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Banned
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Originally Posted by Herk
I pre-apologize. This will be long....
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Long ? Hmmm...."long" is in the eyes of the beholder..... Herk, you're joking, or are you suddenly shocked into suspending your faith in "the authorities"?
Did you follow the outing of Valerie Plame and the subsequent Scooter Libby trial , followed by the suspension of his prison sentence, by the president of the United States who said that, in his opinion, the sentence was too harsh.
I personally knew one of the investigators "on the inside" in these 1992 corruption arrests. Power corrupt,s absolute power corrupts absolutely. I walked out of the screening of "American Gangster", two months ago, considering whether police do more harm than good, and whether society would be better off without them, at least as presently constituted:
Quote:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...pagewanted=all
Scars in a Proud Police Force; Troopers Come to Terms With Evidence-Tampering Scandal
By JACQUES STEINBERG,
Published: October 12, 1993
...Since last November three troopers have confessed to falsifying fingerprints in more than 30 criminal cases over nine years. Two more are awaiting trials, and at least one more is being investigated.
Experts in law enforcement say the department has moved effectively to deal with the problem, and they agree with department officials that the scandal is an aberration in a force with a good reputation.....
....Thus far, all five troopers who worked between 1982 and 1992 in the evidence identification unit at Troop C in Sidney, about 65 miles southeast of Ithaca, have been implicated in the faking of fingerprint evidence.
State police commanders first learned of the tampering after one of the troopers, David L. Harding, told of his misconduct in a job interview with the Central Intelligence Agency.....
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...pagewanted=all
February 4, 1997
Supervision of Troopers Faulted In Evidence-Tampering Scandal
By RICHARD PEREZ-PENA
Concluding a four-year investigation into the worst scandal in state police history, a special prosecutor said today that troopers were able to plant evidence routinely in criminal cases across a broad swath of rural New York because they had no fear of detection by supervisors, who maintained a willful ignorance.
The special prosecutor, Nelson E. Roth, said an exhaustive review of thousands of cases found 36 from 1984 to 1992 in which six troopers fabricated evidence, usually by planting fingerprints, and 10 other cases that might have been tainted.
The list includes some of the most infamous crimes committed in the small towns and farming valleys of New York's Southern Tier.
Although the five troopers who admitted to planting evidence denied knowledge of one another's actions, Mr. Roth said he believed there was some connection among them.
''Anybody taking a look at the history here would have -- should have -- found it very difficult to believe that three generations of investigators in this unit fabricated evidence on a widespread and ongoing basis without any communication with one another, without teaching one another, without learning from one another,'' he said at a news conference here. ''I think it defies credibility.''
Five of the six investigators who were charged with crimes worked in Troop C, whose jurisdiction covers Broome, Chenango, Cortland, Otsego, Tioga and Tompkins Counties. In that region, as in much of the state, the state police are the primary handlers of felony cases.
The sixth investigator worked at Troop F, based in Middletown, and had long known three of the others.
Mr. Roth, who has expressed frustration during the investigation with the lack of cooperation he said he received from people in Troop C, pointed to several top officers there who he said knew or ought to have known what was going on.
One of those, former Lieut. Joseph G. Begley, now works for the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration at a laboratory in New York City. State officials said that the D.E.A. had assured them that the duties of Mr. Begley, who supervised investigators in Troop C from 1984 to 1989, have been curtailed because of Mr. Roth's investigation. Mr. Begley could not be reached by telephone at the D.E.A., and the agency declined comment.
Another former supervisor whose credibility Mr. Roth questioned, Gary Allen, retired in 1989 and has since been elected town justice in Newfield. Telephones at the town court were not answered this afternoon.
Two supervisory officers were forced to resign, and three others were demoted.
The discovery of the tainted evidence, Mr. Roth said, had led to some guilty people being retried or even set free, and had undermined confidence in the justice system.
Despite the difficulties he encountered, Mr. Roth said he was confident that, except for the one corrupt investigator in Troop F, the other 10 troops did not suffer from the criminal behavior and lack of oversight in Troop C. He also said he thought investigators had gone as far as they could in identifying tainted cases and corrupt officers.
The State Police Superintendent, James W. McMahon, said that changes in evidence-gathering rules that were made soon after the scandal broke should prevent a repetition of the problem. He also ordered today that any fingerprint match in a criminal case be referred to the central laboratory in Albany for confirmation.
Five of the six officers charged eventually pleaded guilty, and one of those five was also convicted by a jury in a separate evidence-tampering case. All five are serving prison terms. The sixth was acquitted twice in separate trials.
