Honest Services

A former senior clerk of court for the State of Minnesota’s Fourth Judicial District has been sentenced for failing to provide the state and its citizens honest services by improperly dismissing traffic citations and pocketing associated funds. U.S. District Court Judge Donovan W. Frank sentenced Abdulkadir Mohamoud Afrah to 21 months in prison on one count of honest services wire fraud.

Several months ago, in Skilling v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the honest services fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1346, applied only to bribery and kickback schemes, and not in situations involving undisclosed self-dealing by a public official or private employee.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing tomorrow, September 28, at 10:00 a.m. to consider what to do about the “honest services” law, if anything, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Skilling case. The title of the hearing is: “Restoring Key Tools to Combat Fraud and Corruption After the Supreme Court's Skilling Decision.”

Background on the 'honest services' dispute is available by typing "honest services" in the Search Box on this page.

In lengthy decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has just ruled that the federal "honest services" law can be applied to criminalize only schemes to defraud that involve bribes or kickbacks.

The U.S. Supreme Court has limited the application of the "honest services" law in cases involving former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and newspaper publisher Conrad Black....

More to follow....

We’ve mentioned before the “theft of honest services” cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the felony “honest services” mail fraud conviction of Joseph L. Bruno, who was one of the top three people in charge of New York government when he was Senate Majority Leader. Bruno is about to be sentenced, and prosecutors are seeking a 97 month jail term. Defense lawyers William J. Dreyer and April M.

An unbelievable amount of snow – again – is hitting the New York area. So, we are going to take the opportunity to look forward to March (which shows just how bad the weather has been in February), with hopes that the new month won’t come in like a lion. That’s probably what Enron chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling is hoping, too. On Monday, argument will be held in Skilling’s appeal to the U.S.

We want our elected officials and corporate executives to be honest. We expect that they will be honest. But, just in case, we have a law on the books that requires that. Well, the U.S. Supreme Court is going to be hearing argument as to whether that’s constitutional. 

The NY Times is reporting that former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is expected to plead guilty tomorrow to one conspiracy charge admitting that he deprived the public of his “honest services.”