Archive for the ‘Law’ Category

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Obit watch: April 23, 2022.

Saturday, April 23rd, 2022

Over at his place, Murray Newman has put up a really nice obit for his friend and mentor Gil Schultz. I encourage you to click over and read it.

David Carter, chief of police for the University of Texas Police Department. Before that, he was with APD for 28 years, reaching the rank of chief of staff.

Mikhail Vasenkov, Commie.

When they were arrested, Mr. Vasenkov and his wife, Vicky Pelaez, a journalist, had been living undercover in a Soviet-owned two-story brick and stucco house in suburban Yonkers, N.Y., since immigrating from her native Peru in 1985.
They and eight others, part of a network of so-called illegals, were rounded up in a multiyear F.B.I. investigation, called Operation Ghost Stories, and pleaded guilty to failing to register as agents of a foreign government. They were then deported, flown to Europe on July 9, 2010, and swapped for four Russians who had been imprisoned in Moscow on charges of spying for the United States and Britain.

…

When the spies were rounded up, the F.B.I. said that while “their intent from the start was serious, well-funded by the S.V.R.” — the Soviet intelligence service — “and far-ranging,” they “never got their hands on any classified documents.”
Whether for the benefit of eavesdroppers or because he was getting paid regardless, Mr. Vasenkov was recorded by federal agents telling his wife matter-of-factly that his Soviet handlers “say my information is of no value,” adding, “If they don’t like what I tell them, too bad.”

Cynthia Albritton. She was better known as “Plaster Caster”, and that’s all I’m going to say. Those of you unfamiliar with the whole “plaster caster” thing can click over to the obit for the details.

Posted in Law, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#88 in a series)

Wednesday, April 13th, 2022

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was impeached yesterday.

That doesn’t mean he’s out of office, just that he’s going to an impeachment trial in the state Senate.

The impeachment is tied to a traffic accident in 2020.

…he initially told authorities he thought he had struck a deer or another large animal.

He actually hit a man, Joseph Boever, who died.

Ravnsborg, who took office in 2019, initially told aides and a 911 dispatcher he did not know what he hit on a rural highway as he was returning home from a Republican dinner in September 2020. He went back to the scene the next day and found the body of 55-year-old Boever, who had been walking on the highway’s shoulder.
The Highway Patrol concluded that Ravnsborg’s car crossed completely onto the highway shoulder before hitting Boever, and criminal investigators said later that they didn’t believe some of Ravnsborg’s statements.

Ravnsborg pled to two traffic related misdemeanors in the accident, but apparently there are a lot of people who don’t believe his story. Including Governor Kristi Noem, who is also a Republican: Ravnsborg claims she’s out to get him because he’s been investigating her.

In its 36-31 vote, the House rejected the recommendation of a GOP-backed majority report from a special investigative committee and sided with Noem, who has argued that Ravnsborg lied to investigators. Democrats also had pushed for impeachment, arguing that he was not “forthcoming” to law enforcement officers and had abused the power of his office.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#87 in a series)

Tuesday, April 12th, 2022

Brian A. Benjamin, the lieutenant governor of the state of New York, has been indicted on federal bribery charges.

The indictment, the result of an investigation by the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused Mr. Benjamin of conspiring to direct state funds to a Harlem real estate investor in exchange for orchestrating thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to Mr. Benjamin’s unsuccessful 2021 campaign for New York City comptroller, the people said. The investor was arrested on federal charges in November.

…

In a grand jury indictment last November, prosecutors said that Mr. Migdol began to steer thousands of dollars worth of fraudulent contributions to Mr. Benjamin in October 2019, just a month after the state senator filed to run for comptroller. They accused him of making straw donations in the name of individuals, including his 2-year-old grandchild, who did not consent to them, and of reimbursing others for the cost of their contributions.
At the time, the prosecutors did not comment on Mr. Migdol’s motive, or explicitly name Mr. Benjamin. But they said his scheme was designed to help the candidate tap into New York City’s generous public campaign matching funds program and secure him tens of thousands of dollars in additional campaign cash.

Edited to add: Well, that was fast. Mr. Benjamin is now the former lieutenant governor.

