Judicial accountability in Nevada - beating the dead horse

Same as in Pennsylvania in Kids for Cash scandal, same as in New York, in the state of Nevada judicial disciplinary authorities take their heads out of the secret place where those heads are, and do their jobs only when a judge is convicted of a federal crime.

Judge Stephen Jones resigned and was convicted of federal investment fraud - for a scheme defrauding 50 investors and using his name as a judge in an assurance that their investment is safe.

That is the same judge who had "a romantic relationship" with a female prosecutor while she handled cases in front of the judge.

For the prosecutor, the act of handling cases in front of the judge while having an affair with him was not bad enough, but the exposure was, so that she committed a suicide.

Once again, the judge had to be:

1) convicted of a federal federal;
2) resign from the bench, but not before he reportedly collected his $200,000 salary for months despite being suspended for misconduct; and
3)  disbarred

before the judicial disciplinary authorities also decided to NOW "take him off the bench" - a purely symbolic gesture, because to get back to that bench he now has to get a presidential pardon and restore a law license, both events extremely unlikely.

Shouldn't the order of events be different?

Shouldn't Judge Jones be:

1) first taken off the bench;
2) then disbarred; and
3) then convicted of a federal crime?


After all, the burden of proof to take off the bench and disbar is lower than to convict of a crime - and there was plenty of evidence to do that.

So much for judicial accountability.

Holding out and not disciplining the judge until the discipline is ridiculously redundant.

 

Will Preet Bharara prosecute prominent Manhattan attorneys for participation in an attempt to engage in international money laundering and wire fraud?

 In August of 2015, 16 men were arrested as a result of a police sting to reveal sexual predators against minors.

"During "Back to School," investigators posed as minors, both boys and girls while online and identified suspects who were trying to meet children for sex. When the suspects arrived for a sexual rendezvous with the minor child at an apartment in Pearland, they were met instead by officers of the Pearland Police Department, who arrested them."

Let's look at the important features of the sting.

16 men who were arrested showed up for a promised sex with a minor while believing they were talking to minors.

They were not.

They were talking to adult police officers.

Yet, mistake of fact like that is no defense in criminal law.

Actually, reportedly, 1200 men were arrested in Florida recently during such stings.   

It is also reported that allegedly "many of the men whose mugshots sheriffs have been paraded in made-for-TV press conferences were not seeking to meet children online, according to a yearlong WTSP-TV investigation. Instead, they were looking for other adults when detectives started to persuade them to break the law."

Of course, to me this is a very fickle justification.   You know it is a crime to have sex with a child, so no amount of "persuasion", especially coming from a child (the men did not know they were talking to police officers), should sway an adult man into actually showing up with the intent to have sex with a minor.

The same happens in California.

The same happens in all other jurisdictions of the United States.

Because - once again - if you are doing something with the belief that what you are doing is illegal, and are still doing it (like arranging for a meeting for sex with a minor, even not knowing that it is not a minor you are talking to) - that is still an attempt to commit a crime.

And, the same principle that mistake of fact is usually no defense applies to all other crimes.

Mistake of fact is a defense only in those extremely rare occasions where "when a criminal defendant misunderstood some fact that negates an element of the crime. For instance, if an individual is charged with larceny but believed that the property he took was rightfully his, this misunderstanding negates any intent to deprive another of the property".

When adult men are invited by a minor (as they believe) to have sex with that minor, and go to that meeting, that is not the kind of mistake of fact that will get them out of conviction for attempted crime, with the resulting prison term, registration as a sex offender, and their whole life ruined - and for a reason, BECAUSE THEY BROKE THE LAW, so they have only themselves to blame.

Let's now look at another sting, and attempts by a variety individuals and entities, from the "stinging" advocacy group itself, to a "former Treasury Department" official to two - gasp! - law ethics professors, one from Columbia Law School, one from Rutgers Law School - to explain away that crimes were not committed by attorneys who agreed to consider a proposal to bring dirty money from a corrupt African public official into the U.S. to clandestinely buy real estate, a yacht and a jet - for a fee.

The Global Witness Group:

"None of the lawyers broke the law".

