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Corey Ribotsky and the SEC look close to settling: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76313423
That's only where there's a related criminal conviction, which unfortunately doesn't apply here.
Filings in the SEC case from both CR and the SEC say the parties are in "serious settlement discussions". Say they will update the court by June 26th on how the discussions are going.
My guess: CR accepts an injunction against future violations without admitting or denying that he's a douche, plus some kind of token financial penalty which nobody ever collects on, and maybe a pennystock/investment advisor ban.
Old YHOO board still accessible here, at least for now: http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_L/messagesview?bn=75005
Latorella's sentencing is scheduled for June 14th. No sentencing memoranda filed yet, but there is a letter from his older brother Henry, the SUNY professor who used to run the Metrigenics thing, asking the judge for clemency for JL.
There's no point in picking holes in Henry's representation of the circumstances - you expect a brother to have a favorable viewpoint.
It does support one thing I've always thought about pennyscammers - ie that they are usually addicted to alcohol, drugs and/or gambling. Henry thinks JL has the first two (based on the sheer volume of cash he burned away, I think he's probably got the third also). It'll be interesting to see what the sentencing memo's have to say on the point, assuming the court doesn't seal the damn things.
JL has eight kids from a bunch of different partners, apparently (very tough for them). His first wife left him due to a "gender preference reconsideration".
Whatever, I think he's lucky to be looking at 5 years max.
In the meantime, JF's attorney still keeps up the fight; no ruling yet on his last motion to get the court to more-or-less enforce an agt where the DoJ's bid will be capped at 5 yrs in the slammer and he will be able to argue for zero. I really can't see that working but you never know ...
VRAL: Viral Genetics' conga-line of douchebags ... http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76311298
Martin E. Wesiberg, Hugh a/ka/ Eugene W. Austin, Bryan G. Crane, Paul Giarmoleo
It's evident that confessed criminal attorney Martin Eric Weisberg has performed work for VRAL in recent months.
Why has VRAL been paying for the services for a lawyer facing trial on two federal criminal indictments for fraud (pleading guilty to one count from each a few days ago) and a related SEC action?
The last sentence of the 2011 financials says this: "In February 2012, the Company agreed to issue 6,923,070 of its common shares in satisfaction of $90,000 in outstanding fees to a legal advisor. Of this amount, $72,500 was accrued at December 31, 2011."
The 6,9230,070 shares mentioned there matches one of the issues of restricted a stock to Wesiberg (see the long issuance list in the info statement). These were issued at $0.0195, so for a total value of $135K. In other words, he got stock worth 150% of the amount supposedly owing to him.
The fact that only $72,500 was accrued as of year end undoubtedly means that he did further work through Feb, supposedly worth $17,500.
Subsequent to Feb, he continued to work for VRAL - the issuance list shows him getting another 2,566,475 restricted shares at $0.0146 sometime before the mid-May date of the info statement.
Of course, VRAL and Weisberg have a long-standing relationship. Eg this S-8 giving him 500,000 shares of free trading "consulting" stock back in July 2007, not long before his Oct 2007 indictment for the Xybernaut/Ramp scam: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1091326/000121465907001592/c71670s8.htm
(in conjunction with Hugh Austin, Paul Giarmoleo & others).
So taking a quick survey of the conga-line of douchebags dancing around VRAL, we have:
- Wesiberg, a confessed criminal with a record of facilitating bogus free-trading share scams; doing recent undefined legal work.
- Bryan G. Crane, confessed criminal in an FBI pennyscam kick-back sting; runs Bluewater Advisory, VRAL's PR firm since Crane's 5 year parole period ended in Feb this year.
- Hugh a/k/a Eugene W. Austin, never charged but subject to a $100M+ default judgement in a civil suit brought by the receiver in the Capwill etc scam for assisting with money laundering; apparently in control of DMBM Inc which has been issued large amounts of supposedly fee-trading stock at massive discounts to market upon conversion of debt in murky circumstances.
- Paul Giarmoleo, effectively booted out of the brokerage industry for matters including his own role in the Capwill caper; apparently co-principal with Austin of Wonderland Capital, the predecessor of DMBM Inc as VRAL "investor".
All with history going back together over the years & most with a long, long association with VRAL.
So all those companies which have filed invalid Form 15's in the past can never be zapped for it?
Sucks!
