Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., Suzhou Textiles, Silk, Light Industrial Products, Arts and Crafts I/E Co., and Las Vegas-based ChemNutra Inc. were charged in two separate but related indictments. The U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City said the tainted food led to the death and serious illness of pets in the U.S. last year.

For more see 3 Companies Indicted.

District Judge Elizabeth Halverson, who has been suspended with pay for eight months, has announced she will run for office again if forced from her post by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline, which finally filed formal charges against her. Halverson, as a judge, has been accused of falling asleep in court, abusing employees, mishandling jury trials and general incompetence, and as a citizen, keeping a filthy yard.

At the same time, the Nevada Supreme Court has ordered the commission to justify why it took so long to bring formal charges against Halverson.

Is it any surprise? Another judge in Clark County who has been accused of behaving like a pig wants to continue to wallow at the government trough. And why do bad judges and lawyers continue to practice--or in this case paid--for so long after problems begin to appear leaving the public exposed and vulneralble to a legal system voted one of the worst in the country? Perhaps the oversight committees are part of the problem?... Or the fact the legal system basically polices itself?...Do you think?

Or another question to ask the public...do you care?

Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader blamed by Société Générale for massive fraud, was taken into custody in France.

If he had really been a supercriminal, I would have thought he would have a couple new identities and left for some fun in St. Kitts.

From Cox.net: The "Heavy Hitter" is facing the wrath of a judge for missing the first day of his client's murder trial. The "Review-Journal" says Glen Lerner left a message for Clark County prosecutor Roy Nelson over the weekend, saying he was in Pennsylvania "on sabbatical," and told him, quote, "if the judge wants to sanction me, she can sanction me." Nelson provided District Judge Michelle Leavitt with a copy of Lerner's recording. Lerner was to have defended Mario Lino on charges he killed a man whom he thought was having an affair with his wife. Leavitt re assigned Lino's case to a public defender and warned she would report Lerner to the State Bar. Lerner told the newspaper he expects to be back in Las Vegas by March or possibly May. He says he's reexamining his priorities, saying he has been, quote, "living the life of a rock star for so long."

I guess he should have been living the life of an attorney. Does this mean no more commercials and will he be subjected to any kind of state bar investigation and further sanctions?

Zac Moyle, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, was arrested last weekend, apparently over unpaid speeding tickets.

From the Las Vegas Review Journal:
A Clark County grand jury has indicted former Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates' son, Brian Atkinson Turner, on child neglect and drug related charges. Turner's wife was also indicted in the case.

Former Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs today pleaded not guilty to all four felony charges against her, including perjury and filing false documents in her failed 2006 re-election campaign.

O.J. Simpson was arrested Sunday, three days after police named him a suspect in an alleged armed robbery of collectors involving the former football great's sports memorabilia, authorities said.
Simpson was arrested shortly after 11 a.m., Capt. James Dillon said. Police were still determining charges.

No doubt after everyone gets an autograph, no charges will be filed.

52-year-old Orlando Jones, godson and a former aid to John H. Stroger, Jr., a politician who in 1994 became the first African American president of the Cook County, Illinois Board of Commissioners, was found Wednesday on a beach in the town of Union Pier in southwestern Michigan, dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Jones had been under criminal investigation by Las Vegas authorities, who last week recommended he be prosecuted along with fired Las Vegas hospital administrator Lacey Thomas and a Chicago businessman.

The recent articles on the Nevada sex scene have given bloggers plenty to post the last few days, so why not go with the flow; hopefully, the attention will keep Oscar saying stupid things, his stock in trade, giving bloggers continued blogisms...or is that blogasms.

New York Times, September 8, 2007
Escape From Las Vegas
By Bob Herbert

Amber is 19 years old and on Sunday she caught a flight out of Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport and went home to a small town in Minnesota, not far from the Iowa border.

I'm rooting for her. She's low on funds ("I've got my ticket, that's about all," she said), and she's at a crucial turning point in her life.

The question is whether she will go off to college in Florida, and stick with it, which she insists is what she wants to do, or whether she will slip back into her life as a stripper and lap dancer, which is so often the start of the descent into the hell of prostitution.

"I hate the dancing," she told me. "Sometimes I think I don't have a strong enough mind for it, because of the way people treat me."

I met Amber in Las Vegas last week. I was with Melissa Farley, a psychologist and researcher who was asked by the head of the U.S. State Department's anti-trafficking office to do a study of the sex trade and its consequences in Nevada.

(She published the book-length study this week under the title, "Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections.")

In the Las Vegas Sun today former Clark County Commissioner, Lynette Boggs, was indicted on felony charges stemming from allegations that she didn't live in the commission district she represented and that she paid a nanny with campaign funds.

