BFEE Judge who Railroaded Gov. Don Siegelman Relieved of Docket for (allegedly) Beating Ex-Wife

[Octafish]

Alabama: Federal Judge Loses His Docket After an Arrest

By ALAN BLINDER
The New York Times, AUG. 13, 2014

A federal judge who was arrested after he was accused on Saturday of assaulting his wife will not be assigned any new cases for now. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in a statement posted on its website on Wednesday, also said that cases already on the docket of the judge, Mark E. Fuller, would be moved before other judges. Judge Fuller, of the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, was charged with battery after the police were called to a luxury hotel in Atlanta. He was released on bond on Monday on a misdemeanor charge. Judge Fuller joined the bench in Montgomery in 2002 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.

SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/us/alabama-federal-judge-loses-his-docket-after-an-arrest-.html?_r=0

Of course, there's no mention in the NYT article of Fuller's role in railroading Gov. Don Siegelman, let alone what makes him BFEE.

[calikid]

1. I wonder if he still gets paid? n/t

[Octafish]

2. Oh, he gets paid all right.

First, his federal judge's salary comes in until things are adjudicated. What the court reported:

Announcement Regarding Status of
District Judge Mark E. Fuller

The recent arrest of Middle District of Alabama Judge Mark E. Fuller in Atlanta, Georgia, on misdemeanor charges is a matter of public record. The case is pending before the State Court of Fulton County, Georgia.

Effective immediately, all legal matters filed with the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama that are pending before Judge Fuller will be reassigned to other judges in accordance with standard procedures for the assignment of cases. No new legal matters will be assigned to Judge Fuller until further notice.

http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/courtdocs/general/Announcement.pdf

Then, there's his investment income. Who knows how much that is?

[johnnyreb]

3. This story could sell a lot of tv commercials!

Wow, so much juicy stuff. Shady investments, shady rulings, shady ex-wife-beatings, shady connections, shady shadows. Pull one thread, and you got next month's episodes all lined up. It could be a weekly news series!

[Octafish]

5. Will President Obama Maintain Zero Tolerance for Domestic Violence in This Case?

Will President Obama Maintain Zero Tolerance for Domestic Violence in the Case of Federal Judge Mark Fuller?

By Dana Jill Simpson

OpEd, August 13th 2014

Every October President Obama and Vice President Biden speak out against domestic violence and proclaim that they stand for "zero tolerance" regarding this crime. Their speeches often feature the statistic that one in three women in America are impacted by domestic violence. VP Biden, in his first year in office, announced long-time advocate Lynn Rosenthal would be the White House advisor on violence against women, a newly created position because, Biden claimed, his office and the President genuinely believe in zero tolerance for domestic violence. President Obama called on executive heads of federal agencies in 2012 to create policies against domestic violence in their workplaces. In the following years President Obama has signed further laws to protect women who are victims of domestic violence.

This October President Obama and Vice President Biden will be faced with a challenge to the seriousness of their commitment to zero tolerance for domestic violence. They are now confronted by a sitting federal judge in Alabama named Mark Fuller who has been arrested for battery against his wife in the "ritzy" Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Atlanta Georgia. Fuller has been quoted in the press on the day of his release stating that he "just pushed" his wife (Kelly Gregg Fuller) to the ground and was defending himself from an attack by her, triggered by her concerns over his possible infidelity.

However a local news station has obtained and published the audio from Kelley Fuller's 911 call in which you can hear her being hit. The police report also established that there were bruises on Kelly Fuller's legs, cuts on her face and at least one hair plug pulled out and left laying on the floor. There were no marks of any sort on Judge Mark Fuller according to the police. The room was filled with an odor of alcohol and blood was found in the bathroom which is consistent with Kelly's story that she was dragged by her hair around the room.

What is important to note is that Mark Fuller is a federal judge in Montgomery Alabama and was married to Lisa Fuller when reporters started writing about his lack of fidelity to Lisa with his own bailiff, Kelly Gregg who is now his wife and second alleged victim (so far?) of Mark Fuller's alleged violent domestic tendencies.

