Federal Prosecutor

In the state's first decision involving juries and social media, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has called on judges to better police jurors' use of the Internet to make sure they do not discuss cases online, and thus risk a mistrial. The court said judges need to do more to explain to jurors that refraining from conversations about a case also means not posting anything about it on Facebook or Twitter, common practice in today's technology-driven world. "Jurors must separate and insulate their jury service from their digital lives," the court said in a ruling involving a Plymouth Superior Court...

Influence peddling and money laundering allegations haven't been enough to topple Argentina's vice president, Amado Boudou. On Monday, illegal enrichment accusations were added to the mix when a federal prosecutor asked an investigative judge to open yet another probe against him. Prosecutor Jorge Di Lello also asked Judge Ariel Lijo to investigate 10 businesses, including The Old Fund, a holding company reportedly linked to Boudou that took...

WASHINGTON - Democratic lawmakers yesterday questioned the independence of a veteran federal prosecutor named to investigate whether laws were broken in the partisan political firings of US attorneys. Representative Linda Sanchez, Democrat of California, who has led the House Judiciary Committee's investigation into the firing of nine prosecutors nearly two years ago, said the Justice Department might interfere with the career prosecutor who will conduct the probe. Nora Dannehy, the acting US attorney in Connecticut and white-collar crime specialist, was named early...

Prosecutors rested their campaign fraud case against John Edwards on Thursday after 14 days of dramatic and often unflattering testimony that focused on the once-promising politician's infidelity and the secret money they say he used to cover up the affair he feared would derail his presidential ambitions. In its final act, federal prosecutors played a tape of a 2008 national television interview in which the Democrat repeatedly lied about his extramarital affair with the woman who was part of his campaign staff and denied fathering her baby.

Former federal prosecutor Jon Mitchell has been elected New Bedford's next mayor, defeating longtime state Rep. Antonio Cabral in a bid to lead the south coast community. The Standard-Times ( http://bit.ly/tx2Jy7) reports that Mitchell won just under 52 percent of the vote Tuesday in a bid to succeed Mayor Scott Lang, who is leaving office after three terms. Both Cabral and Mitchell stressed job creation in a city that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says had a 10.3 percent unemployment rate in September.

A Florida lawmaker has resigned after admitting he sent suggestive and harassing texts to a married federal prosecutor. Richard Steinberg's immediate resignation from the House on Friday comes two days after news reports that he used a hidden identity to send unsolicited messages to assistant U.S. Attorney Marlene Fernandez-Karavetsos. The Miami Beach Democrat returned home from the Capitol after The Miami Herald reported the story Wednesday. In a statement announcing the resignation, Steinberg apologized to everyone he's hurt and asked for privacy while he deals with...

James “Whitey’’ Bulger and his longtime companion, Catherine Greig, used at least 15 aliases, including one embossed on an AARP card, during their 16 years on the lam, federal authorities said yesterday. The couple also lived in a home where the reputed mobster stocked his bedroom walls with assault rifles and hid three loaded guns behind books on his shelf, according to testimony during Greig’s bail hearing yesterday. During a proceeding that at times felt like a rehearsal for trial, a federal prosecutor questioned an FBI agent about the various ways Bulger and his...

James “Whitey’’ Bulger was paying cash to rent his Santa Monica, Calif., apartment, and he had $800,000 on hand when he was arrested on Wednesday. Yet he still may get a free court-appointed lawyer to mount his defense. The issue remained unresolved yesterday when Bulger, the longtime fugitive South Boston gang leader accused of 19 murders as well as racketeering charges, appeared in US District Court. Bulger is being temporarily represented by defense attorney Peter B. Krupp, who called himself a “provisional...

CHICAGO -- Former media baron Conrad Black's racketeering trial got under way yesterday with a federal prosecutor calling him a corporate swindler who stole millions of dollars and his attorney ripping into the government's star witness as a liar. "It was theft; it was fraud; it was crime," federal prosecutor Jeffrey H. Cramer said in a fiery opening statement. But defense attorney Edward M. Genson said the money was made legally and scoffed at the notion that Black and his three co defendants had defrauded shareholders in the Hollinger International ...

WASHINGTON -- Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico acknowledged yesterday that he called a federal prosecutor to ask about a criminal investigation, but insisted that he never pressured nor threatened his state's US attorney. The prosecutor, David Iglesias, was fired by the Justice Department in December. Iglesias says he believes he was dismissed for resisting pressure from two members of Congress before last year's election to rush indictments in a Democratic kickback inquiry.

