Thursday, May 30, 2013

Alabama Isn't The Only State Where Crooked Judges Gather At Hunting Clubs To Commit Unlawful Acts


Former Illinois judge Michael Cook
Alabama, it turns out, is not the only state where corrupt judges and lawyers gather at hunting clubs to commit unsavory acts.

It also happens in western Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from Missouri. And we know, from an unfolding story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, that the ugliness in the Midwest involves cocaine, heroin, firearms . . . and, well, it makes Alabama sound tame.


At least three federal lawsuits have been filed here in Alabama, alleging that judges and lawyers gather at hunting clubs to fix divorce cases in Jefferson County. All three cases were dismissed under questionable circumstances, with no discovery, suggesting the federal judiciary actively is engaged in a cover up. That makes sense when you consider that U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn (Northern District of Alabama) is one of the apparent beneficiaries of hunting-club corruption


Ugly stuff ensues when folks with law degrees gather in the Alabama woods. But it might be even uglier on the Illinois/Missouri border. Consider this report out of Belleville, Illinois, from St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Robert Patrick: 



A courthouse drug scandal expanded Friday with charges alleging that a St. Clair County probation worker used cocaine repeatedly with two judges and provided the dose that killed one of them. 
James K. Fogarty, of the probation office’s investigative unit, told officials he bought cocaine and re-sold it to Associate Judge Joseph Christ and Circuit Judge Michael N. Cook the day before the two went to a hunting lodge where Christ died March 10. 
Fogarty, 45, was charged in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis with distribution and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. He was held pending another hearing. 
Earlier Friday, Cook, 43, appeared in the same courthouse to answer charges of being an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a firearm, and a misdemeanor charge of possession of heroin.

One judge dies from a cocaine overdose, and another is arrested for illegally possessing heroin and a firearm? Gee, how bad would their behavior be if they had not taken a solemn oath to uphold the law?


And it gets worse. Judge Cook was arrested at the home of a known drug dealer:



The charges capped a frenetic two-day period in which Cook was arrested Wednesday at the home in Belleville of Sean D. McGilvery, a friend now accused of running a busy heroin shuttle from Chicago. 
The FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies searched McGilvery’s house plus Cook’s chambers in the courthouse in Belleville, home in the same city, and family hunting lodge in Pike County, Ill., where Christ died. 
McGilvery, 34, was charged late Thursday with conspiracy to distribute, and possession with intent to distribute, heroin. The charges claim he sold more than a kilogram.

An ongoing federal investigation extends well beyond Belleville, Illinois. Cook resigned from his judicial post yesterday. This is from an article Tuesday by Post-Dispatch reporter Paul Hampel:


The investigation into a drug scandal involving a St. Clair County judge, another who died of a cocaine overdose and a county probation worker charged with providing them with drugs, is far-reaching, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday.

“This is a wide-open investigation and is not limited in scope to the St. Clair County courthouse,” U.S. Attorney Stephen Wigginton said after a hearing for accused probation officer James K. Fogarty at U.S. District Court in East St. Louis.

Wigginton did not elaborate, other than to say the investigation was “fast-moving and dynamic.”

“We have a number of leads we are tracking down,” Wigginton said.

The feds might want to follow some leads into the Alabama hunting-club scene. God only knows what they would find there.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our Alabama judges don't look so bad, all of the sudden.

Barb said...

Is it possible there is a tad too much testosterone at some of these hunting lodges?

Anonymous said...

Amateurs...they should look to Alabama as the blueprint to successfully concealing illegal activity.

jeffrey spruill said...

I would imagine this "druggie incident" will wash the arrogance off judge Michael Cook's face.

Anonymous said...

I bet lawyers and judges have been known to smoke a few bongs and snort a few lines at AL hunting clubs. We are not to be outdone!

Anonymous said...

What a name for a judge... Michael Crook, er, Cook

Anonymous said...

late 1700s, Russell & Co. ['Bush Family & Skull & Bones], opium smugglers.

YALE UNIV. Even Taft had his hands in corruption.

Bush Crime Family new museum and library? History recording?

1500s Portugal did its best to trade with China, but it was the Opium Wars that took down the country and the real history is how many sailed from Boston, the Astor family losing in war of 1812, joined others, drug smuggling and war chests.

FT BUSH ESQ, lawyers have been in the biz of drugs and of course wars to claim all the spoils, since America got built.

THE FINANCIAL BIZ, same as the LAW BIZ, without all the fake 'courage' there is only fools on errands of losing all dignity.

Bubbles were and are to pop and the big pop is yet to be heard, however this may be the hissing sound of lawyers at long last meeting the end of "Esq"

Anonymous said...

