Secret Service, GSA in trouble

Not a good weekend for the government.

Prostitution in Colombia for the Secret Service...  The cover of the NY Post is pretty funny:





And Jeff Neely of the GSA is going to plead the Fifth today over a conference in Vegas that cost $822,000:

On Thursday, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) served a subpoena to require Jeff Neely to appear before the committee, according to Democratic committee documents obtained by POLITICO. Neely’s attorney on Friday informed the committee Neely will exercise his right against self-incrimination and requested not to attend the hearing.

What happens in Vegas (and in Colombia) apparently does not stay in Vegas.

Lengthy Medicare Fraud trial underway

The case is before Judge Seitz and it's expected to last 2-3 months. The Herald covered the first round of opening statements here, which included openings by the prosecutor Jennifer Saulino and defense lawyers Jose Quinon and Sam Rabin:

“Every fraud is about the appearance of legitimacy,” Justice Department lawyer Jennifer Saulino told a 12-person jury in Miami federal court. “The evidence will show that they worked hard to make this scheme look legitimate.” And so began one of the nation’s biggest healthcare fraud trials, in which seven defendants who mostly worked on the professional side of American Therapeutic Corp. were portrayed as common thieves bilking the taxpayer-funded Medicare program. Prosecutors said the elaborate racket enabled American Therapeutic to bill the federal government $205 million for group therapy sessions, purportedly to treat thousands of patients who they say faked depression, schizophrenia or bipolar conditions. Many also suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and could not have possibly benefited from the treatments, prosecutors said.

***

 But their defense attorneys painted a starkly different picture of the physicians, saying the business side of American Therapeutic — including four top executives who have already been convicted of Medicare fraud — kept the physicians in the dark. The executives collaborated to recruit patients from assisted-living facilities and halfway houses by paying the residential operators kickbacks in cash-filled envelopes. Then they coached the patients on how to fake mental illness to trick the doctors, the defense lawyers said. “When Dr. Willner worked at American Therapeutic, he didn’t know the fraud was going on,” attorney Sam Rabin told the jurors. “Dr. Willner was one of the people the fraud was hidden from.” Rabin said that Willner worked part-time at two Broward County clinics for American Therapeutic, visiting them once or twice a week as he interacted with his team of psychiatric nurses and others. Ayala’s defense lawyer, Jose Quiñon, said his client worked part-time at American Therapeutic’s main clinic in downtown Miami, visiting the facility once a week. Quiñon said the physician was unaware of the corruption carried out by the company’s top executives. Both Quiñon and Rabin told the jurors to be skeptical about the Justice Department’s key witnesses, especially American Therapeutic’s former chief executive officer, Marianella Valera, who was the girlfriend of the company’s one-time owner, Lawrence Duran.

I heard that the openings by Saulino, Quinon and Rabin were all very powerful.

I happened to be in court this morning and saw Mike Tein give his opening, which was great. Extremely moving and to the point.  One of the hard parts about giving opening in a lengthy trial with lots of defendants is keeping the jurors interested.  Tein kept the jury interested and got his theme across well -- I was on the edge of my seat.  If you get a chance, you should get over to the courtroom and watch some great lawyering on both sides.

Bob Dylan, Judge Goodman, and my dad

OK, so it's a very blurry picture. Sorry!

Anyway, Magistrate Judge Goodman spoke this afternoon at the federal bar luncheon series on Rock & Roll and judicial opinions. Fun stuff. Prizes were even given away...

Of course, Bob Dylan was referenced a bunch.

Speaking of Bob Dylan, check out this opinion from the 11th Circuit dealing with Dylan's song "Hurricane."

 My dad, Stuart Markus, represented the plaintiff and got to take Dylan's depo. The way he tells the story is that he was on one side of the conference room table, and Dylan with a dozen lawyers were on the other side...

Here's the song:

Judge Alex Kozinski speaks... (UPDATED)

... at UM Law in the Robert B. Cole Lecture Series.  And it was very entertaining.

