Roy Altman has been sworn in (UPDATED with news regarding Rudy Ruiz)

Update — The Senate is moving forward with Rudy Ruiz on Monday with the cloture motion ripening.  He should be confirmed early next week.  

Judge Marcus had the honor of swearing in Roy Altman yesterday.  Not minutes later, judges started reassigning cases to Judge Altman!

Here's a nice picture of the event:

Esformes forfeiture verdict

The Esformes trial is finally over ...

The forfeiture trial was Monday, and the jury deliberated and reached a verdict yesterday.  But only after some drama in which there were a flurry of notes saying that they were hung and that one jury was holding out for the defense.  But the jury ended up coming back, refusing to forfeit most of the assets the government was asking for. Instead, it decided that the government was entitled to interests in the operating companies for seven facilities.

Next up is sentencing.

The Secret Service plugged Zhang's thumb-drive into its computer

Um, whoops?

Yujing Zhang, the woman who was arrested at Mar-a-Lago, with her thumb-drive had her bond hearing today in West Palm Beach.  She was represented by the Federal Public Defender's office.  This gem came out during the agent's testimony (via the Miami Herald):

On Monday, wearing a short-sleeved, navy-blue detainee uniform and chewing her lower lip, Zhang glanced repeatedly at the crowd of journalists who had gathered for the hearing. Her hands were clenched in fists so tight they began to turn red. She appeared to speak in English with one of the attorneys representing her, although a court-appointed Mandarin interpreter was also present. When the hearing started, she began taking notes on a yellow legal pad.

Adler, Zhang’s attorney, pushed back during the hearing on the idea that she was a spy.

“She did not have the type of devices that can be associated with espionage activities,” he said.

Garcia, the prosecutor, replied that “there is no allegation [in the criminal complaint] she was involved in espionage ... all of this is irrelevant.”

“That’s good to know,” Adler said.

Later, Garcia said he could not rule out more serious charges.

“There are a lot of questions that remain to be answered,” he told the judge.

Investigators are still trying to determine the nature of the malware Zhang allegedly brought into the club, sources told the Herald. It is not clear how much of a threat the malware posed and whether it might have been intended to gather information at the president’s club or possibly to destroy an existing network or program, they said.

Secret Service agent Samuel Ivanovich, who interviewed Zhang on the day of her arrest, testified at the hearing. He stated that when another agent put Zhang’s thumb drive into his computer, it immediately began to install files, a “very out-of-the-ordinary” event that he had never seen happen before during this kind of analysis. The agent had to immediately stop the analysis to halt any further corruption of his computer, Ivanovich testified. The analysis is ongoing but still inconclusive, he said.

Insys case to jury

In addition to Esformes, there is another huge health care trial that just went to the jury after 43 days of testimony.  It’s known as the Insys case and it involves John Kapoor, the CEO of Insys, in Boston federal court.  From NPR:

Kapoor, the founder of Insys Therapeutics, allegedly oversaw a marketing strategy that paid doctors more than $1 million to prescribe Subsys in high doses — often to patients who did not need it. Subsys is a highly addictive opioid painkiller up to 100 times stronger than morphine.

Then, prosecutors claim, Insys set up a call center to ensure the expensive medication was covered by insurers. At the call centers, Insys employees allegedly pretended to be from doctors' offices and fabricated diagnoses and other information necessary to get the medication approved.

"The decisions, the money, the strategy came from the top," Yeager said. The obligation of physicians to "first, do no harm, became: First, do what you're told."

Yeager showed the jury internal company spreadsheets detailing how much money Insys had paid each doctor and the ROI, or return on investment, from those payments. That is, exactly how much money the company was making back via prescriptions from each doctor it had paid. Yeager suggested it should be called ROB — "return on bribe."

***

Kapoor, the founder of Insys Therapeutics, allegedly oversaw a marketing strategy that paid doctors more than $1 million to prescribe Subsys in high doses — often to patients who did not need it. Subsys is a highly addictive opioid painkiller up to 100 times stronger than morphine.

