Jack Utsick pleads guilty

There was a lot of trial talk at the beginning of this case, but now we are headed to sentencing.  From the Miami Herald:

On the eve of trial, a once-powerful Miami Beach concert promoter pleaded guilty Friday to ripping off a single investor — though his federal plea deal still leaves him vulnerable to prison for the rest of his life.
Jack Utsick, who produced tours for Fleetwood Mac, Michael Jackson and other superstars, faces up to 17 years in prison and must repay more than $169 million to thousands of his investors, many of whom were retired commercial airline pilots like him.
But Utsick’s defense attorneys said their 73-year-old client is ailing and broke, factors that could help him obtain lighter punishment at his sentencing Aug. 23 before U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga.
“We will be asking for a substantially lower sentence,” said Washington, D.C., lawyer Eric Lisann, who is working on the defense with Miami attorney David Weinstein.

Meantime, there is a lot of debate about whether the Orlando shooter's wife committed a crime.  From the Sun-Sentinel:

The wife of Orlando massacre shooter Omar Mateen, Noor Zahi Salman, is talking to the FBI, a law enforcement official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.
Among other things, investigators are looking at whether Salman helped Mateen plan or scout out the rampage at the Orlando nightclub, or knew about his plans.
Mateen visited a number of Disney properties since April, and was most recently spotted early this month in Disney Springs, an outdoor shopping and entertainment complex inWalt Disney World, according to a U.S. law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.
It's possible that Mateen's visit overlapped with Gay Days Orlando, which went from May 31 to June 6 this year. The annual event brings thousands of LGBT individuals and families to Central Florida.
 The organizers of Gay Days arrange some ticket packages at Disney parks during the annual event and designate parks to attend on certain days.Another U.S. official said that information provided to the FBI by Disney made it clear that Mateen was not simply acting as a tourist during a visit to Walt Disney World two or three months ago.
***
Mateen's wife, Salman, has told FBI agents that she drove with him to the Pulse nightclub on at least one occasion before Sunday's shooting, and that she accompanied him to shop at a firearms dealer.
Mateen bought a Glock handgun and an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle during two separate visits this month to the St. Lucie Shooting Center, several miles from PGA Village, a gated community where he worked as a security guard.
The FBI is investigating whether Salman also had knowledge of his plan to attack and kill patrons at the gay nightclub.
If Salman knew of her husband's intent to commit terrorist acts and didn't report it to law enforcement, she could face criminal charges. But a federal law enforcement official said the Justice Department is in no rush to file charges because no evidence has emerged to suggest the gunman had accomplices, and there is no imminent threat of another attack.
Mateen was the target of a 10-month FBI investigation in 2013 and 2014, but the case was closed when a confidential informant, surveillance and eavesdropping did not turn up evidence of illegal activity. At that point Mateen's name was taken off the FBI Terrorist Screening Center's watchlist.
Had his name been in the watchlist when he bought the firearms he used in the shooting, an FBI agent working the case would have been notified.
Schiff said he told Comey during Tuesday's briefing that the FBI should change its procedure to ensure that an agent is notified when a former terrorism suspect buys a gun.
If the FBI can't make that change on its own, Schiff said, he will consider drafting legislation to do it.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article83118357.html#storylink=cpy

Love is love is love

What a nice message after the tragedy yesterday.

Some quick news:

1) Congrats to AUSA Amit Argawal for being named Florida S.G. He is quite the rising star. I had the pleasure of arguing some cases against Amit (including the cell site data case en banc) and he is a gentleman.

2) The CJA conference was this weekend in Naples. Judges Moore, Cooke Scola, Matthewman, and Hunt were there. Plus there was a wonderful talk by Judge Beverly Martin and FPD Michael Caruso. It was a really good conference.

3) In last week's Sanchez-Valle opinion (finding that Puerto Rico could not prosecute someone after the feds had already done so), Justice Ginsburg (joined by Thomas) wrote a concurrence stating that the whole dual sovereignty doctrine should be re-examined. This was the position that FACDL-Miami took in its amicus brief (the only amici to take such a position). Big ups to Howard Srebnick, Terry Reed, Teresa Enriquez and Margot Moss for pushing the issue.

4) Some more details about the text messaging dust-up before Judge Bloom last week. But still trying to find out what the actual texts were... From Paula M's story:

Authorities accused her of improperly sending text messages to the federal agent who worked under cover on her case. The messages, in Mandarin Chinese, were not deemed threatening but were sent during an overnight break in the agent's trial testimony last week, records show.

Pro tip for defendants -- do not text the undercover agent while he is testifying

Ooof.  That happened in Judge Bloom's courtroom this week, according to the Sun-Sentinel.  The defendant was then taken into custody:

South Florida jury convicted a California woman on Thursday of conspiring to send a $50 million missile-firing drone and jet fighter engines to China via Broward County.Wenxia Man, aka Wency, 45, of San Diego, was found guilty of conspiring to export military weapons, equipment and technical data to the People's Republic of China.
***
Authorities accused her of improperly sending text messages, in Chinese, to the federal agent who worked undercover on her case during a break in his testimony in her trial. The agent, from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security Investigations, reported the improper contact and U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom order Man taken into custody, according to court records.

