Attorney for the New York State Gaming Commission #KentDVanderwall was charged with a felony DWI

The Gaming Commission, I will remind my readers, is the Commission where Governor Cuomo gifted his buddy and likely partner in crime Janet DiFiore's husband Dennis Glazer a seat after DiFiore provided an invaluable favor to Cuomo as the head of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

An attorney of this venerable institution connected with NYS Governor and NYS Chief Judge,  Kent D. Vanderwall, was just charged with a felony DWI after he was reportedly found drunk and with open alcoholic beverages next to him in a van parked against the steps of a daycare center, drunk, with the car still running and in drive.

Here is the "hero":

The police found him after he was reportedly driving erratically from Schenectady to Scotia.

It is sheer luck that he did not kill anybody, including children.

Kent D. Vanderwall was reportedly could not complete field sobriety tests, refused a breathalyzer test, thus forfeiting his driver's license, and fought the police when taken to the police station.

Vanderwall was charged with a felony DWI because he had 2 prior DWI convictions.

I do not believe this is the whole story.

I represented people charged with DWI for years, and know that it is usual to offer a reduction to a violation to first-time offenders where there is no injury to people or damage to property.

Moreover, prosecutors bend over backwards to offer any kind of breaks to attorneys, and especially to attorneys working for the State of New York.

If Vanderwall was actually convicted for misdemeanor DWIs before, there must have been something aggravating, and those DWI conviction may have been preceded by more DWI charges reduced to DAI (driving while ability impaired) violations and thus sealed.

I will follow this case and see whether the State of New York will prosecute its own attorney and whether the State of New York will discipline its own attorney for jeopardizing people's lives by driving drunk.  

Former Albany assistant public defender Shauna Collins charged with aggravated DWI

A recently resigned former Albany assistant public defender,  #ShaunaCollins, who is also reportedly the executive director of "Lark Street Business Improvement District", was recently arrested and charged for aggravated DWI.

She was reportedly found asleep at the wheel in her Volvo SUV on the side of Western Avenue with 0.28 BAC level (3.5 times the permissible alcohol blood level in New York is 0.08).

The question is - is this a freak one-time moment, or did she ever represent indigent clients as a public defender while being drunk?

Is there a right to defy an unlawful court order in the U.S.?

Apple is reportedly defying a court order of a federal magistrate to create a backdoor for its iPhone for the FBI to use to spy on users of iPhone, including American citizens.

Apple reportedly indicated to the court that (1) such a backdoor does not exist at this time, (2) may not be technologically possible, and (3) while Apple has "cooperated" with FBI in the past (I wonder, how), for the government to require Apple to actually create a breach in privacy and security of their devices is going too far.

Apple is right, of course.

Not only it is a privacy problem as against the government, but, once such a backdoor is created, anybody with an iPhone will be open to breaches not only by the government, but by private hackers and to identity theft, exposing Apple to massive liability and loss of customers.

As good as iPhones are, they are not the only ones in the market, and people can always "vote with their feet" and refuse to buy iPhones if Apple complies with this court order.

I wonder how did it happen that a magistrate judge - who was never appointed by the President or confirmed by the Senate - is now making decisions of such overwhelming importance for every one of owners of iPhones, in the U.S. and around the world.

I also wonder whether Apple and its executives will be held in contempt of court and otherwise sanctions for defying an obviously unlawful court order.

Because, in this country judges are treated as deities and anything that comes out of their dainty mouths is considered as mandatory law.  Even if what comes out of their dainty mouths is screamingly unlawful and unconstitutional.

We will see whether Apple will be punished for civil disobedience, or whether it will be allowed to set up a precedent of civil disobedience to an unlawful court order.

Yet another judge arrested for a DWI. Will she escape with a slap on the wrist?

Rochester City Court judge #LeticiaAstacio was reportedly arrested on February 13, 2016 for DWI.

Here is the "hero":

Moreover, the judge was charged with driving drunk TO COURT, to "oversee criminal arraignments".

Audacity of this country's judges in thinking they are above the law is amazing.

The judge reportedly caused a "single car accident" on Interstate 490, and refused a breathalyzer test.

Here is a judge who, like other judges caught before her drunk at the wheel, brazenly put not only their own lives, but other people's lives in jeopardy by getting behind the wheel drunk, and driving - in this case - on a winter highway that requires heightened attention.

This particular judge was also going to "do her duty" and arraign people accused of committing a crime, including crimes of DWI, I am sure - while being drunk herself.

And, I am sure that, had she not been stopped by the police, no attorneys or parties would have dared to accuse her of being drunk on the job, which begs a question - how many more times did that happen before? While judge Astacio was simply not caught?

I wonder whether Judge Astacio will be REALLY prosecuted - or allowed to escape with an "AI" (ability impaired violation) and no judicial discipline, or no real judicial discipline, as it happened so many times to drunk-driving judges in New York.

