If you are coming to DC - for any reason - please be advised that DC has extremely restrictive gun & weapon laws. It will not honor your state’s carry permit, for example. It would be wise to leave your weapons at home. If you do get charged, you can contact me via my website. /1
I take any & all gun cases. Unlike many defense lawyers here, I will litigate the Constitutionality of DC’s laws if the case has a good argument for it & the client’s willing to - which often requires rejecting a plea & going to trial. That requires committing more resources- /2
Time, Money, Energy, Travel back here, Emotional & Psychological Toughness. It’s not cheap -in any way- to fight these. If you’re not willing to do that, save yourself the trouble & leave your weapons at home. People think they will fight, but many don’t when faced w/the costs./3
I will represent people either way - fight or plead. Each case is different & depends on the facts, the law, & the client’s history & objectives.
Just be sure you’re willing to endure the process if you bring your
weapon(s) to DC. Once you’re charged, you’re in the process.
If you do get charged (with a gun case or otherwise) in DC, Maryland, or Virginia, you can message me thru mcadoolaw.com to start my intake process.
Stay safe & be wise, patriots.
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Latham's pleading isn't terrible. It's not fairly arguing the law or the facts, but it's polished work product, the prose is clear, it's clean in terms of grammar & citations, etc. It's just full of malarky arguments. But, it's obviously not written by DC lawyers. /1
It's got a table of contents, which few if any of us here use in memoranda for motions in the district court. The judge will likely notice that. And, the proposed order is attached to the document, it should be file separately. The clerk might complain about that. /2
I think the real goal of it is to start educating the judge on the defense theory of materiality rather than expecting him to dismiss on that basis. He'll have to give a jury instruction on it. Materiality is a frequently contested issue in false statements cases. /3
So apropos of my question last night about who paid for the GATech researchers, I remembered that @ProfMJCleveland had sent FOIA requests to the University, so I asked her if any related to when the billing to DARPA began, & one did. See her tweet here 👇
Since the USAF wouldn't concur w/DARPA to let GATech bill on to contract before it was officially awarded, that most likely means GATech paid for the research work. This is important for the issue of whether there was mis-billing to the federal govt by Joffe; it appears not./2
That would support my analysis yesterday that Joffe appears to have off-loaded the costs of the research he was doing to his company that doesn't have a govt contract & to someone else - turns out it was GATech. This helps him avoid a criminal false claim charge. /3
Reading the indictment again it seems clear that Joffe affirmatively tried to structure the project to avoid a false billing (to the govt) problem. He had to use Neustar’s data but he offloaded the actual work to GATech & employees of a sub that only had private sector clients./1
And to their credit, I will say, & good for them, even they questioned it & said it wasn’t really a use to which that the data should be put. /2
This is Company-3. The indictment specifically says they had private sector clients. (Good prosecutors don’t put things in indictments for no reason.) These were the employees Joffe used to write some of the reports, not Neustar’s.
/3
According to Durham, Joffee “tasked” researchers to find the data that was given to the feds. How did the research time get billed?
That could potentially be a fruitful avenue - fraudulent billing, (apropos of what criminal statutes are available.)
You can’t bill the govt for work that doesn’t benefit the govt customer under your contract or grant with them.
Lorenzen also. (Originator-1) She was a researcher at GA Tech & guided the 2 researchers for Joffe's "tasking." Who paid for the time spent on that? GA Tech? DARPA? Won't be surprised if it was the latter, tho it might be the former as the K wasn't final yet.
@ProfMJCleveland@15poundstogo@Techno_Fog So in this case it could be new charges or it could be a hearing on a violation of release conditions, or it could simply be that the clerk issued a summons that he's required to appear at the hearing coming up that the judge set for the discovery issues, tho that's less likely.
What's interesting about this, legally, is that the Speech & Debate Clause protects members of Congress from being questioned about their views/positions/etc. "in any other Place," meaning they can't be questioned by police or other executive branch actors or in the courts.
/1
The clause applies to materials prepared for use in the legislative branch too, but not to materials produced for other purposes, say for example, a newsletter. So, you could sue a congressman for defaming you on Twitter for example. The clause is a separation of powers tool. /2
This is one of the constitutional elements that prevent the courts from shutting down congressional investigations, for instance. And why the courts apply a very broad interpretation of the "legislative purpose" test when evaluating claims to quash congressional subpoenas. /3