Justice Quest: 2015

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Indianapolis Pastor Doesn't Know 'How to Do Life' Without His Slain Wife

from abc

Sunday, November 8, 2015

The Verdict Summation Paul Newman

from youtube

Monday, September 14, 2015

Two More Charged in Multimillion-Dollar Text Message 'Cramming' Scheme

from reuters / nbc

Two men were charged on Monday with helping to run a "cramming" scheme that defrauded unsuspecting mobile phone users of tens of millions of dollars for unwanted text messages. Darcy Wedd and Erdolo Eromo were expected to appear in federal court in New York and Los Angeles, respectively. The charges were brought by the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in New York, which previously charged six other men in May in connection with the scheme.

In 2013, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission settled related civil charges with one of the six men, Lin Miao, and several corporate entities, taking more than $10 million in assets including a Beverly Hills, California, home and luxury cars. Michael Proctor, a lawyer for Eromo, said, "We are disappointed in this decision by the United States Attorney's office, we disagree with it, and we will do our talking in court." Wedd's defense lawyer in New York could not immediately be reached for comment.

From 2011 to 2013, the defendants arranged for thousands of mobile numbers to be "auto-subscribed" to text messages containing horoscopes, celebrity gossip or trivia for $9.99 a month, prosecutors said. Customers typically ignored or deleted the messages and did not notice the monthly charge on their bills, according to the indictment.

Wedd and Eromo were executives at a mobile aggregator, which functions as a middleman between text message companies and mobile carriers by aggregating monthly charges onto customer bills, prosecutors said. In 2011, Wedd, who was chief executive, noticed the unauthorized charges and raised the issue with Miao, according to the indictment. Wedd agreed to help perpetuate the scheme in exchange for $100,000 and a percentage of the proceeds, the indictment said. Eromo also met with Miao and agreed to participate for regular payments, according to the indictment. Wedd and Eromo face charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.

In a statement, Bharara said, "Although the text messages were often trivial, what the defendants allegedly did was far from a joking matter. Their criminal scheme allegedly fleeced hundreds of thousands of everyday customers from around the country out of millions of dollars."

Miao, Yong Jason Lee, Michael Pajaczkowski and Christopher Goff were all previously arrested in May. Two other defendants, Michael Pearse and Yongchao Liu, live in Australia and are not in U.S. custody.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Judges' procedural questions hint at skepticism on California death penalty ban

from latimes

By MAURA DOLANcontact the reporter

California’s death penalty system, plagued by delays and inadequate funding, may survive an appeals court’s scrutiny because of legal rules that limit federal oversight, a U.S. court panel indicated Monday.

During a hearing before a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel, three judges focused on procedural land mines that could imperil last year’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney declaring California’s system of capital punishment unconstitutional. None of the 9th Circuit judges revealed any leanings, but all focused on legal rules that might require them to overturn Carney’s decision.

Judge Paul J. Watford, an Obama appointee, said he had “major problems” with the fact that Carney ruled on an issue not yet addressed by the California Supreme Court.

Carney determined that decades-long delays and dysfunction render California’s death penalty arbitrary and unconstitutional. Legal rules require death row inmates to litigate or “exhaust” all their claims in state court, except in rare cases, before federal judges may review them.

Michael Laurence, representing death row inmate Ernest Jones, said the rules don’t apply when the state has caused the problem and has no remedy to fix it. If the 9th Circuit sends the case back to the California Supreme Court, four more years will pass before a decision, and even then, it will probably be a terse rejection sent on a postcard, Laurence said.

“If the California Supreme Court truly wanted to resolve this question in an expeditious manner, it would have done so a year ago,” Laurence said.

Watford seemed dubious. Exceptions to the so-called “exhaustion” rule generally have been limited to cases that have been pending before state courts for many years without a resolution, he said.

“Here, your client hasn’t even tried yet,” Watford said.

Judge Susan P. Graber, a Clinton appointee, suggested the state high court might already have rejected the constitutional argument, albeit in a more narrow context. Federal courts are supposed to defer to decisions by state judges in criminal cases.

“The California Supreme Court has made it quite clear that the record in this case does not warrant relief on the merits,” Graber said.

Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson, another Clinton appointee, questioned whether Carney’s ruling was based on direct U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

“I am having difficulty with your argument,” she told Laurence. “Has the Supreme Court ever said the fact that one is lingering on death row for a finite number of years or an infinite number of years constitutes a constitutional violation?”

