by TChris

Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers was sentenced to a highly publicized 25 years, but Ebbers didn’t act alone. As usual, those who played the government’s game by agreeing to assist its prosecution of Ebbers did much better.

Last week, Betty Vinson, a former WorldCom accounting official who said she pulled some numbers "out of the air" when she helped fudge company books, was sentenced to five months in prison. Another former accounting official, Troy Normand, was sentenced to three years of probation after a federal prosecutor said his role in the fraud was less than Vinson's.

Today, Buford "Buddy" Yates, the former director of general accounting, was sentenced to a year and a day. Although the judge called Yates “perhaps the least useful” of all the cooperators, she nonetheless rewarded him with a sentence that seems insignificant in comparison to the sentence imposed on Ebbers.

Is Ebbers really 25 times more culpable than WorldCom’s director of general accounting? As TalkLeft suggested here, a quarter century “is a ridiculous sentence for a non-violent crime.” That fact becomes even more obvious as the other actors in the WorldCom scheme are sentenced.

posted by Last Night in Little Rock

Fulton County Sheriff Myron Freeman fired eight courthouse security deputies yesterday as a result of the internal investigation into the March 11 courthouse shooting that left three dead, including Judge Rowland Barnes, at the courthouse and a fourth the next day as reported here.

Those fired included the major in charge of courthouse security. There were 13 people subjected to 14 disclinary actions.

The British National Archives has released 500 pages of documents from Mick Jagger's 1969 drug bust at his London apartment. Marianne Faithful was also present. Read Mick's version: The detective planted a small amount of white powder in a Cartier box on the table and then told Mick for $1,000. he could arrange it so Marianne pleaded guilty and he walked.

What makes Mick's story so credible is that the bribe required a guilty plea from Ms. Faithful. Why add that if you're making up a tale? If he were making it up, I think he would have said the detective told him they both would walk.

In the end, the detective was not prosecuted. But...

Several years later, senior detectives of Scotland Yard's drug squad were tried on charges of corruption much like the kind Mr. Jagger described.

Did Martha Stewart break the rules of her home confinement? Her lawyer confirms she has agreed to a three week extension of her home arrest which was supposed to end next week.

The New York Post reported Sunday that Stewart was seen riding an off-road vehicle on her estate and attended a yoga class nearby.

More here.

by TChris

A New Mexico police sergeant charged with executing the man who killed his partner entered a guilty plea today to voluntary manslaughter. He faces a sentence of one to seven years. In exchange for his guilty plea, the sergeant will not face federal charges.

[Billy] Anders shot Earl Flippen Dec. 18 after Flippen wounded him and killed his partner, Deputy Robert Hedman. The pair had responded to a home where they later learned Flippen killed his pregnant girlfriend.

Prosecutors alleged Flippen had already been wounded and was handcuffed when he was fatally shot.

Some will suggest that Flippen deserved his fate, but District Attorney Scot Key explains why he prosecuted an apparent revenge killing:

"Even though it places our office and me personally in a position of distress in the community, part of our job is if we don't police the police, who does?" Key said.

Scott Peterson, who is on death row at San Quentin after being convicted of killing his wife Laci, just got a website courtesy of Canadians Against the Death Penalty, which provides free sites to more than 500 death row prisoners.

The Website has Peterson's first public statement since arriving on death row. He says keep those letters coming.

His lawyer, Mark Geragos, maintains an investigative website for him here.

TChris usually has this category, but I couldn't resist. And who knows, maybe he can top this one: In Massachussetts, a woman reported her marijuana stolen.

A 51-year-old Boylston Street resident reported on July 21 that her residence was broken into sometime between 3:15 and 6 p.m. When asked if anything was missing, the woman reportedly told police "nothing except for her marijuana."

[Via Crim Prof Blog.]

Miami Herald reporter Jim DeFede has been fired for taping his last phone call with indicted Miami politician Art Teele. After the call, Teele went to the Herald's offices and killed himself. Sad story. The Southern District of Florida blog has a good wrap-up and these thoughts, by David Oscar Markus.

On a personal note, I'm just sickened by this. It's an eye-opening reminder that targeting someone (either by the press or by the state or by the feds) has real consequences. I am not suggesting that anyone is to blame for Teele's actions. That said, I have wondered why the feds needed to prosecute Teele after he had been convicted in state court and after he had lost his job and his life. In the end, was it necessary? Even assuming that he committed a crime, there are times when our prosecutors should use discretion. It's easy, of course, to say now that this was one of those cases, but I still wonder why this man (after what he had already gone through) needed to be prosecuted.

Brian David Mitchell, the alleged kidnapper of Utah teen Elizabeth Smart, has been found mentally incompetent to stand trial. This is not much of a surprise considering:

He has been removed from the courtroom several times during competency hearings over the past seven months for singing hymns and shouting Biblical admonitions, The Associate Press reported. He has called himself a prophet named "Emmanuel."

His wife and charged accomplice, Wanda Barzee, was ruled incompetent in January. The Salt Lake City Tribune reports:

In a 60-page decision, Judge Judith Atherton said that although Mitchell has an ''adequate capacity'' to comprehend the charges against him, the possible penalties and the adversary nature of the proceedings, he fails the competency test in other areas. Atherton said Mitchell has an impaired ability to communicate with his attorneys, engage in reasoned choice of legal strategies, manifest appropriate courtroom behavior and testify relevantly.

That means Mitchell, 51, will join his wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee, 59, at the Utah State Hospital for treatment aimed at making them well enough to face prosecution. Barzee has been at the hospital since March 2004.

San Diego's acting mayor and a councilman were convicted today of taking illegal campaign contributions from strip club owners.

Acting Mayor Michael Zucchet and Councilman Ralph Inzunza were convicted Monday on federal corruption charges, with a jury finding the politicians conspired with a strip club owner to ease restrictions on such clubs. The panel convicted Inzunza on nine counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy and three counts of extortion. Zucchet was convicted of one count of wire-fraud conspiracy, five counts of wire fraud and three counts of extortion.

....Zucchet and Inzunza had contended they accepted only legitimate campaign contributions and were just doing their jobs. But jurors accepted the prosecution's case that the contributions and cash the councilmen accepted came in exchange for their promises to scale back the rules.

This LA Times report has an interesting twist to the trial.

Trial began today in London in the libel case fugitive Roman Polanski brought against Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair's lawyers are pulling out all stops. They called him a "fugitive from morality" today.

Polanski is suing Vanity Fair for libel over an article published in July 2002 in which it claimed he made sexual advances to a Swedish woman in Elaine's, a fashionable New York restaurant bar, on the way to his wife's funeral.

He denies that he went to the bar on his way to Tate's funeral, and although he admits he went there shortly afterwards, he denies the incident ever took place.

Mia Farrow will testify tomorrow.

She was with Polanski at Elaine's on the night in August 1969 on which the incident is alleged to have taken place.

Abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolf got two life terms today, and was defiant as ever.

When it was his turn to speak Monday, Rudolph angrily lashed out at abortion and the Birmingham clinic. "What they did was participate in the murder of 50 children a week," he said, shackled at the ankles and wearing a red jail uniform. "Abortion is murder and because it is murder I believe deadly force is needed to stop it."

Crooks and Liars has more.

Rudolf will be serving his sentence on "bomber's row" at Supermax, Alcatraz of the Rockies, in Florence, Colorado.