Being A Democrat Made Alabama Businessman A Target

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2008/10/being-democrat-made-alabama-businessman.html#links

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2008
Being a Democrat Made Alabama Businessman a Target

Notes from prosecutors in the Bush Justice Department indicate an Alabama defense contractor was targeted because he is a Democrat.

Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, launched a four-year investigation of Axion Corp and its owner, Alex Latifi, in 2003. Latifi eventually was acquitted on charges that he violated federal arms-export laws. But while preparing for trial, his lawyers were stunned by the first entry in the lead investigator's official notebook. "It said Latifi was a Democrat and gave $30,000 to a Democratic politician's charity for abused children," said Jim Barger, an associate at the Birmingham law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.

The revelation comes in "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi," an investigative report by Lynda Edwards in the October issue of the Journal of the American Bar Association (ABA).

- snip -

Edwards goes behind the scenes to show how a prosecutor in the Bush Justice Department carries out a politically motivated prosecution. How insanely sloppy and bogus was Alice Martin's case? Consider:

* The prosecution's chief witness, former Axion secretary Elizabeth Lemay had been fired from the company in February 2004 for stealing $12,730. She admitted on the witness stand that she had altered and sabotaged company files and computer records;

- snip -

In other words, prosecutors charged Latifi with sending a classified document to a foreign supplier, but they never noticed that their own exhibit showed the document was clearly marked "unclassified."

That's not the only moment of black comedy in Edwards' story. When she contacted Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd, he said, "You should not be writing about this case! It's weird! It's an anomaly! It's a weird anomaly!"

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letting the inmates be in charge of the asylum.

Usually the Bush Justice Department targeted prominent Alabama Democratic politicians like Don Siegelman. They never really meant to go after some business guy. They usually just send one of their business cronies to ruin someone like that.

A new Democratic President means a new Democratic DoJ. I hate to be partisan with DoJ, but I fully expect that a new DoJ will prosecute the criminal actions of people who used political affiliation as a basis to prosecute individuals. This has to be addressed.

When you think about it, the GOP has operated like organized crime and I'm sure that the RICO statutes should be enacted to deal with their criminal abuse of power.

"Alice Martin's War"

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002578

...EXCEPT of course, ALASKA.

as the Legal Schnauzer site demonstrates (check out the links in the blog).

and a cheery Good Morning to Hissyspit..
good work, as always....

:hi:

Next time you want to spout off, please, read about Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

BTW, Alabama elected Don Siegelman. Several times.

I've spent most of my alleged career in the aerospace/defense industry, and my employers have run afoul of those laws many times. It's a lot easier than you might think...especially if someone is targeted, as appears to be the case here.

"Violating arms export laws" sounds nice and ominous, and probably evokes mental images of shipping Kalashnikovs to terrorists or selling bombs to North Korea.

But that PC sitting in your office, and everything inside it, can come under those laws. Probably staplers and three-ring binders do too, in some situations.

To the Feds, the laws are summed up with the acronym ITAR--International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

Two Federal agencies administer ITAR--the Commerce Dept. and the State Dept.

People who work in Contracts at my company have told me that the Commerce Dept. ITAR regs take up several large bookshelves. Tome after tome of dense fine legal print.

But the Contracts people say Commerce is usually pretty easy to deal with.

The State Dept. ITAR regs are summarized in one small, handy little booklet. And that little booklet can cost a company crippling fines, sometimes up to a million dollars or more PER DAY.

Again, according to the experts I've talked to, State is VERY hard to deal with and if they want to nail you on ITAR, consider yourself nailed.

I developed a deep interest in this a few years ago, when I went on a world tour carrying a prototype small PC. I came back and found myself facing a $50,000 fine for violating some obscure provision of ITAR.

that alice martin has not been brought up on charges yet. alabama must be like a separate country run by repukes without conscience.

edited to add http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/the_curious_case_of_alex_latifi/

link to the original article. i hopped from DU to Schnauzer to daily kos before hitting it.

Disbarment, restitution of court costs to maligned party, tar, feathering.

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the neighbors. People just get off on knowing what strings to pull to get what they want, and you just don't want to get involved with them in any real sense.

She just keeps popping up everywhere.

What can you do against that?

What do we do when they steal it in three weeks?

they are going to, you know. 99% certainty.