Archive for the ‘Law’ Category

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Mulligan update.

Monday, October 15th, 2012

Remember Brian C. Mulligan, the Deutsche Bank executive who was suing the city of LA for $50 million dollars after a series of unfortunate events? (The whole story is too long and bizarre to summarize here; the above link takes you to a longer account.)

It seems that Mr. Mulligan had an encounter with the Glendale PD a few days before his wild night with LAPD. It also seems that Glendale PD recorded that encounter. And it seems that Mr. Mulligan admitted using “bath salts”.

On the recording, Mulligan acknowledged snorting the bath salts as many as 20 times. He said he had been trying to find something to help him sleep because he has a “stressful job” and travels extensively. He said he tried to throw the bath salts away and promised the officer to never buy more.

(You may recall from the previous article that Mr. Mulligan was prescribed “medical marijuana” for “insomnia”. Guess that didn’t work.)

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

Last night I dreamt I went to Rikers again.

Monday, October 15th, 2012

Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting the arrest of Mark Hotton, the man who allegedly faked four investors for a Broadway production of “Rebecca”, the musical. (Previously. Previously.)

This hasn’t been picked up by the NYT yet, from what I can tell, but the arrest only took place a few hours ago; I expect more coverage later in the day or tomorrow.

(Subject line explained for those who don’t get the reference.)

Posted in Clippings, Law, Theatre | Comments Closed

Sunday morning link roundup.

Sunday, October 14th, 2012

Some of these are things I promised other people I’d send them a link to, some of these are things I wanted to note in passing.

Here’s the Merlin Mann “Flocked Up” video from the “Worst Website Ever” panel at SXSW 2008. This is where “your (x) is one of the three to fifteen most important things to us” comes from.

HouChron article about women in the brewing profession, complete with photos of the Saint Arnold Brewing Company’s female brewer. The photos in the slide show aren’t quite as good as the one they ran on the front page – the one that made me click through to the article – but they do make me want to try more of the fine products of the company.

I haven’t linked this previously, since many of the people in my circle had already seen it. It turns out that a few haven’t, so: the Ars Technica “I am calling you from Windows” story about Indian “technical support” scammers.

The first set of verdicts came down late Friday in the Austin nightclub trial. (Previously.) I’d also commented that I didn’t think the trial was going all that well for the prosecution: as a matter of fact, the defense rested without presenting any evidence or calling any witnesses, which you have to figure is a sign of confidence that the prosecution does not have a case.

Two of the three Yassine brothers were found guilty of money laundering: Hussain Ali, known as “Mike”, and Hadi. Mohammed Ali Yassine, aka “Steve” was acquitted on the money laundering charges; however, the Statesman says he’s going to be tried on drug charges later.

Basically the only evidence the prosecution had was the word of one of the Yassine cousins, who was a paid federal informer, and who confessed to drug use and theft under oath. My record so far in predicting trial results is mediocre at best, but I would not be shocked to see the convictions overturned on appeal.

And I didn’t actually bring this up, but it came up, and would be useful to link, so: the Wired article about “Cow Clicker”.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Law, Mixology | 2 Comments »

A history of violence.

Friday, October 12th, 2012

Daniel Bissman admitted liaisons with prostitutes. When he applied for the job, he was still on probation for punching a man unconscious. Then there was his drug use, dishonesty and involvement in what he estimated to be as many as 100 domestic violence incidents, according to confidential sheriff’s employment records reviewed by The Times.

The job he applied for was “courthouse security guard”. Apparently, Mr. Bissman would not be carrying a gun in this position (which makes me wonder what the point is). And anybody can apply for any job, of course.

Despite an extensive background investigation detailing Bissman’s misdeeds, he was hired for the $25,944-a-year job in November 2009. After a reporter’s inquiry, Bissman, 36, was placed on leave and an internal sheriff’s investigation was launched into the circumstances of the hiring, including whether Bissman received special treatment, according to a department spokesman.

By the way, Mr. Bissman’s mother “is the longtime personal secretary for Undersheriff Paul Tanaka”.

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

Torah watch.

Friday, October 12th, 2012

Way back in January of 2010, I noted in passing a WP article about Rabbi Menachem Youlus and his “Save a Torah” foundation. Rabbi Youlus claimed to have traveled to Europe repeatedly in order to rescue Torahs that had been misplaced or lost during the Holocaust; the WP suggested that his claims were more than a little exaggerated.

