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You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#74 in a series)

Tuesday, October 5th, 2021

I would have missed this one if Mike the Musicologist hadn’t pointed it out to me.

Remember Lovely Warren, the soon to be former mayor of Rochester, New York? Indicted for criminal possession of a firearm and endangering the welfare of a child?

She’s going to be the former mayor sooner than expected: Ms. Warren took a plea.

Warren, 44, was readying Monday for what was expected to be a month-long trial on felony charges that she and two assistants violated campaign contribution limits, but she pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor, admitting that she knowingly exceeded the $8,557 limit, the Democrat & Chronicle reported.

Also taking pleas: “campaign treasurer Albert Jones Jr. and Rosiland Brooks-Harris, treasurer of political action committee Warren for a Strong Rochester”.

The campaign finance charges go back to an earlier indictment. But as part of the deal:

Warren, Jones and Brooks-Harris had faced up to four years in state prison if convicted on the felony charge, according to WHAM. But a judge sentenced all three to a year-long conditional discharge, meaning they could face additional penalties if they commit additional crimes during that period, the Democrat & Chronicle reported.

…

Warren’s plea deal Monday also resolved separate gun and child endangerment charges. In July, a grand jury indicted her and her estranged husband, Timothy Granison, with criminal possession of a firearm and endangering the welfare of a child and failure to lock or secure firearms in a dwelling, the newspaper reported.

So the way I’m reading this, she pled guilty to a single misdemeanor, if she keeps her nose clean for a year that goes away, and she gets to keep her law license.

But as part of the deal, she has to resign by December 1st. She’d already lost the Democratic primary, so she would have been out as of January 1st next year anyway: this just speeds things up a bit.

As best as I can tell, the charges against her “estranged husband”, the alleged dope dealer, are still pending.

Posted in Guns, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 5, 2021.

Tuesday, October 5th, 2021

Alan Kalter, David Letterman’s announcer on CBS.

The red-haired Kalter took over for the retired Bill Wendell as the Late Show announcer in September 1995 — about two years after Letterman moved from NBC to CBS — and remained through the host’s final program on May 20, 2015. On his first day on the job, Letterman tossed him into a pool.
With musical accompaniment from Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra, Kalter announced the guests and cheekily introduced the host at the top of each show, then voiced the comic one-liner over the Worldwide Pants title card on the end credits.
In between, Kalter often acted in funny sketches that included hosting “Alan Kalter’s Celebrity Interview” after Letterman was finished with the guest and speaking from his announcer’s podium as the studio lights dimmed, trying to come on to lonely, divorced women as “Big Red” — much to the dismay of a “shocked” Letterman.

…

“When I came home and said I was offered the job as the announcer on the Late Show, I told my wife I wasn’t sure if I really wanted it because it would really rock the boat on those commercials I was doing around the country,” he recalled in 2019. “I wouldn’t be able to go away for three or four days at a time whenever I wanted to, to do that work. And my kids, who were in high school at the time, sort of immediately in chorus said, ‘Dad this is the first cool thing you’ve ever done in your life. Take it!’”

Pearl Tytell has passed away at 104. She was a leading examiner of questioned documents.

Mrs. Tytell worked with her husband, Martin, at their typewriter repair and rental business on Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan, which branched out into the scientific examination of documents in the early 1950s. A rare woman in a male-dominated field, Mrs. Tytell ran that end of the business and trained her son, Peter, a widely known examiner of documents until his death last year.
Mrs. Tytell was an expert witness for the federal government in 1982 in the tax-evasion case against the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the head of the Unification Church. By analyzing changes in his handwriting — particularly how his printed “S” had turned cursive — she testified that he signed checks in 1974, not in 1973 as his lawyers had said.
At another point, Mrs. Tytell used paper-mill records and her knowledge of watermarks to prove that a piece of paper had not been produced until after the date written on it.
“She was an exceptional witness,” Martin Flumenbaum, a prosecutor in the case, said in a phone interview. “She dominated the courtroom. I remember the jury being enthralled by her testimony.”

