Speaking of the FBI....lookie at the latest surveillance tool--you're holding it

According to a Wall Street Journal article that recently appeared, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are now, and have been, tracking defendants and their lawyers through their cell phones, by "pinging" the phones and receiving a return reply by the phone. Its not clear is if powering down the phone frustrates that. If true, I have another thing to worry about? Nah, other issues like frivolous prosecutions come to mind. [article @ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904194604576583112723197574.html]-- author of article can be reached @: L Jennifer.Valentino-DeVries@wsj.com

BTW, "pinging" a phone is the process of sending sending an electronic signal to the phone. When your phone is turned on, you will see the relative strength of the signal, whether is is 3G or 1X or 1XEV, or whatever the GSM counterpart is. This relative signal strength has to do with how close you are from a cell tower...the closer you are, the stronger the signal. Your phone will periodically send a signal out, saying "I'm here" while searching for a cell tower, to establish or maintain a signal link to that tower so as to be ready to make or accept a cell call or other communication. This process of sending an "I'm here!" signal is called pinging.What the stingray device apparently does is capture a cell phone "ping" signal and, I'm guessing here, relate the electronic ID of the phone to an assigned telephone number. (It seems to me that the cell carriers are complicit in this by providing EINs to law enforcement.) This way, when the police capture a cell phone ping, they can identify the telephone number assigned to the EIN of the pinged response, and thus identify the person to whom the cell number is assigned. Then, once the police confirm that the signal they have identified through the ping response is from the phone of the target, then simply follow the signal around and, using triangulation from multiple cell towers and cell site locations supplied by the phone companies, they track the location of the phone. Nice huh!

The Dismissal of Irwin's charges due to Mike Ramos' Ineptness or his Plan??

Joe Nelson: [in response to your article @ http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_16085205] I told you, I told you, I told you, when you did not want to hear during the campaign [and as I recall Frank Guzman told you as well]-- Mike Ramos may have either stalled prosecutions in his public integrity unit so his buds' criminal liability under state statutes would vanish for statute of limitations reasons (and his prosecution was just window dressing, campaign fodder and or a way to remind his competition within the party who is boss until the cases got tossed) or is he just a terrible DA for anything except gangbanger prosecutions (oh wait a second, his conviction rate is 30% under what the typical major County DA department does). You (Joe Nelson), Joe Baca, Sr. & Jerry Lewis helped re-elect him. So who is watching the hen house? Jerry Brown's attentions have been turned to the City of Bell it seems.
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Blogger Bob's comments: Is Irwin's case really coming down to undisclosed gifts or services on a FPPC 700 form and related comments? If so, don't we have some serious problems with Mike Ramos who did not disclose a five figure payment to his wife? and then signed a disclosure form under penalty of perjury not disclosing that payment? Didn't Brad Mitzelfelt's mis-report the source of some of his campaign contributions and sign an FPPC 460 form under penalty of perjury when he ran for election (after being appointed by the BOS)? Is Irwin being hammered because he lobbied for a deal a lot of other people seemed in love with? How is that different from certain employees of the BOS sheparding plans through the approval process and planning commission for a developer bud--in fact don't some of those staffers have real estate licenses? Do we have the smell of selective prosecution in the air yet?

Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown sues eight top Bell officials--and why not San Bernardino County's officials??Next in line??

Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown sues eight top Bell officials [Updated] | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times
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The lawsuit can be found at the following link: http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/press/pdfs/n1988_document_3.pdf
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Attorney General Jerry Brown's press release is at: http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1988&
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Blogger Bob's comments: I guess this was the rumored mid-September action? or maybe more troubling is some's suggestion that the AG is distancing himself from Ramos? Has San Bernardino become more political heat than Brown can afford right now??
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Ramos--how in the world did you miss this one ??

