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William Jefferson's Legal Bills Could Top $2 MIL
Political and Legal | 2007/06/12 08:27

Attorneys say U-S Representative William Jefferson is facing legal bills that could reach two million dollars to fight complex public corruption charges that include bribery, racketeering and money laundering.

As of yesterday, the New Orleans Democrat had 136-thousand dollars in a legal defense account, a net debt in his campaign election fund and a congressional salary of 165-thousand, 200 dollars a year.

Election and white-collar defense attorneys in Washington say Jefferson's trial could last two to three months.

Evidence against him fills eight file cabinets.

Lawyers say a defense of that complexity and length easily could push Jefferson's defense costs into seven figures.

Campaign lawyer Ken Gross says the case involves a lot of witnesses and the case has a lot of tentacles.

A federal grand jury in Virginia indicted Jefferson last week on 16 counts of public corruption.

The indictment alleges Jefferson used his influence as co-chairman of the House Africa Investment Trade Caucus to broker deals in various African nations.

Jefferson maintains his innocence.



US Republicans block Gonzales no confidence vote
Political and Legal | 2007/06/11 16:36

Republicans blocked the Senate's no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Monday, rejecting a symbolic Democratic effort to prod him from office despite blistering criticism from lawmakers in both parties. The 53-38 vote to move the resolution to full debate fell seven short of the 60 required. In bringing the matter up, Democrats dared Republicans to vote their true feelings about an attorney general who has alienated even the White House's strongest defenders by bungling the firings of federal prosecutors and claiming not to recall the details.

Republicans did not defend him, but most voted against moving the resolution ahead.

Short of impeachment, Congress has no authority to oust a Cabinet member, but Democrats were trying anew to give him a push. Gonzales dismissed the rhetorical ruckus on Capitol Hill, and President Bush continued to stand by his longtime friend and legal adviser.



DC law firm may reap millions in fees from state
Legal Business | 2007/06/11 16:35

A Washington law firm hired by Governor Carcieri's administration to help in a Tiverton pollution case has already billed the state about $448,000. And that could be just the tip of the iceberg. Regulators have proposed seeking $3.5 million more over the next year to pay for Sutherland Asbill and Brennan. The firm is helping the state in its dispute with Texas-based Southern Union Company. The state is trying to force the company to clean up toxic soil in one area town. The cleanup could cost tens millions of dollars. Critics question the spending at a time when the state is struggling financially. But Administration officials say the cost is worth it if the state wins the case.



Law firm sees no US govt support in fraud aid case
Breaking Legal News | 2007/06/11 16:35

The Bush administration is unlikely to support shareholders in a U.S. Supreme Court appeal that aims to hold other companies and investment banks accountable when their actions aid corporations in fraud, a class action law firm said on Monday. Dan Newman, a spokesman for the firm representing Enron shareholders, Lerach Coughlin, said the Securities and Exchange Commission wrote a draft legal brief supporting shareholder plaintiffs in the appeal that is relevant to Enron's 2001 collapse. However, Newman said Solicitor General Paul Clement, who acts as the U.S. government's chief lawyer in Supreme Court appeals, was unlikely to support the regulator's view.

A spokesman for the Justice Department said he could not comment on matters of pending litigation.

In the appeal case before the Supreme Court, shareholders of Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR.O: Quote, Profile, Research sued Scientific Atlanta and Motorola Inc. (MOT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, accusing them of aiding a scheme to inflate Charter revenues in 2000. A lower court dismissed the case, saying that companies were not liable because they were not primary players in the alleged fraud.

Enron shareholders are closely watching the case because it could affect their own attempt to sue banks, including Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research, for helping put together financing transactions for Enron before its collapse.

Legal briefs supporting the plaintiffs in the Charter case are due at the Supreme Court by midnight on Monday.

Newman said he and other investor advocates started hearing late last week that the solicitor general would not support the SEC's position.



10-year sentence for teen sex thrown out
Breaking Legal News | 2007/06/11 13:36

A former high school football star who became a national symbol for the extremes of getting tough on sex offenders was ordered released from prison Monday by a judge who called his mandatory 10-year sentence for consensual teen sex "a grave miscarriage of justice." But the joy felt by Genarlow Wilson's family rapidly turned to disappointment as Georgia's attorney general announced he would appeal, a move that will keep the honor student behind bars for now.

Wilson's sentence was widely criticized as being too severe, even by members of the jury that convicted him and the author of the 1995 law that put him behind bars.

His case became a cause celebre that grew from local blogs and TV stations to national news shows and editorial pages. Some supporters, including former President Jimmy Carter, have said it raised questions about race and the criminal justice system. Wilson and five other males charged in the case are black, as are the two teenage girls involved.

"As far as I'm concerned, this case is a throwback to Southern justice," said state Sen. Vincent Fort, an Atlanta Democrat.

Wilson, homecoming king of his school who was being recruited to play football at Vanderbilt University, has served more than two years of a mandatory 10-year sentence for aggravated child molestation. He was captured on videotape having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl in 2003 when he was 17.

If the sentence stands, he would also be placed on Georgia's sex offender registry.

At the time of his crime, Wilson would have faced just one year in prison if he had sexual intercourse with the girl. The "Romeo and Juliet" exception in Georgia law also would have allowed him to avoid the sex offender registry.

Lawmakers last year voted to close that loophole. But the state's top court said the new law could not be applied retroactively to Wilson, now 21.

