Yitbarek Syume, alleged leader of a bribery scheme targeting the D.C. Taxicab Commission, has been ordered to remain in jail pending trial, Jason Cherkis reports from the federal courthouse.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman's ruling this afternoon overturns an Oct. 9 decision by Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson to allow Syume to live in a halfway house pending trial. Prosecutors had asked that Syume be kept in jail due in part to comments he'd made on tape purportedly threatening the life of Abdulaziz Kamus, named in a Washington Post report as a FBI mole. On the tape, Syume can be heard saying Kamus will be "permanently eliminated" and that "they will come to him."

Read More "Accused Taxi Briber Will Stay in Jail, Judge Says" »

Details are still fairly scarce as the federal taxicab investigation develops, but this much is clear: Most of those targeted are members of the East African community.

First came revelations that the man who bribed D.C. Council aide Ted Loza was none other than Abdul Kamus (pictured), a man this paper once hailed as the "de facto leader of D.C.’s Ethiopian community." Kamus' links to Loza's boss, Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, are deep.

From the 2004 WCP article by Jonathan O'Connell:

Read More "D.C. Taxi Probe: Who Are These People?" »

Dimitri P. Mallios, Washington's "dean of Alcoholic Beverage Control attorneys," died yesterday at 77.

Mallios was first among a relatively small cadre of D.C. attorneys representing restaurants, bars, clubs, and hotels in front of city liquor authorities; his services helped myriad establishments navigate an arcane licensing process and fend off countless neighbors and advisory neighborhood commissions.

He had been battling cancer for more than five years, says his law partner Steve O'Brien. Mallios had been active and practicing before his illness suddenly worsened a week ago.

Read More "RIP: Dimitri Mallios, ‘Dean’ of D.C. Liquor Lawyers" »

Yesterday, an arbitrator ruled that the D.C. police department's "All Hands on Deck" initiative violated the officers' contract and must be stopped. Chief Cathy L. Lanier promptly announced that the show must go on, indicating her intention to continue with AHOD weekends scheduled for November and December.

At this point, one cannot be surprised by the city opting for a take-no-prisoners strategy toward litigation. That's par for the course under bulldog Attorney General Peter J. Nickles.

But the decision to continue with AHODs during the appeal process stands to incur tremendous costs to the District in a time when city budgeting is under immense pressures. And not just in legal fees: In his decision yesterday, arbitrator John C. Truesdale awarded overtime pay to officers who have participated in this year's AHODs.

Read More "Is Keeping AHOD Worth a $3M Budget Hit?" »

If you were hoping to show up today at the Office of Tax and Revenue and bid on a piece of tax-delinquent property, think again: A Superior Court judge has halted the yearly tax sale.

Judge Brook Hedge granted a preliminary injunction yesterday halting the sale, scheduled for today through Friday, as part of a lawsuit filed against the city by Aeon Financial LLC, billed as "one of the nation’s leading purchasers and servicers of delinquent municipal property tax liens."

LL has yet been unable to obtain a copy of Aeon's complaint, but Hedge's injunction order indicates some sort of dispute over whether properties with outstanding tax bills of less than $1,200 would actually been put up for sale tomorrow or not. Aeon seems to want them sold; the District does not. Hedge noted that the District provided no explanation of why this is so.

Read More "Judge Halts City Property Tax Auction" »

This afternoon, Legal Times' Mike Scarcella notes that an odd dispute between D.C.'s federal and local prosecutors has been settled by the D.C. Court of Appeals.

The District lost.

The implications of the ruling are narrow but sharp: It pretty much puts the kibosh on any attempts, short of congressional action, to expand the Office of the Attorney General's prosecutorial bailiwick beyond the smattering of low-rent misdemeanors it already handles.