Mr. Roth, a lawyer from Ithaca, depicted the forensic evidence team at Troop C as a lawless outfit where rogue investigators were confident that they would never be second-guessed. Some kept the evidence later used against them, like falsified fingerprint cards, and others competed to see who could be first to plant evidence in high-profile cases.
One falsification involved the 1989 murders of the Harris family of Dryden, a town near Ithaca, a crime that rocked placid Tompkins County. In their home, Warren and Dolores Dryden, their daughter, Shelby, 15, and their son, Marc, 11, were bound and blindfolded, Shelby was raped and sodomized, all four were shot in the head and the house was doused with gasoline and burned.
State police investigators say that evidence led them to Michael Kinge, and that officers killed him when he pointed a shotgun at them as they moved to arrest him, contentions that have not been cast into doubt.
His mother, Shirley Kinge, a waitress, later admitted to using a credit card stolen from the Harris home.
David L. Harding and Robert M. Lishansky, Troop C investigators, later admitted they took fingerprints of Ms. Kinge from her job and claimed to have found them on gasoline cans used to set fire to the Harris home. She was convicted of burglary and arson and sentenced to 17 to 44 years in prison. She served two and a half years before it was revealed that she had been framed, and her conviction was overturned.
The state police rank of investigator is comparable to detective in New York City.
Typically, the investigators would wait until the lead investigators on a case had identified a suspect, and then would manufacture fingerprint evidence against them.
In one case, Mr. Roth said, Edward D. Pilus, the convicted investigator from Troop F, planted evidence when he did not have to. In a later investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation found a fingerprint of the suspect whom Mr. Pilus had framed. ''Either he was incompetent or lazy,'' Mr. Roth said. ''Apparently, he found it easier to fabricate evidence than to find it legitimately.''
The evidence-tampering began, he said, in 1984, with Craig D. Harvey, a Troop C evidence investigator, and later the lieutenant overseeing all 40 of the troop's investigators. Also convicted was former Lieut. Patrick F. O'Hara. The investigator who was acquitted, David M. Beers, was forced to resign in 1993.
The evidence-planting was discovered because Mr. Harding revealed it in a 1991 job interview with the Central Intelligence Agency. He was boasting about his ability to do covert operations. The C.I.A. informed the Justice Department, which failed to notify state officials for 14 months. More than half the tampering incidents occurred in those 14 months, Mr. Roth said today.
Justice Department officials have said the material sat on the desk of an employee who did not understand its significance.
As a result of the scandal, the state police changed rules to require that two investigators confirm the gathering of a fingerprint and that photographs of fingerprints be taken.
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<h3>"Serving" side by side, here are the details of the arrests of two former commissioners of the largest police dept. in the U.S.,...leaders, role models!</h3>
Quote:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ne...,4695742.story
Kerik to surrender in corruption probe
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
8:41 AM EST, November 9, 2007
Less than three years ago, Bernard Kerik stood proudly at a White House podium, being introduced as President Bush's pick to head the Department of Homeland Security.
Now Kerik stands to face what could be the decisive chapter in a downfall as stunning as his rise.
Kerik, a former New York police commissioner under then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a failed nominee for homeland security secretary, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on corruption charges, a person close to the investigation said. Kerik was expected to surrender to authorities Friday to be arraigned, a federal law enforcement official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of grand jury proceedings.
The U.S. attorney's office said it would hold an 11:30 a.m. EST news conference with FBI and Internal Revenue Service officials in suburban White Plains "to announce an indictment of a former public official." The office had no further comment.
The charges in the indictment include mail and wire fraud, tax fraud, making false statements on a bank application, making false statements for a U.S. government position and theft of honest services, according to the person close to the investigation. The theft charge essentially accuses a government employee of abusing his position and defrauding the public.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the indictment was sealed and wasn't expected to be unsealed until Kerik's arraignment Friday.
The indictment does not include any charges stemming from allegations of eavesdropping related to former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro's pursuit of information about whether her husband was having an affair, the person said.
Another person familiar with the investigation, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly, said Kerik would turn himself in Friday morning and be arraigned at noon in U.S. District Court.
Prosecutors had been presenting evidence to a federal grand jury in suburban White Plains for several months, asking jurors to consider charges including tax evasion and corruption.
The investigation of Kerik, 52, arose from allegations that, while a city official, he accepted $165,000 in renovations to his Bronx apartment, paid for by a mob-connected construction company that sought his help in winning city contracts.
