Royce Lamberth, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, urged the Senate and White House on Monday to confirm more federal judges, according to the Blog of Legal Times..
Royce Lamberth
“I say to both Republicans and Democrats: You’re injuring the federal judiciary,” Lamberth said during a panel discussion about judicial vacancies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “Our country needs a fair and impartial federal judiciary.”
Lamberth said his court has all but stopped holding civil trials because its caseload of prisoner trials from the Guantanamo Bay military facility is so heavy. There are three vacancies on the D.C. court but two nominees, Trout Cacheris PLLC lawyer Amy Berman Jackson and D.C. Superior Court Judge James Boasberg, have been pending in the Senate since June.
The fight over judicial confirmations goes back at least to 1991, when Democrats tried to block Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Republicans returned the favor during the Bill Clinton administration, blocking judicial nominees of the Democratic president. Democrats blocked Republicans during the George W. Bush years. And now Senate Republicans are slow-walking President Barack Obama’s nominees.
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., a conservative, blasted both political parties for the delays in his recent year-end statement on the federal judiciary. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, has blamed Republicans for the delays and urged quicker action.
According to the BLT, Lamberth said he wants judges on his court to assume senior status as soon as they can. That’s because a judge on senior status can continue to hear cases while the White House and Senate start the increasingly laborious process of nominating and confirming a successor. “From my point of view, the sooner they take it the better, because then we can have some extra labor,” Lamberth said, according to the BLT.
Not many people have risen so high in the legal profession and then fallen so low as former federal Judge Jack T. Camp.
Once the Chief Judge for the Northern District of Georgia, Camp is now trying to stay out of jail, having been brought down by misadventures involving drugs and a stripper. To some people, he is no doubt a laughingstock, the stuff of late-night television comics. But his lawyers say he should be viewed as a tragic figure and that, at 67, he should not have to spend his final days behind bars.
In a memo filed in federal court in Atlanta on Friday, and reported by Allen Lengel on Tickle the Wire, Camp’s attorney, William Taylor of Washington, wrote that Camp, a Ronald Reagan appointee, has been the victim of depression, brain damage from a bicycle accident and personal tragedy that may have contributed to him getting busted for buying cocaine for a stripper with whom he was having an affair.
“They do not excuse his conduct,” his attorney wrote. “They do help explain, however, how in May of 2010 a lonely man in the twilight of his life became entangled with a seductive prostitute more than willing to take advantage of his needs and of his misguided impulse to be her friend and protector.”
Arrested last fall on federal gun and drug charges, Camp pleaded guilty in November to conversion of government property and possession of a controlled substances, as Main Justice reported.
The memo filed by Camp’s lawyer in anticipation of sentencing on March 11 argues in effect that Camp has already been punished enough, by losing his post and profession, by humiliating himself and by the knowledge of the pain he has caused those close to him.
Camp has suffered from prostate cancer; his mother has dementia, and his sister is gravely ill with cancer, the lawyer said, urging that his client be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service rather than languish in prison.
A former FBI agent has been sentenced to eight to 20 years in prison for killing his son’s former girlfriend with a hammer, The Law Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Edward Preciado-Nuno, 63, was sentenced last Wednesday in Las Vegas for killing Kimberly Long on Nov. 13, 2008. Originally charged with murder, Preciado-Nuno was convicted in December of voluntary manslaughter.
The killing occurred at the home the defendant’s son, Jeffrey Preciado-Nuno, had shared with Long. The defendant claimed that Long attacked him with a hammer when he tried to get her to leave the house and end the turbulent relationship with his son, and that he wielded another hammer in self-defense.
In imposing sentence, Judge Donald Mosley said the self-defense claim was hard to believe, given that the victim was struck on the head 13 times, including once on the back of the head.
Christopher Moore, former Counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno, was sworn in as San Jose’s new police chief last Thursday.
After an extensive search, Moore was selected to take over the department during the city’s financial crisis, the Epoch Times reported. The city has a $110 million budget deficit on its shoulders.
In 1999, Moore was chosen as a White House Fellow and served one year as Counsel. He is also a member of the State Bar of California.
Moore received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley and his law degree from Lincoln Law School in San Jose.
Several police chiefs from around the country attended Moore’s ceremony.
The anti-corruption group Global Witness released the following news release regarding its investigation into the wealth of the rulers of Equatorial Guinea:
For immediate release: Monday 28th February 2011
Son of Equatorial Guinea’s dictator plans one of world’s most expensive yachts
Global Witness has learned that Teodorin Obiang, the notorious son of Equatorial Guinea’s long-ruling dictator, commissioned plans to build a superyacht worth $380 million – almost three times more than his energy-rich country spends annually on health and education programs combined [1]. This news comes amid an increasingly heated debate about how Middle Eastern dictators and their family members have enjoyed luxury lifestyles, as well as stashing their assets in foreign countries.
