A mysterious “past misconduct” forces one powerful politician down a dark road to keep his secret hidden with an illegal cover up costing millions. It sounds like the kind of synopsis you’d find on the back of a thrilling conspiracy novel, but it actually summarizes the contents of a federal grand jury’s seven page indictment served to former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Thursday .

According to the Washington Post, Hastert, 73, is charged with scheming to conceal $950,000 in withdrawals from various accounts, which violates federal banking laws requiring the disclosure of any large cash transactions. These withdrawals were part of the reported $1.7 million in cash paid by Hastert over five years to an undisclosed person referred to only as “Individual A,” whom he’d wronged in the past. Sources are now claiming that he’d committed sexual misconduct against the individual.

In 2010, Hastert met with Individual A and was confronted with his “past misconduct,” which he allegedly agreed to pay $3.5 million in order to conceal. At one point he was reportedly paying $100,000 every three months to this person, according to the indictment.

The indictment did made a point to mention Hastert’s 26 year stint as a high school teacher and coach in Yorkville, Illinois, that this individual has been a resident of Yorkville, and has known Hastert for most of their life.

Hastert was a well regarded politician and tobacco and energy lobbyist who is best known for being the longest running Republican speaker in the history of the U.S. House, but in 2013 the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service began investigating him for “possible structuring of currency transactions to avoid the reporting requirements.”

According to the Post,

In addition to the banking charges, Hastert faces a count for making ‘false, fictitious and fraudulent statements’ to federal investigators during an interview last December in which he was questioned about the many cash withdrawals for less than $10,000, just under the amounts that would have triggered disclosure requirements.

When asked about these withdrawals Hastert told investigators he made them “because he did not feel safe with the banking system,” saying,

Yeah…I kept the cash. That’s what I’m doing.

We’ll have to wait for the arraignment to see how he will plea, but the U.S. Attorney Office in Chicago said that if convicted  on both counts he could face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Former Speaker Dennis Hastert Indicted Over These Mysterious Payments appeared first on Law Street.

More police officers than ever before are being held accountable for misconduct as a result of increased public awareness, media pressure, and new technologies capable of documenting altercations in horrifyingly graphic detail. While the frequency of punishments has increased, however, victims and their families are starting to realize that the word “accountability” may not actually mean very much.

For many officers accountability can be considered little more than a slap on the wrist. Verbal or written reprimands, the loss of a few vacation days, or suspension are all standard fare punishments for police misconduct. In extreme cases involving excessive force, an officer may be put on paid leave, forced to retire (with full benefits), or fired.

For people like Mike Gomez, whose 22-year-old son was shot and killed by an Albuquerque police officer in 2012, these punishments are a far cry from justice. The officer who shot his unarmed, mentally ill son in the chest was put on paid leave and given $500 by the Albuquerque police union to cope with the stress of the shooting. Naturally this was very upsetting to the victim’s family; as Mike Gomez puts it, while officers get a bonus and a paid vacation for the killing, all the family gets is a funeral bill.

A report by the Cato Institute of Justice reveals that if excessive force complaints involving fatalities were prosecuted as murders, then “the murder rate for law enforcement officers would exceed the general population murder rate by 472%.” This statistic speaks for itself, but a part of the problem is that the consequences for unnecessarily ending someone’s life seem to fall on cities in the form of settlements rather than on the officers themselves.

For example, while the officer who shot Mike Gomez’s son was cleared of all charges, the city still decided to settle the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Gomez family for $900,000 rather than go to trial, citing the move as the “best economic, legal and policy decision”.

To the Gomez family this is simply blood money and the only legal recognition that they will receive that the death of their son was unwarranted. The fact still remains that the man who shot him will never spend a day behind bars or face any legal consequences for the act.

Even having video documentation is no guarantee that officers will ever be brought to justice. A perfect example of this is an incident at UC Davis where Lieutenant John Pike was recorded using military-grade pepper spray at point-blank range on a line of seated protesters.

The iconic incident sparked international outrage and a cry for Lt. Pike and other members of UC Davis leadership to be removed immediately from the campus payroll. Two independent inquiries into the incident (summarized in a conjoined report) condemned Lt. Pike for needlessly assaulting the group of students, finding him culpable for other professional transgressions as well.

This report was the result of months of thorough investigation, based on intense review of video footage of the incident, interviews with multiple witnesses, and conducted by independent consultants and a panel of well-respected statesmen. Nonetheless, their findings did not bear any weight on whether or not Lt. Pike would keep his job or even if he would face any disciplinary measures. That was left solely to the determination of an internal affairs investigation conducted by the police department because in states like California, police officers’ rights are so extensive that they severely limit independent public review of police conduct.

What’s worse is the fact that their methods, findings, and any actions that resulted from the investigation are all secret. To this day we still don’t know if Lt. Pike was fired or able to retire with full benefits – all the university was allowed to disclose is that he is no longer employed at the school.

While it is no secret that being a police officer is a dangerous job, it is undoubtedly true that officers sometimes step outside the bounds of their authority, often at the expense of those in their care. While the majority of police officers conduct themselves in a way that befits their position of power, it is distressing that those who flagrantly disregard rules receive little more than a slap on the wrist for conduct that has ended lives, torn apart communities, and violated constitutional rights.

