Financial Terrorism Revisited

I noted in yesterday's post that the folks at Ingram & Associates LLC, a Birmingham debt-collection law firm seemed displeased when I pointed out their obligation to report the crimes that have been committed against me by lawyers and judges. These crimes led to a debt I allegedly owe to American Express, one of Ingram & Associates' clients.

Recall that Tracey Mize, the Ingram & Associates representative who contacted me, told me she was aware of the Alabama State Bar rule that requires an attorney to report it when he or she possesses knowledge of professional misconduct by another lawyer or judge. And recall that Ms. Mize stated that information about the crimes committed against my wife and me already were in our file.

So how did Ms. Mize react when I informed her that Angie Ingram, her firm's shareholder, had an obligation to report this information to an appropriate authority or tribunal? Here is our exchange:

TM: "She (Ms. Ingram) doesn't have an obligation to report this wrongdoing because I'm not going to report it to her. It would be a conflict of interest for her. Her duty is to American Express."

Legal Schnauzer : "She also has a duty to the profession of the law."

TM: "She's an honorable woman, and her reputation is impeccable. If she had firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing, I can assure you she would be the first one to report it."

LS: "I have firsthand knowledge, and I can give it to her."

TM: "She doesn't want to see that. She wants to see some type of commitment from you on the debt."

LS: "I'm telling you, Ms. Ingram has an obligation. . . . She inserted herself into my life, and any debt that I owe is because of crimes committed by people in the legal profession."

TM: "Ms. Ingram is not going to get involved in your witch-hunt."



Hmm, so much for customer service. And recall, the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct state that an attorney must report wrongdoing of which they "possess knowledge." Doesn't say it has to be firsthand knowledge. And Ms. Mize already had stated the information was in their files for Ms. Ingram to see.

I wound up speaking with Jann Blalock, Ms. Mize's supervisor. She also was most helpful . . .

JB: "I'm going to recommend to Ms. Ingram that we put this through the litigation process. I don't understand what this has to do with American Express."

LS: "A lawyer has an obligation to report wrongdoing . . . "

JB: "Have you pulled this with every lawyer that represents somebody? You need to find a different horse to ride. This one's not going to work with us. We called you about a debt, and we're not interested in any schemes."

Schemes? Different horse to ride? Witch-hunt?

I decided to seek a little more information . . .

LS: "Who's the attorney who represents American Express?"

JB: "Angie Ingram."

LS: "I need to speak with her at her convenience."

JB: "I will give her your message."

Ooooookay. Well, I never heard from Ms. Ingram, so I sent her a letter about the wrongdoing I had witnessed. The letter went out about two weeks ago. No response.

Don't you just love lawyers.

Financial Terrorists Ride Again

Let's return to the subject of financial terrorism. That's the term I coined to describe the efforts of the corrupt judges and attorneys involved in the Legal Schnauzer case.

I'm quite sure no one named Osama works in the Shelby County Courthouse in Columbiana, Alabama. But judges J. Michael Joiner, G. Dan Reeves, and Ron Jackson seem to operate like a well-known "Osama." These judges, in conjunction with their attorney cronies, figuratively flew an airplane into my financial picture, causing widespread destruction.

I noted in a recent post that, thanks to these financial terrorists, my wife and I have received communications from Ingram & Associates LLC, a Birmingham debt-collection law firm. The kind folks at Ingram & Associates LLC informed me that they had been hired by their client, American Express, to sue me. As a courtesy, they were contacting me in an effort to resolve the debt that they claimed I owed to their client, American Express. Absent a resolution, I could expect to be sued by their client, American Express.

My case, however, presents a bit of a problem for the charmers who work at Ingram & Associates LLC, at least if they intend to follow the rules of the Alabama State Bar.

Angie Ingram is described on the firm's Web site as "shareholder." Evidently she is the firm's chief attorney. That gives her a big responsibility when she is presented with evidence of professional misconduct by another lawyer or a judge.

