Speaking of Political Prosecutions...

Well, for those of you who were wondering if the corruption case against, "Celebrity pathologist Cyril Wecht" was politically motivated, the fact 24 of the counts filed against Wecht involve the sum of $3.06.

Nope....Not missing a decimal point. Three dollars and six cents. Not three hundred dollars, not three millions, three dollars.

Nope, nothing political here.

He had some people working for both his private practice, and for the county, and this is a Federal case, because he is a Democrat.

The crux of their case:

Wilson noted the work of Eileen Young, who was Wecht's top administrative aide in the coroner's office. Despite being paid a county salary, Wilson said Young spent the bulk of her time in the county office as "office manager" for Wecht's private practice.

Wilson said the evidence showed that, for 2004 alone, the correspondence Young mailed or faxed brought $790,000 in revenues to Wecht's private practice.

So, Wilson might have made some faxes or phone calls on county time, and they are literally trying to make a federal case out of this.

This is the sort of thing where the local DA gets him removed, and he gets a fine, if it's true.

I'm still trying to get my head around the whole concept of "celebrity pathologist" thing though.

I really don't want to know what a "celebrity proctologist" is.

Fallout of US Attorney Firing Scandal

We have more politically motivated prosecutions, this time of pathologist Cyril Wecht, and that of attorney Geoff Fieger. (I've noted to the prosecutions in Mississippi ( here and here) and Don Siegelman before.)

In the case of Wecht:

Prosecutors plan to prove that Wecht used county resources in his private business, defrauded private clients with bogus travel invoices, and submitted falsified mileage receipts to surrounding counties. His attorneys say the charges are either false or amount to minor infractions, such as the improper use of fax machines.

The initial indictment charged 84 counts, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Stallings recently dropped more than half of them to "streamline" the case for the jury. Wecht's attorneys called the gutted indictment signs of a rush to judgment and shoddy investigating.

In the two years since the indictment, Wecht's attorneys have attacked prosecutors for alleged political biases, although the judge won't allow them to argue political motives to the jury.

They have even accused the judge of bias. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied their request for a new judge while chiding Schwab for admitting 300,000 pages of documents into evidence over the objections of the defense.

So we have an intensely sloppy prosecution, over an amounts that are miniscule, they are including misuse of the office fax machine.

And the US Attorney is involved.

With Feiger, best known as Kevorkiann's lawyer, but also a major Democratic party contributor (shades of Mississippi), you have a number of irregularities:

• The U.S. Attorney two aids , were recused , and the Judge has had to compel the office to give the reasons to Feiger's lawyers.
• The size of the raid by the FBI is such that the Judge has directed the FBI to give examples of similarly sized raids.
  
• Prosecutors violated rules in not getting DoJ authorization of the investigation.
• Typically, the FEC handles such probes.
  

There will be decades of fallout of the corruption and politicization of the DoJ by Bush and His Evil Minions^™.

More Political Prosecutions

This time, it involves Dr. Cyryl Wecht, the former Allegheny County Coroner, and former Attorney General, Pennsylvania Governor and former senate candidate, and staunch Republican Dick Thornburgh has testified before congress about this prosecution.

Thornburgh is one of Wecht's defense lawyers, and his complaints stem from what he's called the "sheer intensity" of the investigation, which involves relatively minor accusations that Thornburgh says should have been handled by the state ethics commission.

As a means of showing the relative triviality of the charges (the 84-count indictment doesn't put a price tag on Wecht's fraud), Wecht's lawyers have calculated that the cumulative cost for the 37 charges in the indictment that involve improperly charging the county for gasoline and mileage costs add up to $1,778.55. The most colorful of the charges, of course, involve the elaborate body snatching scheme: prosecutors allege that Wecht gave a local Catholic university unclaimed bodies in exchange for laboratory space.

The source of the investigation's "intensity" is U.S. Attorney for Pittsburgh Mary Beth Buchanan, a member of the DoJ's inner circle who played a role in the U.S. attorney firings. It's not the first time that Buchanan has drawn fire. During the heat of the scandal, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the district (from 1995-2000, before Buchanan took over) publicly called on Buchanan to resign because of "the extent to which she has looked to Washington for direction and political advancement." Or to put it in plainer terms: Buchanan has prosecuted a number of Democrats but no Republicans.

There is also a history of not particularly veiled threats toward the defense attorneys.

