Two Somali men received sentences of life in prison Monday for their roles in a pirate attack on a yacht off the coast of Oman that resulted in the death of four U.S. citizens, the Justice Department announced.
Ali Abdi Mohamed, 30, and Burhan Abdirahman Yusuf, 31, were sentenced at a federal court in Norfolk, Va. for hijacking the S/V Quest and later killing the boat’s owners, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., as well as Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle.
“This is the first case where American lives have been lost due to Somali piracy, and as Somali pirates expand their territory, the risk of violence and harm to others continues to grow,” said Neil MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in a statement.
The two men pleaded guilty to piracy, according to a Justice Department statement, which carries a mandatory life sentence. Nine other Somalis have also pleaded guilty to participating in the attack.
The men had said they hoped to take the Americans back to Somalia so they could be ransomed, but their plans changed when four U.S. Navy ships began following them. During a standoff with the warships, the pirates killed their hostages.
Yusuf’s attorney, Robert Rigney, had argued that his client tried to persuade the others to release Jean Adam and Macay, and through an interpreter, Yusuf told Judge Mark Davis that he tried to leave but was stopped by his conspirators when violence broke out aboard the yacht, the Associated Press reported.
Stocks fell and commentators fumed at reports yesterday that Goldman Sachs executive Lloyd Blankfein has retained Washington defense lawyer Reid Weingarten in the middle of a Justice Department probe of the organization and its role in the recent financial crisis.
But Peter J. Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University specializing in criminal law, said reporters and investors overreacted to the news, adding that the decision for executives to “lawyer up” with big names has become routine in the world of white-collar defense.
“It doesn’t say anything about the investigation more than what we already knew, which is that the Justice Department is going to look at the Senate report,” Henning said. “When a company and individuals have been named, everybody goes and gets a lawyer.”
Blankfein, who has worked for six years at the top of the nation’s largest investment bank, was sharply criticized in a report put out by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in April. The report questioned inconsistencies between the Blankfein’s testimony and that of other Goldman executives, and Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) accused Blankfein of lying under oath. He said the issue was then in DOJ’s hands.
Blankfein does not currently face any charges, and it’s still unclear how investigators will handle the report.
The Securities and Exchange Commission may also be investigating Goldman after it settled a fruad lawsuit against the company for $550 million in July 2010.
Weingarten, a former trial attorney in the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, has cultivated a stellar reputation by representing high-profile clients in defense cases like film director Roman Polanski, GlaxoSmithKline attorney Lauren Stevens and former agriculture secretary Mike Espy.
News of his retainer prompted Goldman stocks to finish down 4.7 percent yesterday at their lowest level since May 2009, according to Reuters.
But the decision to tap well known – and no doubt expensive – attorneys like Weingarten doesn’t surprise Henning, he said, because Goldman is required to pay for the legal representation of its executives. And with corporate money paying the legal bills, Blankfein can afford to hire a team of attorneys who will go toe-to-toe with the department, he added.
“When you have a large legal team and a very deep-pocketed legal team on the other side, the Justice Department and SEC realize that and have to be very careful,” he said. “A lot of the time, the government can out-resource someone, but I don’t think they can out-resource Goldman.”
As for what’s next, Henning said he expects investigators to be conducting interviews behind the scenes, but judging the extent of any potential case will have to wait for grand jury subpoenas – if and when they come.
“This is the biggest development in the case since the referral, so really not much has happened,” he said. “”If [Blankfein] was interviewed [by investigators], that would be interesting but still very preliminary.”
The Justice Department will form a working group to review DOJ rules and regulations that the public finds cumbersome and unnecessary, department officials said today.
“The Department’s internal working group will review the public comments and conduct a balanced review of the rule or regulation according to these same metrics,” DOJ officials said in a comprehensive regulatory reform proposal required by President Barack Obama. “The working group will also seek input as needed from the component responsible for a particular regulation. After carefully considering both public comment and internal guidance, the working group will consider whether streamlining, repeal, amendment, or expansion is necessary and appropriate. “
The announcement came as the Obama administration rolled out a plan to save businesses some $10 billion by repealing and reducing regulations.
Many departments’ plans appear particularly ambitious. For instance, the Department of Health and Human Services plans to repeal several reporting requirements for health care providers, saving some $4 billion over five years.
