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
Another item that I missed last week while I was away was the Federal Bar's annual Gala, which honored Judge Marcus with the Edward B. Davis award, known as the NED.
On Friday, the two-term mayor, surrounded by an entourage of defense lawyers and political supporters, pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging him with seeking kickbacks in exchange for sponsoring federal grant applications that prosecutors say were meant to enrich him.
Even the magistrate judge, John J. O’Sullivan, took notice: “A lot of people here for one person.”
Pizzi, indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Miami, is charged with conspiring to commit extortion and four counts of attempted bribery. If convicted, each count carries up to 20 years in prison.
Outside the Miami federal courthouse, Pizzi and his defense team, Ed Shohat, Ben Kuehne and Ralf Rodriguez, declared the former mayor would go to trial instead of cutting a plea deal — as another local mayor and two lobbyists accused of the same crime are expected to do in the coming weeks.
“I am innocent, I am not guilty,” Pizzi said repeatedly, with his lawyers and about 25 supporters standing with him. “And I will be exonerated and found not guilty at trial.”
Miami Dolphins center Mike Pouncey was served a subpoena shortly after Sunday's 27-17 loss to the New England Patriots.
The Massachusetts State Police issued Pouncey the subpoena as he exited the team's locker room at Gillette Stadium.
According to Sports Illustrated, the subpeona is related to an investigation into former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who is a close friend and college roommate of Pouncey from their days together as teammates at the University of Florida.
An important piece of who Sotomayor is seems to be rooted in her days at Princeton. She shared about feeling alienated and her college roommate describing her as Alice in Wonderland. The new culture she had found herself in was a world of prep schools and where her peers enjoyed vacation getaways during Christmas and spring breaks. She admitted that everything scared her about college and that it took her awhile to discover her sense of value in an Ivy League setting. “It took me awhile to understand that even though my experiences were different, they were not unimportant and they had their own value,” she said. “That is probably one of the hardest things … you will likely experience in college. Finding a way to stay true to your sense of value … and having to look at others and say ‘OK, you may be academically smarter, but I bring a new perspective and a different way of looking at the world.’ Keeping that alive in all of us is probably the hardest challenge.”
In a series of meetings over the next month, however, Pizzi never expanded upon the threats toward Pulido. He soon told McGrath, a retired Hialeah cop who at the time chaired the town’s planning and zoning board, “Forget about him; he will self-destruct himself.” Not long after, police suspended the investigation without charging anybody with anything, officially closing it earlier this year.Pizzi, in a statement on Friday, said he categorically denied “intending personal or political harm to Richard Pulido or anyone else,” saying he had a bit too much to drink that evening and was goaded by McGrath into “meaningless, over the top, silly, ridiculous drinking talk.” He amended his statement Saturday, saying he was actually “humoring” McGrath, a man who he said engaged in “Oliver Stone conspiracy lunacies.”Pizzi’s attorneys also dismissed the probe as a non-story that they say never should have been made public, noting that detectives quickly found there wasn’t evidence to support allegations that the now-suspended Miami Lakes mayor would harm Pulido.They called McGrath an unreliable informant who targeted Pizzi at Shula’s after an evening of drinking — though McGrath told detectives that Pizzi had only two beers. They also argued that McGrath’s recording doesn’t show sinister intent but simply a passionate, drunken politician venting about an opponent.“This was never a real ‘hit’ investigation,” said attorney Ben Kuehne, who is representing Pizzi with attorney Ed Shohat. “And therein lies the problem with the story,” said Shohat.
"Well, we either talk to each other, which is not a bad thing," said Kagan, to applause from the well-heeled audience of female CEOs and business leaders.
"Or we write memos to each other," she continued.
"And you know, you have to remember that the Court is an institution where...we're not horse trading. We're not bargaining. We're reasoning. And we're trying to persuade people. And often the best way to do that is by putting things down on paper in a kind of careful and deliberate way and saying this is what I think and, and giving people an opportunity to read a memo and to think about it and to reflect on it," she said.