Read More "Court Hands D.C. an Obscure Home Rule Defeat" »

Marion Barry appeared in front of cameras this morning for the first time since his Saturday-night arrest, but that's about all he did. Longtime lawyer Fred Cooke did virtually all the talking, while Barry stood behind him in a gray suit, fedora, and paisley tie, remaining mute save for an occasional whisper in Cooke's ear.

In contrast to yesterday's presser, where spokesperson Natalie Williams spent most of the time attacking the credibility of the alleged stalkee and glorifying Barry's munificence, Cooke stuck mostly to the confines of the legal case against his client.

Read More "Marion Barry Arrest: Keeping Mum at Press Conference" »

"She had a nice run; now it's time to pay the piper. That's all there is to it."

That's what LL heard from a fellow spectator in Courtroom 24 of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse this morning, while we waited for the greatest thief of public funds in District government history, Harriette Walters, to enter, along with man who had her future in his hands, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.

Truth be told, Sullivan's role was not quite that dramatic. Walters and her attorney, Steven C. Tabackman and worked out a plea deal with federal prosecutors, so it was left to Sullivan only to decide whether Walters would get 15 years of incarceration or 18 years. Still, those three years were debated, quite passionately at times, by Tabackman, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch, and by Walters herself.

Walters entered the courtroom dressed in a blue garment, her hair short and braided. She wore glasses that she took off and placed on the table for most of the proceeding. At the beginning of the hearing, Sullivan brought Walters, 52, up to a podium answer a few perfunctory questions; she then sat back down while Tabackman did what he could to spare three years of her life.

Read More "How Harriette Walters Made Up For Her Crimes" »

Hurt in Monday's Metro crash and looking for legal representation? The folks behind dcmetrocrash.com would be happy to help you out.

The site actually includes a bunch of pretty good information about the crash---information that might be taken as somewhat incriminating, anyway. That the train operator 'had been on the job for four months'; that the National Transportation Safety Board 'warned twice that trains like the ones involved in Monday's wreck may be dangerous to passengers'; and that 'D.C.'s mayor said the blame for the crash should fall "squarely" on local officials.'

LL called the number on the site. He didn't reach a lawyer, but rather Jared Reagan, proprietor of an outfit called Lawyer Marketing Solution.

Read More "Lawyers Use Web Site, Google Ads to Find Metro Crash Victims" »

Attorney General Peter J. Nickles isn't letting no federal judge get him down.

Nope, mere weeks after U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts threw down on him for pursing lawyer John A. Straus, Nickles announces today he is embarking on a similar effort against Fatmata Barrie and her employer, the Law Office of Christopher N. Anwah. Much like in Straus' case, the District is trying to recover attorneys' fees for litigation deemed "meritless."

In both instances, the controversy surrounds litigation involving special education in the District. Plaintiffs claim that the District provides unsuitable educations to some special-needs students, who are then entitled to an appropriate private education paid for by the city. The District protests that many of the claims are baseless and exploitative. Barrie could not be immediately reached for comment.

Furthermore, Nickles announced that the District is appealing Roberts' ruling last month, in which he wrote, "It is beyond ironic that D.C.'s Attorney General complains with great flourish about lawyers who help parents secure disabled children's rights when his client, DCPS, has been found repeatedly in this court to have violated children's rights under [the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act]."

The day's proceedings in United States v. Harold Brazil wrapped up shortly before 5 p.m. today, with the trial to continue Monday in Judge Jennifer Anderson's courtroom.

Read up if you missed the earlier coverage. The afternoon's testimony introduced the two women who accompanied Brazil to the rowdy night at the tattoo parlor. First to testify was Elena Mirsayapova, 30, who has served as Brazil's assistant since last July. A native of the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, Mirsayapova first met her boss when she was working at Spezie restaurant downtown, where the former at-large councilmember was a regular. In case you were wondering: No, she denies ever having had a romantic relationship with the married Brazil. They're friends "on a limited basis," she says. The other woman, the person who was actually getting the tattoo, was Petra Nikolow, 53, a Capitol Hill resident and dental assistant who is a friend of Brazil's.

