Posts on ‘January 5th, 2009’

On Thursday the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear a challenge to the way the Democratic Party chooses its presidential nominee. Victor DiMaio, a Democratic political consultant, contends that the party violates the Constitution by taking states’ racial makeup into account in its rules on presidential primary dates. The party says it can consider factors that advance its political goals as long as there’s no “invidious racial discrimination.”

A federal judge has postponed until Tuesday a hearing for a man who allegedly swindled at least $23.4 million from Haitian-Americans in South Florida. U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks signed a temporary restraining order freezing all of George Theodule’s assets in 25 accounts. SEC officials have accused Theodule of using his business as a front for a Ponzi scheme, promising investors a 100 percent return in three months.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown has settled a lawsuit against H&R Block over a widely used loan program that gives the nation’s largest tax preparer a chunk of customers’ tax refunds. Brown says the $4.85 million settlement will stop H&R Block from offering high-cost loans it has marketed as early tax refunds. The company agreed to pay up to $2.45 million for consumers who purchased a “Refund Anticipation Loan” or a “Refund Anticipation Check” between Jan. 1, 2001 and Dec. 31, 2008.

The prosecution of Miami attorney Benedict P. Kuehne hasn’t gone well for the government. In fact, some call it a disaster. Prosecutors charge that Kuehne funneled $5.2 million in drug proceeds to trafficker Fabio Ochoa’s defense team, but David Markus, a representative of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, says the remaining counts are “hanging on by a thread.” Markus says the legal theories that the government is proceeding on are “novel at best and realistically do not have the support in the law.”

In a meeting last month with Barack Obama’s transition staff, representatives of the nation’s top prosecutors caught a glimpse of the president-elect’s thinking on the politically fraught issue of what to do with the current 93 U.S. Attorneys. “[Obama] is going to be smart and be cautious. My gut feeling is it won’t be like it was in 1993,” said U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of Texas’ Western District. The last two administrations suffered political wounds for their handling of U.S. Attorneys.

For her defamation suit against , lobbyist Vicki Iseman has turned to Rodney Smolla, dean of the Washington and Lee School of Law, who has written articles, books and treatises on First Amendment issues. Smolla, who will be working with W. Coleman Allen Jr. of Allen, Allen, Allen, & Allen, says the case might bring up the tangential issue of whether the paper must identify two anonymous sources who told the newspaper about Iseman’s alleged relationship with Sen. John McCain.