For the Form 15 to be valid, the company must be current at the time it's filed.
Check out http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2012/34-67125.pdf from today.
On January 19, 2012, the Commission instituted an administrative proceeding against TapSlide, Inc. and six other respondents under Section 12(j) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.1 The Order Instituting Proceedings alleged that TapSlide had violated periodic reporting requirements and sought to suspend or revoke the registration of TapSlide's securities.
[TapSlide hasn't filed a 10Q or 10K since Oct 2010.]
On February 6, 2012, TapSlide filed a Form 15 to terminate voluntarily the registration of its securities under Exchange Act Section 12(g). Under Rule 12g-4(a), an issuer's registration is terminated ninety days after filing Form 15, in this case, May 7, 2012.2 On that day, the Division of Enforcement filed a motion to dismiss TapSlide from this proceeding. TapSlide has not responded to the Division's motion.
We have determined to grant the Division's motion. TapSlide no longer has securities registered under Section 12 of the Exchange Act.
This SEC complaint from the other day details an interesting angle in the debt conversion/unregistered securities caper.
SEC vs Mark A. Lefkowitz, Compass Capital Group, Inc., Mark A. Lopez, Unico, Inc., Steven R. Peacock, Shane H. Traveller, and Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Civil Action No. 8:12-CV-1210T35MAP
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2012/lr22381.htm
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2012/comp22381.pdf
A court or govt agency can order exemption from registration for securities issued in satisfaction of claims etc. This is under Sec 3(a)(10) of the 1933 Act.
So an interesting opportunity for the diligent pennyscammer. "Financier" agrees with company to take over some old or new debt; they agree on settlement terms including conversion into common at some fraction of the current market price; go up in front of a judge with the settlement agreement & get a fairly automatic tick for a Sec 3(a)(10) exemption; issue a flood of free-trading common; financier sells into market and kicks back some proportion to the company/management.
Another indication of the SEC doing some good work to whack bogus debt conversion plays.
Same thing on one of the pennyscams I follow - uplisted to NASDAQ overnight! Priceless.
It's just Yahoo being incompetent again. They seem to have screwed up all the .OB, .PK etc tickers. I guess they'll get around to fixing things & if they don't, perhaps the world will learn to struggle on regardless.
EDIT: Yes VRAL board still exists - try http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_V/forumview?bn=48363
One of the guys there thinks the YHOO probs mean that VRAL uplisted to NASDAQ overnight. Priceless!
Quintek ... That's almost exactly 10 years since the 14th May 2002 PR by Gabor Acs aka Mr ThePennyKing, drug-addled lunatic, announcing he was going to take over Quintek, as part of some not very successful pump'n'dumps.
He was sanctioned by the SEC http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp18307.htm and given monetary penalties, most of which he has never paid. He did make a final payment of exactly one penny.
The Quintek CEO was clearly part of it all but was never pinged.
Ten years to zap Quintek ... What's the next target? A suspicious-looking buggy-whip company shell left mouldering since 1912?
SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies is having its next webcast meeting on June 8th. They'll be discussing the JOBS Act.
http://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2012/33-9325.pdf
The agenda for the meeting includes discussions of provisions of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act and other matters relating to rules and regulations affecting small and emerging companies under the federal securities laws. ...
DATES: Written statements should be received on or before June 5, 2012.
SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies is having its next webcast meeting on June 8th. They'll be discussing the JOBS Act.
http://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2012/33-9325.pdf
The agenda for the meeting includes discussions of provisions of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act and other matters relating to rules and regulations affecting small and emerging companies under the federal securities laws. ...
DATES: Written statements should be received on or before June 5, 2012.
I love the "East Europe Call Center". Was there ever any sign of these guys running a boiler room out of Minsk or something?
It is mostly big pharma players buying.
I doubt it. It is way too early for any pharma company to be very interested in the science, and in any case if they wanted a piece of the action they'd go to the company, not the market.
Much of the selling is almost certainly continued dumping by the shady DMBM Inc. The info statement filed a few days ago show them having being issued with 209M free trading shares at $0.0025 since November last year.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75667992
Weisberg cops late plea, just before jury selection to start: many months in the slammer coming up. http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202555407913
Weisberg features as part of the nexus of douchebaggery surrounding this VRAL thing I follow: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75771950
A motion in limine by Weisberg in the lead-up to trial sought to exclude testimony from his former secretary at Baker & Mckenzie, who stated in a deposition that the only thing she ever saw him eat all day was a particular brand of raspberry candy bar & that she was sure he was doing drugs in the bathroom all the time.