Despite his resignation, Mr. Benjamin is likely to remain on the Democratic primary ballot in June, along with two main challengers. Because Mr. Benjamin was designated as the Democratic Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, his name could only be removed at this point if he were to move out of the state, die or seek another office.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#86 in a series)

Monday, April 11th, 2022

In haste, for two reasons. One is that I have other things to blog.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s chief of staff and two former staff members are facing felony criminal indictments in connection to a controversial contract awarded last year.

The three people charged are Chief of Staff Alex Triantaphyllis, Wallis Nader, and Aaron Dunn. The charges are related to a “COVID-19 communication contract” which…

…went to a one-person company, Elevate Strategies, run by a political strategist with a limited track record that did not receive the highest scores in the bidding process.

My second reason for blogging in haste is: Lawrence is on this story like flies on a severed cow’s head in a Damien Hirst installation. You should really go over to his site for coverage on this, especially since he’s linking to more local sources.

Posted in Law, Politics, Texas | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 8, 2022.

Friday, April 8th, 2022

Jimmy Wang Yu, martial arts movie guy.

A contract player at the start of his career, Wang’s early career was indelibly linked with Shaw Brothers, for better and worse, and he would become a mainstream star in the studio’s most famous wuxia films including One-Armed Swordsman (1967) which broke box office records in Hong Kong, Golden Swallow (1968), Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (1969) and ground-breaking kung fu film The Chinese Boxer (1970).

…

Another notable Wang film from this period was Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976), which Quentin Tarantino would rank as one of his favorite films and that would later influence RZA’s The Man with the Iron Fists.
By the 1980s, Wang’s career began to slow down, and he was better known for the scandals in his private life. There were reports of domestic abuse, continued reports of his alleged links to Triads and in Taiwan, he was charged with murder in 1981, but the charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Posted in Law, Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#85 in a series)

Friday, April 8th, 2022

I missed this story until Reason covered it.

The ex-police chief of San Angelo, Texas, was convicted of “receipt of a bribe by an agent of an organization receiving federal funds” and three counts of “honest services mail fraud”.

A police chief – even an ex-chief – being convicted of bribery and “honest services” fraud is noteworthy enough. But this crosses over into a whole new level of weird.

A federal prosecutor had told jurors the evidence they have will show Vasquez used his position as police chief in 2015 to circumvent the bidding process by which city contracts are awarded and convince city officials to stick with its current provider of radio communication systems, San Antonio based Dailey-Wells Communications, the licensed seller of L3Harris radios.

That’s not the weird part. The weird part: Dailey-Wells Communications had contracted with the former chief’s Earth, Wind, and Fire cover band to play at their corporate events.

No, you are not having a stroke. Yes, you read that right: the police chief’s Earth, Wind, and Fire cover band.

Once the new contract was awarded in 2015, Dailey-Wells hired Funky Munky to play 10 shows for about $84,000. The band’s other performances in that era earned them some $2,100 a show.

This appears to be the band’s Facebook page, but it hasn’t been updated since August of 2020. The website seems to be defunct.

Posted in Cops, Law, Music, Politics | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: April 7, 2022.

Thursday, April 7th, 2022

Eric Boehlert.

A frequent commentator on television and radio, as well as a prolific writer, Mr. Boehlert never shied away from searing critiques of what he saw as bias in the mainstream press and the circular impact of media on politics.
After more than a decade as a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a left-leaning media monitoring group, Mr. Boehlert had in recent years started his own newsletter, Press Run, as a vehicle for his commentary.

According to reports, he was hit by a train while bicycling.

Justice John Michalski, “an acting justice of the [New York] State Supreme Court”.

But last month, Justice Michalski came under renewed scrutiny, and his cases were once again reassigned, after federal and state investigators raided his home. He had not been charged with any crime, but he had drawn the authorities’ attention because of his ties to Peter Gerace Jr., the owner of a strip club in Cheektowaga, another Buffalo suburb.
Mr. Gerace was charged in federal court in Florida last year with sex trafficking, drug distribution and bribery of a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent. He denies the charges, and the case has since been transferred to the Western District of New York.
The former agent, Joseph Bongiovanni, has been charged with bribery, obstruction and conspiracy. An indictment detailing the charges against the two men says that Mr. Bongiovanni’s associates included people “he believed to be members of, connected to or associated with” organized crime.
Another man identified in the indictment as having links to organized crime is Michael Masecchia, a longtime Buffalo schoolteacher now facing up to life in prison after pleading guilty to gun and drug charges.

