Legal Random, Random

[ponchi101]

if anyone needs to be impeached for incompetence, it is the AG Merrick Garland - he has left it too late. Once the orimary season begins (tomorrow), by tradition, the Justice dept will lay off. This avenue was always available, they just didnt take it. Of course, there would be rioting in the streets, and a new civil war, possibly, with southern states seceding (again!) if the AG had actually ruled that Trump is not eligible. But anyway, too late. The AG has put politics above his duty (just not in the way most people think!)

I'm not following you. You are saying that the AG should be impeached for NOT following a path that you yourself are stating would possibly lead to a civil war, as opposed to building meticulous cases against this slippery criminal, trying not to risk that this slime escapes due to technicalities?

[ashkor87]

if anyone needs to be impeached for incompetence, it is the AG Merrick Garland - he has left it too late. Once the orimary season begins (tomorrow), by tradition, the Justice dept will lay off. This avenue was always available, they just didnt take it. Of course, there would be rioting in the streets, and a new civil war, possibly, with southern states seceding (again!) if the AG had actually ruled that Trump is not eligible. But anyway, too late. The AG has put politics above his duty (just not in the way most people think!)

I'm not following you. You are saying that the AG should be impeached for NOT following a path that you yourself are stating would possibly lead to a civil war, as opposed to building meticulous cases against this slippery criminal, trying not to risk that this slime escapes due to technicalities?

but he may escape because the AG took too long to catch the fish!

[ponchi101]

Sure. As Ti said, the USA legal system is built to be slow so the lawyers can squeeze every drop of blood from you charging you by the hour.
But that does not mean you impeach the guy. It's like firing you because you are doing a monumental task in 6 months, but your boss wanted it in 5 minutes.

[ashkor87]

Another clear miss..Trump is inviting Russia to attack NATO countries..by treaty, an attack on NATO is an attack on the US. If this is not treason, what is? And what is Justice doing about it?

all that brouhaha over classified docs is nothing compared to this.

[ti-amie]

Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
The former crypto mogul who co-founded FTX also was ordered to repay more than $11 billion for his conviction on charges related to fraud and money laundering
By Shayna Jacobs and Julie Zauzmer Weil
March 28, 2024 at 11:55 a.m. EDT

NEW YORK — A federal judge sentenced former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison Thursday, less than what prosecutors wanted for what they called his “massive” financial crimes, but far more than defense lawyers sought. He was also ordered to pay more than $11 billion.

Bankman-Fried, co-founder of crypto exchange FTX and investment fund Alameda Research, failed to take responsibility for the disaster he created, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in handing down the sentence. “Mr. Bankman-Fried says mistakes were made … but never a word of remorse for the commission of terrible crimes,” Kaplan said.

Jurors in November convicted Bankman-Fried on charges related to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was accused of misappropriating FTX customer funds to spend lavishly on luxury real estate, investments and political donations.

Before Kaplan handed down the sentence, Bankman-Fried gave a meandering account of events in an attempt to justify some of his actions. “I made a series of bad decisions,” said Bankman-Fried, who spoke for roughly 20 minutes. “They weren’t selfish decisions. … They were bad decisions.”

Prosecutors had argued that a sentence of at least 40 years in prison would fit a case they described as one of the biggest financial crimes in history. Defense attorneys argued that a sentence of five to six years would be more appropriate for a young man with autism who wanted to use some of his money for charity.

The chance that Bankman-Fried could commit other crimes weighed into the sentencing decision, Kaplan said.

“There is a risk this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future and it’s not a trivial risk,” the judge said. “Not a trivial risk at all.”

Bankman-Fried, 32, turned FTX into a behemoth, with a Super Bowl ad, naming rights to a Miami stadium and glowing publicity for its cryptocurrency exchange. Only when it collapsed into bankruptcy in 2022 did investigators uncover what prosecutors have described as a straightforward fraud dressed up as a breakthrough financial innovation.