…

In one of her best-known cases, she was hired in 1972 by International Telephone and Telegraph to analyze a politically explosive memorandum written a year earlier by one of the company’s lobbyists, Dita Beard (who denied writing the memorandum). Its existence was revealed by the investigative journalist Jack Anderson.
It suggested a connection between the settlement of a government antitrust lawsuit against I.T.T. and a pledge by the company to pay $400,000 in costs for the 1972 Republican National Convention.
A report issued by I.T.T. said that Mrs. Tytell and a chemist, Walter McCrone, had used “microscopic, ultraviolet fluorescence and highly sophisticated micro chemical analyses” of the memorandum and other samples that had been typed on Mrs. Beard’s typewriter between June 25, 1971 (the date on the document) and February 1972. They determined that the memo had most likely been written in January 1972, nearly six months after the antitrust settlement, meaning a connection to the payment was not likely.
Their report — submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which investigated the financial pledge made in the memo — contradicted the F.B.I.’s analysis of the document, which suggested it had been written on June 25.

Todd Akin, former House member from Missouri. He gave up that seat to run for the Senate, and lost after making some controversial remarks about rape.

Angelo Codevilla, conservative author and theorist. (The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It)

Posted in Books, Law, Obits, Politics, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: September 27, 2021.

Monday, September 27th, 2021

Frances T. “Sissy” Farenthold, noted female Texas politician of the 1960s and 1970s.

I wouldn’t have picked up on this if it wasn’t for the NYT obit: the HouChron ran one, but it was kind of buried, and they just re-ran the WP obit. The Statesman ran one…from the Corpus Christi newspaper.

Ms. Farenthold was a two-time candidate for the Texas governorship, the first chairwoman of the National Women’s Political Caucus, a college president and a nominee for the vice presidency of the United States a dozen years before Geraldine A. Ferraro became the first to be chosen for that office by a major party.

Yeah, she was a progressive, and I probably would have disagreed with her about everything. But she was a significant figure in Texas politics. Also, her story is full of sad.

Owing to the efforts of a slightly older brother, Benjamin Dudley III, to pronounce the word “sister,” the infant Mary Frances would be known to the end of her life as Sissy.
When Sissy was 2, and Benjamin 3, he died from complications of surgery to remove a swallowed coin. Her parents’ grief suffused the household ever after, she said.

…

In 1960, Ms. Farenthold’s 3-year-old son Vincent bled to death after a nighttime fall that went unheeded. Like several of the Farenthold children, he suffered from von Willebrand disease, a clotting disorder.

…

Three days after Ms. Farenthold’s runoff defeat, the body of her 32-year-old stepson, Randy Farenthold, from her husband’s prior marriage, was found in the Gulf of Mexico near Corpus Christi. His hands were bound and a concrete block was chained round his neck.
The younger Mr. Farenthold, described in the press as a millionaire playboy, had been scheduled to testify in the federal trial of four associates alleged to have defrauded him of $100,000 in a money-laundering scheme reported to involve organized crime. (One of them, Bruce Bass III, was indicted in the murder in 1976 and received a 16-year sentence in a plea agreement the next year.)

…

In 1989, her youngest child, Jimmy, disappeared, at 33. Jimmy, who was Vincent’s identical twin, was said never to have gotten over his brother’s death; by the time he was a young man he was addicted to drugs and drifting around Texas. Despite extensive searches, he was never found and is presumed dead. (The family held a funeral for him in 2005.)
Ms. Farenthold’s marriage ended in divorce. She is survived by her son George Farenthold II, who said the cause of death was Parkinson’s disease; another son, Dudley; a daughter, Emilie C. Farenthold; a sister, Genevieve Hearon; three grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and a step-grandson, Blake, the son of Randy Farenthold. A younger brother, Dudley Tarlton, was killed in a helicopter crash in 2003.

