Republican Prosecutors and a Local Alabama Newspaper, An Overly Cozy Relationship

[L. Coyote]

Republican Prosecutors and a Local Alabama Newspaper, An Overly Cozy Relationship
August 21, 2008 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/republican-prosecutors-an_b_120331.html


....... In April 2006, The Birmingham News began running a series of articles on "corruption" within Alabama's two-year college system. The reporting focused on a number of House Democrats who were engaged in "double-dipping" at the expense of Alabama taxpayers. "Double-dipping" became a political catchphrase in Alabama. What wasn't The Birmingham News talking about? The outside employment and business interests of Republican politicians, among other things.

A few weeks after The Birmingham News started going after Democratic representatives who "double-dipped" within the two-year college system, U.S. Attorney Alice Martin started hauling in witnesses for her grand jury investigation. The first case she brought to trial, over two years later, is against Sue Schmitz.

Schmitz never intended to look for job, according to the criminal indictment. Rather, in December 2002 Schmitz, "devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud and obtain money and property belonging to others by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises." And, "it was further part of the scheme and artifice that defendant Schmitz sought to facilitate her fraudulent activity by seeking and obtaining authorization to perform services for the CITY Program on a 'flexible work schedule.'"

Let me spell it out for the non-lawyers. Prosecutor Martin isn't alleging that Schmitz pulled strings to get a cushy part-time job and then failed to perform. That isn't a crime. Instead, Martin alleges that Schmitz had the specific intent, before she ever got a job offer, to take the money and in return do nothing. And Martin says she can prove this beyond a reasonable doubt. Again, at the risk of being didactic, beyond a reasonable doubt means there can be no plausible alternative explanation.

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