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BOSTON 2019's biggest stories in Massachusetts played out in the courtroom.

Dozens of wealthy and privileged parents some of them Hollywood stars were ensnared in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal. A judge tossed a sexual assault case against actor Kevin Spacey after his accuser refused to testify.

The state's highest court upheld Michelle Carter's manslaughter conviction for sending her suicidal boyfriend a barrage of text messages urging him to kill himself. Pharmaceutical company executives were found guilty of bribing doctors to prescribe a highly addictive opioid. And Massachusetts' attorney general launched fresh legal challenges to the Trump administration's immigration policies.

A look back at those and other top stories:

COLLEGE BRIBERY

Federal prosecutors dubbed it Operation Varsity Blues," and the scope was staggering: affluent and influential parents indicted for paying bribes to rig their childrens test scores or get them admitted to elite universities as recruited athletes. Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman pleaded guilty and served two weeks in prison, but Full House" actress Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband maintained their innocence and are expected to stand trial in 2020.

KEVIN SPACEY

Prosecutors dropped a criminal case against Spacey alleging he groped an 18-year-old man at a Nantucket bar in 2016. The House of Cards" actor's accuser invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify about text messages from the night of the alleged encounter. Los Angeles prosecutors later tossed a separate sexual battery charge against Spacey after the accuser in that case died.

TEXTING SUICIDE

The state's highest court upheld Michelle Carter's 2017 involuntary manslaughter conviction in the suicide death of her despondent boyfriend, to whom she had sent insistent text messages urging him to take his own life, and the state Parole Board denied her request for early release. Carter's lawyers maintain her texts were free speech and have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which hasn't yet decided whether it will take up the case.

OPIOID KICKBACK SCHEME

A jury convicted a pharmaceutical company founder of racketeering conspiracy for paying doctors millions in bribes to prescribe his company's highly addictive fentanyl spray even using a stripper-turned-sales-rep to give a physician a lap dance. Convicted along with John Kapoor, the 76-year-old former chairman of Insys Therapeutics, were four other ex-employees of the Chandler, Arizona-based company and the former exotic dancer.

TAKING TRUMP TO COURT

Massachusetts' Democratic attorney general, Maura Healey, and the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union mounted fresh legal challenges of the Trump administration's tough policies on immigration. Lawsuits in federal court in Boston highlighted some detainees' need for medical treatment and the government's strict cap on the number of refugees fleeing disaster and strife abroad.

INDICTED MAYOR

Jasiel Correia had seemed almost bulletproof. In March, voters in Fall River reelected the embattled mayor after he was charged in 2018 with defrauding investors in an app he developed to bankroll a lavish lifestyle. But Correia's political good fortunes ran out federal authorities indicted the 27-year-old for allegedly stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from marijuana companies. In November, voters unceremoniously threw him out of office.

2020 FREE-FOR-ALL

Continuing Massachusetts' tradition of producing presidential candidates, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren jumped into the race for the Democratic nomination early, followed by U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, who exited in August. Much later, former governor Deval Patrick, the state's first black governor, declared his candidacy. Ex-Gov. William Weld, a Republican, launched a challenge to President Donald Trump. And Democratic congressman Joe Kennedy III, a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, announced a primary run against U.S. Sen. Edward Markey.

PILGRIM NUCLEAR PLANT

Nearly half a century after it began generating electricity, the Pilgrim nuclear power plant permanently shut down. Environmentalists had clamored for decades for the closure of the state's only remaining reactor. The decommissioning of the complex in Plymouth, which came online in 1972, left Seabrook in New Hampshire and Millstone in Connecticut as New England's only still-operating commercial nuclear plants.

MENTHOL, R.I.P.

Responding to growing concerns about the health effects of vaping, Massachusetts became the first state to ban flavored tobacco and nicotine vaping products. Anti-smoking groups hailed the ban, which restricts the sale and consumption of flavored vaping products and will do the same for menthol cigarettes starting June 1, 2020. It came after Republican Gov. Charlie Baker declared a public health emergency and imposed a temporary ban.

