1. When a lawyer runs for office, is his choice of clients a fair target for attack? Vanessa Blum covers this debate here: "Less than two weeks before the Nov. 7 election, Broward County Commissioner Jim Scott is attacking challenger Ken Keechl for his legal representation of a company accused of defrauding investors out of nearly $1 billion. Scott wants voters to know that Keechl, a Democrat making his first run for public office, defended Mutual Benefits Corp. in lawsuits across the country as a partner at Fort Lauderdale law firm Brinkley, McNerney, Morgan, Solomon & Tatum." I particularly like Mike Tein's quote: "I think it's irresponsible and reprehensible for Ken's opponents to even suggest he did anything wrong simply because he represented Mutual Benefits," Tein said. "Any line drawing between the firm and the investigation into this former client is absolutely misguided."
2. The Florida Bar has come out with its Media Awards. "This year’s grand prize winners are The Miami Herald and The Florida Times-Union (newspapers and other periodicals with circulation more than 50,000), The Villages Daily Sun (newspapers and other periodicals with circulation less than 50,000), WTSP-TV of St. Petersburg (television), and WUSF of Tampa (radio). Honorable mentions are awarded to The Daytona Beach News-Journal and The Daily Business Review. " The Herald won for Jay Weaver's investigative series about Broward Circuit Judge Eileen O'Connor, which prompted the NAACP to file an ethics complaint against her with the Judicial Qualifications Commission. Where are the blogger awards!
The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Acosta sworn in
Alex Acosta was sworn in today as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Great turnout in the Central Courtroom. Justice Alito -- who Acosta clerked for when he was on the Third Circuit -- spoke and administered the oath. When they were standing next to each other, they actually looked liked brothers. Striking similarity...
The program for the event had a quote that I often cite:
"The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he in a peculiar way and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer."
-- Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 88 (1935) (Sutherland, J.).
The AP already has coverage of it here.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
News and notes
Friday, October 20, 2006
Weekend reading...
Here's a New Times article by Carl Jones accusing a criminal defense lawyer and some DEA agents of some bad bad things. The first in the three part series starts this way:
Back in July 1998, Pensacola prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for a 28-year-old father of three named Antonio Monroy. He had been charged with three counts of cocaine trafficking. Soon he was picked up in Miami. He was sent to a federal prison in Coleman, Florida, northwest of Orlando, and a few months later, with a trial looming, he pleaded guilty.
It was the kind of case that breezes through the courts every day.
Then a friend of Antonio's contacted his mother, Virginia. A Miami lawyer could get her son out of prison early, he said.
At the time, Israel Perez Jr. was a defense attorney with almost twenty years of experience, including time clocked as a prosecutor in Fort Myers and Miami-Dade, where he served under Janet Reno. Before he met Antonio Monroy, the only blight on his record had been a 1993 public reprimand by the Florida Bar for improperly handling the funds of a client. Perez had an office in a black and tan tower called the Gables International Plaza in Coral Gables. He seemed like a reputable guy.
Virginia agreed to meet the lawyer, who soon showed up at her aging apartment building on Indian Creek Drive across from the Intracoastal Waterway in Miami Beach. According to the woman's description of that meeting, Perez laid out a plan. Perez would fly to Coleman and tell Antonio to expect two Drug Enforcement Administration agents to visit him after sentencing. Then agents would tell the court he deserved to be freed. It was a sure thing.
The cost to Antonio and his mother would be $100,000.
Back in July 1998, Pensacola prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for a 28-year-old father of three named Antonio Monroy. He had been charged with three counts of cocaine trafficking. Soon he was picked up in Miami. He was sent to a federal prison in Coleman, Florida, northwest of Orlando, and a few months later, with a trial looming, he pleaded guilty.
It was the kind of case that breezes through the courts every day.
Then a friend of Antonio's contacted his mother, Virginia. A Miami lawyer could get her son out of prison early, he said.