Rule 8.3 of the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct states: "A lawyer possessing unprivileged knowledge of a violation of Rule 8.4 shall report such knowledge to a tribunal or other authority empowered to investigate or act upon such violation."

Rule 8.4 lists seven specific forms of conduct that must be reported. Among the seven forms, the rule states that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

* Commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects;

* Engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation;

* Knowingly assist a judge or judicial officer in conduct that is a violation of applicable Canons of Judicial Ethics or other law . . .

Lawyers in the Legal Schnauzer case repeatedly violated these three tenets of Rule 8.4 (and the other four, for that matter.) You can read Rules 8.3 and 8.4 in their entirety.

The heart of the matter is summed up in the Comment to Rule 8.3:

"Self-regulation of the legal profession requires that members of the profession initiate disciplinary investigation when they know of a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. . . . A lawyer is obliged to report every violation of the Rules. The failure to report a violation would itself be a professional offense."

So you see, at least on paper, the Alabama State Bar considers this a serious matter--and a serious obligation for Ms. Ingram.

My wife and I both informed Ms. Ingram's associates that any debt we allegedly owed was the result of criminal behavior by multiple Alabama judges and attorneys. In fact, a woman named Tracey Mize told me that this information already was in my file because my wife had shared it with her the previous evening. In other words, the information already was in Angie Ingram's possession.

"If in fact we are behind on payments to American Express," I told Ms. Mize, "it is because huge chunks of our personal funds were essentially stolen by Alabama judges and lawyers." I cited the specific law they had violated, 18 U.S. Code 1346 (honest services mail fraud).

I went on to inform Ms. Mize that an attorney who has knowledge of a crime committed by another lawyer or judge is obligated to report it. She admitted that she was aware of this.

But when I helpfully pointed out that this includes Angie Ingram, Ms. Mize was less than enthused.

Does Ingram & Associates LLC take seriously its obligations under the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct? More on that coming up.

A Classic Non Sequitur

Just had to share today's Non Sequitur comic strip.

As we delve into more details about events leading up to my legal sojourn, you will see why this strip hits close to home for the Legal Schnauzer.

Stiff Sentences Expected in Mississippi

Mississippi newspapers are reporting that stiff sentences are expected for attorney Paul Minor and former judges John Whitfield and Wes Teel.

The Biloxi Sun-Herald reports that rulings by U.S. District Judge Henry Wingfield indicate Minor might receive up to 12 years for his conviction on various corruption charges. Sentences are expected to be handed down by the end of this week.

Charges in the Minor case were similar to those in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. And the Minor case involved charges of judicial corruption in a Deep South state, which means it is of great interest here at Legal Schnauzer.

Murder and the U.S. Attorneys Scandal

Kudos to the White Collar Crime Prof blog for shining light on a remarkable story by Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker.

Toobin writes about John McKay of Seattle, who was one of nine U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush Department of Justice (DOJ).

McKay assumed the Seattle position after Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Wales had been murdered, a case that is still unsolved. Wales, a career prosecutor who had spent almost 20 years in the Seattle office, was known for his meticulous work. He also was known as an advocate for gun control in his spare time away from the job.

Toobin writes that McKay might have been fired because he was pushing the DOJ to step up its investigation of Wales's murder.

The motive behind Wales's murder remains unclear. Was he killed because of his well-publicized work on gun control? Was he killed because of his work on a prosecution that came to be known as the "helicopter case?"

Like most New Yorker articles, Toobin's piece is lengthy. But it is well done, and it raises chilling questions about the Bush DOJ.

A Sarcastic View on Alabama Justice

Remember the old television commercials: "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen"?

That's the way it is in Alabama with David Bronner, head of the Retirement System of Alabama (RSA).

Our fair state has a tendency to rank low in quality-of-life surveys where you want to rank high and rank high in quality-of-life surveys where you want to rank low. But the RSA is one of the best organizations of its kind in the country, and that is thanks largely to Bronner.

