ESG, VALIC AND AIG STOCKS ARE HOW BIDEN, PELOSI, HARRIS AND FEINSTEIN
FAMILIES GET THEIR BRIBES!
- Joe Biden just issued an "Executive Order" to try to protect the ESG
stock profits owned by his family and his campaign financiers. What a
bold-faced act of corruption that was!
- White House Staff, federal judges and Congress hold ESG, Valic and AIG
stocks that conduit for lobbysts and millionaire directives
- Case histories are provided, herein, from among many hundreds of
thousands of examples, proving that public officials make decisions
based on bias, cronyism, favoratism and pre-arranged bribes.
"ESG", "VALIC" and "AIG" are code for "Insider
Payola DNC Stock Bribes" that exist to benefit White House
financiers.
The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment stressed that the
due process and equal protection clauses created a right to fair and
impartial
government acts, hearings and trials. Courts have repeatedly held that an
impartial judge or public official is an indispensable element of those
rights. The facts, though, show both bias and prejudice in fact and in
appearance, and a lack of legal qualification and temperament to preside in
modern policy cases. Each alone is sufficient to require many politicians or
judge's disqualification and recusal.
- Due process demands a fair and impartial hearing by a neutral and
detached public official or magistrate. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103
(1975); Ward v. Village of Monroevill, 409 U.S. 57, 62 (1972). A right
to an impartial judge is so basic to due process that courts can never
treat its infraction as a harmless error. Chapman v. California, 386
U.S. 18, 23 (1967). “...the tribunals of the country shall not only be
impartial in the controversies submitted to them but shall give
assurance that they are impartial...” Berger v. the United States, 255
U.S. 22, 35-6 (1921).
- Rule 1.2 states “Promoting Confidence in the Judiciary - A judge shall
act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the
independence, integrity, and impartiality* of the judiciary, and shall
avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.”
- Public officials have a duty to promote confidence in the judiciary
and in Congress.
- The citizens do not feel that the present Congress or White House will
act independently, with integrity and impartiality regarding the present
matters of public policy because those officials transact bribes via the
stock market.
- Actual improprieties include violations of law, court rules or
provisions of the Codes of ethics. The test for appearance of
impropriety is whether the conduct would create in reasonable minds and
a perception that the public officials violated this Code or engaged in
other conduct that reflects adversely on the government's honesty,
impartiality, temperament, or fitness to serve the public.
- Rule 1.3 provides the standard. Rule 1.3 states that “Avoiding Abuse
of the Prestige of Judicial Office - A judge shall not abuse the
prestige of judicial office to advance the personal or economic
interests* of the judge or others or allow others to do so.” This is
mirrored in other government regulations.
- The current Congress and White House, as public offices, has an
economic interest in all matters via stock market ownerships. It would
be unfair and unreasonable if the current Congress and White House would
be allowed to preside over public matters while owning stock market
assets that fill their family wallets with unjust gain and the filth of
corrupt gain.
Whereas
White House executives, U.S. Senators, and Government agency
executives colluded
with Silicon Valley oligarchs, operating,
together, as an “Enterprise”,
to coordinate insider stock market ‘Stimulus
Scams’
that involved funding blockades, blacklists, contracted tabloid media
assassinations and RICO Racketeering
law
violations, Anti-trust
law violations,
IP law violations,
lobbying law violations
and various civil and criminal acts that harmed domestic citizens and
Democracy. This case
matter is well known to Courts, media, federal law enforcement and in
nearly a million news articles. It is not possible for this Judge,
who knows many of the participants in this case, to not have seen the
conflict of interest herein, at first blush.
A
simple cross-comparison of the ICIJ, FINCEN, Interpol, SEC, GAO
forensic accounting and XKEYSCORE, et al, databases proves the
illicit financial interactions between Defendants. Such a check can
be technically accomplished within 60 minutes, or less, according to
federal IT experts.
Almost
every single investor of Elon Musk is also the primary financier and
beneficiary of the politicians, and their Congressional shenanigans,
that used taxpayer money and resources to give Musk's companies all
that free money. For example, Dianne Feinstein's family run the HR
service (Herb Newman), the construction company, the railroads, the
building leases (CBRE), the China funds (Mart Bailey, Steve Westly,
Steve Spinner, et al) and swap staff members for Tesla and Solyndra.
Feinstein and Pelosi blocked funding for all Tesla competitors for
the same State and Federal cash and tax waivers and for the NUMMI
factory. The California and Washington, DC politicians, personally,
made billions off insider trading, pump-and-dumps and payola.
Felonies? You Bet! Valic, who the Judge invests massively, with, runs
part of the Tesla and Elon Musk cash.
Reporters
and family members of California politicians, including U.S.
Senators, who Plaintiffs has a personal relationship with and
knows the staff of, have contacted Plaintiffs. Based on
current investigative information, federal finance reports on the
Judge’s sources of income from stock market investments, speakers
fees and other sources and social media postings, photographs and
social photography archives from Getty, Drew Altizer and related
Washington, DC ‘high-society’ photographers there appears t be
conflicts of interest between public officials and this
case. Senators Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Harry
Reid (Deceased, but records acquired), White House staff, and other
related parties, appear to have given orders to the Judge’s office
to “Stop this case no matter what..” stating that “This
will cut off the stock market income of 90% of the DNC..”. As, for example,
Chief Judge Elaine D Kaplan is a renown spokesperson and speaker for
the DNC and this case has the potential to cause the arrest,
indictment, censure, Congressional charges of Contempt, and other
hardships for “90% of the DNC”, there is a reasonable
assumption, that any person of average intelligence could make, that
this Judge is overly conflicted in this matter.
As
one of the founders of the “Anti-corruption Party’, there are
also basic conflicts of interest between the “Anti-corruption
Party’s” : “NO Public Official, or their family, should own
stock market assets because that is how bribes are paid” stance
and the DNC’s stance, per Nancy Pelosi, that: “All public
officials and judges should get stock market perks”. The Plaintiffs is an
active proponent of the Expansion, FBI enforcement
and application of the federal STOCK ACT, which most of the
opposition are in violation of.
Facebook,
Google, Alphabet, Tesla Motors, SpaceX and other Big Tech companies
as well as the Senators mentioned, co-partnered in the government
criminal endeavors mentioned in this case. Reporters have stated to
Plaintiffs that financial disclosures indicate that those who own
direct, or mutual funds, together, in this entities are Defendants
and ‘enemies’ of the Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs and advisors request
that the Judge Swear, Warrant and Certify that they, or their partner
own no stocks or interests in any “Big Tech” companies and
that the points in the Co-Defendant Senator’s financial disclosures
(Per https://www.openthebooks.com,
https://sunlightfoundation.com/,
and Senate Investigators) do not cross over in the Judge’s finance
disclosure in any non-coincidence manner.
You
can see the reports from Congress, Federal Agencies and Investigators
verifying these assertions at: http://american-corruption.com/public/
The federally documented reports, below, prove that the number one
way to bribe Judges and public officials is via Dark Money stock
market transactions and covert Mutual Funds ‘packing’.
Such conflicts cannot even have a hint of possibility in a case
this important to every American citizen.
How can you ever trust a single judge to rule fairly on a case
involving famous politicians and notorious millionaires that the
Judge knows, parties with, co-invests with and gets political perks
from?
There is a pandemic of crooked, bribed, judges in America as the
following evidence shows. We must not give leverage to ANY
possibility that a Judge could be influenced.
The
Judge has confirmed, herself, extensive investments in: Valic
Large Cap Investment Fund, Valic Mid Cap Investment, Fund, Valic
Small Cap Investment Fund, Valic Global & Internat'l Equity Fund,
Valic Specialty Fund, Valic Fixed Income which
are investment fronts for Google, Alphabet, Tesla and the other
corrupt companies who are DOE/Defendants in this case and are under
federal criminal investigations and those companies are regulated by
the Senators and White House officials charged in these crimes. The
United States Government has sued ‘Valic’, over and over, for a
variety of misdeeds and dirty financial tricks. ‘Valic’ recently
had to change their name in order to try to ward off more bad press,
just like crooked ‘Facebook’ changed it’s name to ‘Meta’ in order to try to
ward off more bad press from Facebook being outed
as a corruption empire. The
new name of Valic is “AIG Retirement Serices”.
Readers
will recall that in the 2007-2008 “stimulus scam” a certain
contingent of Congress people insisted that a company called AIG
should get handed a massive load of free taxpayer cash. As
we all know by now, insurance giant AIG sparked national outrage by
paying more than $165 million in executive bonuses after receiving a
$170 billion taxpayer bailout in the last “Stimulus Scam”. What
fewer people know is that AIG gave more than $9 million in campaign
contributions to Congress and the Congress People that lobbied FOR
the AIG give-away were the people who AIG gave political resources
to. Valic/AIG is suspected to be a money-laundering Dark Money route
between Big Tech and members of Congress.
Plaintiffs provided information and research to Robert Simon,
the Producer for CBS News 60 Minutes TV investigative show. 60
Minutes produced segments deeply relevant to this case including:
Congress Trading On Insider Information; The Lobbyists Playbook;
The Cleantech Crash; The Data Brokers and others. The pertinent
sections of those news items can be viewed in the film: How
Political Corruption Works located at
http://american-corruption.com/NEWS_VIDEO_COVERAGE/
Robert (Bob) Simon was killed in a suspicious
car crash. Bystanders
described someone leaning into the car, at the crash, and spraying
something.
This information was publicly available to The Judge, for years,
prior to this case and was publicly discussed among the Judges peers
and associates, to this day:
Washington, D.C. is a town that runs on inside information - but
should our elected officials be able to use that information to pad
their own pockets? As Steve Kroft, Bob Simon’s peer at 60 Minutes,
reports, members of Congress and their aides have regular access to
powerful political intelligence, and many have made well-timed stock
market trades in the very industries they regulate. For now, the
practice is perfectly legal, but some say it's time for the law to
change.
Even if a Judge or Senator denies that they could be influenced by
personal favorites or by stocks that all of their friends own,
Psychology proves that assertion to be virtually impossible to be
believed. Judges, or public officials would not deny that they
subconsciously assert influence in a school to make sure their child
has the best treatment and that kids that bully their child get the
most punishment. Why should anyone think a Judge or Senator would not
consciously, or subconsciously, assert influence over something that
buys them mansions, trips to the Virgin Islands and sexy parties?
Judges and Senators in this
case are either financed by, friends, with, sleeping with, dating the
staff of, holding stock market assets in, promised a revolving door
job or government service contracts from, partying with, personal
friends with, photographed at private events with, exchanging emails
with, business associates of or directed by; our business
adversaries, or the Senators and politicians that those business
adversaries pay campaign finances to, or supply political digital
search manipulation services to. Criminal U.S. Senators coordinated
and profited in these schemes. Their own family members, who Plaintiffs, and
his peers know personally, have now supplied evidence
against them.
In one published report where
Steve Kroft was
the correspondent, with
Ira Rosen and Gabrielle
Schonder as producers,
it was shown that, for
national elections, public officials, including congressmen
and senators are expending much of their time and their energy
raising the millions of dollars in campaign funds they'll need just
to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year.
Few of them are doing it for the salary and all of them will say
they are doing it to serve the public. But there are other benefits:
Power, prestige, and the opportunity to become a Washington insider
with access to information and connections that no one else has, in
an environment of privilege where rules that govern the rest of the
country, don't always apply to them.
Most former congressmen and senators manage to leave Washington -
if they ever leave Washington - with more money in their pockets than
they had when they arrived, and as you are about to see, the biggest
challenge is often avoiding temptation. Judges lives are set
according to which Senators, and other public officials are in
office, Judges have even more incentive to rig political decisions
because most of them own mansions they can’t pay for with the
speaker fees and stock perks their office provides.
Renown anti-corruption investigative reporter: Peter Schweizer,
was asked to comment:
Peter Schweizer: “This is a venture opportunity. This is an
opportunity to leverage your position in public service and use that
position to enrich yourself, your friends, and your family.”
Peter Schweizer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a
conservative think tank at Stanford University. A year ago he began
working on a book about soft corruption in Washington with a team of
eight student researchers, who reviewed financial disclosure records.
It became a jumping off point for our own story, and we have
independently verified the material we've used.
Schweizer says he wanted to know why some congressmen and senators
managed to accumulate significant wealth beyond their salaries, and
proved particularly adept at buying and selling stocks.
Schweizer: “There are all sorts of forms of ‘honest’
grafts that congressmen engage in that allow them to become very,
very wealthy. So it's not illegal, but I think it's highly unethical,
I think it's highly offensive, and wrong.”
Steve Kroft: “What do you mean honest graft?”
Schweizer: “For example insider trading on the stock market.
If you are a member of Congress, those laws are deemed not to apply.”
Kroft: “So congressman get a pass on insider trading?”
Schweizer: “They do. The fact is, if you sit on a healthcare
committee and you know that Medicare, for example, is-- is
considering not reimbursing for a certain drug that's market moving
information. And if you can trade stock on-- off of that information
and do so legally, that's a great profit making opportunity. And that
sort of behavior goes on.”
Kroft: “Why does Congress get a pass on this?”
Schweizer: “It's really the way the rules have been defined.
And the people who make the rules are the political class in
Washington. And they've conveniently written them in such a way that
they don't apply to themselves.”
The buying and selling of stock by corporate insiders who have
access to non-public information that could affect the stock price
can be a criminal offense, just ask hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam
who recently got 11 years in prison for doing it. But, congressional
lawmakers have no corporate responsibilities and have long been
considered exempt from insider trading laws, even though they have
daily access to non-public information and plenty of opportunities to
trade on it.
Schweizer: “We know that during the health care debate people
were trading health care stocks. We know that during the financial
crisis of 2008 they were getting out of the market before the rest of
America really knew what was going on.”
In mid September 2008 with the Dow Jones Industrial average still
above ten thousand, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were holding closed door briefings with
congressional leaders, and privately warning them that a global
financial meltdown could occur within a few days. One of those
attending was Alabama Representative Spencer Bachus, then the ranking
Republican member on the House Financial Services Committee and now
its chairman.
Schweizer: “These meetings were so sensitive-- that they
would actually confiscate cell phones and Blackberries going into
those meetings. What we know is that those meetings were held one day
and literally the next day Congressman Bachus would engage in buying
stock options based on apocalyptic briefings he had the day before
from the Fed chairman and treasury secretary. I mean, talk about a
stock tip.”
While Congressman Bachus was publicly trying to keep the economy
from cratering, he was privately betting that it would, buying option
funds that would go up in value if the market went down. He would
make a variety of trades and profited at a time when most Americans
were losing their shirts.
Congressman Bachus declined to talk to us, so we went to his
office and ran into his Press Secretary Tim Johnson.
Kroft: “Look we're not alleging that Congressman Bachus has
violated any laws. All...the only thing we're interested in talking
to him is about his trades. “
Tim Johnson: “Ok...Ok that's a fair enough request.”
What we got was a statement from Congressman Bachus' office that
he never trades on non-public information, or financial services
stock. However, his financial disclosure forms seem to indicate
otherwise. Bachus made money trading General Electric stock during
the crisis, and a third of GE's business is in financial services.
During the healthcare debate of 2009, members of Congress were
trading health care stocks, including House Minority Leader John
Boehner, who led the opposition against the so-called public option,
government funded insurance that would compete with private
companies. Just days before the provision was finally killed off,
Boehner bought health insurance stocks, all of which went up. Now
speaker of the House, Congressman Boehner also declined to be
interviewed, so we tracked him down at his weekly press conference.
Kroft: “You made a number of trades going back to the health
care debate. You bought some insurance stock. Did you make those
trades based on non-public information? “
John Boehner: “I have not made any decisions on day-to-day
trading activities in my account. And haven't for years. I don't-- I
do not do it, haven't done it and wouldn't do it.”
Later Boehner's spokesman told us that the health care trades were
made by the speaker's financial adviser, who he only consults with
about once a year.
Peter Schweizer: “We
need to find out whether they're part of a blind trust or not.”
It turns out you CAN pay bribes,
though, through Mutual Funds AND Blind Trusts.
Peter Schweizer thinks the timing is suspicious, and believes
congressional leaders should have their stock funds in blind trusts.
Schweizer: “Whether it's uh-- $15,000 or $150,000, the
principle in my mind is that it's simply wrong and it shouldn't take
place.”
But there is a long history of self-dealing in Washington. And it
doesn't always involve stock trades.
Congressmen and senators also seem to have a special knack for
land and real estate deals. When Illinois Congressman Dennis Hastert
became speaker of the House in 1999, he was worth a few hundred
thousand dollars. He left the job eight years later a
multi-millionaire.
Jan Strasma: “The road that Hastert wants to build will go
through these farm fields right here.”
In 2005, Speaker Hastert got a $207 million federal earmark to
build the Prairie Parkway through these cornfields near his home.
What Jan Strasma and his neighbors didn't know was that Hastert had
also bought some land adjacent to where the highway is supposed to
go.
Strasma: “...And five months after this earmark went through
he sold that land and made a bundle of money.”
Kroft: “How much?”
Strasma: “Two million dollars.”
Kroft: “What do you think of it?”
Strasma: “It stinks.”
We stopped by the former speaker's farm, to ask him about the land
deal, but he was off in Washington where he now works as a lobbyist.
His office told us that property values in the area began to
appreciate even before the earmark and that the Hastert land was
several miles from the nearest exit.
But the same good fortune befell former New Hampshire Senator Judd
Gregg, who helped steer nearly $70 million dollars in government
funds towards redeveloping this defunct Air Force base, which he and
his brother both had a commercial interest in. Gregg has said that he
violated no congressional rules.
It's but one more example of good things happening to powerful
members of Congress. Another is the access to initial public stock
offerings, the opportunity to buy a new stock at insider prices just
as it goes on the market. They can be incredibly lucrative and hard
to get.
Schweizer: “If you were a senator, Steve, and I gave you
$10,000 cash, one or both of us is probably gonna go to jail. But if
I'm a corporate executive and you're a senator, and I give you IPO
shares in stock and over the course of one day that stock nets you
$100,000, that's completely legal.”