Opponents of Wilson's release said it could open a floodgate for other cases. Georgia prisons currently hold 189 inmates who were sentenced for aggravated child molestation when they were 21 or younger.

Of those, 56 percent were white and 44 percent black, state figures show.

Black community leaders planned a protest outside Attorney General Thurbert Baker's office late Monday. Baker, who is black, is now pushing to keep Wilson in prison, arguing that his sentence is valid.

In his notice of appeal, Baker argued that Georgia law does not give a judge authority to reduce or modify the sentence imposed by the trial court. He said he would seek an expedited ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court. And he noted that a plea deal is on the table that would release Wilson in a maximum of five years and also remove him from the sex offender registry.

Not good enough, said Wilson's lawyer, B.J. Bernstein.

"It is really ridiculous when you consider that we had a judge that just said it is a misdemeanor that carries no sex offender registration," she said.

"It is extremely, extremely disturbing that the attorney general would take this action now."

Bernstein said her office was seeking bond for Wilson, which would allow him to leave prison while the appeal is pending.

The judge's ruling Monday threw out Wilson's 10-year sentence and amended it to misdemeanor aggravated child molestation with a 12-month term, plus credit for time served, and he would not be required to register as a sex offender.

"The fact that Genarlow Wilson has spent two years in prison for what is now classified as a misdemeanor, and without assistance from this court, will spend eight more years in prison, is a grave miscarriage of justice," wrote Judge Thomas H. Wilson, who is no relation to Genarlow Wilson.

"If this court or any court cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish ... justice being served in a fair and equal manner," the judge wrote.

When the judge's order arrived Monday morning, Wilson's lawyers applauded and hugged his mother, Juannessa Bennett, who wiped away tears.

"I just feel like a miracle happened," Bennett said.

After the notice of appeal she looked stricken.

"It's heartbreaking," Bennett said.

Wilson's prominent supporters included Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who declared he would boycott Georgia until Wilson was free, and Carter, who wrote a letter in support of Wilson to the state attorney general.

The court battle over Wilson's fate also drew comparisons to the rape charges leveled against Duke University lacrosse players last year, with critics saying prosecutors in both cases overreached.

Wilson was also charged with rape for being one of several male partygoers at a hotel to have sex with another 17-year-old girl, but was acquitted. The party was captured on a videotape that was played for the jury.

The five other male partygoers took plea deals in the case. One of them has been released from prison and is now in college.



Bush Heads Home to Contentious Congress
Politics | 2007/06/11 08:31

President Bush says Monday's debate over a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will have no bearing on whether the long-time legal adviser stays in office."I guess it reflects the political atmosphere of Washington," he said. "They can try to have their votes of no confidence, but it is not going to make the determination of who serves in my government." The president told reporters in Bulgaria that he will decide whether Gonzales is effective or not, not legislators who he says are using a meaningless resolution to play politics.

"This process has been drug-out a long time, which says to me it is political," he said. "There is no wrong doing."

Opposition Democrats are calling for the Attorney General's ouster over what they say is the politically-motivated firing of eight federal prosecutors. The Justice Department says those dismissals were based on poor performance.

During this trip to Europe, President Bush also suffered a set-back to his top legislative priority of the year: comprehensive immigration reform.

A bipartisan bill fell short of the votes it needed in the Senate because some members of the president's own party object to its provisions giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

The president says he knows it is a tough debate, but he is still optimistic about getting the bill through.


At dusk, illegal immigrants prepare to use an inner-tube to cross the Rio Grande River at the U.S-Mexico border in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, 02 June 2007
"I believe we can get an immigration bill," he said. "Now it is going to require leadership from the Democrat leaders in the Senate, and it is going to require me to stay engaged and work with Republicans who want a bill."

While in Europe, the president telephoned three Republican Senators to lobby for the immigration bill. He will go to Capitol Hill Tuesday to press them further.

"It is important that we address this issue now and I believe we can get it done," he said. "Listen, a lot of progress was made between people in both parties making hard decisions necessary to move a comprehensive plan."

Mr. Bush says the legislative process often takes two steps forward and one step back. He says he will start Tuesday to work toward taking some steps forward again, telling a reporter on the trip, "I will see you at the bill signing."



Democrats seek Gonzales no confidence vote
Legal Business | 2007/06/11 08:20

While Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is in Florida Monday addressing a terrorism law enforcement conference in Miami, Senate Democrats in Washington, D.C., are forcing a vote by their Republican colleagues on a resolution expressing no confidence in America's top law-enforcement official. The resolution itself is only one sentence: "It is the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people."

No one is predicting that a symbolic resolution expressing no confidence in Gonzales will survive even the test vote Monday. Most Republicans are likely to vote no, dismissing the whole exercise as a ploy to embarrass President Bush.

"I'm not going to comment on the kind of job" Gonzales has done, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." "The vote is whether we should take a vote to express a lack of confidence by the Senate. That's wrong."

At the same time, not many of the Senate's 100 members have been supportive of Gonzales after the attorney general told a Senate committee dozens of times that he could not recall key details about the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

White House spokesman Tony Snow brushed off the impending vote.

"There's an attempt to sort of pull this thing like a piece of taffy and looking if there's any political advantage in it. There's not," Snow said on "Fox News Sunday."

Democrats say it's only right for senators to go on record, since five Republicans have called outright for Gonzales' dismissal and many more of the president's party have said in public comments that they have lost confidence in him.



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