NYC Mayor Eric Adams indicted.
The indictment is sealed, and it is unclear what charge or charges Mr. Adams will face.
This is still developing. I expect much much more tomorrow morning.
(Hattip: Mike the Musicologist.)
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#132 in a series)
September 25th, 2024Watching the hyenas…
September 25th, 2024Yesterday was an interesting day for political hyenas, flaming or otherwise.
David Banks, the NYC schools chancellor. announced he’s resigning at the end of the year. This doesn’t seem to be linked to any specific allegations of corruption yet, but:
The announcement came just weeks after federal agents seized Mr. Banks’s phone as part of a bribery investigation involving his brothers and fiancée — and it promised to roil not just the nation’s largest school system but also a mayoral administration already reeling from at least four separate federal corruption inquiries.
The schools chancellor’s resignation is the fourth in less than two weeks among top officials in Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, following the resignations of the police commissioner and the city’s top lawyer and a statement from the health commissioner saying he would leave office at the end of the year.
This next one could almost be a “News of the Weird” entry:
Fire marshals? What kind of crime could they commit on the job?
In this case, the three accused individuals responded to a crashed 18-wheeler. They are accused of siponing off diesel fuel from the truck’s tank into a “55-gallon drum in the bed of their hazmat vehicle.”
But wait, there’s more:
Additionally, the 18-wheeler carried frozen items, such as duck meat, high-end cheese, croissants, butter, and venison.
“After draining the saddle tank of the 18-wheeler, [deleted] and approximately three other members of his hazmat company proceeded to unload product from the trailer of the 18-wheeler and put it into their own vehicles to keep for personal use,” the affidavit states.
They’re also accused of stealing items from another truck crash. In addition, the indictment claims that the men were doing fire inspections, approving permits, and doing fire investigations without any licenses to do so. Also, one of the men is accused of using his fire marshal’s gear to gain “early access” to scenes for his non-profit “South Liberty County Hazardous Materials Team”.
Why? Well, turns out the NJSP has a habit of using disciplinary investigations as a weapon.
A separate review done by the attorney general’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability highlighted two troubling episodes involving a retired lieutenant, Joseph Nitti, who had worked in the agency’s internal affairs unit.
After receiving an anonymous letter containing a complaint that a trooper had made a racist comment about a senior Black officer, Mr. Nitti “squandered police resources” trying to identify the tipster rather than investigating the accuracy of the concern, according to the attorney general’s office.
Mr. Nitti, who according to state treasury records retired last year with a $8,893 monthly pension, obtained typewriter samples and video from the area near a post office where the envelope had been mailed and evaluated fingerprints found on the letter. Against orders, he also submitted it for DNA testing. Then, at the lieutenant’s urging, the Black officer who had been the reported target of the racist comment was brought up on bogus internal affairs charges.
…
Finally, Stewart Rosenwasser died yesterday. Mr. Rosenwasser was a former judge and prosecutor in New York (I believe in Orange County). He was indicted on Monday for taking $63,000 in bribe money.
…
The plot targeted Martin Soudani and his mother, Eman Soudani, who were allegedly involved in embezzling $1.6 million from Mout’z Soudani, a wealthy former restaurateur, the indictment said.
On March 8, 2023, Rosenwasser, as an Orange County assistant district attorney, charged Soudani’s kin with grand larceny for allegedly stealing the money from Mout’z Soudani and had arrest warrants issued.
When they appeared in court, defense lawyers asked that Rosenwasser recuse himself from prosecuting the case because he had represented Mout’z Soudani in the 1990s and that presented a conflict of interest.
Rosenwasser denied the claim and remained on the case.
But by June 2023 the DA’s office was getting wise and Rosewasser was replaced on the case, the indictment said.
By March 2024, the case against Soudani’s sister had been dropped and his nephew agreed to plead guilty to grand larceny in the embezzlement case in exchange for a prison sentence of one to seven years.
Martin Soudani and Eman Soudani later filed a $22.5 million lawsuit claiming the cases against them were tainted.