There’s an update:

A federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday sentenced Youlus to 51 months in prison, plus three years probation, for defrauding contributors to his Save a Torah Foundation and peddling scrolls with bogus Holocaust provenance. He also was ordered to pay $990,366.05 in restitution to his victims.

Posted in Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Two from the Times: October 12, 2012.

Friday, October 12th, 2012

Wyclef Jean, a musician, had a charity called Yéle devoted to helping the people of Hati.

The key word there is “had”.

But on his book tour for “Purpose: An Immigrant’s Story,” Mr. Jean, who made an aborted bid for the presidency of Haiti after the earthquake, neglects to mention two key facts: a continuing New York attorney general’s investigation has already found financial improprieties at Yéle, and the charity effectively went out of business last month, leaving a trail of debts, unfinished projects and broken promises.

More:

In 2010, Yéle spent $9 million and half went to travel, to salaries and consultants’ fees and to expenses related to their offices and warehouse. In contrast, another celebrity charity, Sean Penn’s J/P Haitian Relief Organization, spent $13 million with only 10 percent going to those costs.

How much does your charity have to suck to make Sean Penn look good?

And more:

Though Mr. Penn’s group spent $43,000 on office-related expenses, Yéle spent $1.4 million, including $375,000 for “landscaping” and $37,000 for rent to Mr. Jean’s Manhattan recording studio. Yéle spent $470,440 on its own food and beverages.

Some of Yéle’s programming money went to projects that never came to fruition: temporary homes for which it prepaid $93,000; a medical center to have been housed in geodesic domes for which it paid $146,000; the revitalization of a plaza in the Cité Soleil slum, where supposed improvements that cost $230,000 are nowhere to be seen.

But the NYT isn’t all politics and scams and fraud all the time. Sometimes, they let people loose to have a little fun. Or, sometimes, the editors step out for the day, and the children get to play unsupervised. I can’t decide which one applies here:

Buffalo mozzarella is the Great White Whale of American cheesemaking: a dream so exotic and powerful that it drives otherwise sensible people into ruinous monomaniacal quests. Despite all the recent triumphs of our country’s foodie movement (heirloom-turkey-sausage saffron Popsicles; cardamom paprika mayonnaise foam), no one in the United States has, as of yet, figured out how to recreate precisely this relatively simple Old World delicacy — a food with essentially one ingredient (buffalo milk) that is made every day in Italy. Over the last 15 years, in fact, the attempt to make authentic buffalo mozzarella — to nail both its taste and texture — has destroyed businesses from Vermont to Los Angeles. It seems truly doomed. “A Polar wind blows through it,” Melville might have written about it, if he had been a food writer, “and birds of prey hover over it.”

Posted in Clippings, Food, Law | Comments Closed

Quickies for October 11, 2012.

Thursday, October 11th, 2012

The vast majority of people renting homes for this weekend’s Austin City Limits Music Festival could be breaking the law, as only four houses out of an estimated 1,500 short-term rental properties had the required license to operate as of Wednesday.

The city implemented the new rules on short-term rentals ten days ago. Odd how that hasn’t been a problem for the last couple of ACL festivals, but yet the city felt compelled to make a new set of rules anyway. (Yes, it may also have something to do with the F1 race as well, but again, there haven’t been reports of massive short-term rental problems with ACL, or SXSW, or UT football games, or (fill in the blank).)

“It isn’t our desire to be punitive,” Christianson said. “We just want people to have a safe place to stay when they come to Austin.”

Because, of course, people are too dumb to make that decision on their own.

More Alex Karras: NYT. A/V Club.

The question before the court was whether Mr. Ndao was enough of an expert in Senegalese spells to testify at the murder trial of Bakary Camara, 42, who says he killed an ex-girlfriend last fall under the influence of evil spirits. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he murdered the woman, Rita Morelli, 36.

The answer was “no”.

Unfortunately, the Squirrel Report is off the air this week. Which is a darn shame, as not only could they talk about “Commander Squirrel”, but they could also cover this story:

Since the beginning of September, the center has taken in some 400 abandoned baby squirrels, the most in three decades, if you leave out the Ike year.

(Story includes many cute photos of baby squirrels being fed, exactly the sort of thing that’s up Weer’d’s alley.)

