The Miami Vice era went out with a whimper today as Willy Falcon was sentenced to 20 years in jail and a $1 million fine for his cocaine activities in Miami in the 1980's. The sentence and fine were part of a plea bargain. Falcon paid the fine last week, but came up $270 short. Then it was discovered that $400 of bills were counterfeit. His lawyers made up the shortfall.

Falcon's partner, Sal Magluta, was sentenced to life in prison some years ago. Police say the two earned $2 billion from turning Miami into the cocaine capital of the nation. They spent $20 million on lawyers for themselves and their associates during more than a decade of legal travails.

Their story is actually a lot more interesting than the article makes it sound. Here's what we remember:

A federal judge has dismissed two counts of the terrorism Indictment against criminal defense attorney Lynne Stewart. Stewart is represented by Michael Tigar.

The Judge found the conspiracy to commit terrorism statute unconsitutionally vague. Stewart is still facing charges of conspiracy to defraud the Government and making false statements.

Stewart was charged last year with helping deliver messages from her client, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks and assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Prosecutors say she and co-defendants Mohammed Yousry, an Arabic translator, and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a U.S. postal worker, helped relay messages from the blind Egyptian cleric to the Islamic Group, a radical Egyptian-based terrorist group.

Here are the details of the Lynne Stewart case. Our coverage of the case is here. Here's one of the reasons we think the case is chilling.

Update: The National Law Journal provides this in-depth analysis of the Judge's decision.

NBC is reporting that the 19 year old who accused Kobe Bryant of sexual assault was in good spirits and bragged about Kobe's size three days after the incident.

Kenneth Karas, an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York , who is part of the proseuction team in the Zacarias Moussaoui case, has been nominated for a judgeship to the U.S. District Court in New York.

Karas has the approval of New York Senator Chuck Schumer. Schumer and the White House have agreed on the nomination. Karas is "co-chief of the New York office's organized crime and terrorism unit."

Our President has found a new fall guy:

President Bush's number two national security aide on Tuesday took blame for a controversy over charges Iraq tried to buy African uranium, saying the CIA had warned him earlier that intelligence cited by Bush was suspect.

Stephen Hadley, deputy national security adviser, said he should have deleted a reference to Iraqi attempts to buy African uranium from Bush's State of the Union speech in January, because the CIA had asked him to remove similar language from an October speech by the president.

"It is now clear to me that I failed in that responsibility," Hadley told reporters. White House communications director Dan Bartlett said.

We hope people view Hadley's admission for what it is: a weakattempt to fall on his sword for the Administration. The responsibility for the SOTU address is not his, but the President's. That's where the buck stops. Bush should be ashamed of not stepping up to the plate and acknowledging his own responsibility.

Update: The dissembling continues. Read this Washington Post article:

The CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about a claim President Bush made three months later in the State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material in Africa, White House officials said yesterday.

....Yesterday's disclosures indicate top White House officials knew that the CIA seriously disputed the claim that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa long before the claim was included in Bush's January address to the nation. The claim was a major part of the case made by the Bush administration before the Iraq war that Hussein represented a serious threat because of his nuclear ambitions; other pieces of evidence have also been challenged.

The media is trying to unseal the reports that led to Kobe Bryant's arrest on a sexual assault charge. The defense has filed a 23 page brief in opposition, saying disclosure will jeopardize Kobe's right to a fair trial. The District Attorney agrees and will be filing his brief later today.

We think the documents should remained sealed until they are introduced at a court hearing. These are one sided documents that are not evidence in the case. They may contain hearsay. They outline the information that caused police to believe Kobe may have committed a sexual assault--and they may or may not be accurate. But the potential for prejudice to Kobe is huge.

Trials take place in public. Criminal investigations should not.

Update: It's official - Saddam's sons are dead.

"The two sons of fomer Iraqi president Saddam Hussein were killed today by U.S. troops in a firefight in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Gen. Richard Sanchez announced this afternoon in a press briefing in Baghdad."

...Before the attack, U.S. troops from the Army's 101st Airborne Division had targeted the home in Mosul, which some wire reports said may have been owned by a Hussein relative. The target was chosen because of information from intelligence agencies who suspected high ranking members of Hussein's inner circle were there.

....U.S. officers told the Reuters news agency that as many as 200 U.S. soldiers had attacked the villa with machine guns and rockets during a four-hour battle.

***************

NBC just issued a breaking news alert saying that credible reports say that both of Saddam Hussein's sons were killed during the military's shootout Tuesday near Mosul. Reuters has more. Here's an update from USA Today .

Democratic contender Howard Dean leads the pack in California, according to a new poll taken there. He also is ahead of President Bush.

Tom Paine reports that Congresspersons Dennis Kucinich, Carolyn Maloney and Bernie Sanders sent this letter with Ten Questions to Vice President Dick Cheney on July 21, 2003.

Jameika Williams, a former girlfriend of Kobe Bryant, has thrown her support behind him. She and Kobe dated in 1997, when she was 19 and he was 18. He was already playing for the Lakers, but not a big star. Here are some of her comments on Larry King Live last night [Transcript available at Lexis.com ]:

KING: How did you hear about what happened to him?

WILLIAMS: Well, just watching the news coverage. And it basically shocked me. I couldn't believe that he could be possibly charged with sexual assault.

KING: In other words, your first reaction was this was not possible.

WILLIAMS: My first reaction was this was not responsible. That's not the Kobe Bryant that I knew.

KING: He never was rough with you or in any way...

WILLIAMS: Never rough.

KING: ... other than non-gentlemanly.

WILLIAMS: Not -- never rough, never aggressive.

KING: Would it be -- since you're going to be a lawyer, would you -- since you're learning about courts and the like, would you be a character witness?

WILLIAMS: Possibly. I wouldn't mind testifying as to his good character.

KING: In other words, if they asked you, you would go.

WILLIAMS: Yes. Definitely.

Kudos to the Dixie Chicks who have joined the Rock the Vote campaign to get the youth vote out.

The group's involvement with Rock the Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 1990, is an indirect result of the Bush uproar. "We never had intentions to become a political band but like it or not we have been placed on a unique political platform in the past months," Maines said Monday. "We feel it would be irresponsible not to make something positive come out of that."

Besides lending their images and music to a Rock the Vote Web site that will guide people through the voter registration process, bandmates Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison said they would urge people at their concerts to become politically active.

This is turning into a big story. Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the man who debunked the Iraq-Niger Uranium connection, has been outed as a CIA operative, jeopardizing all of the projects she worked on during her career. Wilson was on the Today show today, blaming Administration officials for the leak. The Bush Wars has all the details and pertinent links.

Here's the Bob Novak column in the Chicago Sun Times that started it all. [link updated 9/30]

Update: This is our first post on Valerie Plame. For all of TalkLeft's Valerie Plame coverage, go here.