According to reports, the judge committed suicide. He had tried to kill himself last year on the same day Mr. Gerace was indicted.

Rae Allen, actress. Other credits include “Lou Grant”, “Soap”, and “The Untouchables”.

Posted in Cycling, Law, Obits, Theatre, Trains, TV | 1 Comment »

Historical note, NOT suitable for use in schools.

Monday, April 4th, 2022

This post is strictly in the interest of history. I am not posting this for any prurient reasons: it just seems like an appropriate bit of history, especially since I recently mentioned Leslie Van Houten.

Never-before-seen photos of murdered blond bombshell Sharon Tate have been found in a California garage.

To be clear, these are not post mortem photos: they were taken when Ms. Tate was 21. She was 26 when the Manson family murdered her.

Cabrejas, 46, had been searching for camera equipment to photograph a solar eclipse when she came across the pics.
“They had been sitting in our garage for years until I came across them cleaning his stuff,” the West Los Angeles native told SWNS.
She added that the photos were “totally a casual thing, from before she was even famous.” Tate was just starting to build her career at the time and was going to a plethora of auditions.

I am, of course, in the interest of respecting copyright and intellectual property, not reproducing the photos here. You can click through to the linked NY Post article if you wish to view a selection of them.

Posted in California Über Alles, Law, Movies, Photography | 2 Comments »

Quick note from the California legal beat.

Wednesday, March 30th, 2022

Eligible for parole in California: Frederick Woods. Mr. Woods was one of three men involved in the Chowchilla school bus kidnapping.

Richard and James Schoenfeld (brothers) were paroled in 2012 and 2015 respectively.

Mr. Woods, who was 24 at the time of the kidnapping, was given a sentence of seven years to life in prison. He began serving his sentence in 1978 and has been held at the California Men’s Colony, a state prison in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
The panel’s decision is subject to review by Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who has 30 days to let it stand or refer the application to the full parole board. Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, cannot override the decision because Mr. Woods was not convicted of murder.

Not eligible for parole: Leslie Van Houten.

Van Houten is serving a life sentence for helping Manson and others kill Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in August 1969. Van Houten was 19 when she and other cult members fatally stabbed the LaBiancas and smeared the couple’s blood on the walls.

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

Obit watch: March 25, 2022.

Friday, March 25th, 2022

Scoey Mitchell, comedian and actor.

Born on March 12, 1930, in Newburgh, New York, Roscoe Mitchell Jr. started out as a nightclub comedian. For one joke, he talked about mowing the lawn outside his new house when a white man complimented his work and asked how much he was getting paid. He said, “I get to sleep with the lady inside.”

Credits (other than “Barefoot In the Park”) include “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling”, and guest shots on “Lou Grant”, “Police Story”, and “The Six Million Dollar Man”.

Yvan Colonna. This is a couple of days old, and you’ve probably never heard of him, but the case is interesting.

Mr. Colonna was a Corsican nationalist.

Corsica is closer to Italy than France in language, culture and geography, and it is home to a nationalist movement that has mostly renounced violence but remains deeply rooted on the island.

In 1998, Claude Érignac, who was basically France’s appointed governor of Corsica, was shot and killed.

Mr. Colonna, who had always claimed his innocence in Mr. Érignac’s murder, was first sought by the French police in 1999, after investigators arrested a group of men suspected of involvement in the killing. Several of them identified Mr. Colonna as the gunman, although they would later retract their statements, accusing the police of having pressured them.

Mr. Colonna evaded capture for four years. He was convicted of murder in 2007. That conviction was later overturned, but he was convicted again in 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Three weeks ago, Mr. Colonna was attacked by another inmate:

…a known Islamist extremist who had been convicted on terrorism charges and had a history of violent acts in prison. The inmate, identified by French authorities as Franck Elong Abé, 35, beat, strangled and suffocated Mr. Colonna in the prison gym.
Mr. Elong Abé later told investigators that he had heard Mr. Colonna make “blasphemous” comments. Prosecutors have opened an investigation. But it is still unclear how the attack was able to last nearly 10 minutes without any intervention from prison guards.

