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WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission tapped Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive Adam Storch on Friday to serve as the agency's first-ever chief operating officer of the enforcement division. The new hire represents the latest personnel change at the SEC in its effort to improve its operations following its failure to detect Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme. Enforcement Division Director Robert Khuzami created Mr. Storch's position of managing executive as part of the major re-structuring effort he announced earlier this year. Mr. Storch will oversee division operations that include budget, information technology and administrative services. He will also supervise...

January 2, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/0901/090102phoenix.htm Four men plead guilty to firearms charges in ICE human smuggling case Smugglers face up to 30 years in prison for using firearms during violent crime PHOENIX - Four men from Mazatlan, Mexico pleaded guilty to brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence following a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigation into a hostage situation at an Avondale, Ariz., human smuggling drop house in March 2008. The guilty pleas were entered in federal court in Phoenix during the last two weeks of December before U.S. District Judge...

SAN DIEGO – City Attorney Michael Aguirre said Monday he planned to post on his office's Web site the names of people and companies who owe the city money, in an attempt to prompt them to pay up. The city will mail notices to about 30,000 individuals, companies and government agencies that owe the city $250 or more in delinquent debt, giving them 30 days' notice of the potential posting. More than 560,000 debtors owe the city money, city officials said.

News Alert: In the first of an anticipated series of legal actions designed to repair the city of San Diego's deficit-laden pension system, City Attorney Mike Aguirre announced the filing of a lawsuit Thursday against eight current and former city officials. The suit seeks to repeal pension benefits granted to city employees in 1996 and 2002 on grounds that officials central to their creation misused their official positions for personal gain as part of a scheme that has led to a multi-billion pension deficit that jeopardizes city finances, Aguirre said. "The quality of life in San Diego will suffer for...

San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre said Friday that he had asked the city's auditor to hold off paying retirement benefits that Aguirre contends are illegal. At a noontime news conference at his offices downtown, Aguirre said he had written auditor John Torell urging him to not pay the benefits and to recalculate the amount legally due each retiree. "We need our auditor to step forward to meet his responsibility to not participate in continuing to pay illegal benefits," Aguirre said. "It is now a moral, legal and ethical issue for him to decline to be a part of the...

The long arm of the law just got longer at San Diego City Hall, with the District Attorney's Office informing top officials there yesterday that it has launched a criminal investigation into the troubled pension system and its 13-member board of trustees. In a confidential letter, hand-delivered to City Attorney Michael Aguirre and distributed to top city officials, the district attorney's investigators gave City Hall until Wednesday to hand over records or face possible search warrants. With that, the investigators confirmed for an already rattled city establishment that they are marching down a well-worn path, one trekked for more than...

SAN DIEGO – San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre called Tuesday on Mayor Dick Murphy and members of the City Council to conditionally accept findings of his reports on the city's debt-ridden pension plan. The request was the first of eight recommendations Aguirre described as "an integrated plan" and "the things we need to get us out" of current problems. The second of two reports on the pension deficit – released by Aguirre on Feb. 9 – alleged "substantial evidence" that Murphy and the council committed civil violations of federal securities laws. Murphy has denied the allegations in the report,...

Perhaps inspired by the bouquets of flowers and pink heart-shaped balloons that bobbed in the hands of delivery boys through the corridors of City Hall on Monday, opposite arms of city of San Diego leadership embraced each other after a week of quarrels to agree on a key step in extracting the city from its financial freeze. The heralded agreement comes in the form of one person: Lynn Turner. He is the former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and his singular task is to combine a series of separate investigative reports and work with the city's accountants,...

SAN DIEGO – The San Diego City Council unanimously agreed today to spend $250,000 to hire the former chief accountant for the Securities and Exchange Commission to help in federal investigations of the city's finances. Lynn E. Turner, now a senior adviser with Kroll Zolfo Cooper, would be retained to review investigative reports by the law firm Vinson & Elkins and the City Attorney's Office, and make recommendations to the City Council. The city's goal in hiring Turner is to secure an audit of San Diego's 2003 finances, which was held back by the outside accounting firm KPMG pending further...

Michael Aguirre's relationship with the San Diego City Council began eroding his first day as city attorney when he said a financial crisis won't end until "a new generation of leadership takes hold of our city government." If that line was a jab at current leadership, Aguirre's action last week was an assault. He accused all but two council members of breaking federal securities laws in a report dropped Wednesday an hour after City Hall closed. Tensions between Aguirre and the City Council escalated quickly from his Dec. 6 inaugural speech to heated exchanges he had two weeks later with...

SAN DIEGO (AP) - The new city attorney has issued a scathing report accusing the mayor and City Council of violating federal securities laws by hiding key information about the city's troubled finances. Mayor Dick Murphy disputed the findings and said City Attorney Michael Aguirre had no jurisdiction to investigate the alleged violations. "Mr. Aguirre's allegations are untrue, irresponsible and defamatory," Murphy said. "Mr. Aguirre is not the SEC. This is only Mr. Aguirre's opinion." The Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors offices are investigating whether city officials concealed important information about San Diego's finances while selling more than...

In a scathing report delivered to City Hall after sundown yesterday, San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre concluded that there is "substantial evidence" Mayor Dick Murphy and the City Council committed civil violations of federal securities laws. Aguirre's report, widely anticipated at an anxious City Hall, said Murphy and the council, beginning in early 2002, concealed important facts about the city's ailing pension system from the public and from investors in more than $1 billion of city bonds. At a hastily called news conference early last night, Murphy, reading a written statement, called Aguirre's allegations "untrue, irresponsible and defamatory." Murphy...

In a memo distributed in the run-up to Mayor Dick Murphy's State of the City address, San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre advises city officials to seek major pension benefit rollbacks in upcoming contract talks with municipal labor unions. "I'm trying to bring a realistic, needed reform that can restore the financial integrity of the pension plan and re-establish the fiscal strength of the city," Aguirre said in an interview yesterday. "If we do this, we can avoid bankruptcy. If we don't, it's almost certain we will go into bankruptcy at some point." Aguirre made his recommendations in a five-page...

Trial for officers in Kmart raid starts June 2 By LISA TEACHEY Coypright 2003 Houston Chronicle Two former Houston police officers who were at the helm of a botched raid at a westside parking lot will go to trial June 2 to answer charges of official oppression. Capt. Mark Aguirre and Sgt. Ken Wenzel, who appeared in court today for the trial setting, each face five charges of official oppression for ordering the arrests of more than 300 people, including many teenagers, at a Kmart parking lot in the 8400 block of Westheimer on Aug. 18. The scene of hundreds...

HPD's Aguirre fired over raid By KRISTEN MACK Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Jan. 29, 2003, 3:51PM Houston police Capt. Mark Aguirre, commander of the controversial raid at a west-side Kmart in August, was fired this morning. Acting Police Chief Tim Oettmeier announced Aguirre's firing during a briefing to City Council on the Kmart raids. "What we witnessed was nothing more than the political lynching of Aguirre and they used Oettmeier as the henchman," said Aguirre's attorney, Terry Yates. Aguirre, who had his first chance to speak out today, said the department is using him as a scapegoat and HPD is...

A Harris County grand jury today will begin considering whether police handling of a mass arrest -- which already has led to lawsuits against the city of Houston and the suspension of 13 police supervisors -- also deserves criminal indictments. Public outcry was swift and furious after more than 270 people were arrested Aug. 18 in a Kmart parking lot in the 8400 block of Westheimer on the west side. Many who were caught in the roundup said they were customers at the Kmart or a nearby Sonic drive-in restaurant. City officials later dropped all trespassing and curfew charges resulting...