An expert's reaction on investigation into the death of #AntoninScalia: "I almost fell out of my chair"

That was the reported reaction of a Bill Ritchie, a retired police chief and chief of criminal investigations of D.C. police to how the investigation into the death of Antonin Scalia was handled, or, rather, mishandled.

Ritchie who reportedly taught in a homicide investigation school, indicated that any death is considered a homicide until homicide is ruled out through an investigation. 

So.

It is not some much maligned "conspiracy theorist" raising questions I've been raising from the first time when Scalia's death, and how it was investigated, was reported in the press and social media.

It is a homicide expert.

As I said in my previous post on this subject, while the body was hastily embalmed without an autopsy, and some evidence is irreversibly destroyed, a lot of people who were around the place, remained.  Years and greed will do the job of disclosure.  People will come forward selling their stories.  Of course, it could be the right way - the way of government investigation into the death of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice under suspicious circumstances.  

Yet, if the government - as always - wants to quash embarrassing or potentially criminal information about rich and well-connected individuals who may be involved in this whole situation, we will have to rely upon greed and time to reveal the truth.

"Americans in Danger" report points out political persecution of human rights defenders in the U.S. and unavailablity of efficient remedies for human rights violations

The legal abuse syndrome, where the government undermines enforcement of human rights and targets human rights defenders, in violation of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), is not something new.

It existed for a long time, but started to be brought to the surface with the advancement of the Internet and the social media, and thus availability of non-mainstream media sources, including individuals, to address large audiences directly.

I have been writing extensively on this blog about the erosion of the rule of law in the U.S. by judges, unlawfully self-gifted with impunity, and acting in collusion with other branches of the government, thus undermining the "checks and balances" written into the U.S. Constitution, by far an idealistic document that government officials are sworn to uphold, but instead disregard and undermine.

Some efforts are being made by various grass roots movements to systemize knowledge about the pattern utilized by various government officials in the U.S., on state and federal level, separately and in collusion with one another, to carry out the goals of legal abuse, keeping the non-elite citizenry of the U.S. under governmental control and quashing any criticism of misconduct in the government, and especially criticism of misconduct of well-connected individuals.

Today, a grassroots movement OPT IN USA issued a press-release about its report, AMERICANS IN JEOPARDY: When Human Rights Protection Becomes America’s Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branch Shell Game”. 

The report points out the existence in the U.S. of the so-called "The Third Degree", or TTD,  a “persistent pattern of persecution and mental torture imposed through U.S. legal system abuse” on some Americans, and specifically on human rights defenders.

The press-release mentions "in a September 15, 2015 letter to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a coalition of 38 NGOs (non-governmental organizations)

described TTD as “unchecked judicial misconduct” and claimed “the ineffectiveness of domestic remedies is an integral part of its pathology.”

 

I encourage my readers to read the report "Americans in Jeopardy" interlinked above.  

 

Yet, here is the full description of TTD from the report:

 

 

 

 

I wonder how many of my readers were subjected to each and every point of TTD described in the report.  I know a lot of people who was.

 

The existence and further emerging of grass-roots movements that are addressing this issue is certainly encouraging.

 

I wonder whether the United Nations and the international community will take notice and apply international pressure to the U.S. to stop political persecution of human rights defenders and start giving its people real effective remedies for violations of human rights.

Races with the corpse of #AntoninScalia and equality under the law

I recently wrote a blog post about unequal treatment under the law of attorneys who were busted in a sting against international money laundering as opposed to how the results of stings against pedophiles are handled.

Specifically, I pointed out that mistake of fact of lay people who not lawyers (that undercover cops are not minor children) is no defense in prosecution for attempted sex with a minor, yet mistake of fact of prominent attorneys who gave money laundering advice while being given to understand that the potential client is a corrupt public official from another country who wants to bring bribe money into this country, remained free and clear without any criminal charges.

Significantly, one of the lawyer in that sting bragged on video that lawyers run the country, make laws in their favor and befriend judges who are then "courteous" to them.

When such a judge, while - allegedly - being in the process of being befriended by a multimillionaire and his business friends, drops dead, 

so many rules of ethics, laws and procedures were violated and so many inconsistencies are reported in 

• how and why the judge appeared at that ranch, 
• how his security was forfeited, 
• how he was allegedly "found" dead, 
• how his death was certified,
• how his autopsy was thwarted,
• how investigation into his death was thwarted - that it becomes apparent that there are, indeed, two systems of laws in this country - one for the "men from the street" and another for "brilliant jurists" and public officials, the country's elite.

I am trying to reconstruct events from information that is publicly available, using my 17 years of experience in reviewing and analyzing materials of criminal investigations, both as a legal assistant and then as an attorney.

I will first announce two major principles guiding my investigation of the facts known from the press and my analysis.

1) I will not reject any leads or avoid any issues based on anybody's status or the issue's sensitivity or perceived "propriety" or "impropriety", because such issues are irrelevant to journalistic (and criminal) investigations into the death of a human being. 

