NYC Mayor Eric Adams indicted.
The indictment is sealed, and it is unclear what charge or charges Mr. Adams will face.
This is still developing. I expect much much more tomorrow morning.
(Hattip: Mike the Musicologist.)
Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#132 in a series)
Wednesday, September 25th, 2024Watching the hyenas…
Wednesday, September 25th, 2024Yesterday was an interesting day for political hyenas, flaming or otherwise.
David Banks, the NYC schools chancellor. announced he’s resigning at the end of the year. This doesn’t seem to be linked to any specific allegations of corruption yet, but:
The announcement came just weeks after federal agents seized Mr. Banks’s phone as part of a bribery investigation involving his brothers and fiancée — and it promised to roil not just the nation’s largest school system but also a mayoral administration already reeling from at least four separate federal corruption inquiries.
The schools chancellor’s resignation is the fourth in less than two weeks among top officials in Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, following the resignations of the police commissioner and the city’s top lawyer and a statement from the health commissioner saying he would leave office at the end of the year.
This next one could almost be a “News of the Weird” entry:
Fire marshals? What kind of crime could they commit on the job?
In this case, the three accused individuals responded to a crashed 18-wheeler. They are accused of siponing off diesel fuel from the truck’s tank into a “55-gallon drum in the bed of their hazmat vehicle.”
But wait, there’s more:
Additionally, the 18-wheeler carried frozen items, such as duck meat, high-end cheese, croissants, butter, and venison.
“After draining the saddle tank of the 18-wheeler, [deleted] and approximately three other members of his hazmat company proceeded to unload product from the trailer of the 18-wheeler and put it into their own vehicles to keep for personal use,” the affidavit states.
They’re also accused of stealing items from another truck crash. In addition, the indictment claims that the men were doing fire inspections, approving permits, and doing fire investigations without any licenses to do so. Also, one of the men is accused of using his fire marshal’s gear to gain “early access” to scenes for his non-profit “South Liberty County Hazardous Materials Team”.
Why? Well, turns out the NJSP has a habit of using disciplinary investigations as a weapon.
A separate review done by the attorney general’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability highlighted two troubling episodes involving a retired lieutenant, Joseph Nitti, who had worked in the agency’s internal affairs unit.
After receiving an anonymous letter containing a complaint that a trooper had made a racist comment about a senior Black officer, Mr. Nitti “squandered police resources” trying to identify the tipster rather than investigating the accuracy of the concern, according to the attorney general’s office.
Mr. Nitti, who according to state treasury records retired last year with a $8,893 monthly pension, obtained typewriter samples and video from the area near a post office where the envelope had been mailed and evaluated fingerprints found on the letter. Against orders, he also submitted it for DNA testing. Then, at the lieutenant’s urging, the Black officer who had been the reported target of the racist comment was brought up on bogus internal affairs charges.
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Finally, Stewart Rosenwasser died yesterday. Mr. Rosenwasser was a former judge and prosecutor in New York (I believe in Orange County). He was indicted on Monday for taking $63,000 in bribe money.
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The plot targeted Martin Soudani and his mother, Eman Soudani, who were allegedly involved in embezzling $1.6 million from Mout’z Soudani, a wealthy former restaurateur, the indictment said.
On March 8, 2023, Rosenwasser, as an Orange County assistant district attorney, charged Soudani’s kin with grand larceny for allegedly stealing the money from Mout’z Soudani and had arrest warrants issued.
When they appeared in court, defense lawyers asked that Rosenwasser recuse himself from prosecuting the case because he had represented Mout’z Soudani in the 1990s and that presented a conflict of interest.
Rosenwasser denied the claim and remained on the case.
But by June 2023 the DA’s office was getting wise and Rosewasser was replaced on the case, the indictment said.
By March 2024, the case against Soudani’s sister had been dropped and his nephew agreed to plead guilty to grand larceny in the embezzlement case in exchange for a prison sentence of one to seven years.
Martin Soudani and Eman Soudani later filed a $22.5 million lawsuit claiming the cases against them were tainted.
Mr. Rosewasser resigned earlier this year. The FBI was coming to arrest him yesterday on the charges in the indictment, and he allegedly decided to open fire on the agents. SWAT responded, and Mr. Rosewasser was found dead when the police entered his home. The FBI claims he committed suicide, but it isn’t clear to me if an official determination has been made yet.
Obit watch: September 23, 2024.
Monday, September 23rd, 2024Mercury Morris, one of the great NFL players. ESPN. NYT (archived).
