This came today from a very exercised Federal Employee. This has all been out of control for a long time. This explains why some important work is not being done by the FBI, and some long in process investigations which should lead to prosecutions are languishing in the shadows, not coming out. Yikes! -VM (GFS)

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G. Florence-

Your DOJ… hard(ly) at work.

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Audit: FBI Agents Paid To Watch Movies And Attend Parties

By Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press December 18, 2008


WASHINGTON (AP) - Taxpayers were billed an average of $45,000 in overtime and extra pay for each FBI agent temporarily posted to Iraq over the course of four years, according to a new Justice Department report. In some cases, agents were paid to watch movies, exercise and attend parties.

In all, the audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found the FBI racked up $7.8 million in improper wages between 2003 and 2007.

Thursday's report blamed a faulty FBI policy that allowed agents to claim the extra time and money. An FBI spokesman said that policy -- which initially sought to enlist volunteers to go to dangerous war zones -- is no longer in place.

"Several FBI employees noted that they periodically spent time during the work day washing clothes," the report noted. Asked whether he should have been paid for the time spent in this activity, one employee defended the practice, saying "'When you're in that environment, anything you do to survive is work for the FBI.'"

Other agents defended being paid to go to a regular Saturday night cocktail party, calling it an important "liaison" meeting. And in another case, one supervisor said he "had to laugh" when he saw how many agents were assigned to the office tasked with preparing evidence for court trials of Saddam Hussein and his associates.

"Maybe they needed extra poker players," said the unnamed supervisor.
The report concluded: "We found that, on the whole, few if any employees worked exactly 16 hours a day, every day, for 90 days straight, within the meaning of the term 'work' as it is used in applicable regulations and policies."

Since March 2003, the FBI has temporarily deployed 1,150 agents and other employees to Iraq, usually for three-month periods. Fine's investigators reviewed the time and attendance records for each.
Over the four-year period, the report found, the FBI spent $63 million in overtime and extra pay for employees in Iraq - $7.8 million of which was improperly billed.

In a statement, FBI Assistant Director John Miller said the now-defunct policy was only supposed to be a short-time pay solution in the early days of the war. He said managers at FBI headquarters "allowed a flawed system to develop and remain in place too long."

"FBI employees lived with sniper attacks, mortar fire, and roadside bombs as part of their daily work environment," Miller said. He said FBI managers "attempted to adapt a long established, domestic pay system for domestic law enforcement to unprecedented wartime assignments for FBI personnel."

Fine's investigation found that agents claimed at least eight hours of overtime a day, every day, for the three months they were stationed in Iraq. Until this year, FBI supervisors in the United States routinely approved the hours billed, despite having no personal knowledge of the time the agents were working.

The report also rapped the FBI for failing to maintain accurate records of overtime costs.
Similarly, FBI agents in Afghanistan also misused overtime and extra pay allowances, but to a lesser extent, the report found.

But FBI agents were not the only culprits, Fine concluded. Also misusing extra pay and attendance policies in Iraq and Afghanistan - but in a more limited way - were agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; The Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Marshals Service.

From Ms. Sparky’s Website: http://mssparky.com
2008 - KBR’s 5th Year Of LOGCAP Fraud, Waste & Abuse
Posted on December 31st, 2008

by ms sparky in Iraq Chemical Exposures, Iraq Electrocutions, Iraq Human Trafficking, KBR, KBR Employee Issues, Lawsuits Against KBR, Media Coverage, Senate & House Committee Hearings

