Posted on 12/05/2005 9:23:34 PM PST by vrwc1
AUSTIN, Texas - A judge dismissed a conspiracy charge Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay but refused to throw out far more serious allegations of money-laundering, dashing the congressman's hopes for now of reclaiming his post as House majority leader.
Texas Judge Pat Priest, who is presiding over the case against the Republican, issued the ruling after a hearing late last month in which DeLay's attorney argued that the indictment was fatally flawed.
When he was indicted in September, DeLay was required under House rules to relinquish the leadership post he had held since 2003. While Monday's ruling was a partial victory for DeLay, he cannot reclaim his post because he remains under indictment.
The ruling means the case will move toward a trial next year, though other defense objections to the indictments remain to be heard by the judge.
DeLay declined to speak with reporters Monday evening as he entered a campaign fundraiser with Vice President Dick Cheney at a Houston hotel.
But DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said the court's decision "underscores just how baseless and politically motivated the charges were."
DeLay "is very encouraged by the swift progress of the legal proceedings and looks forward to his eventual and absolute exoneration based on the facts and the law," Madden said.
In a written statement, prosecutor Ronnie Earle's office said authorities had made no decision about whether to appeal. Prosecutors have 15 days to challenge the decision.
DeLay, 58, and two GOP fundraisers, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, are accused of illegally funneling $190,000 in corporate donations to 2002 Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature. Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns, but it can be used for administrative purposes.
In asking that the case be thrown out, DeLay lawyer Dick DeGuerin argued that one of the charges — conspiracy to violate the Texas election code — did not even take effect until September 2003, a year after the alleged offenses occurred.
Prosecutors, however, said the crime of conspiracy was already on the books, and could be applied to the election code even though such uses were not explicitly in state law at the time.
The judge was unpersuaded by that argument and dismissed the conspiracy charge. But the judge upheld charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Those charges involve an alleged attempt by DeLay to conceal the source of the campaign contributions by funneling the money through his own political action committee and then an arm of the Republican National Committee.
In trying to have those charges thrown out, the defense argued that the Texas money laundering law does not apply to funds in the form of a check, just coins or paper money. But the judge said that checks "are clearly funds and can be the subject of money laundering."
The defense attorneys also argued that the definition of money laundering in Texas involves the transfer of criminal proceeds. Because the money in this case was not illegal to begin with, they argued, money laundering never occurred.
But the judge rejected that argument, too, saying the money became suspect when "it began to be held with the prohibited intent."
He said if prosecutors can prove that DeLay and his associates obtained the corporate donations "with the express intent of converting those funds to the use of individual candidates," or that they converted money legally collected by sending it to the RNC and asking for the same amount to be sent back to Texas candidates, "then they will have established that money was laundered."
Conspiracy to violate the election code carries up to two years in prison. Money laundering is punishable by five years to life. Conspiracy to commit money laundering carries two years.
The alleged campaign-finance scheme had far-reaching political effects: With DeLay's fundraising muscle, the GOP took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, then pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that resulted in more Texas Republicans going to Congress.
At the court hearing last month, DeLay's lawyers asked for a quick decision on their request for a dismissal, and, if the ruling went against DeLay, a prompt trial, in hopes that he could regain his leadership post by the time the House reconvenes in late January. But the judge said at the time that it was unlikely the case would go to trial before the first of the year.
Norm Ornstein, an analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, said DeLay's chances of regaining his leadership job were "slim to none."
"You've got a lot of people who privately view DeLay as so radioactive," said Ornstein, a frequent critic of DeLay. The congressman is also linked to an ongoing investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The judge has yet to rule on a defense bid to move DeLay's trial out of liberal, Democratic-leaning Austin and allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. DeGuerin accused the district attorney of shopping the DeLay case around to different grand juries until he found one that would indict the congressman.
The judge acted as a CNN-USA Today/Gallup poll showed that DeLay's political standing has weakened considerably in his home district around Houston.
The Dec. 1-4 survey of 713 registered voters found 49 percent saying they would be more likely to vote for a Democratic challenger in 2006 while 36 percent would vote for DeLay. And 55 percent said DeLay probably or definitely broke campaign finance laws. The telephone poll in the 22nd Congressional District of Texas had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
___
Associated Press Writer Suzanne Gamboa in Washington contributed to this report.
The defense attorneys also argued that the definition of money laundering in Texas involves the transfer of criminal proceeds. Because the money in this case was not illegal to begin with, they argued, money laundering never occurred.
But the judge rejected that argument, too, saying the money became suspect when "it began to be held with the prohibited intent."
Apparently the judge has decided to write new law and to re-define money laundering to be what he says it is, not what the plain text of the Texas statute says.
Texas Judge Lets Stand 2 of 3 Charges Against DeLay
Nice headline - no bias there, nosireebob!
Next : DeLay Found Innocent but Could be Guilty in the Future!
This new judge looks to be VERY partisan and crooked.
The judge has already made up his mind to rewrite the law.
