Author Topic: Criminal Justice system  (Read 46423 times)

G M

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Re: Criminal Justice system
« Reply #50 on: September 27, 2010, 11:03:33 AM »
**Do you think that if the feds will prosecute you for 30,000, they'll prosecute for 40 mil?**

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/article_e66a9e39-149c-548d-86d3-68cfb9fb136f.html

HAMMOND | A former employee at the FBI office in Merrillville is facing federal charges that she allegedly embezzled more than $30,000.

Melissa L. Sims, 36, of Lowell, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Hammond on three counts of embezzlement and one count each of making false statements and witness tampering, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, announced Friday in a release.

Sims, who worked as an evidence control technician for the FBI in Merrillville from 1998 to 2008, is scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 30 before Magistrate Judge Paul R. Cherry in U.S. District Court in Hammond. The case was investigated by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago is handling the prosecution in the Northern District of Indiana.

According to the indictment, between 2005 and August 2008, Sims embezzled more than $30,000 in evidence that she was responsible for disposing of in accord with FBI rules and procedures. She allegedly made no effort to contact certain individuals to whom the various amounts of cash were properly to have been returned, choosing instead to keep the evidence for herself. The indictment alleges 10 different dates on which Sims signed 16 separate forms stating that various amounts of cash evidence, ranging from $2 to $2,790, had been "released" or "returned," when she had actually taken the money for herself.

Body-by-Guinness

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Re: Criminal Justice system
« Reply #51 on: September 27, 2010, 12:16:00 PM »
Quote
Damming to you, looks like pretty weak tea to me.  If NOAA LEOs exceed their statutory authority regarding inspections, the the "fruit of the poison tree" doctrine applies and any evidence gathered is inadmissible in court.

As noted, due to NOAA's horrible bookkeeping, KPMG only managed to audit a small percentage of the transactions in question. My guess is there is a lot more tea to be made, assuming the OIG does it job. As also mentioned, these reports were only released in the last week so there hasn't been time for the fruit of any trees to be introduced into the picture. My guess is that will be upcoming and worth watching.

But put on your investigator's hat, dude. I've walked into several state agencies with poor inventory control, know what walks, quickly isolated missing inventory, and referred that info on to auditors and investigators. It's kinda sad how easy this stuff is, and how uncreative agency employees are when they abscond with stuff.

Or put on your citizens hat and imagine what it's like to have an agency crawl up your butt, inconsistently enforce policy, subject you to high fines, appear to factor in your ability to pay when enforcing policies, drive and float around in swag bought on your dime, and then thrust you into judicatory predicaments that wouldn't be tolerated in most federal or state courts. Take a look at the tables toward the end of the second OIJ report, note the few instances KPMG were able to follow up on, but note the percentage where the auditors found for the complaining citizens. Weak tea? The original Tea Party occurred for similar sorts of excesses and the NOAA privateers ought to be forced to wear red coats.

But fear not, despite all the malfeasance the OIJ reports well documented, two people have been moved to other jobs at the same rate of pay. The citizens who have been preyed upon are no doubt sleeping better these days.

G M

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Re: Criminal Justice system
« Reply #52 on: September 27, 2010, 12:52:43 PM »
IG Investigators are federal law enforcement officers that answer to the IG of their respective agencies. They tend to have all the equipment, training and resources needed to do their jobs, and they federal employees take these investigations quite seriously. It's my understanding that the IG has the authority to impose policy changes in the agencies under it's jurisdiction.

I recently was in a law enforcement intel class with a intel analyst from the USPS OIG. She was quite sharp and used lots of cutting edge datamining and analysis software to target crooked postal employees for investigation/prosecution. Funny enough, she had many anecdotes about how the postal employee union saved the jobs of postal employees convicted of crimes by the OIG. I bet if you bothered to look at the postal union website there would be long article about how mean and unfair the USPS OIG is.

As a citizen, I want fair and impartial law enforcement. I also want commercial fishermen to obey the laws that regulate their industry.