Once again, I feel some obligation to comment on the Lance situation. It is looking like option #2 on my list may actually have turned out to be true. But I want to sit down and actually read the USADA report first, and I haven’t had time to do that. (I’m trying to finish the book I’m currently reading, I need to work on the Stanford Computer Networking class, I’m working on planning a birthday celebration, there’s still a movie I want to see, and some other things going on. Plus, tubular bells.)

Anyway, I’ll try to get to it, maybe over the weekend if I can manage to knock out the Stanford stuff.

Posted in Austin, Books, Clippings, Law, Obits, Politics, Sports | Comments Closed

Quote of the day.

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

The problem is that Think Progress, Huffington Post, and BoingBoing are full of shit.

—Ken @ Popehat

I commend this post to your attention, as not only does it masterfully dissect the idea that the law should be what we feel it should be, rather than what it actually is, but it also points out gross misconduct by Antinous, a Boing Boing moderator.

More from Ken:

I’m outraged that the prosecution made a lousy and seemingly inexplicable call. I’m outraged that someone who sexually assaulted a profoundly handicapped woman goes free because of incompetence. But I’m not outraged that the state has to prove that you’re guilty of the specific crime you’re charged with to put you in prison.

(It is probably worth pointing out that this has some relevance to the Mirkarimi situation. Yes, he thumped his woman. Yes, he was convicted of a crime. But the arguments of the people who opposed his firings are that the mayor doesn’t have the authority to fire Mirkarimi, and that his crime took place before he was in office, so it shouldn’t count. I don’t much like these arguments, but I’m having trouble sorting out whether I don’t like them because that’s the way I feel the law should be, rather than the way it actually is, even if “the way it is” is stupid in my opinion.)

Posted in Geek, Law | Comments Closed

Bad sheriff. No biscuit. No, wait…

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

I’ve written previously about San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who has been convicted of domestic violence.

The mayor of San Francisco needed nine out of eleven votes from the city’s Board of Supervisors to fire Sheriff Mirkarimi.

He didn’t get them.

Four members of the board rejected Lee’s call that Mirkarimi be permanently removed for committing official misconduct, an allegation that stemmed from a New Year’s Eve fight with his wife for which he later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of false imprisonment.

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

Life imitates:

Monday, October 8th, 2012

An episode of “Seinfeld”:

California’s generous recycling redemption program has led to rampant fraud. Crafty entrepreneurs are driving semi-trailers full of cans from Nevada or Arizona, which don’t have deposit laws, across the border and transforming their cargo into truckfuls of nickels. In addition, recyclers inside the state are claiming redemptions for the same containers several times over, or for containers that never existed.

A WCD post:

In what was billed as a major foreign policy address, Mitt Romney blasted President Obama’s leadership in the Middle East on Monday, saying that a withering of American resolve had made the region a more dangerous place where the United States has less leverage.
“Hope is not a strategy,’’ Romney said.

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

Quick followups.

Monday, October 8th, 2012

Remember the rapist HPD cop? The jury handed down his sentence: life in prison.

He’ll be eligible for parole after 30 years.

And the latest update on the “Rebecca” front: those four investors, including the one who supposedly died of malaria, never existed. At least, according to the producer’s lawyer. Still unclear: what was the motivation to make these people up?

(Darn shame that “Law and Order” isn’t on any longer. This story is starting to read like an episode of that series. And I can’t really see how you’d fit this into “Kinky Sex Crimes” – er, I mean, “Special Victims Unit”.)

Posted in Law, Theatre, TV | 3 Comments »

Headline of the day.

Monday, October 8th, 2012

‘Commander Squirrel’ Linked to Man’s Mystery Death

“Commander Squirrel”?

Mexican authorities have arrested an alleged drug cartel leader known as Commander Squirrel who they say is linked to the 2010 murder of American jet skier David Hartley on a border lake, as well as to more than 200 other deaths in Mexico.

Wow. If you’re a cartel boss:

  1. How do you get a nickname like “Commander Squirrel”?
  2. How do you not shoot anyone who calls you “Commander Squirrel”?
  3. Is there a sub-commander called “Moose”? There has to be, right?

Posted in Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Random notes: October 5, 2012.

Friday, October 5th, 2012

Our pals at the NYT have an interesting update on the “Rebecca” front. (Previously. Previously.)