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

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#84 in a series)

Friday, March 25th, 2022

Missed this yesterday, but: Jeff Fortenberry (R-Nebraska) was convicted. (Previously.)

A federal jury deliberated less than two hours before convicting the nine-term Nebraska congressman on one count of concealing conduit campaign contributions and two counts of lying to federal agents.

…

The congressman faces up to five years in prison on each count, although he could also receive supervised release.
Ironically, he does not have to give up his congressional seat. Federal law requires members of Congress to give up their seats only for crimes that are tied to treason.

I’m sorry, but you know I have to do this.

Going back to the story, though, he does face a primary challenge from Mike Flood (a state senator).

The investigation ramped up when the FBI discovered that a Nigerian billionaire, Gilbert Chagoury, had been funneling cash into the campaigns of four Republican politicians: former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, current California Rep. Darrell Issa, former Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry and Fortenberry.
It is illegal for U.S. elected officials to accept foreign money.
The World-Herald asked prosecutor Mack Jenkins, who led the case with the help of prosecutors Susan Har and Jamari Buxton, if Fortenberry would have been prosecuted had he gotten rid of the money soon after learning it was suspect. The other three politicians weren’t prosecuted; they got rid of any illegal money soon after they were confronted. Fortenberry took 2 ½ years to give his to charity. And was evasive along the way.

Mitt Romney, you say? Hmmmm hmmmm hmmmm.

In other news, I don’t know that I want to do a full flaming hyenas on this one, but I can’t resist the NYPost:

It was the usual: she got drunk…

…allegedly said one girl was an “acne f–ker,” and hurled multiple insults at other young girls as well.
“Hispanic f–ker,” she allegedly said to one girl attending the sleepover and “judgy f–ker,” to another.

She also threw up in a laundry basket and someone’s shoe. The article doesn’t specify if the shoe belonged to “judgy f–ker”, but I’d personally be pretty judgy if someone threw up in my shoe.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 21, 2022.

Monday, March 21st, 2022

Av Westin, TV news guy. (“20/20”)

Dr. Julian Heicklen, “a charismatic, cantankerous chemistry professor who dedicated his retirement years to a series of public protests in defense of civil liberties” as the paper of record describes him. He was 90.

What is sort of buried in the NYT obit is the actual nature of his protests. He was an advocate of jury nullification:

Rain or shine, he arrived every Monday — the day when juries are typically chosen — holding a sign reading “Jury Info” and handing out yellow pamphlets that explained the meaning and history of jury nullification.
Though he typically stood alone, he was one of many around the country engaged in similar protests, motivated by concerns about what they saw as unjust laws and prosecutorial overreach and convinced that jurors willing to take the law into their own hands were the last barrier to tyranny.

This being New York City, he was indicted in 2010 on charges of “jury tampering”.

The case drew extensive coverage, giving Dr. Heicklen the sort of platform he had only dreamed of, and he played it for all he could. At his bail hearing, he hung his head and refused to speak, leading the judge to ask if he was sleeping.
“I’m exercising my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent,” he finally piped up. At his arraignment hearing, he laid into the judge and prosecutors for what he called their “tissue of lies.”
The case was short-lived: Judge Kimba M. Wood threw it out in April 2012, ruling that as long as Dr. Heicklen was not targeting individual jurors, he was merely exercising his First Amendment rights.

…

“The case cleared the way for people across the country to be able to engage in jury nullification advocacy without the threat of federal prosecution,” Chris Dunn, the legal director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in an interview. “He stood out there every day fighting what he viewed as unjust prosecutions and unjust criminal laws. And that’s admirable, classic political protest.”

Posted in Law, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 16, 2022.

Wednesday, March 16th, 2022

Sharon Lee Gallegos. She was 4.

On July 21, 1960, she was abducted from the backyard of her grandmother’s home in Alamogordo, New Mexico. A body was found about 10 days later: but, at the time, law enforcement did not believe the body belonged to Ms. Gallegos.