Teodorin (full name Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue) asked Germany’s Kusch Yachts to draw up a basic design for the secret project, which is codenamed “Zen.” Last year, Global Witness revealed details from a U.S. Justice Department investigation into Teodorin which mentioned plans to build a yacht. After discovering that it was to be built at Kusch’s shipyard in northern Germany, a Global Witness investigator visited the company and obtained key details about the project, confirming the identity of the client, and the yacht’s price tag. The vessel’s basic design was completed by Kusch in December 2009 for €250,000 ($342,000) with an original delivery date set for late 2012. However, construction has not yet started.
The Obiang regime has a long track record of looting money that belongs in Equatorial Guinea’s treasury. Global Witness has previously revealed Teodorin’s profligate lifestyle in the US and elsewhere with a $35 million dollar Malibu mansion, a fleet of luxury cars and a private jet, while earning a ministerial salary of $6,799 per month [2]. It would take him some 4,600 years to pay for Project Zen on his reported official salary.
“Evidence points to corruption by Teodorin on a scale that would not be possible or attractive if countries like Germany and the U.S. were not safe havens, in terms of free passage for him and for his questionable private wealth,” said Gavin Hayman, Director of Campaigns at Global Witness. “$380m is a staggering sum – that a President’s son from such a poor country has ordered this yacht is outrageous extravagance on his part.”
Teodorin’s father, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, took power in 1979 following a bloody coup and presides over a repressive government almost entirely dependent on energy revenues generated by ExxonMobil, Marathon and other multinational giants and has one of the worst human rights reputations in the world [3]. Obiang came eighth on a 2006 list by Forbes of the world’s richest leaders with a fortune estimated at $600 million, whilst the majority of Equatorial Guinea’s people live in poverty [4].
Incredibly, since oil was discovered in the mid-1990s, poverty levels have actually worsened. Equatorial Guinea enjoys a per capita income of about $37,900, one of the highest in the world. Yet 77 percent of the population falls below the poverty line, 35 percent die before the age of 40, and 58 percent lack access to safe water [5].
Forty-one-year old Teodorin is the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry and vice president of the ruling party, and is apparently being groomed to succeed his father. A US embassy cable from March 2009 posted by Wikileaks describes how Teodorin was given a significant tract of pristine jungle to log, leaving him with a “large windfall”. The author of the cable paints a picture of a nepotistic state where choice natural resource concessions are handed out to the President’s family and close associates. Responding to corruption allegations, Teodorin told the US official: “I’ve been very lucky in business […] and I like to live well” [6].
According to the Justice Department investigation Teodorin funneled roughly $75 million into the United States between 2005 and 2007 through three European banks — Banque de France, Natixis and Fortis — and then on to the U.S. through Wachovia (later bought by Wells Fargo), Union Bank of California, and Bank of America [7]. Global Witness questioned what checks these banks had done on Teodorin’s funds; they could not comment on this.
“[I]t is suspected that a large portion of Teodoro Nguema OBIANG’s assets have originated from extortion, theft of public funds, or other corrupt conduct,” says a Justice Department document dated 4 September 2007. The document relates to a preliminary investigation; as yet no charges have been filed [8].
Kusch employees who spoke with Global Witness’ investigator said that Teodorin’s yacht will be 118.5 meters (387 feet), housing a cinema, restaurant, bar, swimming pool and a $1.3 million security system complete with floor motion sensors, photoelectric barriers and fingerprint door openers. Teodorin reportedly met a representative of Kusch at a hotel in Switzerland to discuss the design.
Its total contract price is approximately €288 million, or $380 million at current exchange rates. This would make it the world’s second most expensive yacht, behind Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s $1.2billion Eclipse [9]. England’s Tim Heywood, one of the world’s most renowned yacht designers, produced the drawings for Project Zen. Heywood’s previous designs include the 377-foot Pelorus, which served as the blueprint for Project Zen and is also owned by Abramovich.
“Kusch’s motto is, ‘we don’t just build yachts that you use, we create a dream that you live’. But this sounds more like a nightmare for Equatorial Guinea’s oppressed and brutalized citizens, whose money may once again be put to Teodorin’s benefit rather than theirs,” said Hayman. “The yacht company involved should refuse his cash and repudiate any involvement in the project. In addition, this order should raise loud alarm bells for whichever bank handles this transaction.”
Kusch confirmed to Global Witness that Teodorin was a client, but would not give further details “for reasons of confidentiality”. Tim Heywood declined to comment.
The Information and Press Bureau of the Government of Equatorial Guinea confirmed that Teodorin had ordered the design, while adding that he “then dismissed the idea of buying it”. The spokesperson claimed that if the order had gone ahead Teodorin “would have bought it with income from his private business activities and he would not in any case have bought it with funds derived from sources of illegal financing or corruption”. She clarified that in Equatorial Guinea “there are no legal restrictions prohibiting public figures from taking part in private lucrative activities” [10].
