In great haste, because this is breaking and I have seven minutes left on my coffee break:
Baltimore mayor Catherine E. Pugh resigned today.
The mayor has been on leave since April 1st, dealing with health issues.
Archive for the ‘Law’ Category
Healthy Holly update.
Thursday, May 2nd, 2019You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#55 in a series)
Friday, April 26th, 2019We have now come to the point where I have done as many of these as I have “Art, damn it, art!” watches. (And more of these than Art Acevedo watches.)
The mayor of Edinburg, Texas, and his wife have been arrested on charges of election fraud and illegal voting.
Edinburg is in the southern part of the state, in the area generally called the “Rio Grande Valley”.
More:
Nearly 20 people have been arrested since last year in connection with the fraud case. Prosecutors said the scheme — involving Mr. Molina, his wife and paid campaign workers — was largely carried out by having numerous voters who did not live in Edinburg claim they were residents, including many who stated they lived in an apartment complex Mr. Molina owns.
According to court documents, Mr. Molina and his wife were both registered as volunteer voter registrars in the 2017 election and were authorized to help people fill out voter registration applications. Several of those with false addresses were signed by Mr. Molina and included his voter registrar number, according to the criminal complaint.
This does not exactly strike me as being a genius scheme.
The Mr. Garcia mentioned above is Richard Garcia, the former mayor, who Mr. Molina defeated by 1,240 votes in the 2017 election.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#54 in a series)
Thursday, April 25th, 2019I want to note here that the flaming hyenas watch is not literal: I don’t intend for crooked politicians to catch fire. “You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena!” is a reference to a classic “Bloom County” strip that, sadly, isn’t available on line.
Why does this matter? I’ll get to that.
But first: I was trying to keep up with Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and the whole “Healthy Holly” scandal. Really, I was. But I got busy with Holy Week and taxes and other stuff and…fortunately, Lawrence sent me the latest news.
The FBI raided the mayor’s home this morning.
And City Hall.
And “several other locations” associated with the mayor.
Telling detail:
In other news: Tyus Byrd was mayor of Parma, Missouri. She lost her re-election bid. Her successor was sworn in a little more than a week ago.
Right after the swearing in, Mayor Byrd’s house caught fire.
Sounds like bad luck, right? You lose the mayor’s race, then your house catches fire?
Then City Hall caught fire, too.
What began as a small-town changing of the guard has quickly become a statewide investigation. The authorities suspect foul play, and the state fire marshal’s office is assisting the local sheriff’s office in an arson inquiry. At the same time, the state auditor’s office announced it had opened an audit into Parma’s finances after finding credible allegations of problems under Ms. Byrd’s watch. Some have tied the two investigations together, suggesting that the fires were meant to destroy evidence, while another theory purported that Ms. Byrd had been targeted because of her race.
Chris Hensley, a chief deputy with the New Madrid County Sheriff’s Department, said that the evidence showed that multiple fires had been set at City Hall and that arson was suspected.
The building is apparently intact, but (quel frommage!) “nearly all records and the computer” (?) were destroyed.
“Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.” But this is a case where I don’t think we need to wait for a third time.
Obit watch: April 25, 2019.
Thursday, April 25th, 2019Wow. Lots going on.
This is breaking news: Lawrence beat me to it (because I had to wait for my lunch hour to post).
Former Williamson County DA Jana Duty was found dead in a South Texas condo yesterday.
I have a WCDA tag for reasons: if you go back and look, or read Lawrence’s post, you’ll see that former DA Duty was controversial and apparently had some issues during her tenure. But this is still a sad and awful thing.
Mark Medoff, playwright. He was best known for “Children of a Lesser God”, which won multiple Tony awards and was the basis for the Oscar winning Marlee Matlin movie.
This one is for Mike the Musicologist: Heather Harper, soprano.