Did you see where Michael Richman, who along with his political consulting company MPR Strategies LLC, supposedly agreed to pay back the County of San Bernardino the $49K the County Board of Supervisor's initially gave him [Read more: http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_16073975].
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My first question is: Why didn't the County also collect interest on the money Richman was given and the County's costs to civilly prosecute him?
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My second question: Wasn't Richman's activities as alleged, a criminal enterprise (political activity on county time) that used "wires" (cell phones) for an illegal purpose, a form of racketeering under federal RICO laws? Why didn't the $325.00 per hour hot shots hired by the County Counsel and paid for by the Board of Supervisors prosecute this under the civil anti-racketeering statutes where treble damages could be collected if it is a criminal enterprise (more pointedly, why was this not a crime as well)? Why do I sense that this witness' cooperation component to this "settlement" is going to be as useless as the guy that is being laughed that could not get the DA past a mistrial in the Guttierrez case?
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My third question: How is this theft of County money for political purposes any different than Guttierrez's alleged time card violations or Irwin's alleged actions?
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Blogger Bob's comments: That the County DA is not prosecuting all (what appear to be) criminal takings of public funds for political purposes in this county is not only amazing, but suggests an overall scheme to:
(1) selectively prosecute or litigate (which means protect people Ramos and or the Board of Supervisors like and or are fearful of, by exacting civil settlements),
(2) decriminalize criminal abuse of taxpayer resources for political purposes by letting the chosen ones (the people the Republican political machine still needs or can't dump) buy their way out of trouble AND by doing so, set the precedent when one or more of the current Board of Supervisors gets nailed (for a political use of county resources and or time), for them to seek the same break, all the while carrying out some window dressing actions (the trial and retrial of Guttierrez). Are the current BOS folks feathering their nests for the eventual fall?
(3) By the way, the County Grand jury's comments about expanding staffs are right on--why would that be done folks in a bad economic environment? Its an election season and they need all the friendly faces out there projecting a positive image they can muster! That the County spent the time to respond is not surprising--its evidence of a guilty state of mind!
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What monkeys are running this banana cart?

Oh where oh where did the evidence go.........

Re-post of Inland Politics blog:

August 9, 2010 – 10:30 pm [http://inlandpolitics.com/blog/2010/08/09/inlandpolitics-brown-pressuring-ramos-on-colonies-case/]

"Everyone has to admit.

The February 10, 2010 fanfare press conference held by California Attorney General Jerry Brown and San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos had all the bells and whistles for a main stream media press conference designed to unveil a major conspiracy case during a reelection campaign cycle for both men.

Recently, Brown has shown no shyness to embellishing situations for political advantage.

Now it seems things are changing.

Forget embellishing. Now it’s win at all cost.

San Bernardino County insiders are now reporting that Brown is pressuring Ramos to produce the goods on what Brown publicly described back in February as the worst case of corruption in California history.

Ramos roped Brown into his so-called major conspiracy investigation, and now he’s tied to it like a ball and chain.

Yes, Brown has now quietly made it known he wants Ramos’ investigators to produce evidence to charge five so-called “John Does” in what is commonly know as the Colonies conspiracy case.

Now the same investigators that started this whole fiasco are under the gun. The pressure is being described as intense.

Brown and Ramos leveled charges against former Assessor and county supervisor Bill Postmus and Assistant Assessor Jim Erwin last February 10th in a full court press, in what many believe was a politically-driven escapade, for the sole purpose of helping both win their respective elections. In the same press conference, Brown and Ramos hammered away at people who insiders say Brown insisted be labeled as “John Does 1-5″.

Trouble recently emerged with a key witness, who is at the center of the case. Witness credibility being the key factor. A major problem here.

One of the John Does, Jeff Burum was slated to be Republican Meg Whitman’s state fundraising chair. Obviously Brown’s actions nixed that scenario.

Ramos narrowly won reelection in June, and Brown now faces Whitman in a showdown for Governor in November.

Coincidence? You be the judge.

Now Brown, who has limited resources compared to his opponent, wants the ammo to make a mid-September media splash in his campaign.

How you ask? Charge the five “John Does”.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent based on developments in Bell, California that Brown is using his elected office of Attorney General to pander to voters.

Now he appears willing to resort to any means necessary, even if individual rights get trampled on.

Highly-placed confidential sources within the District Attorney’s office report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorney are actively reviewing several matters in San Bernardino County, including Ramos. They are reportedly back-tracking on investigations involving Ramos’ Public Integrity Unit in an effort to ferret out fiction from reality.

It’s time to look at everything".

Blogger Bob's comment: Did Ramos exaggerate? Oversell? Is there a reason the County was awash with detectives & investigation teams over the weekend? Why are we messing with Does 1-5? Isn't that a tacit admission they (to quote a song) "ain't got no"? Could this have been a well-planned Republican ruse to draw Brown into an investigation that could prove embarrassing and a way for Ramos to prove once and for all to his republican detractors, that he truly has crossed the deceit threshold and earned, by setting up Brown, broad spectrum support from all republican groups in his planned run for Congress in 2012?