Morris made no secret of the fact that he was filled with pride about the 1972 Dolphins being the first — and still only — undefeated and untied team in NFL history, pulling off a truly perfect season.
He also tried to make this clear: No, the Dolphins were not rooting against the teams that came close to matching their feat of perfection or had champagne on ice waiting for the moment that the last unbeaten team in a season gets defeated.
“And for the record, we DO NOT TOAST every time an unbeaten team loses,” Morris posted on social media in 2015, when the Cam Newton-led Carolina Panthers started 14-0 before losing the next-to-last game of their regular season. “There’s no champagne in my glass, only Canada Dry Ginger ale! Ha!”
Kathryn Crosby, der Bingle’s wife who had a pretty successful career of her own. NYT (archived). Other credits include “Anatomy of a Murder”, “The Phenix City Story”, and “The Night the World Exploded”.
Tongsun Park, who was at the center of the 1970s “Koreagate” scandal.
In 1978, he was indicted on charges of conspiracy, bribery and making contributions as a foreign agent, and he fled the country. He returned with a promise of criminal immunity to testify in Congress and before a grand jury.
He said that he had passed money to 31 members of Congress — up to $273,000 in one case — and while he denied acting on behalf of the South Korean government, a former Korean intelligence officer told Congress under oath that Mr. Park was working for Korean intelligence as part of an influence-buying operation code-named Ice Mountain.
But the accusations, splashily covered in the post-Watergate period, largely fizzled out. Only three of the 31 current and former congressmen Mr. Park named were indicted, and only one, Richard T. Hanna, a California Democrat, was convicted. He served a little over a year in jail.
The House, which considered disciplinary action against 11 sitting members, ended up reprimanding just three, in what critics called an example of Congress’s inability to discipline its own members.
He later got caught doing illegal lobbying for Saddam Hussein, and served five years for that.
Shortly after I posted Friday’s obit watch, the NYT posted their Nelson DeMille obit.
KMart. Sort of. The last “full-sized” store in the United States, in Bridgehampton, New York, is closing in October. There is one store left in Miami, but it is described as being the size of a CVS, not a full-sized store. There are also other stores in places like Guam and the Virgin Islands.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#130 in a series)
Wednesday, September 18th, 2024I thought I had written about this before, but Google doesn’t turn up a reference. I know, though, that there have been stories circulating for months. Mayor Small and his wife aren’t charged with corruption, which is unusual for an Atlantic City mayor.
They’re charged with beating the s–t out of their teenage daughter.
Prosecutors said that on Jan. 13, 2024, Marty Small Sr. hit his daughter multiple times in the head with a broom, causing her to lose consciousness.
Ten days earlier, they said, Small engaged in an argument with his daughter, grabbing her head and throwing her to the ground, and threatening to throw her down a flight of stairs.
He threatened to “smack the weave out” of her head during the incident, according to prosecutors.
The 50-year-old Democratic mayor also is accused of punching his daughter repeatedly in the legs, causing bruising.
La’Quetta Small, 47, is accused of punching her daughter multiple times on the chest, leaving bruising. In another alleged incident, she is accused of dragging her daughter by the hair and striking her with a belt on her shoulders, leaving marks.
In yet another incident, La’Quetta Small is accused of punching her daughter in the mouth during an argument.
And I wasn’t aware of this previously, but Constance Days-Chapman, the principal of Atlantic City High School, was indicted last week. Charges against her include “official misconduct” and “child endangerment”.
According to the indictment, in December the girl, who was 15 at the time, told Days-Chapman she was suffering continuous headaches from being beaten by her parents in their home.
But instead of telling authorities, Days-Chapman instead told the Smalls.
By the way:
Days-Chapman is a close friend of the Smalls; La’Quetta Smalls is her boss.
I’m sure this is going to be one of my more controversial and divisive opinions, but:
Fark these people. Fark any parent who thinks it is okay to do their kids this way. Fark anybody who’s a mandated reporter that goes to the parents instead of Child Protective Services when a kid tells them their parents are beating them.
Sorry. A bit grumpy today.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#129 in a series)
Monday, September 16th, 2024This is still breaking. Two chiefs with the New York Fire Department have been arrested on bribery charges.
The six-count indictment accuses them of soliciting and receiving bribes in that role from 2021 to 2023 for projects underway in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.
