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Today's Date: U.S. Attorney News Feed
Interior official sentenced to 10 months
Court Feed News | 2007/06/27 15:02

The former second-ranking official at the U.S. Interior Department was sentenced to 10 months in prison for his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal. U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle rejected pleas for leniency from J. Steven Griles, the former deputy interior secretary, and handed down the sentence for a felony conviction of obstructing a Senate investigation into the corrupt lobbyist, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Griles, the highest ranking official convicted in the scandal, pleaded guilty in March to charges of lying about his relationship with Abramoff.

"This has been the most difficult time in my life," Griles said before the verdict was announced Tuesday. "My guilty plea has brought me great shame and embarrassment. I have lost my business, my income and, most importantly, my reputation."

However, Huvelle pushed aside Griles' claims of remorse.

"You held a position of trust as number two in the Department of Interior, and I will hold you to a higher standard," Huvelle told Griles. "I find that, even now, you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct and the nature of your misstatements."



Two plead to selling counterfeit software on eBay
Court Feed News | 2007/06/26 15:51

Two more defendants have pleaded guilty to charges of criminal copyright infringement for selling counterfeit software with a retail value of nearly $6 million on eBay Inc., the U.S. Department of Justice announced. Robert Koster of Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Yutaka Yamamoto of Pico Rivera, California, both pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, the DOJ said in a news release. The two pleaded guilty to selling counterfeit software from Rockwell Automation.

The two will be sentenced in November, along with four other defendants who pleaded guilty in Milwaukee in April.

Rockwell Automation produces, among other products, specialized factory management software. The majority of the software applications sold by these defendants on eBay had retail prices ranging from about $900 to $11,300.

From September 2003 to September 2004, Koster offered counterfeit software in 105 or more online auctions, receiving a profit of more than $23,000, the DOJ said. The retail value of the software was more than $5 million.

From December 2003 to August 2004, Yamamoto initiated at least 92 auctions, for a profit of $6,000, the DOJ said. The retail value of the software was about $543,000.

Including Monday's pleas, the DOJ has gotten nine convictions involving eBay auctions of counterfeit Rockwell Automation software. In addition to six pleas in Wisconsin, there have been two convictions in the Eastern District of Michigan and another in the Southern District of Indiana. The combined retail value of the counterfeit software in all nine prosecutions is approximately $30 million, the DOJ said.



U.S. Marshal "Guilty" of Selling Information
Court Feed News | 2007/06/26 12:54

Jose Magallan, a Deputy assigned to the United States Marshal's  McAllen office, has pleaded guilty to two counts of exceeding his authorized access to information on a U. S. Government computer and accepting money for the information, United States Attorney Don DeGabrielle and Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Dallas Field Office announced today. 

At a hearing before United States District Judge Vanessa Gilmore held today,   Jose Magallan, 52, of  McAllen, TX, admitted that on two separate occasions, in November 2006 and in January 2007, he accepted money from a private citizen to conduct an unauthorized search of the U. S. Marshals Service's computer system to obtain and deliver information.   Magallan admitted to receiving $500 for information he obtained in the first unauthorized access to information search and $450 for the second such search.  

Judge Gilmore, who accepted the guilty pleas and convicted Magallan of two counts alleged in the indictment, has set sentencing for October 9, 2007.  Magallan faces up to five years imprisonment and up to a $250,000 for each count of conviction.

Magallan, who has been free on bond since his arrest in April 2007 following return of the two count indictment,  has been permitted by the court to remain on bond pending his sentencing.

The investigation leading to the indictment of Magallan was conducted by Special Agents of the Dallas Field Office of the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U. S. Attorney Jim McAlister.  



Georgia Man Seeks Last Minute Clemency
Court Feed News | 2007/06/25 18:55
A man set to die for killing his wife and two stepdaughters in 1987 deserves to live because he has remorse for the crimes, has tried to redeem himself in prison and the prosecutor at his trial acted improperly, a lawyer argued at a clemency hearing Monday.

John Hightower's attorney, Jack Martin, also said in his petition to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles that several jurors who convicted his client now support his bid for a reprieve.

"There is a terrible and profound irony in that Mr. Hightower is a person to whom family means so much, yet he has committed the act of destroying part of his family," Martin wrote in the petition.

"This fact is not lost on Mr. Hightower. His regret is intense."

