JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG

WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM. Winner of the prestigious Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.

Monday, November 30, 2009

DADE NORTH?

SCOTT ROTHSTEIN UPDATE: Gotta love this nugget from the Daily Pulp:
"I know this is frustrating, but let me assure you, this is the greatest story in the history of South Florida, and it will all come out in due time. Let me just say that I'm hearing incredible stories about Rothstein's use of his associates to impersonate judges, officials, and reporters on the phone to help him in his extortion schemes and scams."

I admit that I am hooked. I'm on that site ten times a day.

Broward is collapsing under its own weight of cronyism, theft, fraud, bad karma, and less than mediocre individuals in position of leadership. Things are so bad that Broward may just dissolve and ask to become "Dade North" (North Dade is already taken and we are sure the fine folks in North Dade want nothing to do with being associated with Broward in any manner), at which point the statute of Florida's 19th Governor- Napoleon Bonaparte Broward - (who notably wanted to drain the Everglades)- which stands ominously in the hallways of the new wing of the Courthouse in Broward, would just spontaneously implode.

Let's start with the Sherrif's Department. There are plenty of reports circulating that the top man-Sheriff Al Lamberti- is a major disappointment who is not "a hands on guy" and "can't make a decision without checking with his right hand men." The problem is that one of Lamberti's right hand man- his head of internal affairs no less- was in the pocket of disgraced Broward Attorney/Thief Scott Rothstein. BSO Lt. David Benjamin - who personally drove a frightened and on-the-run Scott Rothstein to the airport in early November so Rothstein could run to Morocco with 20 million in stolen Ponzi funds- is now rumored by the Broward Pulp to be either A) Under Federal Investigation for accepting at least $30,000 from Rothstein; B) A Federal Informant or C) (This being Broweird) BOTH!. (Scott Rothstein tidbit- why did he need police protection to go to the airport? Scotty boy was stealing from some pretty powerful people. The type of people who don't call the police or sue when things go wrong. More on this at another time.)

Lamberti's campaign coffers were literally stuffed with stolen RRA money as Bob Norman details on his blog. Of course so was Governor Crist's campaign, so Lambeti is in good company.

Lets move on to Broweird State Attorney Mikey Satz.
"It is well documented by law enforcement that people using drugs are actively involved in all sorts of criminal activities such as burglaries, robberies, and violent crimes."
-Mike Satz 2009-
...right beneath pictures of Satz circa 1970 at a "pot party".

So much for the personal integrity of the County's top Prosecutor and Law Enforcement Officer.

Item: Mike Satz's Major Crimes division put an innocent man on death row and fought to cover up his obvious innocence. Frank Lee Smith died on death row before the court's could rule on his motions proving innocence.


Item: There is an avowed Federal Informant who works as a Prosecutor at the Broward SAO and is called a snitch around the office behind her back. Because this is Broweird, she is also a City Commissioner and a central figure in a Circuit Judge and a Prosecutor meeting at a restaurant for drinks and laughing at a gay juror who was sickened by the grisly crime scene photos of a death penalty case the prosecutor was trying before the Judge. And because this is Broweird, the defense attorney was not included in that convenient little social.

Leaving prosecutors and cops, lets turn to the judiciary:

Item: The current Chief Judge is fighting with the former Chief Judge. A former circuit judge who cried on national TV during a hearing into the death of Anna Nicole Smith was secretly stealing tens of thousands of dollars from an elderly woman he befriended in his condominium.

The Chief Judge up there likes to fight. Besides being famously (or infamously ) rude to us many times because of where we have our office (Dade), he is also fighting with the Broward Clerk of Courts.

File these under the courts/judiciary:

Item: Fort Lauderale's Police Chief's wife fires his weapon at him (a 20 year minimum mandatory for those of you scoring at home ) and ...this being Broweird....gets 9 months. Meanwhile possession of cocaine, a third degree felony, routinely gets you an 18 month prison sentence, especially if you're....a black male not standing consanguinity to a public official of import. Because if you're say, the son of a certified "Broweird Player" and get arrested for Drug Trafficking in Broweird, you get....

"Johnny, tell out contestant what he has won today on 'I'm related to someone important in Broweird': a Misdemeanor!"

