Barry J. Graham, 59, Ft. Lauderdale, was charged by superseding information with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, in violation of Title 18 United States Code, Section 371, in connection with a $300 million Ponzi scheme involving the sale of vacation rental units to approximately 1,400 investors in the Florida Keys and elsewhere. Cay Clubs Resorts and Marinas operated from 2004 through 2008 from offices in the Florida Keys and Clearwater. Cay Clubs marketed vacation rental units for 17 locations in Florida, Las Vegas and the Caribbean, to investors throughout the United States. Cay Clubs would promise to develop dilapidated properties into luxury resorts, and would promise investors an upfront “leaseback” payment of 15 to 20% of the sales price of the unit at the time of closing. Once an investor agreed to purchase a unit, Cay Clubs would arrange for a real estate closing and lender financing, but would not disclose the leaseback payment and other…
Additional Executive Charged in $300M Ponzi Scheme Involving Sales of Vacation Properties
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Vladeck on Terrorism Prosecutions and "Cross-Ruffing"
Stephen I. Vladeck (American University - Washington College of Law) has posted Terrorism Prosecutions and the Problem of Constitutional 'Cross-Ruffing' (36 Cardozo Law Review, 2014, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Under current U.S. law, certain terrorism suspects are...
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When can the five day time limit to file a motion to dismiss the indictment based on violation of the defendant's right to testify before the grand jury be extended?
Lets take a trip down memory lane to the ‘80s: a time when hair was big, music was bad, and some important cases that are still good law concerning grand jury practice and, in particular, motions to dismiss an indictment pursuant to CPL § 190.50 based on a violation of the defendant’s right to testify before the grand jury were being decided. With respect to grand jury proceedings, the district attorney has a “duty of fair dealing to the accused” (People v Pelchat, 62 NY2d 97, 105 [1984]; see also, People v Lancaster, 69 NY2d 20, 26 [1986]) and to the court (People v Ianniello, 21 NY2d 418, 424 [1968]). This duty of fair dealing encompasses an obligation to ensure fairness in grand jury submissions (People v Pelchat, supra; People v Jordan, 153 AD2d 263 [2nd Dept 1990]; People v Russo, 128 Misc2d 876, 880 [Co Ct Suffolk Co 1985]), which includes notice of the grand jury proceedings that gives a defendant a reasonable opportunity to…
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"Executing Search Warrants in the Cloud"
Kent Scheidegger at Crime & Consequences links to an article on the topic in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
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School Bus Thieves Arrested Outside Annapolis
Anne Arundel County Police have arrested two suspects in remarkably bizarre incident involving a stolen public school bus. The bus was reported stolen at about 5:30 in the morning on Tuesday, as school employees reported to the lot to begin their morning student pickup. Employees at the bus lot notified police and school officials as soon as they noticed the missing vehicle. The first concern for both was the safety of the children, as there was fear that the at large bus thieves could try to pick up and perhaps abduct school children. Parents were notified early in the morning and were told not to have their children wait for the bus. After parents were alerted and concerns over the children subsided, police turned their attention to searching for the missing bus. Not surprisingly, a helicopter spotted the stolen bright yellow school bus a few hours after the search commenced. The final resting point was an unpaved access road underneath electrical towers. Further…
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If you have a pending criminal matter don’t be stupid
This seems like pretty easy advice to follow, don’t you think? If you have a pending criminal matter don’t do anything stupid. However sometimes people don’t follow that advice and find themselves in a worse off position. The latest example of this is NFL superstar Adrian Peterson. In case you don’t follow the NFL or […]
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What has research over the past two decades revealed about the adverse health effects of recreational cannabis use?
Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland (Australia) Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research has monograph with the above title in the journal Addiction. Here is the abstract:Aims: To examine changes in the evidence on the adverse health effects of cannabis since 1993. Methods: A comparison of the evidence in 1993 with the evidence and interpretation of the same health outcomes in 2013. Results: Research in the past 20 years has shown that driving while cannabis-impaired approximately doubles car crash risk and that around one in 10 regular cannabis users develop dependence. Regular cannabis use in adolescence approximately doubles the risks of early school-leaving and of cognitive impairment and psychoses in adulthood. Regular cannabis use in adolescence is also associated strongly with the use of other illicit drugs. These associations persist after controlling for plausible confounding variables in longitudinal studies. This suggests that cannabis…
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Three Degrees of Escape in Arizona
Escapes don’t seem to happen all that often, but when they do occur, and when the individual is inevitably caught, there are dire consequences for the accused in the form of Class 4, 5, and 6 felony charges, on top of whatever charges the offender was serving their sentence for at the time of the escape. First-Degree Escape in AZ According to A.R.S. 13-2504, escape in the first degree is a class 4 felony in Arizona. A person commits escape in the first degree if they knowingly escape, or even attempt to escape from custody, a juvenile secure care facility, a juvenile detention facility, or an adult correctional facility by either: Using or threatening to use physical force against another individual. Using or threatening to use a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument against another person. Second-Degree Escape in AZ According to A.R.S. 13-2503, escape in the second degree is a class 5 felony in Arizona. However, if the individual was trying to escape from a state…
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What Not to Do Before a Federal Sentencing: Lesson Learned from the Giudices
Teresa and Joe Giudice – the reality show husband and wife duo from the show Real Housewives of New Jersey – were sentenced to jail last week after pleading guilty to federal charges for bank and wire fraud. Perhaps lost amid the media frenzy that accompanied their sentencing hearings is a practical lesson for defendants preparing for sentencing: provide full and accurate financial disclosures prior to sentencing. Judge Esther Salas sentenced Teresa to 15 months in prison, with her sentence to begin in January 2015, and Joe Giudice was sentenced to 41 months in prison to be served consecutive to Teresa’s commitment. Judge Salas staggered their terms so that one parent can be home with their four children, and Joe’s term will start when Teresa’s ends. During sentencing, Judge Salas revealed that she almost applied the downward departure requested by Teresa’s attorney, which would have allowed Teresa to receive probation or house arrest. So…
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The Next AG? OMG
Curt Hulse reports at NYT's First Draft:The White House is moving more quickly than anticipated to select a new attorney general and is poised to announce President Obama's choice before the Nov. 4 election, with Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez emerging as a leading candidate.Many on Capitol Hill expected the president to wait until after the election to avoid making the nominee a campaign issue for embattled Democratic Senate candidates. But people familiar with the administration's planning now say an announcement could come in the next few weeks.No final decision has been made, they said, but Mr. Perez, 53, a former Justice Department civil rights official and the son of Dominican immigrants, is at the top of the list. His nomination would be applauded by many Hispanic leaders. And he has a compelling personal story, having worked as a trash collector to help put himself through Brown…
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Journalists Shown New Oklahoma Execution Chamber
"Oklahoma prison officials unveil new death chamber," is by Sean Murphy of the Associated Press. All of the news articles linked below include photographs of the new execution chamber. Prison officials unveiled the renovated execution chamber inside the Oklahoma State...
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October 10 - World Day Against the Death Penalty - Updated
More information is at the World Coalition website. "UN marks World Day against Death Penalty with strong calls to end ‘cruel practice’," is the news release issued by the United Nations News Centre. The continuing application of the death penalty...