Plaintiffs had a social relationship with the staff of former House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She and her husband have participated in at
least eight IPOs. One of those came in 2008, from Visa, just as a
troublesome piece of legislation that would have hurt credit card
companies, began making its way through the House. Undisturbed by a
potential conflict of interest the Pelosis purchased 5,000 shares of
Visa at the initial price of $44 dollars. Two days later it was
trading at $64. The credit card legislation never made it to the
floor of the House.
Congresswoman Pelosi also declined our request for an interview,
but agreed to call on us if we attended a news conference.
Kroft: “Madam Leader, I wanted to ask you why you and your
husband back in March of 2008 accepted and participated in a very
large IPO deal from Visa at a time there was major legislation
affecting the credit card companies making its way through the--
through the House.”
Nancy Pelosi: “But--”
Kroft: “And did you consider that to be a conflict of
interest?”
Pelosi: “The-- y—uh--, errr-- I-- I don't
know what your point is of your question. Is there some point that
you want to make with that?”
Kroft: “Well, err...uhm...I-- I-- I guess what
I'm asking is do you think it's all right for a speaker to accept a
very preferential, favorable stock deal?”
Pelosi: “Well, we didn't”, she lied
Kroft: “You participated in the IPO. And at the time you were
speaker of the House. You don't think it was a conflict of interest
or had the appearance--”
Pelosi: “No, it was not--”
Kroft: “--of a conflict of interest?”
Pelosi: “--it doesn't-- it only has appearance if you decide
that you're going to have-- elaborate on a false premise. But it--
it-- it's not true and that's that.”
Kroft: “I don't understand what part's not true.”
Pelosi: “Yes sir. That-- that I would act upon an
investment.”
Congresswoman Pelosi pointed out that the tough credit card
legislation eventually passed, but it was two years later and was
initiated in the Senate.
Many believe that, even though they are older than the hills,
Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein never retire because they are they
key conduits to the West Coast controlled Big Tech stock market
payola bribes. The “Enterprise” won’t allow them to retire
because it would break the whole Big Tech stock market bribery cycle.
While it is unlikely that they are “drinking baby blood from
Chinese labor camp work prison babies to stay alive so long”,
as activists have claimed, these two are not allowed to retire by the
“Enterprise” that profits from the Big Tech stock market bribes.
Pelosi: “I will hold my record in terms of fighting the
credit card companies as speaker of the House or as a member of
Congress up against anyone.”
Corporate executives, members of the executive branch and all
federal judges are subject to strict conflict of interest rules. But
not the people who write the laws.
Pelosi and Feinstein put laws in the operation of America, and
Democracy, that specifically exclude THEM from the law...only them!
Everyone knows that it is bad to rape sheep on the front steps of
City Hall. Imagine how you would feel if you found out that fine
print had been quietly added to The Constitution that said “No
citizen may rape sheep in public….Except Nancy Pelosi and Dianne
Feinstein!”. That is essentially what happened with the law
around public officials and stock market payola! When Google, Elon
Musk and Facebook are paying Senators off via the stock market,
justice has fallen off a cliff!
Schweizer: “If you are a member of Congress and you sit on
the defense committee, you are free to trade defense stock as much as
you want to if you're on the Senate banking committee you can trade
bank stock as much as you want and that regularly goes on-- in-- in
all these committees.”
Brian Baird: “There should only be one thing in your mind
when you're drafting legislation, 'Is this good for the
United States of America?' That's it. If you're starting
to say to yourself 'how's this going to affect my investments,'
you've got-- you've got a mixed agenda and a mixed purpose for being
there.”
Brian Baird is a former congressman from Washington state who
served six terms in the house before retiring last year. He spent
half of those 12 years trying to get his colleagues to prohibit
insider trading in Congress and establish some rules governing
conflicts of interest.
Baird: “One line in a bill in Congress can be worth millions
and millions of dollars. There was one night, we had a late, late
night caucus and you could kind of tell how a vote was going to go
the next day. I literally walked home and I thought, 'Man, if you--
if you went online and made-- some significant trades, you could make
a lot of money on this.' You-- you could just see it. You could see
the potential here.”
So in 2004, Baird and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter introduced
the Stock Act which would make it illegal for members of Congress to
trade stocks on non-public information and require them to report
their stock trades every 90 days instead of once a year.
Kroft: “How far did you get with this?”
Baird: “We didn't get anywhere. Just flat died. Went
nowhere.”
Kroft: “How many cosponsors did you get?”
Baird: “I think we got six.”
Kroft: “Six doesn't sound like a very big amount.”
Baird: “It's not, Steve. You-- you could have-- 'National
Cherry Pie Week' and get 100 cosponsors.”
When Baird finally managed to get a congressional hearing on the
Stock Act, almost no one showed up. It's reintroduced every session,
but is buried so deep in the Capitol we had trouble finding
congressmen who had even heard of it.
Kroft: “Have you ever heard of the Stock Act?”
Steve Palazzo: “The what?”
Kroft: “The Stock Act. Do you know anything about it?”
Congressman: “No.”
Kroft: “Congressman. Congressman. Congressman.”
Congressman Quayle: “I haven't heard about that one yet.”
Kroft: “Have you ever heard of something called the Stock
Act?”
Congressman Watt: “No.”
Male voice: “I've heard about, but not. I can't say it's an
issue I've spent a lot of time on.”
Male voice: “I would have no problem with that.”
Kroft: “Okay.”
Male voice: “But then again I am a big fan of, you know,
instant disclosure on almost everything.”
Kroft: “They're looking for co-sponsors.”
Male voice: “And yet, I've never heard of it.”
Baird: “When you have a bill like this that makes so much
sense and you can't get the co-sponsorships, you can't get the
leadership to move it, it gets tremendously frustrating. Set aside
that it's the right thing to do, it's good politics. People want
their Congress to function well. It still baffles me.”
But what baffles Baird even more is that the situation has gotten
worse. In the past few years a whole new totally unregulated, $100
million dollar industry has grown up in Washington called political
intelligence. It employs former congressmen and former staffers to
scour the halls of the Capitol gathering valuable non-public
information then selling it to hedge funds and traders on Wall Street
who can trade on it.
Baird: “Now if you're a political intel guy. And you get that
information. Long before it's public. Long before somebody wakes up
the next morning and reads or watches the television or whatever,
you've got it. And you can make real-- real-time trades before
anybody else.”
Baird says “its taken what would be a criminal enterprise
anyplace else in the country and turned it into a profitable business
model.”
Baird: “The town is all about people saying-- what do you
know that I don't know. This is the currency of Washington, D.C. And
it's that kind of informational currency that translates into real
currency. Maybe it's over drinks maybe somebody picks up a phone. And
says you know just to let you know it's in the bill. Trades happen.
Can't trace 'em. If you can trace 'em, it's not illegal. It's a
pretty great system. You feel like an idiot to not take advantage of
it.” Public figures
trading and manipulating the stock market are an “Enterprise”
operating a Racketeering scam at the expense of citizens like Plaintiffs.
The fact remains: Judges and public officials get paid
political bribes, in the modern world, not with manila envelopes
under a table at a bar but with COVERT DARK MONEY STOCK MARKET
ASSETS!
Recently
the Supreme Court’s
Roberts said
“Judges Must be
Ethical” after
Over 100 U.S.
Judges Were Caught
Violating Ethics
Rules
(
https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-courts-roberts-says-judges-must-be-ethical-after-over-100-caught-violating-rule_4188383.html
)
The
chief justice of the Supreme Court in his year-end report called on
federal judges to work hard to adhere to ethics rules after
over 100 were caught violating a rule that requires judges recuse in
any matter in which they have a personal financial interest.
Chief
Justice John
Roberts cited (pdf)
a Wall Street Journal investigation that uncovered violations by
131 federal judges across 685 cases between 2010 and 2018.
The
George W. Bush nominee portrayed the number of violations as small,
noting that they represented less than three-hundredths of one
percent of the 2.5 million civil cases filed in the district courts
in years studied.
“Let
me be crystal clear: the Judiciary takes this matter seriously. We
expect judges to adhere to the highest standards, and those judges
violated an ethics rule. But I do want to put these lapses in
context,” he said.
The
wording drew a response by James Grimaldi, one of the Journal
investigators, who said his team investigated tens of thousands of
cases, not 2.5 million.
“The
Journal’s initial tally was an undercount; it was
impossible because of the peculiarities of the judiciary’s
financial-disclosure process and incomplete information available on
case litigants,” Grimaldi wrote on Twitter, adding that Roberts’
comment “is technically accurate, the suggestion that we could
review millions of cases is misleading.”
The
Journal said Friday that subsequent reporting raised the rally to at
least 950 violations.
Roberts
also pointed out that most of the judges involved only had one or two
identified violations, painting those instances as likely
“unintentional oversights” while singling out judges who had more
violations or said they didn’t know of the ethics rule. Each judge
is schooled on ethical duties, Roberts noted.
“This
context is not excuse. We are duty-bound to strive for 100%
compliance because public trust is essential, not incidental, to our
function. Individually, judges must be scrupulously attentive to
both the letter and spirit of our rules, as most are. Collectively,
our ethics training programs need to be more rigorous. That means
more classtime, webinars, and consultations. But it also requires
greater attention to promoting a culture of compliance, even when
busy dockets keep judicial calendars full,” he added.
Roberts
proposed utilizing technology to check whether stocks held by judges
and litigants would raise questions, floating the possibility of
obtaining fresh funding from Congress for the purpose.
He
also said that top federal legal experts are already working on
addressing the problems, including enhancing the ethics training and
refresher courses.
Roberts
pens a year-end report annually. Last year, he praised
how federal courts performed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As an example: Many U.S.
Judges Can Be Taken Out Of Office By Exposing Their Sex Crimes!
A
huge number of Judges have been charged with sex crimes because
“Judges think they are untouchable, but they are not!!”
-
NY Judge Bernstein Under Fire as All DNC Judges Re-Examine Their
Pasts.
-
US judge steps down after accusations of sexual misconduct
A
prominent U.S. appeals court judge announced his retirement Monday
days after women alleged he subjected them to inappropriate sexual
conduct or comments.
Judge
Alex Kozinski of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a
statement that a battle over the accusations would not be good for
the judiciary. He said he'll step down, effective immediately.
The
Washington Post reported last week that at least 15 women made
allegations against Kozinski that go back decades. The allegations
include inappropriate touching and lewd comments.
Kozinski
said while speaking in a "candid way" with male and female
law clerks, "I may not have been mindful enough of the special
challenges and pressures that women face in the workplace," the
statement said. "It grieves me to learn that I caused any of my
clerks to feel uncomfortable; this was never my intent. For this I
sincerely apologize."
Leah
Litman, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, told
the Post that the judge talked about having just had sex and pinched
her side and leg at a restaurant the night before they appeared
together on a panel at her school in July.
Christine
Miller, a retired U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge, said Kozinski
grabbed her breasts during a car ride in 1986 after a legal community
function in the Baltimore area. She said it came after she declined
his offer to go to a motel and have sex.
A
lawyer who was not identified said Kozinski approached her when she
was alone at a legal event in Los Angeles in 2008 and kissed her on
the lips and gave her a bear hug with no warning.
The
newspaper said the woman's husband confirmed the incident and said
the couple didn't think they could do anything because of the judge's
position.
The
Post reported last week that six former clerks or more junior staff
members accused Kozinski of inappropriate behavior, including showing
them pornography. Kozinski, 67, was chief judge of the 9th Circuit,
the largest federal appeals court circuit in the country, from 2007
to 2014. He is known for his irreverent opinions, and his clerks
often win prestigious clerkships at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The
9th Circuit has opened a misconduct inquiry that was transferred
Friday to the Judicial Council of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in New York.
Kozinski's
retirement leaves five seats open on the 9th Circuit, with two more
judges already having announced their intention to retire next year.
That gives President Donald Trump potentially seven seats to fill on
the largest and most liberal appeals court in the country.
Even
if all those judgeships are filled, however, Democratic appointees
still will maintain a healthy majority on the court with 17 of the 29
seats.
Robed in secrecy: How judges
accused of misconduct and bribes dodge public scrutiny
Thousands
of complaints are filed against judges every year, but very few
result in discipline. Ethics experts say the time for states to
transform the judiciary is now. Judges in political cases are very
often bribed by U.S. Senators who are involved in the case. Bribery
includes stock ownership.
Some
states investigating judges in judicial conduct complaints do not
ever identify them publicly or the judges are later admonished
privately.
Erik
Ortiz reports that
when litigants angered
Michael F. McGuire, the county judge in New York state’s Catskills
region, he might hit them with “judicial contempt” and order them
handcuffed, or in extreme cases, jailed for 30 days.
McGuire,
elected in Sullivan County in 2011, did it on several occasions over
the years without warning: to a man who asked the judge to recuse
himself because the man said McGuire knew his son; to a mother who
had an outburst when she felt ridiculed by the judge; and to a
grandmother who contested turning over her grandson to his allegedly
abusive father.
That
wasn’t his only concerning behavior, according to an
ethics complaint in 2018 filed by a state watchdog agency, which
accused McGuire of berating court staff; making “undignified”
comments, such as suggesting people in his court would date a “drug
dealer” or a “slut”; presiding over cases in which his
impartiality could be called into question; and representing family
members and friends in personal cases. The watchdog, the New York
State Commission on Judicial Conduct, said he “lacked candor”
during its investigation.
For
his pattern of “serious” judicial lapses, a state appeals court
agreed
last
year that McGuire — who earned a salary of $210,161 a year
— be removed from the bench, the harshest sanction a judge can
face. The public, however, had only learned about the ethics charges
months before, in March 2020, more than a year and a half after
McGuire was first served with the ethics complaint and when the
appeals court said he had been notified of the commission’s
unanimous recommendation to have him punished.
McGuire
ended up resigning in May 2020, but with another job already lined up
— as Sullivan
County’s head attorney, a position that he currently holds.
McGuire
did not respond to requests for comment. In his
resignation letter last year, he wrote that “I am quite proud
of our achievements” while on the bench and “deeply regret the
issues that brought me before this Court.”
Joseph
LaPiana, who came before McGuire in a family court case last year and
is unable to see his 1-year-old daughter as a result, said that
“judges work for the public — we should know if they are being
investigated for any misconduct.”
But
if McGuire’s misconduct violations had happened in a neighboring
state like New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Vermont, the public would have
been alerted earlier — at the outset of the filing of ethics
charges.
WATCH:
Judge
yells at prosecutor over Kyle Rittenhouse cross-examination
That
difference in when the public is allowed to know about allegations
against judges can differ broadly among states, with some allowing
judges to go months or years before even credible complaints are in
the open. With more than
100 million cases filed in local and state courts every year, and
judges exerting near-absolute power in deciding who
wins custody of children to
who can get married to
whether a person goes to jail, the public’s ability to
scrutinize judicial conduct is crucial for transparency’s sake, and
deserves as much attention as recent calls for policing
and prosecutorial
overhauls, judicial ethics experts argue.
Judicial
misconduct “undermines confidence in our justice system,” said
Susan Saab Fortney, the director of the Program for the Advancement
of Legal Ethics at Texas A&M University School of Law.
Secretive
states
Misconduct
findings are a rare outcome in the judicial complaint process. Legal
ethics experts say the minuscule share of judges punished every year
isn’t necessarily indicative that all is well in the judiciary, but
suggests a lack of accountability.
Each
state has a
form of a judicial conduct commission to which the public can
file misconduct allegations against judges. Generally, it’s up to
that body, which can be made up of fellow judges, lawyers and
laypeople, to determine if a complaint violates a state’s
code of judicial conduct — guidelines for judges to act with
independence, integrity and impartiality. A judge’s conduct inside
of a courtroom as well as outside,
including on social media, can be subject to discipline.
Judges
misusing
social media spark calls for reform
A
review by NBC News of various states’ judicial conduct commission
data from 2016 to 2020 indicates thousands of complaints are filed
across the United States annually, but about 1 percent of them result
in judges being publicly disciplined or stepping down after an
investigation is opened.
While
these commissions maintain that most complaints are frivolous — for
instance, a litigant is merely disgruntled over how a judge ruled —
for a state to typically record zero public sanctions against judges
sounds incredulous, said Robert Tembeckjian, the administrator and
counsel of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
“It’s
highly unlikely that any state would have a judiciary that is so
above reproach that year after year no one gets disciplined,”
Tembeckjian said. “Even in places like New York, where we have very
sophisticated judicial education programs, there are numerous cases
every year.”
New
York’s commission, which oversees about 3,500 state and local
judges, has received upward of 2,000 complaints annually in the past
five years, and each year, the state has sanctioned a judge or had a
resignation for misconduct in one to two dozen cases. Other large
states, such as California and Texas, sanction multiple judges every
year.
The
level of transparency surrounding misconduct cases varies by state.
Some that have reported no or few judges publicly sanctioned in
recent years, such as Iowa,
Mississippi,
South Dakota and
Wyoming, don’t make cases public until the court or panel that
decides discipline gets involved. And in three states — Delaware,
Hawaii and North Carolina — misconduct cases are only made public
in the final stage of an investigation when a judge is to be
punished.
In
about two-thirds of states, however, the public can learn much
sooner, such as when a judicial conduct commission first charges a
judge with misconduct or when the judge responds to the allegations.
States
where information is kept under wraps argue that confidentiality is
necessary for as long as possible to protect judges should they
ultimately be cleared of wrongdoing. But it turns out that in some
cases, depending on the type of transgression, judges can be
privately admonished by other judges or sent warning letters, meant
to jolt the offending judge into correcting their behavior.
NBC
News found many states opt to reprimand judges privately more often
than publicly. For instance, Pennsylvania filed formal charges
against judges 17 times from 2016 to 2020, but issued private letters
of warning or reprimand 172 times in that period.
A
sweeping
Reuters analysis in 2020 on judicial misconduct that examined
thousands of discipline cases over a dozen years determined 9 out of
10 sanctioned judges were allowed to return to the bench.
“We
have to recognize that oftentimes we have judges judging judges, and
they’re ultimately in control and judging their own,” Charles
Gardner Geyh, an Indiana University law professor who studies
judicial conduct, said.
