Archive for January, 2013

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Banana republicans on trial: January 26, 2013.

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

As noted previously, the trial of six former city council members from Bell has begun. The jury has been seated, opening statements have been stated, and the first testimony has been testified.

The first witness was Rebecca Valdez. Ms. Valdez was the former city clerk of Bell. The LAT notes that she has been granted immunity from prosecution in return for her testimony.

And what did she have to say? Basically, as city clerk, she was supposed to take notes on the council meetings,

including marking the start and end time of the various boards on which council members served, such as the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority.
“Were there City Council meetings where only some of the authorities met?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller asked.
“Yes,” Valdez said.
“Were there City Council meetings where none of the authorities met?”
“Yes.”

(This is significant because the charges against the members involve “taking huge salaries to serve on board and commissions that rarely met and did little, if any, work.”)

Valdez also verified salary documents for former council members. One listed former Councilwoman Teresa Jacobo’s monthly salary as $7,666. Another showed an increase that bumped her salary to $8,083 a month.
In contrast, [Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller] then showed the most recent contract for Lorenzo Velez, who was on the council when the salary scandal broke. Velez, the lone council member not charged in the case, was appointed to the council in 2009 and given a salary of only $673.

And:

Later, Valdez testified that at Rizzo’s request, she knowingly gave a document listing incorrect salary information for city officials to a resident who had filed a public records request.

The defense attorney for one of the former council members got Valdez to admit that Robert “Ratso” Rizzo, the city manager, loaned her $48.000 for a down payment on a house; he also asserted that the $48,000 was city money, not a personal loan from Ratso.

Later, [Alex] Kessel [defense attorney for former Councilman George Mirabal] said Rizzo “insulated himself from the council members. Any wrongdoing was done without their knowledge.”

It is still early in the trial, but it looks to me like the defense strategy is going to be “it was all Rizzo! We didn’t know what was going on! Ratso hid stuff from us!” We’ll see how effective this is. I’m thinking it probably won’t be very effective; if you’re taking $8,000 a month for meetings of boards that never meet, you’ve got to know something is up, and throwing Ratso under the bus isn’t going to help.

If I were Ratso, right about now I might be thinking about making a deal with the DA to testify against the council members, in return for a lighter sentence. If I’m the DA, I want Rizzo and Spaccia to do time, but I might be willing to make a deal with Rizzo (or Spaccia) if it means I can nail a bunch of corrupt elected officials. Ideally, I want everyone involved in the Bell scandal to be introduced to the joys of busting rocks, but sometimes you’ve got to make a trade. Personally, I’d rather send elected politicians to jail than appointed city officials, if I have to make a choice.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Bread blogging: French Onion Bread.

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

This one is from Laurence Simon. So finally you have a recipe that you can follow at home without purchasing a book from Amazon.

I followed Simon’s recipe more closely than I have any other recipe recently, even making several special trips to find date sugar. Sprouts didn’t have it. The Gateway Whole Foods didn’t have it. HEB, of course, doesn’t have it, even at Central Market.

(As a side note, I think the downtown Austin Whole Foods is the best place to go if you’re looking for unusual stuff. I griped previously about getting powdered goat’s milk; actually, both Sprouts and Whole Foods have it in large cans, as does Amazon. The recommendation is to use the can up within 8 weeks of opening, and I wasn’t going to use that much in 8 weeks. Amazon has smaller packages as well, but the shipping costs more than the product. It turns out the downtown Whole Foods also has the smaller packages, and date sugar too. So: shop the downtown Whole Foods. Thanks, Egon.)

Anyway, the only significant variation was that I used shredded Gruyère instead of Swiss or Emmenthaler. That’s what I had on hand, and I think that’s more traditional for French Onion soup. (Also, my machine doesn’t have a fruit and nut hopper; it beeps instead to let you know when to add fruit or nuts, so I threw the cheese in during that part of the cycle.)

How did it come out? I’m going to put the rest of this behind a jump; those who are bored with my bread blogging are cordially invited to skip to the next post, or for that matter the previous post. If you don’t like this one, just wait; there will be another one coming along shortly.

(more…)

Posted in Bread, Food | Comments Closed

Gun show watch.

Friday, January 25th, 2013

Austin’s Saxet show is this weekend. I plan to be there Saturday. Feel free to say “Hi” if you see me: I’ll be wearing my snazzy Gunwalker t-shirt.

In Houston, a company called High Caliber Gun & Knife Shows runs gun shows in the George R. Brown Convention Center. They’re also having a show this weekend. (You may remember High Caliber from High Caliber v. Houston, aka “the city of Houston got their ass whipped and had to pay High Caliber’s legal fees”.)

