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Corruption Thread


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2022 Jul 6, 2:09pm   53,113 views  414 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (61)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2022/07/hawaii-senate-dem-majority-leader-gets-3-years-daniel-greenfield/


Hawaii Senate Dem Majority Leader Gets 3 Years in Prison for Bribery

Former Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English, 55, pleaded guilty to honest services wire fraud in February, admitting he accepted bribes from a Hawaii business owner in exchange for shaping legislation that would benefit a company involved in publicly financed cesspool conversion projects...

English “peddled the power and influence of his position as a Hawaii State Senator and Majority Leader to enrich himself and betray the trust bestowed upon him by those he was elected to serve,” U.S. prosecutors said in a sentencing memo urging the judge to send him to prison for three-and-a-half years.

The sentence, a little more than three years, must send a “stern and lasting message” that corruption of elected officials will be punished, the memo said. ...

Choy is a prolific donor, as are his immediate family members and business associates. Choy, his family members, and his employees from various companies have donated more than $356,000 to political campaigns since 2014, according to campaign finance data. Of that, Choy has contributed more than $160,000 to the elections and reelections of numerous Democrats.

Choy himself has donated to 55 campaigns — including 29 sitting lawmakers — since 2014. Money has gone to former Gov. Neil Abercrombie and current Gov. David Ige. He has most recently contributed to former Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s campaign for governor, and to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s campaign.


"Stern and lasting message" my ass. Only life in prison will do. Singapore is a much better country than the US in this way.



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396   HeadSet   2024 Nov 9, 12:46pm  

The_Deplorable says




https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1854615830358614487

He should not go public with that kind like talk. He should just quietly do the filings to bring her up on charges.
398   stereotomy   2024 Nov 11, 7:37am  

The_Deplorable says





Oppenheimer had his share of secrets and lies, but I agree with the quote in that he learned much to his chagrin, and almost too late to save his reputation, that ultimately truth was the way to go.
413   HeadSet   2024 Dec 6, 7:17am  

The_Deplorable says





So far just one is above the law. Biden will add to that list likely right after New Year's Day.
414   Patrick   2024 Dec 13, 10:48am  

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/man-up-friday-december-13-2024-c


As folks sort the stack of Biden’s 1,500 pardons, some real stinkers have surfaced. Local WGAL Pennsylvania ran a story yesterday headlined, “Kids-for-cash judge's sentence commuted by Biden.” Get ready to get angry.




Michael Conahan, 72, a former Luzerne County judge, was sentenced to prison 10 years ago for running a “kids-for-cash” racket with former judge Mark Ciavarella. While receiving $2.8 million in bribes and kickbacks from developers, the two judges funneled kids as young as 8 into a harsh private correctional facility that was paying them under the table. Under cover of a “zero tolerance” policy, the two men unlawfully jailed thousands of children with shockingly strict sentences.

For instance, Judge Conahan sentenced one teenager with no prior legal problems to three months in juvenile detention for creating a MySpace page that mocked an assistant principal at her school.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ultimately vacated over 4,000 juvenile convictions involving more than 2,300 kids after Conahan and Ciavarella’s schemes were finally put to a stop. Conahan got 17 years and Ciavarella got 28; the two judges were ordered to pay back $200 million in restitution to the victims. I found no evidence that any payments were ever made and I doubt it happened.

The story was a pretty big deal, although you can be forgiven not having heard of it before. Here is a link to one of the documentaries. Here is a link to one of the “Kids for Cash” books, this one published this year, titled “Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town that Looked Away.” The scandal was widely covered by local media at the time (2010-11) and for years afterward, as the civil case worked its way through the system. For example, here’s a headline from the Morning Call, 2021:

'He screwed up my life': More than 300 survivors of 'Kids for
Cash' scandal tell horror stories in civil case against judges in
Luzerne County

Unsurprisingly, useless corporate media has shown little interest in the salacious story, which should be perfect media material. Why do you suppose that is?

Anyway, the notorious, disgraced judge Conahan —while he sat on the bench, “The Boss”— was fortunate enough to be jailed in blue Miami and have high blood pressure. Ciavarella was not so lucky. He was not in a covid “high risk” category and so remains in prison in North Carolina. (Judge Ciavarella’s application for compassionate covid release was denied.)

But Judge Conahan was “compassionately” released to home confinement in 2020 as part of Pennsylvania’s pandemic mitigation strategy.

Biden’s blanket pardon broadly swept up non-violent prisoners who were on covid home release, which included Judge Conahan. Conahan is now a free man, liberated even from home confinement. Judge Conahan received the leniency he never showed to the children who appeared before the “no-nonsense” judge in his “zero tolerance” courtroom.

Looking at the cast of criminals moronically swept into Biden’s pardon, my working hypothesis is there was one particular crook who Biden wanted to pardon, but the case was so ugly that Joe pardoned 1,500 of them, to hide the one he really wanted. You know, strategic ambiguity.

I don’t want to hear any complaints from Democrats over who Trump pardons or how many.


This is why banning private prisons is a plank of my platform:

Patrick says

Ban private prisons because they bribe judges to feed them more prisoners.

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