Jean Hale, actress. She was in “In Like Flint” and “The Oscar”, appeared on “Batman” twice, and did guest shots on the good “5-0”, “Cannon”, “Perry Mason”, and “The Wild Wild West”, among other credits.

Bobby Zarem, noted PR guy.

Mr. Zarem’s clients included (in alphabetical order) Alan Alda, Ann-Margret, Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Cher, Michael Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, Sophia Loren, Jack Nicholson, Diana Ross, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
He publicized the films “Tommy” (by staging a gala party in a Midtown Manhattan subway station) and “Saturday Night Fever” (after stealing stills of the production from the studio, which expected the movie to flop and neglected to distribute photographs of John Travolta), as well as “Rambo,” “Dances With Wolves” and “Pumping Iron,” the 1977 documentary about bodybuilding, which starred Mr. Schwarzenegger. For that film, Mr. Zarem arranged a meeting with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis that helped elevate Mr. Schwarzenegger to global superstardom.

Posted in Obits, Politics, Texas | 2 Comments »

Brief memos from the legal beat.

Wednesday, September 15th, 2021

Well. Well well well. Well.

Alex Murdaugh, the prominent South Carolina lawyer whose wife and son were shot and killed in June, asked a former client to kill him this month so his other son could collect a $10 million insurance payment but survived being shot in the head, the police said on Tuesday night.

…

The former client, Curtis Edward Smith, 61, of Walterboro, S.C., was arrested and charged with assisted suicide, aggravated assault and battery, and insurance fraud in connection with the shooting on Sept. 4, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said.
The state police agency said that Mr. Murdaugh, 53, had admitted to the scheme on Monday and that Mr. Smith had admitted to being at the scene and getting rid of the gun. Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyer did not respond to inquiries about the arrest, and it was not clear if Mr. Smith, who was booked in the Colleton County jail, had a lawyer.

…

Mr. Harpootlian said Mr. Murdaugh had concocted the plan for Mr. Smith to shoot him after trying to stop abusing oxycodone and suffering from “massive depression.” Mr. Murdaugh had wrongly believed that his older son, Buster, would not be able to receive any life insurance payout if he died of suicide, Mr. Harpootlian said. Another lawyer for Mr. Murdaugh, Jim Griffin, said in an interview that Mr. Murdaugh had told the police that Mr. Smith was whom he primarily bought oxycodone from.

I haven’t written a lot about the Backpage trial, though I have been following it from a distance. Yesterday’s development: the judge declared a mistrial. Why? Grotesque misconduct by the prosecution.

The government’s goal with prosecution is “not to win at any cost” but to “win by the rules, to see that justice is done,” [U.S. District Judge Susan] Brnovich pointed out. “If the government can prove that the defendants … knowingly facilitated prostitution, then they will be punished. But it should be done correctly.”
In her view, that hasn’t happened. The opening statement from federal prosecutor Reggie Jones “was close to causing mistrial,” she said. Then, despite agreeing “to minimize the focus on child sex trafficking” from then on out, the government continued to harp on it. And despite being told that witnesses could only talk about Backpage’s general reputation if it was tied to communication with specific defendants in this case, government witnesses like Sharon Cooper “talked about the reputation of Backpage untethered from communications with the defendants,” Brnovich pointed out.

This is a kind of long, but interesting (to me, anyway) piece about how corrupt San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection is.

Infamous engineer and permit expediter Rodrigo Santos has been hit with a bevy of both federal and local charges. Former DBI senior inspector Bernie Curran has resigned after being suspended for taking an undisclosed “loan” from a developer and then traveling out of his district to sign off that developer’s projects.
The feds on Friday announced fraud charges, in fact, against both Santos and Curran. The former is accused of expediting his permits by instructing his clients (in writing, and captured by the feds) to write charitable checks to Curran’s preferred youth hockey and rugby organizations. Curran then returned the favor by issuing certificates of final completion on these projects, however shoddy or incomplete they may be.

