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
There’s a new opening as the Judge Otazo-Reyes on November 30.
Applications are due May 3.
And here’s the committee who will recommend 5 names to the district bench:
Chair:
Ryan Ulloa, Esq.
Members:
Sashi Bach, Esq.
Matthew Dates, Esq.
Wifredo Ferrer, Esq.
Hector Dopico, AFPD
Jasmin Grant (non-attorney)
Lindsey Lazopoulos Friedman, AUSA Francesca Nabors (non-attorney) Jonathan Osborne, Esq.
Here's your list of the interviews, which are happening now:
Arteaga-Gomez, Rossana
Aslan, Erin Elizabeth Victoria
Augustin-Birch, Panayotta Diane
Brown, Bruce Ontareo
Corlew, Reginald Roy
Ferrer, Aimee Allegra
Katz, Randall D.
Marlow, Elena Margarita
Massey, Jessica A.
Moon, Stefanie Camille
Sanchez, Eduardo Ignacio
St. Peter-Griffith, Ann Marie
Thakur, Michael Eric
Weiss, Aaron Stenzler
Zaron, Erica Sunny Shultz
That's the title of this nice piece about Judge Altman in the DBR. Here's a cool shout-out to his grandfather:
And when Altman had one of his last conversations with his grandfather in Caracas, Venezuela, those American historical figures and what they stood for was the basis of a topic of discussion. At the time, his grandfather was dying from cancer. The two men were playing several games of chess on the balcony of his grandfather’s apartment overlooking tens of thousands of protestors.
That afternoon was a few weeks after Hugo Chávez, the president of the island nation in which corruption had become increasingly more widespread, padded the Venezuelan Supreme Court with loyalists in his party so he could seek unlimited terms in office.
Altman expressed to his grandfather his intentions to apply to law school as people took to the streets to protest the “gross violation of their constitutional charter.”
“One of the last things my grandfather said was: ‘This is what happens to a country when good people don’t serve it. When the worst people become public servants. If you’re going to be a lawyer, remember to be the right kind of lawyer that serves its country, so this never happens in America,’ ” Altman recounted. “ I carried those words with me. That story was my essay for my application to Yale Law School.”
And as Altman was nearing graduation from Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, he had no doubt in his mind that he wanted to return to Miami to start his legal career.
“This is the community that brought my family in when we came here from Venezuela,” Altman said. “We built a life here, we built friendships here, and I owed this community, I still do, for taking us in.”
...but the truth is that there should have been so many more. The sentences for first time, non-violent offenders are out of control. Yet, these former Miami prosecutors (Pelletier, Ferrer, and Stefan were all mentioned in this N.Y. Times article) seem to be upset about any commutation, even for Judith Negron who was sentenced to 35 years. 35 years! An absurd and insane sentence.
Not far away, in Hialeah, Fla., Judith Negron, 49, who had been convicted in a separate scheme to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicare payments, was also at home for the holidays instead of in federal prison. Thanks to a commutation by Mr. Trump, she had been released after serving eight years of a 35-year sentence and was relieved of any remaining obligation to pay her share of $87 million in court-ordered restitution.
This was hardly the outcome that Paul E. Pelletier expected when he and a team of other top Justice Department prosecutors and federal investigators set out to expose what Mr. Esformes and Ms. Negron had done.
***
In explaining his decisions, Mr. Trump said that Ms. Negron was a “wife and mother” and had dedicated her time in prison to “improving her life and the lives of her fellow inmates.” Mr. Esformes, he said, spent his time in prison “devoted to prayer and repentance and is in declining health,” and others had raised claims of misconduct by prosecutors in his case.
The presidential rationales did not hold much weight with those who had sought to hold Mr. Esformes and Ms. Negron accountable.
“It is an incredible kick in the teeth to the agents and prosecutors who toil away every day under very difficult circumstances to achieve justice and some restitution to the taxpayers from the billions of dollars that has literally been stolen from them,” Mr. Pelletier said.
We need criminal justice reform so that these abusive sentences and abusive practices don't need to get to the point of requiring Presidential action.
Ms. Negron, and lawyers for Dr. Melgen and Mr. Esformes, 52, argue that the commutations were justified. They said the Justice Department was overzealous in its prosecutions, either by using unethical practices during the investigation or by pushing for excessively long prison sentences and unrealistic restitution orders.