When I first came up with this idea to do a recap of KBR activity for 2008, I didn’t think it would take me three days to do the research and compile all the info. I haven’t been following everything that KBR has been up to. That would take a full-time “staff”. I found out things I didn’t even know were going on. And after all that research…all I can really say is…if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck….it must be a freakin’ duck!
I tried to get my dates as accurate as possible. If I’m incorrect, send me an email and I will correct it. If I missed something, send me an email and I will add it.
January 2008
01/02/2008 - SSG Ryan Maseth is electrocuted in his shower and dies at Radwaniyah Palace Complex in Baghdad, Iraq due to shoddy electrical work. Army Criminal Investigations Command (CID) opens investigation into manner of death.
01/??/2008 - KBR employee, Dawn Leamon was drugged and brutally raped in her room at Camp Harper in Southern Iraq.
February 2008
02/27/2008 -KBR employee Tracy K Barker was raped in Basra, Iraq. - Another of KBR’s rape victims to come forward Click HERE to read a very interesting post
March 2008
03/09/2008 - AP Exclusive - US troops may have become sick in Iraq from contaminated water supplied by KBR
03/12/2008 - Pentagon Dismisses KBR Contaminated Water: Troops Should ‘Just Drink Bottled Water’
03/19/08 - Cheryl Harris, SSG Ryan Maseth’s mother files “Wrongful Death” lawsuit against KBR in Pennsylvania.
April 2008
04/09/2008 - Former KBR employees Dawn Leamon and Mary Beth Kineston testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about their rapes in Iraq - Closing Legal Loopholes:Prosecuting Sexual Assaults And Other Violent Crimes Committed Overseas By American Civilians In A Combat Environment
04/28/2008 - Senate DPC Hearing - Contracting Abuses in Iraq:Is the Bush Administration Safeguarding American Taxpayer Dollars? - KBR employees working in Iraq stole weapons, artwork and even gold to make spurs for cowboy boots, two former company workers told Senate Democrats.
May 2008
05/09/2008 - Former KBR employee and Jamie Leigh Jones gang rape case goes to trial instead of arbitration!
05/25/2008 - 9 former KBR employees file suit for sodium dichromate exposure.
June 2008
06/02/2008 - My first blog post about KBR and the soldier electrocutions. (It’s important to me!)
06/11/2008 - The Army Criminal Investigations Command (CID) finds SSG Ryan Maseth’s death was an “accident”. (CID reopens investigation 08/29/2008)
06/20/2008 - Senate DPC Hearing - The Exposure at Qarmat Ali: Contractor Misconduct and the Safety of U.S. Troops in Iraq Former KBR employees testify about how KBR knowingly exposed US Troops and their own employees to Hexavalent Chromium (Chrom-6).
06/20/2008 - Group demands that California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CALPERS) dump KBR Inc stocks. What a great idea!!!
July 2008
07/01/2008 - Senator Casey expresses concerns about KBR performing own electrical inspections.
07/09/2008 - Senate DPC Hearing - Safeguarding Taxpayer Dollars in Iraq: An Insider’s View of Questionable Contracting Practices by KBR and the Pentagon Former Chief of the Field Support Command Division testifies to personally witnessing KBR submitting over $1 billion in unsupported charges.
07/11/2008 - Senate DPC Hearing - Contractor Misconduct and the Electrocution Deaths of American Soldiers in Iraq Mothers Cheryl Harris, Larraine McGee, Soldier Rachel McNeil and Electricians Debbie Crawford and Jeff Bliss testify to shoddy electrical work done by KBR. More videos and media coverage.
07/17/2008 - The H.R. HEART Act of 2008 goes into affect. KBR can no longer avoid paying millions in Social Security and Medicare taxes. To bad it’s not retroactive.
07/17/2008 - Fisher v. Halliburton - KBR Lawsuit Revived - The “Good Friday Massacre.” Friday, April 9, 2004. KBR truck drivers were sent out on convoy when KBR was told they would be attacked.
07/18/2008 - Electrical Risks at Bases in Iraq Worse Than Previously Said
07/18/2008 - Senators Want Independent Safety Review of KBR’s Electrical Work in Iraq
07/21/2008 - Larraine McGee, mother of SSG Christopher Everett file suit against KBR for his electrocution death at Camp Taqqadum.
07/30/2008 - Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hold hearings on Deficient Electrical Systems at U.S. Facilities in Iraq KBR’s Tom Bruni, the DoD and DCMA are totally humiliated by the Committee for their shoddy work and lack of oversight.
August 2008
08/??/2008 - KBR changes it’s qualification requirements for it’s electricians requiring them to be licensed. It also increases journeyman wages to $3750 base and masters to $5000 base. Finally!!!
08/12/2008 - Curtis Coffey files suit. Iraq Injury Spurs Class Action Against KBR
08/27/2008 -KBR, Partner in Iraq Contract Sued in Human Trafficking Case - Suit Alleges Slavery
08/29/2008 - The Army Criminal Investigations Command (CID) re-opens the investigation into the cause of SSG Ryan Maseth’s death.
September 2008
09/??/2008 - Task Force Safe is implemented to inspect the electrical wiring at 90,000 DoD facilities including those maintained by KBR.
09/03/2008 - Former KBR Exec pleads guilty to bribery and is sentenced to seven years.
09/11/2008 - KBR issued Level III Corrective Action Request (CAR) by the DCMA in Iraq.
09/27/2008 - Electrical Review Turns Up 3700 fires Not The 483 Reported!
09/29/2008 - IBEW Urges Electrical Safety In Iraq
October 2008
10/??/2008 - KBR claims all electrical work in Iraq was done to British Standards
10/10/2008 - Former KBR employee gets 3 years for child porn in Iraq
10/24/2008 - Pentagon Finds Company Violated Its Contract on Electrical Work in Iraq - NY Times
November 2008
11/24/2008 - Contractor (KBR) for military committed serious violations-CNN
11/26/2008 - Suit claims Halliburton, KBR sickened base - Ice tainted with body fluids, rotten food and contaminated water.
December 2008
12/03/2008 - KBR involved in Human Trafficking…again.
12/08/2008 - Indiana National Guard file suit against KBR for chemical exposure at Qarmat Ali water plant.
12/29/2008 - New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., on behalf of the New York City Pension Funds demands answers. I hope more Pension Funds SELL their KBR and HALLIBURTON shares because of the Waste, Fraud & Abuse in Iraq!!!
12/31/2008 - The last day for Contractor Immunity in Iraq
What I’d like to see for 2009
· I want to know if KBR is invoicing the DoD (and therefore the American Taxpayer) for the costs associated with defending itself in the cases of “wrongful death” of soldiers, the Qarmat Ali chemical exposures, the Human Trafficking suits, the employee rape suits and any other cases that have to do with LOGCAP.
· I would like to see the Army Criminal Investigations Command (CID) finalize their investigation in the Soldier electrocution cases, file criminal charges, and send out a press release on the above!!
· I would like to see the Army Criminal Investigations Command (CID) open an investigation into the chemical exposure of our soldiers and civilians at Qarmat Ali. Is there one already? Send me an email.
· I would like to start a “grass roots” campaign to get pension funds, retirement accounts and others to sell their shares of KBR and Halliburton stocks. Yes…they are making money now. But drug cartels make money too and we don’t invest in them…at least knowingly. I could use some help here! Email me.
· I would like to see more Human Trafficking Organizations get involved in KBR’s Human Trafficking in the middle east.
· I would like to see Congress demand an all out independent audit of KBR invoices and payments.
· I would like to see Congress find out exactly what KBR charged the DoD for man hours worked. Did they charge more than straight time for overtime? Did they charge uplift for every hour worked and then only pay for 40 hours?
· And most of all, what I would like to see for 2009 is KBR senior executives sentenced to prison for their part in the negligent deaths of US soldiers and US Civilians, human trafficking of third world laborers and the fleecing of the American taxpayer.
Happy New Year
Ms Sparky