His first wife (Lisa Fuller) on filing for divorce alleged marital infidelity, domestic violence and prescription drug abuse on Mark Fuller's part. I became aware of this as people active at the courthouse in Montgomery when the divorce was filed asked me to notify reporters who had been covering the Siegelman case so that they could connect the dots between the judge and bailiff who were involved in Gov. Siegelman's prosecution as they felt it was unethical. Around the time that we became aware of Lisa Fuller's divorce, Mark Fuller's lawyer filed to have those divorce records sealed. It is now imperative in my opinion that a new public records request should be filed by reporters covering the Siegelman case and the new Fuller criminal charges in Georgia so that any possible pattern can be established that might affect the course of justice in the Georgia state court system.

CONTINUED...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Will-President-Obama-Maint-by-JillSimpson-JimSim-Federal-Agencies-Enforcement_Federal-Investigations_Judge-Mark-Fuller_Judges-140813-645.html

PS: This is perfect soap opera. You and me can co-produce: "Infidelio." Where's the limo?

[certainot]

4. bet you could pass the guy a few grand on the 9th green and your DUI problems were over!

or with a hundred grand you could get him to help you railroad a democratic governor

[Octafish]

6. Absolute Just-Us.

Here's what Roger Shuler recently posted:

Alabama Federal Judge Who Was Charged With Assaulting Wife Has Faced Charges Of Domestic Abuse In The Past

Legal Schnauzer, Aug. 11, 2014

Quite a few Americans probably were shocked to learn that a federal judge from Alabama was arrested over the weekend on charges of assaulting his wife in an Atlanta hotel room. But to those who have closely followed the career of U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller (Middle District of Alabama), the charges are not a surprise.

During a 2012 divorce from his first wife, Fuller faced allegations of domestic abuse, extramarital affairs, driving under the influence, abuse of prescription medications, and more. Why is that not well known among the public? Here is the likely reason: Lisa Boyd Fuller filed for divorce on May 10, 2012, and her complaint and interrogatories quickly found their way into the Alabama press. The complaint was fairly mild, but the interrogatories raised all sorts of unsavory issues about the judge. Mark Fuller's lawyer then requested that the file be sealed, and an Alabama state judge granted the request, even though divorce records generally are considered public records.

Fuller is best known for presiding over the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. A number of legal experts have stated that Fuller's dubious rulings and failure to handle an apparently tainted jury caused two innocent men to spend time in prison. (Scrushy has served his term; Siegelman remains in federal prison at Oakdale, LA.) Some ethics experts have started that conflicts of interest should have precluded Fuller from ever taking a spot on the federal bench. As an owner in Colorado-based Doss Aviation, Fuller has earned significant sums from U.S. government contracts. When he presides as a federal judge in a criminal matter, one of the parties is the United States Government. That was the case in the Siegelman/Scrushy matter, and defendants argued that Fuller was hardly an impartial arbiter, as required by law. Fuller, however, refused to step down from the case.

Andrew Kreig, of the Justice-Integrity Project, has an excellent overview of the court-related controversies that have swirled around Fuller since his appointment to the federal bench by George W. Bush in 2002.

For now, Fuller is the headlines for problems on the domestic front. And this is not the first time those issues have been in the news--although the Alabama state judiciary mostly covered them up the first time by sealing court records.

CONTINUED w LINKS:

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2014/08/alabama-federal-judge-who-was-charged.html

Of course, Fuller's chums put Legal Schnauzer in the pen to shut him up -- merely for publishing a story about a PUBLIC FIGURE. He's out now.

[certainot]

7. thanks for keeping up with this. americans will be paying a long time for all not going apeshit

when the bushes stole the white house- including this crap- a lot more of those bush/rove appointed stooges still working in high places

[Octafish]

8. It's like the Mafia were in charge...

Come to think of it...The Dixie Mafia answers to a higher power...

CIA-Mafia plots against Castro were authorized by Nixon.

http://www.thehistoryreader.com/contemporary-history/nixons-bay-pigs-secrets/

You are most welcome, certainot. I feel sorry for these bastards. No matter what they do to us, they can't change themselves.