“I was sentenced based on numbers that were not relevant to me,” Ms. Negron said this month in an interview, referring to her 35-year sentence and multimillion-dollar restitution requirement. She argued that her earnings from the scheme were not more than her salary of about $250,000 a year. Prosecutors said during the trial that much of the stolen money was still missing.
The truth is that there should have been 10x the amount of commutations/pardons. Anyone with the temerity to insist on his Sixth Amendment right to trial is made an example of by the system.
Instead of being upset with the few that were granted, we should all be pushing for more under a Biden presidency.
He’s joining Stumphauzer Foslid Sloman Ross & Kolaya. A big get for them. Big enough for the AP to cover the move here:
A federal prosecutor who has jailed some of Venezuela’s biggest crooks is stepping down, The Associated Press has learned, leaving a void that could dampen U.S. efforts to expose criminal activity in the South American country amid rising tensions with the Trump administration. Michael Nadler, an assistant U.S. attorney, is leaving to enter private practice next month at a boutique Miami law firm— Stumphauzer Foslid Sloman Ross & Kolaya—said a person familiar with the move who insisted on speaking anonymously because it hadn’t been made public. Nadler, 48, has indicted multiple Venezuelan Cabinet ministers, businessmen and Swiss bankers as part of a sustained effort by investigators in the Southern District of Florida to recover some of the $300 billion estimated to have been stolen from Venezuela in two decades of socialist rule.
Nadler had this to say about the move:
It's has been an honor and privilege working as an AUSA for almost 10 years. Having the opportunity to work on some of the biggest cases in the country and focusing on high-level complex money laundering, Foreign Corruption Practices Act, foreign bribery cases, and targeting corruption at the highest levels in these international cases has been the highlight of my career to date. I thank the US Atty Fajardo for entrusting me and having the confidence in me to work these cases and to Willy Ferrer for hiring me. Leaving was an incredibly difficult decision. But when the opportunity presented itself to join a fantastic group of people and really talented lawyers at a well-respected and prominent boutique law firm, the choice was much easier. I look forward to this new chapter in my life.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Benjamin G. Greenberg as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida on December 29, 2017. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Greenberg served as the Acting United States Attorney beginning in March 2017 and has been the First Assistant United States Attorney since 2010. He previously held a number of leadership positions in the Office, including serving as the first Chief of the newly created Special Prosecutions Section, where he oversaw the Office’s efforts to combat violent crime, child exploitation, and human trafficking. In 2009, Mr. Greenberg became Chief of the Narcotics Section. In that capacity, he supervised the prosecution of international and domestic narcotics and money laundering cases, as well as violations of the Bank Secrecy Act.
Mr. Greenberg joined the United States Attorney’s Office in 2000 and has handled a wide variety of complex, challenging, and high-profile white collar, violent crime, narcotics, and organized crime cases. He was the lead prosecutor in a series of significant cases against various Israeli organized crime figures extradited to the United States. In recognition of these efforts, Mr. Greenberg received a national award from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Mr. Greenberg was also part of the trial team that prosecuted the President and Chief Executive Officer of a well-known financial institution for securities and bank fraud arising from a complex international accounting fraud scheme. The Daily Business Review recognized Mr. Greenberg as one of the community’s most effective lawyers for his work on this case.
Mr. Greenberg served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jon Phipps McCalla in Memphis, Tennessee after graduating from the Georgetown University Law Center. Prior to law school, Mr. Greenberg received a fellowship from the Rotary Foundation to study in Jerusalem, Israel after graduating with honors from the University of Pennsylvania.
3. Amy Howe covered the Lee argument here. From the intro:Lee v. United States, No. 16-327, to be argued March 28, 2017Issue: Whether it is always irrational for a noncitizen defendant with longtime legal resident status and extended familial and business ties to the United States to reject a plea offer notwithstanding strong evidence of guilt when the plea would result in mandatory and permanent deportation.Turner v. United States, No. 15-1503 to be argued March 29, 2017Issue: Whether the petitioners' convictions must be set aside under Brady v. Maryland.Honeycutt v. United States, No. 16-142 to be argued March 29, 2017Issue: Whether 21 U.S.C. § 853(a)(1) mandates joint and several liability among co-conspirators for forfeiture of the reasonably foreseeable proceeds of a drug conspiracy.