Related:
‘One disaster after another’: How a family court judge failed
families
Tembeckjian
believes that states, including New York, should be as transparent as
possible once there’s sufficient evidence to back up allegations
against a judge, similar to how grand jury investigations are made
public when an indictment is unsealed.
Tembeckjian
said he’d like to see his judicial conduct commission have the
authority to suspend a judge during an investigation, like other
states’ commissions can do, and continue investigating a case even
after a judge resigns. Such changes, however, would require the
approval of the New York Legislature.
Ultimately,
ensuring that judges are being rightfully held accountable is
essential since guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court allows them to
be largely immune from lawsuits for acts done in their official
capacity, Tembeckjian said.
“If
there’s no sense that you can get a fair shake by going into a
court of law and have confidence that the judge is going to be
neutral and fair and apply the law honestly and responsibly, it’s
ultimately going to lead to anarchy,” he added. “Then, why not
just settle our disputes in the streets rather than a court of law?”
Making
them
pay
Efforts
are underway to enact meaningful judicial reforms at various levels.
On Dec. 1, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed
bipartisan legislation aimed at requiring federal judges to report
their financial holdings in response to a
Wall Street Journal investigation that found 131 federal judges
had broken the law and violated judicial ethics by hearing cases in
which they had a financial interest. A similar bipartisan Senate bill
is pending.
On
the state side, the Supreme Court of Louisiana last month
expanded its rules against errant judges when it tacked financial
burdens onto the disciplinary process. Not only can judges be made to
pay for the cost of investigations if discipline is recommended, but
they can be ordered to repay the cost of installing a replacement
judge. And if a judge decides to retire or resign before a formal
disciplinary process concludes, they can still be required to pay
investigatory costs.
Related:
What’s a judge’s moral standard? Allegations of racism, sexism
spotlight judicial misconduct
The
state’s chief justice, John Weimer, said in a statement that the
updated rules ensure that even retiring judges are “held
accountable” and Louisiana taxpayers aren’t on the hook for
costs, which in recent investigations have been about $2,000 to
$3,000.
About
a dozen other states, including
Arizona, Colorado,
Florida, Kansas,
Massachusetts,
New Hampshire and
South Dakota, have similar cost recovery rules or impose fines on
judges, according to the Center for Judicial Ethics at the National
Center for State Courts, a nonprofit organization that seeks to
improve the judiciary.
Marni
Bryson, a judge in Palm Beach County, Florida, faces a public
reprimand, an unpaid suspension for 10 days and a fine of $37,500
after the state judicial conduct commission said she was excessively
absent from her duties over a four-year period,
records show.
“I
knew what I did was wrong ... I have a whole year to reflect and
contemplate my actions.” said
a suspended ohio judge
In
New Hampshire, former Circuit Court Judge Julie Introcaso was ordered
to pay her investigation’s cost, almost $75,000. Introcaso
pleaded guilty last month to two counts of tampering with public
records and submitting false statements in connection to a child
custody case in which she was friends with a lawyer.
Janine
Geske, a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice in the 1990s, said she’d
like to see her state implement similar penalties, which might
“encourage judges to take responsibility early on” if their
behavioral violations are tethered to their finances.
Another
option, Geyh said, is to make the payout of a judge’s pension
contractually contingent on good behavior.
Ethics
experts say citizen judicial watchdog programs known as court
watchers
could be effective, but it’s also incumbent upon other
courtroom staff and officials who witness a judge’s poor conduct,
particularly lawyers, to speak up. They may be reticent to file
complaints, however, because they’re afraid of retaliation if a
judge learns they were behind the allegations, Fortney, the legal
ethics expert at Texas A&M, said.
“A
large percentage of states require that the complaining party be
identified,” she added. “This clearly chills reporting.”
‘I
don’t trust any judge’
But
there have been cases where lawyers and
court staff aren’t afraid to stand up to a jurist.
Ohio’s
highest court last month suspended a 19-year municipal court judge,
Mark Repp, for one year without pay after prosecutors in Seneca
County relayed how he had ordered a 20-year-old woman who was sitting
quietly in the back of his courtroom to watch her boyfriend’s
hearing get drug tested. When she refused, he sentenced her to 10
days in jail.
An
investigation found that the woman was forced to take pregnancy tests
and undergo full-body scans for contraband, although none was
detected. And while Repp assumed the woman was under the influence of
narcotics, there was no evidence indicating she was, and she had
never been charged with drug-related offenses.
In
a recent interview, Repp told NBC News that he has been concerned by
the growing rate of overdose deaths in his community, and, in dealing
with thousands of cases before him each year, he must “come up with
some kind of decision that follows the law and also is appropriate
under the circumstances.”
“I
knew what I did was wrong,” Repp said. “I’ll try to make amends
on that, and I have a whole year to reflect and contemplate my
actions.”
But
it wasn’t the only time Repp, who is up for re-election in 2025,
has faced criticism.
“Imagine
someone sitting in court for the first time, and now they think it’s
what the judicial system is like,” said John Kahler II, a lawyer
who once accused the judge of being biased against a client and
unsuccessfully tried to get him disqualified from the case.
One
woman who appeared before Repp in August did file a complaint to say
he labeled her a “known meth user” in open court, which she wrote
made her feel “very embarrassed by Repp’s conduct and false
accusations.” Repp said the complaint process in Ohio is a “good
one” because the public does learn about judges accused of
misconduct early on.
But
Ana Petro, who was in Repp’s court for a traffic violation this
year, doesn’t believe his suspension can remedy how he made her and
others feel: worthless. A reckoning throughout the judiciary is
needed, she said.
“I
understand it’s not a judge’s job to be nice, but when he’s
abusing his power to be a judge, that’s when I have a problem,”
Petro said. “And I don’t trust any judge at all because of him.”
In
another of thousands of points of proof that Judges are often just as
bad as the criminals before them:
A
Long Island judge who police say repeatedly broke into his neighbor's
home to steal her underwear has confessed to snatching panties on
multiple occasions, even though he has pleaded not guilty.
Still,
Suffolk County District Judge Robert Cicale has been removed from the
bench and is facing up to 15 years in prison.
Cicale
was arrested
on
burglary charges and
appeared in court Friday morning.
The judge is a married
father of three young children, and he is accused of sneaking into a
home across the street and stealing the underwear of a 23-year-old
woman who lives there with her parents. He reportedly knew the girl
from when she worked as an intern at the Islip Town Attorney's
Office, when he used to work there.
In his confession, he
said he stole the underwear upon feeling "urges." He
admitted that on several occasions, he entered the home, opened her
hamper and took underwear.
Cicarle was taken into custody
after an incident that happened around 9 a.m. Thursday, when the
young woman was alone. Prosecutors said she was sleeping but woke up
when she heard the door open. She called out, "Hello?" and
that's when she saw Cicale at the doorway.
Authorities say
he turned around and ran away, and the victim closed and locked the
door and called her mother, who called 911. Responding officers say
they saw Cicale walking up to a different house and pretending to
knock on the door.
They approached him because he matched
the description of the person the victim described. They reportedly
found several pairs of soiled women's underwear on him, which the
victim identified as her own.
Cicale has written letter of
apology to victim and also provided a written confession.
Cicale
is accused of stealing his female neighbor's underwear.
"This
is highly disturbing," Suffolk County District Attorney Tim Sini
said. "This is an individual who swore to uphold the law. He
violated it in a very serious way. The message here from both the
Suffolk County Police Department and the Suffolk County District
Attorney's office is that no one is above the law, and we'll
prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law."
A
Nassau County district judge presided over Cicale's case to prevent a
conflict of interest. Cicale is expected to receive mental health
treatment.
"His reputation throughout the court is
stellar," defense attorney William Wexler said. "Every
judge, every lawyer respects him, and we just have to see how the
process plays out."
Wexler went on to say that the
judge's wife is standing by her husband through this process.
Cicale
was ordered held on $50,000. Cicale was "temporarily relieved of
his judicial duties" and the matter was referred to the state's
Court of Appeals to determine whether to suspend the jurist, court
system spokesman Lucian Chalfen said.
A judge also issued
a restraining order that prevents Cicale from contacting the victim
and, as a condition of his bail, Cicale will also be required to wear
a GPS monitor, Sini said.
Neighbors were shocked when they
learned of the judge's arrest.
"From what I heard,
it's a little perverted maybe," neighbor William Bloom said.
"And that never makes sense to me."
Cicale is a
graduate of St. John's Law School, a former legal aide attorney and a
former Islip Town Attorney elected to the District Criminal Court in
2016.
"He's a family man, he's always outside playing
basketball with his kids," neighbor Jay Moceri said. "He's
always jogging. He's always friendly to everybody in the
neighborhood."
(The Associated Press contributed
to this report.)
What's a judge's moral standard?
Allegations of racism, sexism spotlight judicial misconduct
Probate
Judge Randy Jinks has mostly denied the allegations by employees. The
case spotlights how Alabama handles ethics complaints against judges.
Probate
Judge Randy Jinks faces more than 100 allegations in a scathing
complaint. Erik
Ortiz goes on the
explain:
Since
he was sworn into office in January 2019, Probate Judge Randy Jinks
of Alabama has had a central role in the most significant moments of
people's lives in Talladega County, about 50 miles east of
Birmingham. Jinks, the county's chief election official, has overseen
adoptions and guardianships, mental health commitments and the
issuing of marriage licenses.
Behind
the scenes, employees accuse Jinks, 65, of cultivating a toxic and
hostile workplace that undermined the integrity of his office.
More
than 100 allegations were outlined in a scathing 78-page
complaint issued in March by the Judicial Inquiry Commission, the
state body that reviews complaints against judges, detailing racist
and sexist conversations that employees claim Jinks initiated,
including talking about pornography and a video of a woman doing a
striptease. Some allege that he made disparaging remarks about George
Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, Black people who came into
the office and the office's sole Black employee.
Some
employees also allege that Jinks, who is white, used profane language
and threw tantrums, once going on a tirade after his sandwich went
missing from a refrigerator, and that he tried to use the power of
his position to get or grant favors.
The
complaint, which is based on interviews with current and former
employees of the Talladega County Probate Office, accuses Jinks of
exhibiting a pattern of behavior "that has created a difficult,
unprofessional, and inappropriate atmosphere," which has
"injured respect for the judiciary."
Jinks
is accused of violating the state
Canons of Judicial Ethics, the guidelines that say judges must
uphold the honor of the judiciary, maintain decorum and avoid
impropriety. He has denied the majority of the accusations, saying
some of the incidents have been taken out of context, and he is
fighting the allegations in the Alabama Court of the Judiciary.
Jinks
was suspended in March and will remain suspended until the court
decides whether the claims warrant punishment, including a longer
suspension or removal from office. No trial date has been set.
"I
am a decent person," Jinks said in
an interview on local television station WOTM in March. "I
am very respectful around women. I do not use racial slurs. I do not
go on tirades in office. I do get mad if somebody steals my food."
In a 44-page
answer to the complaint filed in April, Jinks denies "any
inappropriate demeanor regarding African Americans" and said the
complaint "contains flagrant, false, vague and subjective
accusations."
The
case, which continues, has put a spotlight on how often complaints
against judges in the state are reviewed and whether the mechanism to
punish judges for misconduct or ethics violations is sufficient.
"In
the past, there have been individuals on the Judicial Inquiry
Commission that have had a less strict view of judges' adhering to
the rules, and they simply were not really open to removing judges,"
said Sue Bell Cobb, who retired as chief justice of the Alabama
Supreme Court in 2011 and has advocated
for reforms. "Judges should be held to a higher standard.
End of story."
'Grossly
inappropriate
demeanor'
Jinks
won his probate judge race in November 2018, defeating his Democratic
opponent by more than 5,000 votes and becoming the first Republican
elected to the office in Talladega County.
Probate
judges are elected to six-year terms in Alabama, and nearly every
county, including Talladega, doesn't require them to have law degrees
or to be lawyers, unlike probate judges in most other states. Jinks
is a former program director for the Alabama State Parks, and he had
worked on the campaign of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, who left office in
2011.
"I
felt the time was right," Jinks told
The Daily Home newspaper of Talladega in 2018 about why he ran
for the judgeship. "The man upstairs wanted me to do this."
According
to the Judicial Inquiry Commission's complaint, which identifies
employees only by their initials, Jinks' "grossly inappropriate
demeanor" didn't begin immediately; instead, it ramped up about
six months into his judgeship.
The
employees say he would mouth a racial slur "on occasions"
to his deputy chief clerk when he was referring to a Black person.
One time, after a Black couple had been in the office to fill out a
marriage certificate, he said, "What did their Black asses
want?" an employee recalled, according to the complaint.
He
is also accused of having spoken disparagingly about the Black Lives
Matter movement and the protests that erupted across the country
after Floyd
was killed in police custody in Minneapolis a year ago.
Employees
say he commented that "I don't see anything wrong with the
police killing him" and that "he pretty much got what he
deserved."
Jinks
would also play uncensored videos of racial justice protests that
included racial slurs and profane language loud enough that they
could be "heard by others outside his office, including any
customers at the front counter," according to the complaint.
Employees
say that last June, when news reports surfaced that Bubba Wallace,
the only Black driver in NASCAR's top series, had
found a noose in his garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway,
Jinks commented that Wallace was "just playing the Black card."
The
only Black employee among the nine or so people who worked under
Jinks at the probate office says in the complaint that Jinks would
aim racist and unprofessional comments at him.
"He
was a wolf in sheep's clothing," the man, Darrius Pearson, who
joined the office as a clerk in 2018 under the previous probate
judge, told NBC News. Pearson said that he had even voted for Jinks
but that after months of humiliating and withering comments, he quit
in November and wanted to come forward publicly.
Pearson
said that in May 2019, Jinks saw his new car and said that he, as a
judge, couldn't afford one. "What are you doing? Selling drugs?"
Jinks said, according to Pearson.
Last
September, Pearson returned to work after a trip to the post office
about the same time that students from Talladega College, a private
historically Black college, were marching in support of Black Lives
Matter. He said Jinks asked him repeatedly whether he had joined the
demonstration.
"I
don't want nothing to have to happen to your job, you out there
marching — marching 'Black Lives Matter' during county time,"
Jinks said before he walked off laughing, according to Pearson and
the complaint.
The
complaint says employees felt uncomfortable and embarrassed by Jinks'
"inappropriate demeanor" toward Pearson and other Black
people.
Jinks,
who is married with a daughter, is also accused of using demeaning
language about women and talking openly about sex. Pearson said that
in July, around the time of a Republican runoff election in Alabama's
U.S. Senate race, Jinks showed him a video of a woman doing a
striptease while they were in an election room.
Pearson
said he told Jinks he didn't want to look at the video.
Another
time, Jinks told a female employee: "I like porn. Don't you?"
according to the complaint. He is also accused of having commented
about an employee's breasts and stared at her body, as well as having
made other female employees uncomfortable. Employees said he also
routinely commented about the physical appearance of female lawyers
and spoke derisively about women with tattoos or about their body
size.
"Don't
ever marry a woman. She'll get fat," he said after he saw a
photo of a female employee in her wedding dress, according to the
complaint. Jinks' comments about the employee's weight were "so
prevalent as to give her the impression that her weight matters more
to him than her work performance," the complaint said.
Pearson,
who had been the only male employee in the office, said Jinks gave
him a birthday card in September featuring a cartoon cow and donkey
and the message "Thought you'd like to see some teats and ass on
your birthday!" The card, which was shared with NBC News, is
signed, "Have a Great B'day. Randy."
Other
employees refused to sign it, according to Pearson and the complaint.
Jinks didn't deny having given the card but said in his response to
the commission that "office humor has been overblown."
The
complaint also says Jinks' county-owned cellphone was used to look at
a website that sold sex products and to view provocative photos of
women. It says he lent the phone to a felon whom he met when she was
waitressing.
In
addition, the complaint details allegations accusing Jinks of having
abused the prestige of his judicial office by asking a prosecutor in
a neighboring county to help the felon and release her early from her
sentence on a narcotics-related charge.
The
district attorney denied the request, saying it was inappropriate,
according to the complaint, which said that Jinks tried to solicit
the help of attorneys who appeared before his court to get the felon
an early release and that he eventually succeeded.
Amanda
Hardy, Jinks' attorney, said that the complaints were "concocted
by a few disgruntled" employees and that the commission's
complaint "fails to mention all exculpatory evidence and
testimony." She said allegations that Jinks is racist were
"fabricated to generate antagonism with the public, the Court of
Judiciary, and the media."
'He
thought
he couldn't be touched'
In
his response to the allegations, Jinks mostly denied what employees
told the Judicial Inquiry Commission, according to the complaint.
He
specifically denied the disparaging remarks about staring at women's
bodies in the office and in court, as well as talking about body
weight, among other accusations. He also said he couldn't remember
certain actions he is accused of, such as telling an employee that he
likes porn, according to the complaint.
He
also denied having made remarks about Floyd.
"The
Respondent believes ... that there exists no excuse for the killing
of George Floyd, that watching the video is sickening,
unconscionable, inhumane and horrifying," Jinks said in written
answers to the complaint. In regard to Pearson's version of events
about Black Lives Matter protests, Jinks "adamantly denies any
communication, implied or expressed, that Mr. Pearson should not
participate in any way with the Black Lives Matter march or the
like."
Jinks
also told the commission that if he did make certain comments, they
were in a personal and private capacity, and that employees were
eavesdropping or should have asked him to shut his door.
He
said that comments people say they heard may have been taken out of
context or were misunderstood jokes and that if he had been told that
something was "racially or sexually insensitive and offensive,"
he would have "responded in a serious manner." Jinks didn't
deny the interaction involving the striptease video that Pearson said
he was shown, but he told the commission that it was played for three
seconds or less.
In
his written response, he said that "sharing the video amounted
to a lapse in judgment, the significance of which has been
exaggerated."
Jinks
denied having asked for favors to help a felon, saying in his answer
to the complaint that his helping her "was purely a ministry, in
which no appearance of impropriety and/or expectation of judicial
favor can reasonably be inferred."
