Corruption

Want to find out how much money has been donated to members of Congress, and by what company, industry or individual? Want to see how donors feel about specific bills, and how members of Congress voted on those bills? Now you can, with a new search tool provided by MAPLight.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization that illuminates the connection between money and politics. 

Todd Allen Gardner, the former Village Manager and Treasurer of the Village of Stevensville, Michigan, has been found guilty by a jury of wire fraud. Gardner, as village manager and/or treasurer, had primary authority over village bank accounts to pay for village expenses and to purchase goods for the village. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the conviction at a sentencing hearing scheduled for October. 

We recently spoke with Michael Diaz, Jr., the Miami-based managing partner at Diaz, Reus & Targ, LLP, who has spent more than 20 years in private practice defending and investigating Latin American money laundering and public corruption cases. A Cuban-born bilingual international attorney, Diaz (pictured) is a former U.S.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke yesterday at the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development in Paris.

To hear proponents of Arizona’s new anti-immigration law tell it, the federal government is doing nothing to stop undocumented individuals from entering the U.S. in violation of the law. The FBI is telling us today that it is taking a role in the immigration battle – one that involves its efforts to combat border corruption.

The Times is now reporting that a New York State judge has put off the sentencing scheduled for today of the owner of a concrete testing company who recently was found guilty of corruption because he attempted to commit suicide.

The story by John Eligon is available

One of the most active U.S. Attorney’s offices in the country – especially in connection with battling financial fraud – is the office in the Southern District of New York. A number of new senior staff appointments have just been announced by its U.S. Attorney, Preet Bharara (pictured). 

According to a new survey conducted by the international law firm Eversheds, U.S. companies operating in the U.K. are unprepared for tough new U.K. bribery laws – and 88 percent are unaware that there is a maximum jail term of 10 years under the legislation for violators. 

When an article in the business section of the New York Times begins with “Robert Watson, a top ingredient buyer for Kraft Foods, needed $20,000 to pay his taxes,” it’s time to say, uh oh. And uh oh is right.

Federal courts are required to state in open court the reasons for their imposition of a particular sentence in a criminal case. The other day, Eastern District of New York Judge Jack B. Weinstein sentenced a convicted criminal defendant, Eric Butler, who had been charged with fraud in connection with the purchases and sales of auction-rate securities (“ARS”), to five years in prison.