Mr. Rosewasser resigned earlier this year. The FBI was coming to arrest him yesterday on the charges in the indictment, and he allegedly decided to open fire on the agents. SWAT responded, and Mr. Rosewasser was found dead when the police entered his home. The FBI claims he committed suicide, but it isn’t clear to me if an official determination has been made yet.
Your NFL loser update: week 3, 2024.
September 24th, 2024NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
Cincinnati
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Three weeks into the season, three teams left. Right now, I’m liking Jacksonville’s chances to go 0-17. They play Houston next week. Houston is a big favorite, and is coming off a pretty embarrassing loss to Minnesota, so I’m liking Jacksonville to go 0-4.
In other news, and as noted on Sunday, the White Sox are now at 36-120, for a .231 winning percentage. Looking at this another way, in order to lose only 119 games and avoid tying the 1962 Mets…they can’t do it. (I think they would have to win approximately 116% of the remaining games.)
More seriously, if the Sox go 2 and 4 (.333 winning percentage) for the remaining games, they will finish at 38-124, for a .234 winning percentage. The lowest winning percentage in the modern era is .235 by the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, who went 36-117.
I am hoping for 125 losses. Why? Someone mentioned the other day that 2025 is the 125th anniversary of the White Sox…and they’ve ordered all kinds of memorabilia with the number “125” displayed prominently. That could be…awkward.
(It seems to me to be a little fuzzy, though, when the anniversary is. I guess you could call 2025 the 125th if you count when they moved to Chicago, which is not unreasonable. But they didn’t become the modern Sox until 1901.)
Obit watch: September 23, 2024.
September 23rd, 2024Mercury Morris, one of the great NFL players. ESPN. NYT (archived).
Morris made no secret of the fact that he was filled with pride about the 1972 Dolphins being the first — and still only — undefeated and untied team in NFL history, pulling off a truly perfect season.
He also tried to make this clear: No, the Dolphins were not rooting against the teams that came close to matching their feat of perfection or had champagne on ice waiting for the moment that the last unbeaten team in a season gets defeated.
“And for the record, we DO NOT TOAST every time an unbeaten team loses,” Morris posted on social media in 2015, when the Cam Newton-led Carolina Panthers started 14-0 before losing the next-to-last game of their regular season. “There’s no champagne in my glass, only Canada Dry Ginger ale! Ha!”
Kathryn Crosby, der Bingle’s wife who had a pretty successful career of her own. NYT (archived). Other credits include “Anatomy of a Murder”, “The Phenix City Story”, and “The Night the World Exploded”.
Tongsun Park, who was at the center of the 1970s “Koreagate” scandal.
In 1978, he was indicted on charges of conspiracy, bribery and making contributions as a foreign agent, and he fled the country. He returned with a promise of criminal immunity to testify in Congress and before a grand jury.
He said that he had passed money to 31 members of Congress — up to $273,000 in one case — and while he denied acting on behalf of the South Korean government, a former Korean intelligence officer told Congress under oath that Mr. Park was working for Korean intelligence as part of an influence-buying operation code-named Ice Mountain.
But the accusations, splashily covered in the post-Watergate period, largely fizzled out. Only three of the 31 current and former congressmen Mr. Park named were indicted, and only one, Richard T. Hanna, a California Democrat, was convicted. He served a little over a year in jail.
The House, which considered disciplinary action against 11 sitting members, ended up reprimanding just three, in what critics called an example of Congress’s inability to discipline its own members.
He later got caught doing illegal lobbying for Saddam Hussein, and served five years for that.
Shortly after I posted Friday’s obit watch, the NYT posted their Nelson DeMille obit.
KMart. Sort of. The last “full-sized” store in the United States, in Bridgehampton, New York, is closing in October. There is one store left in Miami, but it is described as being the size of a CVS, not a full-sized store. There are also other stores in places like Guam and the Virgin Islands.
Reds!
September 23rd, 2024The Cincinnati Reds fired manager David Bell yesterday
Bell joined the Reds for the 2019 season and posted a 405-456 record over the last six seasons. He guided the Reds through COVID, managed a playoff team in 2020 and received his first of two contract extensions with the Reds in 2021.