Pearson
said the complaints were a collaborative effort by employees who
feared retaliation for speaking out but were fed up with Jinks.
"He
is very arrogant, pompous, and he thought he couldn't be touched,"
Pearson said.
The
complaint doesn't specify any grievances or allegations made by
litigants, attorneys or members of the public, and it doesn't say any
of Jinks' rulings were affected by his alleged misconduct.
Still,
Jenny Carroll, a professor at the University of Alabama School of
Law, said that it matters how judges behave outside the courtroom and
in front of office staff and that comments that appear to be
inappropriate can call into question how they came to rulings.
"What
if people coming before you are women and Black? If they don't get
the outcome they wanted, they'll be wondering was it because their
claim wasn't strong enough or perhaps the judge carries explicit
biases," Carroll said. "The bottom line is it's going to
raise doubts in people's minds."
Most
complaints
dismissed
The
nine-member state Judicial Inquiry Commission, which is made up of
judges, lawyers and private citizens, gets scores of complaints about
judges every fiscal year, many of which fail to rise to the level of
formal charges to be filed with the Court of the Judiciary, which is
also a mix of legal professionals and laypeople.
The
commission said it reviewed 174 complaints against judges in fiscal
year 2018 and dismissed 132 of them without investigation, citing
reasons such as that there was no reasonable basis to charge, that no
ethical violation was determined or that a case wasn't within its
jurisdiction. Of 18 investigations that were completed, all of the
related complaints were dismissed, the commission said.
Ultimately,
the commission filed no charges against judges in the Court of the
Judiciary during fiscal year 2018. Cases are often settled with
judges before trials are held, and judges may decide to retire or
resign to avoid public scrutiny, Carroll said.
In
rarer cases, judges are removed from the bench. That happened to Roy
Moore, the former state chief justice, who was ousted twice for
defying federal court orders. Moore's appeals were rejected.
2014:
Roy
Moore said what?
The
commission didn't immediately respond to requests for further
information. Chairman Billy Bedsole, a lawyer, also didn't
immediately reply to requests for comment.
Cobb,
the former state chief justice, said changes are needed in the
complaint process so people are comfortable coming forward.
Currently, she said, the commission's process is too lenient toward
judges, who are notified and kept apprised of investigations and also
get copies of subpoenas given to witnesses.
Cobb
said that gives judges the opportunity to use their influence and
potentially put pressure on people to dissuade them from filing
complaints for fear of retaliation.
She
said reforms should include doing away with notifying judges about
who filed complaints and directing more state funding toward the
Judicial Inquiry Commission so investigations don't have to languish
and all complaints can be fully reviewed, not just the most egregious
cases.
Carroll
said that even after a judge who clearly violated ethical standards
is removed, other issues deserve scrutiny, such as identifying cases
in which people were the victims of unfair and impartial rulings and
offering remediation.
"Getting
problem judges off the bench is only a piece of the problem,"
she said.
Contra Costa Superior Court Judge
Steven Austin Aided & Abetted Real Property Theft
….Says
Whistle Blower Architect
Contra
Costa County Superior Court Judge Steven Austin Aided & Abetted
Real Property Theft with the help of Assessor Gus Kramer & Other
Public Officials
A
local vetted source has provided a complaint filed with District
Attorney Diane Becton on June 14, 2018, demanding a criminal
investigation of several public officials including Gus Kramer and
Martinez Superior Court Judge Steven K. Austin. This complaint
alleges that Judge Austin colluded with County officials by rigging a
trial in an effort to steal real property from an Orinda resident.
The
verified complaint to the District Attorney describes how County and
City of Orinda
officials failed
to enforce code violations on the property of an architect who
committed horrific environmental crimes and zoning violations. This
architect, with the help of City of Orinda and Contra Costa County
officials, was able to double the square footage of his house and
also change public records on the assessor’s record to reflect the
unpermitted additions. In early 2013, the County Assessor’s office
was notified by the whistleblower about the tampering of public
records, but Gus Kramer refused to investigate.
According
to several forensic engineers and experts, this Orinda architect
resorted to extreme tactics with reckless disregard for the
environment in order to access the whistleblower’s panoramic views
and cheat on his property taxes. The architect’s zoning violations
also included exceeding setback and height limits, grading massive
amount of dirt, destroying a ridge line, uprooting several landmark
oak trees, and illegally building decking, structures, pouring
concrete and piers next and on top of utility East Bay Municipal
Utility District (EBMUD) drainage pipes. Further, this architect
built nuisances on two neighboring properties and tampered with
public records.
The
subject experts who reviewed the case documents are in agreement that
environmental and zoning violations have placed the surrounding
houses and safety of residents in danger of flooding and created a
fire hazard in the Sleepy Hollow, Orinda neighborhood.
New
evidence indicates that recent
press articles circulated by the Mercury News may be heavily
influenced by the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors. Such
press alleges that Gus
Kramer engaged in
sexual misconduct, leading to his private censoring. However, in view
of the complaint to the District Attorney, it is questionable as to
whether the new sexual misconduct allegations are indeed the true
crux of Kramer’s wrongdoings, or whether these accusations are
intended to detract from the very serious criminal acts that are
described in the June 14, 2018 complaint to the DA Becton about the
Orinda property theft.
This
article states: ”On June 18, County
Administrator David Twa
wrote to one of the accusers — associate appraiser Margaret Eychner
— saying an independent investigator determined it was ‘more
likely than not’ that on several occasions in 2014 and 2015, Kramer
‘made comments that were not appropriate in a workplace environment
and that made you feel uncomfortable.’ ”
08-05-2018
CCCounty
Gus Kramer embroiled in another sex harassment probe
(Click
Here)
It
is highly suspicious that within three days after the whistleblower’s
complaint having been filed, David Twa resurrects alleged sexual
misconduct by Kramer dating back to 2015. It is reasonable to infer
that the county officials are giving Gus Kramer a get out of jail
free card instead of allowing DA Becton to do her job by conducting
criminal investigation of Gus Kramer, Judge Austin and others.
Strangely enough, the whistleblower’s complaint names David Twa
being involved in aiding and abetting the theft of her property as
well.
Board
of
supervisors, not former DA Mark Petersen, axed the probe into Gus
Kramer’s criminal investigation. (Click here for evidence)
The complaint to DA
Becton states that the whistleblower tried to facilitate the
architect to remove the encroaching nuisance that interfered with her
privacy. The architect continuously promised to do so, but
deliberately misled her for two (2) years. He then swiftly ambushed
her by filing a lawsuit claiming several baseless legal assertions
including outright ownership and punitive damages for accusing him of
building without permit.
Before
filing the lawsuit, the Orinda architect threatened
“either you agree to a lot line adjustment or I will drag you
through the court for years to come and make you lose everything you
have.”
Public
records show the whistle blower in 2012 involved county deputy
director, Jason
Crapo, county
engineer Thoam
Huggett, and
former Orinda planning director, Emmanuel
Ursu. However, in
a meeting both Ursu and Thoam Huggett, threatened that the county
would retaliate and reverse everything by coming after the whistle
blower instead, if she didn’t stop complaining about the
architect’s violations.
Communications
between the whistleblower and the County public officials and the
Assessor’s office show a blatant refusal of public officials to
investigate the architect’s violations. The Orinda city officials,
however, opened a code enforcement investigation against the
architect for encroaching onto another neighbor’s property.
Incidentally, this other neighbor was an attorney with political
aspirations.
The
whistleblower’s complaint to the District Attorney accuses the
officials of selectively applying the rules and failing to prosecute
white collar crime, as in this case clearly the violations didn’t
apply to the Orinda architect. Also, when it came to opening a code
enforcement the rules only applied to an elite group of people,
attorneys and others who are politically well-connected.
Obstructed
by the tax collector, Gus Kramer, and the Building Department’s
refusal to investigate, the whistleblower sought help from the local
police for unlawful trespass and property damage. The police
also refused to do their job, but assured her that she had every
legal right to defend her property by removing the encroaching
nuisance from her land. The police offered to protect the whistle
blower and arrest the architect, if he interfered with the removal.
Documented
communications prove the whistle blower went so far as to call
self-proclaimed tree-hugger career-politician Steve Glazer when he
was the mayor of City of Orinda. Steve
Glazer ignored
serious California environmental code violations, reckless
destruction of protected Oak trees, perjury and falsifying a permit
committed by the architect’s surveyor, Rick Humann and county
deputy director Jason Crapo.
The
architect was emboldened knowing one of his many attorneys, H.
Clyde Long,
had inside connections with the Martinez judiciary, i.e.
Judge Steven K. Austin.
Attorney Long also serves as the chair of city of Lafayette’s code
enforcement appeal board and advertises
on
his website that he can help those with “city/county code
enforcement.” The complaint alleges that the architect had
inside political influence with the municipal officials, the
Assessor’s Office and the Building Department to be able to
unlawfully change the public records twice by increasing the square
footage of his house, without any evidence of any permits to increase
his house’s size.
Indisputable
evidence is provided of open judicial extortion committed by Judge
Austin in voluminous trial transcripts involving a lawsuit filed by
the architect in violation of zoning laws who is also cheating on his
taxes, demanding an outright ownership of the whistleblower’s land
and the court preventing her free speech regarding his violations.
Judge Austin’s abuse of power and judicial misconducts and
collusion to steal the whistleblower’s property is captured
throughout the trial transcripts:
“THE
COURT: So what they are saying is, as I understand from that
side, the evidence that's been developed would be that it's not
relevant how big the house is even if it's more than what it's
supposed to be on the records of the city because it has nothing to
do with the property line dispute, and that it would be more
prejudicial than probative to go into that because you'd make them
look bad because they built a house bigger than it's supposed to be,
right?”
“THE
COURT: It sounds like you're just trying to say that it looks
like they must have cheated on their property taxes so they must be
bad people” (RT.Vol.4P.168L-5-9).” ”It's a difficult
case, in many respects and exactly how this property will be used,
going forward, it's not going to matter that much as long as they
don't move back, but if they do move back, it's going to make a big
difference I think in terms of how the property will be used because
of just the history. Okay (RT.Vol.062414P.3301L.9-P.3302L8).”
Dewey
Wheeler (represented state farm insurance) openly made fun of Judge
Austin’s Kangaroo trial and jury instructions at the expense of
CoCoCounty tax payers when he appropriately called the judicial
council a dark hole.
However,
the law is clear in stating that: The California Judicial Canon
of Ethics prohibit a judge from ignoring indisputable evidence of the
commission of fraud, he has an outright duty to report such fraud to
law enforcement. Not to mention that the rules of ethics
prohibit a litigant from using the court system with “unclean
hands”. On the record Judge Austin is allowing the architect
and his three attorneys to play fast and loose with his court and
helped them to correct deficiencies in their lawsuit by coaching
them. The architect acted as though he owned Judge Austin’s court.
Review
of the trial transcripts by several legal experts show in no
uncertain terms, this whistleblower’s case is a posterchild example
of thuggery run amok in a deeply-embedded incestuous web of municipal
officials, the judiciary, attorneys and politicians. The whistle
blower was retaliated against and thrusted into a rigged court
because she exposed the systemic corruption in the offices of the
county of Contra Costa and the tax collector, Gus Kramer.
Judge
Austin on the record stated he found attorney misconduct entertaining
when presented with evidence of witness intimidation, declaration
tampering and obstruction of justice committed by three attorneys,
Clyde Long, Brandon Dooley and Dewey Wheeler who
represented State Farm Insurance. David
Miller of Moraga
was selected by Judge Austin as the discovery referee and paid by
state Farm insurance. He too consistently ignored attorney misconduct
and was actively engaged in legally abusing the whistle blower.
The
lawsuit substantiates the architect’s initial threats of his intent
to use his political and judicial connections to steal her property
and ruin her financially by dragging her through years of litigation.
The court record shows that right from the inception the case was
rigged. Judge Steven K. Austin admitted that he personally
hand-picked the case because he found it to be interesting.
Bolstering the existence of backroom dealing, Judge Austin just also
happens to be a resident of Orinda and buddies with the architect’s
attorney Clyde Long. Additionally, the architect’s homeowner’s
insurance is State Farm, Judge Austin’s former employer.
The
complaint alleges that Judge
Steven K. Austin
engaged in extortion by threatening that “if you do not give up
your land for $10K I will make you fall flat on your face and make
you pay him, instead. A lot of money.” The complaint also states
Judge Austin and public officials concocted a plan to extort the
whistle blower in agreeing to a lot line adjustment, through abusive
litigation and wasting taxpayer’s money on allowing a white collar
criminal to come to court with unclean hands. When she refused to
relinquish her property rights, the officials with the help of Judge
Austin retaliated. They schemed a plan to manipulate the trial to
come up with a fake money judgement that the whistle blower could not
pay. The judgment against the whistle blower ended up to become
approximately about $300,000, including additional fees.
The
whistleblower demanded that local politicians and government agencies
circumvent the retaliatory judgment, and involved the former DA Mark
Petersen and other politicians such as Mark
DeSaulnier, Catharine Baker, John Garamandi, Dianne Feinstein, Kamala
Harris, and the
Board of Supervisors of Contra Costa County, specifically Candace
Andersen. None of the officials apparently did anything to stop the
commission of the crimes by Contra Costa County officials.
Reviewing
the emails with public officials show the whistleblower engaged legal
counsel who agreed to confront the City of Orinda officials regarding
these officials’ failure to perform their jobs and ignoring perjury
committed by Rick
Humann, the
architect’s surveyor. In the meantime, the whistleblower involved
the County chair of planning commissioner, Duane Steele, who referred
her to the Deputy Director of County Building Department Aruna
Baht. Aruna Baht,
upon reviewing the fraud documents, immediately assigned inspector
Joe Losado
to inspect the architect’s house and tag it. Joe Losado admitted to
the attorney that the architect did not have any permits on file.
Inexplicably,
however, Joe Losado refused to inspect the architect’s house and
engaged in threatening the attorney to back off or the county
attorney, Sharon Anderson, would revoke his license and file a
restraining order against his client.
In
2017, Mark Petersen had assigned the case to Steve Moawad, former DA,
for public corruption. However, DA Moawad was prohibited to
investigate Gus Kramer, Judge Austin and others at the behest of
board of supervisors.
DA
Moawad
stated in writing that he was going to continue investigating
Orinda officials for failure to open a code enforcement against the
architect. Conspicuously, Steve Moawad left the DA’s Office to
become
California
Bar Chief Trial Counsel without concluding the case.
Several series of emails prove the public officials were complicit in
committing crimes against the whistle blower. (Click
Here)
The
court files demonstrate that the Board of Supervisors and Judge
Steven Austin have committed egregious violations in order to silence
the whistleblower and prevent the whistleblower from being able to
seek appropriate remedy and redress. Judge Austin conducted an
expensive jury trial in 2013 in which the jurors were provided with
manipulated instructions that biased the jury improperly. In
addition, according to several jurors and the transcripts, Judge
Austin gave them a jury instruction that was not part of the record.
Sample
kangaroo trial transcripts
Further,
the County appears to have enlisted State Farm Insurance to hire a
private investigator to follow and harass the whistleblower’s
daughter in another state for over two years. The whistleblower
accuses Contra Costa County Supervisor Candace
Andersen for
failing to mitigate and offer appropriate redress. Incidentally, her
husband Philip
Andersen
works exclusively for State Farm Insurance as defense
counsel.
As
stated in a law review article
by Orlando J. Villalba. “Slapping Criminal Speech; how Evolution of
the Illegality Exception has Impacted California’s Anti-Slapp
Statute”, this type of lawsuit is deliberately brought to
financially decimate its opponent. The true desire of the trespasser
is to cause delay and distraction. And to punish his/her opponent for
standing up for him/herself. (Click
here for Villalba’s article)
CA
Penal Section SCC. 518. State and Federal Statutes show the
definition of the criminal offense of extortion as follows:
Extortion
is the obtaining of property or other consideration from another,
with his or her consent, or the obtaining of an official act of a
public officer, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under
color of official right.
Years
of articles published by the Mercury News show that a culture of “pay
to play” is deeply embedded in Contra Costa County municipalities
and its court system. At the very core of this crisis is Tax
Collector and Assessor Gus Kramer and the Board of Supervisors.
As illustrated by Tom
Lochner’s article in May of 2008 “Building disputes near an
end”, falsifying and forging documents in the Contra Costa County
Building Inspection Department is apparently standard operating
procedure. (Click
here for the article)
In
2011, the District Attorney’s Office axed a probe investigating
Assessor Gus Kramer for a financial scheme involving evading transfer
taxes in shady land deals. It was just outright nixed—as if
it never existed.
All
of this was obviously known to the Board of Supervisors. Thomas
Peele, Pulitzer award winning Journalist, exposed Gus Kramer in his
article titled “His
Deal Deeds and Doubts.” (Click
here for the article)
Federal
prosecutors have the authority and jurisdiction to hold judges
accountable for their unlawful conduct by charging them with a
federal crime. Section
242 of Title 18 of the U.S. code ― the so-called “color of
law” statute ― is the same federal civil rights legislation that
Justice Department prosecutors use against Law enforcement officers
who use excessive force and make false arrests. The law applies to
prosecutors and judges too. However, the feds do not use it against
judges.
Judges
are responsible to apply the law and are held to the same standards
as everyone else, and when judges flagrantly violate the law, there
should be consequences for them as well. Unfortunately, when judges
are caught committing a crime, they are allowed to collect tax payer
funded retirement packages and obtain work as mediators collecting
$500 hourly rates with corporate entities like ADR Services Inc.
Our
News Group is a collaborative media organization with a focus on
exposing public and judicial corruption, when main stream media
fails. Please email us (californiaexposegroup@protonmail.com)
if you have additional information about this case or your rights
have been violated by Judge Austin or parties involved or any other
judge in the Contra Costa Superior Court in California.
In another example one can see
that “When The Judge Works For Your
Political Adversary And Is Ordered To ‘Take You Out’ By The White
House”, the rules of Court are abused, ie:
KYLE
CHENEY says that Roger
Sone's lawyers say, in
particular, that Judge Amy Berman Jackson's decision to assert that
jurors in the case "served with integrity" strikes at the
heart of Stone's motion for a new trial, which they indicated is
largely based on whether at least one juror was inappropriately
biased against him.