All's Not Well (?) # 6

iePolitics.com reports:

"Additional information regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) probe into the San Bernardino County corruption scandal has been trickling into iePolitics. It appears there are two general areas the Bureau is concentrating on: all investigations conducted by District Attorney Mike Ramos’ Public Integrity Unit (PIU) and the Superior Court bench.

Based upon questions being asked by agents, this investigation is wide-ranging. iePolitics has been told that questions are being asked regarding various real estate deals; destruction of records by former Third District Supervisor Dennis Hansberger; disparity in handling the various FPPC complaints by Ramos against Penrod, Erwin, Biane, Devereaux, and others; the difference in the way in which 1099 charges against Jim Miller and Bea Cortes were handled; the POST scandal; possibly several of the issues at ARMC (regarding Supervisors Biane and Gonzales); and much more.

From what we are being told, the FBI is looking at each investigation the PIU has been involved in and tracing it back to its inception. It would appear that part of the investigation is meant to uncover selective prosecution and use of the district attorney’s prosecutorial powers for political purposes. It is believed that the attorney general’s involvement is also being reviewed.

As stated in previous articles, we know that solid evidence of at least one felony committed by Ramos was provided to the FBI several months ago; however, it is not known what crime was alleged. Furthermore, evidence of witness tampering and intimidation personally committed by Ramos may be made public as early as today.

As much as we here at iePolitics enjoy watching Ramos squirm as the tables have been turned on him, of much greater concern and satisfaction is the scrutiny the Superior Court bench is now receiving from the federal government. Clearly, all judges have a great deal of discretion in the decisions they make. However, from the first moment a Superior Court judge became involved in the corruption scandal, there have been highly suspect decisions and rulings.

Search warrants were issued based solely on the testimony of a convicted perjurer who agreed to cooperate to gain a lesser sentence. Excessively high bails were set for white collar crimes that far exceed what is set for violent offenders who are a flight risk. And one judge had a personal relationship with the Ramos’ personal attorney. This scandal has been fraught with questionable rulings from the bench.

Additionally, we have witnessed two examples where the district attorney and attorney general have attempted to thwart attorney/client privilege. First, a search warrant was signed and served on the attorney of one of the defendants, something this is almost unheard of. And more recently, the bullying by the Attorney General’s office to force all parties involved in the Colonies decision to waive attorney/client privilege has reached new heights with threats being made by the Attorney General’s office.

But perhaps the most egregious examples of prosecutorial misconduct and judicial incompetence or payoff involve the two sets of charges against former Assistant Assessor Jim Erwin. There are sections of the law that clearly show Erwin did NOT have to report the trip or watch, but the district attorney charged him anyway. The craziest and most far-fetched charges are the conspiracy and bribery allegations.

We realize the average person reading this article does not understand the law well enough to know that certain elements must be present to allege both conspiracy and bribery. While Erwin was still in custody we asked a retired prosecutor to review the charges against Erwin and give us his opinion. He was shocked that a judge would sign an arrest warrant based on the allegations made as the elements of the crime were not present. That has been the opinion of every attorney we know of who has actually spent the time to read the entire complaint.

And that begs this question: Why would a judge sign these search warrants and arrest warrants? Certainly, they should know as well as anyone what the elements of each crime are.

As we have written about before here at iePolitics, the close personal relationship between Ramos and members of the San Bernardino County Superior Court bench is a concern. It is not only a concern to the corruption scandal defendants, but to all who enter the courthouse in search of justice. Now we have the FBI observing San Bernardino County justice first hand. And if they do a thorough job, it will benefit every citizen in this county.

Be it corrupt prosecutors, politicians or judges, they all need to go down and be punished for the havoc they have wreaked on our county. We welcome this investigation and look forward to their findings."

Comment by blogger Bob: That my clients may be getting retaliated against because I couldn't stand what Ramos represented and I ran against Ramos to try and get him to clean it up or get replaced, is the saddest part of this. I personally hope any compromised members of the bench are not given a free ride--hell, most of the people on the bench are hand picked and or approved by Ramos during the Governor's review of judicial applications; I have felt more squeezing on things that I routinely have won. In the last 6 months, I have lost more substantive motions in civil cases than I have over the last twenty (oh my, its been almost 25 now that I think of it) years practicing in both state and federal court--I am not doing a poorer job. Its been ugly.