Laurence argued that the Supreme Court had held that federal courts must guard against “extreme malfunctions” in the state court and arbitrary imposition of the death penalty.

California’s system is so underfunded that inmates must wait many years to obtain lawyers for appeals and many more years for their appeals to be filed and decided, he said.

“I don’t think it is a stretch to say that a system that produces such lengthy delays constitutes a gross malfunction,” Laurence argued.

Deputy Solicitor Gen. Michael J. Mongan, arguing for Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, countered that Carney’s ruling was “novel.”

“It is absolutely the case that the review process in California is a lengthy one,” Mongan said. But the delays do not mean a death sentence “is arbitrary or that it produces random results.”

Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson, who attended the hearing, said it appeared death penalty opponents faced “an uphill battle” with the court.

Cautioning that predicting a hearing’s outcome amounted to reading tea leaves, she said: “The tea leaves said to me that the panel would be most comfortable sending it back” to state court.

The case heard Monday was based on an appeal by Jones, who has been on death row for 20 years for the 1992 rape and killing of Julia Miller, his girlfriend's mother. Jones killed Miller 10 months after being paroled for a previous rape.

The California Supreme Court twice rejected appeals that could have overturned Jones’ sentence. When the case got to federal court, Carney asked the lawyers to focus on whether persistent and random delays in the system might make it unconstitutional. The decision by Carney, appointed by President George W. Bush, was put on hold after the state appealed.

California has the largest death row in the nation — more than 750 inmates — but has executed only 13 people since 1978. Despite a critical 2008 state commission report, lawmakers have failed to raise spending to speed up the process.

The state doesn’t even have a court-approved method for lethal injection. Gov. Jerry Brown, prodded by a lawsuit, is expected to soon unveil a single-drug procedure, but it will have to be vetted and could be challenged in court.

An attempt to end the state’s death penalty failed in 2012, when voters narrowly rejected a ballot measure to replace it with life without the possibility of parole.

Twitter: @mauradolan

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Osceola clerk of court hired felon to perform foreclosure audit

from orlandosentinel.com

By Henry Pierson CurtisOrlando Sentinelcontact the reporter

Osceola County Clerk of Court Armando Ramirez hired a company owned by a felon — convicted in a $64 million scam in the 1990s that stole money from the U.S. government — to review county mortgage records last year.

Ramirez employed David Paul Krieger's company, DK Consultants LLC of San Antonio, in June 2014 and paid the company $34,500 to find out whether Wall Street banks had illegally foreclosed on hundreds of local homes, records show.

Foreclosures remain a hot-button issue in Osceola County, where slightly more than 58,277 owners have lost their homes since 2007. That's 45.6 percent of total housing, the country's second-highest foreclosure rate, according to RealtyTrac.com.

Ramirez selected Krieger's company to audit Osceola foreclosures without seeking other bids, records show. Krieger is director and managing member of the company, records show.

"[It] shall be for the purpose of supplying forensic evidence to the State's Attorney for criminal and eventual civil prosecution," according to the contract Ramirez signed July 12, 2014. "The clerk agrees that he has exercised care and due diligence in determining the competency of [Krieger] to conduct such a forensic examination."

But federal court records show Krieger took part in an anti-government movement in the 1990s that funded itself through nationwide mortgage fraud.

Known as Family Farm Preservation, Krieger and others sold fake money orders to those seeking to pay off government-insured mortgages, according to an indictment unsealed May 16, 1996, in federal court in Milwaukee.

That was the same day Krieger, now 62, was arrested in east Texas by FBI agents after a three-year investigation. Records show there were many involved in selling the money orders, but only nine were charged in the scheme.

Krieger was held for five days in the Smith County Jail in Tyler, Texas, and charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and six lesser felony charges involving three counts of fraud and three counts of swindling.

The indictment stated that in a single week in 1993 Krieger sold and mailed $344,733 in bogus money orders for clients to banks, government offices and mortgage companies. Not just a dealer, Krieger used the worthless money orders to try to pay his own debts, including $5,984 owed in Kansas for child support, records show.

Krieger avoided prison by testifying during the federal trial in Milwaukee against his co-defendants, who received up to 16 years in prison. He was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and sentenced Feb. 5, 1997, to three months of home confinement followed by three years of probation and a $1,000 fine. The other charges against Krieger were dropped as part of the plea bargain.

Additionally, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development barred Krieger in 1997 from doing any business with HUD for three years.

"Subject was a minor player in a major scheme," HUD records state.

Krieger would not discuss the audit findings and did not respond to questions about his criminal history.