However, DOJ officials said that the nature of the department’s work differs greatly from other federal agencies. “The Department of Justice is primarily a law-enforcement agency, not a regulatory agency; it carries out its principal investigative, prosecutorial, and other enforcement activities through means other than the regulatory process,” DOJ officials wrote. “Over the past ten years, the Department has promulgated only a handful of ‘economically significant’ or ‘major’ rules.”
But DOJ officials said the working group will review rules suggested by the public and others. For instance, the department intends to review the possibility of extending the length of certain firearms importation licenses from one to two years. A few other rules the DOJ will review will simply harmonize department rules with those of other agencies.
The Justice Department Monday filed a sealed response to allegations that federal prosecutors have leaked details of a probe into claims that cyclist Lance Armstrong has used performance-enhancing drugs, the Associated Press reported.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California said the DOJ had filed the response under seal to avoid violating the rules that require that grand jury proceedings remain secret.
In July, Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France winner, accused Justice officials of attempting to ruin his legacy by leaking details of a grand jury probe into doping allegations.
In a motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Califfornia, John W. Keker, the star trial lawyer of Keker & Van Nest LLP, said that, “Someone in this district with regular access to grand jury information is routinely flouting the law requiring grand jury secrecy.”
“The leaks seem more like a public relations campaign to portray Armstrong as having violated cycling rules during European competitions, and an attempt to justify why the government should even pursue a criminal investigation,” he said.
Armstrong asked the judge to examine the phone records of Justice Department officials and reporters to determine who may have leaked the information. He also raised the possibility of asking the court to order journalists who wrote stories about the allegations to disclose their sources — a request that is certain to be fought by the news organizations involved.
FBI Special Agent Kevin P. Coughlin has a Jolly Roger on his desk, but he’s more than just a pirate fan.
Coughlin is part of a special team of FBI agents that investigates piracy on the high seas, the New York Times reported Monday. Piracy off the coast of Somalia has proliferated in recent years, with American ships being attacked. When that occurs, Coughlin’s team takes over takes over. If pirates attack an American ship or American sailors, the Justice Department investigates. During the past few years, federal officials in New York and Virginia have prosecuted pirates in four incidents off the coast of Somalia.
As the lead investigator in most of the piracy cases investigated by the FBI, Coughlin has interviewed 18 of 27 men arrested on piracy charges, the majority of alleged pirates charged in the U.S. in modern times, the Times reported. Coughlin joined the bureau in 2008, after working as a lawyer and five years of active duty in the Marine Corps, including two tours in Iraq.
Coughlin doesn’t capture ships, according to the Times. But if prisoners are taken aboard a Navy vessel, Couglin flies out to the ships with Miranda rights waiver forms translated into Somali and begins his investigation.
As with many investigations, Coughlin attempts to build rapport with the accused pirates to encourage them to cooperate, giving them updates on the results of British soccer games. “You give them ramen noodles and tell them how you lived off that stuff in college,” he told the newspaper. “You build rapport, not because you want to be buddies with these guys, but because that’s how you do these interviews.”
FBI Special Agent Kevin P. Coughlin has a Jolly Roger on his desk, but he’s more than just a pirate fan.
Coughlin is part of a special team of FBI agents that investigates piracy on the high seas, the New York Times reported Monday. Piracy off the coast of Somalia has proliferated in recent years, with American ships being attacked. When that occurs, Coughlin’s team takes over takes over. If pirates attack an American ship or American sailors, the Justice Department investigates. During the past few years, federal officials in New York and Virginia have prosecuted pirates in four incidents off the coast of Somalia.
As the lead investigator in most of the piracy cases investigated by the FBI, Coughlin has interviewed 18 of 27 men arrested on piracy charges, the majority of alleged pirates charged in the U.S. in modern times, the Times reported. Coughlin joined the bureau in 2008, after working as a lawyer and five years of active duty in the Marine Corps, including two tours in Iraq.
Coughlin doesn’t capture ships, according to the Times. But if prisoners are taken aboard a Navy vessel, Couglin flies out to the ships with Miranda rights waiver forms translated into Somali and begins his investigation.