Kerik pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge in state court, admitting that the renovations constituted an illegal gift from the construction firm. The plea spared him jail time and preserved his career as a security consultant, but his troubles resurfaced when federal authorities convened their own grand jury to investigate allegations that he failed to report as income tens of thousands of dollars in services from his friends and supporters.
Kerik was police commissioner on Sept. 11, 2001, and his efforts in response to the terrorist attacks helped burnish a career that came close to a Cabinet post.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/075...t,78709,2.html
Runnin' Scared
Likes Rudy, Likes Booty
Another of Giuliani's lovable cronies comes to the ex-mayor's defense in a time of need
by Wayne Barrett
December 26th, 2007 12:13 PM
We already know all about Bernie Kerik's highest-form-of-flattery mimicry—his infamous seizure of a Ground Zero apartment, set aside for first responders, for a juggling act of escapades with two, as Rudy would put it, "very special friends." And then there's the saga of Ed Norris, who rose to deputy commissioner for operations at the NYPD in his mid-30s under Giuliani and became Baltimore's police commissioner in 2000.
Norris, who was still at NYPD headquarters when the Judi Nathan adventure began in 1999, pled guilty to federal charges in 2004 that he had used a supplemental police fund in Baltimore as if it were his own ATM, "financing romantic encounters with several different women." The original indictment referred to eight women entertained by the police chief on the public tab, but that was later reduced to six. Prosecutors also claimed that the married Norris used the apartment of his chief of staff for workday liaisons that were called "naps," sometimes occurring several times a day. Within months of taking over as police commissioner, he billed an October 2000 stay with "female number one" at the Best Western Seaport in New York to the fund, according to the indictment. The estimated $20,000 in playtime billings included luxury hotels and gifts from Victoria's Secret, and his final plea included admitting to looting the funds and not paying taxes on the income.
A folk hero in certain quarters of Baltimore, Norris returned to the city after doing six months in federal prison and became the top-rated radio talk-show host there, declaring in one newspaper interview that all some people know about him is his supposed penchant for "gifts for girls all over the United States." A shaved-head look-alike for Kerik, Norris is a regular on the HBO series The Wire, playing a homicide detective often furious with Baltimore's powers that be. He was such a successful police commissioner that Republican governor Robert Ehrlich Jr. made him the head of the Maryland State Police in 2003, just months before his indictment.
Norris was an NYPD deputy commissioner for nearly five years under Giuliani, in charge of developing and implementing anti-crime strategies. "I met with Rudy every Thursday," briefing him on the week's crime data, Norris said in a Voice interview. As recently as late 2006, Norris saw Giuliani at a political fundraiser for Ehrlich, who is the mid-Atlantic chair for Giuliani's presidential campaign. "I was emceeing the event," says Norris. "Rudy gave me a big hug. He was very happy for me." Fresh from prison at the time, Norris was still on parole, which will not end until next month. When Politico.com broke the story about how the Giuliani administration hid costs associated with providing then-mistress Judi Nathan with police escorts, Norris went on the air to defend Giuliani. "I said that I didn't know what the real allegations were. He was entitled to 24-hour police protection anyway, and I can't imagine he knew how it was being billed," Norris says. "I definitely defended him. I know what it's like to be falsely accused." A recent Times story raised doubts about just how much of the hidden Giuliani expenditures were attributable to these Hamptons trips to see Judi. But no one doubts that, regardless of how the trips were billed, the city spent a small fortune between 1999 and 2001 to bring the new lovers together....
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...and here is the story of the end of a Sherriff who made headlines a few years ago in the investigation of the abduction of a young girl. Word is, he has refused to resign his position, and is still being paid, because, as he says, "I am innocent until proven guitly".
Quote:
http://losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressre...a103007usa.htm
United States Attorney’s Office
Central District of California
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2007
WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/CAC
CONTACT: THOM MROZEK
ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF NAMED IN FEDERAL INDICTMENT
THAT ALLEGES LONG-RUNNING CORRUPTION SCHEME
INVOLVING FAVORS TO FRIENDS WHO PAID BRIBES
SANTA ANA, Calif. – Michael S. Carona, the elected sheriff-coroner of Orange County, has been named in a wide-ranging corruption indictment unsealed today that accuses him and several close associates of scheming to exploit Carona’s position for personal benefit, including accepting cash and appointing to the position of assistant sheriff an unqualified businessman who paid bribes.