 New York Times:

"... none of the lawyers are accused of criminal wrongdoing"

Recently, I wrote in a blog about the sting operation of a UK-based advocacy organization, Global Witness Group, where the group's investigator with a German accent, without disclosing that it was a sting, obtained attorney-prospective client interviews with 16 Manhattan (New York City) lawyers and asked them, in videotaped interviews, whether they would be able to provide services to an African public official who would like to buy expensive property in the U.S. (a yacht, a jet, expensive real estate) in such a way that neither his identity nor the source of the money would be traceable.

Reportedly, only 1 out of 16 interviewed attorneys, Jeffrey Hermann, refused to consider the deal.

"Herrmann raised questions about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal to bribe foreign officials. Even if no Americans paid bribes, Herrmann said, he wasn’t interested in the new client. “This ain’t for me,” he said. “My standards are higher.”

Mr. Hermann also refused to refer the "prospective client" to anybody else, because Mr. Hermann simply wouldn't do it, his "standards are higher than that" and "people will be insulted".

See also the report on this incident of the American Bar Association - all the more important that one of attorneys who actually agreed to consider such a client, was the then-president of the American Bar Association. 

A former Treasury Department official interviewed by "60 minutes" - that also aired a report on this incident - indicated that "
“There’s a clear pitch consistently presented in every one of these tapes of what amounts to an incredible number of red flags that scream corruption". 

And you know what is really great?

Reportedly, "lawyers who were named in the report, or their representatives, told The Times that they took issue with Global Witness’s undercover methods".

For those lawyers, it is the exposure that is to blame, not their dishonesty and readiness to provide legal advice in facilitation of a fraudulent scheme, and I do not mean here Mr. Hermann.

By the way, in providing such legal advice - and a lot of it was provided at those preliminary interviews already - attorneys who gave it completely disregarded the possibility that they are violating the prohibition of providing help with legal advice to a terrorist organization.

After all, it could have been such a terrorist organization that posed as an "African minister's representative" trying to get blood-tainted money into the country.

And lawyers readily started to share their knowledge about which European country is stricter on banking regulations than the other, what size of banking institution and money management firm is better to choose to "scrub" the money before bringing it into the country, some lawyers even offered their IOLA trust accounts to conceal identity of the clients and source of money.

I can tell you one thing.

Mr. Hermann spotted the problems right away and said no.

Other attorneys were not green law school graduates.

Their statements on video indicated knowledge and readiness to share that knowledge for a hefty fee (50 to 100 thousand dollars for a setup and 25 thousand dollars for yearly maintenance of the account for Marc Koplick, for example) as to:

• which country to go to to start the process of money laundering (Koplick used the euphemism of "scrubbing"),
• which banking institutions will not be willing to risk their reputation with "honest graft" (Koplick's phrase, meaning "corrupt") money for "less than a billion dollars", and which would consider the puny 16 million dollars offered by the prospective client, a corrupt African official.

If Klonick did not know what was asked of him was illegal, why would he go into his lengthy explanation that lawyers will never go to jail, because they write laws for themselves, enforce them for themselves, have lunch with judges who are their law school classmates and thus, get to be a "privileged class" who "run the country" and, once again, do not go to jail - when other people do, if they broke the law.

Hermann knew right away, but Klonick did not?

It is not important that money did not pass hands, and it is not important that retainer agreements were not signed.

What is important that some legal advice as to how to "scrub" the money and how they usually do that (the kind of knowledge attorneys imparted in interviews was very clearly part of their prior experience, it is not commonly available) WAS ALREADY GIVEN.

That is enough to prosecute these attorney for an ATTEMPT of engaging in international money laundering scheme, an ATTEMPT in wire fraud.

When the president of the American Bar Association tells a person who approaches him with all the red flags on screaming of international corruption that "Mr. Silkenat told the investigator that "there may be 'other banking systems that are less rigorous on this than the U.S.' and that 'we could provide you with the list of countries where the banking systems require less detail on ownership or source of funds,'” Mr. Silkenat already told a potential international terrorist that THERE ARE different standards in different banking institutions and that ALREADY could have provided material help to terrorists.

Two LAW ETHICS professors (William Simon of Columbia Law School and John Leubsdorf of Rutgers School of Law) found that attorneys Koplik, Jankoff and Ross violated their ethical obligations in the following way:

 
 What the two esteemed professors acknowledged here is that the three lawyers "offered advice to [the Global Witness Group's] investigator by volunteering various suggestions for designing such transactions and asserted their ability to design and implement them without making serious efforts to determine whether it will be lawful to do so for the putative client".

