More from the WP on “Fat Leonard”:
Things I wish I hadn’t read, after the jump (so you can skip it)…
Archive for the ‘Law’ Category
Small update.
Thursday, February 1st, 2018Random notes: February 1, 2018.
Thursday, February 1st, 2018There’s a really good profile in The Guardian of Mary Beard, Cambridge professor of classics and noted historian.
The timing on this amuses me, as I just finished SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome earlier this week. (And Amazon now has the paperback for a shockingly low price.)
I’d love to meet Dr. Beard and spend some time talking to her. I suspect we’d disagree on a lot of contemporary issues, but I think she’d be a fun person to talk history with. One of the things I loved about SPQR was how much time she spent on things other authors don’t talk about: the daily lives of the poor, middle class, and other people who didn’t write long letters to their friends, to take one example. For another example, her discussion of the ancient bar in Ostia, with pictures of the “Seven Sages” and their profound advice. Or the discussion of early Roman dice games.
And some of Dr. Beard’s views on contemporary subjects are a bit surprising, at least to me:
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Llano is a town northwest of Austin, about 90 minutes away. It’s a small town (a little over 3,000 people in 2010). It is perhaps most famous as being the home of Cooper’s barbecue, one of the top 50 joints in Texas.
As a small town, Llano has a small police force. Which can be…a problem.
The four officers are currently on leave. Another former officer was also indicted “on a charge of tampering with evidence and accused of destroying a digital recording of a drug crime scene on March 26”.
So what the hell happened?
Officer Shannon allegedly threatened to tase Nutt as well. Nutt was charged with public intoxication, but the charges were dropped.
It sounds like the dispute boils down to: Nutt was drunk and probably making a scene, the officers responded, he stepped outside of his camper briefly and then went back inside, and the officers stepped up into his camper and arrested him for PI. At least, that’s the spin that two of the defense lawyers are putting on it.
However:
Ken is the man that we all need.
Wednesday, January 24th, 2018Ken White is my new favorite person in the world.
At least, for the rest of the day today.
(Subject line hattip. Yes, I realize it’s about a vastly different Ken in a vastly different context, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to reference one of Kate’s more obscure but still rocking songs.)
Convenience store news.
Saturday, January 20th, 2018…
Good, but not good enough. As I’ve said before, there’s no reason for the continued existence of BATFE: let Treasury handle the tax collection part of their mandate (including NFA), and let the FBI handle the criminal investigation part.
Worth noting:
Is there really a compelling reason for the Federal government to spend money from Texas taxpayers to keep people from buying smokes in Virginia and reselling them in New York without paying the $43.50 a carton tax? I know, organized crime: but New York has their own law enforcement agencies, and if they really wanted to shut down organized crime, they could drop the $43.50 a carton tax.
Obit watch: January 14, 2018.
Sunday, January 14th, 2018Some more from the past couple of days:
Keith Jackson, legendary announcer.
Edgar Ray Killen is burning in Hell.
David Toschi passed away a week ago Saturday. FotB RoadRich mentioned this to me in the middle of the week – he saw it on a low-rent cable channel – but I had a lot of trouble finding a good obit. I couldn’t find the actual obit on SFGate: I was only able to get at an arthive.org version.
Anyway, “David who”? He was a famous San Francisco PD detective. He was one of the lead investigators on the Zodiac killings.
He was removed from the case after revelations that in 1976 he had sent several letters praising his own work to a San Francisco newspaper writer under fake names.
“It was a foolish thing to do,” he acknowledged at the time.
I don’t remember where I picked up this detail (maybe in the archive.org version), but that “newspaper writer” the NYT doesn’t name? Armistead Maupin, who was working as a reporter for the SF Chron at the time.
But that wasn’t the only reason he was semi-famous, at least among us common sewers connoisseurs:
Mr. Toschi was a personality in the police department even before his involvement with the Zodiac case, so much so that Steve McQueen had borrowed from him for the fictional police officer he played in the 1968 movie “Bullitt.”
“They literally were filming in my dad’s office,” Ms. Toschi-Chambers said. “My dad took off his jacket, and Steve McQueen said, ‘What is that?’ And my dad said, ‘That’s my holster.’ And Steve McQueen told the director, ‘I want one of those.’ ”
(I wonder what that holster was: and if it’s out of production, how much do vintage ones go for? There’s a discussion on defensivecarry.com, but I can’t judge how accurate it is.)
(Damn shame. He missed out. And I still haven’t seen “Zodiac”.)