"Whether
the subject juror (and perhaps others) served with 'integrity' is one
of the paramount questions presented in the pending Motion,"
Stone's lawyers argued. "The Court’s ardent conclusion of
'integrity' indicates an inability to reserve judgment on an issue
which has yet been heard."
Jackson
made her remark during an impassioned rebuke of the arguments Stone's
legal team offered during his trial. She said that Stone and his
lawyers minimized the significance of his effort to frustrate
congressional investigators as they sought to understand Russia's
interference in the 2016 election, a grave national security
challenge.
"Sure,
the defense is free to say: So what? Who cares?" Jackson said.
"But, I'll say this: Congress cared. The United States
Department of Justice and the United States Attorney's Office for the
District of Columbia that prosecuted the case and is still
prosecuting the case cared. The jurors who served with integrity
under difficult circumstances cared. The American people cared. And I
care."
Stone
was convicted last year on multiple counts of covering up to
congressional investigators, as well as a count of witness
intimidation for pressuring an associate to refuse to cooperate with
Congress. Lawmakers sought Stone's testimony regarding his attempts
to act as an intermediary between Wikileaks and the Trump campaign,
but he repeatedly refused to tell House members about his multiple
efforts to contact Wikileaks head Julian Assange, denying he had
communications with certain associates that were later discovered to
be voluminous.
It
will also likely reach the receptive ears of the president, who has
repeatedly amplified criticism of Jackson and repeated false claims
about the nature of the charges against Stone.
Trump's
allies are agitating for the president to issue a pardon or commute
Stone's sentence, and though Trump is widely expected to do so
eventually, the timing is uncertain. Jackson also used her sentencing
comments to underscore that Stone's overarching effort in impeding
Congress was to protect Trump from scrutiny.
Jackson
delivered her sentence Thursday but delayed it until after she
considers Stone's motion for a new trial. Though the motion was filed
under seal, Stone's team indicated that it will focus on a juror.
"Stone’s
Motion for New Trial is directly related to the integrity of a juror.
It is alleged that a juror misled the Court regarding her ability to
be unbiased and fair and the juror attempted to cover up evidence
that would directly contradict her false claims of impartiality,"
his lawyers argued.
"The
premature statement blessing the “integrity of the jury”
undermines the appearance of impartiality and presents a strong bias
for recusal," they added.
According
to the February 5th order issued by Judge Jackson, Roger Stone cited
a problem with a juror, however his motion was denied.
The
details of the juror are unknown because the order released Wednesday
was redacted, however, Roger
Stone’s defense team in November tried to strike down several
potential jurors who were overt Trump-hating leftists.
Several
potential jurors in Stone’s case ended up being Trump-hating,
Obama-era officials who admittedly voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016
so Stone’s lawyer’s tried to strike them as potential jurors.
One
of the potential jurors actually had a husband who worked in the DOJ
and played a role in the Russian collusion hoax that ultimately took
down Roger Stone — and Judge Jackson allowed her to remain as a
potential juror!
Being
that Amy Berman Jackson denied Stone’s motion for a new trial last
week, it occurred before the DOJ backed down from the excessive
sentencing handed down by Mueller’s thugs.
The
order is about a potential issue with a juror and it's dated Feb. 5,
so this all occurred before the resignations and withdrawals and
Trump's intervention.
— Kyle
Cheney (@kyledcheney) February
12,
2020
Amy
Berman Jackson is a corrupt liberal Obama judge who imposed a very
strict gag order on Roger Stone even though he did nothing wrong.
Stone
was caught up in Mueller’s abusive Russia witch hunt simply because
he helped Trump win the White House in 2016.
Federal
Prosecutors on Monday recommended Trump confidante Roger Stone serve
7-9 years in prison for process crimes during the Mueller witch
hunt.
In
a rare move, the Department of Justice backed down from its abusive
sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone.
All
four prosecutors who signed Roger Stone’s sentencing memo seeking
an excessive prison term of 7 to 9 years resigned like cowards on
Tuesday after AG Bill Barr stepped in and smacked them down.
Mueller’s
prosecutors and this corrupt judge made for a very toxic and abusive
case against Roger Stone.
President
Trump torched Demon Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Tuesday night.
Is
this the Judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT,
something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure? How did she
treat Crooked Hillary Clinton? Just asking! https://t.co/Fe7XkepJNN
— Donald
J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February
12,
2020
We
reported
months
ago and again
in
May 2018, that Obama appointed liberal activist Judge, Amy
Berman Jackson, was assigned to the most important court case in US
history, the Manafort case in the Trump-Russia hoax investigation.
Sadly,
Judge Jackson has a horrible far left record on the bench. In
2013 Judge Jackson rejected
arguments
from the Catholic Church that Obamacare’s
requirements that employers provide cost free coverage of
contraceptive services in spite of being contrary to their religious
beliefs. This was overturned by the Supreme Court.
In
2017 Judge Jackson
dismissed
the wrongful death suit against Hillary Clinton filed
by two of the families who lost loved ones in Benghazi.
The families argued that Clinton had done little to help their sons
and then lied to cover it up.
Then
on January 19, 2018, Paul Manafort’s case was reassigned
to
Judge Jackson on January 19th,
a few weeks after being filed.
It
is unknown how she was assigned to the Manafort case or by whom.
What is clear is that with her atrocious and slanted record to date,
the Deep State and the Mueller team certainly wanted Judge Jackson
overseeing the Manafort case.
On
January 3, 2018, we
reported that Paul Manafort filed a suit against the “Deep
State” DOJ (Jeff Sessions), Assistant AG Rod Rosenstein and Corrupt
Investigator Robert Mueller that should have shut down Mueller’s
corrupt investigation!
In another example the report:
“Immigrant Who Became
Hotshot Chicago DNC Judge Sentenced
To Jail For $1.4m Mortgage
Fraud” shows that Judges veer to crime quite
often, hen influenced:
Lukas
Mikelionis
reports that Jessica
Arong O’Brien, 51, broke down into tears after the judge sent her
to prison after the federal jury convicted her in February of two
counts alleging that she took part in a scheme in which several
lenders were scammed. (Facebook)
The
first Filipina judge in Cook County, Chicago, who came to the U.S.
with almost nothing and no education, was sentenced on Thursday to a
year in prison after being found guilty to participating in a $1.4
million mortgage fraud scheme a decade ago.
Jessica
Arong O’Brien, 51, broke down into tears after the judge sent her
to prison following her February conviction of two counts alleging
that she took part in a scheme in which several lenders were scammed,
the Chicago Tribune reported.
She
was convicted of lying to lenders to obtain more than $1.4
million in mortgages on two investment properties that she sold while
she owned a real estate company.
O’Brien
reportedly made money by selling the two homes in 2007 after paying
kickbacks to a straw purchaser. Personally, she made a profit of at
least $325,000 from the sales, prosecutors said.
The
lenders, meanwhile, lost money as the straw purchaser defaulted on
payments and properties were foreclosed.
Jessica
Arong O’Brien with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
(Facebook)
Prior
to the sentencing, O’Brien said she was “an embarrassment” and
said the scheme was a mistake. “Of course, I have remorse as to my
stupidity,” O’Brien said.
Her
lawyer Steve Greenberg argued for probation, pointing to her true
American dream story, where a Filipina immigrant, who came to the
U.S. without anything, educated herself and became a judge.
According
to the Tribune, after O’Brien came to the U.S., she earned degrees
in culinary arts and restaurant management. She later went to John
Marshall Law School, graduating in 1998.
With
a law degree, she went on to become the first Asian elected president
of the Women's Bar Association of Illinois and served on the board of
governors for the Illinois State Bar Association. She also co-founded
a group in 2008 that gives scholarships to law students from diverse
backgrounds.
"It
is an inspirational story. She has fallen as far as she can fall. She
has lost everything. … There is absolutely no reason to send this
poor lady to jail."
— Lawyer
Steve Greenberg
“It
is an inspirational story,” Greenberg said. “She has fallen as
far as she can fall. She has lost everything. … There is absolutely
no reason to send this poor lady to jail.”
But
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin denied the request for probation,
arguing that her fraud scheme wasn’t just a mistake but a rather
elaborate fraudulent scheme.
“This
wasn’t stupid,” Durkin said, according to the newspaper. “This
was a crime… You really didn’t need to do this.”
"This
wasn’t stupid. This was a crime. … You really didn’t need to do
this."
— U.S.
District Judge Thomas Durkin
Prosecutors,
meanwhile, used O’Brien’s story to push for a harsher
sentence, saying that she committed fraud despite not having the
financial needs to do it.
After
sentencing, O’Brien blamed family issues that prompted her to get
into real estate business and reiterated that she acted foolishly.
“Of
all those things that everyone has told you about me, one thing was
missing — stupid,” O’Brien, according to the Tribune. “I
mean, seriously. This whole process is crazy. I can’t put my hands
on it.”
“I
hope some day when I am six feet under, they will learn from what
happened here,” she added, hoping other lawyers will learn that
they will be held to a higher standard.
In another example, a website
targeting corrupt judges, says: “...This is a
movie about a disturbed
person, which happens to be exactly what occurred to me in real
life. I grew up with a psychopath
(con-artist, liar, fraud and master manipulator) who learned at
an early age how to get what she wants by guilt trips or charming the
weak. It’s just an act, a guilt trip, a con job by a immoral beast.
You see in public she pretends to be caring, kind and a good person.
But those who see through her act and con job know what she really
is. A monster that hides behind “I Care A Lot”. I grew up with
this beast that has no business walking around in the free world. Yet
it’s obvious I’m not alone these beasts are common. Worse they
cheat and lie their way into roles of authority and power. People
today don’t care about the facts, evidence or truth they follow a
fake image which is how these monsters survive. Down at the bottom of
this page is an audio file which is an example of how this con-artist
looks for weakness by saying how much she cares and when that does
not work seconds later switches to who she really is “Don’t make
me pull the trigger because I really do love you”. But it’s all
an act by a cold blooded psychopath. An insect who has no empathy or
heart.
Welcome
to my world and how a child from birth destroyed her father, hated
her brother because he was competition and used the court system,
mail fraud, identity theft to embezzle $200,000.00 from her own
mother’s bank accounts. Then force her mother into a
conservatorship via a fraudulent petition based on perjury. How her
husband who with his background as corporate coach, fired health
provider CEO and CPA background helped find corrupt
lawyers and judges to ignore evidence, elder abuse, fraud,
perjury and full documentation of (2) missing bank accounts. All
ignored by a Judge
Candace
J Beason
America, LYING DOES PAY and very well. It’s no
longer about a GOOD lawyer that knows law but about finding a connected
lawyer who can bribe the judge. (This one happened to be the X President
of the Pasadena Bar) and frequented the Judges dinners (conflict of
interest?). In fact this same lawyer was found to feed cases to one of the
most corrupt judges of
Los
Angeles County Superior Court Probate department Judge
Aviva K. Bobb Who was exposed by a series of
Probate
abuse articles by the Los Angeles Times back in early 2000. Which
the court “PRETENDED” to clean up but in fact just dug in deeper and
allowed worse corruption. Judge Bobb and Pasadena Lawyer Philip Barbaro
Jr. Would form a conspiracy to try and shut me up via a
fraudulent Police report claiming I was terrorizing them by posting
my opinion on the internet. I spent 3 days in jail then released stating I
was only detained. Fact is police told me my version of what took place
exposing a corrupt judge and lawyers appeared to be the truth because they
could not find any other reason. But like all other authorities FBI, DOJ,
APS, LAPD, Los Angeles Bar, California Bar no one did anything when
provided with evidence. No one wants to think a judge could be a criminal
or a lawyer who “pretends” to fight against elder abuse is a fraud. Like
“I Care A Lot” the concept is LIE, put on a fake image, smile and pretend
you’re not who they say you are.
My version of events is “Factual, backed up by documents and court
records” I’ve even got original emails from my sister back as far as 1995,
cards, letter and audio recordings. Witness statements as well and missing
bank account numbers which she claims never existed but in her petition
wastes no time claiming “if the court found $200K in missing bank
accounts” she blames her brother “Me” who was responsible. However never
supplies one ounce of evidence or documentation. In fact the entire
petition is based on hearsay, lies and perjured info by her and her
Glendale lawyer Christopher E. Overgaard of La Crescenta CA who
perjure his own petition in the case even going so far as to claim his
lawyer partner Michael Jay was a PI and searched for me but could not find
me. This is typical how probate courts operate.
Even the lawyer the court forces upon the person conserved works for the
court but is paid by the conservator. Meet
Pacific
Palisades PVP Violet M. Boskovich who helped the conservator cover
up her fraud, perjury and lies. Never represented her client and worked
hard to keep her silent and away from appearing in court. Point is “It’s
all about the money” Follow the money because the participants all are
paid by the person made (in charge of the money). The actual owner has
zero say, freedom, rights or control of anything. They’re made out to be
mentally incompetent (
but
in reality are over medicated). The game is “Isolate, Medicate and
Liquidate” while they smile all the way to the bank.
The Superior Court system in Los Angeles has become a joke for a city that
has so much,yet so little,California is ranked F, at present and the
Superior Court system here is next to third world as far as fraud,
corruption and justice for profit. This system is denying its
residents/Taxpayers their due process on so many levels, Banks, Escrow
companies and title companies own the courts and they are attempting to
own the land. Lawyers wont take a stand against these courts and their
judges that’s how bad it has become.Please do the right thing and
investigate and replace those who don’t want to play fair.
Apr 4th, 2019
Someone from San Gabriel, CA writes:
My husband was an employee at Los Angeles Department of Warer and Power.
He has a Ph.D. and has done exceptional job as a chemist for the
department by training other employees. But because of the ongoing
discriminatory and retaliatory actions against him for filing an internal
grievance about the corrupt and discriminatory promotion process, he never
got promoted even though he is only one of the few working there with a
Ph.D. degree. He was physically assaulted by an assistant supervisor who
got promoted ahead of him despite not having as much job experience and
degree credential. Not only was he denied proper justice, he was further
retaliated against with excessive amount of work, excessive monitoring
with his supervisors’ attempts to force him to commit errors with his
work. When he was finally forced to make a mistake which could have been
easily avoided had he not been piled so much work, he was denied the
chance to correct the mistake (every employee is allowed to correct
mistakes as part of the work protocol) and his mistake was grossly
exaggerated to one that cannot be scientifically and evidentially
supported. He is terminated because he was demoted to do the task of
peeling labels and discarding sample waste which resulted in an additional
workplace injury. When he reported this additional injury, he was
immediately terminated with that supposed “mistake” that he so wanted to
avoid and correct from a year ago. The Skelly Meeting and the city appeals
both before a supposed arbitrator (Joseph Duffy) and some city
commissioners went absolutely nowhere as they refused to consider any
scientific evidence. They only consider what LADWP management colluded to
say (a bunch of shameless and corrupt PERJURERS), as if a lie repeated
many times by enough people, it would become the truth. LADWP went to
strike our lawsuit down recently at the Superior Court. I have been
following through this case for several years and the corruption and
collusion within the whole judicial system is astounding. They have the
appearance and facade of “due process” without the real substance.
Everything they did was only formality. Whatever LADW managers and
supervisors colluded to say (that is, to say only, WITHOUT EVIDENCE)
becomes “evidence”, but whatever real object scientific and forensic
evidence we present with my husband being also an eyewitness is brushed
aside. I guess if I bring over all of my friends and relatives from all
over the globe and say LADWP supervisors murdered someone, it would become
the truth just because there are enough people repeating the same
accusation, then by all means I can lock all of these managers and
supervisors up for murders. With the same logic, the judicial system in
Los Angeles is such that they consider enough perjurers repeating the same
false accusations or claims to be “good evidence” and so they used such
“evidence” (whatever they collide together to defame and perjure) to
wrongfully terminate my husband and continue to deny him justice. These
“judges” and “commissioners” who hold law degrees or have studied law
should be utterly ashamed of themselves for such blatant distortion of
justice. We should call the judicial system in Los Angeles CORRUPTION
SYSTEM.
Aug 29th, 2016
Someone from South El Monte, CA writes:
I Lost my inheritance and my mom and our homes thanks to the court system
I was never heard didn’t have an attorney wrote letters filed forms
because of how much they have to benefit from the elderly there the ones
who win win it all them the attorney and fiduciary’s judges when I’m
reporting elder abuse and it’s ignored but my mom is being taken for money
when both conservators are passing out money and not to caregivers
Mar 11th, 2017
Patrick M. from Los Angeles, CA writes:
The Los Angeles Superior Court is in my opinion a band of judicial
gangsters, that are blatantly denying due process, ignoring valid
evidence, violating the Constitution and extorting money from the people
of Los Angeles all while being paid off by whichever party has the right
price. as a pro se litigant I went up against a lawyer who claim to not be
representing any of the defendants yet drafted every Motion in the case
and they were all granted and my case was dismissed, even though the court
had no jurisdiction as the defendant had no lawyer they had defaulted. A
total joke…if you want justice stay away from these people. …you have
better luck dealing directly with the Mob.Dec 6th, 2016
Jose H. from Alhambra, CA writes:
I totally agreed since i been emotionally financially and even mentally
affected since i got so physical stressed knowing how this court will take
my ex wife’s side since she all the time was a step forward in our case
and always hiring a lawyer that I couldn’t afford for myself but i had all
the time to pay for her attorney since I didn’t have on attorney the
judges never pay attention to me and side by side with her lawyer always
loosing case by case i little by little lost it all this court left me
empty pocket and even my part of the divorce was then giving wrongfully to
my ex wife she stole she kicked me out of my own house took my part of the
half and half assets and properties and all thanks to the her lawyer that
was in a deal with the judge at each case my ex even failed to report to
court over payments she fail to follow the court orders she trespass and
stole from a property she gave false testimony and i reported all this to
the court and to the judge and they ignored me cause they were no getting
profits from me as with my ex because the lawyer soplits with the judge
they move in a way that I couldn’t believe i have another big story how
the judge even moved a clerk from his desk then sent me to talk to a
person who all she did was discouraged me from appealing the decision and
only hand me the papers without helping me when the usual clerk helps
people filling up the papers for people without attorney but this lady the
judge sent one throw the papers to me in a very rude way please i need my
case to be review as per i ended up on the streets thanks
PLEASE
SIGN THE PETITION
California is one of the most corrupt Judicial states in America today,
from the days of 1996-2011
Ronald
M. George who named his own successor
Tani
Cantil-Sakauye.