[certainot]

9. heard the tape of johnson referring to the nixon sabotage of vietnam peace talks as treason- to

everrett dirkson. so this was the game:

Newly declassifi ed tapes and documents reveal, however, that LBJ was, indeed, ready to play a huge national security card—the treason card—against Nixon’s desperate Watergate gamble. The ex-president was prepared to disclose that, in 1968, for purely political reasons, presidential candidate Nixon had undermined U.S. efforts to end the Vietnam War. President Nixon dropped the blackmail plan after LBJ’s counterthreat.

thon hartmann recently interviewed his friend lamar waldron on his recent book:
Watergate: The Hidden History: Nixon, The Mafia, and The CIA - sounds like he went into this stuff...

mafia, doing dirty work for CIA

[Octafish]

10. What Nixon later called the ''Bay of Pigs Thing'' during Watergate.

HR "Bob" Haldeman, Nixon's White House chief of staff, in his autobiography "Ends of Power," said that Nixon used to say "Bay of Pigs Thing" as a euphemism for the assassination of President Kennedy.

Nixon tells Haldeman, in ordering him to inform Ehrilchman and Helms about the identity of the Watergate burglars ties to the anti-Castro Cuban community suspected of Dallas...

Nixon: I consider it a top priority that I want the Diem story. Also on the Bay of Pigs thing, just -- I want an order to Helms and ((deputy CIA director Robert)) Cushman that for my purposes, not for public release, I am to have the Bay of Pigs story. Now that's an order. And I expect it in one week, or I want his resignation on my desk. Put it as coldly as that. The Bay of Pigs story, the total story. Tell him I know a lot about it myself. But I've got to have it -- just because I'll be questioned about it myself, and I want to be able to know what to say. The Bay of Pigs story and the Diem story. ... The whole folderol -- the way it happened, I've just got to know. ... I will not brook any opposition on this. I've screwed around long enough. I've told Henry ((Kissinger)) and he has really dropped the ball on this.

March 28, 1973, the Executive Office Building. Despite Nixon's insistence, secret CIA and State Department files on the Diem assassination and the Bay of Pigs are not made public. The President's frustration continues for months, and years:

Nixon: Did you get the word on the declassification of everything over 10 years? That's got to move fast. And not only ((unintelligible)) but the other one's important -- on the Bay of Pigs. Just get the damn thing out, will you? That's going to be quite a story -- a few little morsels. Do you agree?

Haldeman: Yeah.

Nixon: Also gets into the Diem murder and the whole Diem thing. Now the war is over and we're not going to take Henry's crap. Henry's a little bit involved in that himself. That's why he doesn't want some of it declassified.

May 13, 1973, the White House. A telephone conversation between the president and Gen. Alexander Haig, his military adviser. The president, still harping on Diem and the Bay of Pigs, mentions the White House operative E. Howard Hunt, who fabricated diplomatic cables and documents implicating Kennedy:

Nixon: I think we should just declassify everything going back -- everything that's 10 years old, and declassify the whole Bay of Pigs, plus the Diem thing. (Expletive) it, you know, that's -- that can only be helpful. Now you say, "Well, it'll stir things up in Vietnam." The hell with it. You don't like that, huh?

Haig: I'm not sure, sir. I think it's a thing that should be considered. ...

Nixon: Doggone it, I'd like to do it, because -- look, I have not looked at the Bay of Pigs stuff, but I know there's stuff in there that makes ((McGeorge)) Bundy ((Kennedy's national security adviser)) look like a goddamn -- uh, you know, terrible. ... Goddammit, you know what happened is, they set in motion a chain of events which resulted in the murder of Diem.

Haig: Oh, there's no question about that. None. ... In fact, you know, the vice president's aide was there. He was Lodge's assistant ((when Henry Cabot Lodge was ambassador to South Vietnam)). I talked to him some years ago about that.

Nixon: What'd he say?

