Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday announced eight new U.S. Attorneys to serve on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.  The attorneys will serve two-year terms and will begin at the start of the new year, according to a news release.

The committee was created in 1973 and advises the Attorney General on policy and management issues facing the U.S. Attorneys, according to the release.

“These U.S. Attorneys bring a wealth of experience and diversity to the AGAC, and I will be relying on each of them for their wise counsel as we continue to work together with our law enforcement partners to advance the department’s efforts to preserve our national security, reduce violent crime and gang violence, promote civil rights, and ensure fairness in the marketplace,� Holder said in the release.

The eight appointees include:

• Laura E. Duffy of the Southern District of California.  Duffy previously worked as a U.S. Attorney in the general crimes section and narcotics enforcement section.  Before becoming a U.S. Attorney, Duffy worked in the DOJ’s Criminal Division as an attorney in the money laundering and dangerous drug sections.
• Timothy J. Heaphy of the Western District of Virginia.  Heaphy previously worked as a partner with McGuire Woods LLP and associate with Morrison and Foerster LLP.  He also served as deputy managing U.S. Attorney in Western District of Virginia and Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
• Brendan V. Johnson of the District of South Dakota.  Johnson previously worked as a partner with Johnson, Heidepriem, Abdallah and Johnson LLP and legal adviser to his father, Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.).  He also worked as deputy state’s attorney in Minnehaha County in South Dakota.
• Pamela C. Marsh of the Northern District of Florida. Marsh previously worked as counsel and associate for Akerman Senterfitt and Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida.  She also served as an associate with Annis, Mitchell, Cockey, Edwards & Roehn.
• Carmen Milagros Ortiz of the District of Massachusetts.  Ortiz previously worked as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice’s Honors Program, Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County, attorney with Marinelli and Morisi, program associate for the Center of Criminal Justice at Harvard Law School and legal counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.  She also served as director of district courts and director of training in the District Attorney’s Office for Middlesex County.
• Robert L. Pitman of the Western District of Texas.  Pitman previously worked as an associate with Fulbright and Jaworski LLP and attorney adviser to the General Counsel’s Office of the U.S. Attorney’s Executive Office.  In the district, he also served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge, Deputy U.S. Attorney, Assistant U.S. Attorney and Division Chief in Austin, Texas.
• James L. Santelle of the Eastern District of Wisconsin.  Santelle previously served as the Justice Attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 2006 to 2008. Before that, he was the Western District of Michigan’s Civil Division Chief and the U.S. Attorneys’ Principal Deputy Director for the Executive Office.
• Carter M. Stewart of the Southern District of Ohio. Steward previously worked as a litigation associate with Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP and also at Bingham McCutchen LLP.  He also served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California from 2003 to 2005.

Paul J. Fishman, U.S. Attorney in the District of New Jersey, will be the chair of the committee.

The following attorneys are no longer on the committee:

• B. Todd Jones, U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota.
• Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Dennis Burke, U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona
• Sanford Coates, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma
• Jenny Durkan, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington
• Patrick Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
• Neil H. MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia
• Jim Letten, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana
• Peter F. Neronha, U.S. Attorney for the District of Rhode Island
• Joyce White Vance, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama
• Peter Jongbloed, Criminal Chief for the District of Connecticut
• Gretchen Witt, Civil Chief for the District of New Hampshire.

Top, from left: Duffy, Heaphy. Johnson, Marsh; Bottom, from left: Ortiz, Pitman, Santelle, Stewart

Statement by Secretary Janet Napolitano on DOJ’s Findings of Discriminatory Policing in Maricopa County

Napolitano

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is troubled by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) findings of discriminatory policing practices within the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).   Discrimination undermines law enforcement and erodes the public trust.  DHS will not be a party to such practices. Accordingly, and effective immediately, DHS is terminating MCSO’s 287(g) jail model agreement and is restricting the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office access to the Secure Communities program.  DHS will utilize federal resources for the purpose of identifying and detaining those individuals who meet U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) immigration enforcement priorities.  The Department will continue to enforce federal immigration laws in Maricopa County in smart, effective ways that focus our resources on criminal aliens, recent border crossers, repeat and egregious immigration law violators and employers who knowingly hire illegal labor.�

The full statement can be read here.