Does anyone know what the text said?  Please email me if you have any further info! 

Annual CJA conference in Naples

It's that time of year again, when all of the CJA lawyers take the Alligator Alley adventure.  Hopefully there will be none of this during the drive.  Instead, lawyers will get the latest Johnson updates, schmooze with some judges, and get to bond.

While this is going on, Jose Baez will be preparing for the Aaron Hernandez case.

Fun times...

Evidentiary hearing today in Spy-gate (Updated)

UPDATE -- so the courtroom was packed this afternoon.  Every seat was taken.  (When that happens, shouldn't the security people move the interns/clerks to the jury box to make more room for the public.)  It was mostly prosecutors and interns/clerks in the audience.  

Only one witness was called today, Rossana Arteaga-Gomez, the lawyer for Mr. Schapiro who was in the warehouse with the documents.  After about 2 hours, the rest of the testimony was taken in camera without the line prosecutor so he wouldn't learn any of the work-product material that the agent is alleged to have learned from the copies provided to her.  

Hearing continued till Monday.  Not much to report on today.

I've gotten some push back from my prosecution friends for calling it Spy-gate (the Patriots probably didn't like it either).  What about Copy-gate instead?

Original Post:

We need a better name for the case (U.S. v. Schapiro)...

Background here on the defense's claims that the government has been spying on its work product for the past 10 years.  Judge Cooke will hear evidence this afternoon

In the meantime, the defense filed its reply last night.

Reply in Support of Sanctions

Rubio officially blocks Mary Barzee Flores

The Tampa Bay Times has this:

“Senator Rubio recently returned the blue slip for three judges to fill other vacancies throughout Florida, but he will not return the blue slip on Ms. Barzee Flores," spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said.
"Florida has very busy federal courts and Senator Rubio would like to see judicial vacancies filled promptly with consensus picks who can be swiftly confirmed in a period of divided government. During the Obama administration, there has been an unfortunate trend toward the judiciary playing a more active role in policy-making, which is why Senator Rubio would rather see a judgeship remain vacant than to fill it with the wrong person for a lifetime."

The Miami Herald did a longer story, with quotes from people in the community backing Mary:

 Barzee Flores’ supporters in the legal community — including Miami-Dade, state and national police organizations, as well as prominent former state and federal prosecutors on both sides of the political spectrum — say they are baffled by Rubio’s decision to block her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.They noted that his reasoning, based on his office’s statement, was contradictory, evasive and reflective of the political divisiveness in the GOP-controlled Senate, which votes on the president’s judicial appointments.
“It’s unfortunate that Mary has apparently fallen victim to the extreme political partisanship that is plaguing federal judicial nominations,” said former U.S. Attorney Marcos Jimenez, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.
Jimenez, who had served on Bush’s legal team in Florida’s 2000 presidential election dispute with Democrat Al Gore, said Barzee Flores is “extremely qualified and would make a great judge.”
Last year, Jimenez joined four other former U.S. attorneys in Miami — Roberto Martinez, Thomas Scott, Guy Lewis and Jeffrey Sloman — in a letter supporting her confirmation to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley, and a ranking member, Sen. Patrick Leahy.
“We know how important it is to have smart, fair, hard-working judges on the federal bench,” they wrote in March 2015. “Mary fits the bill.”
Their letter noted that three former U.S. attorneys in Miami who serve on Florida’s Federal Judicial Nominating Commission — Alex Acosta, Kendall Coffey and Dexter Lehtinen — recommended her to President Obama.

Really sucks.  I don't really get it either -- why back the person only to withhold the blue slip?

I guess the upside it that If HRC wins, Mary can be renominated.  And since Rubio's seat will also change, I wouldn't say this is over just yet.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article81786967.html#storylink=cpy

Has the government been using its copy service to spy on defense work product for the past 10 years?

Those are the allegations in this motion to dismiss filed by Howard Srebnick and Rossana Arteaga-Gomez in U.S. v. Schapiro before Judge Cooke. 

Those who practice in this District know that in large fraud cases, the government stores its documents at a facility in Miramar.  If you want to see or copy the documents, you need to go there.  The Schapiro defense alleges that it flagged documents for copying from the warehouse.  The copy service scanned those documents and gave the defense a CD, which included the documents, titles the defense assigned to those documents, and post-it notes on the documents.  Unbeknownst to the defense, the copy service would also give that CD with this material to government agents.  And the copy service has been doing this for 10 years.  From the motion:

Mr. Montero [the copy service guy] then stated that he had been providing to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the past 10 years duplicate copies of the discovery documents selected by defense counsel in other cases. On that day, Mr. Montero forwarded to Ms. Arteaga-Gomez his April 21, 2016 email to Cori Weiss [the government paralegal] (discussed above). In the forwarded email, Mr. Montero writes:

Here is the email I sent the FBI and this practice has been one that has been going on since 2006 that both Xpediacopy my old company and Imaging Universe have provided the U.S.D.O.J. in the majority of the cases where the government was not paying for the discovery services or were paying for half of the services.