Haig: He said ... the poor guy called Lodge on the phone, and said, "They're going to kill me, for God's sake, send some Marine guards up here."


BACKGROUND:

https://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Watergate

http://watergate.info/1972/06/23/the-smoking-gun-tape.html

Nixon's worried about Hunt's role and wanted DCI Helms to help shut down that line of FBI investigation. Hunt ties to the Cubans. The Cubans to the Mob and the Mob to the CIA. The CIA connects to Bush and Dulles and ...the MI Complex Right Wing Thing.

[certainot]

11. maybe further declassification will help but i don't think we'll be seeing this stuff in

high school history classes soon.

one that got away- did you ever see the movie "amazing grace and chuck?" with gregory peck as president and a kid playing world anti-nuclear peacemaker?

the thing was a loose reference to 11-13 yo samantha smith and the anti-nuclear PR damage she represented between 1983 and 85 or so to the reagan image and the trillions of $ in missile defense and the MX missile etc boondoggles.

i hope someone will do that story for real some day

[johnnyreb]

12. It's Saturday: do you know where ex-wife beater judge Fuller is?

Hide your daughters.
Lock your doors!
And to avoid a republican state, keep repeating:
It's not just a movie.
Not just a movie.
Not just a movie.

[Octafish]

18. Guy's probably in rehab, getting sobered up quickly so he can return to government service.

Don't want to miss any important cases or anything.

Federal Judge Mark Fuller Arrested After Alleged Spousal Abuse

Jonathan Turley, August 12, 2014

EXCERPT...

Police say that the Fullers have accused each other of starting the fight. Kelli Fuller, 41, said that the fight ensured after she accused her husband of having an affair with a law clerk and that he responded by pulling her hair, throwing her to the ground, and then dragging and kicking her (including several times to the face). The judge insists that his wife threw a drink at him and that he grabbed her and tossed her to the ground in self-defense.

When Mrs. Fuller answered the door, police officers saw visible cuts on her mouth and forehead as well as bruises on her legs. Officers also say that the judge was found on the bed and smelling of alcohol and that they saw glass and hair on the floor as well as blood in the bathroom.

Kelli’s 17-year-old son, Hunter Gregg, told police that the couple has a volatile relationship and that “this was not the first time an incident like this had occurred.” He said that he heard his step father and mother arguing when he passed by their room.

The judge raced a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

Fuller is relatively young and not near retirement from the Middle District of Alabama. He was previously the subject of scathing criticism for his role in the trial of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Fuller, a lifelong Republican and party donor, was accused of a series of conflicts of interest. Those concerns were magnified when Fuller would not accept a hung jury despite twice being informed that the jury could not reach a verdict for Siegelman and co-Defendant Richard Scrushy, founder and former CEO of HealthSouth, on allegations of federal funds bribery. Fuller told the jurors that they could face “a lifetime job . . . as a juror” while noting that he had “a lifetime appointment” and was “a very patient person.” That lifetime job however may not be as secure as he thought.

If convicted of a misdemeanor, the judge could fight any effort of impeachment as falling below the type of conduct warranting removal from the life-time appointment to the federal bench. Private conduct can be grounds for impeachment but the removal provision has been largely confined to breaches connected to the office or crimes that would constitute serious unethical or criminal conduct. Spousal abuse is clearly quite serious but he could argue that the matter was charged as a misdemeanor and has already alleged that there were mitigating circumstances or a defense of innocence in the matter. If he pleads or is found guilty, it could come down to how the final conviction is framed in terms of the specific counts.

SOURCE: http://jonathanturley.org/2014/08/12/federal-judge-mark-fuller-arrested-after-alleged-spousal-abuse/

We don't know what his first wife told the court she thought of him. As the records were conveniently ordered sealed, she surely must have said some really nice things.

[sabrina 1]

13. Still waiting for the DOJ to do with the Siegelman case what they did with Ted Steven's case.

Still waiting for the Dem leadership to stand up for one of their best who was railroaded, and it's not as if there is not evidence of this, by the minions of Karl Rove.