The CEO of the RSA is one of the most powerful people in Alabama. And you could make a strong argument that he is the smartest hombre in the state, certainly when it comes to financial and political matters.

So his editorial in the current issue of the RSA monthly newsletter is worth exploring.

Two points Bronner makes jump out at me:

* He makes it clear that he does not think much of U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller, who oversaw the Don Siegelman case. Thanks to Scott Horton, of Harper's, we know why: Fuller tried to help a political crony pull off a scam of the RSA (which failed). Also, Bronner evidently was not fond of Fuller's handling of a case involving RSA and that noted cathedral of corporate ethics, Enron.

* Bronner says he is not a buddy of Siegelman's, but he says Siegelman was no different from any other governor he has worked with or against. "Siegelman put nothing in his pocket from contributions to the lottery campaign," Bronner writes. "I do not know of any governor who did not have third parties pay for TV, radio, and newspaper ads on constitutional issues brought before the voters."

* Bronner doesn't mention it, but you would think this applied to Bob Riley's failed tax-reform campaign in Alabama (which I supported). Wonder who paid for that? And did they benefit from their association with the Riley camp?

Spotlight on Selective Prosecution

The New York Times opines today on the need to scrutinize the issue of selective prosecution as apparently practiced by the Bush Department of Justice (DOJ).

The Times spotlights several prosecutions of politicians who are Democrats, including Alabama's Don Siegelman and Wisconsin's Georgia Thompson. The Times says the Siegelman case has the appearance of being a "political hit," and it says Congressional investigators also should look into the prosecution of New Jersey senator Robert Menendez.

My favorite line in the editorial is this: "Putting political opponents in jail is the kind of thing that happens in third world dictatorships."

The Times is absolutely right about that. And if the paper wants to get an up-close look at how Republicans operate in the equivalent of a third-world dictatorship, it should send a reporter to check out Alabama's state-court system. Shelby County would be a good place to start; that's where "bosses" like J. Michael Joiner and G. Dan Reeves rape the U.S. Constitution with impunity, only to have their unlawful rulings upheld (with no-opinion affirmances) by our GOP-dominated appellate courts.

Shelby County is hardly a backwater. It is the wealthiest and the fastest-growing county in Alabama, and it's right outside the state's largest city, Birmingham. But the courthouse in Columbiana is run like a mini banana republic, where quaint 14th-Amendment notions like due process and equal protection mean zip.

Kudos to The Times for a strong editorial. But it does not go far enough. It addresses one side of selective prosecution--where Democrats are perhaps wrongly pursued for political reasons by the Republican-led DOJ. But it does not address the other side of the equation--cases where Republican wrongdoers get away with all kinds of shenanigans, for political reasons.

The problem goes beyond putting political opponents in prison, as bad as that is. It also means cheating people in civil cases, and bringing them to the edge of financial ruin, in order to favor people with family ties to the GOP. And on the civil side, it does not just involve cases where a plaintiff, who perhaps was legitimately wronged, has a case wrongfully dismissed. It also involves cases where someone (like me) is forced to defend a fraudulent lawsuit filed by a friend of the GOP and watch as unlawful rulings cause the case to drag on for years, costing thousands of dollars.

That's the issue we will explore in detail here at Legal Schnauzer.

Focusing on White-Collar Crime

I recently came across a blog on white-collar crime, and I think it is well worth following.

The White-Collar Crime Prof Blog is written by a couple of law professors, one from Wayne State University in Detroit and one from Stetson University in Florida.

They have written in the past about the Don Siegelman case in Alabama. And it will be interesting to see if they follow the Paul Minor case in Mississippi, where sentencing is expected in the coming week.

The blog has a particularly interesting post here about curious redactions in e-mails that were recently released in the investigation of the U.S. Attorneys scandal. More evidence of the politicization that seems to be rampant in the Bush Department of Justice.