This particular case is interesting as a by-blow of the Refco/BAWAG stuff. Eg: Thomas Hackl, the former signatory for Austost, Celeste & all the other BAWAG/Martin Schlaff toxic penny funds, and who in effect ended up as the liasion between BAWAG & Refco, arranged the original underlying transaction. Scammer vs scammer!
Anyway, it makes it more interesting than the common penny pump'n'dump with just an empty shell. A nexus of scumbags plus some real scientists and biz people ... mix 'em together and what do you get?
That's a nice announcement today for the science. It's very early clinical work - Phase I safety study with some secondary efficacy targets. I think the success rate from this point to a commercial drug is generally about 5% (requiring years and $ millions).
But the approach seems sensible - I guess if it can be shown that Newell's IP safely enhances efficacy of exitsing drugs then there will be a reason for pharma companies to be interested in it, possibility of accelerated route to market.
Would be nice to see it in the hands of something with corporate credibility.
The info statement shows apparently-recent issues of restricted of ~8.9M restricted shares priced at ~$160K to Martin E. Weisberg for "consultant/advisor services".
Weisberg is an ex-Baker & Mackenzie attorney currently facing trial in two unrelated securities-related criminal matters in federal court in Brooklyn. Jury selection for the second starts on Monday; the first seems to be dragging on forever since his indictment in 2007 (it's for the Xybernaut/Ramp scam, in which Weisberg played a key role - related SEC complaint http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2007/comp20341.pdf ).
He was a close associate of Hugh Austin's back in the day, including acting as attorney for Austin's Wonderland Capital, which of course is one of Austin's vehicles for "investing" in and "advising" VRAL. Weisberg was VRAL's initial contact at B&M when they acted for VRAL in the T&T matter, no doubt referred by Austin (B&M resigned from this after Weisberg's 2007 indictment).
Why are VRAL using Weisberg now & what is he doing for them which is worth $160K?
Not anything to do with getting restrictive stock legends removed, surely! But I imagine Weisberg's own legal bills are pretty heavy - two multi-year criminal cases & the SEC action ...
Perhaps they needed all of those people to make sure they only picked stocks whose suspension nobody was going to complain about much.
I guess everybody involved will have done well against their KPI's now.
SEC case docket:
05/17/2012 47 Minute Order. for proceedings held before Judge Joseph F. Bianco:terminating 46 Motion for Leave to File; terminating 23 Motion to Dismiss; Oral argument held on 5/17/2012. Amended complaint to be submitted to the court by 6/22/12. Letter response to be submitted by 7/27/12. Response by 8/24/12 reply by 9/14/12 (Tape #ftr 2:49 - 3:43.) (Bollbach, Jean) (Entered: 05/18/2012)
Looks like a restart.
They'll probably just increase the authorized, as you say.
But a pennyscam RS can often have other motivations. Eg: maybe options and warrants held by insiders get protected, so that their exercise prices remain the same post R/S instead of being adjusted upwards. Same kind of thing for conversion pricing on notes and preferred stock.
I believe I've only read that they need to be current at the time they file the Form 15.
Dunno where I got the other notion from. This sets things out pretty clearly: http://www.sec.gov/interps/legal/cfslb18.htm
I'm usually tunnel-visioned on just a few pennyscams but even so I've noticed a bunch of companies with invalid Form 15 filings, just because they have a late filing notice hanging for a 10-Q/10-K before the Form 15 date.
A little computer program could pick out all these companies, and another one could generate suspension orders for all of them.
Somebody would have to sign all the orders, I guess, which would probably be the most time-consuming part of the exercise.
A secondary problem is that many companies File Forms 15 without being qualified to do so. For the Form 15 to be valid, the company must be current at the time it's filed.
And they need to file 10-K's etc for the current year even if these are not due until after the deregistration date - or no?
Have you ever seen the SEC subsequently zap a company for previously having filed an invalid Form 15?
No prizes for guessing which "financial institution":
Commission Meetings
Closed Meeting on Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 11:00 a.m.
The subject matter of the May 12, 2012 Closed Meeting was: an examination of a financial institution.
