David Williams 3rd wins free room & board

[netwrkranger]

Just thought I would balance out your thread a bit, Shoonra. One star is too high a measure to give to this thread.

ReviewJournal.com

Four-month trial ends with no convictions

Federal income tax evasion case involved nine defendants

By JOAN WHITELY
REVIEW-JOURNAL

A criminal tax case alleging income tax evasion and conspiracy dissolved in federal court this week, when a jury returned zero convictions on 161 charges faced by nine defendants.

Monday's verdict "sends a strong message," said defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen, who represented Joel Axberg, a tile layer.

Informally called the Kahre case -- after the primary defendant, local business owner Robert Kahre, who paid workers in gold and silver coins -- the trial lasted four months. It relied heavily on evidence gathered in a controversial armed raid in May 2003 on several of Kahre's local business places. The raid entailed keeping more than 20 workers handcuffed, at gunpoint, in 106-degree heat without shade or water while agents collected records and equipment.

"Yeah, that's a pretty major victory," said defense lawyer William Cohan. "If you go 0 for 160 (in baseball), they'd send you down to the minor leagues."

Cohan was upbeat although his client, Kahre, was not acquitted of any of his 109 charges. Rather, the jury hung on all of Kahre's counts.

The jury also hung on all counts faced by Kahre's sister, Lori Kahre, and defendant Alex Loglia.

Four defendants acquitted of all the charges against them were Axberg, Robert Furman, Ron Ruggles, and Kahre's mother, Myra Buonomo.

"It was the most wonderful feeling and the most wonderful day in ages," Buonomo, 66, said of her acquittal. She said she works "more or less as a runner" for her son's construction-related businesses. Part of the case hinged on whether Kahre's workers were employees or independent contractors, who are responsible for paying their own taxes.

Two other defendants, Dannielle Alires and Debra Rosenbaum, were partly acquitted, with the jury hung on one count each.

Before trial, five additional defendants had pleaded guilty.

Michael Kennedy, who defended Lori Kahre, said the case turned on the notion that taxpayers could be wrong without being criminal. He was referring to the fact that his client, Lori Kahre, and other defendants had not paid taxes according to the market value of the precious metal content of the coins in which they were paid, as opposed to their face value. He conceded at trial that his client may owe federal taxes for her mistakes.

The Internal Revenue Service had never before provided guidance on how to handle gold and silver coins that circulate, only on noncirculating collectible coins, according to Kennedy, who is a federal public defender. "If that's the case, we're not going to take someone's liberty from them, on something that a (certified public accountant) with a master's degree doesn't even know. That's a scary country, and I don't live in that country."

J. Gregory Damm, the assistant U.S. attorney who led the prosecution, declined to say whether the government will retry any of the five defendants on the charges that resulted in a hung jury. Damm referred the newspaper to Natalie Collins, public affairs spe******t for the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas.

Acting U.S. Attorney Steven W. Myhre issued a statement through Collins that thanked jurors, investigators and prosecutors. "Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the jury to decide whether the government met its burden of proof in the case and we accept their decision." He said the office will "soon decide" whether to retry any defendants.

Jurors got stuck on the question of whether the government had proved defendants intentionally violated tax law, according to David Ramirez, jury foreman. "Oh my God, the willfulness is very hard to prove, as we found out," Ramirez, 49, said Wednesday. "That was the hard part, especially in the conspiracy charge." Ramirez works in management for the U.S. Postal Service.

The government "did not present one witness who agreed with the conspiracy theory," said attorney Joel Hansen, who defended Loglia. Currently unemployed, Loglia did paralegal work for Kahre.

The jurors favoring acquittal varied by defendant, Ramirez said. "Personally, I went guilty (on some counts) and some, not guilty." He said when the 12 jurors split on a count, it was usually a 6-6 or 7-5 split.

Ramirez said the prosecuting team had a clear, although silent, reaction to the verdict: "The head was hanging down, the shoulders were low." He said "shocked" was the term some prosecutors used to describe themselves when they talked to him after the trial.

Cohan did not want Robert Kahre, who testified during the trial, to talk to reporters after the trial because his client and five others still face additional charges in a separate criminal tax case set for trial in January. That case alleges Kahre hid assets by having relatives or friends buy property in their names using his funds.

Once the criminal cases are over, Kahre will pursue related civil actions he has filed against several parties, including federal prosecutor Damm, Internal Revenue Service agents and North Las Vegas police officers who had roles in the raid or indictment process.

Now that is a success story =D.