That's it.

The advice was offered with a belief that they are talking to a prospective client ready to pay these attorneys big money.

In my opinion, unless Marc Koplick is correct in saying that "attorneys never go to jail" because they are "members of privileged class", "run the country", write its laws, selectively enforce them and have judges with whom they are law school classmates, bar co-members and with whom they have lunches, "bend over backwards to be courteous" for them.

Once again - a sting against a sexual predator who believes he is going to a meeting with a minor to have sex with that minor, while the person who invited him was a 50-year-old male police officer produces a valid criminal charge and a conviction on such grounds is valid, because such a mistake of fact is not a defense.

It works the same way where the crime is an attempt at international money laundering and wire fraud.  The fact that attorneys did not know that who they were talking to was not a representative of an African minister, but an undercover investigator of international corruption, makes no difference.

Same as it is still a crime of attempted sex with a minor for those sexual predators to show up at the meeting set up by the police while believing they set up a meeting with a minor, participation in an attempt for international money laundering is still a crime, where attorneys engaged in (as professors Simon and Leubsdorf admitted in their opinion) giving ADVICE as to various schemes of money laundering while their only mistake was not that they may be engaged in an illegal activity, but the identity of their "putative client".

So - I wonder if our favorite champion of justice and fighter against corruption Preet Bharara will pick up these attorneys and turn them into a criminal grand jury.  All of the attorneys who made suggestions as to how to form shell companies and gave hints that some countries and some banks are "less restrictive than others", to a corrupt international public official, should be criminally prosecuted, same as those men who showed up for sex with a minor.
 

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42 U.S.C. 1988(b) provides yet another statutory proof that the concept of judicial immunity as to federal judges is illegal

I wrote on this blog that the contents of Judicial Misconduct and Disability Act, 28 U.S.C. 352, exposes illegitimacy of the concept of judicial immunity, because Judicial Misconduct and Disability Act, 28 USC 352(b)(I)(A)(ii) provides for a dismissal of any complaint against a judge which is "directly related to the merits of a decision or procedural ruling", meaning that if that decision or procedural ruling was, very simply, BOUGHT, was made out of PERSONAL REVENGE, or while the judge is DRUNK, no discipline applies.

Yet, judge-created judicial and prosecutorial immunity was declared by the court to be justified SPECIFICALLY by availability of judicial discipline as an alternative to lawsuits against judges for money damages.

And, if discipline in federal courts is not available against judges, immunity for misconduct in office, during court proceedings, or "related to" court proceedings should not be available either.

Here is yet another federal statute, "Proceedings in Vindication of Civil Rights, Attorney Fees", 42 U.S.C. 1988(b):

"(b) Attorney’s fees

In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of sections 1981, 1981a, 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1986 of this title, title IX of Public Law 92–318 [20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.], the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 [42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq.], the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 [42 U.S.C. 2000cc et seq.], title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.], or section 13981 of this title, the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity such officer shall not be held liable for any costs, including attorney’s fees, unless such action was clearly in excess of such officer’s jurisdiction."

The statute clearly enumerates what exactly cannot be charged against a judge:

costs and attorney fees, UNLESS the judge's actions was clearly IN EXCESS of such officer's jurisdiction.

Now, immunity is given to judges - by judges - UNLESS the judges acts in CLEAR ABSENCE OF ALL JURISDICTION, and is routinely awarded for acts in excess of jurisdiction.

If immunity is awarded for acts in excess of jurisdiction and case is dismissed against a judge without reaching the merits, whether the judge acted in excess of jurisdiction, how can costs and attorney fees be awarded in such a situation (which is allowed by 42 U.S.C. 1988(b)?

It is clear that the clumsily cut immunity from costs and attorney fees only (not from money damages, nominal, actual or punitive) was the result of judicial lobbying.

Yet, lobbying did not acquire complete immunity FROM SUIT, OR FROM MONEY DAMAGES, only from costs and attorney fees, and with an important exception that federal courts ignore.

