Fmr. Mass Speaker Sal DiMasi, Guilty

Boston.com is reporting that former Massachusetts Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi is guilty of 7 counts of corruption including fraud and extortion.  A federal jury handed down the verdict on the second full day of deliberations. 

Former Miss Anchorage, Rhodes and Fulbright Scholar Scam Artist?

This woman (pic), Rachel Yould, is a former Miss Anchorage, Fulbright and Rhodes scholar and a convicted fraudster.  The Anchorage Daily News account of her pending sentencing is mystery story on its own.  This is from Lisa Demer's story: 

"Prosecutors say Rachel Yould, a former Anchorage Rhodes and Fulbright scholar, is a master manipulator who should spend six years in prison for misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans. They say she should pay more than $800,000 in restitution.

Yould, despite her guilty pleas to 15 felony counts of federal mail and wire fraud and making false statements, says she is innocent and that the whole case is based on misunderstanding. Her troubles are rooted, she said, in the sexual and physical violence she suffered as a child and into adulthood at the hands of her biological father. Her lawyer argues that she shouldn't go to prison at all, but instead should be sentenced to probation so that she can repay what she owes.

The defense says her efforts to escape her father's reach led her to create a second identity for her own protection; prosecutors say it was a scheme to draw down more student loan money because she had reached her lifetime limit.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. Judge John Sedwick will decide her fate. The judge allowed two days for the hearing, noting 'the unprecedented volume of paper filed by the parties in anticipation of the sentencing.'

Whatever happens, the life Yould envisioned as a bright young scholar is gone.

'As for just punishment, Rachel Yould has already been punished beyond any sentence the court can impose,' her attorney, federal public defender Rich Curtner, wrote in his sentencing memorandum to the judge. 'Her life has been on hold for four years. Her career is finished, her reputation is ruined, her former life in remnants. After all of her work and research, her Doctorate is unobtainable. She faces a staggering debt she is committed to repay.'

[So She Set Up A New Identity and Got a New SSN]
Yould, 38, is a 1990 Bartlett High graduate and 1996 Miss Anchorage, though she says she gave up the title so that another contestant could get the scholarship and travel benefits. She graduated from Stanford University with a 4.0 grade point average, then went to Oxford University in England as a Rhodes scholar, where she earned her master's degree in oriental studies.

By 2001, Yould had won a Fulbright scholarship and was working on her doctorate comparing the Internet in Japan to its counterpart in the United States. Her studies took her to Keio University in Japan.  That same year, Yould found out she had reached the $60,000 lifetime cap in Alaska's student loan program. And she applied for a new Social Security number through a program intended to protect victims of domestic violence, the Harassment, Abuse & Life Endangerment program. It took her nearly two years to obtain the new number.

Between August 2003 and May 2006, while Yould was living in Japan, she obtained 19 student loans for almost $680,000, prosecutors say. They say her lies included telling lenders she was a medical student, forging documents from real academics, and listing her former name, Rachel Hall, on loan documents as a co-signer.  She parked some of the illegally gained money in a Smith Barney investment account and played the stock market, earning more than $50,000 on her investments. With the rest, she started a high-brow international affairs journal. At one point, she hired former Truman Scholars to interview people in Iraq.

And for much of the time the loan money was pouring in, she wasn't even in school and didn't incur tuition or other fees, prosecutors say.  Yould and her supporters say she created the second identity with government approval to hide from her father [who she says sexually abused her and], whom she says was stalking her. She used both names to get loans 'on the explicit instruction of Social Security Administration personnel,' Curtner wrote in his sentencing memo.

In all, more than $650,000 of her student loan funds were obtained fraudulently, prosecutors said.

[Allegations of Sexual Abuse Against her Father]

Yould wrote two long statements to the judge about her studies, the loans and her accusations against her father. She wrote of genital mutilation, childhood rape, harassment and stalking. Her parents divorced when she was young and the abuse usually happened when she visited him, she wrote. Her lawyer calls her father a sexual sadist. She said she has internal injuries as a result of the abuse.

But prosecutors challenge many of her assertions, and her father has never been charged criminally with sexually abusing her.  Once when she was a child, she blurted out to parents of the children next door that her father was beating her and hurting her in other ways, she said in a March statement filed in court. They scolded her for telling lies and called her father, she wrote.  In an attempt to explain [in her sentencing statement] why she felt powerless to hold him accountable, she recounted one grisly and bizarre scene that she said haunts her more than the abuse itself.