As tech companies prepare for the holiday season retail wars, touting products with cutting-edge technologies, a costly war is unfolding in corporate America: a war for patents and, more importantly, an arms race to seek protection from frivolous patent-infringement lawsuits.

Because of weaknesses in our patent system, companies have started using patents strategically, threatening litigation to block competitors’ sales and stall the development of new products. These lawsuits cost millions to fend off — increasing costs of devices to consumers and dampening innovation.  And the only way to fend off these suits is to wield a significant patent portfolio of one’s own, thereby creating the ability to threaten a return volley of infringement suits.

Balto

The result: A modern Cold War, in which only the threat of equally damaging retaliation can dissuade a patent aggressor from deploying its most destructive IP weapons. Winston Churchill’s famous comment that “the only direct measure of defense upon a great scale is the certainty of being able to inflict simultaneously upon the enemy as great damage as he can inflict� is as applicable to the mobile patent wars as it was to global politics in the latter half of the 20th century.

The patent arms race is quickly coming to a head. In 2010, Novell announced it was being acquired by IT management vendor called Attachment. Curiously, Attachment would not be purchasing Novell’s vast patent portfolio. Rather, Novell’s 882 patents, many of which relate to free and open-source software, were sold to an unknown entity called CPTN Holdings LLC, which turned out to be a consortium of technology companies comprising Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and EMC.

The U.S. Department of Justice reviewed this transaction and eventually added conditions to the deal, requiring CPTN Holdings LLC and its owners to change their original agreements to address the department’s antitrust concerns. The department said that, as originally proposed, the deal would jeopardize open-source software innovation in a variety of areas, including mobile operating systems.

These conditions did not deter Microsoft and others from acquiring even more patents. For instance, in the battle to purchase the patent assets of Nortel, a Canadian technology company in bankruptcy, Google’s initial $900 million bid was dwarfed by an unknown, dark horse bidder with a $4.5 billion dollar offer: Rockstar Bidco.

When the blinds were lifted, it turned out that Rockstar Bidco was made of up of all the largest makers of smartphone operating systems, except Google: namely Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion – plus a few others. Based on their history of patent aggression, it is no stretch to believe that these firms clearly intend to use the Nortel portfolio to handicap Google’s Android operating system and tax Google’s efforts to innovate in the mobile technology space.

In partial response to the acquisition of the Nortel portfolio by its already patent-rich competitors, Google announced plans in August to buy Motorola Mobility (MMI), which owns, among other things, some 17,000 patents. While the Department of Justice is currently reviewing the transaction, it’s clear that this deal will provide a potential deterrent against frivolous patent infringement lawsuits, help create patent balance amongst major smartphone players, and therefore promote competition and innovation on the merits. The fact that other Android-device manufacturers publicly support this deal shows the importance to consumers of patent balance in the mobile space.

It seems the only solution to these IP battles is to embrace the Cold War mentality and permit the IP equivalent of mutually assured destruction. Importantly, Google’s acquisition of MMI is very different from Rockstar Bidco’s purchase of Nortel’s patents because Google is a single firm fighting to establish its own defensive position, whereas Rockstar Bidco is a cadre of competitors aiming to prevent others from effectively competing with them.  As such, regulators should allow Google to complete its acquisition of MMI immediately and they should continue to allow companies to engage in defensive patent acquisitions.

At the same time, to allow a cadre of companies to combine their efforts and target one standout competitor serves no procompetitive function.  In fact, this can only accelerate the arms race, and distract the industry from competing on the merits.  Regulators should remain vigilant for coordinated actions by companies — such as Rockstar Bidco’s acquisition of Nortel’s patents — aiming to damage another competitor.