Using a huge screen powerpoint presentation (see the picture below with the screen shot from Cheers), Kozinski spoke about IP law, persuasive lawyering, and when it's best not to file suit.  Examples included: the old Nintendo system and Mario Bros 3; Johnny Mathis's song When Sunny Gets Blue v. Rick Dees' song When Sunny Sniffs Glue; Barbie v. Bratz; the I'm a Barbie Girl song; Vanna White; Platoon; Cheers; Gay Olympic games; New Kids on the Block; and the Streisand effect... just to name a few.

Here are a few pictures from the extremely engaging talk, including yours truly with the good judge and Professor Ricardo Bascuas. 

And just in case you wanted to see the I'm A Barbie Girl video:




UPDATE -- Judge Kozinski issued this en banc opinion yesterday (while he was in Miami) concerning the computer fraud and abuse act, holding that the act did not criminalize violating a computer use policy:

Computers have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. We use them for work; we use them for play. Some- times we use them for play at work. Many employers have adopted policies prohibiting the use of work computers for nonbusiness purposes. Does an employee who violates such a policy commit a federal crime? How about someone who violates the terms of service of a social networking website? This depends on how broadly we read the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. § 1030.

Back at it -- Monday news and notes

So, I left the Barbara Medina post up for a few days because I thought it was important to let people know what happened and to put their comments about Barbara.  Really sad....  She was a really nice person.

-- The NY Times had an interesting article this weekend about the growing prison consulting industry.  I've never recommended that a client use a prison consultant.  Instead, I have the client and his family talk to someone who recently did time at the designated prison.  Each place is different and the rules change all the time, so it doesn't make sense to me to talk to someone who did time 8 years ago at a place on the other side of the country.

-- Should be an interesting talk about Rock and Roll by Judge Goodman:

LUNCHEON MEETING FEATURING

THE HONORABLE JONATHAN GOODMAN

Guest Speaker:

The Honorable Jonathan Goodman, United States Magistrate Judge,

will address the must-hear-this topic:

"Rock & Roll Music in Judicial Opinions"

When:           Wednesday, April 11, 2012

                       11:45 a.m. - 1:15 p.m.

Where:          The Bankers Club

                                   One Biscayne Tower

                                   2 South Biscayne Blvd., 14^th Floor

                                   Miami, FL 33131

-- Speaking of events, Roy Black and Matt Menchel will be speaking on closing arguments.  Seems like a cool event:

Upcoming Event - April 19, 2012

Persuasive Closing Arguments - A Demonstration and Discussion of a Closing Argument in the Helio Castroneves Case

Please join us for this complimentary seminar/webinar presented by one of the nation's premier criminal and civil trial lawyers Roy Black of Black, Srebnick, Kornspan & Stumpf, P.A.  Mr. Black will present a demonstration on how to prepare and deliver powerful closing arguments referencing his recent closing argument in the Helio Castroneves case. The demonstration will be followed by a dynamic Q&A session with Mr. Black as well as Kobre & Kim Center for Trial Advocacy founder, Matthew Menchel.

Live complimentary webinar and seminar:
Thursday April 19, 2012
6:30pm – 7:30pm EDT – Live Seminar and Webinar
7:30pm – 8:30pm EDT – Live Seminar Cocktail Reception
 
Live seminar will be held at:

The EPIC Hotel
270 Biscayne Boulevard Way, Miami, Florida

-- Paul Clement reads How Appealing and SCOTUSBlog.  What about SDFLA?!

RIP Barbara Medina

Very very sad -- Barbara Medina (Judge Altonaga's court reporter) passed away today after being diagnosed with cancer two weeks ago. Services are tomorrow at Riverside Gordon Memorial Chapels, 20955 Biscayne Blvd, Aventura, FL 33180

I am going to miss her.  She was always very understanding and listened to the lawyers before and after court.  She also told it like it was and didn't hold back how she felt about a particular case, witness or argument.  There was no better jury consultant during trial...  She was the court reporter in my very first trial, back when she was with Judge Graham.  She knew a hell of a lot more about trying cases than I did.   

Damn, very sad.