She was a young woman visiting her father's home looking through her stuff in the basement when something caught her eye.

"I walked close and stared and then suddenly felt like a cosmic jolt had just vacuumed all of the air out of my chest," Yould wrote to the judge in a 150-page statement filed on Friday. "It was a hunk of desiccated flesh pinned to the wall and I knew from the approximate size and shape and just the nature of life in that house that it was mine. It was a piece of me pinned to the wall. I had had a portion of flesh pulled from my right hip in an event I will not even attempt to describe here, and there it was, pinned to the wall."

She [ . . . ] sought a restraining order against her father in 2002 after the Social Security Administration told her that one was typically provided as justification for a new Social Security number. While she won a temporary order, her request for a long-term protective order from an Alaska judge was denied since she was living in Japan and her father was in Georgia. But she didn't tell the Social Security officials that, prosecutors noted.  Prosecutors say that Yould is the sole source of much of what she contends. The medical records provided to prosecutors don't include the sort of injuries she describes, assistant U.S. Attorney Retta-Rae Randall wrote in the prosecution's 120-page sentencing memorandum.  'The case is not about abuse, but about lies and greed,'Randall wrote.

The government never argued that she wasn't abused, Randall wrote. Rather, 'it requested corroboration when the details became more fantastical after Yould learned that she was under investigation. If Yould can fly all over the country for medical evaluations for her case, then she could have, at a minimum, provided the names of one or two hospitals from which records could be subpoenaed.'

In her statement, Yould disputes she was motivated by greed. She says she never lived lavishly and used the loan money for her studies. 'I have owned one car in my 38-year lifetime. It was the 1985 Honda Accord my parents bought when we moved to Alaska when I was 13 years old,' she wrote. Her wedding ring was her great-grandmother's. Most of their time in Japan, she and her husband lived in a 485-square-foot apartment.  She says the prosecution will never believe her history of abuse because the police were never called, and there isn't much in the way of medical records from the time. Plus, with her academic success, she says she doesn't seem like the type of person who had been through so much.

By claiming to be a victim, [AUSA] Randall wrote, '[Yould] wrapped herself in an untouchable defense. It is a continuing manipulation of the court.'"
___________________________________
Believe what you wish to believe, but don't get too distracted.  Rachel Yould committed faud and admitted it.  Likewise, I evaded my tax obligations.  The stories of our lives may or may not impact the disposition of our legal matters.  My father was a child molester, and his violent and abusive behavior against me and my brothers created space for him  to commit his crimes against my sisters and other young girls.  Don't take my word for it, my sisters and other victims say so.  I fled the family home, like my brother did before me at 17.  I take my sisters' word for it--I should have taken the word of my sister, M. without doubting her.  But I injured her with my doubt. 

Rachel Yould may or may not have been a victim of sexual abuse;  while I find her story beyond bizarre, many times over the years the most bizarre stories of child sexual abuse proved true.  Clients would come to our office and describe something so strange, bordering on the unbelievable and then produce a letter in the hand of the perpetrator acknowledging the facts, or a cassette recording of a confrontation, pornographic photographs, or other evidence of bizarre inexplicable crimes by family members, clergy or close family friends. 

Rachel Yould is a brilliant, educated, sophisticated woman, and, a convicted liar--now ask yourself, where did she learn her dark arts?  Bet I can make an educated guess, bet you can too.  The next question is, what disposition will deter her from further criminal activity?    It's a mystery.

Former Fed Prosecutor and Republican Gov-Candidate James Harper III Steals from Gun Company

There must be something in the water, this is majorly Bad Lawyer Week here at Bad Lawyer: with word via the Associated Press that former Atlanta federal prosecutor and republican candidate for Governor was indicted on multiple counts of theft from the gun maker Glock.  Apparently James Harper III, was hired by Glock to investigate fraud at the company but conspired with two others to steal $3 million from the Cobb County gunmaker.

No, Insurance Companies Don't Commit Fraud Do They?

When you throw around the word, fraud, you should be very careful.  Fraud or fraudulent at law is different than saying so-and-so is a fraud, or "that's fraudulent."  If you can easily see that something is fraud, by definition it isn't.  Admittedly, when we think about and talk about fraud we think and talk about precisely the same thing, something phony.

