By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
President Obama on Friday nominated three U.S. Marshals including a woman, Genevieve May, who is the deputy superintendent of the Louisiana State Police Bureau of Investigation.

The three nominees named by President Obama are:

• David Cargill, District of New Hampshire
• David Demag, District of Vermont
• Genevieve May, Eastern District of Louisiana

“These dedicated law enforcement officials have devoted their careers to serving and protecting the American people, distinguishing themselves as the best and brightest at every turn,” President Obama said in a prepared statement. “I am grateful for their service and honored to nominate them as United States Marshals.”

Read White House Press Release

Daniel Bogden/utlaw

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Four U.S. Attorneys were nominated Friday by President Obama  including Daniel G. Bogden, the  Nevada U.S. Attorney who was fired by the Bush Administration in 2006.

Bogden had served five years as U.S. Attorney before he was fired in December of 2006. He was one of nine U.S. Attorneys fired in what has become a scandal and the focus of a criminal probe.  NBC reported that Sen. Harry Reid had pushed for his nomination to correct a wrong.

Those nominated Friday included:

• Daniel G. Bogden, District of Nevada
• Deborah K. Gilg, District of Nebraska
• Timothy J. Heaphy, Western District of Virginia
• Peter F. Neronha, District of Rhode Island

“These fine men and women have demonstrated the extensive knowledge of the law and deep commitment to public service Americans deserve from their United States Attorneys,” the President said in a prepared statement.

“It is with the utmost confidence in their ability and integrity that I nominate them for the weighty task of pursuing justice on behalf of the American people.”

Read White House Press Release to Find Out More About Each Nominee

To

Bobby DeLaughter was a hero and did great things as a prosecutor. Will this erase his legacy?

Judge Bobby DeLaughter/gov photo

By Jerry Mitchell
Jackson Clarion Ledger
ABERDEEN, Miss. – He wore the suit of an acclaimed prosecutor before donning the robe of a well-respected judge. Now Bobby DeLaughter expects to wear the uniform of a prison inmate.

Hours after resigning his $104,000-a-year job as Hinds County circuit judge, DeLaughter, 55, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. Under his plea agreement, he would serve 18 months in prison and wouldn’t have to cooperate with federal authorities in their continuing investigation. No date has been set for sentencing.

Under the agreement, DeLaughter’s remaining four counts of mail fraud conspiracy and involvement in a bribery scheme would be dismissed.

But if U.S. District Judge Glen Davidson rejects the plea deal, DeLaughter can withdraw his guilty plea and go on trial. His trial had been set for Aug. 17.

For Full Story

Read Plea Agreement

It’s often hard to tell just how threatening some of the home grown groups are. And at what point do they clearly become a threat and a terrorist? Is there such a thing as waiting too long to find out?

fbi map

By Jeff Stein
Spy Talk
WASHINGTON — The feds have been hyping their domestic terrorism cases for several years now, and the arrest of seven North Carolina men this week appears to be no exception.

The headliners in the case, of course, are ordinary folks Daniel Patrick Boyd and his two sons, who prosecutors say led three lives: good family men, likeable neighbors and secret terrorists.

The father’s path to terrorism began in 1989, according to the indictment unsealed this week, when Daniel Boyd “travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he received military style training in terrorist training camps for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad.”

During 1989 and 1991, they say, “Boyd fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union.”

He would have been 19 at the time, all of which a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, Milt Bearden, finds odd.

“The Afghans didn’t need much help,” said Bearden. They accepted Arabs like Osama Bin Laden because they brought money, or miscreants that the Gulf States emptied from their jails, he said, but “their fondest hope was that they would step on a landmine.”

For Full Story

Read Indictment

America's Most Famous Freezer

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

WASHINGTON — The jury in the public corruption trial of ex-Rep. William Jefferson deliberated for about four hours Thursday and is set resume Friday morning, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

With 16-criminal counts to consider, a verdict isn’t likely to come before early next week. The jurors will have to consider evidence in the six-plus weeks of trial that included testimony from more than 40 witnesses, FBI tape recordings of Jefferson and reams of documents.

Jefferson, a Harvard educated lawyer and a 9-term Congressman, who was once considered unbeatable, lost his bid for re-election last year. His wife and five daughters sat in on the closing arguments in Alexandria, Va. on Wednesday.

The case became best known for the $90,000 in marked FBI bills that FBI agents found in Jefferson’s freezer during a raid on Aug. 3, 2005 (freezer pictured above).

MORE STORIES OF INTEREST

• Louisiana Immigrant Detainees Conduct Hunger Strike Over Conditions (AP)
• FBI Witness in N.J. Corruption Scandal Was Big Campaign Donor (AP)
• Former New Mexico Prosecutor Said He Was Not Surprised Bush Was Involved in U.S. Atty Firings (The Public Record)
• Ex-N.J. U.S. Atty. Chrisitie Denies Exerting Influence in Tax Fraud Case (Newark Star-Ledger)
• New Witness in Chandra Levy Case (Washington Post)
• U.S. Criticized for Extraditing Minor Colombian Figure (Washington Post)

Should a U.S. Attorney come out with verbal guns blazing after making an arrest? Is it unfair to the defendant? Is it unfair to  the public to keep quiet? Where’s the boundaries?

BY ABDON M. PALLASCH
Chicago Sun-Times Political Reporter
CHICAGO -- Speaking to 200 lawyers from around the country Thursday, retired appellate Judge Abner Mikva criticized U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald for showing a bit too much enthusiasm at a news conferences announcing charges against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

“I certainly don’t like the prosecutor coming out and trying his case [in the media] and possibly tainting the jury pool with a big press conference announcing he has indicted so-and-so, or, in Blagojevich’s case, has arrested so-and-so — he hadn’t even reached an indictment yet,” Mikva saids at the American Bar Association convention.

“The argument is made by some prosecutors that this is a part of a public information factor of a prosecutor’s job, and they have to do it. That’s nonsense.”

Fitzgerald gained a reputation during his first seven years as U.S. attorney for avoiding colorful language at news conferences and refusing to entertain questions that fell outside “the four corners of the indictment.”

For Full Story

View Press Conference in Question

The city of Detroit certainly has no surplus in its budget, no surplus of jobs. What it does have is a surplus of scandals.

Ex-fed prosecutor Sheryl Robinson Wood/law firm photo

BY JOE SWICKARD and BEN SCHMITT
Detroit Free Press
DETROIT — Former Detroit police monitor Sheryl Robinson Wood was ousted under a cloud. Some experts say a review of her ties to then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick may eventually turn into a criminal investigation.

“With the possibility of federal charges, there are no minor concerns,” said Detroit attorney Bill Goodman, who represented the City Council in its efforts to oust Kilpatrick.

Wood has been in talks this week with attorney Richard Craig Smith, an expert in white-collar crime and government investigations with the Washington, D.C., firm Fulbright & Jaworski. The firm was once home to Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski.

For Full Story