In 2022, the Reds lost 100 games and went through a full rebuild. The Reds broke through in 2023 and were in the playoff race until the final weekend of the season. Bell received a contract extension last July as the young core impressed, but that momentum didn’t carry into 2024.
The Reds are currently 76-81, and have been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.
Very short, very quick loser update.
September 22nd, 2024The Chicago White Sox have now lost 120 games, tying the 1962 Mets.
I plan to post a longer update on Tuesday with the NFL loser update.
Obit watch: September 20, 2024.
September 20th, 2024Dr. John A. Clements, another big damn hero, passed away on September 3rd at 101.
Newborn babies sometimes have a problem called respiratory distress syndrome, or RDS. They can’t breathe, and they die. Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the second son of JFK and Jacqueline, famously died from RDS. In the 1960s, RDS killed about 10,000 babies every year.
Dr. Clements first did the early work that determined the lungs used a surfactant to allow breathing. Then, two other researchers that he served as an advisor for determined that RDS was caused by an absence of surfactant in the baby’s lungs.
Then Dr. Clements developed an artificial surfactant.
His research led to the first synthetic lung surfactant, which the University of California licensed to the drugmaker Burroughs Wellcome and Company. Its drug Exosurf was the first replacement surfactant for clinical use approved by the Food and Drug Administration, in 1990.
Eventually, further study found that animal-derived surfactants worked better, and they are most often used today. Infant deaths from R.D.S. in the United States have declined to fewer than 500 a year.
JD Souther, musician and actor.
Mr. Souther was almost the fifth Eagle: He joined the quartet for an afternoon tryout at the Troubadour, but he decided that the band was already perfect, and that he’d rather write for them.
A string of songs followed, many of them hits and most of them written with Mr. Henley and Mr. Frey, including “The Best of My Love,” “Victim of Love,” “Heartache Tonight” and “New Kid in Town.”
…
Nobody else has bothered to report this yet, as far as I’ve seen, but: Nelson DeMille, thriller author.
His first novel was “By the Rivers of Babylon,” published in 1978.
I actually remember when that came out, and being interested in reading it. However, I had somewhat limited means at the time, and that was one of the books I never bought. Now that I’m older, I may have to pick it up, because what’s not to like about a book with two Concordes in it?
Random notes: September 18, 2024.
September 18th, 2024Lawrence sent over two stories that I don’t think justify a blog post individually, but together might make a good one.
Story #1, which is actually getting a surprising (to me) amount of press coverage: Adrian Wojnarowski is leaving ESPN to become the GM of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team.
The New York Post says he could be walking away from up to $20 million dollars. I probably wouldn’t have noted this, since it isn’t a firing, but Lawrence tells me this is a big freaking deal for basketball fans: Mr Wojnarowski has a reputation for breaking NBA news on Twitter.
I saw in another story (which, of course, I can’t find now) that Mr Wojnarowski had talked for years about his fantasy of throwing his cell phone into the ocean when he retired, as he was pretty much tied to it 24/7/365. “Kemosabe kiss my ass, I bought a boat, I’m going out to sea” indeed.
Story #2: Erma Wilson had her lawsuit against Midland County and former prosecutor Ralph Petty dismissed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in a “plurality decision”, which apparently means that it doesn’t set a binding precedent. The decision was on somewhat narrow technical grounds: the Court of Appeals felt she hadn’t exhausted her remedies in state court yet.
Why was she suing?
…Wilson had been convicted in Midland County 23 years ago on felony possession of cocaine charges and given an eight-year probation sentence.
Long ago, Wilson had appealed her conviction to the state’s 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and lost.
Okay, so? Turns out that prosecutor Petty was moonlighting. He was a prosecutor by day…and a law clerk for “several district judges” at the same time.
And I’m going to pause here to insert a quote from one of the greatest philosophers currently walking the earth, Judge Don Willet.
…
Judge Willet disagrees. Strongly.
Willet, on the other hand, led a fiery dissent in which he stated that he would have let Wilson’s lawsuit proceed, noting, “A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.”