…

Curran and Santos, notably, pleaded the Fifth at a level exceeding the Dave Chappelle “Tron Carter Law and Order” sketch. But Santos did, notably, admit to having employed not one, but two of former DBI director Hui’s children. We are informed these are Hui’s only children, and that makes sense; if there were more, Santos probably would’ve hired them, too.

Posted in California Über Alles, Law, Murdaugh, Politics | Comments Closed

Random gun crankery, some filler.

Thursday, August 19th, 2021

Apologies for the slowdown in posting. I’ve been working on my paper for the 2022 MLA convention on “Sexual Politics in ‘Hobgoblins‘”.

(Lawrence pointed out an interesting fact: “Road Rash” in “Hobgoblins” is the same actor who played “Maynard” in “Pulp Fiction”.)

Anyway, a couple of interesting gun politics stories by way of the NYT:

San Francisco’s district attorney on Wednesday sued three online retailers for selling “ghost guns,” untraceable firearms that can be made from do-it-yourself kits, part of an intensifying nationwide effort to stem the flood of deadly homemade weapons into American cities.
In a civil complaint filed in California Superior Court, District Attorney Chesa Boudin accused the companies — G.S. Performance, BlackHawk Manufacturing Group and MDX Corporation — of marketing a range of products in the state that furnish buyers with parts and accessories that can be quickly assembled into a functional firearm.

Note the phrasing: “…parts and accessories that can be quickly assembled into a functional firearm”, not firearms themselves. I am not familiar with California law, so I don’t know what the status of 80% parts kits is there, nor do I know if any regulations against same would pass constitutional muster.

But it feels like this is one of those things that doesn’t matter, much like Remington and Sandy Hook: they might be able to beat the case legally, but the criminal DA of San Francisco can make it expensive enough to cripple or even bankrupt the vendors.

A new state law in Missouri that prevents local law enforcement from working with federal agents on gun cases is already hampering joint drug and weapons investigations, the Justice Department said in a court document filed Wednesday that was obtained by The New York Times.

Great and good FotB (and official firearms trainer of WCD) Karl put up a long – and, I think, fascinating – review on his blog of a vintage (1981) firearms/self defense guide from South Africa. I don’t recommend you follow the advice (and Karl does an excellent job of pointing out where it deviates from evolved practice today) but it is an interesting slice of history from a place only a few of us are familiar with.

Noted: the Smith and Wesson M&P 12. I’m kind of happy to see S&W back in the shotgun market, but I’m not wild about this particular gun.

Posted in Books, California Über Alles, Guns, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#73 in a series)

Wednesday, August 11th, 2021

I can’t pass this up. I’m sorry.

But the flaming hyenas watch is not going all Cuomo, all the time. No, we have other news to report.

Democratic Arizona state senator Otoniel “Tony” Navarrete resigned yesterday.

Navarrete’s letter came five days after he was arrested on seven felony charges related to child sex abuse, and follows a torrent of calls for him to step down from the seat he was reelected to last fall.

…

Navarrete was arrested last week on seven felony charges: five involving sexual conduct with a minor, one for attempted sexual conduct with a minor and a seventh charge of child molestation.
The arrest came after a 16-year-old boy went to Phoenix police with allegations of abuse dating from 2019. The probable cause statement also alleged that Navarrete attempted sexual conduct with a 13-year-old boy.

Posted in Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#72 in a series)

Tuesday, August 10th, 2021

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation on Tuesday under threat of impeachment following the release of a scathing attorney general report in which investigators concluded that he sexually harassed several women in violation of state and federal law.

The resignation of Mr. Cuomo, a three-term Democrat, came a week after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded that the governor sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, including current and former government workers, by engaging in unwanted touching and making inappropriate comments. The 165-page report also found that Mr. Cuomo and his aides unlawfully retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public and fostered a toxic work environment.

(Hattip: Lawrence.)

Edited to add: from Mike the Musicologist, “New York has successfully flattened the perv.”

Posted in Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#71 in a series)

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021

Breaking!