We have to remember why we are having this debate. The companies involved are among the most creative and productive companies in America. We want them to continue innovating.  We want them to continue competing with one another rather than engaging in patent aggression, which ultimately harms consumers by raising prices and reducing choice.  We should not forget that it is innovation and competition which leads to the development of the very products we hope to receive as a gift this holiday season.

David Balto is an antitrust attorney in Washington, D.C. Mr. Balto has over 20 years of experience as an antitrust attorney in the private sector, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

After a three-year battle to conclude its investigation of the Maricopa County Sherrif’s Office, the Justice Department today revealed grave misconduct by the force, including racial profiling of Latinos, unlawful retaliation and discriminatory prison practices.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, said in a call with reporters the divison found that discriminatory policing in Maricopa County, Ariz., was “deeply rooted in the culture of the department.� That culture, he said, “breeds a systemic disregard� for civil rights.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio initially stonewalled the DOJ’s requests for documents pertaining to the civil rights investigation, which began in 2008. The department then took an unprecedented step in September 2010 when it filed suit against the sheriff’s office, demanding full cooperation with and access to officers and relevant documents, Perez said.

Perez said the Civil Rights Division is currently investigating 20 police forces around the country – the most ever in the history of the division.  Perez said the investigation into the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is unique from other investigations – including those in Portland, Seattle and New Orleans – and because of the findings of retaliation against those who criticized the department’s actions.

The investigation found that the sheriff’s office maintained a “wall of distrust� between its officers and members of the community, Perez said. More than 400 people were interviewed – including Arpaio – thousands of documents were read and DOJ officials toured the county’s jails, he said.

The investigation showed that the department routinely unlawfully arrested Latinos and punished inmates who had poor English skills, Perez said. In some cases, Spanish-speaking inmates would be placed in solitary confinement because they could not understand commands given to them in English, he said. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One racial profiling expert brought on as part of the investigation said the actions of the Maricopa County Sherriff’s office were the “most eggregious… he had every personally observed in his work,� Perez said. The expert found that Latino drivers were four to nine times more likely to be pulled over by county sheriff officer’s than residents of other races, he said.

The Civil Rights Division continues to investigate allegations of excessive use of force and inadequate responses to reports of sexual assault, Perez said.

Perez said the DOJ hopes it can work collaboratively with Sheriff Arpaio and the department to create a systemic culture change.

He said the report given to the sheriff’s office details that the department has a 60-day time frame to resolve the civil rights violations.  He said the DOJ will be working collaboratively with officers in Maricopa County.  If the DOJ finds proper steps are not followed, Perez said, legal action will be taken.

Perez released a full statement on the investigation here.

By the time he was in his mid-30’s, Matthew Kluger had connections to three big law firms and seemed destined for the stratosphere of corporate law and the pay and perks that go with such a lofty status. Now, at age 50, he is destined for prison for insider trading.

Kluger pleaded guilty on Wednesday in Newark federal court to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and obstruction of justice, Paul J. Fishman, the United States Attorney for New Jersey, announced.

“Not only did Matthew Kluger defraud the investing public, he betrayed the colleagues and clients who depended on his confidentiality in some of the biggest deals of the last decade,� Fishman said.

As Main Justice reported in April, Kluger, of Oakton, Va., worked from 1994 to 1997 as a summer associate and later as a corporate associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York. From 1998 to 2001, he worked at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom as an associate in the corporate department. From December 5, 2005 to March 11, 2011, he worked at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as a senior associate in the mergers and acquisitions department of the firm’s Washington office.

Kluger and co-conspirators Garrett D. Bauer, 44, of New York, and Kenneth Robinson, 45, of Long Beach, N.Y. engaged in an insider trading scheme that began in 1994, Fishman said. Kluger admitted that he passed inside information to Bauer and Robinson that the men used to trade ahead of more than 30 different corporate transactions, reaping well over $30 million in illicit gains.