Yup, the former son-in-law of politically connected Broward Lawyer Bill Scherer, who happens to be the lawyer leading the lawsuits against Scott Rothstein with this mammoth 289 page lawsuit that is rife with spelling errors and grammatical gaffes, got a misdemeanor after being arrested on a drug traffcking charge. The cops laughed when the suspect said "you don't know who you're messing with." They're not laughing any more.

And neither are we and nor should you. It's a complete mess up there North of the the Border, and this Scott Rothstein disaster will show all of those Broward sacred cows with their hands deep into the pockets of the man with the money. These same politicians, Judges, lawyers and officers who sneer at "Dade Lawyers" and have mistreated and maligned us for decades as unprincipled and uncouth, have now been unmasked for what they really are- rank hypocrites who fought over each other to jump into bed and be closest to the man with the money. May each and every one of them get what they truly deserve.

We end most posts on Broweird this way: Karma baby.






Sunday, November 29, 2009

NFL WEEK TWELVE

The losing continues for us. But still we trudge on.

And to snap the streak, we look to the Houston Texans, who got us into so much trouble earlier in the season. The Colts, unbeaten, come to Houston, who has never beaten Indy. Todays the day. The Texans have righted the ship, and Indy, while very good, is hurting at several positions. The Texans are getting 3.5 at home. Houston +3.5 +300 Peytons.


The Dolphins have been a savior for us this year, and we have regretted when we have gone away from them. They are on the road at Buffalo today giving three points. We like them to take a victory home from upstate NY. Fins -3 +4oo wings.

If you can get Steelers at Ravens under 42 grab it. Roethlisberger may be out, and these teams play perhaps the hardest hitting football in the modern era. Take a look at last year's AFC Championship game. Brutal. Under 42 for 500 Tomlins.

SUICIDE POOL- we could have a winner!
Freedman and Peter Sautter pick the Bengals while Iftikhar Memon picks the Fins. If the Bengals loose.....

Update: At 12:39 PD Daniel Tibbitt picked the Falcons. And they won on the last play.

And Ifyikhar Memon goes down today as the Fins implode in the 4th quarter.

Friday, November 27, 2009

BLACK FRIDAY

SCOTT ROTHSTEIN UPDATE: Inside the Belly of the beast : An 18 Year Old Intern's Story on Working for Scott Rothstein at RRA. Meeting the Governor for a chat; Lunch at Capital Grille; tooling around in a Bentley Convertible. All in a days work.


Good Morning. It was 56 degrees at sunrise in Miami this morning. ( It's not yet sunrise here in Truckee, and it's 43 degrees. The high will be about 39.)

Enjoy your shopping.

OFFICE MITAT (MIAMI BEACH) ON DESK DUTY PENDING INVESTIGATION.

This was forwarded to the FACDL listserv and is based on a CBS 4 investigation. It's weird to say the least, and tragic:

A 2006 Mercedes took the southbound ramp of the Turnpike at Bird Road and was seen on camera weaving out of its lane before crashing into the toll plaza. The driver, 29-year-old Leingke Perez, was a bartender at Mango's Cafe on South Beach. She was airlifted to the hospital but died.

On the surface, this could be seen as just another tragic traffic accident, but it's what happened after the crash that has drawn the attention of the Florida Highway Patrol.

Surveillance cameras at the toll plaza caught the accident. Seconds after Perez's Mercedes is seen crashing, a Miami-Beach police cruiser appears on camera on the state security video pulling into the parking lot. The driver, apparently Officer Osvaldo Mitat of the Miami Beach Police Department, was seen running towards the crash.

Twenty seconds later, Officer Mitat is seen on camera, appearing to be tossing bottles from the car. He does not appear to be rendering aid to the victim of the accident or calling 911 to ask for help. From the camera's perspective, investigators determined Mitat tossed the bottles toward a retention pond.

The next day, Mitat came back to the scene apparently to retrieve the bottles. He was met by FHP investigators who told him they had collected the bottles as evidence.

Why was officer Mitat so interested in clearing Leingke Perez's car of bottles? It's unclear right now. But we have learned he not only worked off-duty detail at Mangos but that he was dating bartender Leingke Perez....

Sources say the couple lived with each other, and the officer was separated from his wife but is still married.

"I don't know of his life or nothing; I just know he's a great guy, and they used to love each other very much so," said Crosby.

CBS4 visited Perez's home Wednesday and found officer Mitat's patrol car in her driveway. He did not answer the door.

