Bribery

Scotland Yard reportedly has arrested five people – apparently including senior News Corp. journalists – in the bribery and cell phone hacking scandal that has engulfed the company.

It’s Friday. If you’re tired of dealing with Angry Birds, go to http://www.ipaidabribe.or.ke/ and take a look at some Angry Kenyans – angry because they have to pay bribes as part of their day-to-day life. Yikes! 

One of the most politically powerful elected officials in New York State – Carl Kruger, who has been the Chairman of the New York Senate Finance Committee – pleaded guilty today to bribery for accepting nearly half a million dollars in exchange for taking official actions. 

As we pointed out yesterday, Ryan N. Hermon, the chief of staff to New York State Assemblyman William F. Boyland, Jr., has been charged with bribery by federal prosecutors. The government says that it has transcripts that help to prove its charges. We’re sure the ability of the government to use the transcripts at trial – if it goes that far – will be challenged, but let’s see what the government says it has. 

Here’s an alleged financial fraud that you don’t hear about everyday: According to prosecutors, a lawyer and his conspirators sought to defraud criminal defendants – and then they laundered the proceeds of their fraud. 

Bernard Joseph Tully, a former Massachusetts state senator, has pleaded guilty for devising a scheme to defraud a Boston-area businessman out of approximately $18,000 by falsely representing that Tully and his co-conspirator were using the funds to bribe public officials. Unbeknownst to Tully, the businessman reported Tully’s overtures to the FBI.

Phillip A. Hamilton, a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, is going to prison for 114 months after his conviction for soliciting employees of Old Dominion University (ODU) for a paid position in exchange for introducing a budget amendment to fund the position. 

Bribery didn’t just start today and it doesn’t involve only payments to foreign officials and others prohibited by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or the UK’s Bribery Act.

This is something you don’t see every day in the U.S.  OK, we’ll go a step further and concede that it’s something you never see in the U.S. 

A former trustee for the Weslaco Independent School District in Texas has pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe in exchange for using his official capacity to influence the award of a contract on a school renovation project. Joe Marines pleaded guilty to a Hobbs Act violation.