Seriously, once Bush and His Evil Minions^™ are out of office, we are going to have to deBushify our government in the way that we deNazified the German one after WW II.

Bush has polluted everything he has ever touched in his life.

More on the Wecht Political Show Trial

Well, it appears that things are getting weirder in the aftermath of the Cyril Wecht trial.

First, the judge has placed a gag order on the jury until after the retrial, which was described by Wecht's lawyer, and I agree, as extremely unusual.

Among other things, I would assume that the Lawyers would not want to talk to the Jurors to get some insights for the retrial.

In any case, some of the jurors talked, and it's clear that the majority though that they should acquit.

I will note that from what I've read Schwab appears to be a complete political hack, and a disgrace to the bench. Harper's Scott Horton has more details.

Also, this interview with a dismissed (for health reasons) juror speaks volumes.

Latest Bizarre Ruling in Wecht Case Overturned

U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab had ruled, after a mistrial was declared in the politically motivated prosecution of Cyril Wecht, that the names of the jurors names were to be kept secret from the press, though political hack US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan sent FBI agents out to intimidate them.

Well, the appeals court just overturned that, saying, that their identification was a, "well-established part of American judicial tradition."

Background here. Short story: there were allegations that Wecht used office staff and equipment for his private practice, including 24 counts involving the amount of $3.06 (no, I'm not screwing up the decimals).

Apparent Hung Jury in Wecht Political Show Trial

This is good news for the defense.

To refresh your memory, this trial is about "celebrity pathologist Cyrl Wecht" allegedly using public resources of his medical examiner's office for his private practice, and 24 of the counts are over $3.06.

Basically, it appears that he may have used a publicly paid secretary to run his business and make some faxes, and the US Attorney in Pittsburgh literally made a federal case out of this.

Note that he is a prominent Democrat, and that Republican Dick Thornburg, former Attorney General has called it a political witch hunt.

On January 20, Have Her Walked Out of Her Office By Security

Well, it looks like political hack Mary Beth Buchanan will not be submitting her resignation to Barack Obama as US Attorney for Pittsburgh on January 20, as is customary.

I've document a few of her partisan abuses of power here.

This is a woman who literally made a 45¢ fax a federal case, because the person in question, Cyril Wecht, was a Democrat.

She also prosecuted comedian Tommy Chong for selling bongs, went after a California erotica company, and was hip deep in the US Attorney firings scandal.

Seriously, this woman is a clear and present danger to justice, and she should not be allowed in the building without an armed escort.

Political Prosecution Against Cyril Wecht to be Dropped

This was a case of a blatantly political US literally making a federal case out of things like using the office fax machine, and now, because most of the evidence has been excluded, political hack Mary Beth Buchanan has been forced to drop the case.

I know that Barack Obama does not want to dismiss US attorneys until he has replacements, but Buchanan is a cancer on the Department of Justice.

Background here.

There's Not Guilty, There's Innocent, There Is Pure as the Driven Snow, and Then There is:

So f&^%ing innocent that half your jury goes tailgating with the former defendant to a Pittsburgh Pirates game.

Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, former Allegheny County coroner, who was harassed by a political hack US attorney over a few phone calls and faxes from his office.

Note that they did this after said US attorney sent goons to intimidate them after the hung jury (last link).

See here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

FBI Goons Sent to Intimidate Wecht Jurors

While it is normal for lawyers from both sides to talk with jurors following a mistrial, it is highly unusual, at least so far as I know, for the US Attorney to send FBI agents to interview the jurors.

Absent an allegation of something like juror tampering, it simply makes no sense. FBI agents are not trained as jury consultants or litigators, and as such are not the best choice for this task.

So now, at the end what was clearly a political show trial, one in which the prosecution could not meet the burden of proof, we are seeing a highly public harassment of those jurors at the direction of the US Attorney's office.

When this is all over, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, and the rest of her bully boys, need to be fully investigated over their actions, which are a basic affront to the concepts of laws going back to perhaps the Magna Carta.

If wrongdoing is uncovered, they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, with imprisonment and disbarment as the results.

Mistrial in Wecht Political Kangaroo Court

The Jurors could not agree on a verdict.

Given the nature of the case, my guess is that it was 11-1 or 10-2 for acquittal, but we'll find out.

As I've said before, this was literally a federal case over someone using their secretary and the office fax machine.

But he's a prominent Democrat, so the the Bush DoJ went after him.