Last Friday, Pershing Park case lawyers had arranged to depose Detective Paul Hustler. All was going according to routine. Hustler showed up. The OAG lawyers showed up. The day before, he had been prepped by the OAG's team. But just as the deposition was about to start, Hustler made an unusual request.
Hustler wanted his own [...]
In late July, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan called for an investigation into the discovery abuses in the Pershing Park case. Sullivan suggested that the D.C. Council should get to the bottom of how evidence went missing or got botched.
Councilmember Mary Cheh called for AG Peter Nickles to resign. Councilmember Phil Mendelson, who heads [...]
AG Peter Nickles had promised to settle the Pershing Park cases by Thanksgiving. If he wants to make good on that promise, he might start with picking up the phone, and meeting with the plaintiffs lawyers. According to one lawyer, Jonathan Turley, the attorney general has yet to even call him.
While Nickles may not be [...]
The Office of the Attorney General continues to play stall ball in the Pershing Park cases. Recently, District lawyers lost their bid to take back documents previously turned over to plaintiffs attorneys. The fight over the never-ending discovery now centers around the District's filing of a motion for a protective order banning vasts amounts of [...]
In the past few weeks, the Office of the Attorney General has waged a curious battle against plaintiffs in the Pershing Park case.
Attorney General Peter Nickles & Co. fought over whether plaintiffs could depose a government witness. They lost that battle and the deposition provided devastating evidence of more discovery abuses.
The losing fight over the [...]
After some last minute stonewalling by the Office of the Attorney General, Pershing Park plaintiffs were finally allowed to depose a District employee concerning the vast discovery abuses in this mess of a case. Backed up by a court order, the employee was deposed on October 23. According to a filing submitted in U.S. District [...]
At this point in the whole Pershing Park court mess, AG Peter Nickles is supposed to just play nice and hope the two big cases settle. Nickles offered up his problematic mea culpa and promised that settlements would be forthcoming. It appears his sweet talk has an expiration date.
Last week, plaintiffs lawyers in the Chang [...]
Seven years on and still more government documents being "found" and turned over to plaintiffs attorneys in the messy Pershing Park case. Today, AG Peter Nickles filed a notice that roughly 2,000 pages of documents had been produced for the plaintiffs. This is not the first of such notices nor will it be the last.
Nickles [...]
By now, District residents have been well versed on the heroics of Taxicab Commission Chairperson Leon Swain Jr. in the bribery scandal, and the alleged failings of Jim Graham's Chief of Staff Ted Loza. But the majority of the defendants aren't well known.
They are parking lot attendants, gas station workers, people who struggle in the [...]
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 [...]
UPDATE, 6:50 P.M.: LL here. This much is clear: Leon Swain is an amazing informant.
On Sept. 25, he wore a recording device, along with FBI agent John McNair, while meeting with alleged bribery ringleader Yitbarek Syume. The tape was played today in Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson's courtroom during a hearing on whether Syume should [...]
Right now, Abdulaziz Kamus has a lot on his mind. First, there's the fact that he's a central figure in the Ted Loza bribery case (Kamus allegedly joined the Fed probe, wired up, and paid Jim Graham's Right Hand Man $1500 in bribes). Today, we learned that key players in the bribery scandal discussed killing [...]
The back-and-forth continues over the Pershing Park mess in U.S. District Court. Today, AG Peter Nickles filed his response to former Councilmember Kathy Patterson's letter to Judge Emmet Sullivan on Aug. 20.
In his barely three-page response, Nickles provides a nearly substance-free denial of Patterson's claims that his sworn statement had contained inaccuracies. Last week, Nickles [...]
Plaintiffs lawyers in the second Pershing Park case have filed their response to AG Peter Nickles' sworn statement submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan on August 12.
Nickles' statement in which he was ordered to explain numerous discovery problems including a missing police document and faulty radio dispatches has come under heavy fire from [...]
Today, plaintiffs attorneys in one of the Pershing Park cases filed their response to AG Peter Nickles' sworn statement submitted to the court on August 12. The plaintiffs' response is a 26-page takedown of the OAG's and the D.C. Police Department's conduct in the case as well as a refutation of Nickles' own sworn declaration [...]