Victims go into the millions with police, government and the courts in a
huge cover up protecting a manipulated Justice system that is nothing
about justice. The legal system in California is designed to destroy
family, estates, children’s lives and freedom via dishonest judges and
lawyers controlled by a gang called the
ABA
American Bar Association.
Be sure to scroll down the page for info how to report and file
complaints.
Mar 13th, 2017
Someone from Los Angeles, CA writes:
Appellate court denies challenge to LA judges’
‘double-dipping’ practice Los Angeles County provides Superior Court
judges more than $46,400 each in annual benefits, including supplemental
health and retirement benefits, while judges in other counties receive
substantially fewer supplemental benefits or none at all. The legal fight
began in April 2006, when Sturgeon filed suit in Los Angeles Superior
Court asking that the county be stopped from paying benefits to judges
because they were also receiving them from the state through legislation
passed in 1997. Mr. Trump is right, the system is rigged.
https://californiajudicialcorruption.wordpress.com
Exposing Corrupt California Judges, Courts and
more. judges Socrates Manoukian, His wife Patricia Bamratte-Manoukian and
Erica Yew, Commission on Judicial Performance.Nepotism, Corruption and
Fraud in California's Courts.
In
another example MICHAEL
BERENS and JOHN
SHIFFMAN report that Thousands
of
U.S. judges who broke laws or oaths remained on the bench
In
the past dozen years, state and local judges have repeatedly escaped
public accountability for misdeeds that have victimized thousands.
Nine of 10 kept their jobs, a Reuters investigation found –
including an Alabama judge who unlawfully jailed hundreds of poor
people, many of them Black, over traffic fines.
Judge Les Hayes once
sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for
failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it
exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide.
Marquita Johnson, who was locked
up in April 2012, says the impact of her time in jail endures today.
Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was
incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another
was physically abused.
“Judge Hayes took away my life
and didn’t care how my children suffered,” said Johnson, now
36. “My girls will never be the same.”
Fellow inmates found her sentence
hard to believe. “They had a nickname for me: The
Woman with All the Days,”
Johnson said. “That’s what they called me: The
Woman with All the Days.
There were people who had committed real crimes who got out before
me.”
In 2016, the state agency that
oversees judges charged Hayes with violating Alabama’s code of
judicial conduct. According to the Judicial Inquiry Commission, Hayes
broke state and federal laws by jailing Johnson and hundreds
of other Montgomery residents too poor to pay fines. Among those
jailed: a plumber struggling to make rent, a mother who skipped meals
to cover the medical bills of her disabled son, and a hotel
housekeeper working her way through college.
Hayes, a judge since 2000,
admitted in court documents to violating 10 different parts of the
state’s judicial conduct code. One of the counts was a breach of a
judge’s most essential duty: failing to “respect and comply with
the law.”Despite the severity of the
ruling, Hayes wasn’t barred from serving as a judge. Instead, the
judicial commission and Hayes reached a deal. The former Eagle Scout
would serve an 11-month unpaid suspension. Then he could return to
the bench. Until he was disciplined, Hayes
said in an interview with Reuters, “I never thought I was doing
something wrong.” This week, Hayes is set to
retire after 20 years as a judge. In a statement to
Reuters, Hayes said he was “very remorseful” for his misdeeds. Community
activists say his
departure is long overdue. Yet the decision to leave, they say,
should never have been his to make, given his record of misconduct.
“He should have been fired
years ago,” said Willie Knight, pastor of North Montgomery Baptist
Church. “He broke the law and wanted to get away with it. His
sudden retirement is years too late.”
Hayes is among thousands of state
and local judges across America who were allowed to keep positions of
extraordinary power and prestige after violating judicial ethics
rules or breaking laws they pledged to uphold, a Reuters
investigation found.
Related
content
-
The Teflon
Robe: Read the series
-
Reuters database:
Judges who were publicly disciplined – and what they did
-
Methodology and Q&A: How we examined misconduct
-
How to use the searchable database to explore the
disciplinary files of judges across America
Judges have made racist
statements, lied to state officials and forced defendants to languish
in jail without a lawyer – and then returned to the bench,
sometimes with little more than a rebuke from the state agencies
overseeing their conduct.
Recent media reports have
documented failures in judicial oversight in South
Carolina, Louisiana and
Illinois.
Reuters went further.
In the first comprehensive
accounting of judicial misconduct nationally, Reuters identified and
reviewed 1,509 cases from the last dozen years – 2008 through
2019 – in which judges resigned, retired or were publicly
disciplined following accusations of misconduct. In addition,
reporters identified another 3,613 cases from 2008 through 2018 in
which states disciplined wayward judges but kept hidden from the
public key details of their offenses – including the identities of
the judges themselves.
All told, 9 of every 10
judges were allowed to return to the bench after they were
sanctioned for misconduct, Reuters determined. They included a
California
judge
who had sex in his courthouse chambers, once with his
former law intern and separately with an attorney; a
New York judge who berated
domestic violence victims; and a
Maryland judge who, after his arrest for driving drunk, was
allowed to return to the bench provided he took a Breathalyzer test
before each appearance.
The news agency’s findings
reveal an “excessively” forgiving judicial disciplinary system,
said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University who
writes about judicial ethics. Although punishment short of removal
from the bench is appropriate for most misconduct cases, Gillers
said, the public “would be appalled at some of the lenient
treatment judges get” for substantial transgressions.
Among the cases from the past
year alone:
In Utah, a
judge texted a video of a man’s scrotum to court clerks.
He was reprimanded but remains on the bench. In
Indiana, three judges attending a conference last spring got
drunk and sparked a 3 a.m. brawl outside a White Castle
fast-food restaurant that ended with two of the judges shot. Although
the state supreme court found the three judges had “discredited the
entire Indiana judiciary,” each returned to the bench after a
suspension.
In Texas, a judge burst in
on jurors deliberating the case of a woman charged with sex
trafficking and declared that God
told him the defendant was innocent. The offending judge received
a warning and returned to the bench. The defendant was convicted
after a new judge took over the case.
“There are certain things where
there should be a level of zero tolerance,” the jury foreman,
Mark House, told Reuters. The judge should have been fined, House
said, and kicked off the bench. “There is no justice, because he is
still doing his job.”
Judicial misconduct specialists
say such behavior has the potential to erode trust in America’s
courts and, absent tough consequences, could give judges license to
behave with impunity.
“When you see cases like that,
the public starts to wonder about the integrity and honesty of the
system,” said Steve Scheckman, a lawyer who directed Louisiana’s
oversight agency and served as deputy director of New York’s. “It
looks like a good ol’ boys club.”
That’s how local lawyers viewed
the case of a longtime Alabama judge who concurrently served on the
state’s judicial oversight commission. The judge, Cullman District
Court’s Kim Chaney, remained on the bench for three years after
being accused of violating the same nepotism rules he was tasked with
enforcing on the oversight commission. In at least 200 cases, court
records show, Judge Chaney chose his own son to serve as a
court-appointed defense lawyer for the indigent, enabling the
younger Chaney to earn at least $105,000 in fees over two years.
In February, months after Reuters
repeatedly asked Chaney and the state judicial commission about those
cases, he retired from the bench as part of a deal with state
authorities to end the investigation.
Tommy Drake, the lawyer who first
filed a complaint against Chaney in 2016, said he doubts the judge
would have been forced from the bench if Reuters hadn’t examined
the case.
“You know the only reason they
did anything about Chaney is because you guys started asking
questions,” Drake said. “Otherwise, he’d still be there.”
Broken
Bedrock of American justice
State and local judges draw
little scrutiny even though their courtrooms are the bedrock of the
American criminal justice system, touching the lives of millions of
people every year.
The country’s approximately
1,700 federal judges hear 400,000 cases annually. The nearly
30,000 state, county and municipal court judges handle a
far bigger docket: more than 100 million new cases each year, from
traffic to divorce to murder. Their titles range from justice of the
peace to state supreme court justice. Their powers are vast and
varied – from determining whether a defendant should be jailed
to deciding who deserves custody of a child.
Each U.S. state has an oversight
agency that investigates misconduct complaints against judges. The
authority of the oversight agencies is distinct from the power held
by appellate courts, which can reverse a judge’s legal ruling and
order a new trial. Judicial commissions cannot change verdicts.
Rather, they can investigate complaints about the behavior of judges
and pursue discipline ranging from reprimand to removal.
Few experts dispute that the
great majority of judges behave responsibly, respecting the law and
those who appear before them. And some contend that, when judges
do falter, oversight agencies are effective in identifying and
addressing the behavior. “With a few notable exceptions, the
commissions generally get it right,” said Keith Swisher, a
University of Arizona law professor who specializes in judicial
ethics.
Others disagree. They note that
the clout of these commissions is limited, and their authority
differs from state to state. To remove a judge, all but a handful of
states require approval of a panel that includes other judges. And
most states seldom exercise the full extent of those disciplinary
powers.
As a result, the system tends to
err on the side of protecting the rights and reputations of judges
while overlooking the impact courtroom wrongdoing has on those most
affected by it: people like Marquita Johnson. Reuters scoured thousands of
state investigative files, disciplinary proceedings and court records
from the past dozen years to quantify the personal toll of judicial
misconduct. The examination found at least 5,206 people who were
directly affected by a judge’s misconduct. The victims cited in
disciplinary documents ranged from people who were illegally jailed
to those subjected to racist, sexist and other abusive comments from
judges in ways that tainted the cases. The number is a conservative
estimate. The tally doesn’t include two previously reported
incidents that affected thousands of defendants and prompted sweeping
reviews of judicial conduct.
“If we have a system that holds
a wrongdoer accountable but we fail to address the victims, then we
are really losing sight of what a justice system should be all
about.”
In Pennsylvania, the state
examined the convictions of more than 3,500 teenagers sentenced by
two judges. The judges were convicted of taking kickbacks as part of
a scheme to fill a private juvenile detention center. In 2009, the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court appointed senior judge Arthur Grim to
lead a victim review, and the state later expunged
criminal records for
2,251 juveniles.
Grim told Reuters that every state should adopt a way to
compensate victims of judicial misconduct.
“If we have a system that holds
a wrongdoer accountable but we fail to address the victims, then we
are really losing sight of what a justice system should be all
about,” Grim said. In another review underway in
Ohio, state public defender Tim Young is scrutinizing 2,707
cases handled by a judge who retired in 2018 after
being hospitalized for alcoholism. Mike Benza, a law professor at
Case Western Reserve University whose students are helping identify
victims, compared the work to current investigations into police
abuse of power. “You see one case and then you look to see if it's
systemic,” he said. The review, which has been
limited during the coronavirus pandemic, may take a year. But Young
said the time-consuming task is essential because “a fundamental
injustice may have been levied against hundreds or thousands of
people.”
‘Special rules for judges’
Most states afford judges accused
of misconduct a gentle kind of justice. Perhaps no state better
illustrates the shortcomings of America’s system for overseeing
judges than Alabama.
CENSURED JUDGES:
As in most states, Alabama’s
nine-member Judicial Inquiry Commission is a mix of lawyers, judges
and laypeople. All are appointed. Their deliberations are secret and
they operate under some of the most judge-friendly rules in the
nation.
Alabama’s rules make even
filing a complaint against a judge difficult. The complaint must be
notarized, which means that in theory, anyone who makes misstatements
about the judge can be prosecuted for perjury. Complaints about
wrongdoing must be made in writing; those that arrive by phone, email
or without a notary stamp are not investigated, although senders
are notified why their complaints have been summarily
rejected. Anonymous written complaints are shredded.
These rules can leave lawyers and
litigants fearing retaliation, commission director Jenny Garrett
noted in response to written questions.
“It’s a ridiculous system
that protects judges and makes it easy for them to intimidate anyone
with a legitimate complaint,” said Sue Bell Cobb, chief justice of
the Alabama Supreme Court from 2007 to 2011. In 2009, she
unsuccessfully championed changes to the process and commissioned an
American Bar Association report that offered a scathing review of
Alabama's rules.
In most other states, commission
staff members can start investigating a judge upon receiving a phone
call or email, even anonymous ones, or after learning of questionable
conduct from a news report or court filing. In Alabama, staff will
not begin an investigation without approval from the commission
itself, which convenes about every seven weeks.
By rule, the commission also
must keep a judge who is under scrutiny fully informed throughout an
investigation. If a subpoena is issued, the judge receives a
simultaneous copy, raising fears about witness intimidation. If
a witness gives investigators a statement, the judge
receives a transcript. In the U.S. justice system, such deference to
individuals under investigation is extremely rare.
“It’s a ridiculous system
that protects judges and makes it easy for them to intimidate anyone
with a legitimate complaint.”
“Why the need for special rules
for judges?” said Michael Levy, a Washington lawyer who has
represented clients in high-profile criminal, corporate,
congressional and securities investigations. “If judges think it’s
fair and appropriate to investigate others for crimes or misconduct
without providing those subjects or targets with copies of witness
statements and subpoenas, why don’t judges think it’s fair to
investigate judges in the same way?”
Alabama judges also are
given an opportunity to resolve investigations confidentially.
Reuters interviews and a review of Alabama commission records
show the commission has met with judges informally at least 19 times
since 2011 to offer corrective “guidance.” The identities of
those judges remain confidential, as does the conduct that prompted
the meetings. “Not every violation warrants discipline,”
commission director Garrett said.
Since 2008, the commission has
brought 21 public cases against judges, including Hayes, charging two
this year. 496 = Number of
days Judge Hayes sentenced Marquita Johnson to jail for unpaid
traffic tickets.
Two of the best-known cases
brought by the commission involved Roy Moore, who was twice forced
out as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for defying
federal court orders.
Another Alabama justice fared
better in challenging a misconduct complaint, however. Tom Parker,
first elected to the state’s high court in 2004, pushed back
when the commission investigated him in 2015 for comments he
made on the radio criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision
legalizing gay marriage.
Parker sued the commission in
federal court, arguing the agency was infringing on his First
Amendment rights. He won. Although the commission had dropped its
investigation before the ruling, it was ordered to cover Parker’s
legal fees: $100,000, or about a fifth of the agency’s total annual
budget.
In 2018, the people of Alabama
elected Parker chief justice. These days, Parker told Reuters,
Alabama judges and the agency that oversees them enjoy “a much
better relationship” that’s less politically tinged. “How can I
say it? It’s much more respectful between the commission and the
judges now.”
“Gut instinct”
Montgomery, Alabama has a deep
history of racial conflict, as reflected in the clashing concepts
emblazoned on the city’s great seal: “Cradle of the Confederacy”
and “Birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Jefferson Davis was inaugurated
here as Confederate president after the South seceded from the
Union in 1861, and his birthday is a state holiday. As was
common throughout the South, the city was the site of the lynchings
of Black men, crimes now commemorated at a national
memorial based here. Police arrested civil rights icon Rosa
Parks here in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus
to a white passenger.
Today, about 60% of
Montgomery’s 198,000 residents are Black, U.S.
census records show. Even so, Black motorists account for about
90% of those charged with unpaid traffic tickets, a Reuters
examination of court records found. Much of Judge Hayes’ work in
municipal court involved traffic cases and the collection of fines.
Hayes, who is white, told Reuters that “the majority of people who
come before the court are Black.”
City officials have said that
neither race nor economics have played a role in police efforts to
enforce outstanding warrants, no matter how minor the offense.
In April 2012, Marquita Johnson
was among them. Appearing before Hayes on a Wednesday morning, the
28-year-old single mother pleaded for a break.
Johnson had struggled for eight
years to pay dozens of tickets that began with a citation for failing
to show proof of insurance. She had insurance, she said. But when she
was pulled over, she couldn’t find the card to prove it.
Even a single ticket was a
knockout blow on her minimum-wage waitress salary. In addition to
fines, the court assessed a $155 fee to every ticket. Court records
show that police often issued her multiple tickets for other
infractions during every stop – a practice some residents call
“stacking.”
Under
state
law, failing to pay even one ticket can result in the
suspension of a driver’s license. Johnson’s decision to keep
driving nonetheless – taking her children to school or to doctor
visits, getting groceries, going to work – led to more tickets and
deeper debt.
“I told Judge Hayes that I had
lost my job and needed more time to pay,” she recounted.
By Hayes’ calculation, Johnson
owed more than $12,000 in fines. He sentenced Johnson to 496 days in
jail. Hayes arrived at that sentence by counting each day in jail as
$25 toward the outstanding debt. A different judge later determined
that Johnson actually owed half the amount calculated by Hayes, and
that Hayes had incorrectly penalized her over fines she had already
paid. To shave time off her sentence, Johnson washed police cars and
performed other menial labor while jailed.
Hayes told Reuters that he
generally found pleas of poverty hard to believe. “With my years of
experience, I can tell when someone is being truthful with me,”
Hayes said. He called it “gut instinct” -- though he added,
in a statement this week, that he also consulted “each defendant's
criminal and traffic history as well as their history of warrants and
failures to appear in court.”
Of course, the law demands more
of a judge than a gut call. In a 1983 landmark decision, Bearden
v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state judges are
obligated to hold a hearing to determine whether a defendant has
“willfully” chosen not to pay a fine.
According to the state’s
judicial oversight commission, “Judge Hayes did not make any
inquiry into Ms. Johnson’s ability to pay, whether her non-payment
was willful.”
From jail, “I prayed to return
to my daughters,” Johnson said. “I was sure that someone would
realize that Hayes had made a mistake.”
She said her worst day in jail
was her youngest daughter’s 3rd birthday. From a jail
telephone, she tried to sing “Happy Birthday” but slumped to the
floor in grief.
