“He tried to nail Ben to the wall."

That's Henry Bell discussing Robert Feitel in this Herald article about lawyers and money laundering by Michael Sallah.  More:

Robert Feitel, a veteran lawyer with a long history of prosecutions, charged into court as the Justice Department’s point man to take on a prominent Miami lawyer in a case that came to symbolize the rights of attorneys to accept fees from international drug traffickers.
Feitel accused lawyer Ben Kuehne of fabricating documents to cover up dollars for the Medellin Cartel. He accused him of orchestrating the payments through overseas wires. He even said Kuehne knew much of the money came from the sale of drugs.
Now, years after the case ended, Feitel is cast in a strikingly similar position as the man he once prosecuted.
The Miami Herald found that more than $100,000 in drug money belonging to criminal organizations was sent to Feitel’s law firm by South Florida undercover officers posing as money launderers to infiltrate drug groups.
The undercover police picked up the cash in New York and sent the money to Feitel — now a defense attorney who specializes in drug cases — at the behest of criminal organizations in a series of payments never questioned by the former prosecutor, records and interviews show.
Kuehne, whose case was ultimately dropped by the government in 2009, said he was surprised to learn about payments to the man who once prosecuted him.
“The question is: Why was he getting the money?” said Kuehne, a former member of the Florida Bar’s board of governors who represented Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 presidential recount. “Is he going to get the same knock on the door?”
Contacted by phone, Feitel said he was unaware of the money sent to his office in northwest Washington, where he works mostly as a solo practitioner, adding he was surprised by The Herald’s call. “We’re usually pretty careful” about accepting questionable fees, he said.

Oh... it's the usually we're pretty careful defense! Henry and others were having none of it:

Several defense lawyers from Miami said they were riled that the onetime senior prosecutor was never questioned by law enforcement agents about the money sent to his account — funds picked up off the streets of New York from drug suspects.

“In his role at the DOJ, he prosecuted Ben for the same thing;” Bell said.

In an earlier interview, Feitel said money sent from a U.S. bank like the one used by the task force is more difficult to screen than funds from overseas exchange houses. “How was I supposed to know” the money is tainted? said Feitel. “That would have been difficult.”

One former federal prosecutor said money wired to a law firm from someone who is not a client should have raised basic questions. “What did he think the money was for?” said Joseph DeMaria, a Miami attorney who once served on the DOJ’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. “He’s got to be saying to himself: ‘Why am I getting this money? Especially someone who was a former prosecutor who’s even more heightened on these kinds of issues. He spent his career putting people in jail for money laundering.”

Judge Williams rules that Mosely-Mayorga II will proceed

Well, the opening round of Don King Productions, Inc. v. Shane Mosely was, in Judge Williams's view, pretty much even, which means that the Mosely-promoted Grudge Match between Mosely and Ricardo Mayorga will proceed this Saturday night at The Forum in Inglewood, California as planned.

In a lengthy order denying Don King's promotional company's (DKP) motion for a preliminary injunction, Judge Williams found that sufficient evidence showed that Mayorga had entered into an agreement with DKP for it to exclusively promote Mayorga as a professional boxer. But she also concluded that DKP had failed to show a "substantial likelihood of success on the merits" about whether the agreement was still in effect and whether DKP had waived certain of its provisions. Plus, there was no irreparable harm that money couldn't remedy. So, Judge Williams concluded, the "extraordinary and drastic remedy" of stopping the fight simply wasn't called for.

Here's the order:

DKP v. SSM et al. -- Order Denying Pl.'s Mot. Prelim. Inj.

RIP Douglas Mincher, Clerk of 11th Circuit

The 11th Circuit posted these comments: http://1.usa.gov/1ESfW9J

And Aly Palmer at The Daily Report in Atlanta covers the sad story here:

A longtime metro Atlanta court administrator, Douglas Mincher, has died at the age of 57.

Mincher, who became clerk of court for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit earlier this year, died on Sunday of an apparent heart attack, according to Circuit Executive James Gerstenlauer.

Mincher had been chief deputy clerk for the Northern District of Georgia from 2010 until being hired for the Eleventh Circuit job. He previously had worked for several years for the city of Atlanta, combining and administering its municipal and city courts.

Eleventh Circuit Chief Judge Ed Carnes said the news was a shock, noting that Mincher was a cyclist who exercised regularly to keep fit. "He would tell everybody who would listen that this job was his dream job," said Carnes, adding he had hoped that Mincher would be the clerk through the rest of his term as chief.

Hiring law clerks who have experience: A bad thing?

FIU law professor Howard Wasserman has an interesting post today at PrawfsBlawg about the "unfortunate trend," in his view, of judges' tending to hire law clerks who have some real-world experience, rather than straight out of law school. He notes that this trend seems to be increasing, particularly in the Southern District of Florida.

The internet is awesome

1.  Jeff Ashton (the Casey Anthony prosecutor who has 5 kids and preaches family values) is outed on Ashley Madison.  And then he gave a press conference to discuss.  No joke:

His ideal partner would “know what she wants” and would not be afraid to ask for it. A “big toy collection” would not be all that bad either, he wrote.
“You must be discrete, not looking to change my situation, just want to get excited again.”
He also boasted of his sexual prowess in his profile, the Orlando Post shared.
“I want someone that fantasizes about being brought to a climax by a lover with a skillful tongue and fingers as well as his member,” he added.

 2.  Jeb Bush does not have a black hand.  But this flier!

Trump saw red meat:

A campaign leaflet sent out by a pro-Bush super PAC that shows him with a black left hand, and his body apparently super-imposed on a picture of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“Jeb Bush has a Photoshopped photo for an ad which gives him a black left hand and much different looking body. Jeb just can’t get it right!” the real-estate mogul said of his rival for the 2016 Republican nomination, who he has frequently assailed recently on the campaign trail.
The leaflet’s copy, “Why Jeb?” ended up being co-opted by bemused Twitter users to ask, “Why, Jeb?” as to why his hand had become black. The original campaign leaflet was sent by the Right to Rise USA Super PAC to some 86,000 Iowans, as Bush seeks to raise his game amid lackluster polling in the first-in-the-nation caucuses state.

Oh and welcome back to school... and traffic!