An article sent today by another frustrated Federal Employee who expects that there may be a rush to get settlements from the folks who under the current Bush administration won’t prosecute anything, before the new Obama administration takes office. This article would tend to support that theory. This is disgusting! Anyone got ideas we all can help do to stop it? -VM

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Friday 02 January 2009
»
End Of The Year Brings A Burst Of Settlements With Justice Department
by: Carrie Johnson, The Washington Post


Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince under oath on Capitol Hill. The Bush department of justice settled a case against Blackwater in the final days before the transfer of power. (Photo: Susan Walsh / AP)

The Justice Department has reached more than a dozen business-related settlements since the presidential election, with more in the pipeline for January, prompting lawyers and interest groups to assert that companies are seeking more favorable terms before the new administration arrives.

The climate for business settlements could grow more harsh when Obama appointees seize the reins at the Justice Department, corporate lawyers say. They point to statements by Attorney General-designate Eric H. Holder Jr., who told an audience last month that he would expand the focus of federal prosecutors into corporate suites.

A review of 15 agreements involving corporations since early November suggests that much of the alleged misconduct dates back five years or more, provoking questions about why the cases took so long to mature and why resolutions are coming with only weeks left in President Bush's term.

"What they obviously are trying to do is take advantage of an administration that's deemed to be more friendly to business," said Cono R. Namorato, a Washington defense lawyer who ran the Internal Revenue Service's office of professional responsibility earlier in the Bush administration. "I know of no tax reason for doing it now."

