
Miami U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI accused of spying on defense in fraud case - ALee
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2016/06/u-s-attorneys-office-fbi-accused-of-spying-on-defense-in-fraud-case/
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will_brown
Notwithstanding Counsel for the Defense claiming it was both a US Attorney and
FBI practice, the facts suggest the prosecutors actually did the right thing
and immediately upon learning about the FBI Agent's copying of documentation,
they disclosed the information to the Defense and called for an outside
investigation.

>“What remedies, if any, are available to the court were the court to find
that the described conduct in defendant Schapiro’s motion is a systemic,
consistent and/or pervasive practice of or on behalf of the United States
Attorney’s Office?”

Even though, based on the limited facts, it suggests the Defense doesn't have
proof anyone at the US Attorney Office was involved, the Judge is taking the
allegations so serious (which they are, even if just as to a rouge FBI Agent),
that she is saying lets assume everything is true...lets get it out on the
record now what powers the Court has, then we can get into the evidentiary
hearing...that is awesome.

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zaroth
It wasn't limited to just a single agent, Imaging Universe (the government
contracted mandated provider of copying services for discovered documents)
admits to doing this since 2006 at the request of the FBI.

The US Attorney disclosed, at least in this case, the defense-selected
documents were used to help prepare government expert witnesses. Woah...

~~~
will_brown
>It wasn't limited to just a single agent, Imaging Universe (the government
contracted mandated provider of copying services for discovered documents)
admits to doing this since 2006 at the request of the FBI.

Definitely that is what the defense is arguing, but is it true/can it be
proved? I read the admission to mean just the 1 Agent:

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office has admitted that Agent Deanne Lindsey had been
receiving copies of the CDs and had been keeping the duplicate CDs in a folder
as she received them,”

On second reading, I think I see what the Government response to the Motion
will be based this little excerpt:

>"The government’s Thursday night response acknowledged that Imaging Universe
did supply the FBI with duplicate CDs of what the company had copied for
Schapiro’s defense team, but said the discs “were never requested by any
agent, prosecutor or anyone else on the government’s behalf.”"

I think what they will argue in Court is that the Contractor gave them (US
Attorney and/or FBI) attorney-client privileged documents in error and they
didn't do anything wrong because they were not requested by the Government and
as soon as the prosecutors learned what the Contractor did they disclosed it.
They might even say the one Agent didn't do anything wrong by "reviewing"
these documents because the Agent, not being a lawyer, subjectively believed
they were in rightful possession. Its actually an argument the government uses
a lot to circumvent the 4th Amendment protection of illegal searches and
seizures. More specifically, the 4th Amendment only applies to
searches/seizures of the Government and the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to
searched by non-government entities. The big question is if the Defense truly
has some smoking gun evidence of the government (FBI and/or US Attorney)
requesting Imaging Universe copy the work product documents.

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keithpeter
_" Specifically, the court papers allege that Fort Lauderdale-based copying
service Imaging Universe and president Ignacio E. Montero provided the
government with CDs containing duplicates of documents Schapiro’s defense team
culled from 220 boxes of evidentiary records in preparation for trial. Federal
agents had seized those records from the mental-health clinic Biscayne Milieu,
where Schapiro worked."_

So in future the defence must request copies of _all_ 'evidentary records' by
default so that the authorities can obtain no advantage?

~~~
Phlarp
IANAL: Wouldn't any evidence gained from 'mental-health clinical records' be
inadmissible anyway? Something about doctor-patient confidentiality?

Come to think of it, shouldn't these records as a whole also be inadmissible
because of the whole attorney client privilege thing?

Or is this just a "sneak and peak" tactic to get insights into the
opposition's strategy?

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mandevil
In a trial over medical fraud (as the case in question is), patient records
are the key evidence! Depending on the type of fraud alleged (haven't looked
into this case in particular) either the argument is that the treatments were
unnecessary, or they were never delivered, etc. But when investigating if the
doctor committed crimes, normal rules of doctor-patient confidentiality don't
apply.

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dsfyu404ed
Totally unsurprising. When someone in government wants to get something shady
like this done all they have to do is verbally gripe about it "too bad we
can't legally obtain copies of everything the defense copies" whoever hears
the gripe knows that it's a suggestion to go get it done without telling the
boss. Doing it this way the responsibility chain gets fuzzy preventing anyone
from getting seriously punished in the future. The people that heard the gripe
go tell someone below them to ask the copy service if it's "technically
possible" (or some intentionally ambiguous language) to get copies. Those
people go coerce the copy center into cooperating and then tell their boss
that the answer is "they can't do that but they sent this stack of CDs
instead." The person they give the CDs to then turns to whoever was
complaining in the first place and says "the copy service just sent us these
out of the blue."

Granted that's a specific example and probably not how it unfolded in real
life but it highlights the "don't ask don't tell" culture that perpetuates
corruption and skirting of rules/regulation. Everyone has skin in the game so
everyone keeps their mouth shut.

It's the same culture that results in something unethical but profitable at
low levels and higher ups claiming ignorance. They're ignorant to specifics
but they know that it's the job of those in the middle to keep the specifics
away from them.

the copy service owner is about to get screwed when the FBI tries to blame him
for all of it regardless of his level of involvement.

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bediger4000
Taken in context with a lot of other... misbehavior by the FBI (like the
various near-entrapment "terrorism" cases, for example) this makes me think
that the FBI consistently treats the Federal Judiciary as some kind of CYA
checklist item, to officially justify punishing people that the FBI has
decided should be punished. As long as nothing the FBI does is... illegal, (or
exposed) they seem to feel that they have a right or mandate to do it, rules,
laws or ethics be damned.

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JustSomeNobody
Montero needs to lawyer up fast. The FBI is about to toss a buss on him.

~~~
kabdib
Wonder what they had on him?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Yeah, no doubt.

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mwcampbell
The first two letters of the title are capitalized. That's almost certainly a
typo.

~~~
dang
Fixed above.

