AirTag.

The first link will get you to slides, video of the talk, files, and code. As you know, Bob, Bluetooth is a thing for this blog, so this is relevant to my interests…

Posted in Bluetooth, Cops, DEFCON, DEFCON 31, Law, Radio | 1 Comment »

Bagatelle (#94)

Wednesday, September 6th, 2023

Shot:

Chaser:

A retired doctor was arrested Tuesday after police allegedly discovered guns, drugs and prostitutes on his 70-foot yacht in Nantucket — following reports a distressed woman had possibly overdosed and “did not feel safe” onboard.
Scott Anthony Burke, 69, was slapped with drug trafficking and weapons charges after cops raided his luxury vessel — Jess Conn – and uncovered the trove of guns, cocaine and ketamine, court records obtained by The Boston Globe allege.

First, it was “no personal watercraft on Lake Austin during the holiday”.

Then, they put up big electronic signs telling us not to “drag chains” or “toss lit cigarettes” because of “wildfire risk”.

And now, it appears you can’t even have hookers, blow, and guns on your yacht. What am I supposed to do with my weekends now? And what’s the point of even having a yacht these days?

Joyless fun-suckers, sucking the fun out of everything.

Posted in Bagatelle, Boats, Guns, Law, Sarcasm | 1 Comment »

Bagatelle (#93)

Wednesday, September 6th, 2023

The street finds its own uses for things.

New Jersey business owner arrested for using a drone to drop dye packets into local swimming pools.

Oddly, it seems like his business was not a pool service business, but a heating and cooling service company. If it was a pool service company, that’d at least be understandable to me.

Posted in Bagatelle, Law | Comments Closed

Quick and dirty updates.

Wednesday, August 30th, 2023

The Elvis gun went for $199,750. I don’t know if that’s inclusive of the bidder’s premium. (Previously.)

I wrote a while back about the criminal charges against Thomas Moyer, Apple’s security head and the somewhat related (I think) case against former Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith.

I missed, however, that the case against Moyer was dismissed in 2021.

But: a California appellate court reinstated the charges last week.

Friday’s opinion, written by Justice Daniel Bromberg, joined by Justices Adrienne Grover and Cynthia Lie, claimed that the evidence presented to the grand jury was “sufficient to raise a reasonable suspicion of such bribery.”

Appellate decision here. Interesting quote:

During the relevant time frame, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office rarely issued CCW licenses. Indeed, the office’s practice was to not even process an application for a CCW license absent a special instruction to do so. Only Sheriff Laurie Smith and a small number of others in the Sheriff’s Office had the authority to give such instructions. One of those individuals was Rick Sung, who appears to have run Sheriff Smith’s 2018 re-election campaign and after the election became the undersheriff, second in command to the sheriff. Undersheriff Sung also had authority to place license applications on hold even after licenses were signed by the sheriff.

Posted in Apple, California Über Alles, Elvis, Guns, Law, Music, Politics, Smith and Wesson | Comments Closed

Quick hyena update.

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023

Missed this previously, but Mike the Musicologist pinged it over to me.

Patrick Wojahn, the former mayor of College Park, Maryland, took a guilty plea.

Wojahn pleaded guilty to 60 counts of distribution of child pornography, 40 counts of possession of child pornography, and 40 counts of possession of child pornography with the intention to distribute…

Sentencing is scheduled for November 20th, per the article.

(Previously.)

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Brief police beat news.

Monday, August 21st, 2023

Austin Police chief Joseph Chacon is stepping down and retiring from APD after two years as chief.

I really don’t have anything much to say about this: Chief Chacon didn’t do anything in his time to really rise to my attention, either positively or negatively. There are things to be said about poor police response time, ongoing issues with the homeless, and other things going on within the department. But I feel like many of those issues are the results of poor decision making by our city government, and were out of Chief Chacon’s control.

I wish him well in his next endeavors, and I think a Fist Rockbone Brian Manley for mayor/Joseph Chacon for city council ticket would be a fantastic idea.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#108 in a series)

Friday, August 18th, 2023

One of last year’s big flaming hyena stories was about Harry Sidhu, the mayor of Anaheim, who resigned over land deals with the Los Angeles Angels (and his “illegal registration of a helicopter“).

I kind of lost track of this story because California newspapers. But thanks to the Field of Schemes blog, I found out: former mayor Sidhu is taking a guilty plea.

The charges against Sidhu in a plea agreement filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana include lying to FBI agents about not expecting to receive anything from the Angels when the transaction closed — secret recordings captured him saying he hoped to secure a $1-million campaign contribution — and destroying an email in which he provided confidential information about the city’s negotiations to a team consultant.

…

Sidhu, who pledged to “make Anaheim shine again” after being elected in 2018, resigned after the FBI’s sprawling public corruption investigation into Anaheim became public. At the time, he denied doing anything wrong. Now, he will plead guilty to obstruction of justice, wire fraud and two counts of making false statements.

…

When FBI agents interviewed Sidhu on May 12, 2022, the agreement said, he “falsely stated” that he expected “nothing” from the Angels after the stadium deal was completed, that he did not conduct city business from his personal email and that “he did not recall ever providing information about the Stadium sale to the Angels consultant during negotiations over that sale.”

Really, seriously, just shut the f**k up.

The plea agreement said Sidhu destroyed emails related to the stadium sale. They include one sent from his personal email account to the Angels consultant and the former head of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce in July 2020 with an attached document that contained “confidential negotiation information related to the potential sale of the stadium, discussion of issues related to price and other terms of the sale.”

…

Two of the counts against Sidhu — false statements and wire fraud — are related to his purchase of a helicopter in October 2020. According to the plea agreement, Sidhu registered the helicopter at an Arizona address, despite residing in Anaheim, to avoid paying more than $15,000 in California sales tax.

…

[Todd] Ament [former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce President – DB] cooperated with authorities and pleaded guilty last year to multiple felonies, including wire fraud, making a false statement to a financial institution and subscribing to a false tax return. Melahat Rafiei, a former state Democratic Party official and campaign consultant, pleaded guilty in April to one count of attempted wire fraud. Neither has been sentenced.

Remember, my people: the coverup is almost always worse than the actual crime.

Posted in California Über Alles, Law, Politics, Sports | Comments Closed

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