Justice Department officials said there is nothing unusual about end-of-year settlements. They defend their record in investigating and prosecuting corporate misdeeds. In recent weeks, they announced indictments against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards for their role in a 2007 ambush that killed or injured 34 Iraqi civilians. Justice Department officials also rolled out their second-largest price-fixing settlement, a $585 million penalty shared by three companies that make high-tech liquid crystal display panels for computer monitors, televisions and cellphones.

"The department makes its enforcement decisions based solely on the facts and the law, after conducting a thorough investigation," spokesman Peter Carr said. "A look at previous months and years show a steady stream of cases that have been resolved by settlement or plea agreement. While the department reaches these kinds of agreements throughout the year, it's not unusual for parties to resolve enforcement matters by the end of the calendar year."

Since November, the Justice Department has announced 19 settlements or plea deals with companies, compared with 16 in the same time frame the year before. In 2006, department officials announced five business settlements in the same time frame.

Three lawyers who routinely represent companies before the Justice Department said they began to take notice shortly after the Nov. 4 election, when authorities announced a $725,000 environmental deal with Plantation Pipe Line. The number of settlements and plea agreements accelerated from there.

By mid-November, Britain's Aibel Group agreed to pay $4.2 million to resolve accusations that the oil and gas services company had flouted a probation agreement signed a year earlier, covering bribes its executives allegedly spread to Nigerian customs officials between 2002 and 2005.

A few weeks later came a case that authorities described as "unprecedented in scale and geographic reach." Siemens committed to pay $450 million in criminal fines, in a pact that left the German conglomerate eligible to bid for and win lucrative U.S. government contracts.

Two days before Christmas, Justice Department officials rolled out more settlements: a $1.7 million deal with Spartan Motors, which allegedly paid kickbacks to win a contract to make chassis for military vehicles; a $6.1 million deal with a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, accused of violating the Clean Water Act in connection with a 15,000-gallon diesel oil spill in Massachusetts; and a $7.6 million pact with Yale University to settle charges that it overbilled federal agencies on research grants between 2000 and 2006.

Corporate lawyers and public interest groups pointed to several other reasons
contributing to the burst in settlements, including a desire by businesses to avoid negative publicity by timing their deals to the holiday season, and a push by government attorneys to complete big cases before they leave for private-sector work.

"This is traditionally the time to ram a settlement through because no one notices," said Patrick Burns, a spokesman for Taxpayers Against Fraud, a nonprofit group that supports whistleblowers and their lawyers. "Putting it out between Christmas and New Year's is brilliant."

For Siemens, the trouble began with a 2006 raid by Munich prosecutors, who were searching for evidence connecting the electronics and engineering company to a wide-ranging series of corrupt payments that helped grease the skids for international projects.

Employees in far-flung operations routinely visited "cash desks" to withdraw millions of dollars and paid business consultants to serve as middlemen and slip the funds to foreign government officials in Argentina, Venezuela, Bangladesh and elsewhere, the company reported. In all, the joint probe by the U.S. and German governments uncovered $1.36 billion in payments, including $805 million in bribes to officials, since 1999, according to court papers.

At a recent news conference, federal prosecutors described the criminal fine as "strong medicine" and cited "extraordinary steps" that Siemens took to uncover the scope of the bribery and to restructure its operations.

The company hired a law firm and accounting experts to probe its problems, ultimately paying more than $776 million to advisers who reviewed millions of documents and interviewed 1,750 employees, according to a statement from Siemens.

Elizabeth Cho, a spokeswoman for the company, said recently that Siemens has made progress in complying with U.S. and international fraud laws. A lawyer for Siemens was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

Ellen S. Podgor, a law professor at Stetson University who tracks corporate fraud developments, said the timing of the Siemens case raised questions about "an end-of-the-year crunch."

"It seemed to me to be interesting coming at the end of the year," Podgor said in a telephone interview.

On her blog devoted to developments in white-collar crime, Podgor has bestowed a 2008 "best timing" award on Siemens for reaching a plea deal with the government before a change in presidential administration.