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Common Criminal Defenses Part 2 of 3: Mistaken Identity
Mistaken identity is one of the leading causes of wrongful conviction. Mistaken identity is a criminal defense that is raised by a defendant that asserts that a witness, usually an eyewitness, is mistaken in his or her memory that the defendant is the perpetrator of a crime. While the witness may claim to have seen or heard the accused commit the crime, the witness is actually mistaken and the defendant is not the individual that perpetrated the crime. Mistaken Identity The witness is not lying. He or she strongly believes that the defendant is the criminal. However, eyewitness identification of a perpetrator is often unreliable because people’s memories of events and people change and fade over time. The witness’s “positive” identification of the defendant might, in reality, be a mistake because the defendant looks or sounds like the criminal, but in fact is not. One Car Accident, But Many Variations Of What Happened Memory is a tricky thing.…
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Yung on Concealing Campus Sexual Assault
Corey Rayburn Yung (University of Kansas School of Law) has posted Concealing Campus Sexual Assault: An Empirical Examination on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This study tests whether there is substantial undercounting of sexual assault by universities. It compares the...
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Grievance Committee for the Tenth Judicial District
According to a Nassau County Criminal Attorney, the Grievance Committee for the Tenth Judicial District filed this motion to strike the respondent's name from the roll of attorneys and counselors-at-law pursuant to Judiciary Law, due to his felony conviction. On November 1, 2010, the respondent was convicted in the Nassau County Court, Criminal Term, after a jury trial of scheme to defraud in the first degree, grand larceny in the second degree, grand larceny in the third degree, criminal possession of a forgery device, attempted grand larceny in the third degree, forgery in the third degree, criminal possession of a forged instrument in the third degree and criminal impersonation in the second degree. A Nassau County Grand Larceny Attorney said that, on December 7, 2010, the respondent was sentenced to terms of imprisonment of one to three years for scheme to defraud in the first degree; one to three years for grand larceny in the second degree; one to three years for…
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Obama's New Plan to Close Guantanamo
The Wall St Journal (free link) reports President Obama is planning on closing Guantanamo through various executive actions, if necessary, to get around Congress' restrictions on detainee transfers. Of the 149 who remain, 79 have been... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Smack talk to get out of jury duty lands man in jail cell
10-10-2014 Oklahoma: Memo to future jurors: This may be the most disastrous way to get out of jury duty. A Douglas County juror grew increasingly panicked this week as the brief trial of a sex offender, accused of failing to register, spilled into a second day. The trial began Wednesday with the juror mentioning how he didn’t want to miss work because of all the bills he had to pay. It ended
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New Lethal Injection Challege Filed in Alabama
The federal court filing in Price v. Thomas is available in Adobe .pdf format. "Death row inmate sues to stop new execution protocol," is by Brian Lyman of the Montgomery Advertiser. An Alabama death row inmate wants a federal court...
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A BOSTON CRIMINAL LAWYER REVEALS THE TRUTH ABOUT THE “PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENSE”
In the practice of law, there are such things as "legal fiction's". These are generally items that lawyers make up in order to prove a point. . Whether the charge is murder, drug trafficking or rape, you have been brought up to believe that the United States Constitution protects you in that prosecution in various ways. One of the most fundamental ways is that you are said to be "presumed innocent". You are also told that the presumption remains with you unless and until you are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by the government. We use that "presumption of innocence" to explain away and even excuse various inequities and wrongs inherent in criminal prosecutions. For example, a police report is written when charges brought against you. There are cases in which there is no resemblance between the facts described in the police report and what actually happened. "That's okay", we basically say. "That police report…
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Florida Police Were Not Permitted to Search Hotel Room For Drugs With Occupant's Permission
The Constitution establishes privacy rights, and one of the more sacred privacy rights protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures when it comes to their property. For instance, in most cases, the police are not allowed to go into a person's residence without a valid search warrant or consent from the person who lives at the residence. The rules are somewhat different when it comes to hotel rooms. The police cannot just walk into a hotel room that is being rented by a hotel customer. Likewise, the police cannot merely get consent from the hotel owner or employee to go into a hotel room that is being rented by a hotel customer. The police must either have a valid search warrant or get permission to enter and search a hotel room from an authorized person who rented or is staying in the room. In a recent drug case near Jacksonville, Florida, hotel management received an anonymous tip that the occupants of one of the hotel rooms had cocaine in the room. …
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