"And so we do a lot of our communicating by these, it looks, it's sort of 19th century. It's very heavy ivory paper—it looks like it came out of the 1800s or something. But it seems to work pretty well," she added. "And when you think about it, how many emails have you sent that you wished you could take back? So, so we're careful and deliberative."
Mr. Rodriguez argues that the District Court clearly erred when it found that his offense involved more than 50 victims. Although he acknowledges that the government presented 42 affidavits of victims who suffered a loss and a summary chart indicating that there were 238 victims total, he points out that the government provided no witnesses or underlying data to authenticate the government’s summary chart. For this reason, Mr. Rodriguez argues that the District Court’s finding is not supported by reliable and specific evidence. We agree.And here's Judge Bowen's concurrence:
This is another case wherein the Government has failed to come forward with evidence at a critical time. Unfortunately, important objections made by a defendant at a sentencing hearing are often dealt with as an afterthought. The Government’s cavalier disregard for the need of further evidence, specific references to a trial transcript, or another basis upon which the district court may make sustainable findings is all too typical. In this case, after a laboriously conducted two-week trial, resulting in a conviction we readily affirm, the Government’s willingness to allow the matter to conclude resting upon extrapolation, conjecture, and innuendo left the district court stranded with a well-prepared Presentence Investigation Report, some commentary, and little else.
***
Too often, energetic, successful prosecutors approach what is arguably the most important part of the case with a surprising level of inexactitude. Responsible advocacy demands more.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: We'll hear argument next this morning in Case 12-464, Kaley vs. United States.
Mr. Srebnick?
ORAL ARGUMENT OF HOWARD SREBNICK ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER
MR. SREBNICK: Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:
When the government restrains private property, the owner of that property has the right to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. For a criminal defendant who's facing a criminal trial, whose property has been restrained, that time is now, before the criminal trial, so that he or she can use those assets, that property, to retain and exercise counsel of choice.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Well, I -- you know, I -- I find it hard to think that -- that the right of property is any more sacrosanct than the -- the right to freedom of the person. And we allow a grand jury indictment without -- without a separate mini-trial to justify the arrest and -- and holding of -- of the individual. And if he -- if he doesn't have bail, he's permanently in
jail until the trial is over. And we allow all of that just on the basis of a grand jury indictment. And you're telling us it's okay for that -- maybe you think it's not okay for that.
But I think you're saying it's okay for that, but it's not okay for distraining his property. I -- I find it hard to -- to think that it's okay for the one and not okay for the other.
MR. SREBNICK: Justice Scalia, it's not okay for either.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Ah, okay. This is a bigger case than I thought.
(Laughter.)
MR. SREBNICK: The right to be released on bail, that is, the right not to be detained all the way until trial, under this Court's precedent in United States v. Salerno, the Court provided procedural safeguards to ensure that before someone is held all the way until trial, they would have a hearing, a hearing which would include a right to challenge the weight of the evidence and other factors.
We ask for something no different. Indeed, the indictment itself can justify the detention of the body and the detention of the asset until such time --
According to several sources with knowledge of the altercation, Tacopina instigated a confrontation with Julio Ayala, one of the Miami attorneys who represent Anthony Bosch, the proprietor of the now-defunct Biogenesis clinic that was a source of performance-enhancing drugs for more than a dozen big leaguers — and MLB’s chief witness.
During the first week of the arbitration, the sources say, Tacopina launched an aggressive attack on Bosch’s credibility after Bosch authenticated a pile of documents and electronic communications that MLB says reflect the league’s conclusion that Rodriguez acquired banned substances from Bosch over several years. It was during a break in one of those tense sessions that Tacopina and Ayala nearly came to blows.
The sources told the Daily News that Tacopina — who was frustrated that Bosch’s testimony had dominated the first three days of the hearing — asked another MLB attorney how long he planned on having baseball’s most important witness on the stand during the break in the testimony on Oct. 2.
The attorney, the sources said, told Tacopina that Bosch’s testimony would take several more hours and might spill over to the next day. “Well, I guess we have all of October, and by then Mr. Bosch will be in jail,” Tacopina replied, referring to the fact that Bosch and his now-defunct clinic are being investigated by Florida state authorities and federal law-enforcement officials from the Southern District of Florida.