I truly do appreciate all of you who communicate with me and send me articles of interest you find as you are researching on your own. Thank you! An unidentified Federal Investigative Employee sent me this article with comment today. I was granted permission to post it as seen here. –VM (GFS)

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G. Florence-

Excellent article below! Many politicians have talked, and talked and talked for the past eight years about the injustices of the Bush administration. And, dare I say almost all, have backed away from any meaningful confrontation with the Bush administration. We all know the story and the legacy of the corruption rampant throughout Bush’s administration. Some of us have experienced it firsthand! For those of us that have, our lives and careers have been trampled upon. For those of us approaching retirement age, there will be no recouping from that damage- the damage is done, and we will continue to suffer into retirement through lost jobs, lost promotions, lost opportunities, lost wages and lost retirements. For those of us that have served under and been punished under the Bush administration- enough talk by politicians! We need to see some justice and some action by those politicians supposedly serving the people of this great nation. How does this new administration propose to extricate the damage and toll to those public servants and people’s lives and careers that have been destroyed by the Bush administration?

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Friday 02 January 2009
»
Obama Faces Legacy Of Lawlessness At Justice
by: Daphne Eviatar, The Washington Independent
Career lawyers hired for ideology entrenched in agency.




Under Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, DOJ lawyers were hired for jobs in the civil rights division of the Department of Justice based on their ideological positions against civil rights legislation. (Photo: Marc Piscotty / Getty)

After 29 years enforcing the civil rights laws at the Department of Justice, in 2002 Richard Ugelow was abruptly transferred from his position as deputy chief of employment litigation to an administrative job in the civil division, which defends the government against, among other things, claims of civil rights violations. Ugelow was just one of many highly experienced justice department lawyers who, beginning in the early years of the Bush administration, were transferred, demoted or otherwise pushed out of their positions at Justice because their aggressive enforcement of federal laws didn't match the new administration's conservative ideology.

That's just one of the many serious problems at the Department of Justice that the incoming Obama administration will have to rectify, say former Justice Department employees, law professors and civil rights advocates. As internal government reports and congressional hearings have documented, the Bush Justice Department over the last eight years expelled or ignored attorneys that it didn't agree with and replaced them with inexperienced lawyers hired more for their ideology than their qualifications. Many of those promoted and implemented conservative agendas that in some cases turned out to be illegal. Those lawyers who were given career positions can't simply be pushed out by a new administration, however - and they could make it difficult for Obama to implement a new agenda.

Under President Bush, "there was a total disregard for the career attorneys," said Ugelow, who now teaches at American University's Washington College of Law. "When they initially came in they stopped all enforcement activities. The administration came in with the attitude that we're not going to use the courts to enforce the law."

The result, says Jon Greenbaum, a former senior attorney in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, was "you had people in charge who didn't know what the heck they were doing. At the civil rights division, you had some of the people who were most hostile to civil rights running things."

In fact, as an inspector general's report revealed, potential new hires during the Bush administration were disqualified for jobs if in the past they'd worked for Democrats or organizations with "liberal affiliations" - such as civil rights groups. The inspector general concluded that "political or ideological affiliations were used to deselect candidates" applying for entry-level attorney positions and internships.

The Inspector General is still investigating a separate set of allegations that DOJ lawyers hired attorneys for the civil rights division based on ideology in violation of the civil service laws.

Not surprisingly, during the Bush years, civil rights enforcement on behalf of minorities dropped dramatically. From 2000 to 2006, for example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission referred more than 3200 individual charges of discrimination to the civil rights division, yet the division filed only seven cases (pdf) on behalf of African-Americans or Latinos. And of only seven cases (pdf) alleging systemic racial discrimination brought by September of 2007, two were reverse discrimination cases - alleging systemic discrimination against whites.

The department's enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, meanwhile, essentially came to a halt, says Greenbaum, as political appointees refused to bring new voting rights cases recommended by longtime career attorneys and at times ignored their legal judgments.

In 2003, for example, voting division lawyers and analysts unanimously warned that a Texas redistricting plan spearheaded by Republican Rep. Tom Delay would violate the voting rights act by diluting black and latino voting power. They were overruled by political appointees. In 2006, the US Supreme Court held that the redistricting plan was unconstitutional.

Similarly, when Georgia sought to pass a voter ID law, career staff objected that the law would effectively discriminate against minority voters, many of whom would not have the kinds of identification cards required. "Again, the front office just didn't care. They pretty much ignored it," says Greenbaum, now director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Although Justice Department senior officials signed off on the Georgia law, it was eventually ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, who likened the ID requirement to a poll tax from the Jim Crow era.

