Stacia Hollinshead, a 30-year-old assistant state’s attorney from DeKalb County, Ill., was murdered in Wisconsin, and her ex-husband has been arrested.

The Daily Chronicle of DeKalb, Ill., reports that Hollinshead, who is a mother of one and a graduate of Northern Illinois University’s Law School, was pronounced dead at the scene, in her parents’ house in Wisconsin.

Police arrested her ex-husband, Ulisses Medina Espinoza, in connection with the murder. Hollinshead had sought a protective court order to keep Medina Espinosa away from her, citing a pattern of verbal and digital harassment.

The report quotes Mark Cordes, interim dean and professor of law at NIU’s College of Law: “Stacia had tremendous potential as a lawyer and a very bright future ahead of herself. She was the type of graduate that makes our school very proud.”

Read the Daily Chronicle article.

Bloomberg Law is reporting that a Washington, D.C., attorney is in criminal contempt of court for refusing to answer questions about where his client’s assets could be found, the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed March 26.

The court found that Matthew LeFande disregarded oral and written orders to answer questions on the witness stand by the magistrate judge in the underlying case. That underlying litigation began when LeFande’s client sold a property through a real estate settlement company, and the company mistakenly transferred almost $300,000 back to her instead of to her mortgage lender.

At a status conference, the magistrate judge ordered LeFande to answer questions, but he refused, asserting attorney-client and Fifth Amendment privileges, writes Bloomberg’s Martina Barash.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The Russian election interference report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, still not fully disclosed, is raising a number of questions and also surprised some who practice criminal law, according to a report by Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

“It is perhaps somewhat surprising that Mr. Mueller didn’t provide a conclusion on the issue of obstruction of justice. Certainly, many Americans were expecting a clear-cut decision,” said Philip Hilder, a former U.S. prosecutor in Houston who now is a white-collar criminal defense lawyer at Hilder & Associates, P.C.

“But proving either conspiracy or obstruction is a difficult challenge. Until the portion of the actual Mueller report is disclosed articulating his rationale, I could only speculate as to why there is no solid conclusion after a two-year investigation.

“Perhaps more surprising is that Attorney General William Barr concluded after only 48 hours of review that the investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president obstructed justice. Assuming the bulk of the report itself is released, a fuller picture will come into focus as to why Mueller demurred and whether Mr. Barr’s conclusion is justified,” said Hilder who has represented whistleblowers and other defendants in high-profile trials.

“As to how much of the report and grand jury testimony should be turned over to Congress, it is reasonable to assume that a large portion is based on grand jury material. A court order is needed to release that information. A blanket release requested by Congress may not be possible, since there may be evidence disclosed that is related to ongoing investigations by other federal prosecutors as well criminal prosecutions already indicted by the Mueller team. Nonetheless, it may take a while until all the grand jury material is scrutinized before its possible release. I would anticipate rolling production, with Congress receiving parts of the report over time.”

First NBC Bank’s former top lawyer was charged in federal court Friday with conspiracy to defraud the New Orleans bank, which failed two years ago in the biggest U.S. bank collapse since the 2008 financial crisis, reports The News Orleans Advocate.

Gregory St. Angelo was First NBC’s general counsel for a decade until 2016. During that time, according to the Advocate‘s Anthony McAuley, he took out loans totaling tens of millions of dollars from the bank, many of which went into default.

“St. Angelo was charged in a bill of information rather than a grand jury indictment, generally a sign that a defendant has agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors. He is due for a first appearance in federal court March 29,” writes McAuley.

Read the Advocate article.

Justin Paperny, a a former Bear Stearns stockbroker who spent 18 months in federal prison for conspiring to commit fraud, has become a go-to resource for wealthy criminals preparing for prison, according to a report in The Washington Post.

He and his eight-person firm, White Collar Advice, have already been hired by one person tied to the college admissions scandal. Post reporter Peter Holley writes that Paperny provided an invoice showing a down payment of several thousand dollars. And multiple people charged in the scandal have reached out to him for advice, he said, and he suspects he may be hired by several of them.

“Paperny said his fee — which could reach tens of thousands of dollars for his latest client — is high, in part, because he’s one of the few people who can speak to upper-crust criminals in a language they understand,” writes Holley.

Read the Post article.

Defendants in the college admissions cheating scandal case have been turning to Biglaw firms for representation, including Cooley, Sidley Austin, Latham & Watkins, Boies Schiller Flexner, and Ropes & Gray.

Bloomberg Law reports that two of the latest hires are Cooley partners Randall R. Lee and William Schwartz, who have been hired by Jane Buckingham, the founder and chief executive of Trendera, a youth marketing consultancy. Prosecutors allege she paid $50,000 for someone to take the ACT college entrance exam in her son’s place.

And Jack W. Pirozzolo, a partner in Sidley Austin’s Boston office, is representing William McGlashan Jr., who worked at private equity firm TPG before being fired in the wake of the scandal.

