Free Republic

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was convicted Monday of perjury, obstruction and other crimes after squandering her once bright political future on an illegal vendetta against an enemy. Four years after Kane's election in a landslide as the first Democrat and first woman elected attorney general, a jury of six men and six women found her guilty of two counts of perjury and 10 misdemeanor counts of abusing the powers of her office.

There was apparently no treasure too small to be plundered. City Councilman Larry Seabrook’s alleged sales-slip scams included padding the prices on a stack of children’s books — including the classic pirate tale “Treasure Island” — according to evidence presented yesterday at his federal corruption trial. Five gift receipts that the Bronx Democrat allegedly claimed covered books bought for $25 each were actually for titles that cost just $3.99 apiece, a senior Barnes & Noble employee testified. José Nario, director of the merchandise system for the bookstore chain, said the five tomes were purchased on June 6, 2006, at a...

FBI raids RI lawmaker's office Sources: Rep. under investigation for fraud Updated: Thursday, 10 Nov 2011, 6:02 AM EST Published : Wednesday, 09 Nov 2011, 3:30 PM EST * By Nancy Krause PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Federal investigators spent Wednesday bringing out boxes from the Providence office of Rep. John J. McCauley during an afternoon raid. According to Jim Martin from the US Attorney's Office in Providence, agents were executing a search warrant at McCauley & L'Europa Public Insurance Adjusters. Law enforcement sources told Eyewitness News McCauley, deputy speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, was under investigation for alleged...

The former chairman of the Oakland County Democratic Party will be sentenced in December after entering a no contest plea to charges related to allegations of voter fraud. Michael McGuinness was charged earlier this year with three counts of uttering and publishing, and three counts of perjury. He and Jason Bauer, the former political director of the county’s Democratic Party, were accused of fraudulently entering the names of three people as candidates for a group calling itself The Tea Party for county commission or state Senate seats to appear on the November 2010 ballot. ...... Oakland County Executive L. Brooks...

Cumberland County Freeholder and recent Dem party chair, Louis N. Magazzu took nude photos of himself and sent them to a woman online. After demands from fellow legislators, Magazzu resigned from office and had recently resigned as Dem party chair. He admitted he took the nude photos with his cell phone standing naked in front of a mirror. He sent the pics via email. Magazzu is still married, though he's been separated for two years, according to his attorney. The 53-year-old Democrat sent the nude photos to a woman with whom he corresponded online. He says she requested the photos...

A Suffolk Grand Jury has indicted former South Boston state Rep. Brian Wallace and his campaign treasurer on charges of failing to report thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, the Attorney General’s office said today. Wallace, 61, and his treasurer, Timothy Duross, 50, of Boston, is accused of failing to report $6,345 in campaign contributions in 2008, representing 17 percent of his total contributions. Neither Wallace nor Duross were able to produce receipts or other backup documentation when asked to do so, according to the AG. Wallace was first elected Southie’s state rep in 2003 and opted not to run...

Former South Florida state legislator Mandy Dawson was arrested Wednesday on a federal income tax charge, and she is scheduled to go before a judge in Orlando later Wednesday for her initial court appearance. The allegations are a troubling epilogue to the 16-year political career of the groundbreaking politician. Broward County’s first black woman in the state Legislature, she came to be known as a champion of the poor and the medically needy, serving six years in the state House followed by a decade in the state Senate. Dawson, a Democrat whose district stretched from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach...

Months after Florida lawmaker Daphne Campbell promised to crack down on Medicaid fraud, state agents are now carrying out her pledge by focusing on an unexpected target: Campbell’s own health-care business. The state attorney general’s office is tracing hundreds of thousands in payments by the state to group home companies that were run by Campbell and her husband, according to sources close to the investigation. (snip) Neither Campbell, 54, a Democrat whose House district covers northeast Miami-Dade, or Hubert Campbell, 46, who was convicted in a mortgage fraud case in 2007, would respond to interview requests

D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. arranged to have more than $300,000 in public funds diverted to groups he controlled, and used the money as a lavish personal account, purchasing an Audi SUV and taking trips to Las Vegas and Pebble Beach, the city’s attorney general said Monday. In releasing a highly anticipated report, Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan alleges that Thomas’s inappropriate “conversion” of the money for personal use was “willful, intentional and knowing.” Nathan has filed a civil lawsuit aimed at forcing Thomas (D-Ward 5) to repay the money and intends to refer his findings to the U.S....

FRANKFORT, KY—A former democratic election commissioner in Clay County was sentenced today to 20 years for his role in helping a criminal enterprise make millions of dollars and obtain power and authority in the county. Charles Wayne Jones, 71, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Danny C. Reeves for conspiring with a former circuit court judge, a school superintendent, and other county officials in schemes that involved racketeering, money laundering, and voter fraud. Last March, a jury convicted Jones and seven others for their roles in the above mentioned schemes. The jury also found that the eight men were...