Miami Beach police are not saying much about what happened except for a brief statement, "The department is shadowing the investigation being conducted by the Florida Highway Patrol...."

Late Wednesday afternoon Detective Juan Sanchez of the Miami Beach Police department told
CBS4's David Sutta they hadn't taken action because they were waiting for FHP to finish their investigation. However, by Wednesday night, Officer Mitat had been placed on desk duty pending the outcome of the investigation.

The Florida Highway Patrol would not comment on its investigation. They are awaiting reports to determine whether Leingke Perez was intoxicated when the crash happened. Officer Mitat remains on duty while the investigation continues.


Thursday, November 26, 2009

THANKSGIVING MEANS.....

First and foremost, spending time remembering all we have to be thankful for. And while we're at it, perhaps a moment of meditation on those who are having trouble being thankful today. Specifically we're thinking of those who have lost loved ones in the military defending our country. This must be a difficult day for them.

And in 2009 it's a national disgrace, but children in The United States of America still go to bed hungry at night. So as we remember what we have to be thankful for, lets remember there is still much work to do.

Update: In the comments section, blog commentator BTDT suggested in not so many words that we do something more than just complain about the problem. Well said. Feed the Children is a well established charity. We made a $500.00 donation after reading BTDT's comments. Go here and make a donation. $5, $10, it all makes a difference. If you have a charity you like, post a comment and we'll put up a link.

And another charity that does amazing things for our service people is the USO. We have long been a contributor and supporter of the USO. Go here for more details.

OK. Enough moralizing.

Thanksgiving also means......FOOTBALL.

The Packers play the Lions in a traditional Turkey day matchup.
The Pack is an 11 point favourite on the road. The roadside is littered with those who gave points against home dogs, but not this year and not today. Packers -11 over Lions for 300 sweet potatoes.

The Raiders march their Silver and Black into Casa Jones and the Cowpokes of Dallas. The Pokes managed just one measly touchdown over the Redskins last Sunday, while the Raiders shocked the Bengals. The over/under is 40. The Raiders are playing a back-up QB, and the Cowpokes offense is in the dumps. Take the Over. Two reasons: 1- The Redskins, for all their problems, have a superior and punishing defense, so it's no surprise they held Vanilla Phillips and his team to one TD.
2- A short week means less exotic defenses. The teams will play their standard
packages and that means more offense.
Over 40 for 500 dinner rolls.

The night game has the stabilized NY Giants against the reeling Broncos in Denver. Need to check the weather report as late November often brings snow to the rockies (although Denver is about a 50 miles east of the start of the mountain range.)
The Giants are 6 points favourites and the over/under is 42. We're inclined to take the Giants and the over, but check back later as we monitor the weather.

Update: We won the first game, lost the second, so lets go 300 Giants -6.


Pick Em Paulie said...

Pick Em Paulie likes only one game for Turkey Day. Of course, this has been a blah season. Better off following the four guys in the suicide pool. If you followed them every week, you'd be 44-0.

$500.00 bet

Denver +6

2009 Record
25-28-2 47.17% -2900


Unfortunately, we're on a bit of a diet regimen, so after a day of brisk skiing or hiking, depending on the snow conditions, it will be Turkey and salad for us, with just one bite of stuffing, a smidgeon of mashed potatoes, and one forkful of pecan pie with a tiny tiny dollop of whipped cream.

Enjoy your family, your dinner, the day, and the long weekend.

HR.


Wednesday, November 25, 2009

TURKEYS

BEN KUEHNE CASE DISMISSED!!!

Blogger David O Markus has just broke the story that the case against our friend, colleague, and one hell of a lawyer- Ben Kuehne, and his co-defendant has been dismissed by the Feds.

What a fantastic Thanksgiving for Ben.

Shame on the Feds for dragging Ben's good name through the mud! Sorry David, but Ben gets our next 10 federal conflicts.


Update: Go to David's blog to read the gracious and classy statement by Ben Kuehne.



Several careful readers have inquired whether Rumpole will be handing out annual "Turkey" awards.

From the prolific if pointed prose emanating from our Robed Readers' emails to lawyers North Of the Border who steal and pay off hired thugs from the Broward Sheriffs Office, the South Florida legal landscape has its normal collection of ripe targets, including Assistant US Attorneys who not only lose trials, but put their legal licenses in jeopardy along the way.