When judges ignore the law that is clear and unambiguous and part of three statutes:

1) Judicial Misconduct and Disability Act, 28 U.S.C. 352 providing for no judicial discipline and thus warranting private lawsuits against judges as an alternative, to obtain a remedy for injuries inflicted on individual through judicial misconduct and/or corruption in the office of federal judges;

2) Attorney fees for vindication of civil rights, 42 U.S.C. 1988(b) that specifically provides for costs and attorney fees for judicial acts in excess of their jurisdiction, a relief that is unavailable if the case is dismissed (as such cases are now) on "jurisdictional grounds" of judicial immunity at the stage when the complaint containing allegations of such excess of jurisdiction was just filed, before the answer, discovery or trial;

3)  The Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1983 that provides for a private right to sue "every person" who "under the color of state law" violates an individual's constitutional rights.

By the way, judges recognized that 42 U.S.C. 1983 applies to federal officials, too - through a so-called Bivens Action.

So, a Bivens action should be available against federal judges - under these three statutes, for money damages for their misconduct and/or corruption in office, and especially for acts in excess of jurisdiction, which happens often.
 

 

To summary order or not to summary order - a new twist on discriminatory whims of the 2nd Circuit at the expense of civil rights appellants

I've written on this blog extensively about the illegal, discriminatory and arbitrary policy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to issue only "summary orders" and not full precedential decisions explaining their rulings.

Here is how civil rights litigation works:

You file a civil rights case yourself or find an attorney from the increasingly shrinking number of attorneys willing to take civil rights cases in view of the avalanche of sanctions imposed by federal courts on civil rights attorneys "for frivolous conduct" - for making constitutional arguments judges do not like.

That costs you $400 in a filing fee.

The district court most often dismisses your lawsuit on a string of judge-created restrictions to its jurisdiction.  

Rarely the case survives and proceeds to a motion for a summary judgement (despite your demand for a jury trial and a requirement of the 7th Amendment to have a jury trial, which makes summary judgments in civil rights cases unconstitutional), see a law review article on unconstitutionality of summary judgments here.

If your case is dismissed or a summary judgement is granted, you have a right to appeal.

Kind of.

You have a right to pay $505 for filing a Notice of Appeal, being subjected to harassment of the federal appellate court as to every little comma or period that is out of place (not so if you are a governmental litigant or attorney, they escape with murder), and then, most likely, your appeal is decided by a "summary order" because, in the opinion of the judges, most of them - senior-age and senior-status (after all, civil rights appeals are such bothers) - issues that you raise in a constitutional civil rights lawsuit "do not warrant publication".

See the 2nd Circuit's policy here:

A well-known and notorious judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit Alex Kozinski made a statement recently about the comparative time that it takes to produce a summary order on appeal as opposed to a full-blown decision (opinion):

“[Many non-precedential dispositions are] drafted by

the court’s central staff and presented to a panel of three 

judges in camera, with an average of five or 10 minutes 

devoted to each case.   During a two- or three-day monthly 

session, a panel of three judges may issue 100 to 150 

such rulings”,  Alex Kozinski, “In Opposition to Proposed 

Federal Rule of  Appellate Procedure 32.1”, 51 FED. LAW. 

36, 38 (June 2004), emphasis added

AND that 

"the process of anticipating how the language . . . will be read

by future litigants and courts, and how small variations

in wording might be imbued with meanings never intended—

takes exponentially more time and must be reserved,

         given our caseload, to the cases we designate for          
         publication", id., emphasis added.

Of course, the distinction of what is "worth" publication is not a decision that federal judges are allowed to make by the statute and by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment requiring to treat all litigants the same way.

In New York, no state appellate courts have yet devised a procedure where they would escape with no opinion on the merits in deciding an appeal.

It is clear that deciding what is "worth publication" and what is not "worth publication" is an IRRELEVANT ISSUE for judges to decide whether to provide their full attention to one or other appeal, or simply to relegate the appeal to decisions practically by non-judicial court personnel.

