Rubashkin: WSJ on egregious prosecutorial misconduct

marina

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 12:54 pm

Ugh, just stop it pple. His sentence was obv too long, but he was offered a plea bargain and turned it down and his attorney from another case literally told the federal government that all his workers in Brooklyn were illegals.

There may have been misconduct and it's fine to fight for clemency, but the first thing to find out is whether his attorneys even filed for it.

Hillary? Give me a break. She didn't hire illegals and she didn't inflate her earnings to get more money from the bank and she didn't pay people under the table.

marina

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 12:57 pm

debsey wrote:

It's frustrating when you read about Rubashkin, where there was clear prosecutorial misconduct and a clearly uneven playing field - and those of us in his community, who should have his back, are busy bashing him to promote an agenda.

We are all Rubashkin, people! I still maintain that if an African American defendant had been treated with the same level of unfairness, all the liberal Jews who are bashing Rubashkin would be up in arms protesting.

So I'm with Groisamama - I know exactly the frustrated place she is coming from.

We are not all Rubashkin. Rubashkin was a product of a system that didn't teach its kids about honesty in the financial world and the importance of following government regulations. Hopefully, they are making changes to that, but I don't think it's enough. That's why there will certainly be more Rubashkins in the future.

And there are many AA defendants and white ones and ones of all ethnicities who get a shitty deal from our justice system. Linda Read is well known for her harsh sentences in general.

debsey

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 1:06 pm

marina wrote:

WADR, I think you are very naive. I belong to a lot of professional listservs, and one social justice listserve asked law students to come down to Iowa and help all the workers at Rubashkin's plant file for diplomatic immunity. They had helpful suggestions like "if you can jog their memories about s-xual misconduct, that's perfect." All in the name of "justice." Because "jogging people's memory" about events that may not have happened is getting pretty close to suborning perjury, in my books. I guess it's justice when the victim has a beard and subscribes to traditional religious beliefs.

You have no idea how many young professionals - law students, forensic psychology students -volunteered. You seriously want to tell me all that is just plain idealism? There's not a whiff of anything else? Did you read the amicus curiae brief? This case seemed like it was handled in an evenhanded and fair manner to you? Because a lot of well-respected legal scholars would disagree. What about the "no Rubashkins" directive? Did that seem like justice to you?

marina

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 1:18 pm

debsey wrote:

Debsey, it's not a dichotomy here. I can agree with you that the case was not handled in an evenhanded and fair manner and I can also point out that he was not an innocent victim who did nothing wrong. This happens all the time in the criminal justice system. People do things wrong and the law utterly fails them.

I believe quite a few allegations against him because (1) I read the NLRB brief submitted by his attorneys when the Brooklyn workers want to unionize; and (2) I have a close relative who worked there who was specifically told that you cannot work on the books if you want to be employed here and don't file any workman's comp claims if you get hurt.

mommy3b2c

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 1:21 pm

marina wrote:

Even if all that you say is true, your smug attitude of "he got what was coming to him" is really disturbing.

debsey

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 1:28 pm

marina wrote:

OK, our positions are closer than I thought. I can't comment as to wrongdoing in his case because I don't know for sure. But I do know that a lot about how that cases was handled was seriously wrong, and I smell anti-Semitism, and anti-Orthodox sentiment amongst Jews who would rather work with anti-Semites than admit that anti-Semitism is still alive and well.

The punishment did not fit the crime. The reason for that is that Rubashkin is an Orthodox Jew. That's what I mean when I say "we are all Rubashkin." I already posted on here how a JUDGE made a comment about how "all you Hassidic people" do something to me - in a non-professional context - and how creeped out I was.

Anti-Orthodox sentiment is alive and well. What I would say to anyone frum in a position of prominence is - don't put a toe over the line. Even if it's a gray area, and even if it's "accepted practice" or you know 300 non-Jewish colleagues who do it. If it ever comes up for review - YOU will be the one prosecuted. I realize I say that as a compliance professional, and we tend to be very black-and-white about the rules, but I seriously believe the level of risk you take when using a gray area as an Orthodox Jew is a heck of a lot higher than if your name is Antonio Robinson.

marina

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 1:42 pm

debsey wrote:

Anti-semitism is alive and well and will just get worse, unfortunately, during this administration, because civil rights are not particularly valued by the Trump team.

I do not know to what extent Linda Read was anti-semitic or anti chassidic, because she does have some history of excessive sentencing for other people as well. I must say that the threats she received from Jews during that time period probably didn't help.