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, including current and former government workers, and retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public, according to a much anticipated report from the New York State attorney general released on Tuesday.

Posted in Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 1, 2021.

Sunday, August 1st, 2021

Austin Police officer Andy Traylor passed away last night.

His death came as a result of severe injuries sustained in a traffic accident on Wednesday.

APD said on Wednesday Traylor had been with the department for nine years and said in 2018 he served in the Navy for 10 years prior to becoming an officer. The Office of the Chief Medical Officer for Austin said he leaves behind a wife and five children.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 31, 2021.

Saturday, July 31st, 2021

Carl Levin, Senator from Michigan.

Richard Lamm, Colorado governor.

As a state lawmaker from 1966 to 1974, he also campaigned against Denver’s hosting the 1976 Olympics even though the city had been awarded the Games. He argued that it would damage the environment and sap state funds. Colorado voters rejected spending government money on the Games, and the event was shifted to Innsbruck, Austria.
Denver voters later passed an initiative requiring voter approval for any future proposals to host the Olympics. Mr. Lamm once said that he had been treated as a “pariah” by the business community over the episode.

Posted in History, Obits, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 28, 2021.

Wednesday, July 28th, 2021

Jimmy Elidrissi.

This is another one of those NYT style obits for someone who wasn’t so famous, but was still a figure worth noting. Mr. Elidrissi emigrated from Morocco to the United States in 1966 and got a job as a bellhop at the Waldorf Astoria…

…where he worked until 2017.

On the day he retired after 51 years, he was its longest-serving employee and probably the longest-serving living bellhop in Manhattan, according to his union, the Hotel Trades Council.

…

He remembered encountering Ronald Reagan during the 1980 presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter.
“‘Here you go, Mr. President,’” he recalled saying in greeting the candidate, “and he goes, ‘No, no, don’t call me that yet!’ So I say, ‘Look, Mr. President, you’re going to win and when you win send me something for my son.’ Later that year, he sent us a signed picture made out to my son.”
When Reagan returned to the hotel years after leaving office, he greeted Mr. Elidrissi by saying, “‘You’re still here, Jim!’”

Stretching the definition of an obit just a wee bit…

Five high-ranking military leaders died in the span of just 10 days, according to the Cuban government — though it’s remained mum on the causes.

Spoiler: it looks like pretty much all of these guys were older than dirt.

Posted in History, Obits, Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#70 in a series)

Tuesday, July 27th, 2021

Mike the Musicologist sent me a story that I missed.

The mayor of Rochester, New York, Lovely Warren, was indicted on July 16th. For the second time.

The first time was back in October for campaign finance violations.

This time? Would you believe…guns?

Both are charged with criminal possession of a firearm, a felony, and two counts each of endangering the welfare of a child and failure to lock/secure firearms in a dwelling, both misdemeanors; according to a statement from the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office. The couple have a 10-year-old daughter and, though separated, had continued living together.

The other half of the couple is Timothy Granison, her husband, who has his own set of problems. Specifically, he and five other people have been charged with “conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine”.

Warren has maintained she did nothing wrong. She previously said she did not know about her husband’s activities, nor the handgun and semi-automatic rifle that police found inside the house they shared. She did not immediately respond to a text message Friday. And her attorney Joseph Damelio did not immediately return messages.

Mayor Warren lost the Democratic primary last month, so she will not be serving another term. She has not been implicated in the dope ring, either.

Noted:

John Jay College will host a panel discussion titled, “Mayors Against Illegal Guns: How are Mayors Taking Responsibility for Addressing Gun Violence in Their Cities?,” featuring Mayors Lovely Warren of Rochester, NY; and Stephanie Miner of Syracuse, NY; as well as Eric Cumberbatch, Executive Director of Mayor’s Office to Prevent Gun Violence , New York, NY. Bill Keller, Editor-in Chief of The Marshall Project, will serve as the moderator.

Guess that answers that question.

Posted in Guns, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

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