At the time, Israel Perez Jr. was a defense attorney with almost twenty years of experience, including time clocked as a prosecutor in Fort Myers and Miami-Dade, where he served under Janet Reno. Before he met Antonio Monroy, the only blight on his record had been a 1993 public reprimand by the Florida Bar for improperly handling the funds of a client. Perez had an office in a black and tan tower called the Gables International Plaza in Coral Gables. He seemed like a reputable guy.
Virginia agreed to meet the lawyer, who soon showed up at her aging apartment building on Indian Creek Drive across from the Intracoastal Waterway in Miami Beach. According to the woman's description of that meeting, Perez laid out a plan. Perez would fly to Coleman and tell Antonio to expect two Drug Enforcement Administration agents to visit him after sentencing. Then agents would tell the court he deserved to be freed. It was a sure thing.
The cost to Antonio and his mother would be $100,000.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
"Pimpin' aint easy"
These were the videos found in Michael Miller's car when police arrested him. He was just sentenced in federal cour tto 10 years for attempting to transport a minor for prostituion. Here's the article from the Herald.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Padilla order appealed
Yesterday the Government filed its notice of appeal to contest the dismissal of Count I of the indictment. I suspect this will postpone by quite a bit the January trial date.
Fee disputes....
Julie Kay writes today (pass thru link required) in an interesting and lengthy article about the government trying to forfeit attorneys' fees in the Bankest trial. Here's the intro:
The defense attorneys for the brothers convicted of masterminding the largest bank fraud in Miami history could have to pay back the $757,000 they were paid in legal fees. Federal prosecutors are claiming that money used to pay Ed Shohat and Bruce Lehr was tainted, coming from the sale of a Manhattan condominium that was part of the fraud. In court papers, the attorneys deny that the funds used to pay them were tainted. Shohat worked for Eduardo Orlansky for three years, while Lehr represented Hector Orlansky for 18 months. Both attorneys worked through a 4½-month trial and four weeks of jury deliberations. They also paid for several medical experts to testify about the health of their clients. The Orlanskys, who face 30 years in prison, were convicted in August of massive fraud in their operation of E.S. Bankest, a Miami factoring company. The Orlanskys created fictitious checks, invoices and companies to inflate the value of account receivables by hundreds of millions of dollars to support the fraud targeting Portugal’s Espirito Santo Bank. The nine-year scam allowed the Orlanskys to illegally obtain $167 million from the bank and its clients. E.S. Bankest was a joint venture of the bank and Bankest Capital, which was formed by the Orlanskys. Experts say it’s highly unusual for the government to seek payback of attorney fees, particularly in nondrug cases, and this may be a first for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami. “This is very rare,” said Miami attorney Scott Srebnick, who is also fighting forfeiture claims on behalf of his client, former Hamilton Bank Chairman Eduardo A. Masferrer.
The defense attorneys for the brothers convicted of masterminding the largest bank fraud in Miami history could have to pay back the $757,000 they were paid in legal fees. Federal prosecutors are claiming that money used to pay Ed Shohat and Bruce Lehr was tainted, coming from the sale of a Manhattan condominium that was part of the fraud. In court papers, the attorneys deny that the funds used to pay them were tainted. Shohat worked for Eduardo Orlansky for three years, while Lehr represented Hector Orlansky for 18 months. Both attorneys worked through a 4½-month trial and four weeks of jury deliberations. They also paid for several medical experts to testify about the health of their clients. The Orlanskys, who face 30 years in prison, were convicted in August of massive fraud in their operation of E.S. Bankest, a Miami factoring company. The Orlanskys created fictitious checks, invoices and companies to inflate the value of account receivables by hundreds of millions of dollars to support the fraud targeting Portugal’s Espirito Santo Bank. The nine-year scam allowed the Orlanskys to illegally obtain $167 million from the bank and its clients. E.S. Bankest was a joint venture of the bank and Bankest Capital, which was formed by the Orlanskys. Experts say it’s highly unusual for the government to seek payback of attorney fees, particularly in nondrug cases, and this may be a first for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami. “This is very rare,” said Miami attorney Scott Srebnick, who is also fighting forfeiture claims on behalf of his client, former Hamilton Bank Chairman Eduardo A. Masferrer.
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