Some countries, such as the U.K., require luxury goods dealers including yacht builders to abide by anti-money laundering rules. Like banks, they have to monitor their customers for suspicious activity and report doubts about dirty money to the authorities. Global Witness is calling on Germany to implement similar regulations. In addition, Germany should work with EU member countries to produce mandatory revenue payment disclosure laws for extractive companies, such as those required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Finance Reform Act. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) conference hosted by President Sarkozy in Paris next week would be a good place to start this process.
/Ends
Contact: Robert Palmer on +44 (0)20 7492 5860, +44 (0)7545 645 406, rpalmer@globalwitness.org; or Oliver Courtney on +44 (0)7815 731 889, ocourtney@globalwitness.org.
Notes:
[1] Details on the misappropriation of state money by Teodorin can be found in Global Witness, Undue Diligence: How banks do business with corrupt regimes, March 2009 and Global Witness, The Secret Life of a Shopaholic, November 2009. Budget figures: IMF, Republic of Equatorial Guinea: 2008 Article IV Consultation—Staff Report, March 2009, p. 17.
[2] Statement by the Information and Press Bureau of Equatorial Guinea Director, 17 February 2011.
[3] The US State Department’s most recent Equatorial Guinea human rights assessment was damning, describing unlawful killings, torture of prisoners, official impunity, arbitrary arrest and restrictions on free speech: U.S. State Department, ‘2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Equatorial Guinea’, 11 March 2010. For more on the oil industry see the website of the Ministry of Mines, Industry and Energy, as well as Human Rights Watch, Well Oiled: Oil and Human Rights in Equatorial Guinea, July 2009.
[4] Luisa Kroll, ‘Fortunes Of Kings, Queens And Dictators,’ Forbes, 5 May 2006.
[5] GDP: CIA, The World Factbook, 2010 estimate. Poverty level: IMF, ‘Republic of Equatorial Guinea: 2008 Article IV Consultation—Staff Report’, March 2009. Mortality rate and access to water: UNDP, ‘Human Development Report 2009: Equatorial Guinea’.
[6] US embassy cable 196480 posted on www.elpais.com.
[7] Global Witness, The Secret Life of a Shopaholic, November 2009.
[8] Ibid., p. 2.
[9] www.mostexpensiveyacht.net.
[10] Statement by the Information and Press Bureau of Equatorial Guinea Director, 17 February 2011.
The former chief of staff to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey was married last weekend to an ex-Department of Justice lawyer.
Kristi Louise Remington and Brian Allen Benczkowski tied the knot on Feb 19. at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Washington, according to a New York Times wedding announcement.
Remington, 40, and Benczkowski, 41, are both lawyers working at separate law firms in the Washington area, the announcement said. The bride is a partner in the Philadelphia-based firm Blank Rome LLP and the bridegroom is a partner in the Chicago-based firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Remington was a former deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal policy at the Justice Department in Washington for five years, until 2007. She received her bachelor’s degree from Denison University and her J.D. from American University.
Until last year, Benczkowski was the Republican staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he worked for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), then the committee’s ranking member. He was Mukasey’s chief of staff at the Department of Justice in 2007. Benczkowski graduated from the University of Virginia and received his J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis.
The Justice Department is keeping mum about which of its employees would face furloughs if a deal isn’t reached between the White House and Congress on how to fund the government past Friday.
The DOJ has arrangements in place in case the government shuts down, DOJ spokeswoman Jessica Smith said in a statement to Main Justice. But she declined to elaborate on those plans.
“As a matter of course, the Justice Department plans for contingencies,” Smith said. “In fact, since 1980, all agencies have had to have a plan in case of a government shutdown, and these plans are updated routinely.”
A Congressional Research Service report on government shutdowns released this month gives some clues about who would likely have to report to work if the government shuts down.
Presidential appointees and federal employees involved with national security, law enforcement, criminal investigations, federal property protection, emergency operations and the care of prisoners are among the employees that government memorandums have said are excepted from furloughs, according to the report.
The DOJ has 110,000 employees, more than a third of whom are law enforcement agents or correctional officers who would likely be excepted based on the guidance in the government memorandums. There are also hundreds of other DOJ employees who would likely be excepted based on the guidance.
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees were furloughed in the 1996 fiscal year during the most recent government shutdowns, according to the report. The fiscal 1996 shutdowns led to delays in the handling of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives applications by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (now Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), the suspension of work on more than 3,500 bankruptcy cases and the postponement of the testing and recruitment of federal law enforcement authorities, the report said.
The government currently is operating under a continuing resolution that is set to expire Friday. The Republican-controlled House has passed legislation that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 and bring more than $60 billion in spending cuts. Democrats, who control the Senate, have expressed opposition to the bill. President Barack Obama has vowed to veto the legislation.
Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders on Friday said a government shutdown would be irresponsible, The Associated Press reported.
House Republicans on Friday released a new plan to fund the government that would cut spending by $4 billion for just two weeks, an apparent narrowing of the gap between Republican and Democratic proposals for federal spending, according to the AP. Democrats said they were optimistic about the plan.