The 10-count indictment charges Carona; his wife, Deborah Carona, who was appointed to the Orange County Fair Board of Directors while he was sheriff; and attorney Debra Victoria Hoffman, who as part of the scheme was appointed to the State Advisory Group on Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention and the California Council on Criminal Justice, which Sheriff Carona chaired. All three, who, among other things, are accused of concealing the illegal benefits they received, are expected to surrender to federal authorities at the United States Courthouse in Santa Ana tomorrow morning.
In addition to the indictment, prosecutors today unsealed charges previously filed against two Carona associates, businessman Donald Haidl and attorney George H. Jaramillo, who as part of the scheme were made assistant sheriffs. In addition to criminal information, prosecutors unsealed the plea agreements under which Jaramillo and Haidl previously pleaded guilty. Jaramillo pleaded guilty to honest services mail fraud and tax fraud, and Haidl pleaded guilty to a tax offense.
The indictment alleges a conspiracy in which the five defendants schemed to get Carona elected and to corruptly use the office of sheriff to enrich themselves. In addition to the conspiracy, the indictment charges Carona with witness tampering, including his attempt to convince Haidl, as recently as August, to lie to a federal grand jury.
According to the indictment, Haidl illicitly paid cash—specifically, regular monthly payments of $1,000 in cash—and other benefits to Carona, his campaign and his friends in exchange for full access to the resources of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Carona also allegedly provided benefits to Haidl’s friends and family, including Haidl’s son, who was arrested twice during Carona’s tenure.
The indictment outlines a conspiracy that began in 1998, when Haidl allegedly made several $1,000 “conduit contributions” to Carona’s campaign. The illegal contributions were made with checks that were written by people who were reimbursed by Haidl, which concealed the true source of the contributions. Soon after the June 1998 election in which Carona was elected Sheriff, Haidl allegedly financed a Lake Tahoe vacation for Carona, Jaramillo and their spouses. And for years following his election, according to the indictment, Haidl made regular payments of approximately $1,000 per month in cash to Carona and Jaramillo. In total the conspirators, including Carona, accepted cash, gifts, loans and other compensation that totaled more than $350,000.
In January 1999, Carona appointed Haidl to the position of assistant sheriff for reserves. Around the same time, Carona caused family members, friends and business associates of Haidl to be made reserve deputies. Around this time, Haidl caused Carona and Jaramillo to be appointed to a newly created “board of directors” at a company owned by Haidl’s uncle. Carona and Jaramillo received $1,000 monthly checks from the company, even though they did not provide any services to the company.
During Carona’s tenure, the relationship between the sheriff and Haidl allegedly continued with a series of other illegal acts, including a transaction in which Haidl gave a boat to Carona in 2001, Carona provided preferential treatment for Haidl’s son, and Carona and his associates used Haidl’s yacht and private plane.
Haidl also allegedly gave Hoffman and Jaramillo a $110,000 cashier’s check the day before Carona was elected sheriff in 1998, money that was used to revive Jaramillo, Hoffman and Associates, a law firm that Jaramillo and Hoffman had founded. A portion of this loan was repaid through an agreement in which Carona and Jaramillo, among others, would refer legal cases—including those involving Sheriff’s Department employees—to another lawyer, who would kick back legal fees to members of the conspiracy. In 1999 and 2000, Haidl also allegedly gave additional checks worth approximately $65,000 to Hoffman at Carona’s request.
The indictment goes on to allege that Carona and Jaramillo entered into an agreement with the owners of a paintball business in which the businessmen would pay tens of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for Carona using his influence to help the businessmen obtain land in Orange County for a recreation facility.
Carona, Hoffman and Deborah Carona, covered-up and concealed the cash payments, loans, gifts and other benefits from Haidl and others through false statements under penalty of perjury in their Statements of Economic Interests and other public documents, allegations that are part of the conspiracy charges against each of them and the honest services mail fraud charges against Carona and Hoffman.
Carona is also accused of witness tampering, which includes encouraging Haidl to give false testimony to a federal grand jury investigating the sheriff. The indictment alleges that as recently as August 13 Carona, in a recorded conversation, encouraged Haidl to withhold evidence and to make false statements to the grand jury.
Hoffman is accused of bankruptcy fraud for failing to disclose various economic interests, including the loan and payments from Haidl, among other omissions.
In proceedings on March 6, 2007, that were unsealed today, Haidl pleaded guilty to filing a fraudulent federal income tax return for 2002 after using hundreds of thousands of dollars from partnerships, trust accounts and businesses he controlled to pay some of his son’s legal fees and failing to report this money as income, which caused a tax loss of between $200,000 and $400,000. In his plea agreement, Haidl admitted making illegal payments to Carona and Jaramillo. He is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford on June 23, 2008, at which time he faces a maximum statutory sentence of three years in federal prison.