- netwrkranger

[farmer_giles_of_ham]

thanks for posting this, netwrkranger.

would like to remark that these folk would have been more successful if they hadn't kept records or made filings in the first place.

[netwrkranger]

I got tons more on IRS losses =D.

I wonder why Shoonra didn't post any of those for our Success Stories forums?

- netwrkranger

[indio007]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VJ3son-ha8

Interview with Kahre

[Shoonra]

US v. Albert R. Salman (9th Cir., July 7, 2008)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/...h/0510093p.pdf

This pdf version includes photocopies of his funny money. LIke DiM, he seems to think that if he makes it look a bit different from the genuine article he can get away with it; and, like DiM, he was wrong. Salman took advice from Roger Elvick, himself a repeat winner of free room and board, who when last heard from had been officially declared mentally incompetent.

[Shoonra]

Another decision, this one using several very old - and long refuted - arguments:

US v. Ferrand (5th Cir. 7/7/08)

http://www.precydent.com/OriginalVer....pdf?id=341195

[phreeman2003]

Glancing over this alleged govt. victory, it's evident the alleged court had no intentions to follow the substance of the issue only an alleged legal form. Notice the pro se branding. Courts live in the pretense of impartiality. It's all a dog and pony show of make believe.

[mrg]

Originally Posted by Right to the Castle

At least it is to those with 3-year-old's understanding of law.

Then YOU must agree!

[Shoonra]

I could not find the thread about Ed & Elaine Brown, so I'm putting news about Ed's "See America Tour" here:

-- --- -- Manchester (N.H.) Union-Leader ------
News: Feds keep Brown on the move
By KRISTEN SENZ
Union Leader Correspondent
Tuesday, Jul. 15, 2008

PLAINFIELD – Former Plainfield resident Edward Brown has been transferred to at least five different federal penitentiaries since his capture less than a year ago, most recently moving to a facility in Illinois.

Brown moved June 3 to the federal correction institution in Marion, Ill., so prison staff members could better monitor his communications with the outside world, according to transfer do***ent posted to the blog site that has long do***ented Brown's assertion that federal income taxes are unlawful.


Ed Brown
The do***ent, which is signed by FCI Marion Warden Lisa Hollingsworth, states that Brown has "communicated with persons who have misrepresented themselves as attorneys, have allowed other inmates to utilize your personal telephone account... and have had telephone conversations recorded for playback to your incarcerated wife and broadcast on the Internet."

A supporter identified online only as "Keith" apparently was trying to record messages for Elaine from Ed, and vice versa, so the couple could hear each other's voices. But after one recorded call from each was posted to another blog site in early March, the postings stopped.

Tom Werlich, executive assistant to the warden, said yesterday he could not confirm or deny the authenticity of the transfer do***ent because of prisoner confidentiality regulations. Attempts to reach "Keith" were unsuccessful.

Brown's wife, Dr. Elaine Brown, remains incarcerated at the federal corrections institution in Danbury, Conn., where she has been held since she entered custody of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons last fall.

In a recent letter to a reporter, Ed Brown wrote that he has spent a total of four months in solitary confinement since his arrest. Prison officials at the facility in Fairton, N.J., where he has spent the most time, said they could not comment on his housing status.

"Unfortunately, since he's not here anymore, the system's not going to show me that," said Joseph Pecoraio, acting executive assistant public information officer at the Fairton prison.

Brown also wrote that he was "gassed three consecutive days in Rhode Island" per orders of the U.S. Department of Justice. Following his arrest, both Browns were housed at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., while they were still under the custody of the U.S. Marshal's Service.

Warden Wayne Salisbury said Ed Brown alleged that "benzene or chlorine or something of that nature" had been released in his cell. "His claim was that it was only his cell and that the federal government was trying to kill him," Salisbury said.

Contrary to Brown's report, Salisbury said, the Browns' stay in Rhode Island was "uneventful."

Ed Brown said he refuses to work inside the prison and cleans only the areas where he eats and sleeps.

"We're private people that lived in the mountains on 103 acres," Brown wrote. "Now, we've been kidnapped and put into a concrete-and-steel box, six feet by 10 feet, with no fresh air."

After signing his letter, "Edward-Lewis: Brown, living soul," Brown adds that he misses his wife dearly.

"My only real loss is Elaine," he wrote.

--0--

[mrg]

So SUSSMAN, BERNARD J is a gleeful proponent of the practice of deiseling?

In the interests of schadenfreude?


What about "waterboarding?"

You know, in the interests of "national security?"