Orchid

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 1:58 pm

marina wrote:

But what is riling up all the legal scholars, AGs, former judges, etc. is not that Linda Reade sentences on the high end, which I guess she technically has the leeway to do. It's that the very basis for sentencing - which was the loss suffered by the bank - was fraudulently driven up by the prosecution team.

That he didn't let workers unionize or committed payroll fraud by your relative is not at all relevant to this particular case. Is he guilty of other crimes? Dunno, could be. Right now we are focusing on the crime that generated a 27 year sentence based on a supposed $27 million loss suffered by the bank (a 1 year term for each $1 million suffered).

Fox

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 2:40 pm

marina wrote:

I do not know to what extent Linda Read was anti-semitic or anti chassidic, because she does have some history of excessive sentencing for other people as well. I must say that the threats she received from Jews during that time period probably didn't help.

Well, those Jews must have been unusually prescient if they were threatening Judge Reade beginning six months before R' Rubashkin's arrest -- because that's when she became involved in the case:

Huffington Post, 6/13/2011 wrote:

Internal government documents, discovered by Rubashkin’s lawyers for the first time after his trial, showed that the trial judge — who is, indeed, the Chief Judge of the Federal Court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — met frequently, sometimes weekly, with the prosecutors and law enforcement agents in planning and executing the raid for six months before the raid and Rubashkin’s arrest, in which the following was discussed:

* Prosecutors gave the judge “a briefing” regarding the number of criminal prosecutions they intended to pursue relative to this investigation.

* Prosecutors discussed with the judge possible dates for the raid, which would meet the judge’s scheduling needs.

* The judge stated she was “willing to support the operation in any way possible.”

* The judge and prosecutors in one of the meetings discussed “an overview of charging strategies.”

* The judge directed the prosecutors to provide her with a “final game plan” by a certain deadline.

* One ICE email describes the judge as a “stakeholder” in the raid.

A few points about these meetings. The meetings were private and secret. The meetings were never disclosed to Rubashklin or his lawyers, either by the prosecutors or the judge — even after Rubashkin was arraigned and represented by counsel in court. When the defense lawyers first learned about these contacts after the trial and sought a new trial based on the judge’s secret involvement with the prosecution, the judge rejected the claim, stating that her involvement was merely “logistical.” Logistical? If these conferences were merely logistical, why didn’t either the judge or the prosecutors have the good sense to make a stenographic record of the meetings in which the judge was described as a “stakeholder”? Why did the defense only learn about them for the first time through a Freedom of Information Act request? If these numerous contacts between the trial judge and the prosecutors who would be trying the case before her were so innocuous, why were they concealed from the defendant and the public?

Dragging Trump's anticipated prioritization of civil rights into this is ridiculous. The Obama admnistration has had 8 years to fix this -- at the behest of heavy-hitters in one of the few truly bipartisan groups assembled in recent years -- and has chosen not to do so.

marina

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 5:50 pm

debsey wrote:

Trump and Hilary have nothing to do with this at all. The only relevance the POTUS has is if Obama does the right thing and pardons Rubashkin (not holding my breath.)

Obama is not even going to think about pardoning him unless his attorneys filed for clemency. So not holding your breath is a good plan.

Fox, what did you want the Obama administration to do? And do administrations often do this?

Also not sure how your comments about Linda Reade's involvement relate to anything I said. Obviously, she acted unethically, assuming the allegations are true. You're suggesting that the threats had nothing to do with her sentencing decision? Ok. I'm not sure I agree.

SixOfWands

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 8:10 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

With regards to commutation/pardon, has the defendants lawyers even applied for it?

I would assume so. But there are currently about 12,000 petitions for commutation pending. https://www.justice.gov/pardon.....stics While he's relatively high profile, I would think that Leonard Peltier is more prominent, and likely to be addressed before Rubashkin. (I'm not going to address whether or not he should be released.) Not sure if the President is able to pardon Mumia Abu Jamal (who IMNSHO deserves to stay in prison forever) but, again, its higher profile.

Why all this focus on President Obama, though? Y'all despise him. Why aren't you 100% convinced that your new president, who personifies all that is good and right, will pardon Rubashkin or commute his sentence on January 20? Why not put all of your efforts there?

debsey

Mon, Nov 28 2016, 8:18 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

speak for yourself. Lots of people on here are not exactly in favor of our new president. But it's unlikely that a president will pardon someone the minute he assumes office. That's usually done as a lame duck, as the president leaves office. Too much political fallout with too little gain, earlier on in the presidency.