AGAINST ALL ODDS

Massachusetts' third casino, Encore Boston Harbor, opened in the gritty suburb of Everett after months of uncertainty. Las Vegas-based Wynn Resorts' glitzy $2.6 billion complex had been beset by legal troubles and a failed attempt to sell the complex to rival MGM Resorts. Encore features a 671-room bronzed-toned hotel tower, a gambling floor with 3,100 slot machines and 231 table games, and 15 bars and restaurants.

Read more:
Massachusetts top stories of 2019 played out in court - Enterprise News

Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch tried to keep the American people in the dark as long as possible. For most of 2017, the founders of Fusion GPS hid the truth about the origins of their now-infamous dossier on President Trump. The real story behind their fight to keep its partisan funding a secret is very different from the version the journalists-for-rent tell in their recent book, Crime in Progress. I know, because I was there.

They smear me, and my former boss, Sen. Chuck Grassley, who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Then they paint themselves as victims of ruthlessly partisan McCarthyite tactics. The irony is rich, given that these former journalists collected a million bucks from one political party to accuse the other of acting as agents of Russia.

The dossier they peddled ignited hysteria about alleged traitors in our government more than anything else has since Joe McCarthys Enemies from Within speech nearly 70 years ago. Unlike traditional opposition research, the dossier relied on anonymous foreign sources to allege an international criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Two independent reviews have since gutted its sensational claims.

The report by the Justice Departments independent inspector general exposed how the FBI improperly used the dossier to justify domestic spying (a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant). The IG made it clear that the dossier was clearly unreliable. Special counsel Robert Mueller was unable to find sufficient evidence to charge a single American with the dossiers collusion conspiracy despite two years, $32 million, 500 witnesses, and 2,800 subpoenas-worth of additional investigation.

Like the dossier itself, Fusions attempt to defend its work in Crime in Progress cannot withstand scrutiny. It devotes a chapter to denouncing Grassley for asking inconvenient questions about Fusion and the dossier. The essentially fictitious story casts Simpson as Captain America":

Working to protect the republic at all costs from a Manchurian Candidate, with the First Amendment as his only shield, Simpson battles Congressional persecutors who were trashing the Bill of Rights by subpoenaing his bank to learn who funded the dossier.

Fusions founders target me, as then-counsel to Grassley, for supposedly pulling the strings that led to outing their secret. They had promised never to reveal who bankrolled the project. Why? Their book concedes a more strategic reason to stonewall: They wanted to control the larger political narrative.

As they write in Crime in Progress: If it came out too soon that the dossier had been paid for by the Clinton Campaign, that revelation would allow the Republicans to depict [Christopher] Steeles work as a partisan hit job. It was a fact that Fusion managed to keep secret for nearly 11 months after the dossier became public.

During those 11 months, Fusions clients denied their involvement, and Fusion fought to keep anything from coming to light that would contradict those denials. Grassley tried to learn more about the dossiers claims and Fusions involvement. Fusions founders claim they would have been willing to explain their past work without a protracted battle if Grassley had simply approached Fusion in good faith and asked.

Actually, we tried. When I called Simpson, he immediately refused to talk. He lawyered up. Hes also one of only two people who refused to cooperate with the inspector general. Without voluntary cooperation, prying any information loose would prove to be a challenge. Absent a full committee vote, no subpoena could be issued without Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinsteins agreement. Contrary to Fusions caricature of our efforts as hyperpartisan, we adopted those new rules in early 2017 to strengthen the committees hand in what we expected would be bipartisan oversight work during the Trump administration.

Feinstein was initially willing to question Fusion, but bipartisan efforts to look into the dossier and its allegations soon disappeared. In the beginning, she co-signed document requests to Fusion, which its founders misrepresent in their book as ominous partisan threats solely from Grassley. Feinstein also agreed to subpoena Simpson to testify at a public hearing in the summer of 2017, but he refused to appear, citing his Fifth Amendment rights. We later negotiated a limited voluntary interview in private, where he refused to answer questions on many topics, including who funded the dossier.

Feinstein increasingly began to resist any dossier-related line of inquiry. At the time, Grassley and his staff were unaware the Democratic National Conventions law firm had funded the dossier or that that a former Feinstein staffer, Daniel Jones, had privately claimed to the FBI that he raised $50 million from seven to 10 wealthy donors primarily in New York and California. That money reportedly funds Fusions ongoing postelection efforts to vindicate the dossier. Its unclear how much Feinstein and her staff knew about this at the time.