Jaramillo pleaded guilty on March 13, 2007, to filing a false tax return for 1999 and to honest services mail fraud for filing a false financial statement required because he too was a member of the State Advisory Group on Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention. In his plea agreement, Jaramillo admitted that Haidl made cash payments to Jaramillo from 1998 through 2002, Haidl paid off Jaramillo’s lease on a Mercedes-Benz, and Jaramillo filed a series of Statements of Economic Interest that failed to report, among other things, money, gifts, and loans he received from Haidl. Jaramillo is also scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Guilford on June 23, 2008, at which time he faces a statutory maximum sentence of 23 years in federal prison.
“This investigation did not focus on career personnel with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, but centered on elected and appointed individuals who allegedly abused their power and violated the public’s trust,” said Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in Los Angeles, Peter Brust. “The charges alleged in the indictment never called into question the integrity of rank-and-file Orange County Sheriffs Department personnel. FBI Agents and Orange County Sheriff's deputies work hand in hand every day combating crime on many fronts. The FBI is committed to continuing these strong relationships that exist in the form of joint task forces devoted to fighting terrorism, organized criminal enterprises, the exploitation of children, bank robberies and other criminal activity in Orange County.”
Debra D. King, Special Agent in Charge of IRS – Criminal Investigation in Los Angeles, stated: “Nobody is above the law, including public officials. Crimes committed by these figures violate the public trust. The indictment of Michael Carona on conspiracy, witness tampering, and public corruption-related charges serves to assure the public that their officials are, and will be, held accountable for their actions. Further, the indictment announced today helps to assure the public that their officials cannot use their office for their own financial enrichment or personal political gain.”
Peter C. Anderson, United States Trustee for the Central District of California (Region 16), stated: “By working together with the United States Attorney's Office and the federal law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Trustee Program is able to fulfill its mission of protecting and preserving the integrity of the bankruptcy system.”
The cases against Carona and the other defendants are the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and IRS-Criminal Investigation, which received substantial assistance from the U.S. Trustee Program, which is the component of the Justice Department that protects the integrity of the bankruptcy system by overseeing case administration and litigating to enforce the bankruptcy laws.
An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...701681_pf.html
FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes
Lee Wayne Hunt is one of hundreds of defendants whose convictions are in question now that FBI forensic evidence has been discredited.
By John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 18, 2007; A01
Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found.
The science, known as comparative bullet-lead analysis, was first used after President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The technique used chemistry to link crime-scene bullets to ones possessed by suspects on the theory that each batch of lead had a unique elemental makeup.
In 2004, however, the nation's most prestigious scientific body concluded that variations in the manufacturing process rendered the FBI's testimony about the science "unreliable and potentially misleading." Specifically, the National Academy of Sciences said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence."
A year later, the bureau abandoned the analysis.
But the FBI lab has never gone back to determine how many times its scientists misled jurors. Internal memos show that the bureau's managers were aware by 2004 that testimony had been overstated in a large number of trials. In a smaller number of cases, the experts had made false matches based on a faulty statistical analysis of the elements contained in different lead samples, documents show.
"We cannot afford to be misleading to a jury," the lab director wrote to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III in late summer 2005 in a memo outlining why the bureau was abandoning the science. "We plan to discourage prosecutors from using our previous results in future prosecutions."
Despite those private concerns, the bureau told defense lawyers in a general letter dated Sept. 1, 2005, that although it was ending the technique, it "still firmly supports the scientific foundation of bullet lead analysis." And in at least two cases, the bureau has tried to help state prosecutors defend past convictions by using court filings that experts say are still misleading. The government has fought releasing the list of the estimated 2,500 cases over three decades in which it performed the analysis.
For the majority of affected prisoners, the typical two-to-four-year window to appeal their convictions based on new scientific evidence is closing.
Dwight E. Adams, the now-retired FBI lab director who ended the technique, said the government has an obligation to release all the case files, to independently review the expert testimony and to alert courts to any errors that could have affected a conviction.....
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Our military sent Bernard Kerik over to Iraq to set up initial training of new Iraqi police forces in 2003. He did a helluva job....look at the corrutpion and effectiveness of Iraqi police today. It's a game of authority and the lining of pockets. The folks with "faith in the system" are made to look like jackasses by these corrupt, ambitious thugs. Wake up. Checks and balances, question all authority, demand open government. Settle for nothing less!
Last edited by host; 12-27-2007 at 08:59 PM..
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