Posted on 05/07/2020 7:36:16 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
The Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the convictions of two government officials implicated in the 2013 Bridgegate scandal, in which then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) allies schemed to create a traffic jam to retaliate against one of his rivals.
The justices said in their unanimous decision that while the scheme involved deception and corruption, it did not violate federal law.
"The question presented is whether the defendants committed property fraud," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the court's opinion. "The evidence the jury heard no doubt shows wrongdoing — deception, corruption, abuse of power. But the federal fraud statutes at issue do not criminalize all such conduct. Under settled precedent, the officials could violate those laws only if an object of their dishonesty was to obtain the Port Authority’s money or property."
The case centered around convictions of Bridget Anne Kelly, a former aide to Christie, and Bill Baroni, a former Port Authority official, for their role in a scheme to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge to create traffic problems for the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., who had refused to endorse Christie.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
1. Christie knew about it.
2. There's no evidence anywhere that he knew about it.
3. This had nothing to do with politics and was part of a jurisdictional pissing match between the state of New Jersey and the town of Fort Lee over access restrictions to the George Washington Bridge.
If you can't tell, I'm very anti-Chris Christie. A smug self-aggrandizing abrasive blowhard do nothing jerk who accomplished two lasting things: Saved Obama in 2012 and made the one cheap thing we had in NJ, gasoline, expensive. Oh yeah, and all his recommendations to Trump for staff positions appear to have been deep state hacks that have worked to undermine Trump.
Other than hurting the feelings of the teachers unions in his first year in office before backing down, what else has he done?
Honestly, I think he mailed it in after his third year in office. He was angling to be the U.S. Attorney General under Romney, but was smart enough to recognize that the guy was a pathetic loser.
That's not an analogous example. A better example is this: Suppose I apply for membership to a prestigious club that requires not only money, but also a certain pedigree. On the application I falsely claim that I have a net worth of $4 billion, a BS in engineering from MIT, an MBA from Wharton, sit on the board of directors of several publicly traded corporations, hold multiple patents, and was the CEO of a small biotech company that I sold for billions of dollars -- all supported by false and fraudulent documentation. The club, relying upon my misrepresentations, offers me a membership, which I gladly accept, and pay the $250,000 initiation fee and $50,000 annual dues with my life's savings from a small inheritance and a second mortgage on my raised ranch. Six months later, one of the club members catches me working the night shift stocking shelves at Walmart, and seeks to revoke my club membership on the grounds that I misrepresented myself on the application. I respond, "What's the big deal, I paid the fees." Did I defraud the club?
To make my case, let's look at this from the standpoint of a civil lawsuit: If the club wanted to sue me for fraud, would they win?
I'm not even a lawyer, but I can say with absolute certainty that not only is the answer "NO!" ... the case would be tossed out of court long before it went to trial for one simple reason: The club has no legal standing to file a claim because they cannot demonstrate any harm they've suffered as a result of my misrepresentations. Not only that ... but they've actually GAINED $300,000 from me.
With that said, the SCOTUS decision does raise the issue of whether the parents can be convicted of fraud if their child did not knowingly participate in the scheme, since the child, not the parents received the fruits of the crime.
A common legal definition of fraud (emphasis is mine): The intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive another of his/her/its money, property or a legal right.
The club as the representative of its members has standing and would win. The issue is not whether the club received payment for the membership; rather the issue is what the club and its members received in return: They though they were getting a jet-setting, blue-blood titan of industry, but instead, they got an hourly worker at Walmart.
To put this in legal terms, every contract requires “consideration” to be valid and enforceable. Consideration is the value given (or legal right relinquished) by each party to the contract. In my example, the consideration given by the club is membership and all the rights, privileges, and prestige of being a member. The consideration given by the club applicant is money and pedigree. If the applicant lied about his pedigree, then then there is a failure of consideration, and as a result, the membership contract is unenforceable. Thus, while the club may not have a legal claim for money damages, it could most certainly sue in equity to have the membership contract canceled based upon a failure of consideration and fraud in the inducement.
You may be correct as to common-law fraud, but according to the SCOTUS, under the wire-fraud statute enacted by Congress, the purpose of the fraudulent scheme must be to “obtain money or property.”
Well, maybe I'm not understanding the nuances of the legal process here.
Wouldn't the club just cancel the membership WITHOUT filing a lawsuit ... and leave it up to the disgraced member to deal with his $300,000 loss however he sees fit? It would seem to me that any "claim" the club has would basically be pursued as an affirmative defense if the member tries to sue them for the $300,000.
I already know the answer to this, because we had a lengthy discussion about it here on FR some months ago. The underlying fraud charge is -- get this -- "honest services fraud." Look that one up and you'll see that the whole case against these parents is a joke. There's really no such thing as "honest services fraud" when you're dealing with a private citizen engaged in private conduct ... mainly because there's no VICTIM in the case. I came to this realization when I saw that every one of the farcical "election interference" criminal cases that came out of the Mueller team's investigations were predicated on these counts: "honest services fraud," "mail fraud," and "wire fraud." None of these charges have been successfully prosecuted.
In the real world, you are probably correct: The club would probably cancel the membership. But in my example, the member is a real jerk and insists on remaining a member because he paid the fees and dues.
Oh, OK. I’m not sure how someone “remains a member” of a club that has removed him and can legally bar him from entering their premises. LOL.
“I think we should have a lawyer weigh in on this particular issue.”
The US Supreme Court are not lawyers?
Follow my posts and you'll see that there was a specific scenario under discussion...about which *I*,for one,was uncertain.
And no,I'm not a lawyer...and I've never even stayed at a Holiday Inn.
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