Obama will soon have the opportunity to hire his own political appointee to lead the Civil Rights Division. Still, "[t]he overall damage caused by losing a large body of the committed career staff and replacing it with persons with little or no interest or experience in civil rights enforcement has been severe and will be difficult to overcome," Joseph Rich, the former chief of the voting section at Justice from 1999 to 2005, told a congressional committee in 2007.

And it's not just the civil rights division that's been damaged, lawyers warn. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's dismissal of seven US Attorneys in 2006 allegedly based on ideology is now under investigation by a special prosecutor. And at the Office of Legal counsel, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and his deputy John Yoo advised the president in 2002 that he had unprecedented executive authority to ignore federal and international law. Those opinions - later sharply criticized and partly withdrawn by Jack Goldsmith, Bybee's successor - led President Bush and his senior officials to authorize the torture, abuse and humiliation of detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and US anti-torture law, and to permit warrantless wiretapping of US citizens. Civil rights advocates are now calling for criminal investigations into those who authorized those acts - including the lawyers.

Looking forward, advocates and former career lawyers hope the new Obama administration will change that. But it won't be easy. Although Obama will make new political appointments, such as the heads of the Office of Legal Counsel and of the civil rights division, he's stuck with many of the career attorneys that some say are unqualified.

"You can't get rid of the career people," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and professor at Columbia Law School. "They have civil service protections. To fire them for political reasons would be the equivalent of hiring them for political reasons. On the other hand you don't have to let them run their politics on the case."

In fact, say legal scholars and advocates, the most important change Obama can make at Justice is to eliminate ideology from decision-making and return the department to its tradition of fairly enforcing the law.

"For me, the structural issue is the independence of the office of legal counsel," says Ratner. "OLC got utterly maligned and controlled by [Dick] Cheney and [David] Addington. So restoring the office of legal counsel to an independent voice is absolutely crucial."

Advocates such as Ratner are pushing for prosecutions of Cheney, Addington, Rumsfeld and others, insisting that only by prosecuting such abuses can the new justice department prevent their recurrence. Obama has not said whether he will initiate a criminal investigation, although he hasn't ruled it out.

But there are also actions a new administration can take short of prosecution that could go a long way toward restoring respect for the rule of law, say legal scholars.

Making all the legal memos public is an important first step, said Sharon Kelly, a campaign manager at Human Rights First. The new administration should also review all of those memos and refute those that promote an unlawful view of unbridled executive power, says Ratner, who notes that although Goldsmith refuted the infamous "torture memo" written by John Yoo, he's "never refuted the broad views of Yoo that the executive can do whatever is necessary to protect the country in war. I would want to see the justice department pull in the broad statements by affirmatively saying the president cannot violate the law in the name of national security."

As for the civil rights division, it will have to get the lawyers hired under the Bush administration to begin vigorously enforcing the civil rights laws. In the area of voting rights, for example, the 2010 Census data is expected to lead to a flood of proposals for redistricting in 2011 and 2012, many of which will require review under the Voting Rights Act.

Ugelow is optimistic: "I'm hoping they'll put somebody in charge who will have some gravitas and be well respected and appoint subordinates around him or her who will set a tone where enforcement is the order of the day."

Other than Eric Holder, Obama's pick for the next attorney general, the president-elect hasn't yet announced his choices for who will lead key divisions at Justice. But David Ogden, former assistant attorney general for the Civil Division under President Clinton and now a partner at the law firm William Hale, is considered a likely pick for Deputy Attorney General. Ugelow said he thinks Holder will be "terrific" and that Ogden "has a wonderful reputation as a straight shooter."

Washington lawyers say that Tom Perez, a former Justice Department lawyer, now secretary of labor in Maryland and serving on Obama's transition team, is a possible pick for the Civil Rights division.

Potential leaders for Office of Legal Counsel include Martin Lederman, a former OLC attorney now teaching at Georgetown University Law School, and Dawn Johnsen, a law professor at Indiana University and former acting assistant attorney general of the office. Both are on Obama's transition team.

"The next AG is going to have his work cut out for him," warns Kelly of Human Rights First. "The Department of Justice needs strong leadership to put things back on track. Hopefully, it will go back to being a place more interested in upholding the law than in finding ways to skirt it."