The body had remained unidentified, and known as “Little Miss Nobody” since that time. Yesterday, the local sheriff’s office announced that they had established through DNA testing that it was actually the body of Ms. Gallegos.

Tyler James, golf coach at the University of the Southwest. Sometimes there’s just nothing you can say.

Posted in Law, Obits | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#83 in a series)

Friday, March 4th, 2022

The former mayor of Beaverton, Oregon, Dennis “Denny” Doyle, has been busted by the Feds.

Doyle, 73, a Beaverton resident, has been charged by criminal information with one count of possession of child pornography.
According to the information, between November 2014 and December 2015, Doyle is alleged to have knowingly and unlawfully possessed digital material containing child pornography, including images depicting minors under twelve.

I have not been able to determine if Mr. Doyle is or was a member of Corrupt Mayors Against Law-Abiding Gun Owners.

(Hattip to Mike the Musicologist, who asked if it counted since he’s a former mayor. I’m going to go ahead and say “yes” in this case.)

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

NRA news.

Thursday, March 3rd, 2022

I have said before that I’ve avoided covering the NRA’s issues. I do not trust anybody (except a very small handful of people) to report on those issues accurately and fairly. The small handful of people I do trust, I do not have permission to quote here.

That being said:

A judge Tuesday tossed out New York Attorney General Letitia James’ bid to break up the National Rifle Association, while allowing much of the remainder of her lawsuit to go forward.

…

But on Wednesday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joel Cohen tossed the claim to dissolve the NRA, finding that there were ways to reform it — such as potentially removing the top executives.
“In short, the complaint does not allege the type of public harm that is the legal linchpin for imposing the ‘corporate death penalty,’” Cohen’s decision reads. “Moreover, dissolving the NRA could impinge, at least indirectly, on the free speech and assembly rights of its millions of members.”
“The remedy of dissolution is, in the court’s view, disproportionate and not narrowly tailored to address the financial malfeasance alleged in the complaint, which is amply covered by the Attorney General’s other claims,” the decision reads.

I think this is the right decision, for the right reasons. If the NRA leadership is committing fraud against the membership, there are remedies for this that don’t involve dissolving the organization, as the judge said. My only disappointment is that the judge did not start the process of disbarring New York Attorney General Letitia James for malicious prosecution and overreach.

I sent this around yesterday to a small group, including two bloggers I know. One blogger agreed with me that it was shocking to see a sensible gun-related ruling from a judge in New York.

The other blogger commented that they had just sent back their NRA board election ballot: they voted for Frank Tait, wrote “Wayne Must Go” in four out of five write in slots, and “Fire Wayne Now” in the fifth.

(If those bloggers want to out themselves in comments, they’re welcome to.)

On a semi-related note:

A Nassau County politician wants Long Islanders to donate guns so he can ship them to Ukraine for use in the ongoing conflict with Russia.

…

[Bruce] Blakeman hopes to collect hunting rifles and civilianized military-style semiautomatic weapons, like AR-15s.

But wait! I thought “military-style semiautomatic weapons” were illegal in New York!

Also:

…he admitted that he had not yet identified a way to get the guns halfway around the world and would likely need federal agencies to sign off on the shipment.

…

Blakeman told The Post he’s setting up a four-day gun collection to run Friday through next Monday, even though he has yet to find a way to ship the guns overseas to the war-torn country.
He said he’s asking individuals to drop off or buy and then donate firearms at a licensed gun store, SP Firearms Unlimited, in Franklin Square, New York.
He said he’s also raised around $20,000 for the effort, as of Wednesday.
“I will be the first to buy a gun and donate it to the Ukrainian people.”

This sounds like a giant sting operation, whether intentional by Blakeman or unintentional but inadvertent.

Also, how is this going to work? Is it like a Lend Lease thing? Will people get their guns back after the war?

(I know this didn’t happen with most of the Lend Lease guns. But I have a very vivid memory – which I can’t back up now – of seeing a target rifle that a prominent marksman sent to the UK during WWII. It had a brass plaque attached to the stock with his name and a short explanation on it: after the war, the rifle found its way back to him. It may be in the NRA museum in Springfield, but again, I’m not sure.)

Posted in Guns, Law, NRA | Comments Closed

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