Gun shows have security, like pretty much any public gathering; rock concert, biker rally, gun show. Gun shows do not generally hire the Hells Angels to provide security; in Austin, Saxet uses APD officers (who I believe are off-duty, but in uniform). In Houston, High Caliber uses off-duty Houston police officers.

At least they did until this past week.

[Mary] Bean [co-owner of High Caliber – DB] said that off-duty Houston police officers who have provided security for her shows for many years were barred this week from performing their normal duties, such as tying patrons’ guns so they can’t be dry-fired, ensuring guns are unloaded, and walking the aisles, providing a presence at the show.

Why?

Houston Police Officers Union president Ray Hunt said the officers were prevented from carrying out these duties because they violate department policies regarding off-duty jobs. The gun show’s rules are that people can’t bring a concealed handgun into the show, but state law allows patrons to do so. That makes the show’s decision a house rule, he said, and HPD policy prohibits its officers from enforcing house rules.

This whole “state law” versus “house rule” thing doesn’t pass the smell test with me. Texas state concealed carry law allows a business to ban the carrying of concealed handguns, if they post a sign to that effect at the entrance or entrances. The sign has to meet specific wording and legibility requirements; we in Texas colloquially refer to them as “30.06 signs” after the relevant section of Texas law.

I haven’t been to a High Caliber show in Houston, but the Saxet shows in Austin have 30.06 signs posted at the entrances; I assume High Caliber does as well, which to me puts things firmly into the “state law” versus “house rule” category.

“It’s not that they were suspended for any reason for danger to the public or danger to the officers. It was simply that they were being asked to enforce a rule that is not a law, and we can’t do that,” Hunt said. “When it’s brought to our attention that house rules are being enforced, we make sure that that policy is changed. If the officer can’t enforce house rules, why would the vendor want to pay them?”

I wonder if off-duty police officers enforce “rules” that are not “laws” in other venues? For example, do off-duty police officers confiscate cameras and recording devices at rock concerts?

According to the HouChron, High Caliber has managed to get security from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which doesn’t seem to have a problem with the whole “house rules” thing.

Quoth Union chief Hunt again:

“A police officer may not think they’re enforcing a house rule by checking a gun and tying it, but I can tell you — and I’m on the labor side — that I would not want an officer handling a large number of guns handed to them by citizens who may or may not have had adequate training on that gun,” he said. “I’m betting something was brought to someone’s attention.”

Sounds like “only ones syndrome” again, doesn’t it? Also makes me wonder: I don’t see any indication that any of the officers working security complained. I wonder if somebody – perhaps on the city council or in the mayor’s office – put some pressure on Union chief Hunt. I don’t have any evidence for that yet; this is purely speculative.

Posted in Clippings, Guns | 5 Comments »

Your Austin nightclub update for January 25, 2013.

Friday, January 25th, 2013

I noted previously that two of the Yassine brothers were convicted of money laundering in the Austin nightclub case. (Previoisly.)

They were sentenced today. Hussein Ali Yassine, aka “Mike”, “founder and president of Yassine Enterprises”, was sentenced to twelve years and seven months in federal prison. Hadi Yassine, his brother, got a five year sentence. Both will also serve three years on probation after they are released.

In addition, “Mike”, Hadi, and their other brother Mohammed Ali (aka “Steve”) are not US citizens, so there is “a chance” that they will be deported after serving their time. (“Steve”, as you may recall, took a plea deal last year and was sentenced to a year in prison.)

Posted in Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Random notes: January 25, 2013.

Friday, January 25th, 2013

Today’s WP contains a sad and touching profile of Priscilla Lollar.

Priscilla Lollar was the mother of Richard Lollar. Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker were the two men who were stabbed to death after the Super Bowl in 2000; this is the case in which Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis pled guilty to obstruction of justice.

…considering the District of Columbia’s ban on assault weapons, where did they get the guns and how did they get them in the building?

There are many reasons why wrongful convictions are bad. Obviously, innocent people do time in prison, time that can’t be given back to them. But also, if the wrong person is convicted, that means a murderer is still out in public, free to commit other crimes.

Today’s example of this comes from the NYT, with a followup on the Baithe Diop/Denise Raymond murder cases I mentioned yesterday.

The NYT goes into a little more background on the prosecution’s original theory of the case: Ms. Raymond’s former boyfriend was an alleged drug dealer, who was charged in the case with “conspiracy to commit murder”. The prosecution claimed that he and his drug dealing buddies were afraid Ms. Raymond was going to go to the police about their drug operation. Ms. Raymond was apparently being cultivated because, as a FedEx executive, the drug dealers figured she could help them get drugs through the FedEx system. (The boyfriend was acquitted: “testimony from two key witnesses was discredited by defense evidence”, and he died five years ago.)