To the prosecutor's credit, he informed the defense of this when he found out about in this case.  But query why it took 10 years for any prosecutor or agent to speak up. 

Judge Cooke remarked at the initial status conference on the motion that if true, the conduct was "repulsive."  In fact, she issued an order asking the parties to address the following issue: "What remedies, if any, are available to the court were the court to find that the described conduct in Defendant Shapiro’s motion is a systemic, consistent and/or pervasive practice of or on behalf of the United States Attorney’s Office?"

The Government filed a 49-page response here in which it claims, no harm no foul and that this isn't really work-product.  It also makes the surprising claim that the defense has waived any claim because it either knew or should have known about this procedure.  Wow.

An evidentiary hearing has been scheduled for next week.  This is worth following.

Kudos to Dan Christensen from Broward Bulldog as the first to report on the story here, which will soon be national news.  From the intro:

In a stunning twist in a long-running Medicare fraud case, both the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI stand accused of spying on a defendant’s lawyer by illegally and secretly obtaining copies of confidential defense documents.
Court papers filed last week by attorneys for Dr. Salo Schapiro contend the secret practice was not the action of “just one rogue agent or prosecutor.” Rather, it was apparently an “office-wide policy” of both the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI that’s gone on for “at least 10 years.”
The unwritten policy involves “surreptitiously copying defense counsel’s work product through the government-contracted copy service that the government requires defense counsel to use to obtain the discovery documents’’ needed to properly prepare for trial, according to court papers that seek either the dismissal of Schapiro’s indictment or the disqualification of the entire prosecution team.

End of school

It's that time of year -- recitals, graduations, pool parties, etc.

And of course, the end of Term opinions by the Court.  But the 8 member Court is making it tough.  Slate says the Court is bored out of its mind:

 So on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise when Captain Kirk has been forced to downgrade life support to minimum. Lights seem to flicker gently. Dazed reporters drift down the halls like tumbleweeds. On Tuesday, Justice Samuel Alito didn’t even show up for opinion announcements. And when the sole opinion of the day was read from the bench, in a rollicking appeal about when an agency action is reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act, in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co. Inc., Chief Justice John Roberts read the unanimous opinion of the court with the affable charm of a man who has far too much time on his hands. With his trademark rhetorical flair the chief justice expounded joyously on the many charms of peat. (Whiskey! Fertilizer! “Structural support and moisture for smooth, stable greens that leave golfers with no one to blame but themselves for errant putts.”) The court granted a single case, and issued warring opinions from weary jurists intent upon relitigating their longstanding death-penalty and jury-instruction disputes. Justice Clarence Thomas (joined by Justice Samuel Alito) wrote dutifully about the murder details in a jury instruction appeal, as he is more and more wont to do. (Hooker! Hunting knife! Bloodstained shoes! Depravity!) Justice Stephen Breyer (joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) dissented in a death penalty appeal to remind us of the geographic disparities in capital sentences.

***

All of which brings us back to the great marble dustbowl that stands opposite the Capitol, and all the ways in which the justices who ostensibly work there have the look of resigned underemployment about them; a look that perhaps perfectly mirrors this moment in American history. Watching the justices assemble, dress, climb to their seats on the bench, and listen to the chief read out a unanimous opinion in a case about peat, it was clear that at least some of them might appreciate some interesting work until a ninth member is seated—work that might transcend halfhearted ideological infighting. I’m thinking they can maybe rent a bus and start a band. Or mow lawns or maybe babysit. But as the high court sputters along on its new screensaver mode, the fact that government can do next to nothing—even as there is more than ever to do—could not be more depressingly in evidence.

All that said, SCOTUSBlog reports on a judge telling the Court to take up a transgender case:

Arguing that “time is of the essence,” a federal appeals court judge on Tuesday called for a prompt appeal to the Supreme Court to sort out the rights of transgender students when they use restrooms at school. Circuit Judge Paul V. Niemeyer helped clear the way for an early appeal by withholding a demand that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vote on rehearing a test case on the issue. At issue in the case of G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board is the meaning of a 1972 federal civil rights law that outlaws discrimination “because of sex” in federally funded education. Specially at issue is whether that law — known as “Title IX” — provides protection to students who identify as having a gender other than what was assigned to them at birth. There is a widespread, and rapidly growing controversy over that and other transgender rights issues, and the case of sixteen-year-old “G.G.” could be the first to put the issue before the Supreme Court. In some ways, the rapid development of the controversy parallels that over same-sex marriage rights, leading to the Supreme Court decision recognizing equal rights of gays and lesbians to marry, across the nation.

And Rumpole is cracking me up with his posts about a lawyer who is stealing our blog posts.  Great stuff by Rumpole here.