This morning the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of Jae Lee, a Korean immigrant who was charged with possession of ecstasy with intent to distribute it. Lee accepted a plea bargain after his attorney told him that he would not be deported. That advice turned out to be, as Justice Elena Kagan put it today, “supremely deficient”: In addition to the year and a day in prison to which he was sentenced, Lee’s conviction also carried with it the penalty of mandatory deportation. Lee asked a federal court to vacate his conviction, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit declined to do so. It reasoned that the evidence against Lee was so overwhelming that, even if he had received bad advice from his attorney that prompted him to plead guilty, Lee could not have suffered the kind of harm from that bad advice that would render his conviction unconstitutional. The justices today seemed more sympathetic to Lee than did the 6th Circuit, although it is not clear whether he can get the five votes needed to reverse the lower court’s ruling.
A prominent Florida eye doctor tied to a U.S. senator's alleged corruption built much of his fortune by defrauding Medicare and instilling false hopes in some patients, a federal prosecutor told a jury Thursday.Meantime, it was the ABA White Collar Conference at the Fountainbleu this week. About 1000 lawyers running around in suits while the beautiful people there were wondering who these aliens were invading their pool party. Lots of recent former prosecutors, including Willy Ferrer and Matt Axelrod. I previously covered Ferrer's move to H&K. Here's the Axelrod story from the NY Times about his departure:
Salomon Melgen stole millions from Medicare between 2008 and 2013 by falsely diagnosing patients and by performing unnecessary tests and treatments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Bell said during her opening statement for Melgen's fraud trial. Melgen and Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez face a separate trial in the fall in an alleged bribery case.
"This is a case about a doctor who lied to Medicare for money," Bell told the 12-member panel. He lied about his patients' diagnoses, she said. He lied about the tests he ran, she said. He lied about their prognoses, she said. All of it, she said, aimed at making Melgen rich, as many of these falsely diagnosed and treated patients could net him $72,000 each annually.
Medicare paid Melgen, 62, because it "relied on the integrity of the doctor," she said, but the government's investigation found that in many cases he "lied," using that word or a variation about two dozen times during her address.
Matthew Menchel, Melgin's attorney, countered during his opening that the government's case is built upon viewing Melgen's actions as criminal when they were actually aggressive medicine, legitimate differences of opinions between doctors and honest mistakes.***
"They turned a blind eye to evidence they didn't like," he said.
Many charges relate to patients Melgen said had age-related macular degeneration, one of the leading causes of severe vision loss in people 65 and older. Most ARMD patients have the "dry" variety, which is caused by retinal cells breaking down and cannot be treated. Fewer have the "wet" variety, which involves bleeding beneath the retina. It can be treated by injections.
***
Menchel said other doctors who have looked at Melgen's diagnoses and treatments don't always agree with him, but understand what he was attempting. Other eye doctors sent Melgen their hardest, most desperate patients because they knew of his "cutting edge" treatments that sometimes worked, Menchel said. He said a totally blind person who regains even a flicker of peripheral vision would feel the treatment is worth it.
"Many of Dr. Melgen's patients loved him, not just liked him, because he helped them," Menchel said.
Menchel said Melgen never claimed to test or treat prosthetic eyes, saying those billings were mistakes made by his employees. When those mistakes were pointed out to him, Melgen reimbursed Medicare, Menchel said.
Ex-NFL cornerback Will Allen and his business partner have been sentenced to prison for running a Ponzi scheme that took in more than $35 million.This isn't his first run-in with the law (from Wiki):
A federal judge in Boston Wednesday sentenced Allen, of Davie, Florida, and Susan Daub, of Coral Springs, Florida, each to six years in prison and three years of supervised release. They also were ordered to pay restitution totaling $17 million.
Allen and Daub collected millions from investors between 2012 and 2015, saying it would be used for high-interest loans to professional athletes. Their Massachusetts business made some loans but they also diverted money to themselves and other ventures.
Allen was arrested February 20, 2010 and charged with driving under the influence when he was stopped in a late-model Ferrari at 3:30 a.m. at the corner of Fifth Street and Alton Road, said Miami Beach police spokesman Detective Juan Sanchez.[2]In other news, we still don't know whether there is going to be a JNC here in Florida. There's been no clarity on who will permanently fill Ferrer's slot as U.S. Attorney or how it will be done. Ben Greenberg is the acting U.S. Attorney.
According to the arrest report, Allen approached a police road-block and instead of following the detour, he kept driving toward a police car, stopping only two feet from it.
Will Allen was placed on injured reserve September 5, 2010 because of a knee, just one week before season opener ending his 2010 season.