The NYT article doesn’t make it clear why the prosecution believed the Diop and Raymond cases were tied together. According to the original NYT article on the reversals in the Diop conviction, the prosecution believed Diop’s killing “was part of an elaborate plot to distract the police from the intended crime: the theft of $50,000 worth of cocaine from a passenger in Mr. Diop’s car.” But it isn’t clear who that passenger was, or how Ms. Raymond’s murder was a part of this plot.

I was able to dig up the original “How To Solve a Murder” article on Google Books, and it doesn’t make things much more clear; if I understand the theory of the crime correctly, the cocaine heist was an inside job, and Ms. Raymond’s boyfriend was supposedly ordered to kill her “as some kind of twisted atonement” for making his bosses in the drug ring angry. In retrospect, the whole case seems to have had holes in it you could drive a cab through.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law, Sports | Comments Closed

Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#P of a series)

Friday, January 25th, 2013

Today’s Austin Police Department suspension is brought to you by former Sergeant William Lefebvre.

Sgt. William Lefebvre, called to assist in an incident at a shopping center on Aug. 8, used the bottom of his foot to move a suspect further into a patrol car, striking him in the chest, [Police Chief Art] Acevedo said.

Chief Acevedo says “That tactic was not justified or objectively reasonable and (he) failed to report it in a timely manner”.

Okay. What does “failed to report in a timely manner” mean?

Acevedo said that Lefebvre reported the incident the same day, but upon review, it was determined that he could have been more accurate and timely.

Former sergeant Lefebvre will be suspended for 60 days (“The memo didn’t say whether Lefebvre will be paid during the suspension.”) and has agreed to a demotion to corporal detective. Post suspension, he will be “on probation” for a year. “If he commits a similar act of misconduct, he would be indefinitely suspended without the right to appeal.”

It sounds like this was a negotiated deal with the city, and that Lefebvre will not be appealing his discipline. However, the Statesman does not explicitly state this.

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

Banana republicans followup: January 25, 2013.

Friday, January 25th, 2013

Back in August, I discussed the case of Omar Bradley, former mayor of Compton. Bradley was convicted of “misappropriation of public funds” in 2004, but had his conviction overturned last year and is awaiting retrial.

But Bradley isn’t just sitting around waiting for the retrial. He’s keeping busy.

“How?” you ask.

He’s running for mayor of Compton.

Per the LAT, both his retrial and the election are scheduled for the same month (April),  which “sets up the potential for Bradley to win office and then quickly lose it again if he is convicted a second time on charges of misappropriation of public funds”.

Also interesting: Bradley is one of twelve people running against the current mayor.

Among the challengers are former child star Rodney Allen Rippy, civil rights attorney and former Black Panther B. Kwaku Duren, former Compton City Clerk Charles Davis, and longtime City Hall critics William Kemp and Lynn Boone.

Rodney Allen Rippy? Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in ages.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

More people who deserve your support.

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

I’m not putting this under “endorsements” because, technically, it isn’t one. I haven’t used the products of this company yet.

But I’d like to suggest that Guntag Signature Seasonings deserves your support.

Here’s the story: Guntag makes a lot of their money exhibiting at various outdoor shows. One of the shows they exhibit at is the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show, which draws more than 200,000 people. This is a big event in terms of Guntag’s finances.

Well, this year, the people who run ESOS decided that they were going to ban modern sporting rifles from the show. This was a Bad Idea. Exhibitors, sponsors, and people who were doing promotional appearances all pulled out of the show. Smith and Wesson pulled out. Cabela’s pulled out. Ruger pulled out.

And Guntag pulled out, too.

We have made the costly decision to withdraw because it is the right thing to do. We are a young company that relies on this one venue to create our operating capital for the year; however we cannot support uninformed businesses caving to political pressures caused by broadly politicized events. We proudly support the 2nd Amendment in the capacity for which it was intended; the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. Our freedom to do so was not for hunting or competition shooting, but protection for law abiding citizens.

ESOS has now been postponed, but Guntag pulled out before the announcement was made. They took a stand on principle, even though it is going to hurt them.

I don’t have money to buy stuff from Guntag right now, but I can give them something to thank them for their stand. And that’s publicity here. If you’ve got the money, why not order up some seasonings from Guntag? I will if my finances ever improve; in the meantime, I’m willing to give them some free publicity, for whatever that may be worth.