“She was choking up and
crying,” said Johnson’s mother, Blanche, who was on the call.
“She was devastated to be away from her children so long.”
When Johnson was freed after 10
months in jail, she learned that strangers had abused her two older
children. One is now a teenager; the other is in middle school. “My
kids will pay a lifetime for what the court system did to me,”
Johnson said. “My daughters get frantic when I leave the house. I
know they’ve had nightmares that I’m going to disappear again.”
Six months after Johnson’s
release, Hayes jailed another single Black mother. Angela
McCullough, then 40, had been pulled over driving home from Faulkner
University, a local community college where she carried a 3.87 grade
point average. As a mother of four children, including a disabled
adult son, she had returned to college to pursue her dream of
becoming a mental health counselor. Police ticketed her for failing
to turn on her headlights. After a background check, the officer
arrested McCullough on a warrant for outstanding traffic tickets. She
was later brought before Hayes.
“I can’t go to jail,”
McCullough recalled pleading with the judge. “I’m a mother. I
have a disabled son who needs me.”
Hayes sentenced McCullough to 100
days in jail to pay off a court debt of $1,350, court records show.
Her adult son, diagnosed with schizophrenia, was held in an
institution until her release.
McCullough said she cleaned jail
cells in return for time off her sentence. One day, she recalled, she
had to clean a blood-soaked cell where a female inmate had slit her
wrists. She was freed after 20 days,
using the money she saved for tuition to pay off her tickets, she
said.
Jail was the darkest chapter of
her life, McCullough said, a place where “the devil was trying to
take my mind.” Today, she has abandoned her pursuit of a degree. “I
don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford to go back.”
A clear sign that something was
amiss in Montgomery courts came in November 2013, when a federal
lawsuit was filed alleging that city judges were unlawfully jailing
the poor. A similar suit was filed in 2014, and two more civil
rights cases were filed in 2015. Johnson and McCullough were Plaintiffs.
The lawsuits detailed practices
similar to those that helped fuel protests in Ferguson, Missouri,
after a white police officer killed a Black teenager in 2014. In a
scathing report on the origins of the unrest, the U.S. Department of
Justice exposed how Ferguson had systematically used traffic
enforcement to raise revenue through excessive fines, a practice that
fell disproportionately hard on Black residents. “Montgomery is just like
Ferguson,” said Karen Jones, a community activist and founder of a
local educational nonprofit. Jones has led recent protests in
Montgomery in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, the Black man
whose death under the knee of a cop in Minneapolis set off worldwide
calls for racial justice.
In Montgomery, “everybody knew
that the police targeted Black residents. And I sat in Hayes’
court and watched him squeeze poor people for more money, then toss
them in jail where they had to work off debts with free labor to the
city.”
It was years before the flurry of
civil rights lawsuits against Hayes and his fellow judges had much
impact on the commission. The oversight agency opened its Hayes case
in summer 2015, nearly two years after Plaintiffss’ lawyers in the
civil rights cases filed a complaint with the body. Hayes spent
another year and a half on the bench before accepting the
suspension.
Under its own rules, the
commission could have filed a complaint and told its staff to
investigate Hayes at any time. Commission director Garrett said she
is prohibited by law from explaining why the commission didn’t
investigate sooner. The investigation went slowly, Garrett said,
because it involved reviewing thousands of pages of court records.
The commission also was busy with other cases from 2015 to early
2017, Garrett said, issuing charges against five judges, including
Moore.
“Slap in the face”
A few months after Judge Hayes’
suspension ended, his term as a municipal judge was set to expire.
So, the Montgomery City Council took up the question of the judge’s
future on March 6, 2018. On the agenda of its meeting: whether to
reappoint Hayes to another four-year term.
Hayes wasn’t in the audience
that night, but powerful supporters were. The city’s chief judge,
Milton Westry, told the council that Hayes and his colleagues have
changed how they handled cases involving indigent defendants, “since
we learned a better way of doing things.” In the wake of the suits,
Westry said, Hayes and his peers complied with reforms that required
judges to make audio recordings of court hearings and notify lawyers
when clients are jailed for failing to pay fines.
As part of a settlement in the
civil case, the city judges agreed to implement changes for at least
two years. Those reforms have since been abandoned, Reuters found.
Both measures were deemed too expensive, Hayes and city officials
confirmed.
Residents who addressed the
council were incredulous that the city would consider reappointing
Hayes. Jones, the community activist, reminded council members that
Hayes had “pleaded guilty to violating the very laws he was sworn
to uphold.”
The city council voted to
rehire Hayes to a fifth consecutive term.
Marquita Johnson said she can’t
understand why a judge whose unlawful rulings changed the lives of
hundreds has himself emerged virtually unscathed.
“Hiring Hayes back to the bench
was a slap in the face to everyone,” Johnson said. “It was a
message that we don't matter.”
On Thursday, Hayes will retire
from the bench. In an earlier interview with Reuters, he
declined to discuss the Johnson case. Asked whether he regrets any of
the sentences he has handed out, he paused.
“I think, maybe, I could have
been more sympathetic at times,” Hayes said. “Sometimes you miss
a few.”
Additional reporting by Isabella
Jibilian, Andrea Januta and Blake Morrison. Edited by Morrison.
In another example reported by
JOHN
SHIFFMAN , A
watchdog accused, a pattern of rulings delayed, a repeat offender
wherein Three
recent cases illustrate how Alabama judges who were cited for
wrongdoing were able to remain on the bench for years. Judge
Chaney: Enforced, broke rules!
What happened when a trial
judge who also served on the state’s judicial oversight board was
accused of misbehavior. Alex Chaney was just a year out
of law school in 2015 when he started receiving lucrative
appointments at taxpayer expense. A district judge began assigning
him to represent people too poor to afford a lawyer.
That judge was his dad, Kim
Chaney.
Judge Chaney is a powerful figure
in rural Cullman County, where he was first elected to the bench in
1992. Chaney serves on a local bank board and has led several
statewide justice associations.
In 2012, the governor honored
Chaney by selecting him to also serve on Alabama’s nine-member
Judicial Inquiry Commission, which investigates misconduct by judges.
While on the commission, Chaney broke its ethics laws in his own
courtroom.
In 2016, local attorney Tommy
Drake filed a complaint against Chaney, alleging that the judge was
appointing his son to represent indigent defendants, violating ethics
rules that prohibit nepotism. Alex Chaney was paid $105,000 from 2015
to 2017 by the state for such court-appointed work, accounting
records show.
Because Judge Chaney served on
the judicial commission, Drake sent his complaint to a different
state watchdog agency, the Alabama Ethics Commission. On October 4,
2017, the Ethics Commission found that Judge Chaney violated ethics
rules and referred the case to the state attorney general.
The following day, records show,
Judge Chaney resigned from the Judicial Inquiry Commission. But he
remained a trial judge in Cullman. Eighteen months passed.
Last summer, a Reuters reporter
began asking state officials about the status of the case. The
officials declined to comment.
In November, Reuters sent Judge
Chaney and his son queries. They did not respond. The judge’s
lawyer, John Henig Jr, wrote to Reuters: “Judge Chaney is a person
of remarkably good character and would never knowingly do anything
unethical or wrong.”
Henig said that Judge Chaney
appointed his son from a rotating list of lawyers to represent
indigent defendants. Henig called the appointments “ministerial”
in nature.
“If Judge Chaney’s son’s
name was the next name on the list for appointments, Judge Chaney
would call out his son’s name and thereafter immediately recuse
himself from the case,” Henig wrote.
A Reuters review of court records
showed otherwise: Judge Chaney participated in several cases after
appointing his son and issued substantive decisions. For example,
records show that the judge reduced bond for one of his son’s
clients, and approved another’s motion to plead guilty. Henig did
not respond to questions about these records.
This February 7 – eight months
after Reuters began inquiring about Chaney – the commission charged
the judge with appointing his son to more than 200 cases and making
rulings in some of them. Chaney struck a deal with the
commission and retired from the bench, avoiding a trial.
During a hearing to
approve the deal, commission lawyer Elizabeth Bern said Chaney should
have known better than to appoint his son, especially given that he
did so while a member of the oversight agency. During Chaney’s
tenure, the commission had disciplined two judges who abused their
office to benefit a relative.
“The nepotism provision is
clear and unequivocal without exception,” she said.
Chaney did not speak during the
hearing.
Drake, the lawyer who filed the
complaint in 2016, said that absent the Reuters inquiries, he doubts
Chaney would have retired from the bench because he is so
politically powerful.
Indeed, shortly after the judge
stepped down in disgrace for steering work to his son, the local bar
association issued a resolution praising him.
Of Chaney, the local lawyers
said, “He has always maintained the highest ethical and moral
standards of the office and has been an example to all, what a judge
should represent.”
Judge Kelly: “Callous
indifference”
How a judge left children in
limbo by repeatedly failing to perform her most basic duty: ruling on
cases. Montgomery Circuit Court Judge
Anita Kelly hears time-sensitive family matters such as child
custody, adoption and divorce – cases in which a child remains in
limbo until she rules. Starting in 2014, court and
judicial commission records show, word of years-long delays in her
cases began to emerge from foster parents, lawyers, social workers
and appeals court judges. Commission officials are barred by law from
discussing the case, but Reuters pieced together the scope of the
investigation through juvenile court records, public documents and
interviews with people involved. In May 2014, foster parents Cheri
and Travis Norwood filed a complaint about Kelly with the
judicial commission. They alleged the judge’s incompetence led to a
traumatic, years-long delay in which a foster child who began living
with the Norwoods as an infant was taken away from them at age 3 ½
and returned to live with her teenage biological mother.“If Judge Kelly
thought they
should have been together, fine,” Travis Norwood said in an
interview. “Why didn’t this happen sooner? Because children can’t
wait. You can’t freeze a child, hold her in suspended animation
until her mother is ready.” Social workers who heard about
the Norwood complaint forwarded their own concerns about Kelly’s
conduct in several other cases. Nonetheless, the commission dismissed
the Norwood complaint in early 2015, finding “no reasonable basis
to charge the judge.”
Over the next year, more red
flags emerged. State appeals court judges raised concerns about
Kelly’s “continued neglect of her duty,” citing at least five
cases that had untenable delays. In November 2015, a supreme court
justice criticized the nearly three years it took to
determine one child’s fate. “I refuse to be another adult
who has totally failed this child,” Justice Tommy Bryan wrote.
Another 20 months passed
before the judicial commission took action. In August 2017, it
charged Kelly with delays that “manifest a callous indifference or
lack of comprehension” to children’s well-being. One child’s
case, it noted, had dragged on for five years.
Kelly took her case to
trial before the Court of the Judiciary, the special tribunal that
weighs charges against judges. Her attorney argued that the
judge worked hard and had shown no ill intent.
In 2018, the
tribunal
found Kelly failed to “maintain professional competence.”
Kelly was suspended for 90 days. Still, she kept her job. The court
said it likely would have removed Kelly from the bench if not for two
factors: Voters re-elected her in 2016, and she exhibited “good
character and the lack of evidence of scandal or corruption on her
part.”
Her lawyer, Henry Lewis
Gillis, applauded her reinstatement and said the delays never
affected the quality of her decisions.
“Judge Kelly cannot change
yesterday,” Gillis said. “Rather, she chooses to learn from her
past experiences as she continues to handle the many, many, many
cases that come before her today.”
Judge Wiggins: Give blood or go
to jail
A judge who is a repeat
offender – four times over – remains on the bench.
Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins has
been hit with misconduct charges by Alabama’s judicial conduct
commission four times over the past decade. In 2009, he
was reprimanded and suspended for 90 days for failing to
recuse himself from a voter fraud investigation involving his
relatives.
“The public must be able to
trust that our judges will dispense justice fairly and impartially,”
the Court of the Judiciary concluded. “Judge Wiggins, by his
actions, disregarded that trust.”
In 2016 – in a case that made
global headlines – Wiggins was censured for offering defendants the
option of giving
blood instead of going to jail for failing to pay fines. A
local blood drive happened to be taking place at the courthouse that
day.
“If you do not have any money
and you don’t want to go to jail, as an option to pay it, you can
give blood today,” Wiggins told dozens of defendants, according to
a recording. “Consider that as a discount rather than putting you
in jail, if you do not have any money.”
Forty-one defendants gave blood
that day, and the commission called Wiggins’ conduct “reprehensible
and inexcusable.” Wiggins acknowledged that his comments were
inappropriate, but noted he did not send anyone to jail that day for
failure to pay fines.
Wiggins’
lawyer, Joe Espy III, said that the judge “has always tried to
cooperate” with authorities. Espy noted that Wiggins is a community
leader, an ordained pastor and has been repeatedly re-elected to the
bench for more than 20 years.
“He is not only a good judge
but a good person,” Espy said.
Last year, Wiggins
was reprimanded for directly calling the father in a custody
dispute – a conversation that violated a rule prohibiting a judge
from discussing a case without both sides present. A recording of the
call became a key piece of evidence against Wiggins.
In preparation for trial in that
case, the commission said it found a “pattern and practice” of
similar one-sided calls. The commission also said it found evidence
that Wiggins was meeting with divorce litigants in his chambers
without lawyers present.
In November, this prompted a new
commission case against Wiggins – his fourth in 10 years.
“At a very minimum,” the
commission alleged, his track record indicates a “pattern of
carelessness or indifferent disregard or lack of respect for the high
standards imposed on the judiciary.”
But at a pretrial hearing in
January, and in a subsequent order, Wiggins scored a victory before
the Alabama tribunal that issues final judgment on such cases, the
Court of the Judiciary. The presiding judge raised questions about
whether proper procedures had been followed in the case against
Wiggins.
Three weeks later, the commission
dropped the case. And Wiggins returned to the bench.
These
are only a few examples, supplied by major investigators and public
official that prove that some Judges believe they are immune to
violations of the law in order to protect their special interests.
These, and many other reports, validates Plaintiffs’s concerns.
Plaintiffs,
and his team associates, have helped develop and promote software,
for use by every member of the public, by every member of Congress
and by every law enforcement and regulatory agency. This software
catches conflicted public officials..from Senators, to Judges, to
White House staff.
These
software tools are new
open-source, and free, public software let any citizen get any
corrupt official arrested. Any voter can use the software from the
comfort of their living room. The AI replicates itself (Like A benign
digital version of Covid) across the entire web.
You can download a copy of
the software or build-your-own version of it from freely available
code at Github, CERN and Linux repositories. Plaintiffs,
and his peers, have
consulted with the
SEC and the GAO on this technology.
After suffering millions of
dollars of losses from public official's Insider
Trading schemes, Plaintiffs
decided to do something about that!
Illegal and corrupt Congressional, Judge and major public servant
insider trading tends to be something you don't hear about until it's
hit the big news networks and newspapers as the SEC goes for the
throat of the accused. By then, unfortunately, those committing the
crimes have made their gains, usually in the multi-millions of
dollars, and the damage has been done to the stock, its company,
investors and the American Way. Covert stock market trades are now
the #1 form of bribes in California and Washington, DC.
Quite frankly, the jail time assessed doesn't correct the damage
done, and the fines rarely aid the investors, or the voters, in
getting their money and their democracy back. Many of those hurt are
Average Joe's and Jill's, like Plaintiffs, who were just trying to
save their retirement nest eggs.
‘Public Shame’ is the tool that works best to take down the
corrupt!
These crimes involve an investment banker spouse and
a Senator or other top official, using information, which was not
available to the public, buying and selling a company's stock in an
underhanded manner. In many cases bribes have been paid with
Google, Tesla or Facebook stock in a covert manner. It is
particularly onerous when a Senators buys Tesla, Google, Facebook or
Solyndra stock, and makes laws that only benefits Tesla, Solyndra,
etc, while sabotaging their competitor constituents. Because
the dealings involved are pretty much done on the sly, it's been
difficult, until now, for the governing body of the
SEC to prove illegal insider trading, unless one of the cohorts
tattles on the others or their actions become glaringly obvious. In
some cases, a sharp mind around the action may take notice and become
what's called a whistle-blower.
Previously, writes Andrew
Beattie
of Investopedia: "... insider trading is often
difficult for the SEC to spot. Detecting it involves a lot of
conjecture and consideration of probabilities." That was the
'old days', though. Today, the new AI software can bust
through these scams like a hot knife through butter!
With this new open-source, free, public spy agency-class software,
detecting illegal insider trading is actually less complicated than
it sounds.
To the eyes of this new super-powerful AI observer server bot and
peer-to-peer databases, it is easy work. You, the citizen, just type
the politician or agency employee name into a field and hit the
"analyze" button. A few minutes later you receive a
multi-page PDF report similar to an FBI report on the target. You can
either research the subject in more detail or send copies of the
report to the FBI, GAO, OSC, SEC or other enforcement group.
The software is an automated AI temporal matching system which
includes 24/7 analysis of all stock trades involving politicians to
its information source, politician finances, communications and
policy participators. it uses some of the same software code used by
the CERN mega-research center in Switzerland.
The technology Core Evaluation Points:
- Analyst estimates - these come from what an analyst estimates that a
company's quarterly or annual earnings will be. They are important
because they help approximate the fair value of an entity, which
basically establishes it price on the stock exchange.
- Share volume - this reflects the quantity of shares that can be traded
over a certain period of time. There are buyers and there are sellers,
and the transactions that take place between them contribute to total
volume.
One Way The AI Detects Congressional Insider Trades
Metricized signs of illegal insider trading occur when trades
occur that break out of the historical pattern of share volume traded
compared to beneficiary participation's of those connected to company
and political entity. Another clue of the illegal insider trading is
when a lot of trading goes on right before earnings announcements.
That tends to be a sign that someone already knows what the
announcement is going to indicate, and it's an obvious violation. One
module of the new software hunts these trends around-the-clock in an
unmanned manner like a detective who never needs to sleep.
The software red alerts are issued when trades are linked closer
to the actual earnings and politicians bills instead of what the
predicted earnings were. In a corruption case, it's clear the trades
- especially made by politicians close to the company - stemmed from
information that was not readily available to the general public.
In other words, at the time an insider makes a trade, the trade
has a stronger relationship to earnings guidance rather than to
earnings results achieved.