Grassley played it straight. He supported the Mueller investigation and bucked his own GOP leadership in the Senate to shepherd a bipartisan bill protecting Muellers independence through his committee. He worked to conduct vigorous oversight and ask tough questions of everyone, even threatening to subpoena Trumps son to ensure Democrats had an unlimited opportunity to question him on the record. Of course, Fusions narrative omits this evidence of good faith.

The House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Fusions bank records, and in late October 2017, its clients confessed to funding the dossier after it became clear they were going to lose in court. New York Times senior White House correspondent Maggie Haberman wrote, Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year. A nonpartisan, nonprofit organization complained to the Federal Election Commission that campaign disclosures falsely described payments to Fusion for opposition research as legal services.

During the court battle, Fusion unleashed a blizzard of filings in which it piled on new allegations of supposed congressional misconduct. The court rejected all of them.

One of the failed tactics that Fusion considered central was to argue that the House Intelligence Committee learned Fusion had an account at TD Bank from someone in Grassleys staff and to imply that was somehow improper. While it is true that we had asked about the bank during Simpsons voluntary interview on the Senate side, it is false to claim, as Fusion does, that we learned the banks name from his confidential interview and that the information was unavailable elsewhere.

Anyone reading the transcript (p. 17-18) can see that committee staff already knew the banks name and mentioned it first. Fusions attorney did not ask how we learned it, and we wouldnt have answered if he had. The committee protects whistleblowers and confidential sources, just as the press does. Fusion had apparently made little effort to keep its banks name confidential up to that point. Not only did Simpson voluntarily confirm it when asked, but we also had reason to believe he listed it on invoices to clients, so it was hardly a state secret.

Casting aspersion on the congressional investigators who forced the truth about the dossiers funding into the open is no more effective in Fusions book than it was in the court proceedings. In the end, its merely a distraction from the bigger issues with the dossiers unreliability, which go far beyond the partisan motives of its sponsors.

Although the special counsel and inspector general reports dealt devastating blows to its credibility, Simpson and Fritsch still maintain in their book that time will tell whether the dossier deserves to take its place among documents that have bent the course of history, such as the Pentagon Papers or the Warren Report. A more apt analogy might be the phony list of traitors hyped by McCarthy. But, unlike the Americans targeted in the dossier, a few of McCarthys victims actually were colluding with the Russians.

Jason Foster was chief investigative counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee for Sen. Charles Grassley from 2011 to 2018.

Originally posted here:
The lies and distortions by the hatchet men at Fusion GPS - Washington Examiner

Michael Thomas Nowak and Gregg Francis Smith object to the US authorities motion for a complete stay of the CFTC action against them.

About a week after the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a set of documents with the Illinois Northern District Court arguing in favor of a complete stayof the CFTC action against Michael Thomas Nowak and Gregg Francis Smith, the traders have objected to the authorities arguments.

Lets recall that the CFTC charges the defendants with spoofing, engaging in a manipulative and deceptive scheme, and attempting to manipulate prices in the precious metals futures markets while employed at a major US bank. On December 13, 2019, the CFTC and the DOJ once again made clear their stance that the civil case should be stayed pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

On December 20, 2019, the defendants filed their response to the CFTC and the DOJ. Nowak argues that the stay of the civil case should not be complete and that instead it should be partial, and discovery should be allowed to proceed.

According to Nowak, contrary to the CFTCs assertions, his request for a stay that protects him from taking actions that might implicate his Fifth Amendment rights, such as responding to pleadings, answering interrogatories, or being deposed, in no way belies his assertion that he seeks to resolve this matter as expeditiously as is practicable.

Nowak argues that the defendants have a strong interest in expeditiously resolving serious civil charges brought against them by government agencies.

The trader notes that waiting to begin document discovery until the conclusion of the criminal case will significantly delay the resolution of this matter, particularly because document discovery is likely to be extensive. Commencing document discovery now will avoid undue delay, Nowak says.

In addition, Nowak argues that the CFTC has conducted a lengthy and extensive investigation and presumably obtained extensive evidence, none of which it has shared with the defendants. In that context, a proposal that both sides be permitted to engage in document discovery cannot reasonably be characterized as an attempt to gain a tactical advantage, he says.