In most cases, even when the officer in question is found culpable, the only punishment he or she receives is the loss of employment. While some may argue that losing one’s livelihood is a sufficiently severe punishment for excessive force – and perhaps in certain instances it is – it is not an adequate response to the functional equivalent of murder.

From start to finish, the way that officers are investigated, prosecuted, and eventually punished needs to be reformed. If someone can go to jail for the rest of his life for stealing tools from a tool shed then it is absurd that most cases of police brutality do not even result in criminal charges. Police officers are meant to protect the law, not stand above it.

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Nicole Roberts (@NicoleR5901) a student at American University majoring in Justice, Law, and Society with a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has a strong interest in law and policymaking, and is active in homeless rights advocacy as well as several other social justice movements. Contact Nicole at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Steve Rhodes via Flickr]

Nicole Roberts

Nicole Roberts a student at American University majoring in Justice, Law, and Society with a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has a strong interest in law and policymaking, and is active in homeless rights advocacy as well as several other social justice movements. Contact Nicole at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Families of Victims of Police Brutality Question Officer Accountability appeared first on Law Street.

A recent leak of a seventy-page pdf document has caused quite a stir at the American University Campus in Washington DC. This document presents a series of emails and text messages exchanged by the brothers of the Epsilon Iota fraternity, containing explicit racist, sexist, and homophobic content. A Tumblr page (The Fratergate AU) has been created with the intent of displaying a censored version of the the leaked document.

According to the Fratergate AU, “EI is an unrecognized fraternity at American University in Washington, D.C. The group lost their charter after an alleged date rape scandal in 2001, but continue to operate on our campus”– thus some feel more than simply shock at the situation. The creators of this Tumblr page claim to be pursuing some level of disciplinary action against Epsilon Iota, and this pursuit is picking up steam.

AU students have started a virtual petition tiltled, “I Will Not Be Silent” on change.org, with a host of demands they would like to see from the University administration. Chief among their immediate demands is the expulsion of the Epsilon Iota members involved, on the grounds of, “condoning sexual violence, assault, battery, slander and all other actions relevant to physical, sexual, emotional and all other forms of abuse.”

In this article, I have zero ambition to condone the actions of these students. However, it is worth addressing what I see as four major problems with calling for their expulsion on the grounds of a sexual transgression. (It is worth noting that there may be other violations, such as the continued underground operation of a disbanded fraternity chapter, that allow for expulsion, but I will only be addressing the sexual grounds.)

1. There is no admission of guilt within the documents present on the Fratergate AU Tumblr.

I have read through all of the emails and texts that the Fratergate page has published, and I have yet to find any instance where the EI students admit to committing any crimes. There is only one circumstance where there may be an instance of admission, but it is unclear as to how seriously we can evaluate the text. One student wrote the following, “she was not beaten. she assaulted us repeatedly alongside with calling the entire brotherhood a rape gang and worthless piece of shit after what she eventually got slapped back very softly, slipped and fell in the bushes (she was perfectly fine by the way).” This is the closest case in the document to any claim of wrongdoing. The DCist reports this as an ‘alleged slapping’ when they summarize the document contents as follows, “in censored emails[…] Epsilon Iota discuss the alleged slapping of a woman, routinely describe women as ‘bitches’, seek drugs, use racial slurs, and strategize about how to make women feel comfortable at their parties, despite an alleged sexual assault.”

2. These emails do not conform to the definition of sexual assault in the AU handbook

Many are claiming that the EI students who authored these emails have engaged in a sexual transgression, specifically sexual assault. However, the nature of the conversation and context of these comments make it difficult to define it as such. The American University Handbook says that, “what constitutes sexual harassment […] may be described generally as: unwelcome sexual advances; requests for sexual favors; and other oral, written, or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” Unfortunately, the definition provided is very opaque, and states that, “the determination of what constitutes sexual harassment will vary with particular circumstances.” It is hard to say exactly how these originally ‘private’ exchanged emails that were not directed towards a victim will fit the schools weak definition of sexual harassment.

3. There is nothing about Petitions in the AU Handbook

While I personally applaud the creation of a petition to show support for student opposition to the horrific nature of the leaked documents, it may have little to no impact on how the AU administration handles the situation. The AU University Codes, Policies, and Guidelines has a specific section titled Sexual Assault Reporting Procedures for Students, which outlines how to report and process cases of alleged sexual violence, assault, and harassment. Unfortunately for the 1600 plus students who have already signed, there is no mention of a petition as part of the processing procedure.

4. AU has policies that protect Freedom of Speech

In the section of the AU handbook titled, Freedom of Expression Guidelines, it is clearly stated that every AU student has the right to freedom of speech and expression as defined by the law. Simply, each individual has the right to make their own disclosure in anyway they please. Freedom of speech does have its limits, but only if what is said or written qualifies as legal obscenity. Unfortunately, it is not clear that the EI emails and texts qualify due to the fact that these messages were private and not intended for the public. Historically, in cases like Miller v. California, we have seen legal obscenity most often applied in circumstances where an obscene text or speech is being sold to the public.

[The Fratergate AU]

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Bo Donoghue

Featured image courtesy of [Jake Waage via Flickr]

Bo Donoghue

Bo Donoghue is a student at The George Washington University. Contact Bo at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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