The DOJ however, DID look into the conviction of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens due to problems with the prosecution, which there were apparently, and overturned that conviction.

Imo, that was the right thing to do IF there was any sign of corruption of the system of justice.

There is NO doubt at all about corruption in Siegelman's case, yet the DOJ has yet to do for him what they did for Stevens.

No surprise at all that that corrupt judge would also be a wife beater.

[Octafish]

17. The ''best'' spin is the administration had to make a deal with Alabama's US Senators...

...in order to get their judicial nominations and other presidential appointments through. And that makes it even more wrong, IMFO.

Alabama Judicial Scandal Could Taint Many Cases, Not Just Siegelman’s

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Andrew Kreig

EXCERPT...

Bigger Stakes Than Siegelman’s Fate

The Siegelman case has thus attracted the most attention to Fuller’s courtroom.

But from the first, our Project and others have shown that the case was just one part of a pattern involving other disgraceful conduct within the justice system. My 2009 Huffington Post column, Alabama Decisions Illustrate Abuse of Judicial Power, showed how Fuller shaped in highly dubious ways litigation outcomes in election, employment and environmental cases.

None of this should have been a surprise. In 2002, Alabama’s pension officials thwarted Fuller’s effort as a full-time state prosecutor to bilk the system out of $330,000 by his advocacy of unmerited pension benefits for a former staffer.

Yet Alabama’s two Republican senators, Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, pushed Fuller forward for a lifetime appointment, which Fuller received from a 2002 unanimous voice vote by the United States Senate with no serious discussion of his Doss, pension or other sensitive matters.

Most dramatically, Missouri attorney Paul B. Weeks III filed with Fuller in 2003 a remarkable 180-page brief to show that Fuller should recuse himself from a major civil case litigated by Weeks. In it, Weeks argued also Fuller should be impeached for corruption in trying to bilk Alabama’s pension system of $330,000 when Fuller was a state prosecutor before his judicial confirmation in 2002.

Weeks discovered from confidential interviews in Alabama that one of Fuller’s prosecution office employees appeared to be pressuring him to get unmerited retirement money, using as leverage Fuller’s secret Doss work during his full-time state job and Fuller’s purported romantic affair with a prosecution-office underling (different than Gregg).

The 2003 filing was never posted electronically in the federal court files controlled by the Montgomery federal court clerk’s office. That’s yet another mysterious circumstance in a courthouse seemingly teeming with unresolved irregularities. But we have obtained and preserved the filing in two sections, here (the Affidavit and Exhibits 1 to 13) and here. All of this history is in the Weeks filing and in our previous columns.

Doss last year boasted on its website, that it expected billions of dollars in forthcoming federal contracts. But that announcement along with much of the rest of the company’s institutional history has since been purged from the site following the company’s acquisition in December by J.F. Lehman, a private firm controlled by a former Navy Secretary by that name. The sale keeps the firm’s finances private.

Fuller’s wife is seeking an accounting of family assets. Fuller has asked that Montgomery County’s Circuit Court 15 seal his file over the objections of his wife. This would be an unusual development in a divorce case, and would underscore how judges and court personnel protect each other from public scrutiny.

CONTINUED...

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/05/alabama-judicial-scandal-could-taint-many-cases-not-just-siegelmans.html

Destroying two innocent men's lives isn't politics. It's crime. Letting it stand when aware that it's wrong is something worse.

[KoKo]

14. K&R!

[Octafish]

19. His Honor may not be the worst on the Dixie Mafia bench. John D ''Roy'' Atchison is a name to know.

This guy hinted there are much, much worse:



The late US Attorney John David R. Atchison,
the GOP family values husband and father
arrested in Michigan after showing up for sex with a minor.

The family man promised what he thought was the 5-year old girl's mother he wouldn't hurt the child -- stating he'd done it before. In reality, he was corresponding with an undercover sheriff's deputy in Michigan. Atchison showed up at the airport with a big smile and some toys.

Originally from Alabama, the guy was a riser in the Dixie GOP. Like so many of the evil ilk, after his arrest he tried suicide in jail, the second time successfully. I was very surprised at the news of his death, considering how much the guy revealed about online predators and so forth.