Edited to add: this might lead to a longer post later, but: there are certainly worse hobbies in the world than engaging in Steve McQueen cosplay. Though I will concede that could get expensive quick, especially if you go full “Bullitt” and start looking for a Mustang.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#45 in a series)
Wednesday, January 10th, 2018Pamela Harris, a Brooklyn assemblywoman, was indicted yesterday.
Ms. Harris is a “retired New York City correction officer” who took office in 2015. She is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, but it sounds like her fraud was wide-ranging, and the prosecution has plenty of evidence:
…
The charges suggest a striking degree of planning and elaborate attempts to cover up illegal actions. Prosecutors said, for example, that Ms. Harris used a forged lease to draw down discretionary funds from the City Council, money that was supposed to be used to rent a studio space for the nonprofit, which seeks to involve children and young adults in the arts. Instead, Ms. Harris diverted the money to her personal checking account. All told, some $35,000 was received in two separate instances using such funds, prosecutors said.
In the Hurricane Sandy scheme, Ms. Harris is accused of creating fake lease agreements and receipts, and forging a landlord’s signature, to receive housing assistance money from FEMA for 14 months after the storm, a ploy that she also used to receive financial assistance to repair her Coney Island home in 2016. And once she became aware of a federal investigation last year, Ms. Harris told potential witnesses to lie to federal agents, the authorities said.
(Hattip to Mike the Musicologist, who pointed out that the NYPost coverage waits until paragraph 21 to mention Ms. Harris’s party affiliation. Say what you will about the NYT, but they got that into paragraph 2.)
De minimis non curat lex.
Tuesday, December 26th, 2017However, this sounds like an excellent case for small clams court.
This gives a new meaning…
Monday, December 25th, 2017It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… (part IV)
Saturday, December 23rd, 2017Well, I got an early Christmas present this year. And it sits at the odd intersection of musical theater, law, politics, Christmas…and Rhode Island.
The folks at the Crimetown podcast did a partial reconstruction of “Buddy Cianci: The Musical”.
—Jonathan Van Gieson
The musical had seven performances at the New York Fringe Festival in 2003. It has not been performed since, and there was no original cast recording.
This made me tear up a little: Jacksonville Jaguars fans decided to send trash cans to Houston Texans defensive end Jadeveon Clowney after he called their quarterback “trash”.
Jadeveon Clowney’s response? Fill the trash cans and a van full of toys and give them to needy children. Like Lawrence, I’m still mostly checked out of the NFL, but this is a good story.
Quickies from the legal beat.
Friday, December 22nd, 2017Some serious, some less so.
Former Michigan state trooper charged with second degree murder in the death of a 15-year-old boy. He was a passenger in another trooper’s vehicle: they chased after the kid, who was driving an ATV, and the trooper fired a Taser out the window.
(Hattip: Morlock Publishing on the Twitter. The Powers of the Earth is available in a Kindle edition, and would probably make a swell gift for the SF fan in your life. I already own a copy, but haven’t read it yet.)
Grandma got stopped by a state trooper,
Driving to Vermont for Christmas Eve.
People say “It’s just weed,”
But the state says “60 lbs is a felony.”
(Those lyrics probably need some work.)
Obit watch: December 21, 2017.
Thursday, December 21st, 2017Clifford Irving passed away on Tuesday.
Mr. Irving, for the younger set, was a somewhat prominent author and journalist in the 1960s and 1970s. Among his works is FAKE! The Story of Elmyr de Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time. I’ve actually been interested in reading that: nice to know there’s a cheap Kindle edition and I don’t have to seek out the hardcover.
But sometime in 1970, Mr. Irving came up with the idea that made him infamous: an autobiography of Howard Hughes. It didn’t make any difference that Hughes was extremely reclusive and didn’t talk to journalists.
He got $750,000 for the book, $400,000 for the paperback rights, and $250,000 for serial rights.
And he was wrong.
At the end of 1971, with McGraw-Hill and Life ready to go to press, the scheme began to unravel. Mr. Hughes went public and denied knowing Mr. Irving, first through a representative and later in a conference call with seven journalists based in Los Angeles.
Swiss banking investigators soon discovered that a Zurich bank account belonging to “H. R. Hughes” had been opened by Mr. Irving’s wife, Edith Irving, a German-born Swiss citizen, using a forged passport with the name Helga R. Hughes.
As the evidence piled up, the house of cards collapsed. In March 1972, the Irvings pleaded guilty to conspiracy in federal court. In state court, along with Mr. Irving’s research assistant, Richard Suskind, they pleaded guilty to conspiracy and grand larceny. Mr. Irving was given a prison sentence of two and a half years and served 17 months. Mr. Suskind received a sentence of six months, of which he served five.
