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Lawyer arrested for allegedly defrauding client
Legal Career News | 2007/05/16 09:36

A lawyer who is a former Washington County public defender was arrested Tuesday on a charge he stole $12,000 from a client, State Police said. Joseph H. Oswald, 52, of Main Street, Fort Edward was charged with a felony count of third-degree grand larceny for allegedly cashing a settlement check the client received in December and not forwarding the money to either the client or Washington County, which had placed a lien on the money to repay Medicaid expenses, police said.

State Police began investigating the case after receiving information from the Washington County attorney's office indicating that the settlement money may have been improperly used.

State Police Senior Investigator Thomas Aiken said the client had been hurt in a car crash, but had been on Medicaid. The county had placed a lien against the check, but never received the money despite the check being cashed in December.

"They were owed compensation (by the client) but they never got it," Aiken said. "The bulk of it (the check) was supposed to go to the county, with whatever was left over going to the client."

Washington County Attorney Roger Wickes was not available Wednesday morning.

The arrest is the latest legal problem for Oswald, who was Washington County public defender for 3.5 years until resigning in August 2005, days before he was arrested on a bad check charge. That charge was later dropped.

He was arrested last summer on a charge he burglarized a female acquaintance's home in Kingsbury, but said recently that the felony charge in that case was dropped. He also was ordered to spend 15 days in Washington County Jail last month for not paying $11,000 in child support.

Oswald was free on bail Wednesday but could not be reached for comment Wednesday. The phone number listed for his law office was disconnected as of Wednesday morning.



State suspends law license of Cincinnati lawyer
Headline News | 2007/05/16 09:34

A disciplinary arm of the Ohio Supreme Court has temporarily suspended the law license of a Cincinnati attorney who was addicted to marijuana and cocaine.

Ken Lawson has handled many high-profile civil rights cases in Cincinnati.

He acknowledges that he was addicted to drugs for years and that it affected his job performance. Several clients have sued him, accusing him of mishandling their cases and failing to show up for court dates.

The Supreme Court's disciplinary counsel is reviewing a complaint filed by the Cincinnati Bar Association. The case could take months to complete.

The court could decide to revoke Lawson's license permanently.

Lawson says he's been clean since February First and is participating in a rehab program.



Former CIA Official Pleads Not Guilty
Lawyer Blog News | 2007/05/16 08:40

A former top CIA official pleaded not guilty Monday to new charges that he pushed a proposed government contract worth at least $100 million for his best friend in return for lavish vacations, private jet flights and a lucrative job offer. The indictment, returned last week, replaced charges brought in February against Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who resigned from the spy agency a year ago, and defense contractor Brent Wilkes.

The charges grew from the bribery scandal that landed former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in prison.

Foggo and Wilkes now face 30 wide-ranging counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. Each faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors claimed in their earlier 11-count indictment that in fall 2003, while he was working as a logistics officer at a CIA supply hub overseas, Foggo arranged a $1.7 million contract for one of Wilkes' companies to be a middleman in supplying bottled water to the agency.

The new indictment outlines a second scheme in which Foggo is suspected of providing Wilkes with "sensitive, internal information related to our national security," including classified information, to help him prepare bids for providing undercover flights for the CIA under the guise of a civil aviation company and armored vehicles for agency operations.

Foggo, who was the agency's executive director at the time, is also charged with encouraging his CIA colleagues to hire Wilkes without disclosing that the pair were childhood friends.

Prosecutors say that in return, Wilkes offered to hire Foggo after he retired from government service and treated his friend to extravagant meals and vacations, including a trip to Scotland during which they racked up a $44,000 hotel bill and took $4,000 helicopter rides to play golf.

Wilkes was charged in a separate indictment with conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions to Cunningham in return for government contracts.

A new indictment was returned in that case last week that included new charges against another defendant, New York mortgage banker John T. Michael, who was described as a co-conspirator in Cunningham's 2005 plea agreement. Michael now faces counts of money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions in connection with wire transfers allegedly used to pay off the mortgage on Cunningham's $2.5 million mansion.