“For nearly two years, Saccavino and Cordasco misused this authority for their own financial gain,” the indictment charges. The men were also charged with lying to the F.B.I. in February about their involvement in the scheme.
These, by the way, are the same two chiefs whose homes and offices were raided by the FBI in February.
I’m going out on a limb here and saying: they flipped him.
According to the indictment, the two chiefs steered potential clients who wanted to expedite approval of their building projects to Mr. Santiago, and then ordered that those projects receive preferential treatment. Among the projects they fast-tracked were a high-end restaurant in Manhattan, a Brooklyn apartment building and two hotels near Kennedy Airport in Queens.
After getting paid by his clients, Mr. Santiago delivered bribes to Mr. Saccavino and Mr. Cordasco in cash and by check in face-to-face meetings at Fire Department offices in Brooklyn and steakhouse dinners in Manhattan, prosecutors said.
Mr. Saccavino funneled the illicit payments through a company started by his wife, while Mr. Cordasco received them through a company he had created and claimed was an entertainment business, prosecutors said.
Just in case you were wondering…
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#128 in a series)
Thursday, September 5th, 2024This may not the five-alarm fire I thought it was at first, but it is still pretty significant to say the least.
The police commissioner. They seized the police commissioner’s phones. Wow.
Among the other officials the federal investigators sought information from were the deputy mayor for public safety and a senior adviser to the mayor who is one of his closest confidants, the people said. Both men have had other legal challenges.
The agents also searched the home and seized the phone of a consultant who is the brother of both the schools chancellor and one of the deputy mayors, the people said.
The nature of the investigations is unclear, but it appears that one is focused on the senior City Hall officials and the other touches on the police commissioner, the people said.
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Representatives of the City Hall officials — the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright; her partner, Schools Chancellor David C. Banks; the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks III; and a senior adviser to the mayor, Timothy Pearson — could not be reached or declined to comment.
The consultant, Terence Banks, a brother of Philip Banks and David Banks, recently opened a government and community relations firm aimed at closing a gap “between New York’s intricate infrastructure and political landscape.” He, too, could not be reached for comment.
Several of the officials had their phones seized or records of their communications subpoenaed.
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In 2013, Ms. Wright and David and Philip Banks were involved in an incident that raised ethical questions. Ms. Wright and Gregg Walker, her then husband, had a dispute that led to mutual allegations of domestic abuse and the arrest of both people. The City reported that David Banks called his brother Philip, then a high-ranking police official. The charges were dropped.
Ms. Wright has denied any wrongdoing in the case, telling The New York Times in 2022 that she “never asked anyone to make any phone calls” on her behalf and that she was released “almost immediately not because of any outside influence, but because the facts of the case were so obvious.”
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After taking office in 2022, Mr. Adams selected Philip Banks as his top aide overseeing public safety, though Mr. Banks himself had previously been ensnared in a federal criminal investigation.
Years earlier, the same federal prosecutors’ office conducting the current investigations named him an unindicted co-conspirator in an expansive corruption case that led to prison time for Mr. Banks’s then close friend Norman Seabrook, at the time a leader of the city’s correction officers’ union, among others.
Over the course of two years, prosecutors scrutinized Mr. Banks’s acceptance of gifts in 2013 and 2014 while he was chief of department, the city’s top uniformed police official. The gifts included paid vacations to the Dominican Republic and Los Angeles, cigars and a ring worn by Muhammad Ali. He received gifts from and socialized with two businessmen who were trying to curry favor with city leaders. One later pleaded guilty to criminal charges, cooperating with prosecutors, while the other was convicted at trial.
But prosecutors did not charge Mr. Banks, concluding that they did not have sufficient evidence to prove that he had taken official action in exchange for the gifts he received, people familiar with the case have said.
Nobody will go on the record as knowing what’s going on, but there’s speculation that it is tied to that whole weird Turkish consolate thing.
Or it could be something else. It sounds like the whole Adams administration is so packed with corruption, they can’t even keep the lid screwed on. Of course, all suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And to be fair, none of the subjects of the raids have been charged with any crimes.
Yet.
Flaming hyena update.
Thursday, August 29th, 2024I wrote a while back about Robert Telles, the former public administrator of Clark County, who was charged with murdering Jeff German. Mr. German was a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal who had been covering Mr. Telles management of the office, and discovered all sorts of problems: hostile work environment, affairs with subordinates, those kind of things.
Mr. Telles went on trial a couple of weeks ago.
He was convicted yesterday of first degree murder. He’s already been sentenced to life in prison, though he can apply for parole in 20 years.