Together, the two filled in details of the fateful evening. "That was a crazy day," Nikolow testified.

Read More "Harold Brazil Trial: About That Night" »

For the past two years, the District of Columbia has budgeted millions of dollars to help the poor hire lawyers to do civil legal work. This year, for instance, $3.6 million has been handed to the D.C. Bar Foundation to be in turn disbursed to various groups that do legal work for the indigent. This money was appropriated after all sorts of reports were done and editorials were written holding that those living in poverty suffer from a lack of access to legal services.

Some of that money, no doubt, is used to sue the District government. Poor people, after all, find themselves often in conflict with the government they depend on for basic services like housing, food, health care, education, and more. But should they have the right to a District-paid civil lawyer to settle those conflicts?

Attorney General Peter Nickles sees that as a potentially untenable biting-the-hand-that-feeds-you situation. Thus draft budget legislation [PDF, Title III, Subtitle D] submitted last week includes language that requires the Bar Foundation to itemize in quarterly reports "the amount of grant funding used...to prepare for or conduct litigation against the District of Columbia," among many other requirements. Furthermore, the legislation authorizes said attorney general to issue rules on the "permissible use of grant funds."

Read More "Should District-Funded Lawyers Be Able to Sue the District?" »

UPDATE, 3:35 P.M.: Nickles will pursue garnishment of wages---details at bottom of post.

Federal prosecutors this afternoon filed court documents saying not only did Marion Barry not file his federal tax return, but that he failed for seven months to repay back taxes owed the very government he's been elected to serve.

The revelations come in a memorandum [PDF] submitted ahead of a April 2 hearing before federal magistrate Deborah A. Robinson on prosecutors' motion to revoke Barry's probation.

After Barry pleaded guilty to tax violations in 2006, the IRS began garnishing $1,350 from his biweekly paychecks the following November, the filing says. But, according to sources consulted by LL, the District government chose not to garnish his wages but negotiate a modest monthly payment plan with Barry. According to the filing, Barry hasn't paid stopped paying the District government last July, and "it was only after motions by the government and the Probation Office [in February] that he renewed his repayment schedule" with the District.

Read More "Feds: Barry Stopped Paying D.C. Back Taxes in July" »

The name of Tee Guidotti, the George Washington University health professor who penned a 2007 study on waterborne lead in the District, has been dragged through the mud in recent weeks, and the professor has now hired a top litigator to help clean it up again.

The controversy originated in articles by Environmental Science and Technology and the Washington Post holding that Guidotti had an undisclosed contractual obligation to the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority to allow the utility to approve his study's results, a serious ethical violation. Guidotti's study found "no identifiable public health impact" from waterborne lead---a conclusion that came under fire this year when another team of researchers contradicted that finding.

Guidotti holds that the agreement with WASA required no such approvals. He had denied the charges personally in an e-mail to LL, who had linked and commented on the stories about the study. And now he has retained Elizabeth G. Taylor, partner at high-stakes litigation boutique Zuckerman Spaeder, to press efforts to clear his name.

Read More "Embattled GWU Lead Researcher Lawyers Up" »

LL was all pumped and ready for the Trial of the Century---that, of course, being the adjudication of Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss' October drunk-driving arrest.

The trial was scheduled for Monday morning in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Marisa J. Demeo, but alas, the drama must wait: Strauss' lawyer filed a motion Monday to postpone the trial. It's been rescheduled for June 3.

In her motion, attorney Claire Morris Clark argued that the city had been tardy with a discovery request---a review of which would be necessary "in order for Mr. Strauss to evaluate his trial strategy and decide whether to proceed to trial or consider attempting to reach a disposition in the matter." Once the discovery was provided on March 6, Strauss sought "potential expert witnesses," but none were available for Monday---thus the continuance request. The government did not oppose.

Clark declines to say what sort of expert witness her client expects to call: "Not going to tell you that just yet," she says.