Later on, I wondered if he was friends with Bob Riley, Mark Fuller and the rest of the Alabama Old GOP Boys.

What Metacrawler turned up:

The Strange Tale of a Pedophile in the U.S. Justice Department

Legal Schnauzer, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2010

The U.S. Department of Justice generated plenty of strange stories during the George W. Bush years. But one of the strangest involved John David "Roy" Atchison, an assistant U.S. attorney in Pensacola, Florida, who committed suicide after being caught in a pedophilia sting in Detroit.

Atchison's sad story has many connections to Birmingham and Alabama. And it raises this question: How did a guy with a shaky work record and a history of run-ins with the law get hired by the world's supposedly foremost crime-fighting organization? Did Atchison attain his lofty position because he had connections to powerful figures in the Alabama legal world?

Investigative journalist Margie Burns examines these questions, and much more, in a series of posts about the Atchison case at her blog, margieburns.com.

Burns begins with the actions that turned Atchison into a national figure in fall 2007:

This is not the story of a man who engaged in pedophilia for years or decades before being caught. It is the story of a man whipsawed by the strain of living up to a high-achieving family rooted in Birmingham, Ala., whose high-functioning connections assisted him for years in developing a career for which he turned out not to be suited. On Sept. 16, 2007, Assistant U.S. Attorney John David Roy Atchison, serving as a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Florida, was arrested on credible charges of basically pedophilia. Atchison committed suicide in federal prison Oct. 5.

A dead pedophile might not sound like a tragedy. But Atchison was thought to be participating in a pedophile ring, and his death removed a useful informant from law enforcement resources. The question of how he was enabled to kill himself rather than being preserved for justice is one of the loose ends left hanging in his case.

CONTINUED 'though I wish it didn't...

http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2010/09/strange-tale-of-pedophile-in-us-justice.html

[/div class="excerpt"]

Margie Burns detailed how the guy rose up through the GOP ranks, warts and all. When Fuller and Atchison are given authority to put people behind bars on behalf of Uncle Sam, these are worse than NAZI times.

[Uncle Joe]

15. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Octafish]

20. You are most welcome, Uncle Joe! GOP crooks are terrible people to think about.

Remember Legal Schnauzer, himself railroaded by the Dixie Mafia for pointing out Siegelman's plight -- called Mark Fuller the ENRON Judge. While the nation's press corpse can't or won't protect him from these satanic warmongers and traitors, it's up to us as.

Thank you for wanting to learn about them in order to keep their kind out of office, where their behavior is precisely what a truly great Democrat described:

"When demagoguery and deceit become a national political movement, we Americans are in trouble, not just Democrats, but ALL of us…Corruption in public office is treason." -- Adlai Stevenson, Jr.

[jwirr]

16. Any chance that buddy boy get to go to the same jail Don Siegelman is in?

[Octafish]

21. That would be a happy thought.

Gov. Siegelman is a black belt.

[jwirr]

22. LOL and cheering.

[Octafish]

23. More for the Pen: William Pryor, Leura Canary, Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff...

One of the people handling the Just-Us happened to be on the other end of the microscope, but got, eh, off...

William “Bill” Holcombe Pryor

Former Alabama Attorney General and a Federal Judge on the United
States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

William Pryor was a ferociously partisan figure and one of the
most controversial judicial nominees in recent memory; he
previously served as Alabama’s attorney general.

Sometimes in the game of judicial politics, presidents will
nominate a so-called "stealth candidate" - a little-known lawyer
or judge with no public record on controversial legal issues who
can slip under the Senate's radar to confirmation.

As a nominee to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Alabama
Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr. would be the opposite - a
B-52 candidate, if you will - who has spent his career flying high,
carpet-bombing the landscape with conservative views on
federalism, abortion, church-state separation and a host of
crime and punishment issues.