Bankman-Fried and his top deputies, prosecutors said, took customers’ money out of FTX and put it into Alameda Research. At the trial, former Alameda chief executive Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges before cooperating with prosecutors, described Bankman-Fried telling her to use FTX funds.

“It’s hard to understand in some ways how a person can be responsible for all of these significant crimes,” prosecutor Nicolas Roos said Thursday. “It’s massive in its scale. It was pervasive in all aspects.”

Before Roos spoke, defense lawyer Marc Mukasey argued that Bankman-Fried did not have harmful intentions.

“Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people,” Mukasey said Thursday. He described Bankman-Fried as a person who “doesn’t make decisions with malice in his heart. He makes decisions with math in his head.”

Kaplan spoke of the financial devastation to victims who invested their life savings in their accounts on the FTX platform. In court filings, Bankman-Fried’s lawyer had argued that victims are likely to be made whole once the FTX bankruptcy process shakes out, a claim that John Ray III, who is leading the company through the bankruptcy process as CEO, criticized in a letter to the court. The defense’s assertion that FTX customers and investors suffered no harm is “callously and demonstrably false,” Ray wrote.

Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, some trial observers wondered whether the Justice Department overreached in asking for at least 40 years in prison. A full recovery of FTX assets could undercut prosecutors’ assertion of “dramatic devastating personal loss” for investors, said Martin Auerbach, a defense lawyer who has been involved in cryptocurrency cases but did not work on Bankman-Fried’s case.

“That is part of the theory for why he should be punished,” Auerbach said before the hearing. “If that will turn out not to be correct because those small investors have been made whole or recovered much of their money, I think the judge has the discretion to say, ‘I’m going to look at the loss in a different way.’”

But Bankman-Fried’s prison term will set an important example, said Sheila Warren, CEO of the trade group Crypto Council for Innovation. “This sentencing is crucial,” Warren said. “What we don’t want to do is incentivize people to say, ‘Oh, you just pay a big fine and do whatever you want.’ No, you go to jail if you lie, if you steal.”

She said she faulted not just Bankman-Fried, but also the many people who lionized him instead of questioning whether he was honest. “There were a lot of institutions that were supporting this kind of wunderkind mythology,” she said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... tx-crypto/

[ponchi101]

1 down, like 500 more to go.

[ti-amie]

This would be a seizure by the Feds not NYS and why seizing that building could be complicated.

ClearingTheFog
@clearing_fog

Not an April Fools Joke

“DOJ said an apartment at Trump Tower bought for the Congolese president’s daughter is a candidate to be seized by the federal government because it was allegedly used to launder funds stolen from the country.”

WaterBluSky.bsky.social.
@MsMariaT

DOJ moves to seize the Trump Tower apartment of Denis Sassou Nguesso, former president of Congo who is accused of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from his country's treasury, using a Portuguese shell company https://forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2 ... -treasury/

[ti-amie]

These people. The tl;dr

John Eastman begs for pause in disbarment case so he can work to pay millions in legal fees, files Matt Gaetz affidavit calling criminal charges ‘politically motivated’
COLIN KALMBACHERApr 4th, 2024, 2:11 pm

Conservative attorney John Eastman is pleading with California ethics authorities to let him continue practicing law as he faces his own looming criminal trial on racketeering (RICO) charges in Georgia.

On Wednesday, Eastman filed a 50-page motion with the California State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel asking to stay a judge’s recent order recommending his disbarment over various failed efforts to use the legal system to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“While attorneys have a duty to advocate zealously for their clients, they must do so within the bounds of ethical and legal constraints,” State Bar Court Judge Yvette D. Roland wrote in her late March order. “Eastman’s actions transgressed those ethical limits by advocating, participating in and pursuing a strategy to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election that lacked evidentiary or legal support. Vigorous advocacy does not absolve Eastman of his professional responsibilities around honesty and upholding the rule of law.”