Alabama's dysfunctional press

In order to play its critical role in a democracy, the press needs at least two qualities--a healthy skepticism toward the actions of those in power and sufficient ideological diversity to ensure that wrongdoers of all stripes will be held accountable.

Scott Horton, of Harper's, points out in today's Anniston Star that Alabama's press is sorely lacking on both counts.

Horton notes the strong evidence that prosecutors were improperly feeding material to reporters from certain press organizations during the investigation of former Governor Don Siegelman. And with the Newhouse newspaper chain dominating three key markets in Alabama, no independent voices stepped up to ask critical questions about the prosecutions evidence--and its activities.

In essence, Alabama's press is a lot like its state judicial system. It's a club made up largely of people who are white and male and of a certain ideological bent. And Alabama's citizens, overall, are not well served by either their press or their judiciary.

The Dog Ate My Homework

If you are interested in the Don Siegelman prosecution in particular, and the Department of Justice scandal in general, Scott Horton's No Comment blog for Harper's Magazine is can't-miss reading.

Horton is half way through an eight-part series of posts on Mark Fuller, the judge in the Siegelman case. Parts 1 through 4 have been most revealing, and the series continues on Monday.

The DOJ scandal, so far, has focused largely on the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys around the country. But Horton's series on Fuller stands out because it spotlights the critical role a compromised or ethically challenged judge can play in the courtroom, whether the case is criminal or civil.

Our case here at Legal Schnauzer, of course, involves state courts, not federal, and it will focus some on prosecutorial misconduct. But the primary focus of our case is on the judicial side, and it is heartening to see Horton expose the mindset behind a Republican judge who claims to be about the "rule of law" but acts in a partisan and unlawful manner.

Fuller is hardly alone in that sort of thinking among Republican judges in Alabama. Shelby County Circuit judges J. Michael Joiner and G. Dan Reeves are of the same mindset, as our their Republican cohorts on Alabama's appellate courts. We will be shining a spotlight on their misdeeds in the near future.

Meanwhile, in a post today, Horton looks into a couple of interesting matters:

* Leura Canary, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama and wife of Republican operative Bill Canary, continues to default on demands from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee for documents related to her prosecution of Siegelman. A Justice Department source tells Horton that Mrs. Canary's office and the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ gave false information in response to a Freedom of Information Act request which had sought data relating to her alleged recusal.

* Horton notes a battle between two new Web sites in Alabama. One, donsiegelman.org, supports the former Alabama governor and was started by retired political consultant Claibourne Darden and his wife, Anita. The origins of the other, thetruthaboutdon.com, are unclear, but the site certainly is not friendly to Siegelman. Harper's conducted a search that indicates similarities between the new site and one put together by the Bob Riley gubernatorial campaign. This suggests, Horton notes, that the site has been constructed by people who worked on the Riley gubernatorial campaign.

Gee, I wonder if that could include Riley campaign "consultant" Dax Swatek, whose father Bill Swatek initiated the bogus lawsuit against me and has been the beneficiary of numerous unlawful rulings by Republican judges in Alabama? Much more about the Swateks coming here at Legal Schnauzer.

From doing a quick check of thetruthaboutdon.com, it appears to be mostly a compilation of stories by Mobile Press-Register reporter Eddie Curran, who was credited by Acting U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin for providing the spark that initiated the Siegelman prosecution. The same information is available here, so not sure what purpose the "truth" Web site serves.

* Finally, Horton notes a conversation with a Washington-based GOP campaign advisor. Karl Rove, it seems, was concerned about Republican ties to corporate scandals such as Enron. So Rove's instructions in 2006 were for Republicans to link Democrats to corporate scandals. "Like Scrushy, HealthSouth, and Siegelman?" Horton asked. "Exactly," said the source.

Interestingly, Rove is taking the Leura Canary "dog ate my homework" path. The GOP guru is not responding to a Congressional subpoena regarding the DOJ scandal.