For something phony to be legal fraud there must be:  a material misrepresentation by words or conduct through active holding out or through concealment (of something that should have been revealed), which deceives and is intended to deceive another so that they reasonably rely and act upon the misrepresentation to their legal detriment.  My experience is that when clients have sought my assistance in redressing "fraud" the laying out of the elements has usually deterred further action.  The carnival midway is not a place where fraud is found, . . . fools, but not fraud.  Fraud in a generic sense covers all sorts of human sin where one takes advantage of another without rising to the level of "actionable fraud."  The defrauded in general are usually co-conspirators in their own injury, via the full panoply of psychic impulse including envy, denial, gluttony, pride, you get the picture.  Fraud is an alibi, an excuse when we get burned again.

My Cleveland friend, Patrick Perotti, has created a lucrative law practice out of bringing actions against insurance companies, title companies, banks, and businesses who engage in the real deal.  Real fraud happens all the time and it is often intended to surreptitiously scam nickels on top of legitimate profit margins or genuine cost.  Let me give you an example, Grange Mutual Insurance Company (yes, we name names when it suits us) charged a legitimate premium for a certain type of coverage under family auto insurance policies that they offered; but some bright executive at the company decided that the amount they collecting could be double, triple, and more than the law allowed. While the amounts involved were minuscule per family the net effect was millions and millions of dollars for Grange's bottom line without incurring any commensurate risk.  Patrick Perotti figured out how this scam worked and  brought a lawsuit.   After a two day trial a jury near Cleveland awarded $48 million in compensatory damages.  Punitive damages were pending submission to the same jury when Grange agreed to pay $51 million in settlement.

Mercury Insurance of Illinois just got hit by a demand for punitive damages for courthouse fraud.  According to the news account Steven Thomas Kirk was struck by a truck driven by  Mercury's "insured," Enver Hamiti. Kirk.  Hamiti fled the scene, even though " [Kirk's] leg was detached by the accident." Get this gothic detail, somebody walks by and steals a diamond stud earring from Kirk's earlobe as he lay inert at the scene. Kirk sued Hamiti in Madison County, seeking damages.  Apparently Kirk had been drinking, but Kirk's use of alcohol did not play a role in the accident, the jury found Mercury's insured Hamiti fully responsible for causing the accident awarding $1.37 million to Kirk.  


Attorney Chris Kolker is asking the Court to award an additional $500,000. directly against Mercury Insurance Company because he suspects the Mercury Insurance adjuster, claims people and although it doesn't say so, I suspect the defense attorney invented a eyewitness who at trial testified that Steven Kirk was driving his motorcycle erratically, weaving in and out of traffic.  This testimony was offered and intended by Mercury to be relied upon by the jury to the detriment of Steven Kirk.  The only problem with this eyewitness, she testified to seeing the accident happen from her apartment window--she didn't live in the apartment according to lease documents until six months after the accident.   Hmmmmmmm?  Sure sounds like fraud, or at least attempted fraud.  


Bear with me for a sec, reading between the lines it may be that the fraud claim is about "collecting."  Unless Mr. Hamiti was driving a commercial truck, it'improbable that Hamiti's Mercury Insurance policy carried million dollars worth of insurance.  In fact it's probable that the amount of insurance available to pay the jury verdict awarded to Mr. Kirk is in the tens-of-thousands so the only prayer Mr. Kirk has of collecting against Mercury is if the court imposes a direct sanction for fraud against the insurance company and it's claims people.  Other obstacles make it unlikely that Mr. Kirk and his counsel are going to succeed, including jurisdiction of the court to impose such a sanction.  I've talked about the concept of jurisdiction, before in the purest sense--jurisdiction refers to the power of a court, either geographically defined or over the subject matter of an action.  In the motorcycle-car crash the court's jurisdiction is over the parties, Mr. Stevens and Mr. Hamiti and any company Mr. Hamiti was working for at the time of the accident. It will be a matter of Missouri law whether Mr. Steven's fraud claim against Mercury can be heard as part of the underlying lawsuit.  Typically, Mr. Stevens has no claim against Mercury because he has no contract of insurance with them, his remedy is to sue Mr. Hamiti which he did.  Mercury's liability to Mr. Stevens is only for the amount of coverage purchased by Mr. Hamiti.  If Mercury only covered Mr. Hamiti to the tune of $12,500 which is not unheard of--that's all Stevens and his attorney will collect from Mercury.  The balance of the $1.37 million verdict comes out of Mr. Hamiti's pocket, if Mr. Hamiti is like most folks, Mr. Stevens is out of luck.  


Good luck on that fraud claim.  For more:


http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2007/09/03/daily12.html


http://www.bnd.com/372/story/1028154.html