Such a policy is illegal because:

(1) Article III of the U.S. Constitution governing the federal judiciary does not allow judges to engage in policy-making, it is an exclusive legislative function of the U.S. Congress;

(2) Whether a decision on appeal is "worth publication" is not a relevant factor in deciding whether to provide more or less time to decide a certain appeal;

(3) Distinctions of cases for the "fast and negligent track" and for the "full blown diligent track" are arbitrary and factors that go into such decision-making are not set or disclosed to the public and litigants, giving judges powers to neglect their duty of FULL AND EQUAL APPELLATE REVIEW OF ALL APPEALS THAT COME IN FRONT OF THEM;

(4) When people pay equal (and equally high) filing fees to have their appeal reviewed, the scope and manner of review should be equal, too, it's basic fairness;

(5) Distinctions between cases that are worth and not worth publication are necessarily content-based and require strict scrutiny (see e.g. the latest decision on strict scrutiny for content-based regulation, Reed v Town of Gilbert), while no scrutiny is provided, instead, an agreement of judges without providing any reasoning for such an agreement, is enough to push your case from the "diligent" track to the "fast and negligent track", see once again:

But, sometimes s**t happens which makes you wonder - why did that s**t happen.

For example, yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit suddenly, after about a year passed since its "summary order" issued by a panel of two judges, decided, after all, to issue a 49-page full-blown opinion instead.

The case name and number is Victory v Pataki, 13cv3592.

The previous summary order was issued on April 5, 2015.

The substituting 49-opinion was issued yesterday.

The docket report of the case is completely bare of any clues as to why such a change of mind suddenly happened.  There were no motions from any party to change the court's mind.

The only explanation the court has given for such an interesting - and unique - change of mind is in a footnote:

See how easy it is?

They "initially disposed" of the appeal by a summary order - well, at least they honestly admit what they did - they cast the appeal out, because in April of 2015 "they" (two judges) concluded that the civil rights litigant's case was not worthy of publication.

Now something has happened that changed the judges' mind 

(what happened, is not clear, because I checked the docket report in the court below, and nothing happened there since 2013 summary judgment despite a partial remand in 2015) 

and persuaded them that now the case would be "worth publication", and prompted them to now do some work that they were supposed to do in the first place back in April of 2015, and to produce a 49-page opinion instead of the "letter of rejection" which is what a rubber-stamped summary order prepared by non-judicial personnel is.

I believe that, at the very least, the court should be honest and RETURN THE MONEY to those appellants who paid an equal fee while getting an unequal appellate review.

Considering that over 85% or more of appellate cases (probably, close to 100% of civil rights appeals) are decided by federal courts through this neglectful "summary order" manner, if an avalanche of demands to return the money starts, and hits the mass media and social media, federal appellate courts might take notice, take their collective heads from where they are now and start providing proper appellate review.

And, please, do not tell me that they are overloaded and do not have enough time for cases.

First, I do not care - if they take equal money, they need to provide an equal service.

Second, look at the books federal appellate judges write, the panels on which they "serve" (takes time, you know), look at their side jobs as law professors in other states and towns, away from their courts (I will run a separate blog on that particular problem).

And, of course, do not forget the "cinema nights with booze" of Alex Kozinski where he invites his appellate supervisors, the U.S. Supreme Court justices - that takes time to organize.  That is more important to give a civil rights plaintiff an equal time in appellate review as those cases that, in the judges' sole unexplained arbitrary opinion, "are not worth publication".

All of those "endeavors" takes time.  Your time.  The time you paid for as a taxpayer, and as a litigant who, most likely, scrambled to pay a $505 appellate fee and deserves equal appellate review with those appellants who were given a full-blown opinion to your 2 or 3 pieces of paper called "the summary order" where the court says "it assumes familiarity of parties with the facts and procedural history of the case and affirm on substantially the same reasons as the district court's thoughtful and well-reasoned decision".

A longtime successful North Carolina attorney relinquishes his law license not to be associated with unethical State Bar

Attorney Lewis Pitt from North Carolina, who has reportedly spent nearly 20 years working as Legal Aid attorney, went all the way to the Supreme Court of his state to set a procedure in place to be able to relinquish his law license in protest for unethical conduct of the State Bar and its failure to live up to its declared purposes of promoting justice.

In his letter to the Bar, Mr. Pitt reportedly said the following:

"My resignation is because I see an overall breach by the Bar as a whole of the most basic of professional conduct and ethics such that I do not want be be associated with the Bar".

Mr. Pitt said that he tried to change the profession from within for 43 years, but could not do it any more.

According to Mr. Pitt,  "there are individual lawyers that have a conscience, but they’re trampled by the system".

Apparently, the trampling by the system of "lawyers with a conscience" is common knowledge, but comes out publicly only when an attorney resigns...

Isn't that a true face of what is really governing the legal profession - money and fear?