“The Constitution’s fair-trial requirement is Con Law 101 — a bedrock due-process guarantee. In fact, the Framers cared so much about the sanctity of the criminal jury trial that our Constitution specifically mentions it twice — not only in the Sixth Amendment, but also in Article III,” he wrote.
“And to underscore they really meant it — that criminal-justice fairness is sacrosanct — the Founding generation doubled down, enshrining a host of procedural non-negotiables in multiple provisions of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, more words are devoted to We the People’s fair-trial right than to any other constitutional guarantee. Safe to say, the Framers were fixated on the adjudication of criminal charges — both the power to bring them and the process for resolving them — and spilled a lot of ink to ensure that the Constitution’s inviolable fair-trial guarantee is no empty promise.”
…
Just in case you were wondering, Mr. Petty has been disbarred, and according to “The Texan”, has been ordered not to use his name “in any manner in conjunction with the words ‘Attorney at Law,’ ‘Counselor at Law,’ or ‘Lawyer.'” He was also fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage. No, wait: “He also had to notify any of his clients in writing of his disbarment, give them back their money and documents, and notify all judges with whom he may have business pending.“
Quick memo from the legal beat.
September 18th, 2024Since I have mentioned it in the past, fairness compels me to note:
Erik Charles Maund is getting a new trial in his murder for hire case.
…
But, you see, there was a problem:
One story I saw elsewhere (and can’t find again) said that the evidence mistakes (and there was more than one) inclueed an exhibit that was supposed to be redacted…and which was shown to the jury in unredacted form.
Nobody knows yet when the new trial is going to be. But, good news: this is a court in Tennessee, not Travis or Williamson county.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#130 in a series)
September 18th, 2024I thought I had written about this before, but Google doesn’t turn up a reference. I know, though, that there have been stories circulating for months. Mayor Small and his wife aren’t charged with corruption, which is unusual for an Atlantic City mayor.
They’re charged with beating the s–t out of their teenage daughter.
Prosecutors said that on Jan. 13, 2024, Marty Small Sr. hit his daughter multiple times in the head with a broom, causing her to lose consciousness.
Ten days earlier, they said, Small engaged in an argument with his daughter, grabbing her head and throwing her to the ground, and threatening to throw her down a flight of stairs.
He threatened to “smack the weave out” of her head during the incident, according to prosecutors.
The 50-year-old Democratic mayor also is accused of punching his daughter repeatedly in the legs, causing bruising.
La’Quetta Small, 47, is accused of punching her daughter multiple times on the chest, leaving bruising. In another alleged incident, she is accused of dragging her daughter by the hair and striking her with a belt on her shoulders, leaving marks.
In yet another incident, La’Quetta Small is accused of punching her daughter in the mouth during an argument.
And I wasn’t aware of this previously, but Constance Days-Chapman, the principal of Atlantic City High School, was indicted last week. Charges against her include “official misconduct” and “child endangerment”.
According to the indictment, in December the girl, who was 15 at the time, told Days-Chapman she was suffering continuous headaches from being beaten by her parents in their home.
But instead of telling authorities, Days-Chapman instead told the Smalls.
By the way:
Days-Chapman is a close friend of the Smalls; La’Quetta Smalls is her boss.
I’m sure this is going to be one of my more controversial and divisive opinions, but:
Fark these people. Fark any parent who thinks it is okay to do their kids this way. Fark anybody who’s a mandated reporter that goes to the parents instead of Child Protective Services when a kid tells them their parents are beating them.
Sorry. A bit grumpy today.
Your NFL loser update: week 2, 2024.
September 17th, 2024NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
Baltimore
Cincinnati
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Denver
New York Football Giants
Carolina
Los Angeles Rams
In other news, the White Sox have actually won a few more games. Mostly they won against the City Unknown A’s, though they beat the LA Angels last night.
Currenrtly, the Sox are 36-115, for a .238 winning percentage. That projects out to 123 loses this season. Put another way, in order for the Sox to lose only 119 games and avoid tying the 1962 Mets for worst MLB record, they will have to win 7 out of the final 11 games, for a .636 winning percentage down the stretch.