A Florida lawmaker has resigned after admitting he sent suggestive and harassing texts to a married federal prosecutor. Richard Steinberg's immediate resignation from the House on Friday comes two days after news reports that he used a hidden identity to send unsolicited messages to assistant U.S. Attorney Marlene Fernandez-Karavetsos. The Miami Beach Democrat returned home from the Capitol after The Miami Herald reported the story Wednesday. In a statement announcing the resignation, Steinberg apologized to everyone he's hurt and asked for privacy while he deals with...

HUDSON, N.Y. - Roger J. Miner, a federal appeals court judge in Manhattan for nearly three decades who was among final candidates President Reagan considered for the Supreme Court, died Saturday. He was 77. Paul Silver, a federal prosecutor who once clerked for Judge Miner, said he died of heart failure at his Hudson home. "He was an incredibly brilliant man," said Silver, who was a law clerk for Judge Miner from 1982 to 1984. "He was totally devoted to the law as much as he was to his family and friends.

The litany of crimes that independent counsel Paul F. Ware Jr. alleges - and often flatly asserts - that Probation Commissioner John J. O'Brien and his top deputies committed provides a detailed road map for prosecutors to pursue criminal charges that could possibly result in jail time, former prosecutors said yesterday. Some attorneys said a recent US Supreme Court decision limiting the use of an anticorruption law favored by federal authorities would make it difficult to win a conviction on the most serious fraud charges.

Federal authorities say senior U.S. District Judge Peter Dorsey has died in New Haven after a long illness. He was 80. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Connecticut says they were notified over the weekend of Dorsey's death, which was first reported by the Hartford Courant ( http://bit.ly/zjOMfV). Dorsey, a U.S. Navy veteran, held degrees from Yale and Harvard and was a former federal prosecutor before becoming a U.S. District Court judge in 1983. He assumed senior judge status in 1998.

Prosecutors said yesterday that Daniel Eremian funded a lavish lifestyle through illegal gambling proceeds, giving him access to wealthy clients who were willing to bet hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, on sporting events. "The cash he received allowed him to live the lifestyle of a multimillionaire," Robert Fisher, a federal prosecutor, said in his closing statements in the racketeering and money laundering trial of Eremian and codefendant Todd Lyons. A jury is expected to begin deliberating today, after five weeks of testimony in US District Court in Boston.

Former federal prosecutor Jon Mitchell has been elected New Bedford's next mayor, defeating longtime state Rep. Antonio Cabral in a bid to lead the south coast community. The Standard-Times ( http://bit.ly/tx2Jy7) reports that Mitchell won just under 52 percent of the vote Tuesday in a bid to succeed Mayor Scott Lang, who is leaving office after three terms. Both Cabral and Mitchell stressed job creation in a city that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says had a 10.3 percent unemployment rate in September.

SEATTLE - The federal government is renewing efforts to find the killer of an assistant US attorney who was fatally shot through a window in his Seattle home. Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday asked the public for any information about the 2001 slaying of Assistant US Attorney Thomas Wales. He is believed to be the only federal prosecutor to die in the line of duty. Wales was 49 when he was killed on the night of Oct. 11, 2001, as he sat at his computer. The longtime federal prosecutor mostly handled white-collar crimes and had been active in a gun-control group.

The litany of crimes that independent counsel Paul F. Ware Jr. alleges - and often flatly asserts - that Probation Commissioner John J. O'Brien and his top deputies committed provides a detailed road map for prosecutors to pursue criminal charges that could possibly result in jail time, former prosecutors said yesterday. Some attorneys said a recent US Supreme Court decision limiting the use of an anticorruption law favored by federal authorities would make it difficult to win a conviction on the most serious fraud charges.

He was the star witness in the prosecution and conviction of former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, and former salesman Joseph P. Lally Jr. took a beating on the witness stand after turning on his fellow defendants. He was branded a liar, a thief, a scoundrel who would sell out anyone including DiMasi to help himself and escape a lengthy jail sentence for paying out kickbacks to win state contracts. Yet come today, Lally will learn whether his cooperation with the government - and the public scrutiny that came with it - was worth it, as he is sentenced for his own role in...