Coverage from the R-J by way of archive.is. Since it is close to the end of the month, I’m going to burn a NYT gift link to their coverage of the story.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#125, #126, and #127 in a series)
Friday, August 23rd, 2024Quel fromage!
Mike the Musicologist sent over a link from the Department of Justice: Trayon White Sr., who is a member of the DC City Council, was arrested Monday on bribery charges. (I know, a little old, but I missed this until MtM called it out.)
A corrupt DC city council member? What are the odds?
More from the WP (archived) which describes him as “a Marion Barry protege”.
Barry, for all his legal issues, never faced charges that he sought to enrich himself, although his associates were convicted of public corruption, including Ivanhoe Donaldson, a senior adviser who pleaded guilty to embezzling $190,000 in city funds.
“People looked at Marion’s issues as human frailties,” said Ron Lester, a veteran D.C. pollster whose clients included Barry. “Whether you liked or disliked him, Marion wasn’t someone accused of taking bribes. If these allegations prove to be true, Trayon doesn’t have a political future. It’s more clear-cut than anything Marion faced.”
In other news:
According to KXAN, she resigned from the district in March of last year, and went to work for…the City of Austin.
So just to be clear, that’s two former AISD employees, who seem to have worked in the same department, that have been indicted.
Yeah, the names are in the KXAN article, but I’m avoiding using them here. Why avoid using them, while at the same time naming Trayon White Sr.? Given the previous mess with an AISD employee, I’m not sure the district can be trusted to get it right, so I’m erring on the side of caution here.
Something’s happening here…
Friday, August 16th, 2024…and what it is, ain’t exactly clear.
The former CFO of the Austin Independent School District, who was previously charged with insurance fraud in Williamson County, had the charges dropped yesterday by the WillCo DA’s office.
More from KVUE (archived, because they’ve become really bad about ad blockers):
KVUE obtained the arrest warrant for Ramos from the Round Rock Police Department to investigate allegations of fraud, which authorities determined was not directly related to his work with the district.
According to the warrant, Ramos was accused of insurance fraud regarding a claim of $5,422.64.
However, the district said Thursday evening it would reinstate Ramos after learning the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office would not prosecute any charges related to his personal affairs.
According to KVUE, he has been re-instated by the district, but his previously scheduled resignation takes effect today. He apparently does not plan to return to the district, but he leaves “in good standing”.
I feel like I should apologize to the former CFO for including him in the “flaming hyenas” watch. But I was very scrupulous about not including his name (even though it was in the linked press reports) because this seemed like a situation that had the potential to be a tempest in a teapot, and I wanted to wait and see how it shook out. I’m glad I did.
Meanwhile, the evidence tampering trial of former WillCo Sheriff Robert Chody and former WillCo prosecutor Jason Nassour was going on this week.
Emphasis on the “was”. The judge has placed the trial on hold.
Why? Well, it looks like the prosecution’s case is completely borked, and they’ve asked for a hold.
“The state has been looking forward to having a full and fair trial… [However], the state can’t continue at this time,” a state prosecutor said Thursday.
The filing indicates the state cannot prosecute parts of the indictment due to it being “preempted by federal law.”
More from Fox 7:
A Live PD crew was with Williamson County deputies when Javier Ambler was taken into custody for a traffic violation. The chase had ended in Austin and with Ambler dying from a heart attack.
Austin police, who were in charge of the scene, never got a warrant to seize the Live PD camera equipment, and the court has ruled federal law allowed the production team to leave with their gear.
Judge Sage, on several occasions, pointed out to prosecutors that because of the law, it didn’t matter who allowed the crew to leave with the equipment because the officer on scene never got a warrant.
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Prosecutors are trying to show the loss of the video is a violation of the Michael Morton act which requires prosecutors to keep and provide evidence to defense attorneys.
But defense attorneys, during cross-examination, showed the jury a section of the contract which also hurt that argument. It was noted Live PD was required to retain and turn over any video, if ordered to do so by a court.
So if I’m understanding this right (and I Am Not A Lawyer), the prosecution’s argument is that the loss of the footage constitutes evidence tampering. But they’ve been precluded from making that argument in court because of 1) the contract which specified that “Live PD” had to turn over any video if a court order was obtained, and nobody could be arsed to get a court order until it was too late, and 2) Federal law, which states that law enforcement can’t confiscate gear and footage without a warrant, and APD (who was in charge at the scene) didn’t get a warrant.