We are all Elena Kagan pic.twitter.com/BuoljihPVp— Josh Sternberg (@joshsternberg) March 1, 2017
Abreu left Sox camp after Monday's game against the Cubs, and the Sox said only that he had to tend to personal matters in Miami. Sox manager Rick Renteria said Abreu was expected him back at some point Wednesday, but he said he would not plan to use him in Wednesday's game against the Diamondbacks at Camelback Ranch.
Abreu hit the first Sox homer of the spring Monday against the Cubs. He has gone 2-for-5 in two spring games.
"It's something that we were made aware of (ahead of time), and so he has to have this time," Renteria said. "Once he gets back, I'm sure he'll be wanting to get back in the swing of things."
Abreu has declined comment in recent months about the trial, but when Hernandez was indicted last February, he said they had a "respectful relationship." Abreu signed a six-year, $68 million contract with the Sox in 2013 when represented by Praver Shapiro sports agency, which worked with Hernandez and his company, Global Sports Management. But he switched agencies in 2015.
JUSTICE GINSBURG: Is -- is the -- 924(c) is a statute, it's nothing to do with the guidelines, and it does say sentences have to be consecutive. So I go back to the point I opened with. You are, in effect, asking for a concurrent sentence.
MR. STOLER: Well, just -- just --
JUSTICE GINSBURG: Just adding one day.
MR. STOLER: Well, as Justice Kagan and I discussed, one day is an additional punishment. And one day --
JUSTICE KAGAN: She's Justice Sotomayor.
MR. STOLER: I'm sorry. Wrong end. (Laughter.)
JUSTICE KAGAN: She was the one helping you. (Laughter.)
MR. STOLER: I'm sorry.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: This is the --
JUSTICE KAGAN: I was the one who wasn't. (Laughter.)
MR. STOLER: I got my ends mixed up. I'm sorry.
I really like the sentiment, especially the opening line about his parents coming to this country, which welcomed them with open arms.
There has been no greater honor than to serve and protect the same community that opened its arms to my parents when they immigrated to this country. For almost seven years, I have been blessed to work alongside remarkable men and women in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, community leaders, and our federal, state and local law enforcement partners who strive tirelessly to combat crime and promote a safer, stronger and more united district. I am incredibly proud of all that we have been able to accomplish together, in and out of the courtroom, including building meaningful bonds of trust with the diverse community we serve.
In an earlier interview, Luck told the Daily Business Review that Carnes taught him "lawyers and judges, both orally and when we write, should speak in a way that the everyday person can understand."2. Tonight is the big shindig for the Federal Bar Association at the Hyatt. It's the "36th Annual Federal Judicial Reception" from 5:30-8:30. Enjoy!
During Luck's time at the U.S. Attorney's Office, he handled 19 jury trials — a rarity for a young lawyer. Luck secured a guilty plea in the largest student visa fraud to date. He also persuaded a court to impose a 20-year prison sentence on a doctor who ran a $50 million Medicare fraud scheme, and he got a guilty plea from a boat captain who tried to smuggle dozens of Dominicans into the U.S.
Luck became a circuit judge the first time he applied. In August's judicial election, he kept his seat in the circuit's criminal division by a margin of 53.5 percent to challenger Yolly Roberson's 46.5 percent.
Our very own U.S. Attorney Ferrer is making an appearance "of counsel" in the EDNY case. What a show... the government even filed this detention memo, as if El Chapo is going to get a bond. Ha!The government’s case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrea Goldbarg, Hiral Mehta, Patricia Notopoulos, Gina Parlovecchio and Michael Robotti from the Eastern District of New York; Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adam Fels, Lynn Kirkpatrick and Kurt Lunkenheimer from the Southern District of Florida; and Trial Attorneys Amanda Liskamm, Anthony Nardozzi and Michael Lang of the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section.The case was investigated by the DEA, ICE and the FBI, in cooperation with Mexican and Colombian law enforcement authorities. Substantial assistance was provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the Northern District of Illinois, the Western District of Texas, the Southern District of New York, the Southern District of California, and the District of New Hampshire. The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs also provided assistance in bringing Guzman Loera to the United States to face charges. The investigative efforts in this case were coordinated with the Department of Justice’s Special Operations Division, comprising agents, analysts, and attorneys from the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, DEA, FBI, ICE, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, and the New York State Police.
The defense team said they would like Schmidt to be held in a marshal-supervised hotel until a full bond hearing could be held in Michigan. They argued Schmidt had cooperated with the U.S. government by meeting with FBI agents of his own volition in London early in the investigation.