She was ordered to appear Sept. 5 in Clark County District Court to answer two charges of filing false or forged documents and two counts of perjury.

At the same time LasVegasNow is reporting that Federal agents have uncovered new evidence about money Michael McDonald received while he was still a Las Vegas city councilman.

The agents have discovered that McDonald, while he was a councilman, was paid monthly by a law firm and received a loan from a catholic priest.

Both the law firm and the priest have connections with former Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo who is now in prison.

And today there was news concerning Rick Rizzolo, when the Crazy Horse Too was seized by the U.S. government after practically bending over to allow Rizzolo to find a "qualified" buyer for the club which recently lost its liquor license, despite efforts by Las Vegas Mayor Goodman, and finally closed.

Plus, former commissioner Yvonne "at least I'm not going to jail" Atkinson is still being investigated for allegedly using her son for her campaign and receiving money back, while former county commissioners Dario Herrera, Mary Kincaid Chauncy, and Erin Kenny are all serving time for their "stellar" performance as public servants for Clark County.

On LasVegasNow Brian Atkinson Turner, son of former Commissioner Yvonne Gates, and his wife, Katherine O'Gara, were taken into custody on drug and child endangerment charges.

Police arrived at the home in Southern Highlands because they received reports that O'Gara was driving erratically, possibly under the influence, and with her three-year-old in the car, unrestrained. Inside the house, they found filth and garbage and more, including marijuana and a hydroponic growing system favored by indoor pot farmers. A loaded handgun was in the glove box of the car, just inches from where the child had been.

Law enforcement are still tracking down leads about Gates and has long suspected that some of the money paid by Gates to her family members-- more than $400,000--for her campaign made its way back into her own pocket.

So far, Turner is only charged with possession with intent to sell marijuana and was released Wednesday evening on $10,000 bail.

President Bush on Sunday signed into law an expansion of the government's power to eavesdrop on foreign terror suspects without the need for warrants.

The law, approved by the Senate and the House just before Congress adjourned for its summer break, was deemed a priority by Bush and his chief intelligence officials.

Bush signed the bill into law on Sunday afternoon at his retreat at Camp David, Md.

For more go to Bush Signs Bill Expanding Terror Surveillance Powers.

According to state investigators, the operators of at least 11 Purrfect Auto locations had a scheme designed to rip off six out of every ten customers by charging them for repairs that either weren't needed or were never done reports News 3.

State investigators say anyone who thinks they have been ripped off by Purrfect Auto should contact the Nevada Attorney General's office to file a formal complaint at 486-3194.

On Yahoo News: The FBI and IRS have searched the home of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens in a ski resort in Alaska as part of an investigation into his links with an oil-services company

Stevens is the subject of a grand-jury investigation into his links with managers of VECO Corp., the state's largest oil-services company, as well as numerous unrelated fisheries matters.

In May, Bill Allen, then the chief executive of VECO, along with a vice president, Rick Smith, pleaded guilty to several federal corruption charges.

Two Canadian billionaires, David and Eskander Ghermezian, and one of the biggest developers in the Las Vegas area could be among the witnesses called to testify in the federal corruption trial of real estate consultant, Donald Davidson, accused of paying $200,000 for a favorable vote from former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny and of trying to buy votes from other elected officials including former Las Vegas City Councilman Michael McDonald, who just got his own sweetheart land deal from the Las Vegas City Council this week.

Among the Ghermezian clan, they are managers and officers of over 300 corporations listed on the secretary of state website for corporate entities

In the Las Vegas Sun:
Trial for a developer, Donald Davidson, accused of bribing southern Nevada officials has been delayed until Wednesday while prosecutors and defense attorneys argue over whether too much time has elapsed to pursue one of the charges.

Jury selection was to have begun Monday but was postponed so U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Las Vegas could decide whether a conspiracy charge against the real estate consultant exceeded a five-year statute of limitations.

Davidson, 72, and his son, Lawrence Davidson, 40, were indicted in 2005 on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering that could result in decades in prison and millions of dollars in fines on conviction.

Both men pleaded not guilty to accusations that they paid former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny $200,000 in exchange for her help in 2001 to allow a chain pharmacy to be built in northwest Las Vegas.

Lawrence Davidson, a former Las Vegas attorney, became a fugitive and a warrant was issued last October for his arrest after he failed to appear for a trial in a separate federal case.

Lawyers were arguing Monday whether a conspiracy charge contained in a second superseding indictment filed against Donald Davidson in 2006 exceeded the five-year time limit.

The revised indictment alleged Davidson conspired with Kenny on a proposal for a neighborhood casino in the Spring Valley area of Clark County outside Las Vegas.