Not sure what kind of hunting lodge they have in Illinois, but it must be different from those we have in Alabama. On my drives through Illinois, it seems to be mostly flat and treeless. Not much in the way of woods. Maybe there isn't much to hunt, so they sit around and get high.

Anonymous said...

I recall reading here at LS about a federal judge in Atlanta--can't remember the name--who was caught with a stripper trying to score drugs. Makes you wonder how many "roaches in robes" are high as a kite while they make decisions from the bench.

legalschnauzer said...

The judge in ATL is the "Honorable" Jack Camp. He got off incredibly easy on that deal, when you considered that it involved both drug and weapons charges.


http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2010/10/federal-judge-charged-with-buying-drugs.html

Anonymous said...

Oh, let's not forget the "kids for cash" judge in Pennsylvania, whose convictions and sentence recently were upheld . . .



http://citizensvoice.com/news/kids-for-cash-judge-s-prison-term-stands-1.1495253

e.a.f. said...

And then there was the judge in British Columbia, Canada who was sentenced to a long term in jail for "exchanging sexual favours" for reduced sentences or no sentences with young First Nations' women.

When people in position of trust are sentenced they ought to be given longer sentences because they knew better. They were in positions of trust and they betrayed that trust. It might make some of these people think twice before engaging in illegal practises.

These judges, knew they were committing a crime. They weren't involved in crime because of their lack of opportunities, or health care, education, etc. They did it because they could and they thought they were having fun.

Perhaps Obama looking for a legacy could clean up the judicial system in America. There might not be a greater gift he could leave the American people.

Anonymous said...

Alabama is insane because of Monsanto's PCBs in every speck of what gets ingested in the air, water, dirt, food, and there isn't any escape.

The whole nation is insane due to Monsanto's PCBs.

The Monsanto Blackwater Connection
28 May 2013,

http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-Monsanto-Blackwater-Connection-20130528

legalschnauzer said...

e.a.f.--

You make a great point. Sadly, we see no signs that Obama intends to leave a justice legacy. He is about to appoint a Bush Republican to head the FBI. How does one explain that? I can't do it.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57586774/obama-to-name-former-bush-official-as-fbi-director/

Unknown said...

eaf, LS, et al

Clinton said he did what he did for the worst of all reasons, because he could.

Absolutely power corrupts absolutely.

Francis Boyle in the interview about Bush the War Criminal said, that once these guys get to be President they are 'drunk on power'.

Bush should be arrested and sentenced to the most horrific sentencing he, Bush, stipulated for GITMO and Obama needs to be impeached and also put into one of the secret torture prisons somewhere that can't be found.

Far worse than Bundy.

Anonymous said...

is hell gonna freeze over before multi billionaires get arrested for committing the worst crimes known?

muti billionaires pay the military that uses our children for their profits in killing globally and of course raping, pillaging and plundering, read about the Syrian women and rape, then the Obama Constitutional Presidency is of course the HOPE America can trust and Syria, too, we can witness our fate soon.

best demand no more martial law like what Boston experienced or the writing is off the wall and into the alphabet soup, too hot to swallow and poison to boot.

Obama is the man of all men in the time of 21 Century hunting lodge meet ups.

Anonymous said...

A state senator died at a hunting camp in Alabama.

Anonymous said...

Breaking away from the classical political theory which sought to make virtue the condition of power, Machiavelli (1469-1527) asserted that only the appearance of virtue counts, and that the successful prince must be a “great simulator” who manipulates and cons people’s mind”. The ruler he most admired was Cesar Borgia, who after having appointed the cruel Ramiro d’Orco to subdue the province of Romania, had him executed with extreme cruelty, thus diverting the hatred of the people on another and reaping his gratitude.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article178638.html

crackers' idols

Anonymous said...

Afghanistan was where America went first, despite the supposed Iraq, as our mission to be accomplished in destroying weapons of mass blotters.

Heroin from Afghanistan is said to be the best in the world, except for what got moved to parts of IndoChina after the Russian Afghanistan LONG war against China and other countries fighting against the corrupt "European Colonization."

Palestine owns 8% of the land which belongs to Palestinians.

That was the big prize, own Palestine and then own the whole of "Persia".

Opium poppies are no longer isolated in only Afghanistan.

America met its Waterloo, as Napoleon would have, had to also say, and our accomplishment in this time of a 'new world order'?

"Leaders" ~ LOL ~ USA found out that Russia and China having already been in the barrel of 'nwo' agendas, centuries ongoing now, allowed America to go ahead and learn the lesson.

Spoils of wars go to the winners and America didn't win against the other countries that had already been used in the Afghanistan wars for peace of course and not the best heroin in the world.

Drug addiction in America, as was in China and Russia, rampant.

How to collapse the 'enemy'.

Unknown said...

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