by TChris

Defense attorneys contend that the FBI used an informant to record communications with his lawyer, Scott Leemon. At the time, Leemon was representing Joseph Massino, who is accused of being a "boss" in a criminal organization. Massino's current counsel, David Breitbart, argues that Brooklyn federal prosecutors used the informant to learn the strategy that lawyers representing various members of the organization intended to use at an upcoming trial.

Prosecutors deny the allegation, saying that the FBI was merely looking for evidence of a crime when its informant recorded the conversations with Leemon. Breitbart says the tapes reveal no evidence of criminal activity, but they do show that the informant "pumped Leemon for defense strategy and learned that the defense would not try to dispute government evidence about the structure of the organized crime family."

As a result, the defense attorneys said they are asking that the lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Andres, be removed from the case or barred from using evidence gathered by the informant in the upcoming racketeering trial of reputed Bonanno boss Joseph Massino and two other men.

Judge Nicholas Garaufis instructed prosecutors to produce FBI documents and other reports that show how the informant was handled by investigators. Leemon may also be asked to testify.

It's not just the file disclosure failure in the Terry Nichols case that is under scrutiny. The failure may have been routine--and may impact cases nationally--giving some defendants cause to seek to reopen their cases:

In an oversight that could impact cases nationwide, the FBI hasn't routinely searched a special computer space where agents store investigative documents to see whether those materials should be sent to defense lawyers, Congress or special investigative bodies like the Sept. 11 inquiry.

The existence of the unsearched "I-drive" computer files, brought to the attention of The Associated Press by concerned FBI agents, could give lawyers an avenue to reopen numerous cases to determine whether documents that could have aided the defense of criminal defendants were withheld.

The FBI is uncertain about the nature or breadth of the documents on the computer space and has asked its internal investigation unit, its inspection division, to determine how many documents on I-drives in FBI offices across the country did not make it into official case files, officials said Monday.

If a large number are found, a review would begin to determine whether they should have been turned over to defense lawyers, bodies like the Sept. 11 commission or Congress, officials said. FBI supervisors said they were unaware of the problem until it was brought to their attention by AP.

From a Department of Justice press release today:

Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Roscoe C. Howard of the District of Columbia announced today that Narissa Smalls, a legal technician in FBI Headquarters, was sentenced to 12 months in prison today on charges stemming from her unlawful access of the FBI’s Automated Case Support (ACS) computer system.

Smalls, sentenced this afternoon by U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler of the District of Columbia, pleaded guilty to the felony charges in December 2003 and resigned from the FBI as part of her plea agreement.

Smalls was assigned to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act Unit in FBI Headquarters, and her duties included searching ACS for information in response to FOIA requests and for other administrative purposes. Smalls admitted that between September 2002 and November 2002, she conducted several searches in ACS for information regarding individuals who were subjects of ongoing drug investigations in the FBI’s Washington Field Office. In one instance, she printed out the information and took it to her residence. Smalls admitted she then shared the results of her ACS searches with individuals who were associated with the subjects of the FBI’s drug investigations.

How many times does this go on when and no one finds out? A high school principal has admitted planting marijuana on a student he suspected of using the drug.

The Guardian reports that Mick Jagger was convinced he was framed in a 1969 drug raid, according to newly released reports.

The controversy around the May 1969 police raid, led by the head of the Chelsea drug squad, the curiously named Detective Sergeant Robin Constable, on Jagger's Cheyne Walk home was to prove typical of its time. Only a few years later senior detectives of Scotland Yard's drug squad under Detective Sergeant "Nobby" Pilcher found themselves on trial at the Old Bailey for just such corrupt practices.

The DPP file released this month at the National Archives shows that Jagger's allegations were taken more seriously than most because his came with the backing of a future Conservative attorney general, Michael Havers, and the Labour MP, Tom Driberg. But a full internal Scotland Yard inquiry was only launched after the Australian police reported that Jagger's partner, the actress Marianne Faithfull, had told them she "hated coppers" because the couple had been framed on trumped-up charges by the London police. Faithfull had been admitted to a Sydney hospital for a drug overdose while she had been in Australia with Jagger where she was supposed to co-star with him in Tony Richardson's film, Ned Kelly.

It's an ugly scenario, and Jagger's version rings true to us:

A 2000 Senate report on misconduct by FBI agents that has been sitting in the wings is ready for release:

A leading Republican senator charged Wednesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation may have long tolerated egregious, even criminal conduct by some of its agents, including rape, embezzlement and extortion.

The senator, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, released an internal report prepared by the F.B.I in 2000, which examined 107 instances of serious and sometimes criminal misconduct by its agents over a 16-year period.

The shocking report is a laundry list of horrors," Mr. Grassley said in a letter to the F.B.I., "with examples of agents who committed rape, sexual crimes against children, other sexual deviance and misconduct, attempted murder of a spouse, and narcotics violations, among many others."

The reaction of the FBI?

Cassandra Chandler, an F.B.I. spokeswoman, said that the agency "takes seriously its commitment to holding its employees to the highest standards of conduct" and had taken strong steps to strengthen its disciplinary process.

And this from an unnamed FBI offiical:

You won't find any organization that doesn't have problems. People have weaknesses, and when the bureau becomes aware of that, we act on it."

[comments now closed]

In a first ruling of its kind, three former agents got prison time for denying care to an immigrant who died:

...a Houston federal judge sentenced three former immigration agents to prison Monday for denying medical care to a paralyzed illegal immigrant who later died of his injuries.