An unanticipated performance in 1962 brought Ms. Harper international attention when, on 10 days’ notice, she substituted for Galina Vishnevskaya in the premiere of Britten’s “War Requiem.” The work was written to dedicate the new Coventry Cathedral in England, the original 14th-century structure having been bombed into ruin during World War II.
As a gesture of reconciliation, Britten, a pacifist, had intended the soloists to be the tenor Peter Pears (an Englishman), the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (a German) and Ms. Vishnevskaya (a Russian). But the Soviet government refused to allow Ms. Vishnevskaya to travel to Coventry for the premiere. Ms. Harper, just turned 32, took her place and triumphed.
She did a lot of work with Britten (including Ellen in the 1969 BBC production of “Peter Grimes”) but she had a larger repertoire, including singing “Lohengrin” at Bayreuth.
Fay McKenzie, actress. Her story is interesting:
She was also in five Blake Edwards movies and five Gene Autry movies. Ms. McKenzie was 101 when she passed.
Ken Kercheval. He did a lot of TV work (no “Mannix”, though) and was probably most famous as Cliff Barnes on “Dallas”. (He was also in “Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell“, which I’d kind of like to watch. Lawrence, however, does not seem to care much for movies involving demonic dogs.)
Finally, Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg. Noted:
As the crown prince, he fled Luxembourg with the grand ducal family after Germany invaded the country in May 1940 and found refuge in France, Portugal, the United States and Canada before moving to Britain to join the Irish Guards, a regiment of the British Army, as a private in 1942.
He participated in the Allies’ invasion of Normandy in 1944 and fought in the Battle for Caen there. Three months later he took part in the liberation of Brussels.
Among other honors, he received a Silver Star from the United States, a War Medal from Britain and the French Croix de Guerre. He was promoted to colonel in the Irish Guards in 1984 and was made an honorary general of the British Army in 1995.
Obit watch: April 20, 2019.
Saturday, April 20th, 2019Warren Adler, novelist. He is perhaps most famous as the author of The War of the Roses, which was adapted into the Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner film.
James W. McCord Jr., leader of the Watergate burglars.
On June 17, 1972, four expatriate Cubans and Mr. McCord, chief of security for the Nixon re-election campaign and a leader of the White House “plumbers” unit assigned to plug information leaks, broke into Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington to fix problematic listening devices that they had planted weeks earlier.
But a night watchman alerted the police, and they were caught, odd burglars in business suits carrying cameras and walkie-talkies. E. Howard Hunt, a former C.I.A. agent, and G. Gordon Liddy, the re-election committee’s general counsel, who ran the break-in from a nearby hotel room, fled but were soon arrested. Mr. McCord revealed at an arraignment that he had once worked for the C.I.A., and the unraveling began.
Interesting thing about this obit: Mr. McCord apparently passed away in June of 2017, but his death was not widely reported until recently.
Lorraine Warren, “psychic” fraud.
This was noted elsewhere earlier in the week, but for the historical record: Geraldyn M. “Jerri” Cobb, noted pilot and an early recruit for the astronaut program.
Noted.
Thursday, April 18th, 20191. Judith Clark has been granted parole. Officer Waverly Brown and Sgt. Edward O’Grady of the Nyack Police Department were unavailable for comment, as was Brinks employee Peter Paige.
2. Thread:
at some point I'd like to write something in long-form about Magnum Force (the second Dirty Harry movie) vs A Few Good Men as different manifestations of what might be called the centurion pattern.
— QWRhbSBFbGt1cw== (@Aelkus) April 17, 2019
I haven’t seen “A Few Good Men” yet. (I feel like I should, but: Sorkin.) But I agree with his points on “Magnum Force”. I swear I’ve written about this before, but I think “Dirty Harry” and “Magnum Force” are both much more complicated movies than the people who call them “fascist” give them credit for. “Dirty Harry” is about a good man who is trying to do his job, while coming to terms with a world that’s changing around him. “Magnum Force” is about that same man, who, when given a chance to reject those changes, makes the moral choice not to.
