Impeachment Trial of Federal Judge Raises Issue of ‘Kickbacks’
The impeachment trial of U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. is continuing before a U.S. Senate committee. Porteous, a federal judge in New Orleans, is accused of four counts of corruption. Each...
View ArticleSkilling Fallout Doesn’t Spring Ex-Gov From Prison
The Supreme Court’s June decision in United States v. Skilling doesn’t give former Illinois Gov. George Ryan a “get out of jail free” card, a U.S. district judge has ruled. Ryan was convicted in 2006...
View ArticleGovernment Uses Wrong Statute to Prosecute Ex-D.C. Employee
On January 7, 2011, the D.C. Circuit threw out the conviction of former D.C. government employee Ikela Dean, noting that while she might be guilty of something, she was not guilty of the offenses for...
View Article9th Circuit to D.C. Circuit: We’ll see you in [The Supreme] Court!
Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit cleared the way for the extortion case against Former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) to proceed to trial. In the process, they flatly disagreed with a...
View ArticleDismissal of FCPA Cases Represents Cautionary Tale for DOJ
A dramatic, headline-grabbing white-collar crime sting in January 2010 involved the arrest of 22 executives and employees of companies in the military and law enforcement products industry – and...
View ArticleWorst Part of Wal-Mart Bribery Case Is Failure to Conduct Proper Investigation
Over the weekend, The New York Times broke a major story, publishing a highly detailed 8,000-word article that seems to indicate that Wal-Mart not only engaged in a pattern of bribery of Mexican...
View ArticleEleventh Circuit Case Will Test DOJ’s Broad Reading of FCPA
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prohibits the bribing of foreign officials. While that may seem like a straightforward concept, previous posts on this blog have shown that the precise...
View ArticleDOJ Opinion on Key FCPA Issue Makes Sense, But What’s Next?
We have previously advocated for the Department of Justice to employ a more narrow reading of the term “foreign official” in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Therefore, we were pleased to see that...
View ArticleNew DOJ Guide on FCPA Provides Guidance, Gives Statute a Broad Reading
After much uncertainty and discussion, the U.S. Department of Justice has finally issued official guidance regarding who qualifies as a “foreign official” under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...
View ArticleDoes ‘Speech or Debate’ Trump the Right to Defend Oneself in Court?
On February 5, 2013, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives filed a brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to hold that U.S. legislators and their...
View ArticleHonest Services Fraud — Still Alive and Kicking?
We wrote recently that the very recent Supreme Court decision in United States v. Skilling, limiting the reach of the federal “honest services” statute, may have an immediate impact on the ongoing case...
View ArticleBlagojevich and the Complexity of Jury Instructions
In the wake of the conviction in federal court in Chicago of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on one criminal count of lying to the FBI and the mistrial on 23 others, mostly involving political...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Even Governors Go To Jail
Photo Credit: Steve Helber, AP This afternoon, the long-running saga of Robert McDonnell came to what may be the end (not counting appeals) when the former Virginia Governor was sentenced to serve...
View Article