I guess the WillCo DA’s office is fighting inflation by running a BOGO special…on nothing-burgers.
(Edited to add: technically, the evidence tampering trial is taking place in Travis County. But since former WillCo officials are involved, I’m letting the nothing-burger comment stand.)
Obit watch: August 13, 2024.
Tuesday, August 13th, 2024Captain Paul Bucha (United States Army – ret.).
Captain Bucha received the Medal of Honor for actions between March 16 and 19th, 1968. His citation:
He was a West Point graduate:
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Ross Perot hired him.
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Mr. Bucha later openly criticized Mr. Perot for exaggerating stories about his career and traveled around the country on behalf of President George H.W. Bush’s campaign for a second term. In 2008, Mr. Bucha was a foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
There was a point of consistency across his political stances, Ms. Whaley, his daughter, said: “He was a person who valued character and integrity.”
He served as president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society from 1995 to 1999.
Though Mr. Bucha became well known for his Medal of Honor, he often appeared publicly without it.
“I never wear it if I’m giving a speech that might get political,” he told the Purple Heart Mission. The medal, he said, belonged not principally to him but to the men he had fought alongside, and he did not want to say anything while wearing it that they might have disagreed with.
Statement from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. According to the society, there are 60 surviving recipients.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#124 in a series)
Tuesday, August 6th, 2024I think this may be marginal, since the person in question is not an elected official. But they were still a high-ranking official in a position of trust locally.
The chief financial officer for the Austin Independent School District was arrested yesterday.
Technically, he’s the former CFO: according to the article, he submitted his resignation July 23rd, it was scheduled to be effective August 16th, and he was placed on leave immediately after his arrest.
He’s charged with insurance fraud, though the reports say the case against him has nothing to do with AISD.
…
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#123 in a series)
Friday, August 2nd, 2024Misty Roberts, the mayor of DeRidder, Louisiana, resigned her position on July 27th.
She was arrested yesterday.
Surprisngly, the charges against her are not the usual Louisiana politician charges: bribery or some other form of corruption.
Ms. Roberts is accused of raping a minor.
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Adam Johnson, Roberts’ attorney, released the following statement:
Obit watch: July 21, 2024.
Sunday, July 21st, 2024Sheila Jackson Lee (D – Houston). Fox 26 Houston. McThag.
Whitney Rydbeck, actor. Other credits include “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island”, “Battle Beyond the Stars”, “Switch”, and one of the spin-offs of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.
Obit watch: July 19, 2024.
Friday, July 19th, 2024Bob Newhart. THR. Tributes. Appreciation. Variety.
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What do you think happens on the other side?
God has an incredible sense of humor, an unimaginable sense of humor. Just look around.
I’ve had this discussion – God is a punster and has a sense of humor – with people at my church, too. I think it it worth noting that he was a faithful Catholic, and was married to the same woman for 60 years. (Ginny Newhart passed away in 2023.)
One of the less-reputable over the air networks used to run “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart” back to back in the afternoons, and I’d have both on while I worked. I think “TBNS” is just about perfect as a show, but, oddly, I didn’t like “Newhart” so much. I do remember watching and enjoying it first run, but not so much as an adult. My dislike for it now is mostly because I felt the show shifted focus away from Dick to Michael and Stephanie, and I really didn’t like those two characters. But when Bob was dominating the screen, it was a pretty good show.
It turns out one of my favorite “Newhart” episodes is available on the ‘Tube (until someone files a copyright strike): “Dick the Kid”, season 5, episode 3.
Dick has a case of writer’s block, so he goes off to work as a cowboy on a ranch. The comic element of this episode isn’t Dick’s ineptitude as a cowboy. Just the opposite: he’s so good at being a cowboy, he wins the respect of everyone. Even the toughest most macho of the cowboys breaks down when Dick goes back to the inn.
The world is a lesser place today.
Edited to add: per THR, CBS will be airing a tribute to Bob Newhart on July 22nd, but I don’t have a specific time yet.
Cheng Pei-pei, Chinese actress. IMDB.
Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnamese Communist leader.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#122 in a series)
Tuesday, July 16th, 2024This just in: Senator Robert “Gold Bar Bob” Menendez convicted on all counts. (Previously.)
The NYT coverage is probably better, but it is also being constantly updated and is paywalled. I may possibly throw up a link to their story later today or tomorrow.
Edited to add 7/17: here’s the second day NYT story.
That seems relatively short.