Wilkes and Michael pleaded not guilty to the new charges. All three men remain free on bail.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns set a Sept. 18 trial date for Wilkes and Michael, followed by a trial for Foggo and Wilkes starting Oct. 23. Burns denied a request by Foggo's attorneys that their client be tried separately in Virginia, where he lives.

Burns also heard arguments from defense attorneys on several key issues, including a request for an investigation into government leaks to news organizations including The Associated Press during the probe.

Wilkes' attorney, Mark Geragos, has said he believes the information was leaked to pressure Justice Department officials into approving criminal charges sought by prosecutors in San Diego before ousted U.S. Attorney Carol Lam resigned in February. The indictments were returned two days before her departure.

"It's clear - clear to me at least - that they were scrambling," Geragos said after Monday's hearing. "It sure looks to me as though something's going on in that office, and I don't know what it is."

Prosecutors have said that the timing had nothing to do with Lam's departure. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Forge told the judge the matter had been referred to another U.S. attorney's office as part of an internal Justice Department review.

Burns ordered that the results of the review be turned over to him and said he would require the government to disclose to defense attorneys the identities of any witnesses who had been identified as leakers.

The initial charges came 20 months after the FBI opened an investigation into Cunningham, who served on key House committees with oversight of government contracts. He pleaded guilty in November 2005 to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

Foggo and Wilkes played high school football together growing up in Chula Vista, south of San Diego. They roomed together at San Diego State University, were best men at each other's weddings and named their sons after each other.

Foggo, the former No. 3 official at the CIA, resigned from the spy agency in May 2006 after his house in suburban Virginia and office at the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters were raided by federal agents.



BetOnSports founder Kaplan pleads not guilty
Court Feed News | 2007/05/15 14:23

The founder of the notorious online betting company BetOnSports, Gary Kaplan, pleaded not guilty yesterday to the charges brought against him. The Internet gambling executive pleaded "not guilty" on the charges of federal racketeering, tax evasion and fraud on Monday, despite the previous statements from the chairman of the troubled online betting company, that a guilty plea was going to be filed. 

Kaplan, along with 10 other executives from the online gambling industry were indicted by U.S. District Court in St. Louis on charges that the company took billions in illegal bets from U.S. residents. The company BetOnSports stopped taking bets from US citizens as a result of a civil settlement last November, and agreed to return the money back to the American bettors, something that has not happened as of yet. The criminal charges, however, are still pending.

The 48-year-old Gary Kaplan was arrested in March in the Dominican Republic, after fleeing the country to avoid prosecution.



Connecticut high court considers same-sex marriage
Legal Career News | 2007/05/15 14:13

The Connecticut Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in the case of eight gay couples who are unhappy with Connecticut's civil unions law and are seeking full marriage rights. Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) attorney Bennett Klein, representing the couples, argued that the fundamental principles of marriage are not grounded in gender, and by granting secular marriage only to heterosexual couples, the state violated equal protection laws under the Connecticut constitution. The Connecticut Attorney General's office in turn argued that a 2006 Superior Court decision was correct, and that civil unions provide same-sex couples the same benefits and protections as traditional marriages, rejecting the equal protection challenge.

Currently only Massachusetts recognizes full same-sex marriage. Last month, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) introduced a bill that would legalize gay marriage in that state.



Somalia to cooperate with UN rights investigation
Legal World News | 2007/05/15 13:12

The transitional government of Somalia has agreed to cooperate with a UN probe into alleged human rights violations that occurred during recent fighting in the country's capital, according to UN emergency relief co-ordinator John Holmes Monday. Despite that, the Somali government maintains that no abuses took place. Recent fighting between warlords and government-backed troops, most of whom come from Ethiopia, have left about 1,600 people dead in Mogadishu. Former deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed says that Ethiopian soldiers have been carrying out a campaign of genocide against Somalis since their arrival, but the government has defended their use as necessary to reinstate law and order after 16 years of chaos.

In January, the transitional government began imposing martial law over areas under the government's control, two weeks after martial law was approved by parliament. Somalia has endured a lengthy civil war and several rounds of failed peace talks since the collapse of its last civil government in 1991. In late March Human Rights Watch claimed that the US, Kenya, and Ethiopia were cooperating with the transitional government of Somalia to secretly detain people who fled the conflict there.



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