Read the Bloomberg article.

A cyberattack on the agency overseeing Boston public defenders has caused a weekslong slowdown, disabling e-mail systems, delaying some hearings, and hanging up payments for the private attorneys who represent clients, reports The Boston Globe.

“The Committee for Public Counsel Services has been cleaning up for two weeks after a ransomware attack locked up its servers, with the culprits demanding that a ransom be paid in bitcoin,” writes the Globe‘s Andy Rosen. “The agency refused to pay, because it has backup files it can use to restore the system.”

A similar attack hit the Jackson County, Georgia, government internal network recently, forcing most of the systems offline, according to ZDNet. In that case, the county paid $400,000 to cyber-criminals week to get rid of the ransomware infection and regain access to its IT systems.

Read the Globe article.

A bid to overturn a fraud conviction for Peter Hoffman, a lawyer turned movie producer, has picked up support from 14 retired federal judges, nine criminal law professors and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Hoffman once ran a company called Carolco Pictures, which made some successful films. In the 1990s, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false tax return. Then, in 2014, federal prosecutors charged Hoffman with wire fraud for submitting false expense reports on a Louisiana mansion being transformed into a postproduction facility. Hoffman did so to get $1.13 million in movie tax credits issued by Louisiana, according to the Reporter‘s Eriq Gardner.

The trial court sentenced him to 60 months of probation, an unprecedented departure from federal sentencing guidelines that recommended a range of 168 to 210 months in prison. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the trial court to take another look, possibly leading to a harsher sentence.

Hoffman has petitioned the court for a review.

Read the Hollywood Reporter article.

Bloomberg Law reports that Willkie Farr & Gallagher Co-Chairman Gordon R. Caplan has been charged along with dozens of others, including Hollywood actors and executives, in a criminal conspiracy to bribe college admissions officials to gain admission for their children to top universities.

According to Bloomberg’s Melissa Heelan Stanzione, Caplan was arrested at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and was released on $500,000 bail after appearing in Manhattan federal court.

Caplan has been charged with donating $75,000 to the Key Worldwide Foundation. “In an exchange detailed in court filings, two of the FBI’s cooperating witnesses agreed to proctor his daughter’s college entrance exam and correct the answers after she finished it,” Stanzione reports.

Another Bloomberg report contains a transcript of a discussion involving a call Caplan had with William Singer, the founder of a corrupt college counseling and test-prep business who would later become a cooperating witness:

“Look, I’m particularly interested in working with you guys and figuring out what’s best for [my daughter],” Caplan said, according to the criminal complaint, which details the conversation intercepted on a court-authorized wiretap.

Read the Bloomberg reports
here and here.

Ballard Spahr LLP has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the man who shot a Philadelphia associate of the firm.

The gunman shot 37-year-old Spencer Hill in the stomach during a botched robbery attempt as he headed home after a late night at the office, reports The Philadelphia Tribune.

He was in front of his home when the shooting occurred. He managed to make it inside his home where his wife called police. Doctors opted against operating, Hill said, indicating that it was safer to leave the bullet inside him than it would be to perform surgery to remove it.

Read the Tribune article.

A post in the Seyfarth Shaw Workplace Safety and Environmental Law Alert Blog discusses the case of a construction contractor facing a perjury charge after he allegedly testified that he did not twice order employees to work on a roof. They fell through the roof both times.

During the investigation, OSHA discovered text messages indicating that the contractor had indeed issued the orders.

The case provides two important lessons, according to the authors of the post: Don’t lie under oath, especially when there exists discoverable evidence to the contrary, and be properly prepared and familiar with all relevant facts before providing testimony or statements during an investigation.

The contractor faces a potential penalty of five years in a prison and a $250,000 fine, if convicted.

Read the article.

Paul Manafort won leniency Thursday from a federal judge who sent him to prison for less than four years, but next week he’ll be sentenced in a second case by a less forgiving judge who could add another 10 years to his term, according to Bloomberg.

He faced as much as 24 years in prison for hiding $55 million offshore accounts, failing to pay $6 million in taxes, and defrauding banks.

But in a few days Manafort will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, where he pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges and pledged to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, report Bloomberg’s David Voreacos and Andrew M. Harris.

Jackson already has been strict with Manafort, sending him to jail after he was accused of tampering with witnesses. Jackson has the option of ordering any new sentence to be served consecutively or concurrently.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Menis Ketchum admitted at his sentencing hearing Thursday on a fraud conviction that he was guilty. The federal judge hearing the case sentenced him to three years on probation and fined him $20,000.

West Virginia MetroNews Network reported Ketchum pleaded guilty last August to using a state vehicle and state gas card for personal trips to Virginia to play golf.

“Judge, I’m just plain guilty. I’m sorry but sorry is no excuse. I owe an apology to state judges. I’ve embarrassed them and caused havoc. They work hard and are underpaid. I apologize to them. I’m really sorry to my wife and three kids. They don’t deserve what I’ve done to them. I have no excuse,” Ketchum said.

