Trials

I was supposed to start a month-long trial this week in West Palm Beach, but it got postponed till next Monday. Here are some stories about other trials that started this week:

1. Participant or just translator? Shahrazad Gholikhan started trial in front of Judge Cohn. She is charged with attempting to export night vision goggles to Iran. This was the case that originally pled out to credit time served, but the government moved to vacate the sentence saying it had made a mistake in the guidelines. Judge Cohn then resentenced her to 29 months. Then the defense moved to vacate the plea, saying that everyone had thought it was a CTS case. Judge Cohn agreed and here we are in trial. Vanessa Blum covers it here:

The strange legal odyssey that led an Iranian woman to surrender last year to face charges she tried to supply Iran with U.S.-made night vision goggles took another turn Tuesday with opening statements to jurors in Fort Lauderdale federal court.A prosecutor told jurors that Shahrazad Mir Gholikhan, 30, conspired with her former husband to illegally purchase thousands of military-grade night vision goggles and traveled to Vienna in 2004 to obtain a sample pair.Gholikhan's attorney countered that she went to Vienna without knowing her ex-husband's plan and served only as his translator.

2. The Venezuelan cash smuggling case started up before Judge Lenard. Here's Curt Anderson's take:

A wealthy Venezuelan businessman went on trial Tuesday on U.S. charges that he illegally acted as his government's agent in an elaborate scheme to conceal the source of $800,000 in political cash carried in a suitcase into Argentina.
Prosecutors say Franklin Duran, 40, was doing the bidding of Venezuela's intelligence service when he and others used promises of $2 million in cash and veiled threats of violence to make the cover-up work. The FBI taped dozens of conversations between Duran and his alleged cohorts on the telephone and in South Florida restaurants and coffee shops.
Jury selection began Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard, with the trial expected to take up to six weeks. Duran, who has pleaded not guilty, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy and failing to register with the U.S. as a Venezuelan agent.
The purported cover-up involved a cash-stuffed suitcase brought into Argentina aboard a Venezuelan aircraft in August 2007 that prosecutors say was intended as a contribution for new Argentine President Cristina Fernandez. Both she and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have denounced the trial as politically motivated, but U.S. officials deny that.
Still, the case has further strained the already sour relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela. Duran's lawyer, Ed Shohat, has repeatedly insisted the trial is intended mainly to embarrass Chavez and his allies in Latin America and that Duran wasn't even aware of the registration law he is accused of violating.
"Our view is that this case is a political attack," Shohat said.

Goggles case finally over

Vanessa Blum has the scoop:

A federal judge sentenced an Iranian woman today to five years and three months in prison for trying to illegally export U.S.-made night-vision goggles to Iran.Sharhazad Mir Gholikhan, 31, was found guilty of violating trade laws in December after she represented herself at trial.U.S. District Judge James Cohn said Gholikhan's crimes compromised the safety of U.S. military personnel and the country. However, Cohn gave Gholikhan credit for voluntarily surrendering to face the charges against her."Without that, I think we can all agree she would not be before the court," Cohn said.

"I thought I loved him, but now, when I look back, I feared him so much. I was his slave."

That was Sharhazad Mir Gholikhan during her 7 hours of direct testimony over the last two days before Judge Cohn. She has been representing herself during this retrial (Bill Barzee represented her during the first trial and has been standby counsel in this case. He directed her.) The prosecutor only had 5 minutes of cross after 7 hours of direct. Smart move? We're about to find out. Closing arguments are this morning.

Here's Vanessa Blum's coverage of this fascinating trial:

As an Iranian woman, Sharhazad Mir Gholikhan says she was required to wear a head covering, forced to marry a man she barely knew and forbidden to travel without her husband's consent.But in the Fort Lauderdale federal courtroom where Gholikhan is on trial, the 31-year-old mother is making her own decisions and acting as her own attorney.Gholikhan's defense to charges she tried to export American-made night vision goggles to Iran: that she had no choice but to obey the orders of her former husband, who dragged her into the illegal plot."Once you get married in Iran, your husband has control over you," she told the American jury deciding her case.
The jury is expected to begin deliberating today. If convicted, she could face more than 10 years in prison.

"If there is a verdict for her and she is ordered to be released, how can the verdict be changed so suddenly!!!!!!!!!"