As for the allegations against the man who prosecuted Hightower, Martin said that the district attorney at the time removed blacks as potential jurors during the trial over the objection of the defense. Hightower is black.

Martin also said that many of the death penalty sentences the prosecutor obtained before resigning in 1994 were reversed because of error.

The prosecutor, Joe Briley, who is now in private practice, did not immediately return a phone call to his office Monday seeking comment. A call to his home went unanswered.

Hightower's attorneys were trying several last-minute appeals -- including the clemency petition and a request to the U.S. Supreme Court for a delay -- to keep him from the death chamber. Absent any relief, he will be given a lethal injection on Tuesday.

Prosecutors were expected to appear before the parole board later Monday to argue for the execution to proceed.

Hightower, 63, was convicted for the July 12, 1987, slayings of his wife, Dorothy Hightower, and his two stepdaughters, Evelyn Reaves and Sandra Reaves, at a home in Milledgeville, in central Georgia.

If carried out, the execution would be Georgia's first in nearly two years.

Among the evidence investigators said they had against Hightower: a confession and a flesh- and blood-covered murder weapon found in the car he was driving when he was arrested. His clothes also were stained with blood.

According to authorities, Hightower admitted he had been having marital problems. In the admission, he said he had been drinking and snorting cocaine hours before he entered the home where the victims were, placed a gun under a pillow in the room he shared with his wife and waited for everyone to go to sleep.

At about 3 a.m, police say, Hightower retrieved the gun and shot each of the three victims in the head. A 3-year-old girl in the house was found unharmed.

Hightower was arrested about 90 minutes after the shootings while driving his wife's car.

The execution would be Georgia's first since Robert Conklin, a 44-year-old parolee who fatally stabbed a lawyer and dismembered the victim's body, was given a lethal injection on July 12, 2005.


Amy Baker Expected in KY Courtroom Today
Court Feed News | 2007/06/25 18:22
Amy Baker, the woman who helped authorities solve the disappearance of foster child Marcus Fiesel, is expected inside a Kentucky courtroom today.

Baker is facing charges in Maysville, accused of helping dispose of Marcus' remains in the Ohio River.

The hearing today is a preliminary hearing for Amy Baker. A few things could happen during the hearing. She could accept a plea deal with prosecutors or go forward with a trial.

Baker is charged with tampering with evidence in the death of 3-year-old foster child Marcus Fiesel.

Ohio authorities gave Baker immunity for testifying against Liz and David Carroll, the couple convicted of killing Marcus.

Baker, 26, was the Carrolls' live-in girlfriend. Investigators said the Carrolls burned Marcus' remains and dumped them in the Ohio River after stuffing him inside a closet where he died last August.

Baker has reportedly said she would confess to the tampering with evidence charge and admit she helped dispose of the remains, if Mason County prosecutors would agree to no jail time.

Kentucky officials prosecuted the "star witness" in the Ohio case because the remains were dumped in the Ohio River, which is owned by the state of Kentucky.

Baker is no longer in the Mason County Jail. Her mother posted a $5,000 cash bond a few weeks ago.


Ottowa Loses Yet Another Mad Cow Battle
Court Feed News | 2007/06/25 18:09
The federal government has lost yet another legal battle against a class-action lawsuit that accuses it of gross negligence in the mad cow crisis.

The statement of claim asserts, among other things, that Ottawa introduced a regulation in 1990 that specifically allowed the feeding of cattle parts to other cattle - the method through which bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, is transmitted.

It was only in 1997 that Canada banned the feeding of cattle to other cattle.

On Friday, the Ontario Court of Appeal refused to strike down two negligence claims brought against Ottawa by lead plaintiff Bill Sauer, a cattle producer near Niagara Falls, Ont.

The court upheld a lower court decision which found that more evidence was necessary before such a move could be justified.

The decision also dismissed Winnipeg-based cattle-feed company Ridley Canada’s attempt to have an allegation against it stricken from the suit, as well as an appeal from Sauer in which he attempted to have yet another allegation against Ridley reinstated.

The suit, launched in April 2005, represents cattle farmers from several provinces.

In May 2003, the discovery of an infected cow in Alberta prompted the United States to close its borders to Canadian cattle and precipitated the crisis.

It was estimated at the time that the industry suffered losses of some $7 billion.


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