Have at it. The best nominations get on the front page.





Monday, November 23, 2009

TWEET TWEET NOT SO SWEET BIRDSONG


THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:



The driver has a bottle of Jack Daniel's in his red Jeep. He smashes into a car, killing a 24-year-old pregnant woman. A prosecutor steps in, ready to send the driver — an Army captain — to prison. The prosecutor is Louis Birdsong, also an Army captain. At this point, in April 2001, he does not know this case will change his own life. In between the two trials - one civil and one military - Birdsong develops a friendly relationship with the driver's recently divorced ex-wife. Three years after the trials, he marries her. The driver, now incarcerated at the Cross City Correctional Institution, was stunned when he learned this year that his ex-wife and his prosecutor had married each other. He said he now thinks Birdsong pushed to have him prosecuted twice in this case, which more than doubled his prison time, so that the couple could be together in peace. He has filed a Bar complaint against the prosecutor and tried to get the military to launch an investigation.

TAMPBAY DOT COM ARTICLE HERE.

Cap Out .....

A DOG OF A CASE

The Priors: Three counts of aggravated battery within two years.

The Crime: one count of aggravated battery (biting).

Venue: West Palm Beach.

The Sentence: House arrest indefinitely. Banned from public places like parks and beaches. If he goes out, he must wear a muzzle.

A muzzle?

The Accused: Described as Yellow in color, short haired fur, Labrador retriever named "Leo". Said to be owned by none other than Broadway Joe Namath.

Yes, in an article in the Palm Beach Post and carried by the Herald (the title links to the post) Joe Namath's dog has been convicted in West Palm Beach doggie court and sentenced to home confinement.

No word on whether new Palm Beach Circuit Judge (and former Dade Prosecutor) Judge John Kastrenakes had anything to do with the case.

MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL?

Need a Scott Rothstein fix to begin your week? Bob Norman's Daily pulp has it all. Pictures of Rothstein's home, reports on the people who fed clients into Rothstein's ponzi scheme, and some of the crooks who got swindled as well. Interesting stuff.

I'm just in this kind of mood today, with Rothstein having stolen so much money. So.....Do You Think Money is the Root Of All Evil?
It's worth spending a few minutes reading this. It is perhaps the best and most complete explanation of money ever written, and this phrase is especially apropos of the current financial crisis and Rothestein and Madoff et. al.: "Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.' "

From Atlas Shrugged, the famous speech of Francisco d'Anconia:

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."


Sunday, November 22, 2009

NFL WEEK ELEVEN

There isn't a game we like, which isn't surprising since we can't pick for bubkas this year.

That being said....

The Chargers at Denver. Chargers -4 for 200 Rivers.

Eagles -2 at Bears. Eagles for 300 Lovie Smiths.

49ers at Packers. Packers -6.5 for 200 Brats.

Pick Em Paulie said...

Pick Em Paulie is having a blah year for the first time in a long time and the vig is killing us. But on we press. Each for $500.

WASH/DALL over 41.5
Buffalo +9
Pittsburgh -10
New England -10.5
Chicago +3

2009 record
23-25-2 47.92%
-$2250



SUICIDE POOL
Week eleven. Gotta be a record.
Rick Freedman-Cowboys; Ifitkhar Memon- Cowpokes;
Daniel Tibbitt- Cowpokes; Peter Sautter- Minnesota.

(as of right now I think we need a tiebreaker. Email me your MNF winner, total score, total TDs, total Field Goals, and attendance -just kidding about the attendance,)

BTW- this post is kind of short because the initial tests reveal that I probably have Groats disease. The doctors are working on a course of treatment and I'm just not in the mood to write much.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

ANOTHER WRONGFUL CONVICTION

In 1992 Fernando Bermudez was convicted of murder based on the testimony of five witnesses. After spending 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, he was released yesterday. The Title of the post links to the NY Times article.

Kudos to attorneys Michael and Leslie Risinger, who led the fight to free Mr. Bermudez, and Justice John Cataldo of NY State Supreme Court (which is the felony trial court in New York) who granted the motion based on the five witnesses coming forward and detailing a harrowing account of "coercion and manipulation" by police and prosecutors for them to identify Mr. Bermudez.

