Thursday

Federal Prosecutor Indicted...

Former U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino has been indicted in connection with Detroit’s ill-fated 2003 terrorism trial. The former prosecutor, and a State Department employee who served as a chief government witness were each indicted on charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. The grand jury charged that they had conspired to conceal evidence about photographs of a military hospital in Jordan that was the supposed target of a terrorist plot by the Detroit defendants.


Convertino--the now indicted Former Federal Prosecutor

Interestingly, the times reports that "The indictment lays blame for the collapse of the case against the terrorism suspects at the feet of Mr. Convertino and Mr. Smith. It said the two men conspired "to present false evidence at trial and to conceal inconsistent and potentially damaging evidence from the defendants."

But an investigation by The New York Times published in October 2004 found that senior officials at the Justice Department knew of problems in the case yet still pushed for an aggressive prosecution.

An internal Justice Department memorandum prepared in Washington before the 2002 indictments of the men acknowledged that the evidence was "somewhat weak," that the case relied on a single informant with "some baggage," and that there was no clear link to terrorist groups."

It's also nice to remember that this was the same case in which, according to the times, "The opening of the government's indictment against the terror suspects, drafted by prosecutors in Washington, appeared to have been lifted almost verbatim from a scholarly article on Islamic fundamentalism. And Mr. Ashcroft was rebuked by the Detroit judge hearing the case for publicly asserting — in error — that the defendants were suspected of having advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks."

So who exactly is waging jihad on whom?

3 comments:

Tom McKenna said...

This story can't be correct. Prosecutors, who are lying, corrupt, and unethical, never get caught, and if they do, nothing is ever done to them because the Man watches out for his own. If the "system" actually punished wrongdoing prosecutors, that would mean the "system" is not utterly corrupt, racist, sexist, and homophobic.

There must be some mistake.

Anonymous said...

Mr. McKenna, your sarcasm is becoming so tedious as to render your statements nearly meaningless.

Anonymous said...

I'm now officially scared of Mr. McKenna. You'd think he would be able to carry himself with a bit more dignity considering that he is an agent of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Much of what he says should embarrass him. The man is a prosecutor and can almost never bring himself to condemn official misconduct or contain his childish glee when those who disagree with him suffer setbacks. While only a moron would think that the criminal justice system is above petty politics, someone with as much responsibility over people's lives and freedom should at least maintain the appearance of caring about objective justice. He likes to pretend that he is morally and professionally superior to Mr. Feige, but he has the same "gotcha" attitude and tendency toward sensationalism. He is not morally superior or even equivalent, because Mr. Feige is a private citizen but Mr. McKenna has the authority and resources of the state to weild in service of his whacky whims.