3. Article about Father Fournier from the NYT. Mike the Musicologist sent over a Reddit thread as well.
It seems somehow inappropriate to refer to a priest as a bad a–, but I can’t think of a better word. Before rushing into a burning building, the Father had:
- served with French forces in Afghanistan, and survived an ambush that killed 10 men
- went into Bataclan while the shooting was going on to provide absolution for the victims
Clint Eastwood, call your people, please: Father Fournier would be a good subject for your next movie.
Tactical advice from a priest:
From a military base in Afghanistan to a revered cathedral torn by flames, the rule, he said, is the same: “Always be on the move, or else you die.”
Inside Notre-Dame, he said, he kept the safety of his fellow firefighters foremost in his mind. “Artworks can be reproduced, while a human life can’t,” he said.
“The one who tells you that he’s not afraid in that kind of situation is either very dangerous or foolish,” the chaplain said. “Even for a firefighter, to go inside a building in flames isn’t that natural.”
4. Should Roberto Clemente’s number 21 be retired across all of baseball? My feelings about baseball are well known, so I’m not the person to ask. But I do kind of like Clemente, who died nobly and far too young.
5. The Alliance of American Football has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
A small silly diversion.
Wednesday, April 17th, 2019Lawrence stated the other night that you can Google DuckDuckGo “Florida Man” and any combination of words and almost be guaranteed you’ll get some results back.
Here is a perfect example of that theory:
Florida man arrested after aggressively eating handfuls of pasta
No, you are not having a stroke. Yes, that is an actual headline, though the gentleman in question was actually arrested for (quel frommage!) being drunk and disorderly in public and resisting arrest. To the best of my knowledge, the eating of pasta – even in an aggressive fashion – is not an actual crime in Florida. Yet.
In other news of the weird:
Man in monkey mask stole mail from Southwest Austin apartments, police say
Moral of this story: don’t mess with the postal inspectors. They got his fingerprints off light bulbs, and…
“The Man in the Monkey Mask” was also one of Dumas’s less successful works.
Obit watch: April 10, 2019.
Wednesday, April 10th, 2019Charles Van Doren has passed away at the age of 93.
I wrote a little about this a while back, but to recap: Mr. Van Doren was from a cultured and educated family, had batchelor’s and master’s degrees, taught at Columbia University, and was “handsome, personable” with “an honest look about him”.
He was recruited by Albert Freedman to appear on the quiz show “Twenty-One” (he didn’t even own a TV at the time), and knocked off Herb Stempel, the reigning champion. (From some accounts I’ve seen, the producers basically felt Mr. Van Doren was “more appealing” to the audience than Mr. Stempel.)
Mr. Van Doren won $129,000 in 1956 money (the paper of record claims that’s equivalent to $1 million today).
In succeeding months, as rumors and skepticism over TV quiz shows grew, some contestants admitted that the programs had been fixed. The networks denied it, and Mr. Van Doren insisted that he had not taken part in any deceptions. Besides misleading the press and public, he continued to deceive his family and friends, and even lied to a Manhattan grand jury about his performances.
But on Nov. 2, 1959, he told congressional investigators that the shows had all been hoaxes, that he had been given questions and answers in advance, and that he had been coached to make the performances more dramatic.
Mr. Van Doren served a suspended sentence for second-degree perjury (for lying to the grand jury), went on to work for Encyclopaedia Britannica, and wrote a couple of books after he retired. (He also collaborated on some books with Mortimer Adler.)
The famous New Yorker article from 2008.
As far as I can tell, Herb Stempel is still alive at the age of 92.
Decisions, decisions…
Thursday, April 4th, 2019If I was a book collector and had $100,000 to spend, what should I spend it on?
Let’s see. For that money, I could maybe get two copies of the UK first of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Or maybe just one.
