Judge Thomas Porteous

WASHINGTON – It comes as no surprise that U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous of New Orleans is in big big trouble.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously Thursday to impeach him, the Associated Press reported. The news service reported that lawmakers felt he avoided criminal charges only because the statute of limitations had expired.

The Senate now conducts a trial on charges of high crimes and misdemeanors. A two-thirds vote is required to convict.

He has been accused of “taking cash from lawyers and gifts from a bail bondsman, lying to the Senate and the FBI to win confirmation and making false statements in his personal bankruptcy proceedings to hide financial problems and gambling debts,” according to AP.

Ex-Gov Blago poses with Celebrity Apprentice group

Ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich wants more time to prepare for his public corruption case that was set for June 3. His attorneys want the trial moved to November.

The Chicago Tribune reports that his attorneys said they can’t properly prepare a defense in time “without knowing whether they have to defend against charges of ‘honest services’ fraud.”

The U.S. Supreme Court could take up the matter of the honest services law by June and could strike down part or all of the law, the Tribune reported.

The lawyers also said they’ve been inundated with government materials they need to review, the paper reported. The government turned over almost 33,000 pages of evidence since February.

The seldom-quiet ex-Gov is scheduled to make his debut appearance on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice on Sunday.

To read more click here.

By Allan Lengel

WASHINGTON — It’s all pretty simple. The Mexican drug cartels have lots of money. And some federal law enforcement agents who patrol the Mexican border can’t resist the cash.

Representatives from the FBI and Homeland Security testified before the subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security Committee about the “rising corruption among the ranks of federal law enforcement officers who patrol the border and guard ports of entry,” the New York Times reported.

FBI agent Kevin Perkins, who helps supervise corruption investigations, testified that the problem “is significantly pervasive”, according to the Times.

To read more click here.

Dirty Harry

WASHINGTON — Could it be: Dirty Harry Meets J. Edgar Hoover?

The Hollywood Insider website reports that actor Clint Eastwood of “Dirty Harry” fame is planning to direct a movie based on the life of the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

The publication reported that Eastwood will work with screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.

J. Edgar Hoover/fbi photo

The Hollywood Insider said the film will “follow Hoover’s career, from the founding of the FBI in 1935 to his long tenure as director of the crime-fighting organization that lasted until 1972 when he died.”

The trade publication said it was unclear which studio would make the film. It said it was originally intended for Universal, but it was likely to go to Warner Bros., which has done a lot of work with Eastwood.

A second ex-New Orleans cop — who is now an agent with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona — has been federally charged with covering up the infamous Danziger Bridge police shootings in 2005 just after Hurricane Katrina that resulted in two deaths and four injuries, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

The paper reported that Jeffrey Lehrmann, 38, was charged with misprision of a felony or failing to report a crime. He is expected to appear in U.S. District Court in New Orleans Thursday and is cooperating with federal authorities, the paper reported.

Lerhmann was not involved in the shootings, but was tasked with interviewing witnesses.

Last month, Lt. Michael Lohman pleaded guilty Feb. 24 to conspiring to obstruct justice. He too was involved in investigating the case and covering up the findings.

The New Orleans paper reported that authorities charged that “Lehrmann knew of the conspiracy among his fellow officers to obstruct justice and participated in the ‘creation of false reports and the provision of false information to investigating agents’.”

To read full story click here.

By Allan Lengel

WASHINGTON – President Obama on Wednesday nominated U.S. Attorneys for Idaho and Maine, the website Main Justice reported.

The nominees include Main Superior Court Justice Thomas Edward Delahanty for Maine and assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson for Idaho.

The website, which closely tracks U.S. Attorney appointments, says President Obama has now made 54 U.S. Attorney nominations and the Senate has confirmed 34 of those.

Meanwhile, the website reported that the Senate on Wednesday night confirmed the U.S. Attorney nominations of William J. Hochul Jr. for the Western District of New York and Sally Q. Yates for the Northern District of Georgia.

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Monica Conyers/facebook

Ex-Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers, a combative and divisive figure in a town with too little cash and too much crime, was sentenced Wednesday to 37 months in prison in a bribery scandal, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Conyers, the wife of veteran Congressman John Conyers (D-Detroit), was sentenced even though she told the judge she wanted to withdraw her guilty plea, the paper reported.

U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn said Conyers’ conduct on the city council “fell woefully short” of expectations for a public servant, the Free Press reported.

In June,  Conyers pleaded guilty to accepting at least $6,000 in bribes for her support of a  $1.2 billion waste disposal contract with Synagro Technologies.

To read more click here.

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• Ala. Prof. Who Killed 3 is Fired (AP)
• NY Man Dies After Police Use Stun Gun (AP)
• JihadJane Caretaker By Day (AP)
• New Jersey Man Accused of Raping and Beating 5 Daughters (AP)
• N.J. Judge Scolded for Mocking Defendant’s English (AP)
• Crooks Try to Scam Madoff Victims (Courthouse News Service)

Allan Lengel

As I predicted earlier in the week, a mistrial for the second time was declared Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court in the trial of right wing talk show host Harold Turner, who was accused of threatening the lives of three Court of Appeals judges in Chicago by posting their photos on the Internet and writing that they were “worthy of death”.

The New York Times reported that the jurors, after three days of deliberations, told the judge in the late afternoon that they were hopelessly deadlocked.

“Unfortunately positions have solidified and folks have stated they will not change their minds, no matter how much longer we continue,” they wrote in a note presented to the court, the Times reported.  The first trial ended in a mistrial in December.

Hal Turner/msnbc photo

The case was flawed from the outset. Why?

The problem was that Turner had been an FBI informant. And in the second trial he testified that back in 2005 the FBI asked him to take his hateful rhetoric up a notch to help them solve a case involving the murder of a Chicago federal judge’s family members.

The FBI apparently thought the killer might be a white supremacist,  Turner’s target audience. Perhaps Turner might be able to draw the person out.

So Turner said he obliged and said  at the time the judge was “worthy of death”. Last summer, he posted on the Internet the photos of three Chicago federal judges who upheld a gun ban and wrote that  they too were “worthy of death”.

It’s not hard to imagine that at least one juror, if not more,  may have saw little distinction between the two incidents and had a difficult time convicting.

The Times reported that a new trial date has been set for April 12.

The Times wrote that lead prosecutor  William Hogan declined to say whether there would be a third trial.

“We’re going to review it,’ he said, according to the Times. “I’d say it’s highly likely.”

Frankly, it would be a good idea to let this one go and chalk it up to a lesson learned.  It’s really not a question at this point as to whether Turner committed a crime.  The answer is Yes.  It’s not a question of whether he’s a racist. He is.

It’s really an issue of who is holding what cards. And frankly, the government’s cards don’t look so hot.  So it would bode well for the prosecution to give up on this one.  Then again, I could be wrong.