After being brought into a Rensselaer County courtroom in handcuffs, Councilman Michael LoPorto and Democratic Election Commissioner Edward McDonough pleaded not guilty Friday to a combined 116 felony counts alleging they falsified dozens of absentee votes. The men were released on their own recognizance after being arraigned on an indictment handed up Friday morning. It charges McDonough, 47, with 38 counts of second-degree forgery and 36 counts of second-degree possession of a forged instrument; LoPorto, 58, faces 13 second-degree forgery counts and 29 counts of second-degree possession of a forged instrument. The Democrats had been the targets of a grand...

A Boston developer, testifying publicly for the first time yesterday in an explosive pre-sentencing hearing for former Democratic state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, said he slipped the admittedly corrupt pol as much as $10,000 over the course of an eight-year friendship — and she wanted $10,000 more — before she finally went to bat for him in 2008 for his dream project of a life sciences center in Roxbury. “She did mention to me that cash would be preferable,” said businessman Azid Mohammed, who was placed on the stand at the request of Wilkerson’s defense team, in hopes of undermining the...

    Chris Christie’s fights with the teachers’ unions in New Jersey have been well documented in the national press and conservative blogosphere.  However, Christie has been engaged in another, possibly more significant fight over reforming the New Jersey Supreme Court that has, until now received relatively scant amounts of national attention. As detailed in the New York Times and the WSJ ($), the fight erupted in May when Christie exercised his (admittedly seldom-used) prerogative to not re-appoint the liberal John E. Wallace to the New Jersey State Supreme Court. As we have seen all too often at both the State and...

Oakland Mayor-elect Jean Quan got her car booted outside City Hall on Tuesday for failing to pay more than $1,000 in parking tickets.

A Democratic state senator who represents parts of Monroe, Carbon and Luzerne counties and lives in the Pittston area of Luzerne County has been reportedly indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly accepting thousands in bribes, The Citizens' Voice newspaper in Wilkes-Barre reports. The story posted on the newspaper's website says state Sen. Raphael Musto, D-14th District, received breaks on building renovations, holiday gifts and cash kickbacks from a company in exchange for state grants Musto helped secure.

Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson was arrested at his home Friday morning by federal law enforcement agents, and he is tentatively scheduled to appear in court on federal charges later Friday afternoon. Johnson and his wife, Leslie E. Johnson, were taken away in handcuffs shortly before 1 p.m. Johnson, wearing a camel-colored suit and white shirt, did not address reporters' questions. Johnson, who is coming to the end of his term next month, is expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt. Their appearances are scheduled for 4 p.m. and 4:15 p.m. The charges will be unsealed...

A Travis County jury today found South Texas lawmaker Kino Flores guilty of multiple counts of tampering with a governmental record and perjury in connection with omissions Flores made on financial disclosure forms required to be filed by state elected officials. Flores, a 14-year state representative, was convicted of five counts of misdemeanor tampering with a governmental record, four counts of felony tampering with a governmental record and two counts of misdemeanor perjury. He faces up to two years in a state jail and a $10,000 fine on each of the felony counts. Any state jail time assessed for each...

MIAMI (Reuters) - The top two officials of a leading chain of community mental health centers were among four people arrested in Miami on Thursday in connection with a scheme involving about $200 million in fraudulent medical claims, U.S. prosecutors said. The four conspired to charge Medicare, the federal health insurance plan for the elderly and disabled, for mental health services that were either unnecessary or never provided to patients, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida. The arrested were: Lawrence Duran, owner of American Therapeutic Corp; Marianella Valera, chief executive officer of the company;...

Suzanne M. Bump, the Democratic nominee for state auditor, considers the Berkshire town of Great Barrington her home. She and her husband vote and register their cars there. It is the address she lists on the Nov. 2 ballot. Because of that, she receives a benefit: exemption from paying a personal property tax levied on homeowners who are not full-time residents. But Bump and her husband, Paul F. McDevitt, have saved more than $6,000 in Boston property taxes since 2006 by reporting that a condominium they own in South Boston is their principal residence, according to tax and property records...

BELL, Calif. - A former Bell city official's huge $787,000 salary is only half of his unusually generous total compensation, according to local media reports. KTTV Fox 11 News first reported on Friday night that former Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo's benefits, which include 20 weeks paid vacation, bring his total annual compensation to more than $1.5 million. According to public records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Rizzo was to receive $386,786 in paid vacation and sick benefits this year, in addition to his base salary. The documents show that Rizzo's investment accounts and other benefits received payments. The...