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article55333800.html?fb_action_ids=10205848778205355&fb_action_types=og.comments#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article55333800.html?fb_action_ids=10205848778205355&fb_action_types=og.comments#storylink=cpy

Employer of DiFiore's daughter to DiFiore - well done, remember I said "congratulations", and that I am familiy

This is the statement of the Manhattan DA to Janet DiFiore on her corrupt confirmation as New York State Chief Judge:

The kicker is that the Manhattan DA is "coincidentally" the employer of DiFiore's daughter Alexandra.

To be more precise, Alexandra DiFiore Glazer, who, according to New York attorney registration website, did not change her last name after her wedding, but "modestly" concealed her connection to her mother Janet DiFiore by abbreviating her middle name DiFiore to a non-descript "D."

 

Here is the DA's registration information, for purposes of clarity, so that it is clear that the "Manhattan DA" as he names himself in the press-release and the "New York County DA" is one and the same. 

So, it is congratulations to DiFiore from family.

And a subtle reminder - remember us when a case we screwed up comes in front of you.

Members of privileged class, New York City attorneys caught on videotape in considering possibilities of helping out a corrupt African official with an international money laundering scheme

A couple of days ago a report hit the media that 15 of 16 New York City attorneys, agreed to help in setting up set a scheme to launder dirty money coming from an undisclosed corrupt African official.

See the report directly from the non-profit UK-based group that handled the investigations here and the full-length video interviews of six New York City attorneys here.

Here are our "heroes", New York attorneys whose names I found in the reports:
 

1. Lawrence M. Gabe
2. Gerald Ross
3. James Silkenat, the recent former president of the American Bar Association
4. John H. Jankoff
5. Marc Koplik
6. Albert Grant
7. Hugh Finnegan 

In addition to the report and comment on statements of Mark Koplik in the article interlinked above, I would encourage you to listen to the entire video interview with Attorney Marc Koplik, it is extremely instructive - as to what legal elite thinks of themselves as a "privileged class" running the country, setting up its laws, ensuring their selective enforcement in their own favor and obtaining favors from local judges through judges with whom they went to law school, had lunch, are members of the same bar associations, or through local lawyers who know local judges, while they disdainfully consider themselves as "brains" and local attorneys as vehicles to the favors of a local judge with a heartbeat and a law license.   

The main diatribe of attorney Koplik as to lawyers being a "privileged class" starts at around 43 minutes.

"They don't send lawyers to jail because we run the country. ... Still do ... Still do (smiling happily).  

Undercover investigator:  So you are some of them... Two of them...

Koplik:  We are members of a privileged class in this country.

Investigator:  So how... What does it mean you run the country?  It means, you...

Koplik: (interrupting) It means we make the laws, and we do so we make them in a way that is advantageous to the lawyers.

Albert Grant:  we make the laws and, some people say, we selectively enforce the laws.  Laws are facts, you know.  Laws are facts all the time.  You can pass the law, but that doesn't mean the law is going to be enforced.  

...

Koplik:  another adage is "a good lawyer knows the law and a great lawyer knows the judge".  In fact, I went to law school in half the judges sitting in New York City, Supreme and federal district courts in New York.  That happens all the way over time.  

People you have lunch with, people who are members of the bar association.  Are they going to throw a case for you?  No.  But are they going to bend over backwards to be courteous to you?  Yes, they are.  

Investigator:  As they say, it's not what you know, it's who you know, right?

Koplik:  That's why for a local jurisdiction it pays to get a local lawyer, even if your brains are coming from New York or Chicago

And, of course, none of these attorneys - who readily agreed to devise schemes how to "scrub" (Koplik's word) the "honest grafts" (Koplik's words, meaning "bribes") of an African minister outside of the U.S. before bringing it in to invest it - at the initial price to Koplik of $50 000 to $100 000 plus an annual fee of $25,000 after that.

That is the price of Koplik's integrity - and that's from only one client.

Because he is sure nobody will discipline him and nobody will put him to jail.  He knows too many judges in the area.

*   *    *

By the way, the only attorney who said "no" to this shady scheme, was attorney Jeffrey M. Hermann.

It Mr. Hermann about 30 seconds to say the following:

"no, I have higher standards than that" and to refuse to refer the "client" asking him to help with a shady money laundering scheme to anybody he knows because people "would be insulted" by such a referral.