Yeah, that quote from him sure made me do a double take. Sounds like he's already decided Delay is guilty and is constructing his own law to convict him with.
That's what it looks like to me too.
Gotta love that impartial media.
Gotta love that impartial media.
~LOL~ MSNBC has the same headline and I had to blink twice to make certain I wasn't seeing things -- then I remembered WHO had the headline and it made perfect sense.. why would they say "DeLay aquited of" .... when they could say "Delay indictment upheld"
But there's a problem here that this judge made for himself...you can't just make up laws on your own and since this is such a high profile case, the judge can and probably WILL be disabused of his arrogance. Tom's got a brilliant lawyer, who won't let this slide.
I am flabbergasted that the judge would go so far as to even entertain the idea that the legal transfer of legitimate funds from one entity to another, and another legal transfer of equally legitimate funds from the second entity to the first, can be construed as an illegal transaction when no law existed at the time of the transactions to make even the linked transactions illegal.
I don't even think such a law even currently exists.
I'm not even sure if the Democrats are even aware that they're endangering their entire financial structure for their party. Unlike Republicans, the Democrats rely heavily on corporate monies to offset their lack of fund raising capability in rural and suburban areas. Democrats will be hampered by this new interpretation in their ability to shift funds from their urban strongholds to the rural, conservative areas.
As for Republicans, since individual giving is a conservative strength - raising funds in urban areas will be tougher, but not necessarily impossible, and it will certainly be easier than for Democrats raising money outside of their usual haunts.
are we in an echo chamber??
the judge is not writing law. intent is one of the most important elements of a crime. carrying a gun might not be illegal, but carrying a gun with the intent to force another to give me his money is.
try taking an introductory criminal law class before posting on issues of which you have no idea.
"Didn't the Chinese Government use the Clinton White House for money laundering?"
I vaguely recall something about them owning Washeeton from 1993-2000 ...
No; the $50,000 delivered in the paper bag to the White House function while Bill and Hillary were present was only a payment on an overdue Chinese laundry bill.
I sure hope you're right. Looks to me that if the judge has his way, Tom will be tied up in appeal for years.
secondly, whats wrong with pointing out the factual statement that conspiracy is less serious than the money laundering charge.
maximum penalty for conspiracy is 2 yrs prison
laundering is 5 years,
so which is more serious??
It is clear that this indictment is an example of the the current servitude of the court system to the ends of political power satyrs...in this instance Ronnie Earle and his Democratic groupie cadre.
This fanatical Grand Inquisitor has no case, it just seems that the judge does not have the balls to rule against the NYTimes left - either that or he is just a democratic crony. Almost no one thinks what Delay did was illegal (among experts) and was a common practice. Yet this judge has chosen to amend the law to what he "wished" it had said...mumbo jumbo about "prohibited intent".
After all, Texas law is plain and clear: money laundering is the act of taking the proceeds of one or more criminal activities and making them untraceable. Typical 'money laundering' includes 'cleaning' the proceeds from drug sales, illegal gambling, bunko scams, etc. by making them financially invisible through off shore accounts, legal gambling operations, etc.. In this light, the speciousness of Earles charges should be self-evident - even to a Democratic judge:
a) During the time in question, no funds (coinage, currency, etc.) eligible (under the law) for laundering was transferred between named parties. All transactions were openly transferred by checks, excluded by law (at the time) as “funds" that are used in money laundering. The judge can call them "funds", but it is clear that this is an ex post facto reinterpitation.
b) Proceeds (dictionary def: "the amount of money derived from a commercial or fundraising venture; the yield") were legally solicited and openly transferred between parties prior to any alleged crime, not (as Texas law stipulates in the meaning of money laundering) derived as a yield from a "criminal" activity.
c) In any case, a predicate criminal act is required and then any resulting proceed laundering consists of two, separate, crimes and transactions. Texas and Federal courts have held they cannot occur in the same transaction. For example, when the courts have ruled on bank fraud and money laundering, seperate acts are required for both charges: the fraud that obtains the funds AND then (following it) a separate transaction that is required that to show an attempt to "launder" the money.
d) Texas election code replaced all related Penal Code in 1975, setting the civil and criminal limits to violations of election law (e.g. the election code stipulates there can be no corporate contributions to canidates beyond administrative expenses and it was defined as a third degree felony). They did not intend to "layer" that code with identical and the more severe Penal code of money laundering (1st degree felony) otherwise it would make election code limits irrelevant.
What the judge is saying is that money laundering is the solicitation of corporate money with the intent to use it in a prohibited activity by openly transfering it between partys...
That may be a lot of things, but it is not money laundering. Any more than collecting money from investors with the intent to use it for illegal purposes is "money laundering"...it may be fraud, or conspiracy to commit a crime (violating the election code), but it is NOT money laundering.
This is the "criminalization" of politics and is, like the RICO statutes, clearly an abuse of the law.
In the end Earle will lose, but he will have done his dirty job of destroying the leadership of the house Republicans on a phony charge cooked up in his office.
Such is the state of our "justice" system..
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