Part Of The Insider Trading Detection AI Uses 'Dynamic
Time Warping (DTW)'
In econometrics, which is a concept frequently used by
quantitative analysts to evaluate stock market prices, dynamic time
warping (DTW) is an algorithm that can be used for measuring
similarity between two data sequences by calculating an optimal match
between the two. This sequence "matching" method is often
used in time series classification to properly "line things up."
The method, coupled with AI machine learning ensemble methods, can
provide a clear path between the trades made by insiders and public
data used to make the trades.
This is a product of artificial intelligence that has been
expanded by Indexer, Splunk, Palantir and other firms fast becoming
experts in products that can be used to advance the art of
manipulating political and social trends in business and markets by
using social media, financial data and news stories. The new software
process has taken that sort of approach to the next level and
targeted every member of Congress, their staff, family and friends.
The first emphasis is on California and Washington, DC public
figures.
In a hypothetical example, a group of executives failed to trade
by industry standards by leveraging material non-public information
and policy manipulation. Although consensus estimates called for
higher commodity prices at the end of 2015, it appears key executives
traded for their personal accounts as a result of the forecast
provided by a specialist system within the firm that was adept at
predicting prices alongside lobbyist manipulations. Flash-boy trading
is now dirtier and powered by Google-class server systems.
In the hypothetical scenario the software aggregates executive
trades in 2014 and 2015 and finds a strong link between buys and
sells of executive stock options, which line up with material
non-public estimates of commodity prices that were provided by the
specialist system.
For example, in a "Exec Sell and Exec Buys" graph, a
green line represents sells, while a black line represents buys. In
the corresponding period, one finds a red line represents unrevised
prices provided by the specialist system, and green line represents
consensus estimates.
During Q1-2014, there was $28M in purchases of executive stock
options, while in Q2-2014, there was $25M in sales of executive stock
options. The specialist system called for Q3-2014 commodity prices to
make a precipitous decline going into the end of 2014. Remember,
under this scenario, no revisions were made to the specialist
systems' price forecast. In this example, executives were afforded a
significant advantage using price predictions from the specialist
system.
In a final bullet chart, there was a dynamic time warping distance
between trades and consensus estimates of 7.23, but this distance is
only 2.19 when comparing specialist system estimates and executive
trades. Please note, the closer the distance score is to zero, the
more similar the trades are to the estimates they are measured
against.
We have applied this process to companies well-known for
influence buying like, Google, Tesla and Facebook
It's obvious that the tech executives involved did not follow
industry standards in their actions and make public the "insider"
information they had access to prior to the trades they made. The
lobbyists they hired promoted this rigged trend and paid off Senators
with perks. These are the kind of violations the SEC and other
governing bodies can look to in attempting to protect the trading
public and the integrity of financial marketplaces. Artificial
intelligence tools are a major factor in assisting the tracking of
insider trading.
"Every facet of our everyday lives has been impacted,
infiltrated and greatly influenced by artificial intelligence
technologies," says Vernon A. McKinley, a multi-jurisdictional
attorney, based in Atlanta. "In fact, the U.S. government and
its multiple agencies have developed specialized intelligence units
to detect, track, analyze and prosecute those unscrupulous
individuals seeking to profit from the use of such tools,
specifically in the financial industry, and to protect the integrity
and strength of the U.S. economy and its investors." Now these
tools are being turned against the corrupt!
The public can now detect trading anomalies in financial
situations using this artificial intelligence software on their
desktop computers. No public official will ever be able to do these
kinds of corruptions, again, without getting caught.
This approach has already had an impact on how political insiders
trade on Wall Street and in financial markets around the world.
This technology can end this corruption forever!
A module of the software uses data from The Center for Responsive
Politics, ICIJ Panama Leaks records, Swiss Leaks records and FEC
files to reveal covert routes. Famous politicians own part of Tesla
Motors, Facebook, Google, Netflix, YouTube and other companies they
helped get government money for. All of their competing constituents
have suffered for it or been put out of business by exclusive deals
that only Tesla Motors, Facebook, Google, Netflix and YouTube got.
That is a crime and charges have been filed with federal law
enforcement.
A large volume of forensic research proves that Silicon Valley
Cartel tech firms receive benefits from politicians and
politicians,at the same time, benefit from these firms.
This evidence on the exchange of benefits between politicians and
firms proves an agreement between the politicians and the companies.
This agreement, however, cannot be in the form of a written contract
as writing direct fee-for-service contracts between a politician and
a firm is considered bribery (Krozner and Stratmann 1998; 2000). In
addition, either party to this agreement might renege on its promise
and the other party cannot resort to the courts.
Procon.org, for example, reports: “Less than two months after
ascending to the United States Senate, and before becoming President,
one Senator bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two
speculative companies whose major investors included some of his
biggest political donors. One of the companies was a biotech concern
that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March
2005, two weeks after buying thousands of dollars of its shares, this
Senator took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending
to battle the disease. The most recent financial disclosure form this
Senator . . . shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a
satellite communications businesswhose principal backers . . . had
raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.” See more
examples from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (CREW) report (2009).)
The literature and
eye-witness experience proves that politically-connected Silicon
Valley tech firms monthly obtain economic favors, such as securing
favorable legislation, special tax exemptions, having preferential
access to finance, receiving government contracts, or help in dealing
with regulatory agencies. The evidence proves that Google's support,
for example, can help in winning elections. For example, firms can
vary the number of people they employ, coordinate the opening and
closing of plants, and increase their lending activity in election
years in order to help incumbent politicians get re-elected.
(SeeRoberts 1990; Snyder 1990; Langbein and Lotwis 1990; Durden,
Shorgen, and Silberman 1991; Stratmann 1991, 1995, and 1998; Fisman
2001;Johnson and Mitton 2003; Ansolabehere, Snyder, and Ueda 2004;
Sapienza 2004, Dinç 2005; Khwaja and Mian 2005; Bertrand,
Kramarz,Schoar, and Thesmar 2006; Faccio 2006; Faccio, Masulis, and
McConnell 2006; Jayachandran 2006; Leuz and Oberholzer-Gee 2006;
Claessens,Feijen, Laeven 2008; Desai and Olofsgard 2008; Ramanna
2008;Goldman, Rocholl, and So 2008, 2009; Cole 2009; Cooper, Gulen,
and Ovtchinnikov 2009; Correia 2009; Ramanna and Roychowdhury
2010;Benmelech and Moskowitz 2010.)
The software can see that the share ownership of politicians
serves as a mechanism to quid-pro-quo their relationships with big
tech firms, is as follows: The ownership of politicians plays
multiple distinct (but not necessarily independent) roles; one that
relies upon the amount of ownership and one that does not. First, as
investors in firms, politicians tie their own interests to those of
the firm. Thus, harming (benefiting) the firm means harming
(benefiting) the politician and vice versa. By owning a firm's stock,
politicians commit their personal wealth to the firm and reduce a
firm’s uncertainty with regard to their actions toward the firm.
This will,in turn, enhance the firm's incentive to support the
politician-owner during both current and future elections in order to
prolong the incumbency period for as long as possible. Firms have
their lobbyists push to be able to know the amount of ownership
likely to be material to politicians. This knowledge, in turn,
enables them to judge whether the politician’s interest is aligned
with the firm’s interest and optimize quid-pro-quo.
The Political Action Committee (PAC) contribution of firms (which
is a direct measure of benefits flowing from firms to politicians) is
a significant determinant of ownership allocations by members of
Congress. The ownership of Congress members in firms that contribute
to their election campaigns is roughly 32.8% higher than their
ownership in noncontributing firms even after accounting for factors
that are associated with both ownership and contribution (such as
familiarity, proximity and investor recognition).
The committee assignments of politicians is a proxy for whether
their relations with firms are enforced (Krozner and Stratmann 1998).
Silicon Valley tech firms like Facebook, Tesla and Google obtain
private benefits out of their mutual relations with politicians. When
the strength of the association between ownership and contributions
at the firm level increases, the provision of government contracts to
those firms increases.
Members of Congress, candidates for federal office, senior
congressional staff, nominees for executive branch positions, Cabinet
members, the President and Vice President, and Supreme Court justices
are required by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to file annual
reports disclosing their income, assets, liabilities, and other
relevant details about their personal finances.
Personal financial disclosure forms are filed annually by May 15
and cover the preceding calendar year. The Center for Responsive
Politics (CRP) collected the 2004–2007 reports for Congress members
from the Senate Office of Public Records and the Office of the
Clerkof the House. The Center then scanned the reports as digital
images, classified the politicians’ investments into categories
including stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, and built a database
accessible via a web query.
Using CRP's data, you can use the software to collect the shares
in S&P 500 firms held by members of Congress between 2004 and
2007, for example.You can collect the stock ownership data for every
firm that joined the S&P 500 Index any time between January 2004
and April 2009;regardless of when it joined the index, and the
software can obtain all the available stock ownership data for that
firm between 2004 and 2007. Likewise, if a firm dropped out of the
index at any time during 2004–2008, the software, nevertheless,
will retain the firm in a sample for the target period. As such, the
sample would include stocks in hundreds of unique firms owned by
politicians between 2004 and 2007, for example.
Politicians are required to report only those stocks whose value
exceeds $1,000 at the end of the calendar year or that produce more
than $200 in income. They are CURRENTLY not required to report the
exact value of the holding, but instead must simply check a box
corresponding to the value range into which the asset falls. The CRP
then undertakes additional research to determine the exact values of
these stocks. When the Center makes these determinations, it reports
them instead of the ranges and I use these values in my study. When
only the range is available, you should use its midpoint as the
holding's value. You would, thus have data on the stock holdings of
hundreds politicians for that time period.
Using the software, you can search for all Political Action
Committees (PACs) associated with tech firms. It then collects data
on each contribution these PACs made to candidates (both the winners
and losers) running for the Senate and House elections. Tricky
corrupt Silicon Valley firms establish several PACs, each in a
different location, and each of these PACs can contribute to the same
candidate. In such cases, the software would total, for each
candidate, every contribution he or she received from PACs affiliated
with the same firm. To parallel the investment data sample period,
for example, the software collects every contribution made from the
2003–2004 cycle up to and including the 2007–2008 cycle. Many
Silicon Valley tech firms use deeply covert Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie,
BlackCube, Psyops-type service to make very hidden additional payola
payments to California politicians.
For sources, for example, the software collects government
contract data from Eagle Eye Publishers, Inc., one of the leading
commercial providers of Federal procurement and grant business
intelligence and http://www.usaspending.org. Eagle Eye collects its
contract data from Federal Procurement Data System–Next Generation
(FPDS-NG), the contract data collection and dissemination system
administered by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).
FPDS-NG provides data on procurement contracts awarded by the U.S.
Government. When these contracts are awarded to company subsidiaries,
Eagle Eye searches for the names of their parent companies and
assigns each subsidiary to its appropriate parent. The software
collects both the number and aggregate value of government contracts
that were awarded to sample firms between 2004 and 2007 in this
example time-frame..
The software reveals, for example, that one Representative is a
ten-term member of Congress and a senior member of the House
Financial Services Committee. They arranged a meeting between the
Department of Treasury and One United Bank, a company with close
financial ties to themselves, involving both investments and
contributions.
“In September 2008, the Representative asked then-Secretary
of the Treasury Henry Paulson to hold a meeting for their friends in
banks that had suffered from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac losses.
The
Treasury Department complied and held a session with approximately a
dozen senior banking regulators, representatives from those banks,
and their trade association. Officials of One United Bank have close
ties to the Representative and attended the meeting along with the
Representative's chief of staff. Kevin Cohee, chief executive officer
of One United, used the meeting as an opportunity to ask for bailout
funds.
. . . Former White House officials stated they were surprised
when One United Officials asked for bailout funds. . . . In December
2008, the Representative intervened again, asking Treasury to host
another meeting to ensure their banks received part of the $700
billion allocated under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. . . .
Within two weeks, on December 19, 2008, One United secured
$12.1million in bailout funds. . . . This was not the first time the
Representative used their position to advance the interests of the
bank. the Representative's spouse became a shareholder in One
United in 2001, when it was known as the Boston Bank of Commerce. In
2002, Boston Bank of Commerce tried to purchase Family Savings, a
friend of the Representative in Los Angeles. Instead, Family
Savings turned to a bank in Illinois. The Representative tried to
block the merger by contacting regulators at the FDIC. The
Representative publicly stated they did not want a major bank to
acquire a bank that the Representative was friends with.
When the Representative's efforts with the FDIC proved
fruitless, the Representative began a public pressure campaign with
other community leaders. Ultimately,when Family Savings changed
direction and allowed Boston Bank of Commerce to submit a winning
bid, the Representative received credit for the merger. The combined
banks were renamed One United. . . . In March 2004, the
Representative acquired One United stock worth between $250,001 and
$500,000, and the Representative's spouse purchased two sets of
stock, each worth between $250,001 and $500,000. In September 2004,
the Representative sold their stock in One United and their husband
sold a portion of his. That same year, the husband joined the bank’s
board. . . . One United Chief Executive Kevin Cohee and President
Teri Williams Cohee have donated a total of $8,000 to the
Representative's campaign committee. . . .On October 27, 2009, less
than two months before One United received a $12 million bailout, the
bank received a cease-and-desist order from the FDIC and bank
regulatory officials in Massachusetts for poor lending practices and
excessive executive compensation . . . the bank provided excessive
perks to its executives, including paying for Mr. Cohee’s use of a
$6.4 million mansion . . .” (Ref: CREW report 2009,pp.
123–125)
Thanks to Crony quid-pro-quo revelations by an earlier version of
the software, you can also see that Fisker Automotive, Inc.'s $529
Million U.S. Taxpayer Loan Approval by the Department of Energy was
dirty. Fisker Automotive's Chief Operating Officer Bernhard Koehler
pleaded with the Department of Energy in a panicked Saturday midnight
hour email to receive a $529 million loan as the company was 2 weeks
from Chapter 7 liquidation, that it was laying off most of its
employees, that no private sector investors would fund the company
without DOE guarantees, and that Fisker was unable to raise any
further equity funding from independent private-sector investors
given the company's financial condition.These statements were made to
a Loan Officer at the DOE . No private sector Loan underwriting
(approval) committee would ever grant a low interest loan to a
desperate buyer that had just confessed it was in a state of
insolvency and was about to layoff most of its staff. Yet within a
few weeks the DOE would approve a $529 Million Credit Facility to
Fisker. Despite the DOE Loan Officer official's sworn testimony at
April 24th's House Oversight Committee that the DOE used "same
private sector underwriting standards when approving Fisker and other
approved Taxpayer Funded Loans" - likely perjury based in
documents.
In a 'U.S. GOVERNMENT CONFIDENTIAL EMAIL': FISKER AUTOMOTIVE:
August 2009: Co-Founder Bernhard Koehler emails U.S. Dept. of Energy
Loan Officer in Sat. midnight Panic admitting VC Firms all declined
to invest, and company is out of cash. Weeks later the U.S.Department
of Energy approves $529M U.S. Taxpayer Funded Loans to FISKER. NO
PRIVATE SECTOR Lender would every authorize a Loan for even $5
Million let alone $529 Million after receiving this email stating
private sector investors had examined the company and declined equity
investments, that they might loan money as more secure Debt, and the
Chief Operating Officer of the company further stating that the
borrower is totally insolvent. (Weeks after this email the U.S.
Federal Government Dept. of Energy Loan Committee Approves Fisker
Automotive as a credit-worthy borrow for $529 Million in U.S.
Taxpayer Funded Loans). Fisker got the cash because President Obama
said to "give it to them" in order to please his campaign
financiers.
The same thing happened with Tesla Motors. Elon Musk and Tesla
Motors were broke when DOE gave them the money.
PrivCo CEO Sam Hamadeh stated in an official statement: “The
documents obtained by PrivCo paint a picture of how an
insolvent,unproven automaker received $192 million in taxpayer
funding. The Department of Energy made a loan that no rational lender
would have made. This loan was the equivalent of staying execution on
a company that was terminally ill to begin with." Tesla and
Fisker could not have been taxpayer funded unless bribes and criminal
quid-pro-quo was underway by President Obama and the U.S. Senator
insider traders.
Since its ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, the U.S. Supreme Court has
expressed concern regarding corruption or the appearance of
corruption stemming from political quid pro quo arrangements and the
deleterious consequences it may have on citizens’ democratic
behavior. However, no standard has been set as to what constitutes
“the appearance of corruption,” as the Court was and continues to
be vague in its definition. As a result, campaign finance cases after
Buckley have relied on public opinion polls as evidence of
perceptions of corruption, and these polls indicate that the public
generally perceives high levels of corruption in government. The
present study investigates the actual impact that perceptions of
corruption have on individuals’ levels of political participation.
Adapting the standard socioeconomic status model developed most fully
by Verba and Nie (1972), an extended beta-binomial regression
estimated using maximum likelihood is performed, utilizing unique
data from the 2009 University of Texas’ Money and Politics survey.
The results of this study indicate that individuals who perceive
higher levels of quid pro quo corruption participate more in
politics, on average, than those who perceive lower levels of
corruption.
Quid pro quo is not a difficult concept to understand. Too bad the
media doesn’t endeavor to investigate and explain it. Your
politicians don't work for you, they work for their own insider
trading stock market holdings for themselves!
Corruption-finding software, such as that described above, will be
used by Plaintiffs, and Plaintiffs’s investigative news reporter
associates, law enforcement contacts, intelligence agency contacts
and regulatory agency contacts on all opposition parties associated
with this case.
The facts imply that most public officials are
biased towards their friends, business partners and political
associates who are sometimes Defendants in these cases and under
investigation in
active federal criminal cases that have been reported to law
enforcement and regulatory agencies.
DOES
1 through 20, as additional Defendants in this case, are thought, by
investigators, to include persons friendly with the Judge, in
financial investments with the Judge and the leadership of
organizations for which the Judge is a spokesperson. If those persons
are also under active investigations by SEC, FTC, OGE, OSC, FEC, DOJ,
FBI, and other organizations that Plaintiffs reports to, then the
potential conflicts of interest are compounded.