First Monday in October

It's that time again, and I'm actually in DC for the day. Unfortunately, I'm not getting over to the Court for the first day of oral arguments this Term.

I'll post if I can get to a laptop later today; if not carry on in the comment section.

Miami is BACK

And it's not just the Hurricanes.

We've got all kinds of big fraud and corruption cases on the front page of the Herald this Sunday morning. There's Alan Mendelsohn's story, there's the advice given to Allen Stanford by Greenberg Traurig, and there's the investigation into prominent lobbyist Neil Sterling.

Ahhh yes, Miami is back.

Judge Graham is looking for a law clerk...

... to start now! Here's the vacancy posting.

Also check out SFLawyer for good coverage of Judge Jordan's recent dismissal of a case involving a lesbian woman and her children who were not allowed to visit her dying partner's bedside at Jackson. The Herald's story is here. The NYT piece is here.

News & Notes (UPDATED)

Lots going on today:

1. Another Mutual Benefits arrest: this time it's eye doctor Alan Mendelsohn. From Jay Weaver's article: Dr. Alan Mendelsohn, a Hollywood ophthalmologist who has raised millions for Florida politicians, surrendered to FBI agents on charges linked to his alleged efforts to thwart a 2000-05 state investigation into Mutual Benefits Corp., a Fort Lauderdale life insurance company.
An indictment charges Mendelsohn with 27 counts of wire and mail fraud and five counts of making false statements to federal agents related to a fraudulent fundraising and lobbying scheme, according to prosecutors.
Mendelsohn raised more than a half-million dollars from Mutual Benefits in 2003 to finance the hiring of a dozen lobbyists and make contributions to lawmakers, to stop legislation that would have tightened regulations on the so-called viatical industry. The industry sold life insurance policies of people dying of AIDS and other diseases.
The indictment alleges that Mendelsohn used a variety of false solicitations to raise money, including saying he had brokered illegal agreements with top Florida officials to close state and federal investigations. The indictment says that, in fact, no such agreements existed.
Mendelsohn, 51, is expected to appear in federal court in Fort Lauderdale Wednesday morning. His defense lawyer, John Keker of San Francisco, could not be reached for comment.

UPDATE -- The print version of the article, here, has lots more juicy details:

According to the indictment, Mendelsohn raised the $2 million from Mutual Benefits, an unidentified medical lab, a parimutuel business and a credit-card counseling firm during the past decade. Numerous medical colleagues of Mendelsohn's also contributed.

An unidentified ``accomplice'' assisted Mendelsohn in setting up the three political action committees and three corporations to move and disguise at least $624,000 in campaign funds paid to himself and others, according to the indictment.

Mendelsohn used some of the donations to pay $60,000 a month to his ``mistress'' from April 2003 to February 2005 for her assistance with the fundraising efforts, the indictment says. It also accused him of using $240,000 in PAC funds to buy and paint a residence for them and to buy a car for her.

The mistress is not identified in the indictment. But according to sources familiar with the case and public records, she is Caybre Cothern Ferrari, 39, who once worked as a scrub tech for Mendelsohn's eye surgery clinic.

At Mendelsohn's suggestion, the mistress established a corporation in March 2004 to divert campaign funds to Mendelsohn, herself, Florida politicians and others, the indictment says. It is illegal to divert campaign funds to personal use.

Public records show Ferrari created Broward-based KAC Consulting Inc. in March 2004.

Also in March 2004, records show that Ferrari transferred the deed to a home in Hollywood to her maiden name, Cothern. Mendelsohn is listed as a witness on the deed, records show.

2. The Supreme Court granted cert in 10 cases today, including a bunch of criminal law issues. SCOTUSBlog has all the details. The big one that everyone is talking about is: McDonald, et al. v. City of Chicago -- Whether the Second Amendment is incorporated into the Due Process Clause or the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment so as to be applicable to the States, thereby invalidating ordinances prohibiting possession of handguns in the home. More interesting to me is the sentencing issue raised in United States v. O’Brien and Burgess: Whether the mandatory minimum sentence enhancement under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) to a 30-year minimum when the firearm is a machine gun is an element of the offense that must be charged and proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, or instead a sentencing factor that may be found by a judge by the preponderance of the evidence.

More on Ben Kuehne

This weekend Jay Weaver had an interesting article about the oral argument in Ben Kuehne's case. Background here. Jay asks whether DOJ has targeted Fabio Ochoa's lawyers because they actually had the nerve to go to trial. And Joe DeMaria, the recent quote-master, is at it again:

"This is the Scopes Monkey trial of money laundering cases,'' said former federal prosecutor Joseph DeMaria, referring to the historic 1925 test case in Tennessee over the teaching of evolution in school.**
"If the government wins a conviction against somebody like Ben Kuehne, it will send the defense bar into a deep freeze,'' said DeMaria, who has represented several white-collar defendants in civil forfeiture cases. "This isn't just about drug dealing; it affects the entire spectrum of law enforcement.''

Read the whole article... Good stuff.

Sitting here watching MNF right now. It was a long weekend for Miami sports. Dolphins, Canes, Pennington.... Ugh. At least we got off the board in the blog fantasy league.

**I like how Jay has to explain to the Herald readers what the Scopes Monkey trial is all about...

Happy weekend my peeps

Just saw that the blog made the WSJ blog this week. Pretty cool.

Hopefully the blog football team will have a better performance. We have the same record as the Dolphins right now... (But in my real league, I'm doing well. Does that count here?)

Have a good weekend everyone.

UPDATE -- hat tip to SFLawyer on this story from the Palm Beach Post re the non-prosecution agreement of Jeffrey Epstein. Apparently, for doign 18 months in state court and agreeing to pay for the victims' lawyers, he avoided federal prosecution. The article and the agreement are definitely worth a read.

Broward politicians charged

By now, all of you have read about the arrests in Broward of a bunch of politicians, so I won't bore you with more on that... But I wanted to give a shout out to Jeff Sloman, who is coming into his own at press conferences. A tipster sent me these quotes:

The name of the probe was "Operation Flat Screen." Sloman said that, "in the grand scheme of operational names, this is at the bottom."

"If this is what you go into public service for, eventually will be caught," he said. His advice: "Reconsider your career choice."

He concluded with this warning: "Our work will continue in Broward County.
We are not done."

Good stuff.

FBA "Boardroom lunch"

From incoming Federal Bar president Bill Roppolo:

Dear Federal Bar Members,

The South Florida Chapter of the Federal Bar is launching a new small group luncheon series. The Boardroom Lunches will be hosted by local law firms and feature two federal judges. Attendance will be limited to 20 Federal Bar members and the cost will be $50.00 per person. The lunches are intended to provide a relaxed atmosphere where Federal Bar members can interact with our Judges in a small group. We will rotate the location of the lunches therefore if your firm would like to host an upcoming luncheon, please contact me.

The first Boardroom Lunch will take place at 12 noon on Thursday, October 1, 2009 at Greenberg Traurig, 1221 Brickell Avenue, Miami, Florida. District Judge Paul Huck and Magistrate Judge John O'Sullivan will attend.

If you would like to be one of the 20 people to have lunch with Judge Huck and Magistrate O'Sullivan, please respond to this email. The first 20 affirmative email responses that I receive will have a seat at the boardroom table.

Thank you and best regards,

Bill
(Incoming President)

From what I understand there are six seats left. If you are intersted contact Bill at William.Roppolo@BAKERMCKENZIE.com