The last week of good traffic

Gridlock starts next week with the start of school...

Looks like the storms are gonna miss us. Rumpole has been updating us all weekend on the positions of the storms. A tip for the future: keep an eye on the Herbert boxes.

The blawgosphere is aflutter over the possibility of free PACER. (Thanks to MDO for the tip, but Miguel, shouldn't you be studying for the fantasy football draft?) I'm all for free access to the courts, but I've heard grumbling among lawyers that electronic filing has led to their pleadings being stolen and that making PACER free will lead to even more stealing. Isn't that the greatest form of flattery? SFLawyers makes passing reference to lawyers looking at Iqbal motions to dismiss. Is it me, or is SFL oddly obsessed with Iqbal. Yes, we had a Paris obsession here a couple weeks back, and that was strange, but this Iqbal craze is, well, strange.

Rick Bascuas blogs about the en banc 11th Circuit looking into sentencing practices after giving discretion back to district judges. Apparently, the government isn't happy about below guideline sentences. Shock.

Anyone trying any cases this week?

News & Notes

1. Prosecutors in Georgia are in hot water about their handling of a prosecution against a criminal defense lawyer. Friends of the blog Tom Withers & Craig Gillen represent the defense lawyer. They were part of the defense team that tried the Savannah case with me a couple years back. Good peeps.

2. Richard Simring's sentencing was postponed. Sad: "Richard B. Simring, a lawyer, was the chief legal officer of Okun Holdings, was also to be sentenced this morning after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering.
However, Payne said he wanted a mental health evaluation conducted of Simring, who has a history of depression and was said to have been under a great deal of family stress at the times the crimes were committed.
A new sentencing date for Simring has not yet been set. Payne said the five years called for under the plea agreement may be appropriate, but said he wanted more information about Simring’s emotional condition."

3. On Agusut 24, 2009, the Third District Court of Appeal will be holding an en banc hearing at Judge Moreno’s courtroom. The building's namesake -- Judge Wilkie Ferguson -- is a former 3rd DCA Judge. From what I understand, the case deals with PIP... UPDATE -- the argument has been cancelled.

4. Supervised release numbers are way up -- from 51,000 on supervision in 1997 to almost 100,000 now.

UBS settles with US

Indictments to follow.

Richard Simring's co-defendant sentenced to 100 years

That's 50 years less than Mr. Madoff, but still -- that's quite a whopper of a sentence for Edward Okun. (The feds were asking for a 400 year sentence!) Here's the DOJ press release for background. (As an aside, anyone know the largest sentences handed out in this district?)

Okun's co-defendant Richard Simring, who was a rising star here in Miami before this case, is scheduled to be sentenced this Thursday. Simring will get much less -- he pled to one count with a five year maximum and has been cooperating. His role was extremely limited, so hopefully he can avoid jail time.

Interesting papers in the case. Here is Okun's sentencing memo, written by the FPD's office and Barry Pollack -- one of the finest white collar lawyers in the country. And here is the government's memo, in which it asks for 400 years.

I'm back

Hey everyone. I'm back. A big shout out to Vanessa Blum for filling in last week while I was out tending to the new Markus bambina.

Speaking of Vanessa, you all should go over here to the South Florida Daily Blog and vote for her and Dore for their guest-blogging on the interviews of the district judge and U.S. Attorney applicants. (UPDATE -- I just checked and we're in second. Come on people... Go vote!)

Judge Graham is back from his summer vacation and picked up the prestigious William H. Hastie award at the National Bar Association Convention in San Diego presented by the Judicial Council.

Another NG for the FPD's office last week. This time Ayana H. and Sowmya B. pick up the win in an illegal reentry case.

Good guy Dan Rashbaum has left the U.S. Attorney's office and has joined Matt Menchel in the Miami office of Kobre Kim.

Nick Bogert is moving to Chicago after 30 years of reporting in South Florida. He's having a party on Saturday, August 22 from 7-10PM at Pacific Time Restaurant 35 NE 40th St., Miami. Go wish Nick well. (I remember one exchange I had with Nick a couple years back, after the Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuella plea. There was a mass of cameras waiting for us outside of court, and I said that Gilberto was honorable for saving his family and not snitching; Nick yelled "Are you claiming that Gilberto Rodriguez is an honorable man after everything that he has done?" It was a fair question, and I stood by my answer.)