Guntag guys: if you’re reading this and want some free ad space here, contact me. I’ll be happy to give it to you.

(Hattip on this: Borepatch gave me the idea for this post, and Shall Not Be Questioned has been all over the ESOS story like flies on a cow’s head at a Damien Hirst installation.)

Posted in Food, Guns | Comments Closed

Hot from the police blotter.

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

I go out for a couple of hours to run some errands. I come back, and I find out that the police have arrested Russell Erxleben, who was somewhat famous as a UT football player. (He actually still shares the record for longest field goal kicked in NCAA history.)

Of course, anybody can be arrested; there’s no shortage of domestic violence or DWI arrests among former football players at any level. But Erxleben is charged with running a Ponzi scheme: that’s something you don’t see every day.

The indictment said Erxleben used several companies, including WALTEC Consultants, LRE Holdings and the MDM Group, to promote investments in fraudulent ventures, mainly in post-WWI German government gold bearer bonds and in work purportedly by Paul Gauguin, the famous late 19th-early 20th century artist.

“post-WWI German government gold bearer bonds”? That sounds like something straight out of Mission: Impossible.

Also worth noting:

In 1999, Erxleben pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and securities fraud charges stemming from a foreign currency trading scam in which hundreds of investors lost more than $30 million.

You know, I’m not Mister Sophisticated F’ing Investor here, but I’d like to think that before I gave someone $60,000 to invest in “post-WWI German government gold bearer bonds” that were purportedly worth $350,000, I’d maybe, just maybe, do A FREAKING BACKGROUND CHECK ON THE PERSON I WAS GIVING THE MONEY TO. And if that check turned up something odd, like the fact that this person got out of prison in 2005 after being convicted in a “foreign currency trading scam”, more than likely I WOULDN’T GIVE THEM ANY OF MY DAMN MONEY!

But that’s just me. As I said, I’m not a Sophisticated Investor.

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Random notes: January 24, 2013.

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

Obit watch: Linda Riss Pugach. You may not have heard of her, but she was at the center of one of the most sensational crimes of the 1950s. Miss Riss was 22 years old and was dating a married lawyer, Burton Pugach. He kept promising to get a divorce, she kept pressing him, he got fed up and hired people to throw lye in her face. Miss Riss was blinded. Mr. Pugach was charged, convicted and spent 14 years in prison.

But wait, there’s more! Mr. Pugach’s wife divorced him while he was in prison. After he got out in 1974, he married Miss Riss, and they remained married until she died. There was a documentary about the case in 2007, “Crazy Love“, that featured interviews with both Mr. and Mrs. Pugach; I have not seen it, but it is apparently available from Amazon for instant viewing.

Oh, look! The lying sack of shit Joe Manchin is starting to feel the heat!

As a hunter with an A rating from the National Rifle Association, Mr. Manchin gave advocates for new weapons laws reason for optimism after he said last month that gun firepower and magazine capacity might need to be limited.
But now, Mr. Manchin, who affirmed his support for gun rights by running a campaign commercial in 2010 showing him firing a rifle into an environmental bill, says he is not so sure. One of his local offices has been picketed, and even some of his most thoughtful supporters are cautioning him that stronger background checks are about all the gun control they can stomach.

More:

After talking with the group for nearly two hours, Mr. Manchin left the meeting saying he was not at all comfortable with supporting the assault weapons ban favored by many of his colleagues in Congress.

And it isn’t just Manchin:

Of far greater concern are Democrats who are up for re-election in 2014. Those include senators like Max Baucus of Montana, who was awarded an A+ rating from the N.R.A. Mr. Baucus has worded his comments on the subject carefully, bracketing them with gun rights-friendly language, like saying the “culture of violence” needs to be seriously examined along with any changes to the law.
There is Senator Mark Begich of Alaska, who has said flatly that he would not support a new assault weapons ban, and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, who initially came out in support of the ban but has been more circumspect recently, saying in an interview last week that he would want to see the language of any such legislation first.

Keep those cards and letters coming, folks. If you need help finding your senators and representatives, you’re welcome to email me.

Back in August, I noted the reversal of the murder convictions in the case of Baithe Diop. The other shoe in that case has dropped: three of the men, who had been convicted of murdering Denise Raymond and spent 17 years in prison, were released last night. Ms. Raymond was an executive with Federal Express: the prosecution’s original theory of the crime was that her murder and Mr. Diop’s were tied together. (The other two men in the case were convicted of Mr. Diop’s murder, and had their convictions overturned in August, but were not convicted in the Raymond murder.)