It is starting to look like a certain gentleman basically invented four investors, and the $4.5 million they were supposed to put into the show, from scratch. This gentleman has not been charged with a crime as of yet, but has a colorful history that includes bankruptcy, civil suits, and an unrelated federal investigation.

But why would he do this? What’s his motivation?

Mr. Hotton was to receive commissions of 6 percent on money he raised for “Rebecca,” according to the person with knowledge of the matter. It is unclear why anyone who had agreed to raise money in exchange for commissions might want to fabricate investors and the false promise of $4.5 million in investments when the commissions would not be paid until the funds were turned over.

In other news, the Pine Ridge reservation is considering legalizing alcohol, because prohibition isn’t working. I missed the fact that the reservation’s suit against the beer dealers in Whiteclay had been dismissed. (Previously.)

Noted:

Abraham Joseph, 28, was found guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual assault.

Mr. Joseph was a Houston police department officer at the time he raped the woman, who was a waitress (and, for the record, was an illegal alien at the time; she since has been granted asylum).

The aggravated sexual assault charge required the jury to find that a weapon was used during the rape. Joseph was in uniform and had his Glock .40 on a belt during the January 2011 attack but did not remove it. The jury did not choose the lower charges to sexual assault or improper sexual activity with a person in custody.

I’m not convinced the Austin nightclub trial is going well for the prosecution, though I only have the Statesman‘s account to rely on. The government’s primary witness is a cousin of the two brothers who are on trial. The feds have paid him $340,000 to date, and he seems to be having memory troubles.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Theatre | 2 Comments »

Random crap: October 2, 2012.

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012

Man, time flies when you’re having fun. The first of the Austin nightclub trials started yesterday. (Previously.) It doesn’t seem that there’s much to report yet, but I’ll try to keep an eye on the trial for any sensational revelations.

Ah, “Rebecca”. We hardly knew you. Ben Sprecher’s attempt to round up additional financing didn’t pan out, and the musical has been cancelled. (Previously.)

In an interview Mr. Russo, a longtime criminal defense lawyer, said that Mr. Sprecher’s computer might have been hacked and confidential e-mails stolen “as part of some kind of plot to scare off investors and doom the show.” He said that Mr. Sprecher had turned over hundreds of e-mails to investigators. But Mr. Russo declined requests for several pieces of corroborating information that might shed light on one of the most troubled productions in recent Broadway history.

Also in the NYT: yet another story about fishing tournament fraud. I really do not get why people are surprised by this, or why the media finds it newsworthy. Where there’s money, there’s going to be fraud. If you’re talking six figure money, there’s going to be six figure fraud. And if someone defrauds someone else of a six-figure sum of money, why shouldn’t that be a felony, just because fish are involved?

If four new books are any indication, Mr. Zuckerberg is the decidedly nonmacho, non-pickup-driving embodiment of a new breed of American hunter. These young memoirists have loaded their rifles and shotguns for complicated reasons, including culinary one-upmanship. Nothing wows jaded dinner guests like a braised shank of calf moose that you’ve recently “harvested” and “dressed” — hunting euphemisms for killed, skinned and disemboweled — before bringing it to the table.

I haven’t read any of the new books mentioned by the NYT, but I did read Mr. Rinella’s previous book, The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine. That was 51% interesting, 49% “throw across the room” annoying. I liked large parts of it – for example, his visit to an eel harvester and seller, and his trip to Alaska. What really set me off was the end of the book, in which Mr. Rinella cooks a large wild game Thanksgiving dinner for friends and family….and one of the guests is a vegan who insists on (metaphorically) crapping all over his elaborately prepared meal.

Sorry, but if I’m in Mr. Rinella’s position and someone pulls that <stuff> on me, I’ll take them aside and tell them politely: “This is your one warning. You are a guest in my house. If you continue to badmouth my food and complain about it not being vegan, I will physically throw you out the front door and see how many times you bounce. If you can’t deal with that, walk out now under your own power.”

Anyway, I don’t feel any real compulsion to read Mr. Rinella’s new book, or any of the others mentioned by the paper of record.

Posted in Clippings, Food, Guns, Law, Sports | 1 Comment »

Bad boys, bad boys…

Monday, October 1st, 2012

…I’ll spare you the rest.

HOUSTON– Two Harris County Deputies were arrested at a wedding reception and one of them was the groom.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

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