Since his conviction, Krieger has worked as a wedding entertainer and a voice-over specialist known as Airwave Dave, and he appeared as an Austin Powers impersonator more than 50 times a year at minor-league baseball and hockey games across the South, according to his websites and newspaper coverage.

A radio and TV reporter before his arrest, Krieger has written two self-published books on foreclosure and re-establishing credit and now works as a paralegal and consultant. He appears regularly on talk shows, including Alex Jones' "Infowars" and "The Power Hour" with Joyce Riley.

Ramirez recently declined to comment on how he checked Krieger's background. He did not respond to questions about when he learned of Krieger's past.

Krieger and a team of his handpicked auditors and assistants spent five days at the Osceola County courthouse from July 14 to July 18, 2014, copying records, records show.

Ramirez presented the findings Jan. 23 to Orange-Osceola State Attorney Jeff Ashton for prosecution, records show.

Days later, Ashton declined to prosecute.

"Mr. Ashton has gone on record that our office reviewed the report, but from the perspective of a criminal investigation — it did not meet certain criteria. There were no witness statements, no victims, no evidentiary trail," Ashton's spokeswoman Angela Starke wrote in February. "The issue should be first investigated by law enforcement, thus we provided the report to the Osceola County Sheriff's Office."

In mid-February, Ramirez turned over 17 cartons of property records for the Sheriff's Office to review.

The sheriff's Economic Crimes Unit has spent about 1,000 hours investigating Ramirez's claims without finding a single crime, spokeswoman Twis Lizasuain said Monday.

The investigation has cost taxpayers at least $23,700 for the Sheriff's Office man-hours on top of the $34,500 spent to hire Krieger's company and $985 to send certified letters to 152 alleged victims named in the audit, records show. That's a total price tag so far of $59,185.

"At this time, detectives have not identified any victims," Lizasuain said this week.

The sheriff's investigation continues.

U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, who describes himself as a friend and political ally of Ramirez's, supports the audit.

"The audit showed the clerk's responsiveness to public complaints about fraud in mortgage company filings in his own office, as well as his concern about unnecessary and improper foreclosures," he said Thursday. "The clerk deserves praise for acting against mortgage fraud in a responsible manner, for the protection of the community and the integrity of his office."

Senior researcher Susan K. Thompson contributed to this report.hcurtis@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5257

Monday, June 22, 2015

Waiting on the O’Bannon appeal: Will the 9th Circuit overturn Wilken’s ruling?

from mercurynews.com

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Jon Wilner

* From the department of idle thought …

The Ed O’Bannon lawsuit hasn’t been in the news since March, when the NCAA delivered oral arguments in its appeal of the landmark antitrust case.

Three months later: Squat.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has not issued a ruling …. it has not upheld Judge Claudia Wilken’s decision … hasn’t reversed it … hasn’t asked Wilken to modify it … nothing.

Forgive me for wondering, but:

If the Aug. ’14 ruling was all fine and dandy, then why hasn’t the 9th Circuit signed off?

To refresh: Wilken’s injunction created a means for football and men’s basketball players to benefit from the use of their name image and likeness by allowing (forcing) schools to establish trust funds.

A maximum of $5,000 for every season of competition could (will) be placed into the fund, with the players redeeming the money — that’s $20,000 for a standard playing career — upon the expiration of their eligibility.

But the practical impact of Wilken’s ruling pales in comparison to its potential impact.

Her finding that the NCAA’s longstanding model of amateurism is flawed, and that players deserved compensation, created a legal precedent for other lawsuits in the pipeline …

Lawsuits that could have greater consequences for the longstanding economic model of college sports …

Lawsuits that could detonate the system altogether and create an open market for athletes.

(Jeffrey Kessler, COME ON DOWN!)

So why the three-month wait for a decision on the NCAA’s appeal?

* Maybe the three-judge panel at the 9th Circuit thinks Wilken was spot on with her injunction but is simply busy with other matters.

Implementation of the Wilken ruling, after all, doesn’t begin until Aug. 1, and that’s still a whopping seven weeks away.

(9th Circuit decisions typically take three months to a year from the time of oral arguments, according to a FAQ page on the court’s website.)

* Or maybe … just maybe … the judges have a problem with all, or part of, Wilken’s ruling.

At the time of the original decision, a successful appeal by the NCAA to the 9th Circuit seemed unlikely — the Association would surely need to take the case to the Supreme Court for a shot at victory.

Now, for no reason other than the passage of time and continuation of silence, it feels like maybe … just maybe … the NCAA has a shot.