Then, prosecutors claim, Insys set up a call center to ensure the expensive medication was covered by insurers. At the call centers, Insys employees allegedly pretended to be from doctors' offices and fabricated diagnoses and other information necessary to get the medication approved.

"The decisions, the money, the strategy came from the top," Yeager said. The obligation of physicians to "first, do no harm, became: First, do what you're told."

Yeager showed the jury internal company spreadsheets detailing how much money Insys had paid each doctor and the ROI, or return on investment, from those payments. That is, exactly how much money the company was making back via prescriptions from each doctor it had paid. Yeager suggested it should be called ROB — "return on bribe."

Philip Esformes verdict -- Hung on Health Care, convicted of other counts (UPDATED & EDITED)

The Philip Esformes jury came back this morning -- hung jury on the main counts of health care and found guilty of other counts (including the kickback and money laundering counts) after a hard fought trial and lengthy deliberation.

Both sides will claim victory (as is happening in the press). The defense can argue that it won because of a hung jury on the main health care counts after a long trial.  The defense will argue that the case was billed as the largest health care fraud case but it resulted in no health care fraud count convictions.  That may be true for the lawyers, but it will be a tough sell when Esformes is ultimately sentenced. And the government can certainly say that it won with lots of convictions and no acquittals.  It will be interesting to see what sentence is ultimately handed out.  (I’ve edited this paragraph of this post a few times after thinking about the verdicts and what they mean.)

The poor jury thought they were done with the case, but now have to come back on Monday to handle the forfeiture portion of the trial.

Update— actually, the jury knew it would have to come back. Judge Scola informed them that after phase 1, there would be a few more days of evidence.

Congrats to Judge Roy Altman

He was just confirmed, 66-33.

Senate goes nuclear over Roy Altman

There's a lot of political back and forth over Trump's recent judicial nominees.  Miami is always ground zero, and it was here too as Altman was the first judicial selection to test the nuclear option today.  And boom, the Senate did go nuclear, and the bottom line is that the final vote for Altman will be tomorrow (Thursday) at 11:45. He will very likely be our newest district judge.

Here's Roll Call explaining a little more about the process.  And here are some tweets by the Senate Cloakroom with what happened today:

• Votes Scheduled: At 11:45am TMRW the Senate will proceed to 2 votes: 1.Confirmation of Cal. #32 Altman to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of FL
• Invoked, 66-33: Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #32 Roy Altman to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Florida 

Interestingly, because Altman will be confirmed first, he will have seniority over Ruiz and Smith.

In Defense of Joe Biden

That’s my latest piece in The Hill. The intro:

It’s official: The pendulum of #MeToo claims has now swung too far. When a friendly gesture with no sexual intent is labeled a reprehensible act that should be subject to public shaming and even disqualification from public office, it is time that we all recognize that we are starting to lose perspective.

Let’s be clear before I continue: I am not talking about the crass comments by the current President that it’s okay to “grab [women] by the pussy” or inappropriate sexual relations between then-President Clinton and an intern. Those are clearly beyond the pale. But the “allegations” against Joe Biden — that he touched Linda Flores’ shoulders and kissed the back of her head — are very different.

Biden is an affectionate guy, but in a grandfatherly sort of way. He explained: “In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection” and never intended to disrespect or cause any harm to Flores or anyone else. But Flores has gone so far as to say that Biden’s intent is irrelevant. Kelly Ann Conway has repeated this argument, saying that it does not matter what Biden intended.

Of course Biden’s intent is relevant. It’s the most important question here. That’s why Stephanie Carter, wife of secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, has had to publicly speak out about the picture of her and Biden that is making the rounds again. As Carter made clear, "The Joe Biden in my picture is a close friend helping someone get through a big day, for which I will always be grateful. So, as the sole owner of my story, it is high time that I reclaim it – from strangers, Twitter, the pundits and the late-night hosts."

Please read the whole thing and lemme know your thoughts...