The case of New York lawyer Marc S. Dreier is a strange one. He was arrested in Canada on Friday, after uncharacteristically appearing disheveled and allegedly posing as a lawyer for the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.

When he returned to New York, he was arrested and hit with a complaint charging him with defrauding hedge fund execs of more than $100 million. Essentially, the Government claims, he was just a grifter all along.

This afternoon, the Judge ordered Dreier detained pending trial as a flight risk. [More...]

The jury in the Brian Nichols' trial today told the court it was deadlocked on whether he should get the death penalty. The Judge has ordered them to keep deliberating.

Prosecutors have been seeking the death penalty for Nichols, 36, who was convicted of killing a judge and a court reporter in the Fulton County Courthouse, where he was being tried for rape.

He also was convicted of killing a sheriff's deputy outside the courthouse and a federal agent in northern Atlanta.

The possibilities now: [More...]

In other news, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has denied Sen. Larry Craig's attempt to reverse his guilty plea in the bathroom solicitation case. On the entrapment issue:

They cited a precedent ruling that said entrapment "exists only where the criminal intent originates in the enforcement officials of the government rather than in the mind of the accused."...."Here, the complaint clearly indicates that the criminal intent originated in the mind of appellant, not in the officer."

More...

Incredible:

Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois was arrested by federal authorities on Tuesday morning and charged with corruption, including an allegation that he conspired to profit from his authority to appoint President-elect Barack Obama’s successor in the United States Senate, prosecutors said.

Blago has basically been surrounded by allegations and rumors of ongoing investigations and he does THAT? I know I should be stunned by the corruption. But I am more stunned by the sheer stupidity.

Speaking for me only

New York Congressman Vito Fossella was sentenced to five days in jail today for a D.U.I, conviction.

Fossella was arrested after running a red light on May 1 in a Virginia suburb of Washington, and convicted of drunken driving in October. Under Virginia law, a driver who registers a blood alcohol content of 0.15 or higher must serve five days behind bars. Police say Fossella's blood alcohol content was 0.17.

Fossella's lawyers tried to convince the judge that the breath-test machine used on Fossella was faulty, but the judge didn't buy it.

Fossella's lawyers have already filed a notice of appeal. If successful, they will seek a jury trial next time around.

The FBI is publishing the top ten stories of the week. Here's the list for the week ending Dec. 5.

Of the ten stories, five pertain to crimes by allegedly crooked cops and politicians; two to white collar bigshots; one to a little white collar guy; and one to a crime by a former government employee.

There's no murders, no big drug dealers or gun offenders other than cops, no child p*rn, cybercrimes or terrorism (other than a reference to the resentencing of a terror suspect for a crime committed years ago.)

There's a message here, I'm just not sure what it is. [More...]

Update: Bail pending appeal denied. The sentence:

Count 1: 1 year county jail; Count 2: 12 - 48 mos, concurrent with count1; Count 3: 12 - 48 mos concurrent with counts 1 and 2; Count 4: 26 mos to 120 mos; Count 5: 15 years, parole eligibility after 5 yrs, consecutive 12 - 72 mos; Count 6: 15 years, parole eligibility after 5 yrs, consecutive 12 - 72 mos, concurrent with count 5; Count 7: 60 - 180 mos, consecutive 12-72 months; Count 8: 60 - 180 mos, consecutive 12-72 months, concurrent with count 7; Count 9: 18 - 72 mos, consecutive to ct 8; Count 10: 18 - 72 mos, consecutive to ct 9.

How much time did he get? At first glance, it looks to me like he has to do at least 6 years on counts 1 through through 8, and then two additional sentences of 1.5 to 6 years each on counts 9 and 10, meaning a minimum of 6 + 3 (1.5 + 1.5) for a total minimum of 9 years. [Update: The LA Times and Las Vegas Sun come up with the same 9 year calculation I did.] [More...]

Another driving while Ambien'd story in the news today: An elected District Attorney in Durango, Colorado was sentenced to 10 days of home detention (and loss of his driver's license.)

Craig Westberg, the DA for Archuleta, La Plata and San Juan counties, also must attend alcohol-education classes, perform 60 hours of public service and pay more than $3,000 in court costs and restitution for car damage.

....He was arrested in October 2007 after witnesses reported an erratic driver. Westberg has said he took an Ambien sleeping pill and left home to run an errand when his vision suddenly became blurred.

Patrick Kennedy got a better deal in his DWA (driving while ambien'd) ordeal: Rehab.

Here's a 2006 news article with statistics. [More...]

Former Boston FBI Agent John Connolly, purportedly the inspiration for the Matt Damon character in The Departed, is in a federal courtroom in Miami today, being sentenced for a gangland murder. He faces 30 years to life.

Connolly told the judge today he didn't do it.

During testimony, jurors heard that Connolly was on the mob payroll, collecting $235,000 from Bulger and Flemmi while shielding his mob pals from prosecution and leaking the identities of informants.

The prosecution's star witnesses at the Miami trial were Flemmi, who is now in prison, and mob hit man John Martorano, who has admitted to 20 murders, served 12 years in prison and is now free.

Connolly was serving a 10 year sentence for racketeering when he was indicted for the mob hit.

Director Roman Polanski, now age 75, has filed a new motion to have the sex assault charges against him dismissed. His motion alleges prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, revealed in a recent HBO documentary on the case. The statements were made by the deputy DA on the case and a judge. The victim in the case, then 13, now 43, has wanted the charges dropped for years, and still does.

In a legal brief, the attorneys quoted heavily from the documentary, citing statements by former Deputy District Attorney David Wells in which he acknowledged advising the judge on how to sentence the film director, even though he was not assigned to the case.

The lawyers said that Wells' recommendation to send Polanski away for a diagnostic study was illegal without Polanski's lawyers present. They said Wells also inflamed the judge by showing him photos depicting Polanski with girls at an Oktoberfest party in Germany while he was awaiting sentencing. They said the photos were misrepresented.

More...

When TalkLeft last discussed the prosecution of Lori Drew (background here), it was to criticize the Justice Department for exploiting a tragedy as a test case to create a new federal power to prosecute internet users who conceal their true identities on social networking sites like MySpace. Posing as a teenage boy, Drew used a fictitious MySpace identity to say mean things to 13 year old Megan Meier, who was a neighbor and former friend of Drew's daughter. Megan committed suicide, prompting a federal prosecutor in California to indict Drew for computer fraud, despite the decision of a federal prosecutor in Missouri (where Drew and Meier lived) to decline prosecution.

The prosecutor was plainly seeking glory. The good news is: he didn't get it. On Wednesday the jury acquitted Drew of three felony charges that accused Drew of obtaining "unauthorized access" of MySpace to inflict emotional distress on Megan. The bad news (at least for now): Drew was convicted of three misdemeanors. [more ...]

You may remember the case of Julie Amero, the teacher who allegedly exposed her seventh grade students to p*rn*graphy on a classroom PC. Amero's defense (not ably presented at her trial) was that she accessed no p*rn and that the computer was infected with malware that caused the p*rn sites to pop up faster than she could close them. Amero was nonetheless convicted of impairing the morals of a child and risking injury to a minor.

Before she was sentenced, with the assistance of a new lawyer and a host of new evidence, Amero persuaded the judge to give her a new trial. The case has been languishing for some time. Last week, because she "wasn't in condition to endure another trial," Amero entered a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and agreed to give up her teaching license. She was fined $100.

Amero's decision to put an end to her ordeal is understandable but unfortunate given the evidence of her innocence. [more ...]