Eastern District of California Blog

Hyatt files 2255 Motion Challenging Material Support of Terrorism Conviction

The Los Angeles Times reports that attorneys for Hamid Hyatt filed today a 2255 motion challenging his EDCA conviction for providing material support to terrorists on grounds of innocence and ineffective assistance of his trial counsel. Hyatt was sentenced to 24 years imprisonment. [Added Sacramento Bee, 4/30/14].

 

70-Month Sentence For Racially Motivated Assault

"Perry Sylvester Jackson, 28, of Marysville, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez to five years and 10 months in prison for violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act for his role in a 2011 racially motivated attack on a white man and an African-American woman."  YubaNet.com, 4/29/14

Fresno Marijuana Sentences

In Fresno, three men were sentenced to four months prison/four months home detention, one year of home detention, and nineteen months imprisonment, respectively, for various marijuana offenses.  Fresno Bee, 4/29/14.

Crisp & Cole Mortgage Fraud Update

The Bakersfield Californian (behind paywall) has a piece on what's left in the Crisp & Cole mortgage fraud case.  

Should Have Come Up With A Better Reason To Terminate Supervised Release Early

I saw this as an e-notice yesterday regarding a co-defendant in one of my old cases:

Docket Text:
MINUTE ORDER (TEXT ENTRY ONLY) ORDER DENYING MOTION TO MODIFY AND TERMINATE PROBATION AS TO [DEFENDANT]: The Court has received and reviewed not only the motion, but has also reviewed the underlying file. The criminal activity in which the defendant was involved, and for which he was convicted, is serious indeed. The defendant received his break at sentencing. Wishing to terminate his probationary period early by eliminating 33% of the time because it is "interfering with his ability to go to hot rod shows and essentially have an active and fun retirement" is wholly unconvincing to the Court. Motion denied signed by District Judge Lawrence J. O'Neill on April 23, 2014. (Munoz, I)

EDCA Court Releases Squeaky Fromme Psych Exam Recordings

Nearly 39 years after the former Manson “family” member leveled a Colt .45-caliber pistol at President Gerald R. Ford in Sacramento’s Capitol Park, one of the last and most intriguing pieces of evidence from the case has been made available to the public: the audio tape of [Lynette "Squeaky"] Fromme’s pretrial psychiatric examination while she was being held in jail.

The 132-minute recording offers a glimpse into the mindset of the would-be assassin and her matter-of-fact demeanor as she tries to convince the psychiatrist that she should be allowed to act as her own lawyer at trial.

U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller granted release of the recording in response to a motion filed in November by The Sacramento Bee. The judge’s order, issued last week, followed her decision in August to release another historic piece of evidence: the videotaped deposition of President Ford, part of the evidence used by the government to obtain a guilty verdict from a jury.

The Fromme recording, portions of which can be heard on www.sacbee.com/history, was made Sept. 21, 1975, just more than two weeks after Fromme, then 26, aimed her pistol at the president while he was on his way to a meeting with then-and-current Gov. Jerry Brown.

The gun did not go off. Fromme was wrestled to the ground by a Secret Service agent, a Sacramento police officer and bystanders, and was arrested.

During the recording, Fromme speaks clearly and confidently about her ability to represent herself and win an acquittal. She also discusses her past drug use and her interactions with convicted mass murderer Charles Manson.

Listen to portions of Fromme's psychological exam. (Edited by Bee Photographer Hector Amezcua)

Sacramento Bee, 4/23/14

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/23/6348484/judge-releases-audio-tape-of-squeaky.html#storylink=cpy

Prison Term For Man In Loomis Wealth Solutions Fraud Case

Johnny E. “Jay” Grivette Jr., the man who went from Paradise to prison, was sentenced Tuesday in Sacramento federal court to 4 1/2 years behind bars for his role as a main player in the biggest financial scam in regional history.

Grivette, 39, who grew up in the central Butte County town of Paradise, managed a company for approximately two years that was part of the apparatus known as Loomis Wealth Solutions, a Roseville-based umbrella for an array of entities created and controlled by Lawrence Leland “Lee” Loomis.

Sacramento Bee, 4/22/14

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/22/6345324/prison-term-for-scam-figure-grivette.html#storylink=cpy

 

Crisp & Cole Defendant Found Guilty On Most Counts

Yesterday, in the Crisp & Cole mortgage fraud case, a Fresno jury found defendant Julie Farmer guilty of five counts, but acquitted her of one count each of mail fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to launder money.  TurnTo 23; Bakersfield Californian.