Kluger entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden, who set sentencing for April. He faces up to 20 years in prison and was ordered to pay restitution of $415,000 for his recent illegal trades. Bauer and Robinson have also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said on Wednesday that any suggestions of a cover-up in the botched gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious are groundless, and he vowed that the slaying of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry exactly a year ago would not go unpunished.

Mueller

Appearing at an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mueller was given a chance by the chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), to respond to what Leahy termed “conspiracy theories” swirling around the death of Terry, who was killed in a border shootout a year ago Wednesday. Two guns found at the scene were linked to the failed gun-tracking enterprise run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Perhaps the most sensational accusation that has arisen in the past year is that there may have been a third gun found at the scene, and that its presence may have been concealed.  This idea has been floated by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  In public comments in recent weeks, Issa has stopped short of accusing the FBI of tampering with evidence in its investigation of the shooting but has asserted repeatedly that the Department of Justice is not being entirely candid.

And that, Mueller said, is just not so. “There were two guns found at the scene — there were not three,” Mueller told the committee.  He theorized that suspicions that a third gun was found may have arisen because the two that were found were tagged “two and three,” meaning only that another piece of evidence, which was not a weapon, happened to get the “one” designation.

“We will bring to justice anyone involved” in Terry’s death, Mueller said.

Mueller got a friendly reception from Senate Judiciary Democrats and Republicans alike, in marked contrast to the hostile treatment Attorney General Eric Holder got last week at the House Judiciary Committee (see Main Justice’s report). But while personally cordial toward Mueller, the Senate panel’s top Republican, Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, made it clear that he is not close to being satisfied over the DOJ’s explanations.

“My investigation into the ATF’s failed Operation Fast & Furious continues,” Grassley said at the outset.  “I sent Director Mueller a letter dated October 20, 2011, asking some questions about the FBI’s investigation of the murder of Agent Terry.  I have not yet received a response to that letter, but I have talked with Director Mueller about the case.  I want a commitment from Director Mueller that my letter will be answered in writing.  The Terry family deserves answers about Agent Terry’s murder and answering my letter is another step toward getting those answers.”

Fast and Furious, in which straw buyers were allowed to buy hundreds of guns so that the ATF could track them across the U.S.-Mexican border, helping law enforcement root out Mexican gangsters, is acknowledged to have backfired badly as hundreds of guns wound up in the hands of those gangsters.

Compounding the embarrassment,  Holder  and other high Department of Justice officials have made comments about Fast and Furious that later required clarification and back-tracking. Republican critics of the DOJ, especially in the House, have not been soothed by Holder’s assurances that there was no attempt to deceive, with some Republicans calling for Holder to resign. (Grassley has called for Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, who heads the Criminal Division, to quit or be fired over Fast and Furious.)

Grassley also said he is still not satisfied with the official conclusion that Bruce E. Ivins, who worked at an Army laboratory in Maryland, was solely responsible for the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks.  Nor has the DOJ done anything to dispel his suspicions that Ivins, who killed himself in 2008, had accomplices, Grassley said.

And, while he did not mention it on Wednesday, Leahy, whose office was the target of an anthrax letter, has also said he believes someone else may have been involved.  “Call it an old prosecutor’s instinct,” he said months ago.

Marking his 20th year in the FBI, Ralph S. Boelter has been named assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division.

Source: FBI Minneapolis Division

Boelter, 52, has worked on notable investigations including the unauthorized leak of CIA Agent Valerie Plame’s undercover identity, the Thomas Petters fraud case and the recruitment of several Somali-American men into terrorist group al-Shabaab, according to an FBI press release.

Boelter was most recently leading the Minneapolis, Minn., FBI office.  According to a story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Boelter said he plans to bring some of the lessons he learned in Minnesota to Washington as the new assistant director tackling terrorism. Objective No. 1 is to put a human face to the  division, he said.