If the 9th Circuit were to deem Wilken’s injunction flawed, if it were to rule the trust fund arbitrary and improper, then it would do much more than overturn a landmark decision.

It would potentially plug up the pipeline of lawsuits that threaten real damage to the NCAA.

* That’s all, for now, from the department of idle thought. Back to our regular programming (i.e., revised top-25 basketball projections coming Wednesday )…

xxxxxxxxxxxx

* Follow me on Twitter: @WilnerHotline

* My e-book, “Andrew Luck: Inside the Making of a No. 1 Pick,” is available for $2.99 on Amazon for Kindles and for other devices (PCs, iPads and iPhones) with the free Kindle app.

* Download the Bay Area News Group’s new iPad app for more college sports and other news, or check out college sports coverage on MercuryNews.com.

JON WILNER

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

California appoints auditor to examine Ocwen treatment of borrowers

from latimes

By E. SCOTT RECKARDcontact the reporter

U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

California says it can seek repayment and penalties if auditor finds Ocwen violated mortgage servicing laws

Mortgage servicing: California hires auditor to check for violations by Ocwen Financial

California, as part of a consent order earlier this year, has named an auditor to assess whether Ocwen Financial Corp.’s mortgage servicing complies with state and federal laws.

If the review finds violations, the state Department of Business Oversight can seek repayment of funds for injured consumers as well as penalties against the Atlanta bill-collecting and foreclosure specialist, officials said Tuesday.

In a national settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year, Ocwen agreed to provide $268 million in relief to California homeowners over alleged foreclosure abuses.

Jan Lynn Owen, the state department’s commissioner, said Fidelity Information Services was chosen from an initial field of 31 candidates to fill the auditor position, created under a Jan. 23 consent order between Ocwen and the department.

The consent order resolved an enforcement action over Ocwen’s failure for more than a year to provide the department with loan file information needed for a routine regulatory examination. The order also required Ocwen to pay $2.5 million in penalties.

Fidelity will examine a sample of loan files and report on Ocwen’s compliance with the 2012 Homeowner Bill of Rights, the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act and other state and federal laws and regulations, the department said.

Fidelity also will review Ocwen’s practices, procedures and staffing levels to identify weaknesses that could undermine the firm’s ability to treat mortgage borrowers as required by law. Ocwen will have to adopt an action plan to correct any deficiencies identified by the auditor.

Ocwen, one of several major mortgage-service providers not affiliated with banks, has acquired rights to collect payments on hundreds of billions of dollars in home loans.

A specialist in handling troubled subprime borrowers, it was thought to have considerable expertise, but complaints mounted as the company mushroomed over the last five years.

As of March 31, Ocwen serviced 366,955 California mortgages with a total unpaid principal balance of $92.4 billion — 24% of the company’s U.S. portfolio.

In a separate settlement in New York, the company agreed to pay $150 million for relief of homeowners in that state, where it services $27 billion in home loans, 7% of the portfolio.

The Department of Business Oversight information and complaint number is (866) 275-2677.

Follow @ScottReckard for news of banks and home loans

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Morgan Stanley Agrees to $2.6 Billion Mortgage Settlement

from bloomberg

by Michael J Moore David McLaughlin

(Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $2.6 billion to settle probes into its creation and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities, as the U.S. Department of Justice holds another large Wall Street firm to account for the 2008 financial crisis.

The firm increased legal reserves related to mortgage matters by about $2.8 billion, cutting 2014 income from continuing operations by $2.7 billion, or $1.35 a share, Morgan Stanley said Wednesday in an annual regulatory filing. It’s the fourth time in the past five quarters that the New York-based bank reduced earnings in the weeks after announcing them.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. -- the three biggest U.S. banks -- previously settled with federal and state authorities over the probes, agreeing to pay a total of more than $35 billion in cash and consumer relief. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. disclosed this week that it received a letter from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento, saying a civil lawsuit may be brought against the firm.

Patrick Rodenbush, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to immediately comment about the settlement.

The agreement follows other regulatory actions against Morgan Stanley over similar allegations. The firm last year agreed to pay $1.25 billion after the Federal Housing Finance Agency accused it of selling faulty mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In July, Morgan Stanley reached a $275 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over claims it understated the number of delinquent loans backing subprime mortgage securities.

To contact the reporters on this story: Michael J. Moore in New York atmmoore55@bloomberg.net; David McLaughlin in Washington atdmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Eichenbaum atpeichenbaum@bloomberg.net; Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net David Scheer