Mr. Bermudez having been freed, the next step is the prosecution of those prosecutors and officers who subverted justice, suborned perjury, and participated in a conspiracy to imprison an innocent man.

Just how many of these stories about police and prosecutors intimidating witnesses are we going to have to post until people begin to realize that the justice system is broken, perhaps beyond repair?

BREAKING BLOG NEWS!!!!!


GO HERE

AND WISH YOUR FAVOURITE FEDERAL BLOGGER A HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY.

(he's a lot older than he looks.)



We have it on very good authority that your favourite federal blogger would like nothing more than the autobiography written by his political hero. Click here to send him a copy and make his birthday a real special one.




Friday, November 20, 2009

STOP THE PRESSES!

Stop the presses. Breaking news! The Miami Herald has called REGJB ace criminal defense attorney Alex Michaels.....steady now......ACERBIC!!! The title of the post links to the Miami Herald article.

Michaels is representing 17 year old Andy Rodriguez in a tragic case where Rodriguez is accused of stabbing to death a fellow Coral Gables Senior Highschool student during a fight.


Yesterday there was an Arthur Hearing before Judge Tunis, complete with a separate metal detector outside of the courtroom. Long time and careful blog readers will remember that when Michaels appeared at the initial hearing in Juvenile court, a melee broke out behind him outside the courthouse as he was being interviewed.

From the Article:
"Who ordered the circus outside?'' Michaels complained to the judge. ``Extra security. Extra cops. Extra metal detectors. I find it very offensive and unnecessary.''

And then this shocking bit of reportage:
"The acerbic Michaels squabbled with Segovia, drawing admonishments from the judge. He asked the detective if it appeared in the surveillance video that Rivera was swinging at his client."
As an adjective, "acerbic" is commonly defined as
sour or astringent in taste: harsh or severe,
as of temper or expression.

"Acerbic" just doesn't seem to fit with us regarding Michaels. We seem to recall that Former 3rd DCA Judge Rudy Sorrondo called Michaels "contumacious" in an opinion. That seems a better fit.

ROTHSTEIN'S LOO:




Meanwhile, and somehow this fits- here is picture of Scott Rothstein's toilet. Bob Norman of the Daily Pulp has pictures of the inside of chez Rothstein. As one acerbic commentator on Norman's blog wrote: "He should be charged with Felony bad taste."

Indeed.

DOLPHINS WIN LAST NIGHT!
Have a good weekend. It's snowing here. Again.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

DOLPHINS PLAY TONIGHT

In a rare Thursday night game, the Dolphins play the Carolina Panthers. Go Fins.

Bob Norman's Daily Pulp here seems to allude to the fact that Scott Rothstein is being sequestered by the Feds as he cooperates with agents and prosecutors over the others who assisted him in stealing what some have speculated could be upwards of a billion dollars. But even at at level, I guess he gets three points off for super acceptance, right?

Rothstein surrendered his Bar license yesterday. If he had ever bothered to look on the back of his Bar card he would NOT have seen anything indicating that it was a license to steal.

Not all lawyers are crooks, and David Markus's blog here has a link to a story where an attorney in Georgia was acquitted on all 36 counts. It's not often the Feds go down in flames like that.

Contrary to the story we ran yesterday, the Broward Blog has a piece here on how Miami County Courts treat DWLS and NVDL cases much better than North of the Border. Miami Judges are more reasonable than Broward Judges. When you get a "man bites dog" story lets us know. For now there's nothing unusual about that headline.

The newest "hottie" to emerge from the Scott Rothstein scandal is the woman who sold him suits. Romina Sifuentes is rumoured to have sold Rothstein upwards of $500,000.00
worth of Tom James suits a year. We had a run in once with those Tom James salespeople.
And once they get their foot in the door they never leave.
But they never looked like Romina Sifuentes.

Lets see..... Its still snowing here in Truckee. Thanksgiving is next week. Anybody trying cases?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

COUNTY COURT REPORT

We received the following email and picture:
(Update- take our Jeopardy lawyer quiz below)




Rumpole:

At your request I have emailed you a picture of the offending message from the Prosecutors in County Court. In case the picture is not clear, it is handwriting on a Plea Sheet and says the following in Red Ink:
"All pleas will be enhanced on trial day. This includes jail enhancement. These pleas are open today only."
Will the FACDL considering filing a bar complaint against the State Attorneys Office and the individual State Attorneys who punish people for exercising their sixth amendment right to trial?

