By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — The New Black Panther Party voter intimidation controversy continues to haunt the Justice Department and the Obama administration. A draft report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights concludes that the Justice Department tried hiding the fact high-level political officials were involved in dropping most of the charges in…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The Justice Department’s Inspector General is probing allegations that the agency’s civil rights division was racially discriminatory when it came to enforcing voting laws, the Washington Post reported. The Post reports that the probe grows out of a voter intimidation case from 2008 in which members of the New Black Panther…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit has indicted ex-NBA player Jay Vincent who played with Magic Johnson at Michigan State University in an alleged $2 million Internet employment scam, the Associated Press reported. Authorities alleged that Vincent, 51, and Athony Portee, 53, both of Lansing, Mi., bilked jobseekers out of 20,000…
By Allan Lengel For AOL News His title may be “acting,” but there’s no pretending that things haven’t been outright wild, abuzz, atwitter, downright explosive since George Venizelos took over in March on a temporary basis as head of the New York FBI office, the largest in the country. There was the high-anxiety Times Square…
By Andrew Alexander Washington Post Ombudsman WASHINGTON — Thursday’s Post reported about a growing controversy over the Justice Department’s decision to scale down a voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party. The story succinctly summarized the issues but left many readers with a question: What took you so long? For months, readers…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday gave the final nod to Zane D. Memeger to become U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia and David Fein to become the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut. Memeger replaces interim U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy, who had been in that position since 2009. Levy will work for…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com A federal jury in Philly convicted drug kingpin Maurice Phillips on Tuesday of hiring a hitman to kill a woman who was cooperating with the FBI in a case against him, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Phillips, 38, who ran a multimillion-dollar cocaine-distribution network stretching from Texas to New York, could get…
Zane Memeger/law firm photo By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON –After months of speculation and uncertainty, it appears former federal prosecutor Zane D. Memeger, a partner in a big city law firm, is expected to be nominated as U.S. Attorney in Philly, the Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting. The Inquirer reports that Memeger was a assistant U.S….