Born in Mobile, Alabama he was raised a devout Roman
Catholic. He attended McGill -Toolen Catholic High School in
Mobile and earned his B.A. from Northeast Louisiana University
in 1984 and his J.D. from Tulane University School of Law in
1987, where he served as editor in chief of the Tulane Law
Review. Pryor served as a law clerk to Judge John Minor
Wisdom of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit from 1987 to 1988. Pryor worked as a private attorney
from 1988-95, serving as adjunct professor at the Cumberland
School of Law at Samford University from 1989-95. Pryor
currently teaches federal jurisdiction at the University of
Alabama School of Law.

From 1995-97, he served as Alabama deputy attorney general
and became Alabama attorney general in 1997. He was, at that
time, the youngest state attorney general in the United States.
Pryor was elected in 1998 and reelected in 2002. In his
reelection, Pryor garnered nearly 59 percent of the votes, the
highest percentage of any statewide candidate.

In 2007 Time Magazine Investigations revealed previously
unknown sworn testimony that landfill developer Lanny Young
admitted to making donations totaling between $12,000 and
$15,000 to Pryor's campaign for state attorney general. This
was illegal at the time, so Young named four people who "all
wrote checks to Pryor's campaign and were reimbursed by
Young for their contributions." Lanny confessed that If I was
there, "I would write them out or just sign them, and they would
fill in who it was to or whatever." According to Young, a top
official on Pryor's campaign "would call and say, 'I need money
for this, this or this,'" and Young would take care of the request.
("I do not have a recollection of the amounts that you describe
as having been contributed by Lanny Young or his associates to
my campaign," Pryor wrote in an e-mail to TIME.)

Among the illegal actions alleged in the Siegelman indictment
that Bill Pryor initiated was Siegelman's acceptance from Young
of thousands of dollars' worth of free T shirts and hundreds of
specially embossed coffee mugs to give away as Christmas
presents. The freebies were popular, said Young. "I had got
them coffee cups and stuff before and shirts, and I had the
same thing for Bill ." Young estimated the value of the
mugs at $13,000 to $15,00.

Despite his own blatant violations of contribution law, Pryor used
his position to initiate a criminal investigation of Siegelman within
weeks of Siegelman’s inauguration as governor. During this time
Leura Canary worked for Pryor ('99 -'01). Throughout the
history of the Siegelman investigation and prosecution, Pryor
figures right at the center of it ultimately, after concluding that
there was an insufficient basis under Alabama law to act,
lobbying the Justice Department to bring a case. Throughout
this period, Pryor consulted with and involved senior Alabama
GOP figures in the matter. Pryor is also a friend and confidant of
Karl Rove, whom he hired to manage his election campaign, and
who played a key role in his ascendancy to the federal bench.

Pryor, who was notoriously eager to get a position on the federal
bench and whose nomination proved the most controversial
single judicial appointment ever made by George W. Bush, had
another key political advisor to whom he turned for support: Karl
Rove. Pryor was nominated to the Eleventh Circuit by
President George W. Bush on April 9, 2003 to fill a seat vacated
by Judge Emmett Ripley Cox, who assumed Senior status. After
his nomination stalled in the Senate due to Democratic
opposition, he was installed as judge via recess appointment on
February 20, 2004 during the Congress's recess period,
bypassing the U.S. Senate confirmation process. Pryor resigned
as attorney general that same day and took his judicial oath for
a term lasting until the end of 2006 when the next Congressional
session would begin.

Many Democrats criticized him for his extreme right-wing views
and reputation as a conservative who lacked the temperament
to avoid being an "activist" judge. Pryor's nomination was
prevented from being put to a vote in the U.S. Senate by
Democrats who had filibustered his nomination.

On May 23, 2005 Senator John McCain announced an
agreement between seven Republican and seven Democratic U.
S. Senators, the Gang of 14, to ensure an up-or-down vote on
Pryor and several other stalled Bush nominees, including
Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. On June 9, 2005, he
was confirmed to the Eleventh Circuit by a vote of (53-45). He
received his commission on June 10, 2005 and on June 20,
2005, he was sworn in to his new lifetime judicial position at the
age of 43.