A federal jury convicted the three men in June of acting with deliberate indifference for failing to get timely medical care for Serafin Olvera after his neck was broken during a struggle with immigration agents in Bryan on March 25, 2001.

Olvera, a Mexican citizen who had been living in Houston since 1977, died in February 2002. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal sentenced Richard Henry Gonzales to 78 months in prison, Louis Rey Gomez to 41 months and Carlos Reyna to 33 months.

Prosecutor Eric Morales, who works for the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., said this is the first case he is aware of in which federal agents were convicted of failing to provide medical aid to illegal immigrants.

by TChris

Accusations of abuse and corruption have shaken the faith of many Canadians in Canadian law enforcement.

Police officers have been accused of robbery of jewelry and drugs, and of rigging evidence to put suspects behind bars in Toronto, and of abusing drug addicts in Vancouver. They have even been accused of dumping intoxicated Native Canadians on isolated snowy roads to freeze to death in the prairies.

Six Toronto narcotics squad officers arrested in January face "a variety of brutality and corruption charges" while "newly released internal police documents indicate that many more may be implicated." A Royal Canadian Mounted Police task force investigating the narcotics squad released evidence that several officers stole jewelry and cash during a raid of a drug dealer's home. Three other officers were reported to have stolen $70,000 using a fake search warrant.

The Toronto scandal has followed a pattern that has emerged in New York and other American cities in which officers were suspected of having succumbed to the temptations of the great sums involved in the drug trade while internal investigative units were inadequate to monitor them.

A criminologist at the University of Monreal cautions that Canadians, proud of the image of brave Mounties on horseback, may be unwilling to closely examine charges of corruption, even though "brutality and fabricating evidence is fairly widespread." That attitude may change in light of Canada's "heritage as a global proponent of human rights and civil liberties" and the publicity surrounding recent investigations of police misconduct.

Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes announced Monday he will seek an Indictment against the police officer who killed unarmed 19 year old Timothy Stansbury this weekend. The officer is white and Mr. Stansbury was black.

The teenager, Timothy Stansbury Jr., 19, had no weapons, and witnesses have said that no words were exchanged before the officer, Richard S. Neri Jr., fired his gun. Officer Neri has made statements suggesting he was startled to see Mr. Stansbury as the officer and his partner opened the roof door on a routine patrol of the Louis Armstrong Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, according to a person who was briefed about his account.

DA Hynes said he would seek a charge of criminally negligent homicide, and perhaps the more serious one of second-degree manslaughter.

Criminally negligent homicide is a Class E felony in which the guilty party need not be aware of the potential risk of his actions. It carries a maximum sentence of four years. The more serious charge being weighed, second-degree manslaughter, is a Class C felony in which the guilty party is aware of the risk but recklessly disregards it. It carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.

The officer's lawyer says he may have his client testify before the grand jury. Investigators speculate the officer was startled and pulled the trigger by accident.

Still, several police officials said that officers were trained to keep their finger away from the trigger, even if their gun is drawn.

Then there's that familiar blue wall of silence:

One senior investigator said Officer Neri's partner has told investigators that at the critical moments of the shooting, his view of Officer Neri was blocked.

Three police informants who set up fake drug busts in Texas were sentenced to between 33 and 41 months in federal prison Thursday. As a result of their actions, dozens of immigrants were falsely charged with crimes.

You would think the informants would have zero credibility after admitting they faked the drug busts. You'd be wrong. All three got lighter sentences for agreeing to testify against others in the scandal. The three testified against the cop they were working for. The cop went to trial and was acquitted. Yet the informants still got a sentence break in their cases for their "truthful" testimony in the cop's case.

In 2001, the men fooled police into paying them more than $275,000 for helping nab drug dealers. They arranged drug deals but kept the "buy" money supplied by police. More than two dozen people, mostly Hispanics, were jailed after the men planted gypsum powder and passed it off as cocaine during the busts.

In the federal criminal trial of Dallas Police Senior Cpl. Mark De La Paz, the trio testified that they duped the officer into believing the drugs were real when he made many of the arrests. De La Paz was acquitted in November of six federal charges in the fake-drug case.

One of the informants was paid $225,000 by the cops for setting up the fake busts. So he got a sentence break and $225k. Who said crime doesn't pay?

This article in Tuesday's Miami Herald paints a portrait of wrongly accused cops set free by a Perry Mason moment in which a witness admits committing perjury.

Not so fast, says Univ. of Miami law prof Michael Froomkin in Heartwarming Story of Crooked, Violent Cops and the Strangely Unnecessary Perjury that Got Them Off Charges for Burning and Beating a Frequent Felon.

Seems the perjury related to an incident two days before the cops beat and burned the victim, an unsympathetic career criminal.

Given that the core accusations against the cops were that they beat and burned the guy after they had him handcuffed and helpless, what possible difference can it make whether he threw a rock two days earlier? Or even if he, say, had killed a large number people?

Some vindication.

Update: You can read a transcript of the testimony here. (pdf)

The latest prison guard scandal, this time in Pennsylvania: Four guards have been indicted in a sex-for-drugs scheme:

Four guards have been indicted in a sex-for-drugs scheme that prosecutors described as a serious problem at Allegheny County Jail. The arrests of several guards Friday followed a two-year grand jury investigation that found at least nine female inmates had been sexually assaulted.

The grand jury found cigarettes, drugs, cash and other illegal contraband were used by guards "to reward or to induce female prison inmates to participate in sexual activity."

Most of the women involved were jailed for petty crimes, [Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen] Zappala said....The investigation is ongoing and Zappala suggested more arrests are likely.