They play the Angels again tonight, and LA is favored by ESPN. Of course, LA was favored by ESPN in last night’s game as well, and you see what that got them…
At last! Something even more boring to my readers than gun books!
September 16th, 2024I admit, Lawrence probably isn’t going to cover this in his Linkswarm, and it is of interest to me partly because of my peculiar background. (I was with an auto insurance adjacent organization for quite a few years.)
But I do think there are some things in this story that are worth attention. Otherwise I wouldn’t be blogging it, right?
American Transit Insurance Company is an auto insurance company. They specialize in covering “for-hire vehicles”, which is basically your taxi cabs and Lyft/Uber drivers (at least, the ones who actually bother to get the specialized insurance they need to have). The paper of record claims that ATIC covers “60 percent of the available vehicles” in New York City.
American Transit Insurance Company is also insolvent. As in, “can’t pay their bills” insolvent. As in “can’t pay claims” insolvent.
Worthy quote:
“Ponzi scheme”. The words we were looking for were “Ponzi scheme”.
That’s about the point where archive.is cuts off archiving the article, so I’ll have to summarize and use unlinked pull quotes from here on out.
What does this mean for me, Al Franken? There aren’t many companies that compete with ATIC in the NYC marketplace, so if ATIC collapses, a lot of “for-hire” cars will be without insurance, or have to pay more for insurance, which means either fewer taxis/Ubers/livery cars/etc. or higher costs, or both. Plus (and it probably goes without saying), people who have valid claims against ATIC insured drivers may not actually get paid. You got hit by an ATIC insured livery driver? Fark you, we don’t have any money to pay for your hospital bill.
How did they get this much in the hole?
…the department released two reports about American Transit’s finances from 2014 to 2019, which said that the company’s books showed evidence of accounting errors, unverified expenses and potential mismanagement.
According to the reports, American Transit paid nearly $100 million in commissions to an affiliated company for work signing up new policyholders and renewing existing policies, but the department could not confirm that the work had taken place.
American Transit also paid nearly $10 million for unclear reasons to Global Biomechanical Solutions, a consulting firm in which American Transit’s chief executive, Ralph Bisceglia, and a daughter-in-law of its co-founder had controlling interests, according to the reports.
Quel fromage! And I personally think the reasons are very clear, but publically stating them here might get me sued.
The firm submitted two remediation plans, which included rate increases and setting up a blockchain platform where policies could be bought and sold as nonfungible tokens.
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. A blockchain platform. NFTs. If I were the NY State Department of Insurance, I’d be looking in every corner for the Jerky Boys or the “Jackass” guys or even for someone trying to do a revival of “Candid Camera”.
Almost from the beginning, the company had financial problems. State regulators flagged its reserves as inadequate in 1979, and later found increasing levels of insolvency in eight examinations that were conducted between 1987 and 2020.
1979, ladies and Germans. 1979.
…in 1991, state officials again filed a petition to rehabilitate the company and later moved to liquidate it.
American Transit challenged those proceedings, and in 1996, reached a settlement with state regulators that allowed it to remain in business under certain conditions, including that it be closely monitored by state regulators.
“closely monitored by state regulutors”. How’s that working out for you?
Since then, however, the firm’s finances have continued to deteriorate. Last week, state officials said they had not been approached by any credible company seeking to acquire American Transit or its insurance policies.
Ooooooh. Maybe not so good?
To be fair…
American Transit has suggested that insurance fraud contributed to its financial problems. In response to an email from The Times seeking clarification about the company’s statement this month, American Transit said that “rampant insurance fraud” threatened the commercial market and allowed lawyers and “opportunistic medical service providers” to inflate costs, undermining the insurance system.
I’m willing to concede there may be some truth to that. I mean, this is New York City…
If it is not purchased, the company could go into receivership with the New York Liquidation Bureau, which would use American Transit’s remaining assets or a state fund to pay off active claims, said Mark Peters, a partner at the law firm Peters Brovner and a former head of the bureau.
Your tax dollars at work, New York residents. Paying off for an insolvent insurance company.