Schweder Order Denying Reconsideration of Schedule I Marijuana Evidentiary Hearing

In this order, the EDCA Court formally denied the government's motion to reconsider the grant of an evidentiary hearing on the constitutionality of classifying marijuana as a schedule I controlled substance in United States v. Schweder, et. al., No. 2:11-CR-449-KJM.  The Court clarified the basis for and scope of the evidentiary hearing as follows:

Here, defendants’ moving papers set forth facts with sufficient specificity, supported by declarations, showing there is new scientific and medical information raising contested issues of fact regarding whether the continued inclusion of marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance in Title 21 of the federal statutes passes constitutional muster.

The evidentiary hearing is granted to probe the scientific and medical information.  At the hearing, the defendants will be allowed to call the four witnesses they have identified. The scope of the hearing is delimited by defendants’ challenge to the federal statutes; the hearing will not include the presentation of evidence applicable only to attacking federal regulations or any administrative decision of the Attorney General or the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The Court's order also includes a further briefing schedule with a hearing on May 21, 2014 and a pre-evidentiary hearing confirmation proceeding on June 2, 2014, with the evidentiary hearing date to be determined at that time.

Sac Bee Profiles Former AUSA Todd Leras

While the entire front-page article is worth reading, here's an excerpt from yesterday's Sacramento Bee profile of former EDCA Assistant U.S. Attorney as he runs for Sacramento District Attorney:

For a decade, Todd Leras rode a wave of stardom at the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. He tried big cases, won most of them, and in 1998 was named its top prosecutor.

Leras still holds a reputation as a brilliant lawyer and a zealous and ethical prosecutor for his work with the DA and later with the U.S. attorney’s office. So the question lingers: Why did things turn sour for him at the end of his tenure in the local prosecutor’s office?

Leras, 50, is now running a long-shot campaign to head the office he ultimately felt compelled to leave.

“I always tried to be a team player, and I had a great time in the DA’s Office for the first 10 years,” Leras said in an interview. “I loved the people, the office, the environment. It was great.”

The tenor changed, Leras says, when he started to offer suggestions about how things could improve. He said his suggestions in areas such as training programs for younger attorneys were interpreted by top management as “criticisms.” The disagreements, he said, were “viewed as disloyalty, and there’s no greater sin you can commit in that office than being disloyal.”

* * * 

Leras graduated with honors from UC Davis in 1986 before getting his law degree at UC Berkeley. He began his legal career in private practice in 1989, became a public defender in 1991 and jumped to the DA’s side in 1995, before moving to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2008. He left the federal prosecutor’s office to run for DA.

In the DA’s Office, he worked domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse cases before he was recruited into the homicide unit. Along the way, he won several high-profile convictions.

* * *

Leras said his career path began to falter in 2006 when he approached Scully with concerns about the office. He said he relayed the discomfort of younger prosecutors in the office who were troubled by the transfer of a top deputy in the drug unit following a one-day strike over pay. According to Leras, that deputy was transferred after he directed “a smart-aleck remark” from the picket line toward Scully and two of her top assistants. Leras said he also wounded himself when he pressed the matter in a tense exchange with a member of Scully’s management staff.

* * * 

Leras was recruited into the U.S. attorney’s office in 2008 by his old college roommate, Larry Brown, the former acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District. Brown, now a Superior Court judge, declined to be interviewed, citing his position on the bench.

Federal prosecutors who have worked with Leras rave about him.

* * *

In his five years in the office at Fifth and I streets, Leras worked major methamphetamine investigations, mortgage fraud and white-collar crime, as well as political corruption cases that he said are ongoing.

“It was a wonderful place to work,” Leras said.

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan McConkie shared a wall with Leras for four years in Sacramento before he left to become a law professor at Brigham Young University. He said Leras “is one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met. I’ve never known a more honorable and ethical prosecutor.”

From the other side of the lawyers’ table, Assistant Federal Defender Matt Scoble also spoke glowingly of Leras.

“The standard for a prosecutor is not to seek a conviction, but to seek justice,” Scoble said. “Todd is absolutely somebody who lives and breathes that. He’s a zealous prosecutor, but he is absolutely a consummate professional – fair-minded and always a pleasure to work with.”

Since leaving the U.S. attorney’s office, Leras has been handling a mix of civil and criminal cases in private practice out of his J Street office downtown.

He said he was motivated to run for district attorney by a desire to change the culture of the DA’s Office. As the campaign has progressed, Leras said, it has given him the opportunity to think more deeply about training programs for young lawyers, alternatives to incarceration, and ensuring the success of the state’s 2011 realignment law that has shifted responsibility for lower-level offenders from state prisons and oversight to local jurisdictions.