Will anybody stand up for the proposition that people accused of crimes are presumed innocent? Will anybody fight for the right to trial? Will we all stand by here while the Judges kowtow to the State and turn our courts into plea machines? GIGO (garbage in garbage out) and assembly line justice is not what we should be participating in. And yet, when people are punished for exercising their constitutional rights by so called "enhancements" it creates a chilling effect in our courthouse.

Thanks for the vine Rumpy.

PS. The County Court traffic guys head out to Vegas tonight for their "Miami Traffic Guyz 2009 Vegas Tour: Putting a hurt on the Casino." Wish them luck.

Rumpole says: Well said old chap. What say you brethren of the criminal defense bar?

Lawyer Jeopardy: (thanks to So Fla Lawyers for the answers )

Contestant One (Murray): "Alex, I'll take who wrote that for 200"
Alex Trebek: The answer is: ""I am driven to insure (sic) the integrity of our judiciary. I will accept nothing less than professionalism and integrity.''

Murray: "Who is Scott Rothstein?"
Trebek: Correct.
Murray: I'll take Who Wrote That for 400:

Trebek: "I've had over 150 jury trials. I have a unique insight into the Judiciary. I am a confidante (sic) of many members of the judiciary and am called on regularly for counsel."

Contestant Two (Harold) : "Umm...who is Scott Rothstein?"
Trebek: Correct!

Stay tuned for Final Jeopardy after the break. Our category is....What is the Guideline Range?

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

THE FAMOUS CHEER YOU UP -DEATH POST.

UPDATE: The Anatomy of A Scam: How Rothstein did it. Bob Norman of the Daily Pulp has put together an interview with an investor who pitched by Rothstein.

Check out "You Make The Call" on the
Broward Blog here.
Basically, in Broward the police have as much respect for the 4th Amendment as the Judges North of the Border have for Dade Lawyers.
Especially nifty is the warrant-less entry into the defendant's home to "make a protective sweep" looking for the defendant while the other part of the same squad has the Defendant detained at a traffic stop.

You make the call.


As if we didn't have enough to worry about, now comes word from medical researchers that men over 40 have a 1 in 8 chance of dropping dead from sudden cardiac arrest. The WSJ bad news is here.

From the article: "It's fairly astonishing data," said Muriel Jessup, a cardiologist at University of Pennsylvania who headed the program committee for the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions here, where the findings were presented Sunday, and who wasn't involved in the study.

Rumpole moans: "fairly astonishing data" doc? How about "it's the scariest f'ing thing ever printed in the WSJ"? That more sums up our feeling on the "data". This kind of news, like possible earth destroying comets, is just something better off kept in obscure journals. We mere mortals have enough to worry about. Every time we get a little whipped cream on our Starbucks we mope for days. We're gobbling fish oil capsules and Niacin like they're M&Ms. And the best we got is 8-1? We can foresee another several months of insomnia ahead.

As Bruce Springsteen sings in Badlands: "You wake up in the night with a fear so real, you find yourself waiting for a moment that just won't come. Don't waste your time waiting. ..."

Or as Woody Allen said "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying." and..."Death doesn't worry me that much. I just don't want to be there when it happens."

Sirius Satellite is thinking of putting on a "Scott Rothstein 102" news channel, right next to Howard 100 news.

Nothing new to report today on the Rothstein countdown to 360-to life sweepstakes. (Are we correct in our guideline calculations David? "Sophisticated means enhancement." " Has a yacht and house on the water enhancement." It all adds up.)

Meanwhile Bob Norman at the Daily Pulp continues to be the best source for stories in this case. From the emails from Rothstein detailing the paranoia he had with his operations center to trying to buy his way into the good graces of the Lord, Norman has all the juicy details.

Maybe we just have a surly personality, but we don't think Rothestein will be out through the weekend. This case has a Fed special Friday afternoon arrest written all over it, and the only thing missing is the long weekend special twist that would keep Rothstein on ice though Tuesday.

Risk of flight? Danger to the community? Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed (Arabic: خالد شيخ محمد) has a better chance of bond than Rothstein.

The Dolphins won and the Jets and Patriots lost this weekend. As any good trial lawyer knows, it ain't over till it's over.