Mr. Irving went on to write some novels and true crime books.
You can get “F for Fake” in a Criterion edition: I’ve seen it and recommend it.
You can also get The Hoax, Mr. Irving’s account of the affair, and Autobiography Of Howard Hughes: Confessions of an Unhappy Billionaire, the actual book, through Amazon as Kindle books.
Because he got high.
Monday, December 18th, 2017Because he got high, Ryan Boehle threatened to shoot cops.
Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration: “he planned to celebrate his 50th birthday by shooting police because he was upset about a drunken driving arrest in which his blood test came back negative for alcohol”.
Mr. Boehle was arrested. The police seized a total of 13 guns, “1,110 bullets” (sorry, I’m quoting the Statesman here) and 6.3 grams of marijuana.
Mr. Boehle was never actually charged for the threats. The judge in the case is quoted as calling his writings “marijuana-induced gibberish.” It sounds like this is one of those true threat/not a true threat sort of legal distinctions that Ken White keeps trying to explain to myself and other people, and I keep not understanding, but that’s getting off topic.
(Also, “Marijuana-Induced Gibberish” would be a great name for a band.)
But we have to throw him in jail for something, right?
(“Why?” Hey, that’s not the kind of question you should be asking.)
I know! We’ll get him for “making a false statement in connection with the attempted acquisition of a firearm”! Mr. Boehle has a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction from 1993 in Connecticut: he allegedly “slapped, choked and bit his girlfriend”. As a result of this, he apparently failed the background check at three Austin area gun shops (again, per the Statesman).
Oh, dear. Now what is the state going to do?
Wait: there’s that devil’s lettuce they found!
Cutting closer to the end of the story, Mr. Boehle pled out to a charge of “owning a gun as a prohibited person”. You see, pot is still federally illegal, and the law says it is illegal for a pot smoker to own guns.
This doesn’t happen a lot. The Statesman quotes one California attorney who specializes in pot law as saying he’s never seen this in 50 years of practice. On the other hand, though, the Honolulu PD famously recently sent out letters to people with medical marijuana cards: “Give up your guns, or else.” (They apparently haven’t followed through on the “or else” part yet.)
Mr. Boehle was sentenced to five years of probation, and will be drug tested as part of that. The twist at the end is: he has a form of epilepsy, and wants to use a low THC marijuana extract to treat it. But he’s going to have to get his probation terms modified to allow this treatment. Texas has only recently legalized the use of the extract to treat epilepsy (“…only after a patient has tried at least two other treatments”) so Mr. Boehle will be venturing into uncharted territory.
So, so close…
Thursday, December 14th, 2017Hutto is a fairly small city near Austin (about 15,000 people).
…
…
Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs and several other weapons were arranged in a “defensive posture” throughout the residence, the release says.
Hutto police also found an illegal alcohol distillery at the property. Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission agents joined the other agencies in the house search to dismantle the distillery.
So we’ve got:
- Alcohol
- Firearms
- and Explosives
Man, if they had just had untaxed cigarettes or something else equally ludicrous, we would have had the BATFE quadfecta.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#44 in a series)
Monday, December 11th, 2017This is outside of my usual area of coverage, but there’s a nice twist to it.
On Friday, former Massachusetts state senator Brian A. Joyce was arrested. There are 113 counts in the indictment, including “mail fraud, theft of federal funds, money laundering, scheme to defraud the IRS, 20 counts of extortion, seven counts of money laundering, and conspiracy to impair the functions of the IRS.”
“conspiracy to impair the functions of the IRS”. I love that.
But 113 counts? Man, dude is a bit of an overachiever there. What was his secret?
Would you believe…coffee?
Joyce received up to 700 pounds of free coffee, and roughly $125,000 grand in alleged kickbacks, from a Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee owner, who later claimed it was in exchange for legal services. Joyce passed out coffee at town hall meetings and to other senators, authorities said.
“No decaf,” Joyce told the franchisee owner in a December 2014 email for one request, according to the indictment. He added “We like k cups (sic) at my office if possible.”
I know, if you’re going to sell out for coffee, why not make it good coffee? But I don’t think my Texas readers understand the extent to which the Northeast runs on Dunkin’ Donuts. I think I’ve told the story before about traveling in that neck of the woods with some friends and co-workers, and the Dunkin’ Donuts every 100 yards becoming a running gag with us.