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.
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10 comments:
Imagine what would've happened absent invading the defense camp
"Both sides will claim victory."
LOL.
20 guilty verdicts is not a victory for the defense by any stretch of the imagination. Ok I understand hanging on the main counts may be better than losing, but I didn't see any acquittals reported at all. The only good thing is the govt may not be able to take all his money yet.
Victory for the defense? The litmus test for this hypothesis is to put a camera in his cell tonight. I am sure he is overwhelmed with joy. When he turns 85 in the barren nothingness of rural Colorado, he can take comfort in the fact that he will be on supervised release when he turns 90 instead of going out feet first.
I think the doj prosecutors should be concerned over the record and the opinion that is likely to issue in the 11th discussing the shenanigans. Of course, generally the 11th is a prosecution friendly place, but the odds of drawing Pryor, Carnes and Marcus on the same panel are slim. There is likely to be a Wilson, Jordan or Rosenbaum in there somewhere. So, yes, he is in custody, but good luck to both sides on the appeal, he won't have much to lose at that point, the government will.
The 11th? Good luck. The last time the court reversed for prosecutorial misconduct was Alzate.
Not only the judges you mentioned but Hull, Julie Carnes, Newsom, Grant, and Branch.
Plus Ed Carnes picks the panels. Very, very rarely does he put the "good" judges you mentioned (plus Martin) on the same panel.
Plus he picks for the most part the most conservative appellate judges to sit as visiting.
#rigged
I think the 11th Cir is a very conservative court that, as a whole, is out of step with the rest of the country on various issues of criminal law. And I think Chief Judge Carnes is a conservative ideologue. But I doubt he personally selects all the panels and decides which cases should be assigned to which panel. He would likely have no time for anything else.
Dont respond to idiots like 1002. The carnes picks the panels nonsense is a red flag ...it means he/she is clinically insane. I have a suspicion this 1002 person is the moron always posting rubbish like that on this blog.
I am not 1002. But, I also have no idea how panels are picked. Do any of you know how panels are picked? What is the basis of that knowledge?
These pro-Esformes comments scream of being his defense team shilling for him.
This is the man who cheated his son into Penn via bribes and fake sports news coverage. Lies and deception are his stock in trade. It's the reason he's where he is now. He's already paid millions in fines for other fraud.
He is truly a shanda fur die goyim.
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