Court Digest

Florida
Oficial sentenced to 5 years in corruption case
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A former city commissioner who once ran the Florida Democratic Party was sentenced to five years in federal prison for taking money from Uber and undercover FBI agents in exchange for his influence.

Former Tallahassee Commissioner Scott Maddox pleaded guilty in 2019 to wire fraud, mail fraud and conspiracy to commit tax fraud. The sentencing was delayed while Maddox and co-defendant Paige Carter-Smith cooperated with investigators in the prosecution of a local developer.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle said that cooperation played a part in issuing a sentence below federal guidelines that called for between five years, 10 months and seven years, three months in prison.

But Hinkle said the crime was serious, and that the “real problem with bribery ... is that it undermines confidence, it undermines faith in the system.”

Paige Carter-Smith, Maddox’s longtime associate, pleaded guilty to the same charges and received a two-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors said that Maddox would send clients to Carter-Smith’s lobbying firm after he returned to the city commissioner in 2012, and she would then pay Maddox for his influence. Maddox was first elected to the commission in 1990 and later served as the Tallahassee mayor until 2003. He has been a Democratic candidate for governor, attorney general and agriculture commissioner. He was chairman of the Florida Democratic Party from 2002 to 2005.

Maddox was ordered to pay the Internal Revenue Service $76,763 and Carter-Smith was ordered to pay the IRS $115,619. Each was ordered to forfeit $70,000 to the federal government.

The court found that the pair accepted $30,000 from the ride-hailing and delivery company Uber and $40,000 from the undercover agents posing as developers in exchange for influence. When the pair pleaded guilty, an Uber spokesperson said the company didn’t bribe Maddox, but was rather a victim of extortion.

Maddox and Carter-Smith told Hinkle that they each went into public service to do good and to serve people, but they eventually crossed a line. Maddox said he justified taking the money because he knew he was going to vote the same way regardless.

Undercover FBI agents investigated Maddox for two years, which included a booze-filled trip to Las Vegas, where the agents took Maddox to a strip club. Maddox told Hinkle his reaction to hearing himself on FBI tapes, “drunken and slurring” and bragging about how big he was.

“I’m deeply, deeply ashamed that I did that,” he said. “I deserve everything I’m going to get, whatever you decide to do.”

He said he lost his reputation, his law license, all of his money and caused his family to suffer “by being drunk and stupid.”

Several supporters asked Hinkle for leniency, saying Maddox has done a lot to make Tallahassee a better city, from improving roadways to creating a dog adoption program. They recounted individual help he gave people not for the attention, but to do what’s right.

But federal prosecutor Peter Nothstein said whether an elected official does good or bad, the crimes Maddox committed were harmful.

“That corruption shook this community to its core,” he said.

Hinkle agreed that because of Maddox and Carter-Smith’s actions, people might question the motives of people who serve the public for the right reasons.

Carter-Smith was in tears before Hinkle, describing how she used to lobby for non-profit groups and worked to help people’s lives before crossing the line.

“That wasn’t who I was, but it was who I became,” she said. “ I absolutely knew better and I was wrong.”

Last month, local developer and businessman John “J.T.” Burnette was convicted of extortion and other charges as part of the FBI probe. Maddox and Carter-Smith testified at his trial. He is schedule to be sentenced next month.

Maryland
Judge about to be arrested dies in apparent suicide
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — An Eastern Shore judge who was about to be arrested at his home was found dead Friday, officials said.

Federal and local officials said FBI agents went to the residence of Caroline County Circuit Court Judge Jonathan Newell in Henderson, Maryland, early Friday morning to arrest him on a federal criminal complaint.

He was under investigation for sexual exploitation of a child, according to a federal affidavit.

“Upon entering the residence the agents found Newell suffering from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” a joint statement from Acting Maryland U.S. Attorney Jonathan Lenzner and other officials said. “He was pronounced dead at 6:43 a.m. Maryland State Police will lead the investigation into the apparent suicide.”

New York
Giuliani associate pleads guilty in campaign donation case
NEW YORK (AP) — A Florida businessman who gained notoriety for helping Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information on Joe Biden in Ukraine pleaded guilty Friday to a charge alleging he facilitated illegal foreign campaign contributions in an effort to build a marijuana business in the U.S.

Igor Fruman, 56, entered the plea in federal court in Manhattan after reaching a deal with prosecutors. Fruman’s plea agreement does not require him to cooperate in other cases, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken said.

Initially charged in a wide-ranging indictment, Fruman pleaded guilty to a single count of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national. The plea resolves the case against him.

Federal sentencing guidelines call for a punishment of 37 to 46 months in prison, though Fruman could get up to five years, the judge said. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 21.

The plea leaves two men — Lev Parnas, another Soviet-born Florida businessman and Giuliani associate, and Ukraine-born investor Andrey Kukushkin — to face trial next month. A fourth person, David Correia, was sentenced in February to a year in prison for fraud involving a company he ran that brought Giuliani on as a consultant.

“Mr. Fruman is not cooperating with the government and has determined that this is the fairest and best way to put the past two years of his life behind him,” Fruman’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, said in a written statement after the plea hearing. “He intends to continue to work hard, as he has his entire life, and raise his family in this country that he loves. We will not have any further public communications.”

