Posts from ‘March, 2010’

DOJ prosecutors are fighting back against the demands of some criminal defense lawyers that the government not be allowed to control the pace of the department’s most ambitious Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case, unfolding in federal district court in Washington, D.C. In the largest-ever prosecution of individuals for FCPA crimes, 22 arms dealers have been charged with attempting to bribe a fictitious foreign official in order to secure a cut of a $15 million contract.

Nassau County, N.Y., police are investigating what they call the apparent suicide of Jay Korn, a Hempstead, N.Y., attorney who fell to his death from his office building last week. Meanwhile, the district attorney’s office is looking into several people’s reports that they lost “millions” of dollars invested with Korn. A spokesman for Nassau police said a preliminary investigation showed that Korn, a partner in Korn & Spirin, “appears to have committed suicide.”

Attorneys representing jailed Texas financier R. Allen Stanford continue falling by the wayside as he awaits trial on charges he bilked investors out of $7 billion in a massive Ponzi scheme. In a motion filed Tuesday in federal court, Stanford is again asking for new attorneys, his fourth set of lawyers in less than a year. Kent Schaffer, who, along with George Secrest, currently represents Stanford, said they are more than happy to step aside, citing conflicts with Stanford over how to try the case.

Donald Trump dodged sanctions by a New York judge who on Monday dismissed the mogul’s fiduciary fraud claims against the buyers of part of a 77-acre development in Manhattan. As for defendants’ motion for sanctions, the judge found that Trump’s service of multiple complaints was not undertaken “primarily” to delay or harass, adding: “Plaintiff has here narrowly avoided the imposition of costs or sanctions. Continued prosecution of claims without basis and attacks upon persons will place Plaintiff beyond this point.”

Former Arnold & Porter tax partner Peter Cinquegrani was sentenced Tuesday to three years probation for marketing fraudulent tax shelters for Ernst & Young clients. Cinquegrani was emotional as he addressed the court. “I think my desire to be a big shot, feel that I was part of the in crowd in the tax community, overrode my conscience,” he said.

During a Supreme Court argument hour swimming with numbers and studded with a few humorous moments, the high court justices on Tuesday wrestled with the standard for calculating good-time credits for federal prison sentences. While the government contends that a “term of imprisonment” under the federal good-time credit statute refers to time actually served, the petitioning federal prisoners argue that they should be eligible for good-time credit based on their entire sentences as imposed.

The new landmark health care reform law made its first appearance in a
Supreme Court decision Tuesday involving whistleblower claims under the
federal False Claims Act. The Court ruled 7-2 that whistleblowers whose
allegations are based on publicly disclosed information in state or
local reports and investigations are barred from filing so-called qui
tam lawsuits. But the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act limits
the public disclosure bar to federal sources of information.

Ending a long-running civil suit that was plagued in recent years with allegations of government attorney misconduct, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday approved a $3 million settlement and vacated two opinions that the Justice Department said threatened national security. The suit, filed in 1994 by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, has dragged on amid disputes about the state secrets privilege.

The dialogue between the Supreme Court and the Obama administration continues. During oral argument Tuesday in Dillon v. United States, Justice Anthony Kennedy pursued a line of questions that would be hard to interpret as other than critical of Obama administration policy on commutations and pardons. The case asks whether judges can reduce the prison terms of defendants by more than what the Sentencing Commission called for when it reduced the sentences for certain crack cocaine offenders in 2007.

With the recession helping smaller and midsize firms beat their larger, pricier adversaries for client work, perhaps it’s not surprising that some larger regional firms are expanding operations. In recent weeks Jones Walker, Polsinelli Shughart and McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter have acquired smaller shops in Alabama, Connecticut and Missouri.