Any criminal investigator and any investigative journalist worth their salt will follow all leads, including and especially the sensitive one, the ones considered "improper" and the so-called "unlikely" leads.   

Even though the mass media and the legal elite is trying to portray Scalia as royalty or deity, he is not.  He is a human being, and laws of this country apply to him, and to investigation of his death, as much as to any other death.   Moreover, investigation of Scalia's death was supposed to be MORE, not LESS thorough because of who he is, because of the stakes involved in his death and replacement, and because of what such an investigation may reveal of potential misconduct of Scalia himself and of other people, likely rich and influential people who are still alive.

There is no "presumption of integrity" or "presumption of propriety" or "presumption of no foul play" when a person who suddenly turn up dead at a luxury resort happens to be a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

And, what we judge as "unlikely" may well be what has actually happened, after 17 years involved in helping with or handling criminal cases, even though on the defense side, where I was seeking out potential alternative explanations for what happened in the criminal cases I was working on, there is no such thing as an unlikely lead to me.

2) I do not pretend to know the Texas law, and I will apply it as it was reported in news accounts. 

So, the questions I would ask, investigate and that I would analyze separately, in separate blog posts:

1. Did Scalia arrive to the ranch alive or already dead?
2. If Scalia came to the ranch alive, what was the purpose of the visit?  Who were the other guests?
3. Who was Scalia's lawyer-companion who arrived with him, and who was claimed to be a "mutual friend" with the owner of the ranch John Poindexter? Why did John Poindexter and not that "friend" got alarmed at the absence of Scalia and found him?
4. Why the law enforcement was not provided with the use of a landline telephone on the ranch and instead had to use faulty cell phone connection to obtain a justice of the peace to certify the death?
5. What are room service procedures at the ranch?  Why was it John Poindexter and not the room service that found Scalia?  Usually room service starts cleaning rooms at around 10 am, in hotels that are far from luxury, I would presume that housekeeping had to exist for a 1,100 square feet "presidential suite" of a luxury resort going at $700 and more per night;
6. What was the reason not to call in a coroner to certify the death that occurred less than 24 hours since an allegedly healthy guest's arrival to the ranch?
7. Why the unseemly haste to skip the autopsy, embalm the body and whisk the corpse out of the state of Texas, all within a span of 24 hours?
8. Why didn't the ranch's owner insist on autopsy to eliminate any questions of wrongdoing on his luxury resort that can potentially mar his own and his business' reputation? 
9. If Scalia had chronic health problems that were ascertained on Wednesday and Thursday through an MRI, problems of such seriousness that could explain "death from natural causes" within a day of that MRI, why did he go to that remote location at all, without his spouse, without a doctor in attendance or in the vicinity, and with a "lawyer companion"?
10. Why did the justice of the peace that certified Scalia's death over the phone without seeing his body and without ordering an autopsy insists that he died of "natural causes", but specifically not of a heart attack?  How does she know?  What does she know?
11. How could it be that the U.S. Marshals "responded immediately" to the ranch AFTER Scalia's death (while not accompanying him to the visit, as they were supposed to) when the ranch was 200 miles from the nearest city
12. Why did the U.S. Marshals not bring with themselves a physician, justice of the peace, a coroner or a forensic expert to verify that the death as from natural causes?  What were their qualifications to verify whether there was or was not "foul play" involved?
13. What was done with Scalia's pajamas?  Were his belongings analyzed for presence of condoms and pajamas and bedclothes for presence of sperm and female bodily fluids? The evidence that may be derived from the body may be destroyed by embalment, but did anybody care to analyze the pajamas, bedclothes and Scalia's personal items to see if there was another in that room at night?

There are all kinds of speculations and conspiracy theories (to the point of involving aliens in Scalia's alleged murder) - as well as mockeries of such conspiracy theories - brewing over the Internet about #AntoninScalia's death.

The problem though is that the reason for such theories is that was the government's job to investigate the death of Antonin Scalia, the circumstances of the death, including the "pillow over his head", raise questions whether the death was from natural causes, while the law requiring an autopsy was not followed in determining the cause of death, and at this time possibility to determine the real cause of death of Antonin Scalia is made, probably, impossible by hasty embalment and whisking the body out of state.

While most conspiracy theories point a finger at president Obama and democrats, in view of the fact that it was known that "Scalia will do anything to go hunting", there could me other reasons for wanting him dead.  

Or, his death could be as trivial as, let's say, not being able to cope with the energy levels needed for sexual performance.  

After all, let's face it, Scalia arrived to the ranch on the even of Valentine's Day, with a companion who was not his wife, who did not check on his well-being when he did not show up in the morning, the companion's name is kept secret.

Answers to at least some of the questions asked above will be given, if not immediately, then over time (maybe, after some considerable time passes and people start selling their stories and writing memoirs).

The answer that is readily available now is that the homicide investigation into the death of Antonin Scalia was screwed, and appears to be screwed intentionally.