Corruption

The final area that Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer discussed today at the Practising Law Institute in New York was public corruption. Taxpayers – and corrupt government officials – should pay particular attention to this: 

There is a “serious corruption problem” around the world, according to a report from Transparency International. The report shows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five, on a scale from 10 (very clean) to 0 (highly corrupt). 

The findings of a major global survey of lawyers in private practice, released today at the 2010 International Bar Association (IBA) Annual Conference in Vancouver, Canada, show widespread concern amongst lawyers about corruption in the legal profession and a lack of awareness of key international anti-corruption instruments, such as the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. 

The former city manager and several current and former council members of Bell, California, have been arrested on charges they misappropriated more than $5.5 million, including being paid for phantom committee meetings and making illegal personal loans. 

A federal grand jury has indicted Maryland State Senator Ulysses S. Currie and former Shoppers Food Warehouse Corp. (“SFW”) executives (former president William J. White and former vice president for real estate development R.

The deadlocked jury in the federal corruption trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich may be due to a deficit in the prosecution's "smoking guns," according to a Washington University in St. Louis professor of law.

More from Sam Adams, Sr. (prior comments from Sam Adams, Jr.): "If mistakes were made in this case it was my fault, my fault, I take the blame."

"We are going to ask for a new trial."

On guilty count:  "They tried to make him remember what he said 5 years ago....Nobody had any defense notes on it...FBI makes these notes and comes in and reads the notes. Is that worth the millions and millions of dollars they spent on this prosecution?" 

Rod Blago lawyer Sam Adams: Blago is "not corruptible." "Thank God this is a jury who spent 14 days, who took this case seriously."

Patti "didn't do anything either." "This guy Fitzgerald is a master at indicting people for non-criminal behavior. Same thing happened to Scooter Libby....This guy is nuts."

"The answer is they got him on something he had no opportunity to defend" [re guilty count].  "Then man comes down here and says 'I stopped a crime spree.'"

Adams:  "I wish this entire group would go upstairs and ask Mr. Fitzgerald one question...why are we spending $25 to $30 million on a retrial?"

"The money we would spend on a retrial" should be "given back to the people of Illinois."

"Why would prosecutor who after 10 seconds of hearing the verdict jump up and say we want to try the case again? Is this worth it?"

Blago lawyer Sam Adam, Jr.:  "I have said consistently...from the very beginning that this government could not prove Rod Blagojevich guilty of a single count of corruption...."

"Without a doubt this man wouldn't take cash...."