Or I could be like this guy, who paid $100,000 for one book from “Healthy Holly LLC”.
Should I even mention that this guy does business with the city of Baltimore? And that “Healthy Holly LLC” is the mayor’s publishing company?
It doesn’t sound as interesting as Harry Potter, but it may be equally rare:
Bonus: the mayor has an “upscale second hand boutique” that’s been selling Groupons. (Groupons? Those are still a thing?) But when a reporter bought one and went to visit yesterday afternoon…
Getting back to the books, it’s a shame nobody can find them: Lawrence has a birthday coming up, and he’s a connoisseur of books published by political hacks to get money under the table.
Brief notes from the legal beat.
Thursday, April 4th, 2019Following up on a few things:
The Waco biker trials turned into a huge nothingburger.
All charges have been dropped against Chauna Thompson. You may remember her as the Harris County Sheriff’s deputy who was fired and indicted after her husband choked a man to death during an altercation outside a Denny’s. Her husband has been sentenced to 25 years. (Previously. Previously. Previously.)
From the Department of Well, That Will Show Them: The Texas Department of Corrections has banned all chaplains, regardless of religion, from the death chamber. (Previously. More from Reason.)
Bad cop! No doughnut!
Friday, March 29th, 2019Lawrence emailed me about this yesterday: while I think some other people have picked up on this, it still seems to be worth covering.
Paterson, New Jersey police officer (in uniform) slaps the s–t out of a hospital patient lying in a bed. The same officer also previously punched the same man while he was in a wheelchair.
How do we know this happened? One of his fellow officers took cell phone video.
Earlier this month, the Columbus (Ohio) police department disbanded their vice unit. This is the same vice unit that arrested Stormy Daniels, an arrest that Internal Affairs deemed “improper”.
Three out of ten officers in the unit had been suspended, and one – Andrew Mitchell – is under indictment:
Last August, Mitchell shot and killed a woman during a prostitution arrest. He was already being investigated by the department.
On the side, former officer Mitchell (he retired after the indictment) is a landlord. Arguably, he’s a slumlord:
Mitchell is said to own fifteen properties. Assuming he’s owned all of those since 1996, that’s over one eviction per year per property. That seems rather high to me, but this might explain it:
Sometimes, I just don’t know what to say.
Unrelated to bad police side note that I don’t have anyplace else for: the Supreme Court granted Patrick Murphy a stay of execution.
Random notes: March 28, 2019.
Thursday, March 28th, 2019Chron Eye For The Killer Guy:
What did Mr. Murphy do? He’s one of the Texas 7, who broke out of prison in December of 2000, went on the run, and killed Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins while stealing guns from an Oshman’s.
Part of the argument is that Mr. Murphy didn’t actually pull a trigger: he was just a lookout, and it was five other guys who shot Officer Hawkins. But he was still convicted and sentenced to death based on…yes, the law of parties. (Still want to do that podcast some day.)
Pull the other one, guys: it has bells.
(The execution is currently delayed while the Supreme Court evaluates Mr. Murphy’s claim that he’s entitled to a Buddhist spiritual advisor in the death chamber.)
On a much happier note: up yours, Andrew Cuomo. Up yours, Bill de Blasio.
From the legal beat.
Thursday, March 28th, 2019A mistrial was declared yesterday in the murder case against Charles Reedy.
Mr. Reedy was accused of stabbing his roommate to death. However…
I believe that is what lawyers call a “Brady violation”, also known as “bad move, space cadet”. But that’s not why this story is interesting.
You see, Mr. Reedy has been convicted of murder before:
In 2001, a jury found him guilty of killing John Teller in a wooded area near St. Edward’s University and Interstate 35. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
But in 2006, the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin overturned the conviction. Chief Justice W. Kenneth Law wrote an opinion saying, “The jury’s verdict is unsupported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Kind of makes you go “Hmmmmmmmm”, doesn’t it?
Notes from the legal blotter.
