Eastern District of California Blog

Feds Seek 5-Year Sentence For Convicted Journalist

Arstechnica summarizes the parties' sentencing positions for Matthew Keys, the journalist convicted after a jury trial of three counts involving computer hacking.  The government seeks a 5-year sentence; the defense requests probation.  Here are links to the governments's 12-page Sentencing Memorandum and the defense's 69-page Brief.  Sentencing is set for March 23 before Judge Mueller.  

14-Year Sentence In Mortgage Fraud Case

A Placer County woman convicted in a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Vera Kuzmenko, 46, of Loomis was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez for multiple counts of mail and wire fraud, witness tampering and money laundering associated with her involvement in the scheme that cost financial institutions more than $16 million, according to a U.S. attorney’s office news release.

On Dec. 4, after a 16-day trial in federal court in Sacramento, a jury returned guilty verdicts for Kuzmenko and Rachel Siders, 40, of Roseville. Siders is to be sentenced June 21.

Sac Bee, 3/15/16

Another Mortgage Fraud Jury Trial Starts Up Tomorrow

Jury selection starts up Thursday, 9:00 a.m., in Judge Shubb's courtroom in another mortgage fraud criminal case, United States v. Woods, No. 2:12-CR-0330-WBS.  [Update 4/12/16:  The court declared a mistrial on March 17, with the jury trial to be rescheduled.]

Former Yuba Deputy U.S. Marshal Gets 10 Years for Robbing Drug Dealers

Three men from Florida – Clorenzo Griffin, then a deputy U.S. marshal, Andre Jamison and Rodney Rackley – robbed 24 pounds of marijuana from three drug dealers at gunpoint in a Yuba City motel parking lot Oct. 11, 2014.

* * *

On Wednesday in Sacramento federal court, Griffin, who pleaded guilty in December to plotting an interstate robbery, was the last of the three to be sentenced to prison by U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller.

She handed out a 10-year term behind bars for Griffin, who was off duty at the time of the robbery and has been in jail since his arrest. He was fired by the U.S. Marshals Service after he was arrested. He primarily worked escorting prisoners to and from court in Miami and Fort Lauderdale and guarding them in the courtroom.

Sac Bee, 3/9/16

Inspired by "Breaking Bad"?

Yesterday's Sacramento Bee has an article on a federal case entitled, "Inspired by 'Breaking Bad,' Carmichael man turned to internet poison sales."

Feds Charge Man With Kidnapping Mexican Citizens Seeking To Enter U.S.

A Mexican man was indicted by a federal grand jury on kidnapping and fraud charges on Thursday, U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner said.

Martin Carranza-Sanchez, 45, was charged with kidnapping Mexican citizens wanting to enter the United States without documentation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The 10-count indictment alleged that Carranza-Sanchez falsely represented to U.S. residents that their relatives had been smuggled into the United States.

In five instances involving six victims between December 2010 and November 2015, Carranza-Sanchez held the undocumented immigrants hostage in Mexico, threatened to harm them and, on occasion, did harm them, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Carranza-Sanchez allegedly told the U.S. residents that their relatives would be harmed or killed if he was not paid.

Fresno Bee, 3/3/16

Sacramento Bee Exposes Secret $2 Million Settlement Over A Citrus Heights Officer's Fatal Shooting Of Unarmed Man

In this Sacramento Bee piece, Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton expose a secret settlement agreement in which Citrus Heights paid the parents of Hunter Todd $2 million to settle their federal civil rights suit over the 2013 shooting death of their son.  See Selenis/Todd v. Citrus Heights, No. 2:13-CV-2576-GEB-KJN.  The Bee reports that the settlement agreement barred those involved from contacting the media due to "the sensitivities of the case."  The agreement also censored the parties from commenting on the case other than via an agreed upon three paragraph public statement, which is reproduced in the Bee article.  (Apparently, the settlement agreement was sealed as the Bee needed to obtain it through a California public records request instead of pacer.)  And it precluded Todd's parents from posting any comments on social media about the case.

Of course, that doesn't apply to me.  Putting aside the appropriateness of the sealing of matters of important public interest, what seems most troubling to me is that Todd's parents said Citrus Heights pressed for a provision barring them from pursuing a criminal prosecution of the officer, which they refused.  The Bee says the officer swore in a deposition that "he shot Todd in the back as the 135-pound young man lunged face-first into his pickup truck to get a gun."  But no gun was found and an autopsy showed the bullets entered Todd's chest, neck, and an arm, but not his back.  Todd's parents and their attorney referred the matter to the FBI last Fall seeking a criminal investigation into the shooting death.  No word whether an investigation was instituted or is still pending.

What right does Citrus Heights have in attempting to bar a federal investigation into one of its officer's fatal shooting of an unarmed man?  

EDCA Judge Proposes Tighter Security For Special-Needs Student Data

A Sacramento-based federal judge proposed a compromise Monday that would keep the most sensitive information of 10 million current and former students in the hands of the California Department of Education, potentially addressing privacy concerns raised by parents across the state.

District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller previously ordered the Department of Education to provide extensive student records to attorneys representing the families of special-needs students who have alleged the state is failing in its oversight role and allowing districts to provide inadequate instruction. As part of the suit, special education nonprofits want to analyze state data to prove their claims.

 

But the case, Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association v. the California Department of Education, has generated a large number of “strong objections” to the court over the public disclosure of individual students’ names and records, Mueller said.

As a consequence, Mueller said she wanted to look for ways to reinforce existing protections to ensure that information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. The judge already has required a special monitor with cybersecurity expertise to maintain tight control over the data and use encryption techniques.

Sac Bee, 2/29/16