The N.C.A.A. said it uncovered evidence that its investigators contracted with a criminal defense lawyer for the booster at the center of the Miami case to obtain information they should not have been able to access. The N.C.A.A. had been examining allegations that the booster, Nevin Shapiro, gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, as well as other benefits, to dozens of Miami athletes.

Wow. When the NCAA president is calling the conduct of his own people “shocking” and “stunning”, yeah, there’s a problem.

As I have stated before, I Am Not A Lawyer. So perhaps there is a gap in my understanding. Let me see if someone can clarify it for me: on what authority does a judge order someone to stay out of an entire city?

[State Rep. Matt] Krause, one of the chamber’s more conservative freshmen, filed House Bill 627 to prevent federal gun regulations — such as expanded background checks and limits on magazine sizes, now under debate in Washington — from being enforced in Texas when a firearm is manufactured, sold and used within the state’s boundaries. If a gun never leaves Texas, it cannot be subject to federal interstate commerce laws, the bill says.

The Statesman suggests this bill may be unconstitutional. To which I say:

  1. Tenth Amendment, mofos!
  2. Oh, when we’re talking about guns, it’s unconstitutional and bad law. But when we’re talking about marijuana, all of the sudden, it’s okay for the states to have “medical marijuana” and “legalized marijuana”.

Can’t have it both ways, people.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law, Obits, Sports | 1 Comment »

Banana republicans watch: January 24, 2013.

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

We haven’t had one of these in a while. Truth be told, things were moving slowly over the holidays.

But they are heating up: the trial of six former members of the Bell city council begins today. (Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and his assistant, Angela Spaccia, will be tried later this year.)

And how is the city of Bell doing?

The city’s general fund has been slashed to $12 million from $16 million, largely because a handful of highly paid employees are now gone, and the budget is balanced. Council meetings are streamed online in a city where the workings of government were once opaque. The city has cut fees for trash pickup, building permits and business licenses that had ballooned under Rizzo.

On the other hand, Bell also faces protracted litigation, on which it is spending an estimated $1.5 million a year.

“If all the litigation stuff were solved today, I’d tell you Bell has a bright future, and we can pay our bills,” said [Doug] Willmore [the new city manager – DB], who estimates he spends a third of his time on lawsuits. “There are all these things that could happen that could bankrupt the city.”
Among the worries, he said, is that Bell will be made to pay the legal fees of the former city leaders, who claim the city should foot the bill because their alleged misdeeds occurred as part of their official duties.
“That’s probably $5 million easily,” Willmore said.

More:

Willmore said that when he arrived, the city hadn’t reconciled a bank statement in two years. “Under Rizzo, the lack of accounting was just staggering,” he said. “I’ve inherited scandals before, but certainly nothing like this.

Also:

Bell still has the second-highest property tax in Los Angeles County, after only Beverly Hills, and a 10% utility tax, about twice that of most cities.

In spite of that, business owners say conditions in Bell have improved vastly: “…a new restaurant was recently able to obtain a license just two days after an inspection from the county health department — a process that could have taken three months in the Rizzo era”

If they keep this up, and can get past the legal issues, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bell turn into one of the few bright spots in California.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Your gun show loophole in action.

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

Back in December, a man walked into an Austin gun show.

He was with three other guys, was carrying a rifle and a shotgun, and

A police officer working security at the show said in the affidavit that the man carrying the shotgun “acted nervous” and did not know much about the shotgun.

The man sold the shotgun to a dealer for $575. Apparently, after the sale took place, the dealer asked the APD officers running security to run “a serial check that showed that the gun did not belong to Benitez or any of the accompanying men, the affidavit stated“.

So that’s kind of interesting: it doesn’t say explicitly that the gun was stolen and showed up on a hot sheet, but that they were somehow able to check the serial number and determine ownership. Texas does not have any kind of registration or licensing for simple possession of a shotgun or rifle, so I’m not clear on what “a serial check” would have done unless the gun was on the hot sheet.

(I’m also wondering what kind of shotgun this was, if a dealer at the gun show paid $575 for it.)

The gentleman’s stories changed several times: his grandfather owned it, his father owned it, he bought it from someone in the neighborhood for $130.

One of the men that was with Benitez at Saxet said that he found the rifle at a Marble Falls house he was working on and took it, according to the affidavit.

The police confiscated both the rifle and shotgun, and made the gentleman give the dealer back his money.

He is currently charged with “unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon” but not, apparently, theft, and is being held on $20,000 bail.

Sure seems to me like the current system worked. So much for that “gun show loophole”.

Posted in Clippings, Guns | 1 Comment »

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