The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/white-collar-crime/)
The idea that some corporations are too important to the economy to suffer criminal consequences for wrongdoing only produces higher rates of corporate chicanery, according to a forthcoming study in the Yale Law Review.
Crystal Mason had been convicted of tax fraud in 2011 and was on supervised release in November 2016 when she voted for Hillary Clinton. Texas law requires that felons complete their entire sentence, including supervised release or parole, before they regain the right to vote.
“Why would I vote if I knew I was not eligible? What’s my intent?,” asks Crystal Mason, who is appealing her conviction. Mason says she didn’t realize she was barred from casting a ballot because of a conviction for tax fraud.
“The fact [Michael] Cohen did something illegal doesn’t mean Trump did anything illegal,” said Republican campaign finance lawyer Jan Baran. Cohen said he acted at Trump’s “direction” and violated federal election laws by arranging the payout to porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep her silent about what she said was an affair with Trump a decade earlier.
José Maria Marin was sentenced in a U.S. federal court to four years in prison and ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines and restitution. Judge Pamela Chen called him and others charged with soliciting, paying or accepting bribes in exchange for valuable television and marketing a “cancer” on the sport.
A federal grand jury indicted Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and his wife on charges of improperly using hundreds of thousands of campaign funds to pay for personal expenses, including family vacations and dental work. He is also accused of filing false campaign reports and wire fraud. The case may cost Republicans a badly needed House seat.
Regardless of the outcome of the charges against Paul Manafort now being considered by a federal jury in Virginia, the special counsel’s office has almost three times the number of exhibits it wants to show a jury in Manafort’s next criminal trial.
Closing arguments began on Wednesday in the trial of former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on charges of bank and fax fraud.
In an about-face, U.S. Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) is ending his re-election bid days after he was charged with insider trading. He was indicted Wednesday on charges he passed inside information about a biotechnology company to family members so they could profit from illicit trades. Collins had said he would remain on the ballot and fight the charges.
Rep. Christopher Collins (R-NY), an early backer of President Trump, was charged with participating in an insider-trading scheme to sell shares of an Australian biotechnology company before the public disclosure of a failed drug trial. He intends to stand for re-election.