Tuesday, March 19th, 2019Mildly interesting, though the Statesman is short on details (perhaps because law enforcement is not giving those out):
The bars were shut down “after a months-long investigation into human trafficking, narcotics and drink solicitation” involving both TABC and the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.
More interesting: APD fired officers Donald Petraitis and Robert Pfaff yesterday.
Why? February of last year, the two officers arrested a man named Quentin Perkins:
Petraitis and Pfaff filed reports that said Perkins had tried to walk away from them and glanced back as if he were planning to run. However, video footage from the incident presented during the officers’ trial showed that Pfaff used a stun gun on Perkins despite Perkins being on his knees with his hands raised.
Parts of the officers’ reports are “simply not true,” Police Chief Brian Manley wrote in their disciplinary memos, which were released Monday.
…
Manley also accused Pfaff and Petraitis of coordinating a false story.
“I find it improbable that both officers came up with a similar version of events, which included things that did not happen … as well as not recalling what actually did happen. … I have serious concerns that Officer Pfaff and Petraitis got their stories straight before they spoke with (a supervisor) and prepared their reports and the probable cause affidavit,” he wrote.
…
Even more interesting: the two officers were charged criminally as a result of this incident…and were acquitted of all the charges. Which is an additional illustration of something they tell the students in our Citizen’s Police Academy classes: you can do everything within the bounds of the law…and still get fired for violating APD policy, if that’s the way the chief wants to go. (And if you actually violated policy. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell the Taser story.)
Edited to add: I was going to include a link to the chief’s memo, but the city of Austin has reorganized the website and made the disciplinary memos extremely hard to find. DuckDuckGo to the rescue, but: the most recent one posted is from January 10th.
Edited to add 2: How bad does a jail have to be before even the people who run it quit? This bad.
Florida Mayor, Florida Mayor…
Thursday, March 14th, 2019I missed out on the first and second parts of this story when they ran originally, but I got tipped off to part three by way of Peter Bonilla on the twitters.
So, part one: a few weeks ago, the police went to serve a warrant on the mayor of Port Richey, Florida. Dale Massad was charged with practicing medicine without a license.
The Florida Department Law Enforcement says the Port Richey Mayor was treating people at his home even though he lost his medical license in 1992.
…
In December of 2017, Massad removed a fish hook from a “patient” who returned to him in April of 2018 to get a shot of cortizone, according to the arrest affidavit obtained by ABC Action News. On August 24, 2018, another “patient” came to Massad for a “surgical procedure” to close a laceration on his left ankle. During that procedure, Massad administered a local anesthetic and gave the “patient” stitches.
Apparently, they sent a SWAT team to arrest the mayor for practicing medicine without a license. That seems a little excessive to me, but it leads us to part two of the story:
The mayor shot at the SWAT team, and has been charged with attempted murder.
But wait! The story gets even better!
So with the mayor in jail and facing attempted murder charges, someone has to fill in, right?
The acting Port Richey mayor is out of jail after being arrested by FDLE agents on obstruction charges Wednesday.
Agents received information that 64-year-old Terrence Rowe, the vice-mayor of Port Richey, was conspiring to interfere with an active criminal investigation.
And what active criminal investigation was he conspiring to interfere with? Go on, guess.
An arrest report says Massad contacted Rowe earlier this month on a recorded jail phone line. During the call, deputies say Massad told Rowe, “I believe (Officer) Howard was hired illegally, fired legally and re-hired illegally.”
According to the arrest report, Massad then added “I don’t know why but he is in on everything,” referring to his arrest.
Deputies say Rowe replied that he was “on it” and Massad told him, “anything you can do is good.” Rowe then said, “You know this doesn’t go down without somebody answering for it,” the arrest report says.
By the way, Massad (who is still in jail on the attempted murder charge) is also now charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and “use of a two-way communication device to facilitate the commission of a crime”.
You’re not the only one, brother.