From TPM (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/report_sec_probing_other_madof.php)

Report: SEC Probing Other Madoff-Style Ponzi Schemes
By Zachary Roth - January 2, 2009, 5:17PM
Was Madoff just the tip of the iceberg?
The SEC is investigating at least one case in which investors may have been cheated out of as much as $1 billion, by money managers using tactics similar to those alleged to have been employed by Madoff, Bloomberg reports, based on anonymous sources "with knowledge of the inquiries."

It adds:
Regulators may discover additional Ponzi arrangements as declining stock markets prompt investors to withdraw their cash and they question how their money is being managed. This week, the SEC said it halted what the agency described as a $23 million scam targeting Haitian-Americans, and said the Florida- based operators had tried as recently as last month to bring in more investors.

And it throws in an additional nugget of news stemming from Madoff's providing a list of his assets to the SEC on Wednesday:
A catalog of Madoff's assets provided by his attorneys to the SEC on Dec. 31 hasn't revealed any major sources of additional cash, a person familiar with the matter said.

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From Times Online
Link: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5345751.ece

December 15, 2008
The $50bn scam: How Bernard Madoff allegedly cheated investors

(Ruby Washington/The New York Times/AP)
Bernie Madoff: accused of a $50 billion 'Ponzi' scam

Times Online
On Thursday, Bernard Madoff, millionaire businessman, Wall Street legend and respected philanthropist, was arrested for what the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US regulator, called “a massive fraud — both in terms of scope and duration”.

Details are now emerging of how Mr Madoff was able to allegedly dupe a growing list of some of the world’s largest investors, including funds linked to Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Santander, owner of Abbey.

Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BMIS), founded in 1960, was made up of three businesses: investment adviser services, market making services and proprietary trading.
It is the investment adviser services business that is at the centre of a scandal that came to light after Mr Madoff apparently confessed to "two senior employees" — believed to be his two sons — that he was “finished”, that he had “absolutely nothing” and “it’s all just one big lie”.

Apparently, Mr Madoff said the business had been insolvent for years and, from having $17 billion of assets under management at the beginning of 2008, the SEC said: “It appears that virtually all assets of the advisory business are gone”.

It has now emerged that Friehling & Horowitz, the auditor that signed off the annual financial statement for the investment advisory business for 2006, is under investigation by the district attorney in New York’s Rockland County, a northern suburb of New York City.

Friehling & Horowitz is a three-person operation based in the northern suburbs of New York City. It is run by one partner, David Friehling, who is in his seventies and is understood to live in Florida, and employs an accountant and a secretary.

The secretive Mr Madoff was able to orchestrate one of the biggest frauds in corporate history by operating the investment advisory business from a separate floor at his midtown Manhattan office.
According to Bloomberg, the investment advisory business was situated on the 17th floor, with the other divisions based on the 18th and 19th floors.

While there was interaction between the 18th and 19th floors, where the market making services and proprietary trading were situated, there was little or no engagement with the 17th floor. It is said, however, that Mr Madoff liked to visit the other floors in the evening to make sure that staff had left their desks tidy.
According to the SEC complaint against Mr Madoff, he kept financial statements for the firm “under lock and key” and was “cryptic” about the investment advisory business when discussing it with other employees.

However, early this month Mr Madoff apparently told a member of staff that clients had asked for a combined $7 billion and he was struggling to find the money to meet his obligations. He then informed another employee he would pay bonuses in December, as opposed to February when staff usually received their annual perks.

Mr Madoff’s sons confronted their father about the early payment of bonuses last week, after perceiving he had been “under great stress in the prior weeks”.

At their father’s request, Mr Madoff’s two sons joined him at his apartment in Manhattan, after admitting that he “wasn’t sure he could hold it together” if they continued their discussion at the offices.
It was at the Manhattan apartment that Mr Madoff apparently confessed that the business was in fact a “giant Ponzi scheme” and that the firm had been insolvent for years.

To cap it all, Mr Madoff told his sons he was going to give himself up, but only after giving out the $200 - $300 million money he had left to “employees, family and friends”.

All the company’s remaining assets have now been frozen in the hope of repaying some of the companies, individuals and charities that have been unfortunate enough to invest in the business.
However, with the fraud believed to exceed $50 billion, whatever recompense investors could receive will be a drop in the ocean.