Fruman was also charged  with, but did not plead guilty to, arranging hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal donations to Republicans and political action committees while trying to get Americans interested in investigating Biden’s son in Ukraine during the Democrat’s successful run for president.

Fruman apologized in court. He said he was not aware of laws prohibiting foreign campaign contributions at the time he engaged in the donation scheme.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said in court Friday that Fruman sent text messages to the foreign national and that person’s agent seeking $1 million in political contributions and that the foreign national wired two $500,000 installments for that purpose.

In court Friday, Fruman said the donation scheme was part of an effort to encourage support for a fledgling marijuana distribution business that he and others were starting in states where the drug was being legalized.

While prosecutors have kept the identity of the donor secret, a lawyer for one of the defendants revealed him during one court hearing to be Russian businessman Andrei Muraviev.

Business and other court records show that Muraviev was an investor in a marijuana company with Kukushkin in California.

Some of the donations made during the campaign to win support for the marijuana business went into the campaign coffers of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican whose name has been floated as a potential presidential candidate.

Giuliani, 77, has said he had no knowledge of illegal campaign contributions, but has acknowledged working extensively with Fruman and Parnas as he sought communications with Ukrainian figures.

The Republican and former New York City mayor who once gained worldwide respect and admiration as “America’s Mayor” after the Sept. 11 attacks was not charged in this case. But Giuliani has been  under criminal investigation  for his dealings with Ukraine while serving as a personal lawyer to then-President Donald Trump.

In April, federal agents raided his Manhattan home and office and seized computers and cellphones, signaling a major escalation of the investigation. Authorities are deciding whether Giuliani’s activities required him to register as a foreign agent.

Giuliani has insisted his Ukrainian activities were conducted on behalf of Trump, not a foreign entity or person.

Trump’s efforts to press Ukraine for an investigation of the Bidens led the House to impeach the then-president, though he was acquitted by the Senate.


California
Judge loosens Apple’s grip on app store in Epic Games decision
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge ordered Apple to dismantle part of the competitive barricade guarding its closely run app store, threatening one of the iPhone maker’s biggest moneymakers. It could potentially also save app developers billions of dollars that could encourage them to lower the prices paid by consumers.

The challenge was mounted by Epic Games, best known as the maker of Fortnite, the popular video game played by about 400 million people worldwide. Apple shares dipped sharply immediately upon the issuance of the ruling and was trading down 3% Friday. Epic, based in Cary, North Carolina, is a private company.

The legal battle targeted commissions of up to 30% that Apple has been charging on digital transactions within apps. Such transactions can include everything from Netflix or Spotify subscriptions to the sale of digital item such as songs, movies or virtual tchotchkes for video games.

Epic cast that highly lucrative fee as a price-gouging tactic that wouldn’t be possible if competing stores were allowed to offer iPhone apps.

An appeal of the ruling by one or both companies seems likely.

The 185-page ruling issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers comes three months after the conclusion of a trial focused on one of the pillars holding up Apple’s $2 trillion empire — one that Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs began to shape 20 years ago.

Since that trial ended, Apple has taken two steps to loosen some of its app store rules — one to settle a lawsuit and another to appease Japanese regulators without altering its commissions. Those concessions make it easier for many apps to prod their users to pay for digital transactions in ways that avoid triggering Apple’s fees.


Oklahoma
High court to hear prosecutor’s death row request
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear a prosecutor’s request that two members of the state’s Pardon and Parole Board be prevented from voting on a high-profile death row inmate’s commutation hearing.

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater wants the high court to prevent board members Adam Luck and Kelly Doyle from deciding the fate of death row inmate Julius Jones. Prater alleges Luck and Doyle, both appointees of Gov. Kevin Stitt, have a conflict of interest because of their work with released inmates.

“Allowing either Adam Luck or Kelly Doyle to participate in or take any action in matters related to Julius Jones is a violation of the essential meaning of avoiding an appearance of impropriety, or conflict of interest, or actual or implied bias on the part of the decision maker,” Prater wrote in a motion filed this week.

A telephone message left with Luck and Doyle seeking comment was not immediately returned.

The five-member Pardon and Parole Board is scheduled to meet Monday to consider whether to recommend commuting Jones’ death sentence to life or life without parole. If the board recommends commutation, the final decision would be made by Stitt.

The murder conviction of Jones, 41, for the 1999 shooting death of Edmond businessman Paul Howell was profiled in “The Last Defense,” a three-episode documentary on ABC in 2018. Since then, it has drawn the attention of reality television star Kim Kardashian West and athletes with Oklahoma ties, including NBA stars Russell Westbrook, Blake Griffin and Trae Young, who have urged Stitt to commute Jones’ death sentence and spare his life.

Jones has maintained his innocence and alleges he was framed by the actual killer. Jones’ attorney, Dale Baich, declined to comment on Prater’s efforts to remove the two board members.

In a statement, Prater said the Howell family deserves a fair and impartial hearing before the board.

“It is patently unfair to the Howell family and the citizens of Oklahoma to allow Adam Luck and Kelly Doyle to serve on this very important board,” Prater said. “They clearly are not, and can not be objective in their evaluation of matters coming before them for consideration.”

A hearing before a Supreme Court referee on Prater’s motion is scheduled for Friday afternoon.