Davidson's lawyer, Dominic Gentile, has argued that there was no evidence that Kenny received money for the casino vote. Even if Davidson and Kenny had an agreement before the vote, Gentile said, the act of conspiracy would have been completed once the vote took place.

Of course, the counter argument most likely is that it was part of an ongoing conspiracy of money for influence that included the later events also. Heck, maybe there was some tax evasion which should have been considered, bringing down the wrath of the IRS and a six year limitation, I believe.

In the Nevada Observer the following:

In a move seldom seen in recent memory, criminal charges have been filed against a politician involved in allegedly breaking Nevada's porous election law regarding campaign finance and residence. Former Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs has been charged with four felonies, two of which deal with campaign finance and two with filing forged or otherwise illegal documents. There are also reports that a state investigation is underway dealing with a high-end automobile purchase.

Boggs was arraigned June 7 and released without bail. The charges carried a recommendation from the prosecution that bond be set at $120,000. A preliminary hearing has been set for August 14. The arraignment came as Boggs returned to Las Vegas from a jaunt out of the county.

Questions of financial improprieties were raised when Boggs was running for reelection, but then Attorney General George Chanos and then Secretary of State Dean Heller recused themselves from the investigation because both of them used the same campaign treasurer as Boggs. Clark County District Attorney David Roger filed the charges on June 4.

According to Roger's charges, Boggs used campaign funds to pay a baby sitter and charged the cost to her campaign expenses. The amount listed was $1,230. There is also an alleged campaign donation of $5,000 that is not listed in her campaign and expense reports.

Boggs has also been charged with lying on her election forms about where she lived. Clark County commissioners must live in the district they represent and Boggs was found to be living in a home outside the district and listing a home in the district in which she did not live. Union representatives in a private investigation video taped Boggs over a several week period coming from the home outside the district dressed only in a bathrobe.

One of the unions involved was the police protective association of Clark County, which may have led to the decision by Roger to file the charges. Nevada's election law is generally looked at as a joke by politicians who often barely squeak by on their obligations to report contributions and expenses. In the past many years the secretary of state, the state's elections officer, and the attorney general have neglected their responsibilities to enforce the law.

Remember that the police union was angry with Boggs for voting against the pay raise the union asked for. Just think of the drug deals, strip club beatings, and other crimes they might have missed by making sure they got even with her. Certainly shows they deserve a pay raise or they might neglect some other criminal activity, like officers accepting gifts from suspects and consorting with persons of ill repute. (See a 2003 story Top Cop calls Rizzolo person of "ill repute," and "suspect" by Steve Miller.) Of course, I am not excusing what Boggs did, just questioning the resources expended for such a desperado while Las Vegas has seen one of the largest increases in violent crime in the past couple of years.

Carson City has received a number of grants in recent days aimed at combating street gangs according to the Nevada Appeal.

District Attorney Neil Rombardo announced Wednesday that Carson City has been selected as one of six jurisdictions nationwide that will participate in an initiative known as the Gang Response Model created by the National District Attorneys Association.

"The Carson City Sheriff's Office has identified at least nine gangs in Carson City, and various factors are drawing more gang members to the Carson City area," Rombardo said. In the application for the assistance, Rombardo noted that the city's location geographically makes it an ideal rest stop for Mexican drug traffickers and the estimated 400 gang members in Carson City are easy prey for large drug cartels looking for people to move their merchandise.

Wow--400 gang members--must be nearly impossible to know what they are doing. One of the things Rudy Giuliani was noted for was putting police back on foot patrol in New York City--the result was the officers actually got to know the neighborhoods, both the good and the bad people, when they weren't looking at the world through a windshield. Obviously, in Clark County officers are not likely to leave their air conditioned cars except for emergencies or donuts but getting to know the neighborhoods face to face seems like a good "gang response model," without the fancy title.

Two other issues that strike me with this article are:
1. Calling the gang members easy prey for drug cartels to recruit to move drugs. Excuse me, but the gang members are predators, looking to make just these kind of connections, not victims.
2. While many seem to weep over the plight of the illegal Mexican who enters this country supposedly to work "jobs Americans don't want," which seems to include construction, hotel service, lawn care, etc., many of these illegals have been forging papers, creating several false identities to avoid arrest, committing sex crimes, drunk driving, robbery, theft, and surprise...trafficking in drugs with the Mexican cartels. Boo hoo for the poor Mexican illegal. Go back to Mexico and overthrow your own corrupt government and let us deal with ours. Why don't we arrest illegals and immediately take them to the border--so they can't change identities and go back to work the next day--and for everyone deported allow someone from another country who has been waiting legally to enter this country to come? That way the politicians could replace one potential voter, who is already a lawbreaker, with one who enters legally.