Legal News

Report: DOJ?s Public Integrity Unit ?In Chaos?

By Ashby Jones

In a “curtain-raiser” post last week about the William Jefferson trial, we wrote that a lot was at stake for federal prosecutors in the trial, coming so closely on the heels of the Ted Stevens debacle.

We still maintain that the DOJ can burnish its image with a big Jefferson win. But the truth is that unit that handled the Stevens case, the Department of Justice’s public-corruption unit, doesn’t have much to do with the Jefferson matter (it’s being handled by Main Justice’s fraud unit as well as the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia).

And for now, writes Carrie Johnson in Thursday’s Washington Post, the public-corruption unit is still struggling to right its ship.

Writes Johnson:

Two months after prosecutors abandoned the criminal conviction of former senator Ted Stevens, the Justice Department unit that polices public corruption remains in chaos, coping with newly discovered evidence that threatens to undermine other cases while department leaders struggle to reshuffle the ranks.

Much of the article focuses on two lower-profile cases involving Alaskan lawmakers. Earlier this month, the DOJ asked for the release of two convicted former state lawmakers in Alaska because of prosecutorial errors. Former Alaska state Reps. Peter Kott (pictured) and Victor Kohring, both Republicans, were convicted in 2007 on bribery and extortion-related charges. Kott was sentenced to six years in prison and Mr. Kohring received a 3½-year term. Click here for the WSJ story from June 4.

But AG Eric Holder said a review of the two cases showed that prosecutors failed to provide information that should have been disclosed to the defense. Both Kott and Kohring appeared Wednesday in an Anchorage courtroom, where a judge ruled they could remain free on personal recognizance.

John Henry Browne, an attorney for Kohring, told the WaPo he was sorting through a stack of more than 1,000 pages recently turned over by the government. “There are a number of smoking guns in here,” Browne said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Justice Department sometimes dismisses these cases” rather than expose the former prosecutors to cross examination about their alleged failure to share documents.

Department sources said no decisions had been made about how to proceed in the cases. “Even with the challenges of the past several months, every day in the Public Integrity Section an elite group of prosecutors work tirelessly and effectively to fight public corruption across the country,” spokeswoman Laura Sweeney told the WaPo.

Photo: AP

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 18, 2009 (boomark / email).