"He showed that he has absolutely nothing to hide from the government," Massey told the judge.
Massey also said Schmidt's arrest came as something of a surprise, because the government told Schmidt's attorneys as recently as Dec. 16 that he was only a "subject" and not a "target" of the investigation.
Singer insisted that Schmidt's meetings with U.S. officials were rife with deception. Schmidt traveled to the U.S. to meet with regulators in 2015 and deliberately hid the emissions test cheating from them, Singer said.
"It's actually, I think, a fact that weighs against him," he said.
A bizarre South Florida case involving an indicted fraud suspect who spied on his co-defendants — and their lawyers — after secretly making a plea deal led a federal judge to blast the U.S. Attorney's Office for letting it happen.
After two days of hearings on the allegations against the "mole," his lawyer and the prosecution, U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles issued a blistering ruling in court in Miami late Tuesday. He barred the man from testifying against his co-defendants when they go to trial in May and strongly criticized federal prosecutors' "extraordinary" handling of the matter.
***
The defense asked the judge to punish the prosecution by throwing out the charges against Pisoni, Pradel and Ramirez. The judge said prosecutors previously had so much evidence that it was impossible for him to rule that Leon's actions affected the case enough to dismiss the charges against the other three.
But the judge expressed shock that the prosecution was still considering letting Leon testify, in some limited way, in trial against the other three men.
"If the government isn't willing to bar him, I will," Judge Gayles said, ruling Leon was prohibited from testifying.
Prosecutors told the judge they regretted not running the decision about how to handle Leon up the chain of command at their office but said they thought what they did was allowed by law. The judge said they should have, at a minimum, consulted their bosses and sought the judge's explicit approval.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer declined to comment because the case is pending. Officials also declined to say if any disciplinary investigation is underway or anticipated.
Lawyers appointed to represent federal defendants who can't afford an attorney sometimes have trouble securing expert witnesses, wading through voluminous e-discovery and persuading judges to approve their expenses, according to testimony at a public hearing Monday and Tuesday in Miami.***
The Criminal Justice Act, which provides a system for compensating those attorneys, is under a two-year review by a committee appointed by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. The committee's stop at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse was the second of seven hearings in cities from Portland, Oregon, to Philadelphia.
Attorneys and judges from across the Southeastern U.S. testified at the hearing, including the Southern District of Florida's Federal Public Defender Michael Caruso, U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer and U.S. District Judges Robert Scola Jr., Donald Graham and Kathleen Williams.
The committee questioned the witnesses on whether the authority to approve CJA panel attorney compensation should rest with the judiciary, the public defender's office or an independent body. The group also discussed the challenges of e-discovery.
But regardless of their independence, CJA panel attorneys have far fewer resources than federal defenders and the U.S. attorney's office, lawyers testified.Judge Graham was really strong on this point saying that prosecutors should be required to hand over hot documents to defense lawyers as a matter of proportionality and basic fairness. Seems like a no-brainer.
That inequality extends to discovery, which in a multidefendant case can amount to three terabytes of data — or 6,000 filing cabinets of documents, Caruso said.
"You can imagine the CJA lawyer who's a solo practitioner trying to make sense of 6,000 filing cabinets," particularly in a trial-heavy and fast-paced district like the Southern District of Florida, he said.
