Choreographed Political Show in Orange County

In March, we reported about David R. Hunt (pictured), the City Attorney from Newport Beach, California, suspected at the time of beating his wife.

Now comes word that the agent of the Rove Republican Racket, in the heart of Republicanville, is off the hook.


In a choreographed effort that only Republicans could pull off, the Orange County prosecutors declined to prosecute citing "lack of evidence" while the local  Newport Beach City Council "unanimously" reinstated Mr. Hunt.

So much for his wife's bump on her head!

The Daily Pilot reports:

Two months after placing him on paid administrative leave following his arrest on suspicion of felony spousal abuse, the Newport Beach City Council voted 6 to 0 Wednesday to allow City Atty. David Hunt to immediately return to his job.  In addition, the Orange County district attorney's office announced the same day that it has decided not to file charges against him. I'm obviously pleased by the decision, but I'm also thankful and grateful for the objective analysis of the council and thorough investigation by the D.A.," Hunt said by phone Wednesday afternoon. "My family and I agree with the decision that this crime was not committed and none of us wanted to see a conviction."

Raising the White Flag in California

We hope all our readers had a great Memorial Day Weekend. We were at Dewey Beach, the nation's summer capital, when this news broke on Saturday.

The Rove Republican Racket raised a white flag on a story we've been following since last year.

The Associated Press reports:

Federal prosecutors said Friday they won't appeal the dismissal of criminal charges against the founders of high-tech chipmaker Broadcom, ending an embarrassing chapter for the government during which a judge blasted prosecutors for "shameful" misconduct and a lack of evidence. The government decided not to appeal the cases against Henry T. Nicholas III and Henry Samueli, U.S. attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek said. Prosecutors also withdrew their appeal of U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney's dismissal of former Broadcom human resources director Nancy Tullos' guilty plea to obstruction of justice. The announcement wipes away the last vestiges of a massive and high-profile criminal and civil prosecution of Broadcom's top leadership on allegations of stock option backdating that fell apart under judicial scrutiny.

Won't Let it Die in California

The Rove Republican Racket won't let it die.

The charges against executives of Broadcom were tossed out by a federal judge in December. As we reported then, federal prosecutors had leaked information to the media, which led to the stunning acquittal of the charges against Henry Samueli, the co-founder of Broadcom. A few day later, charges against other Broadcom executives were dropped due to a "shameful" campaign by federal prosecutors to intimidate witnesses and obtain unjustified convictions.

The federal prosecutors were slammed hard, but yet the Rove Republicans won't let it die.

 City News Service reports this week:

Federal prosecutors have asked to extend the deadline for a decision whether to appeal the dismissal of stock-option backdating cases against Broadcom co-founders Henry Nicholas III and Henry Samueli, a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman said today. The prosecutors filed their motion Friday to move the deadline for filing an appeal from May 10 to about June 10, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Mrozek said he did not know if the motion was granted.

We think this is an excellent example of federal prosecutors who envy the successful. What a waste of taxpayer's money.

Former FBI Agent Goes Down

Because of the Rove Republican Racket's domination of the U.S. Department of Justice, many U.S. Attorneys targeted political opponents. Sadly, many political opponents were tossed in jail because of making false or inaccurate statements to investigators. Many investigators were agents of the FBI.

Can we really trust these federal agents?

We have reported about the dishonest DEA agent from Boston to the dishonest FBI agent in Orange County, California.

This week comes the case of the worst former FBI agent ever.

From the Los Angeles Times:

A former FBI agent convicted of planning an invasion-style robbery of what he thought was a drug stash house containing a half-million dollars in cash was sentenced to 30 years in prison Monday by a federal judge in Santa Ana. Ex-agent Vo Duong Tran, 42, and his accomplice, Yu Sung Park, 36, were arrested in possession of bulletproof vests, a machine gun, other weapons, silencers and hundreds of rounds of ammunition that they intended to use to rob the supposed drug house in Fountain Valley, a jury found. In reality, the "stash house" did not exist. It was created as part of a law enforcement sting operation. During the probe, Tran and Park were secretly recorded planning the details of the would-be caper with an undercover federal agent and an informant. Tran and Park told the agent and informant to use one of the drug dealers inside the house as a "human shield" to clear the location and to shoot anyone who did not follow instructions.

Wife Beating Republican Prosecutor?

Orange County, California is the bastion of Republican politics in the Golden State. Newport Beach is a key city in the county where the wealthy and the beautiful live.

Now scandal has hit the Newport Beach City Attorney, a loyal member of the Rove Republican Racket. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Newport Beach City Atty. David R. Hunt will go on voluntary administrative leave a little more than one week after he was arrested on suspicion of felony spousal abuse. Hunt, 52, was arguing with his son at his Santa Ana home on March 14 when his wife intervened and Hunt struck her, causing her to hit a table and then the floor, police said. The 49-year-old woman had a cut on her arm and a large bump on the back of her head, police said. She was taken to a hospital for treatment. In a recording of the 911 call, one of Hunt’s sons can be heard telling a dispatcher “my dad just went crazy, he pushed my mom down and started going after my brother.”

A Sad, Sad Day in Santa Ana, California

 Last week, we wrote about a DEA employee in Boston that lied and accessed sensitive criminal information on a DEA computer and then manipulated the data in an attempt to harass an ex-girlfriend. We asked, who says federal agents don't lie?

