Should a U.S. Attorney come out with verbal guns blazing after making an arrest? Is it unfair to the defendant? Is it unfair to  the public to keep quiet? Where’s the boundaries?

BY ABDON M. PALLASCH
Chicago Sun-Times Political Reporter
CHICAGO — Speaking to 200 lawyers from around the country Thursday, retired appellate Judge Abner Mikva criticized U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald for showing a bit too much enthusiasm at a news conferences announcing charges against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

“I certainly don’t like the prosecutor coming out and trying his case [in the media] and possibly tainting the jury pool with a big press conference announcing he has indicted so-and-so, or, in Blagojevich’s case, has arrested so-and-so — he hadn’t even reached an indictment yet,” Mikva saids at the American Bar Association convention.

“The argument is made by some prosecutors that this is a part of a public information factor of a prosecutor’s job, and they have to do it. That’s nonsense.”

Fitzgerald gained a reputation during his first seven years as U.S. attorney for avoiding colorful language at news conferences and refusing to entertain questions that fell outside “the four corners of the indictment.”

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The city of Detroit certainly has no surplus in its budget, no surplus of jobs. What it does have is a surplus of scandals.

Ex-fed prosecutor Sheryl Robinson Wood/law firm photo

BY JOE SWICKARD and BEN SCHMITT
Detroit Free Press
DETROIT — Former Detroit police monitor Sheryl Robinson Wood was ousted under a cloud. Some experts say a review of her ties to then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick may eventually turn into a criminal investigation.

“With the possibility of federal charges, there are no minor concerns,” said Detroit attorney Bill Goodman, who represented the City Council in its efforts to oust Kilpatrick.

Wood has been in talks this week with attorney Richard Craig Smith, an expert in white-collar crime and government investigations with the Washington, D.C., firm Fulbright & Jaworski. The firm was once home to Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski.

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Frankly, it would have been a heck of lot more surprising if Karl Rove had minimal involvement in the U.S. Attorney firings during the Bush administration.
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer

Karl Rove

WASHINGTON — Political adviser Karl Rove and other high-ranking figures in the Bush White House played a greater role than previously understood in the firing of federal prosecutors almost three years ago, according to e-mails obtained by The Washington Post, in a scandal that led to mass Justice Department resignations and an ongoing criminal probe.

The e-mails and new interviews with key participants reflect contacts among Rove, aides in the Bush political affairs office and White House lawyers about the dismissal of three of the nine U.S. attorneys fired in 2006: New Mexico’s David C. Iglesias, the focus of ire from GOP lawmakers; Missouri’s Todd Graves, who had clashed with one of Rove’s former clients; and Arkansas’s Bud Cummins, who was pushed out to make way for a Rove protege.

The documents and interviews provide new information about efforts by political aides in the Bush White House, for example, to push a former colleague as a favored candidate for one of the U.S. attorney posts. They also reflect the intensity of efforts by lawmakers and party officials in New Mexico to unseat the top prosecutor there.

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It doesn’t seem to have great shock value when a brotel owner in the great state of Nevada gets busted for bribing an official.

By HENRY BREAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
LAS VEGAS — The second time she met with him to negotiate a bribe, Candice Trummell thought brothel owner Maynard “Joe” Richards seemed unusually paranoid.

He was nervous the feds might be following him, she said.

Richards was right to worry.

The 75-year-old owner of three Nye County brothels was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in connection with a political corruption case Trummell helped crack by wearing a microphone and a hidden camera for the FBI.

Richards will spend a year in a Las Vegas halfway house and five years on probation for trying to bribe Trummell in 2005, when she served on the Nye County Commission.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jones also fined Richards $250,000 and ordered him to report any money or “in-kind services” he might give to a public official while he’s on probation.

Jones called political corruption the most serious crime handled by the federal courts.

“Whether it’s a $100,000 or a $5,000 bribe, it simply won’t be tolerated,” the judge said.

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Now this is pretty darn scary. Rep. Edolphus Towns says he plans to introduce legislation to ban such software. Whether or not that’s the answer, is another question. But someone needs to find the answer. It seems a more effective way would be to create a software that prevents this from happening. Banning software seems like a tough task.

By Brian Krebs and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
WASHINGTON — The indiscriminate use of a popular online data-sharing technology has led to the disclosure of sensitive government and personal information — including FBI surveillance photos of a Mafia hit man, lists of people with HIV, and motorcade routes and safe-house locations for then-first lady Laura Bush, a congressional panel was told on Wednesday.

The information is often exposed inadvertently by people who download the technology to share music or other files, not realizing that the “peer-to-peer” software also makes the contents of their computers available to other users, experts said.

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This has been one of the more brazen, biszare hate-crime incidents. At age 89, he could face the death penalty. But at that age, he’s not likely to get it. Any prison sentence will be a life sentence.

Scene of the Crime

By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A federal grand jury indicted an elderly white supremacist Wednesday on charges that could earn him the death penalty in the fatal shooting of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

Hate crimes charges were added to the case against James von Brunn, who has been in a hospital since the shooting last month.

Officials say the 89-year-old shot and killed museum guard Stephen T. Johns on June 10. Von Brunn was shot in the face by other guards but survived.

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The motive has not been determined. But it very well may end up being the drug cartels, which are hoping through violence to make the Mexican and U.S. government back off. Meanwhile, on Wednesday the Associated Press reported that Mexican authorities had found a Mexican radio journalist beaten, dead and partially buried in Acapulco. Whatever help the U.S. is providing in this violent battle, apparently it’s not enough.

By MIGUEL ANGEL HERNANDEZ
The Associated Press
VERACRUZ, Mexico — Gunmen shot up and torched the home of a Mexican police commander Wednesday, killing the officer, his wife and his four children, including a 6-year-old boy.

The interior of the house in the Gulf coast city of Veracruz was completely burned, and its facade was riddled with bullet holes. Inside, police found the bodies of municipal police commander Jesus Antonio Romero and his family, Veracruz state Public Safety Secretary Sergio Lopez said.

Police said the youngest was a 6-year-old boy and the oldest was a 15-year-old girl.

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OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• Suspended Boston Cop Apologizes for Racial Slur About Harvard Prof (AP)
• Homeland Chief Napolitano Urges “Collective Fight” Against Terrorism (Washington Post)
• Dozens Across U.S. Arrested for Medicare Fraud (AP)
• South Carolina Man Arrested for Having Sex With Horse (AP)
• New Hampshire Sports Reporter Charged With Running Prostitution Ring (AP)
• Judge Says He’ll Largely Turn Down Media Request to See Sealed ex-Gov. Blagojevich documents (AP)
• IG Says Homeland Security Skirted Procurement Ethics Rules (Federal Computer Week)
• Ex-Armenian Counsul and Lawyer Arrested in Immigration Scam (Courthouse News Service)
• Bernie Madoff Says He Can’t Believe He Got Away With It For So Long (ABC News)
• Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Says He Was Racially Profiled (ABC News)