Read the MetroNews article.

A Texas state district judge who was accused last year of trying to influence a jury verdict by saying God told him the defendant was innocent has been issued a public warning by the state agency that investigates judicial misconduct, reports the Austin American-Statesman.

Jack Robison acknowledged to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct that his conduct was improper, adding that it might have been caused by stress from treatment for a severe medical condition and the death of a close friend days before the trial began in January 2018, according to Statesman reporter Ryan Autullo.

The commission could have removed Robison from the bench.

“The commission revealed that it had received 18 complaints about Robison’s conduct, including from the Comal County criminal district attorney’s office, two jurors and numerous citizens who learned about the incident through media reports,” writes Autullo.

Read the Statesman article.

Switzerland’s biggest bank hoped to settle a tax evasion case with French authorities for $204 millions. But when enforcers dismissed UBS Group’s offer, the bank’s legal team decided to play hardball, pushing the case to trial in the hope of wringing out a smaller penalty, according to a Bloomberg report. That effort failed spectacularly.

The bank has been ordered to pay more than $5 billion in the tax-evasion case — matching what was sought by prosecutors, reports Bloomberg’s Gaspard Sebag.

The article quotes Stephane Bonifassi, a Paris criminal lawyer not involved in the case: “It’s too early to draw any definitive conclusions given the appeals have just begun, but they took a risk in thinking they had a solid case and it’s clear now the strategy didn’t pay off.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution places limits on the ability of states and localities to take and keep cash, cars, houses and other private property used to commit crimes, reports The New York Times.

Reporters Adam Liptak and Shaila Dewan explains that the practice, known as civil forfeiture, “is a popular way to raise revenue and is easily abused, and it has been the subject of widespread criticism across the political spectrum. The court’s decision will open the door to new legal arguments when the value of the property seized was out of proportion to the crimes involved.”

All nine justices found that the Excessive Fines Clause applies to the states under the 14th Amendment. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the historical and logical case for the conclusion is overwhelming.

Read the NY Times article.

Labor Secretary Alex Acosta

Federal prosecutors, under former Miami U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, broke the law when they concealed a plea agreement from more than 30 underage victims who had been sexually abused by wealthy New York hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The Miami Herald reports that the federal judge stopped short of overturning Epstein’s plea deal, or issuing an order resolving the case.

The judge said prosecutors not only violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act by not informing the victims, they also misled the girls into believing that the FBI’s sex trafficking case against Epstein was still ongoing — when in fact, prosecutors had secretly closed it after sealing the plea bargain from the public record, according to the Herald‘s Julie K. Brown.

Acosta now serves as U.S. Labor Secretary. A White House spokeswoman said the administration is looking into the plea deal.

Read the Miami Herald article.

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Dallas city and county officials are trying to block the release of investigative files related to the unsolved slaying of a prominent Dallas lawyer in 2016.

“Ira Tobolowsky, 68, was found dead inside his burning garage at his North Dallas home on May 13, 2016. The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide — he died of blunt force injuries, smoke inhalation and burns,” according to the News‘ Dana Branham.

Michael Tobolowsky, the son of the victim, obtained an order from a district judge for the city to release documents from the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas County medical examiner so he can investigate the death of his father, potentially for a wrongful-death lawsuit. He claims the case has gone cold.

Dallas police are appealing the order, claiming the release would ruin any change of corroborating future witness statements.

Related:

• Family of Slain Lawyer Think They’ve Identified Murderer. So Why Can’t the Cops Solve the Case?

• Dallas Lawyer Was Spied on Before He Was Killed, Police Suspected

Read the Dallas News article.

CNBC is reporting that a federal judge has ordered longtime Republican operative Roger Stone to court on Thursday to explain why he should not have his criminal release bond modified or even revoked because of his recent Instagram post showing the judge next to what appeared to be a rifle scope’s crosshairs.

CNBC’s Dan Mangan writes that Stone could be sent to jail if his $250,000 signature bond is yanked by the judge, Amy Berman Jackson, who is presiding over the criminal case filed against him by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Stone’s Instagram account on Monday posted and then quickly deleted a photo of Jackson that had a rifle scope’s crosshairs above her head.

Read the CNBC article.

For the second time in as many weeks, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has sided with liberal Supreme Court justices to disagree with how lower courts have interpreted Supreme Court precedent, reports The Washington Post.

“On Tuesday, Roberts was pointed in saying the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has ‘misapplied’ a 2017 ruling that instructed that court to reconsider its analysis of whether death-row inmate Bobby James Moore was intellectually disabled, and thus ineligible for execution.” writes the Post‘s Robert Barnes.

And less than two weeks ago Roberts joined in blocking a Louisiana law that tightened restrictions on abortion providers.

Read the Post article.