As with many investigations, Coughlin attempts to build rapport with the accused pirates to encourage them to cooperate, giving them updates on the results of British soccer games. “You give them ramen noodles and tell them how you lived off that stuff in college,” he told the newspaper. “You build rapport, not because you want to be buddies with these guys, but because that’s how you do these interviews.”
The FBI has created a new group to probe corruption among judges and legislators in Georgia, but few details have yet emerged about what cases it might be developing, the Associated Press reported.
Brian Lamkin, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s office in Georgia, said the team emerged from a review of the bureau’s long-term priorities and the growing number of corruption cases involving government officials in the area.
“It impacts the everyday system,” Lamkin told the AP. “It’s not just a dirty law enforcement officer that might be shaking you down. We’re talking about people that you elect to an office to represent you who try to line their pockets.”
The new team will focus on wrongdoing by politicians and high-level officers, complementing another long-running group of agents who have historically handled corruption cases involving police and law enforcement agents, he said. Lamkin didn’t say how many agents were assigned to the new team, but he added that about 40 percent of office’s white-collar crimes unit has joined it.
Speaking with station WSBTV, Lamkin said that the office is working on a number of police and political corruption cases, as well as some high-profile investigations that will be made public when and if indictments are released.
Lamkin will sign off on all the team’s investigations before they move forward, he said, adding that FBI officials in Washington will also review the more high-profile cases.
“It’s a lot of ground to cover, and so we need more boots on the ground,” Lamkin said.
And the FBI’s new push against corruption in Georgia comes as some of the state’s key investigative agencies face severe budget difficulties.
The Judicial Qualifications Commission, which follows up on complaints alleging judicial misconduct in the state, depleted its funds in December before state lawmakers came to its rescue earlier this year, the AP reported.
And the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, which monitors campaign finance, financial disclosure and lobbying, has seen deep funding cuts while at the same time expanding its duties. The commission went from conducting three investigations in 2008 to none in 2011, William Perry, executive director of watchdog group Common Cause Georgia, told the AP.
Longtime white-collar defense lawyer Abbe Lowell on Friday joined the legal team defending former presidential candidate John Edwards against alleged campaign finance violations, the Blog of Legal Times reported.
A partner at the law firm Chadbourne & Parke LLP, Lowell brings decades of experience representing politicians and high-profile clients to Edwards’ team.
And his entrance comes as Edwards’ original team from the firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP withdraws from the case. That team included former White House counsel Gregory Craig and former associated White House counsel Clifford Sloan, whose representation was limited to Edwards’ first few court appearances, according to court filings.
Spokesmen for both Craig and Lowell declined to comment except to confirm the switch.
But NPR’s Nina Totenberg, who first reported the change on Friday, wrote that friends of Edwards say he decided to change attorneys for financial as well as tactical reasons. Edwards apparently could not afford to keep on Skadden, which is one of the nation’s most expensive law firms.
Edwards was indicted in June and charged with conspiracy, false statements and accepting illegal campaign contributions. The case against him alleges he used the money from contributions to cover up an affair he was having with his mistress, Rielle Hunter, which produced a child.
Updated: To include confirmation from spokesmen for Craig and Lowell as well as details from Totenberg’s report.
The FBI’s New York field office will soon get a new head for its counterterrorism unit.
John Giacalone was named the special agent in charge of the office’s Counterterrorism Division on Monday by FBI Director Robert Mueller, making him the top supervisor of the Joint Terrorism Task Force that pulls from more than 300 investigators and other officials from the FBI, New York Police Department and other agencies.
Giacalone currently serves as the section chief of the Counterterrorism Division’s Domestic Terrorism Strategic Operations Section at FBI headquarters in Washington D.C. But his past includes plenty of experience in New York.
In 1991, Giacalone helped investigate the airfreight industry at John F. Kennedy International Airport for ties to organized crime. That investigation resulted in the conviction of seven members and partners of the Lucchese crime family.
And three years later, Giacalone organized a probe of the Fashion District in Manhattan that resulted in 15 organized crime convictions.
He also created the Field Intelligence Group in Philadelphia in 2003, and two years later served as a deputy on-scene-commander in Iraq. Then in 2008, Giacalone served on the Attorney General Guidelines Task Force, which helped draft the FBI’s new domestic investigative policy.
In New York, he will replace Gregory Fowler, who was named the head of the FBI’s office in Portland, Ore., earlier this year.