The defendants urge the Court to reject the CFTCs arguments and deny the DOJs motion for a complete stay of the action.

According to the CFTC complaint, from at least 2008 and continuing through at least 2015, Nowak and Smith repeatedly engaged in manipulative or deceptive acts and practices by spoofing (bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution) while placing orders for and trading precious metals futures contracts on CME Group Inc.s exchanges. The defendants are alleged to have placed thousands of orders with the intention to cancel them in order to send false signals of increased buying or selling interest designed to trick market participants into executing the orders the defendants wanted filled. The complaint also alleges that Nowak and Smith engaged in spoofing with the intent to manipulate market prices and create artificial prices, and thereby enable their orders to be filled sooner, at a better price, or in larger quantities than they otherwise would.

In its action against Nowak and Smith, the CFTC seeks, among other things, civil monetary penalties, disgorgement, restitution, trading bans, and a permanent injunction against future violations of the federal commodities laws.

More:
Precious metals traders accused of spoofing insist stay of CFTC action should be partial - FinanceFeeds

If you watch Law and Order or many other TV shows, you already know something about Miranda warnings and taking the Fifth. The police have to Mirandize you, and even in court, you can say, I refuse to answer on the grounds that I may incriminate myself. There are limits of course, but most people think these rights are fundamental, acrossevery alleged crime. But does it work with taxes and the IRS?Not usually.

Many people find that a shock. Remember theIRS official Lois Lerner, who ran the IRS unit accused of targeting conservatives some years back? She didnt want to answer questions about alleged IRS targeting.As a result, she took the Fifth. Congress held her in contempt, but the governmentdeclined to prosecute her. It was all a controversial episode. Private taxpayers arent usually so lucky when it comes to their own tax returns and investigations.

In fact, merely invoking the Fifth in a tax case can invite penalties or get the IRS looking more harshly at you. Lets start with tax returns themselves. You have to file them and you have to report your income.Way back in 1927, the Supreme Court considered a man whorefused to file a tax return, claiming that to do so would incriminate him. InU.S. v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court said that itwas too bad if disclosing illegal income opened him up to prosecution.

Even a criminal must file tax returns and pay taxes. After all, that is how they got Al Capone. You have to file a tax return, and you have to do it accurately.What if the IRS asks you questions you are afraid to answer? Answering IRS questions in an audit or investigation can be nerve-wracking.Do not speakup without your lawyer present, and ask your lawyer whatis fair to discuss. ButclaimingFifth Amendment protection in tax cases can be a mistake.

One of the biggest issues involves books and records. You have to keep them in order to fulfill your tax filing obligations. You even have to keep bank account records for accounts outside the U.S. Undisclosed offshore bank accounts can qualify as money laundering. So, if the IRS asks you if you have any foreign bank accounts, can you take the Fifth?

You can, but it probably wont help. Even if you claim the Fifth, the IRS can hand you an information document request to produce your records.You can refuse, but the IRS will issue a summons. If you refuse to answer that, the IRS will take you to court, whichwill probably order you to comply.But, doesnt your constitutional right to take the Fifth trump the IRS?

Not always. Ironically, you can refuse totalk, but youcannotrefuse to produce the documents. Your own private papers are personal records, and if they might incriminate you, they are protected by the Fifth Amendment.But the Required Records doctrinesays youmusthand over documents no matter how incriminating.The government requires you to keep certain records, and the government has a right to inspect them.

TheIRS and prosecutors have exploited this rule.It can mean thatpleading the Fifth in response to a subpoena for foreign account records can cause even more trouble than claiming it on your tax returns.Required records are those where the reporting has a regulatory purpose, where a person must customarily keep the records the record-keeping scheme requires him to keep, and the records have public aspects.

In the case of foreign bank records particularly, the courts uniformly deny Fifth Amendment protection.Numerous courts haveallgiven the IRS a free pass, rulingthat no Fifth Amendment protection applies.Despite repeated requests, the U.S. Supreme Court has been unwilling to hear this issue.