“We had to be able to show people they could trust me, trust us,” Boelter said of his work in Minnesota, according to the Star-Tribune.

Boelter previously worked in the FBI’s Boston Division investigating white collar crime and violent crime, according to the FBI release.  He was later transferred to the Los Angeles Division and oversaw the bureau’s violent crime and criminal enterprise branch, the release states.

Before joining the bureau, Boelter enlisted in the Marines at age 17 and then became a San Diego police officer, according to the Star-Tribune.

“This move presents exciting opportunity for me to be sure, given the continued seriousness and evolving nature of the threat, and counterterrorism’s place as the FBI’s very highest priority,” Boelter said, according to a story by Minnesota Public Radio.

The Department of Justice said today it recovered $5.6 billion in criminal and civil fraud investigations in fiscal year 2011, without releasing many details.

Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole said in a news conference at the White House touting the administration’s approach to federal cost-cutting that the $5.6 billion is more than has ever been recovered in a single year in the department’s history. He said recoveries included $3.4 billion in civil fraud and more than $2.2 billion in criminal fraud.

“We will aggressively investigate and prosecute those who seek to defraud the American people,” Cole said in a statement. “Those who commit fraud will be held to account. And the American taxpayer will continue to see a high rate of return on its investment in the Department of the Justice.”

On a state-by-state level, federal fraud recoveries doubled between 2008 and 2011 in 21 states, Cole said. He did not give comparisons between 2010 and 2011. He highlighted Minnesota, which saw increases in criminal and civil fraud recoveries from $14 million in 2008 to $270 million in 2011.

Cole talked about the high-profile investigations of companies selling defective bulletproof vests to government agencies.  To date, he said, the department has recovered more than $61 million in settlements from 10 different companies.

In remarks today, Vice President Joe Biden said the department has recovered $15 million in total fraud since 2009.

The department did not include a more detailed breakdown of the amounts recovered for different divisions and categories. The Criminal Division did not release that information until January 2011 for FY 2010.  Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney did not immediately respond to requests for a more detailed description of the recoveries.

Last year, enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act accounted for nearly half of the $2 billion recovered by the department’s Criminal Division.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer honored several Criminal Division employees for outstanding service at the Great Hall in the Main Justice Building Monday, including a recently retired official who headed computer-crime prosecutions and others who pursued Medicare fraud.

“The dedicated public servants we are recognizing today have each made significant achievements in furthering the mission of the Justice Department,� Breuer said, according to a press release.  “They have worked tirelessly to help protect our communities and keep our nation safe. We are grateful for their extraordinary contributions to the department and to the country.�

The highest honor, the Henry E. Petersen Memorial Award, went to Michael M. DuBose, former chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. The Petersen Award recognizes exceptional service by an individual who has made a lasting contribution to the division.  DuBose, who retired this fall, oversaw numerous important prosecutions, including that of Albert Gonzalez, the leader of the largest credit card data breach in history, the DOJ said.

Paul O’Brien, director of the Criminal Division’s Office of Enforcement Operations, received the John C. Keeney Award for Exceptional Integrity and Professionalism. (Keeney, who worked for DOJ for six decades, died last month.) O’Brien was among DOJ lawyers called upon to do damage control in the case of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), whose prosecution was badly mismanaged.  He was among those who replaced the original prosecutors and apologized on DOJ’s behalf for mistakes in the case.

The Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service was presented to Hank Walther, Benton Curtis, Sam Sheldon and Benjamin Singer of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section for extraordinary efforts in leading the investigation and prosecution of Medicare fraud across the country — an operation that DOJ billed as the biggest-ever health care-fraud takedown in 2010.

The second Exceptional Service award was presented to the large group responsible for the successful investigation and prosecution of Lee Bentley Farkas, convicted in April of masterminding a huge mortgage fraud. The verdict was especially sweet for the DOJ, which has been criticized for not going after key players in the 2008 financial crisis.

A full list of those honored can be found here.