The Rove Republican Racket succeeded in manipulating the law and targeting the innocent in part with the help of federal agents.

Now comes another tale of inappropriate access of federal computer files from Santa Ana, California. The Orange County Register reports this afternoon:

An FBI agent who used to head the agency's white-collar crime unit in Santa Ana has resigned in the wake of a criminal charge that accuses him of overstepping his authority to illegally get information. Peter H. Norell Jr. pleaded not guilty Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Block to a misdemeanor count of illegally accessing a government agency computer sometime between Aug. 23 and Sept. 2, 2005. Norell faces up to a year in jail and a $100,000 fine if convicted of the charge, which was filed Wednesday.

Norell "did intentionally access a computer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in excess of his authorization to do so ..." and obtained information from the FBI, according to the information. The filing gave no additional details on the accusation, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Finigan declined to comment on the case. During Monday's hearing, FBI agents filled the courtroom in a show of support for Norell. He pleaded not guilty, but is expected to plead guilty at a future date.

After the hearing, Norell declined to comment. His attorney, Thomas S. McConville, said Norell resigned from the FBI, but declined to give any information on the accusation. Norell was with the agency for 14 years, according to FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiler." It's a sad, sad day,'' McConville said. "We'll let this case see its way through the justice system."

"Shameful" Campaign Leads to More Dismissals in California

As we reported on Monday, the Rove Republican Racket was given a huge setback when a federal judge in the bastion of Republican politics, Orange County, California, dismissed charged and vacated a guilty plea of Henry Samueli, a technology company executive and owner of the Anaheim Ducks hockey team.

Federal prosecutors were accused of prosecutorial misconduct which including leaking grand jury testimony and intimidating plaintiffs in regards to the case against technology firm, Broadcom.

Now two more Broadcom executives who worked with Samueli saw criminal charges against them tossed out yesterday.

The Los Angeles Times reports today:

Accusing prosecutors of a "shameful" campaign to intimidate witnesses and obtain unjustified convictions, a federal judge threw out high-profile criminal stock fraud charges against Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III and the company's former chief financial officer. U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney issued his ruling Tuesday, less than a week after he overturned a guilty plea by company co-founder and Anaheim Ducks owner Henry Samueli

The judge also dismissed a civil lawsuit that the Securities and Exchange Commission had filed against Broadcom executives, wiping away misconduct allegations that had plagued the Irvine-based microchip giant for years. Samueli and Nicholas, both in the Santa Ana courtroom, embraced and sobbed. William J. Ruehle, the chief financial officer, thanked Carney and then hugged his attorney, Richard Marmaro. "It's the ultimate vindication for Broadcom," Samueli told reporters outside Carney's courtroom. "To see Broadcom's name smeared was so painful to me."

Media Leaks Lead to Stunning Dismissal

The U.S. Government suffered a "stunning" dismissal of a guilty plea last week of Henry Samueli (pictured), owner of the Anaheim Ducks hockey team, after Assistant U.S. Attorneys were accused of engaging in prosecutorial misconduct: intimidating defendants and leaking information to the media.

All of this happened in the heart of the Rove-Bush-Cheney Republican world: Orange County, California.

According to the Orange County Register:

A federal judge's decision to toss the guilty plea of Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry Samueli – in the middle of the trial of another defendant – was highly unusual and has implications for related cases, lawyers unconnected to the case said today. "I have never, ever heard of this from any judge anywhere in the country," said Lawrence Rosenthal, a former federal prosecutor who is a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange. "It is stunning." After hearing Samueli's testimony, and without giving prosecutors a chance to argue, Carney told Samueli on Wednesday that he was setting aside his guilty plea and throwing out the criminal charge against him of lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission. John Hueston, a former top federal prosecutor in Orange County who now does white-collar defense work, said Carney's ruling was "virtually unprecedented and extraordinary." "Here, the defense effectively put the government on trial but was aided by some real-time misconduct by the government during the trial itself," Hueston said.

Bloomberg news wire gives more details and insight:

“I’ve looked at the plea agreement, I’ve listened to your testimony, and you didn’t make a false material statement,” Carney told Samueli, according to a transcript of the proceeding. Carney said that answers Samueli provided to the SEC may have appeared evasive and non-responsive. Based on Samueli’s testimony in court, those answers were truthful, the judge said. Samueli could have faced five years in prison for making a material false statement which his response to the SEC’s questions didn’t justify, Carney said.

“The fact that you truly understood what happened here means a lot to me,” Samueli said to the judge according to the transcript. “You have restored my faith in the criminal justice system, and I must be honest, that faith was shaken in the early days of this whole process.” Carney said he was “a little bit disturbed” by the way the government had treated Samueli and that he would take appropriate action at the appropriate time. The judge earlier agreed to Samueli’s request to bar one prosecutor from cross- examining him because he allegedly leaked information about Samueli’s grand jury testimony to reporters.

Media leaks to traditional reporters and bloggers appears to be standard operating procedure for many corrupt Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the Rove Republican Racket.who wish to influence the jury pool.

Readers may recall that big-mouth New Jersey U.S. Attorney or that leaky U.S. Attorney's office in Mississippi.