That was the defendant's mom after Judge Cohn sentenced Shahrazad Mir Gholikhan to 29 months a week after sentencing her to credit time served. I've tried not to blog about the case because I was involved for a brief time early on in the litigation. Here is the intro from Vanessa Blum's article:

Shahrazad Mir Gholikhan, an Iranian woman accused of trying to export night vision goggles, thought her guilty plea last month would be her ticket back to her family.The federal prosecutor had recommended a term of time served for the 30-year-old mother's role in the illegal plot to trade with Iran, a U.S.-designated terrorist nation. U.S. District Judge James Cohn imposed the sentence at an April 25 hearing in Fort Lauderdale federal court.But on Tuesday that smooth resolution unraveled. Determining the sentence had been a mistake, Cohn extended Gholikhan's prison term from time served to two years and five months.Under the law, federal judges can amend sentences within seven business days that result from "arithmetic, technical, or other clear error."


Gholikhan's lawyer Bill Barzee had this to say:

William Barzee, Gholikhan's attorney, called the resentencing unfair and un-American, saying after the hearing that his client feels like she's back in Iran."I don't think it's fair to [agree on a sentence] and have someone plead guilty and then come back and ask the court for a do-over," Barzee said in court Tuesday.

And a sentencing professor commented:

Jonathan Rosenthal, a Fort Lauderdale defense lawyer who teaches sentencing at Nova Southeastern University, said he found a description of Gholikhan's resentencing "troubling" because the guidelines are only one factor judges should consider."I don't understand how on Monday a sentence of four-and-a-half months is reasonable, but on Tuesday, all of a sudden, that sentence is no longer reasonable," Rosenthal said. "Judges are not supposed to give guidelines any undue weight."

It's a valid point. If a sentence of credit time served is reasonable, how can a sentence of 29 months be reasonable the next day -- especially when the prosecutor had agreed to credit time served. If the situation was reversed -- and the defendant didn't like her sentence -- would a judge allow her to come back to court?

An only in Miami story covered by an only in Miami reporter

Dave Ovalle has the only-in-Miami story about men being promised anonymous sex with a bored housewife only to end up appearing on a porn site for cross-dressing men.  The Feds have arrested Bryan Deneumostier, 32, also known by the screen name “susanleon33326," on charges that he surreptitiously produced pornographic audio and video recordings of himself engaging in sexual activity with multiple men and then caused the videos to be posted on one or more subscription-based pornography websites without their knowledge or consent.

I'll let Ovalle tell you the story:

The men thought they were going to a South Miami-Dade house for a casual and clandestine tryst with a bored housewife.

Once there, the men agreed to be blindfolded, and for sex acts to be performed on them. What the victims did not know, federal agents say, is that the supposed housewife was a cross-dressing man named Bryan Deneumostier — and he was uploading the videos to a porn website and charging users to view them.

Federal agents late Tuesday arrested Deneumostier, 33, of Homestead and charged him with five charges related to the operation of “StraightBoyz,” which promised gay men videos of real straight men being conned into accepting sex acts, all while blindfolded or wearing blacked-out goggles.

Investigators believe Deneumostier ran the site for at least four years. It featured at least 600 videos. Although the website is no longer in operation, many of the videos are still viewable on other adult websites. Agents are still trying to figure out how many of the people depicted on the site may be victims, never knowing their rendezvous were being recorded and uploaded to the web.

From the USAO press release:

The indictment, which was unsealed July 18, references three victims whose identities are being withheld to protect their privacy. Without two of the referenced victims’ knowledge or consent, Deneumostier allegedly recorded his sexual encounters with them, and then caused these videos to be posted on one or more websites. These two allegedly nonconsensual recordings form the basis of the surreptitious-recording charges. The indictment further alleges that Deneumostier was a producer of pornography, used performers portrayed in a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct, and did not ascertain the performers’ identification or age, as required by federal law.

Find me guilty

Sharhazad Mir Gholikhan is back in trial before Judge Cohn. You remember her -- she's the one who is accused of exporting night vision goggles to Iran. Bill Barzee represented her at her first trial where the jury could not reach a verdict. This time she is representing herself! Yesterday she conducted voir dire and did her opening in her prison khakis. When asked why she wouldn't wear civilian clothes, she responded that she had nothing to hide from the jury....

Here's the trailer from the movie Find Me Guilty, about a mobster who represented himself in the longest trial in U.S. history.