In his political campaigns, Pryor spoke ceaselessly about the
“corruption” of the Democratic administration in Alabama, and
made no bones about his desire to maneuver prosecutorial
resources to accomplish a political mission. And working at his
side on this project, as an assistant, was Leura Canary–until
President Bush picked her to be the U.S. Attorney in
Montgomery.

And William Pryor’s other main political advisor throughout this
period was Leura’s husband, Bill Canary.

Harper's 7/13/07
Harper's 9/14/07
Wikipedia
TIME/CNN 10/4/07
SourceWatch.org William Pryor
.........................................................................................

SOURCE:

http://donsiegelman.org/Pages/topics/Players/Attorneys/attorneys_Bill_Pryor.html

There's not much justice when the law works for just-us.

Abramoff and Karl Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor and Campaign Finances

Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor

By ADAM ZAGORIN/WASHINGTON
Friday, Jun. 01, 2007

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1627427,00.html?xid=rss-nation

In the rough and tumble of Alabama politics, the scramble for power is often a blood sport. At the moment, the state's former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys.

Now Karl Rove, the President's top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy. A long time Republican lawyer in Alabama swears she heard a top G.O.P. operative in the state say that Rove "had spoken with the Department of Justice" about "pursuing" Siegelman, with help from two of Alabama's U.S. attorneys. ..............

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From June 3, 2005 by the Boston Globe
Gambling, GOP Politics Intertwine
Casino Payments Seen as Influential
by Michael Kranish - http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0603-08.htm


WASHINGTON -- George W. Bush gave the nation's gambling industry plenty of reason to fear his presidency. .... He wooed religious conservatives by boasting in a presidential debate about his ''strong antigambling record."

But as president, Bush has not spoken out against gambling. .... as Republican lobbyists and activist groups collected tens of millions of dollars from Indian tribes seeking to preserve their casinos. Now those payments are the focus of Senate and Justice Department investigations.

... White House ... annual sessions over a four-year period that were arranged by antitax crusader Grover Norquist ... After Bush dropped his antigambling rhetoric, lobbyists touted their access, and fund-raising from Indian tribes grew exponentially.

...Norquist('s) ... organization received $1.5 million from tribes and fought a tax on Indian casinos; lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a top Bush fund-raiser who earned millions of dollars in fees as a consultant to gaming tribes; and Ralph Reed ... allegedly used some money from Indian gaming tribes to fund his efforts to close down rival casinos and lotteries

.........Bush worked closely with religious conservatives, especially Reed....

..... Tiguas poured tens of thousands of dollars into the campaign of the Democrat running against Bush in 1998 .... Bush redoubled his earlier efforts to shut down the Tigua casino. ... special appropriation ... for the state's attorney general, John Cornyn, now a US senator, to take legal action against the tribe.....

Abramoff, who helped arrange for the rival tribes to give the money to Reed's group, turned around and offered his services to the Tiguas -- for $4.2 million in fees split between himself and a partner

..... Abramoff and his partner in Indian gaming consulting would receive more than $60 million in fees from six different tribes seeking to advance their gambling interests ... Abramoff also told the tribes to give money ... the tribes gave $3 million, two-thirds of it to Republicans

.... Abramoff and Norquist .. worked (for) ... candidate ... following year, Abramoff and Norquist came to Washington together to lead the Republican Party's national effort to recruit college students. Reed soon joined ...


In 1999, Don Siegelman, the Democratic governor of Alabama, proposed a lottery that would have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into public schools and even provided free college education for most Alabama high school graduates.

Reed, rallying religious conservatives, set out to try to defeat it ... quickly raised $1.15 million .... money came from Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist ... got the funds from an Indian gaming tribe ...At the time Reed raised the money, he was working for Abramoff ... and Abramoff represented the Mississippi tribe.

Siegelman ..."'I don't know how they can sleep at night taking money from the Indian casinos to deny Alabama schoolchildren...."

.... Abramoff, meanwhile, appears to be the central focus ....Bush has not spoken on the matter.

Money trumps peace and justice.