In her order, Roland placed Eastman on inactive enrollment; the final decision on his law license is up to the California Supreme Court.

The erstwhile Donald Trump ally is asking for the judge’s order to be paused so he can continue to represent his clients and earn money as he mounts his own legal defense in the Georgia RICO case.

“If the Order placing Dr. Eastman on inactive enrollment is not stayed, not only would it be highly prejudicial to Dr. Eastman, it would also be highly prejudicial to his clients,” the stay motion argues.

Eastman’s attorneys also vouch for his legal acumen.

“Dr. Eastman has built his professional reputation upon his representation of clients in constitutional law matters and many clients and counsel seek him out for his expertise in these matters,” the stay motion reads. “If the Order placing Dr. Eastman on inactive enrollment were not stayed, those clients would be harmed by depriving them of the breadth and depth of Dr. Eastman’s knowledge and prowess as a zealous advocate.”

If the embattled lawyer cannot work for his current clients, Eastman and his attorneys argue, he will not be able to pay his own extensive, and likely growing, legal bills — payments directly related back to his prior representation of Trump in election denial litigation and strategy.

“f the Order placing Dr. Eastman on inactive enrollment were not stayed, Dr. Eastman would lose his ability to make a living as an attorney,” the Wednesday stay motion argues.

And, his attorneys say, being unable to afford attorneys could not come at a worse time for their client due to his Georgia charges.

“Undoubtedly, the loss of income from the practice of law in the face of such necessity would be highly prejudicial to Dr. Eastman’s ability to defend himself in Fulton County,” the motion continues.

After his ethics trial began in June 2023, Eastman was charged in Georgia with nine counts over his participation in an alleged criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results with 18 other co-defendants, including Trump, in a 41-count criminal indictment.

In November 2023, Roland issued a preliminary finding of culpability over Eastman’s various election-thwarting efforts.

Eastman infamously authored two of many so-called “coup memos.” Those memos advised on potential scenarios under which President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory could be set aside.

Additionally, the former Chapman University law professor backed a similarly failed effort to overturn the 2020 election at the U.S. Supreme Court launched by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The Lone Star State gambit decried mail-in voting expansion as a “massive opportunity of fraud,” in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin and argued that even the “appearance of fraud in a close” race could be enough to review “even if no election fraud had resulted.” In the end, only two justices — Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — wanted to hear those arguments and the high court passed.

Notably, in his own defense, the conservative lawyer maintains a defiant tone about the nature of his pro-Trump legal efforts.

“In the Fall of 2020 and January 2021, I represented former President Trump and his campaign committee in their efforts to challenge illegality in the conduct of the November 2020 presidential election,” Eastman writes in an accompanying declaration. “In responding to more than a dozen actions arising out of that representation, I have incurred more than $1 million in legal fees and expenses to date, and estimate that the total that I will incur before these various matters have concluded will be as much as $3 million to $3.5 million.”

In addition to his own declaration, the stay motion is buttressed by six current clients who say they want to keep their lawyer — including Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, R-Ga., and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

In substantially similar language, both GOP elected officials write: “I have personally reviewed the D.C. and Georgia indictments, and believe that the various charges and allegations against Dr. Eastman are meritless and politically motivated.”

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/jo ... motivated/

They're at the Find out stage.

[ti-amie]

What’s also ridiculous about this couple complaining about being arrested for packing bullets on their trip to Turks and Caicos is they broke U.S. law too.

In order to fly with them here in the U.S., they’re supposed to be in a checked bag in a TSA approved container.

Not in a plastic Ziplock bag like they admitted to transporting them in.

And they had to DECLARE the ammo to the airline as well, if their airline even allowed it in the first place.

So not only did he break the law there by bringing it into the country, but he did it here too.

Zero sympathy.



How did they get out of the States/past TSA? The last time I flew TSA was checking all black women's hair because we all travel concealing razor blades there.

[ti-amie]

#ettd