By Allan Lengel

When it comes to a federal juror stepping over the line, Maximino Gonzalez rates right up there with the best of them.

Maximino, 36, of Palmview, Tex., who served on a jury in 2008, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Houston on Monday to jury tampering  after he met with defendants during trial and tried to get them acquitted, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The trial ended in a mistrial.

He has been in custody since his arrest in January. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

Gonzalez was on a jury in November 2008. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that during the trial Gonzalez contacted an unindicted drug dealer implicated by testimony in the trial.

He also contacted two defendants in the trial, brothers Guadalupe and Abraham Hernandez, “to discuss the trial testimony”, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

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By Allan Lengel

If you’re going to make up a story and possibly go to prison for it, it might as well be a grand one.

Enter Sylvia Mardini. The 24-year-old Los Angeles woman who pretended she had been kidnapped across state lines last summer, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Los Angeles  to lying to the FBI. She faces up to five years in prison at sentencing on May 10.

Mardini vanished last August 21 and started sending text messages to her mother saying she had been kidnapped at gunpoint and she was in Utah, authorities said.

The hoax got the attention of the media. The FBI and Los Angeles Police coordinated a multi-state search.

Colorado State Patrol found her at a gas station alone in Routt County, Colo. After she returned to Los Angeles, she told FBI agents of the kidnapping story.

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• Sen. Grassley Questions Impartiality of Ex-U.S. Atty. in IG Firing Matter (ABC News)
• Suspect in Elizabeth Smart Case Deemed Competent (AP)
• NY Lawsuit Seeks Damages from Iran For Terrorism Acts (AP)
• Denver Man Accused of Sending White Powder Letters (AP)
• 2 Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide at Va. Daycare (AP)
• Prospective Juror Sues Fed Judge Over Intrusive Questions (Courthouse News Service)

By Allan Lengel

A 25-year-old Maryland drug dealer, who was known to wear a radio frequency device to detect undercover law enforcement with recording devices, was sentenced in Baltimore on Monday to 24 years and 4 months in prison for witness tampering in the death of a fellow drug dealer.

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz sentenced Steven Leroy Stone, age 25, of Frederick, Md., on charges of conspiracy to commit witness tampering and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime and a crime of violence resulting in death, in connection with the murder of David Lee, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

The plea agreement said that Stone in 2004 and 2005 worked with Lee and others to distribute cocaine, marijuana and ectasy in the Frederick, Md. area.  The gang became known as “B-6″, which stood for “the bottom of Sixth Street”, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

In 2005, Stone and others started to suspect that Lee was snitching on them and they learned that he had received subpoenas to testify before a grand jury.

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By Allan Lengel

Sorry J.D. Salinger, you may have made a big splash with your words, but you weren’t worthy of an FBI file.

The Associated Press reports that the FBI said it never opened up a file on Salinger, author of “The Catcher in the Rye”, who died in January at age 91.

The AP discovered this after filing a request for the files under the Freedom of Information Act.

Salinger was not known to be very political over the years, the AP reported. Conversely, the FBI had files on authors like Norman Mailer.

A suspicious powder letter in a mail facility set off a series of events Monday  at the Ogden, Utah IRS center.

ABC 4 News  in Utah and the Associated Press report that hazmat teams and FBI and other agencies responded to the scene and some people are being decontaminated. One report said a person had been taken away on a stretcher and AP reported that some parts of the building had been evacuated while other parts were locked down.

In the past, ever since 2001, the suspicious letters with powder that have gone through the post office have been found to be harmless.

In the past, some people have had panic attacks when being exposed to the letters.  Every letter that goes through the U.S. Postal Service passes through a biohazard detector, which should detect such substances as anthrax. In other words, if it passed through the postal service, it’s unlikley the substance is dangerous.

Time will tell.

Protecting the U.S.- Mexican border has always been a challenge. And this this is only adding to the challenge.

istock photo

WASHINGTON – A multibillion-dollar “virtual fence” along the southwestern border promised for completion in 2009 to protect the U.S. from terrorists, violent drug smugglers and a flood of illegal immigrants is a long way from becoming a reality, with government officials unable to say when, how or whether it will ever be completed.

More than three years after launching a major border security initiative and forking over more than $1 billion to the Boeing Co., the project’s major contractor, Homeland Security Department officials are re-evaluating the high-tech component of the plan in the wake of a series of critical Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports warning lawmakers that the expensive undertaking is deeply flawed.

The program now places the Obama administration in a quandary, foretold by lawmakers who witnessed Boeing and Homeland Security publicly mischaracterize the nature of the contract, according to GAO, after government officials, watchdogs and contractors privately discovered that it was destined to fail.

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Thomas Penfield Jackson was a U.S. District Court judge in D.C. for 22 years before retiring in 2004.

Thomas Penfield Jackson/st. mary's college photo

For reasons I have some difficulty appreciating, the city of New York has rejected Attorney General Eric Holder’s plan to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Manhattan.

True, the trial will be expensive, but much of the cost will be borne by the federal government, not the city hosting the trial. And true, the trial would once again make New York an enticing target for a terrorist attack, but New York is always an appealing target for attack.

For that matter, so is Washington — but I submit that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is the most appropriate alternative forum for this trial. KSM’s crimes were committed against the entire nation, and it is fitting that the nation’s capital should host his trial.

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Paul Bergrin/photo News12 New Jersey

The good news for ex-assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Bergrin is that he won’t be facing the death penalty.

The Asbury Park Press in New Jersey reports that Atty. Gen. Eric Holder has decided not to seek the death penalty against the prominent defense attorney in his pending case in which he’s accused of arranging the murder of a witness in a federal drug case.

The paper reported that Newark U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman wrote in a one-sentence letter to U.S. District Judge William J. Martini that the death penalty was not going to be in play.

“We’re pleased we can focus on the allegations and do not have to worry about the death penalty,” one of Bergrin’s attorneys, Lawrence Lustberg, said in a telephone interview with the paper.

“He still recognizes that while the death penalty is off the table, his life is on the line,” Lustberg said.

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