So, is it likely that the Fifth Amendment will be much help on your taxes? Not really. In most cases, a tax audit is civil and there is little risk that it will become criminal. However, just think about this: a majority of criminal tax cases come directly out of civil tax cases. The IRS civil auditors refer a case to the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. The IRS civil auditor will not tell you this is occurring, so the first time you hear about it, your case may have gone from bad to worse. That means having a lawyer and being careful can be wise.

Robert W. Wood is a tax lawyer and managing partner at Wood LLP. He can be reached at Wood@WoodLLP.com.

See the rest here:
Tax Laws: Can You Take The Fifth With The IRS? - International Business Times

Vuk Vujasinovic of VB Attorneys, who is part of the court-appointed lead team that took the case to trial and won, stated: "People living in the flood pools behind these dams sacrificed their homes to save the heart of Houston, and we are extremely pleased the judge agreed with us that they are entitled to compensation under the 5th Amendment to our constitution."Click here to learn more HurricaneHarveyLawsuitHelp.com.

The homeowners alleged the two dams stopped water that would otherwise have flowed from the project's location 17 miles west of downtown Houston, eastward into West Houston neighborhoods, Houston's central business district, and the industrial ship channel. The homeowners alleged the water backed up until it flooded over the thirteen test properties and over 10,000 homes and businesses located behind the dams.

The homeowners claimed the government's construction and operation of the Addicks and Barker project constituted a "taking" under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, entitling them to compensation.

The government alleged Hurricane Harvey was a very large storm that it could not foresee when it built the dams in the 1940s, and denied owing compensation to any homeowners.

Judge Lettow held a 2-week trial in Houston, Texas, which concluded on May 17, 2019. Over 30 witnesses were called to testify, including property owners, experts in hydrology, meteorology, and real estate valuation, representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as officials with Harris County and Fort Bend County. The trial included an excursion with the Judge to personally view the entire Addicks and Barker project.

Mr. Vujasinovic notes the following major points were established at trial:

In his ruling, Judge Lettow held that the federal government's construction and operation of the Addicks and Barker project was a "taking" under the 5th Amendment, entitling the homeowners to compensation. "The court finds that the government's actions relating to the Addicks and Barker Dams and the attendant flooding of plaintiffs' properties constituted a taking of a flowage easement under the Fifth Amendment. Thus, the court finds defendant liable."

Mr. Vujasinovic anticipates a second phase of litigation for the thirteen test properties to determine the amount of compensation owed to each. Collective damages for the over 10,000 flooded properties are estimated to exceed $1 Billion.

According to Mr. Vujasinovic, "this trial victory will be instrumental in our efforts to obtain fair compensation for all our clients whose property was damaged or destroyed due to the Addicks and Barker project. We look forward to finishing this fight to enforce our clients' constitutional property rights."

About Vuk Vujasinovic Vuk Vujasinovic is part of the court-appointed lead team that won the test case trial. His firm represents homeowners in all impacted communities behind the dams, including Bear Creek, Twin Lakes, Lakes on Eldridge, Concord Bridge, Concord Colony, Canyon Gate Cinco Ranch, Charlestown Colony, Cinco at Willow Fork, Cinco Ranch Equestrian Village, Cinco Ranch Greenway Village, Cinco Ranch Meadow Place, Cinco Ranch Southpark, Concord Fairways at Kelliwood, Grand Lakes, Grand Lakes Phase Three, Grand Mission, Green Trails Oaks, Greens at Willow Fork, Jamestown Colony, Kelliwood Greens, Kingsland Estates, Lakes of Buckingham Kelliwood, Mayde Creek Farms, Park Harbor Estates, Parklake Village, Pine Forest, Savannah Estates, Stone Gate at Canyon Gate, and Windsor Park Estates.

About VB Attorneys Based in Houston, Texas, VB Attorneys handles cases throughout the country. To learn more about the firm, visit HurricaneHarveyLawsuitHelp.com and VBAttorneys.com, or call 888.695.6993.

Contact: Carlos Villarreal Phone: (888) 695-6993 Website:VBAattorneys.comEmail: Carlos@VBAttorneys.com

SOURCE VB Attorneys

http://www.vbattorneys.com

Excerpt from:
Homeowners Behind Addicks and Barker Dams in Houston, Texas Entitled to Compensation, Federal Judge Rules - PRNewswire