At dawn on May 14, 2011, more than two dozen federal agents and local police officers converged on a working-class neighborhood near the Miami airport and surrounded a small green-and-white stucco building—Masjid Miami, one of the city’s oldest mosques. Police sealed off a two-block radius, and F.B.I. agents, some armed with AR-15 rifles, assembled outside the door.While the feds do have some resources to fight cases like this, the State Public Defenders do not. John Oliver does this amazing piece on how state PDs need more funding:
Inside, eight men were kneeling for the first prayer of the day. When agents called for them to open up, one of the worshippers, a former police officer, went out and asked them to wait until the prayer was finished. The agents complied, and then they arrested the mosque’s imam, Hafiz Khan, an émigré from a mountainous corner of Pakistan near the Afghan border. Khan was in his late seventies, an albino with thick glasses and a long colorless rush of beard. He had moved to America, with members of his family, in 1994, at the encouragement of a younger brother in Alabama. They became citizens, but Khan spoke no English and rarely left the mosque or a one-room apartment across the street, which he shared with his wife, Fatima. He was known to some of the locals as el viejito barbón—the old bearded man. Kids referred to him as the Santa Claus imam.While the F.B.I. was arresting Khan, another team of federal agents and police assembled forty miles away, in the city of Margate. They surrounded Jamaat Al-Mu’mineen, a large mosque presided over by Hafiz’s youngest son, Izhar Khan. Izhar, who was twenty-four, was about to lead the morning prayer when agents in F.B.I. windbreakers confronted him in the parking lot. Izhar had moved to Florida when he was eight years old, and he spoke barely accented English. He wore a long dark beard, a black cotton robe, and a skullcap. The agents examined the computers in his office, and when they searched his cell phone they noticed that many of his text messages were about the Miami Heat and other teams.Meanwhile, a third maneuver in the F.B.I.’s operation against the Khans was unfolding in Los Angeles, where it was 3 A.M. and Izhar’s brother Irfan, a thirty-seven-year-old software programmer, was asleep in his room at the Homestead Studio Suites, an inexpensive business hotel in El Segundo. Married, with two kids, Irfan was a sitcom buff who made hammy jokes about his waistline. (“This won’t be good for my diet!”) He lived in Miami and worked for American Unit, an I.T. company. For the past three months, he had been commuting every two weeks to an assignment in El Segundo. He was awakened by a phone call from the police, advising him to go to the door. He was handcuffed and led to a waiting car, past bomb-sniffing dogs and helmeted men in camouflage.After the arrests, federal authorities announced that, in all, six people in Florida and abroad had been charged with funnelling tens of thousands of dollars into a conspiracy to “murder, kidnap, or maim persons overseas,” orchestrated by the Pakistani Taliban, an ally of Al Qaeda. The group was known for having trained Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American who, in May, 2010, tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square. In 2012, Pakistani Taliban gunmen boarded a bus in northwest Pakistan and shot Malala Yousafzai, a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl who had called for the education of women.
The F.B.I. had been secretly tracking the Khans for at least a year, monitoring their finances and recording thousands of hours of conversation, in person and on the phone. Two other members of the family were also indicted—a daughter and a seventeen-year-old grandson, who live in Pakistan—along with a Pakistani shopkeeper, who had served as a middleman. In the indictment, they were accused of conspiring to buy guns, shelter the Taliban, and send students “to learn to kill Americans in Afghanistan.” The indictment described phone calls from Miami, in which the father “called for an attack on the Pakistani Assembly” and “called for the death of Pakistan’s President.” The U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer told the Sun Sentinel that a list of cash transfers totalling fifty thousand dollars was “just the tip of the iceberg,” and declared, “We will be able to prove that there is more than fifty thousand dollars that went to the Taliban.” Each of the accused faced between forty-five and sixty years in prison.
Dave Clark's defense contended that the developments were legitimate and only collapsed because of the financial recession, not due to any criminal wrongdoing. The attorneys for Cristal Clark, meanwhile, said she relied on her husband and his financial advisers and committed no crimes.Congrats to the FPD's office and to Aimee and Alex.
In June 2014, Dave Clark was extradited from Panama and Cristal Clark from Honduras to face the U.S. charges. Both have been jailed as flight risks ever since. After Cay Clubs failed, Dave Clark and two partners formed a Cayman Islands-based company that opened a string of pawn shops across the Caribbean known as CashWiz.
Some of the fraud charges against the Clarks stem from that business, with prosecutors contending the couple were illegally siphoning off for themselves cash the company was making buying and selling gold.
For many young lawyers who dart down the halls of the criminal courthouse, the history of Miami-Dade’s legendary legal dramas — along with the names of famous lawyers and often infamous defendants — might ring unfamiliar.
There was Ted MacArthur, the ex-homicide detective who murdered his wife in 1989. Joseph Hickey, the son of a Miami judge, who tried to extort $2 million in a bizarre kidnapping hoax. And Al Sepe, the Miami judge who did 18 months in prison in the notorious “Court Broom” judicial corruption scandal that erupted in 1991.
“It was the second-biggest corruption scandal in the nation’s history, and no one remembers it,” said Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Diane Ward as she walked down a hallway behind her courtroom.
Thanks to Ward, the enduring images of those and other important trials — sketched in bold pastel strokes by South Florida courtroom artists — now hang in a hallway behind her fourth-floor courtroom at the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building. For the judge and lawyers who recently loaned her framed sketches, the corridor has become a mini-museum documenting not only the cases of yesteryear but the fading art of courtroom sketching.