OYEZ OYEZ OYEZ

It's official.

Closer to home, John Pacenti of DBR reports on alleged links between R. Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire accused of running an $8 billion Ponzi scheme, and Tom Cash, former chief of DEA operations for South Florida. After leaving the DEA in 1994, Cash jumped to fancy private investigative firm Kroll as head of Latin American business. Two groups that hired Kroll to conduct due diligence on Stanford International Group are now crying foul, claiming the firm had a conflict of interest because it previously worked for Stanford’s companies.

From the lawsuit: “Kroll never disclosed Mr. Cash’s connection with Mr. Stanford and the obvious conflict that this relationship presented. Many of the warning signs related to Mr. Stanford’s political network on the island of Antigua and SIB [Stanford International Bank] would have been within Mr. Cash’s own personal knowledge, but Mr. Cash failed to provide this important information and instead highly praised Mr. Stanford and Stanford entities.”

We don’t get to hear Cash’s side of the story. He apparently resigned from Kroll last month and is unreachable in the South Pacific. However, the article quotes Miami defense lawyer Jane Moscowitz and former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey singing Cash’s praises.

As it happens, I know some folks who aren’t so fond of Mr. Cash. Earlier this year I quoted Cash in a Sun Sentinel article about the DEA moving its headquarters from Miami to the Weston. Cash thought it was pretty comical that his old agency was moving to the suburbs and predicted a possible backlash. “Most people do not believe we are desirable neighbors. We’re sort of next in line after pedophiles,” he said.

I thought it was a funny quote, but it didn’t make me any friends at the DEA. It turns out federal law enforcement agents don’t particularly like being compared to pedophiles. Lesson learned.

Health Care on Trial

Coming up Thursday. . . Is Florida’s government failing children on Medicaid? Judge Adalberto Jordan is hearing arguments tomorrow on whether a longstanding class action seeking better treatment for Medicaid children can proceed to trial. In June, Magistrate Judge Chris McAliley certified the class over the state’s objections. From the Report and Recommendation:

The Individual Plaintiffs, who live in diverse geographic areas within the state, offer a broad spectrum of experiences that collectively illustrate the alleged failures of Florida’s Medicaid system. . . .In the opinion of this Court, the prosecution of this case will benefit from the range of personal experiences.

Lawyers from Boies Schiller & Flexner will argue, pro bono, on behalf of the class. The Florida AG’s office and law firm Kenny Nachwalter represent the Florida agencies.

While we’re on the hot-button subject of government-run health care, Jay Weaver has this story about Medicare's proposed cap on payments to home health care agencies in Miami-Dade, which seem to be filing hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus bills for diabetic services.

Still want a public health care option?

Monday round up

Hi all and welcome to Monday! Vanessa Blum here, holding down the fort for DOM, while he welcomes his third daughter into the world. Is that guy a slacker or what?

1. First, in the name of shameless self promotion: Definitely check out my cover story in the DBR—a scintillating profile of Miami lawyer Stephen Zack, the first Hispanic attorney elected to head the ABA. Also from the DBR (this one’s John Pacenti’s): should biometric data, such as retina scans, be used to ID illegal immigrants?

2. Second, this isn’t a federal court story, but I can’t resist linking to Paula McMahon’s Saturday article from the Sun Sentinel: Is a severed head found in Broward County enough to trigger local jurisdiction?

Broward prosecutors said that even though it's unclear where the 41-year-old was killed, the only part of her body that was recovered was found here and that under Florida law, that is sufficient to prosecute the two men charged here with her murder.

The defense argued that her body wasn't recovered and that it's more likely she was killed in New York. They hope Circuit Judge Michael Gates will rule that Broward prosecutors don't have legal jurisdiction to prosecute the case.

That’s all for now folks. I’ll be here all week, so e-mail news to vanessabblum@gmail.com.