Closed Meeting on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 2:00 p.m.
The subject matter of the May 15, 2012 Closed Meeting was: an examination of a financial institution.
http://www.sec.gov/news/digest/2012/dig051512.htm
Info statement and attorney letter for 2011 finally filed at OTC Markets.
Detailed share issuance disclosure shows ~275M shares issued to DMBM Inc for "conversion of debt" in the period May 2011 to now by my count. (They don't give the issuance dates but that's what I get when comparing with last year's report.)
~209M issued at $0.0025, ~64M at $0.005, remainder at $0.01.
I estimate that ~175M of the $0.0025 shares were issued this year, and in any case all 209M would have been issued since Nov 2011, when according to the financials DMBM's conversion price was reset to this level.
All of these shares are free trading. I repeat earlier query - how can they all be free trading? Particularly as the convertible note for most of them was only issued in Oct/Nov last year? Eh?
DMBM Inc does not show up on their list of 5% holders as of end 2011 and so DBMB Inc would have flipped at least a bunch of the shares issued last year, and probably IMO the whole 275M issued in the last 12 months.
The total cost to DMBM of all these shares was ~$865K. No way to be exact about what their selling prices were. If you guess at an average of $0.012 then they would have gotten ~$3.3M, for a profit of ~$2.4M. Not bad! At least somebody's making money from VRAL.
The filing states that the 81M T&T settlement shares from Nov 2011 were in fact issued to T&T, against my previous speculation that the note covering these might have been assigned to DMBM.
The filing also states that these shares were restricted. If that is the case then T&T could not have quickly flipped them and must surely have been a >5% shareholder at the end of the year (ie when there were 933M common outstanding). But they are not listed as such. Perhaps T&T got VRAL's counsel to remove the restrictive legend and then flipped; perhaps something else happened; perhaps the filing is incorrect.
They state once again that they don't have enough authorized shares (1.5B currently versus 1.1B outstanding) to satisfy potential conversion/exercise demands for the various convertibles/options/warrants on issue, to cater for which they would need to either R/S or increase the authorized amount. They (ie Haig and his brother as the only directros) can do either without consulting the shareholders and I suppose one or the other will happen before too long.
Cornell/YA Global restructured after it couldn't meet redemptions in 2008 - see http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2010/08/25/800-million-hedge-fund-discloses-sec-scrutiny
Laurus/Valens in 2009 - see
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/06/laurus-petroalgae-hedge-valens-business-pipes.html
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0907/money-laurus-capital-petroalgae-hedge-fund-shuffle.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2010/09/21/the-real-reason-for-the-petroalgae-ipo/
Not sure about Dutchess.
The piece on Cornell above mentions SEC enquiries but I haven't heard that anything ever came of that. I've never heard of any SEC/DoJ investigation of Laurus/Valens (which frankly I think is extraordinary).
In the 2000's, Cornell, NiR and Laurus tended to be the biggest players in this caper.
Southridge Capital is another one - owner Steve Hicks is being sued by the SEC, long drawn-out case: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2010/lr21709.htm
EDIT: here's CR (no doubt) comparing himself to some of these other players - http://the-cold-truth.blogspot.com/2009/08/lancelot-and-king.html
JF is at risk of getting more than JL. His attorney really does seem to have botched the plea deal bargaining and as of now JF is headed for trial on all 31 counts in October. (Although I would bet 20c most likely outcome is that he gets a new attorney and cuts a deal before then - his position at trial would be disastrous for him, IMO.)
BTW, I don't think you can get more than a few months time off for good behavior in federal prison.
The company is defunct, operationally. All of its operating assets have been sold. The remaining cash and the proceeds from any future suits brought against insiders etc etc by the trustee get shifted into a trust to pay off the creditors. The shareholders will almost certainly get nothing. The court approved all of these plans of the trustee in a hearing today.
There will shortly be an SEC admin hearing on revoking the registration of the stock which I am sure the trustee will not contest. So in a little while I expect LPHCQ will essentially cease to exist.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75522579
The LP Ch.11 trustee in court pleadings says that he may take action against Murphy and other directors.
In the criminal case, apparently Murphy and others are "unindicted co-conspirators". JF's attorney of course has tried to paint the investigation and prosecution as tainted by efforts by Kaiser, Wild etc to protect Murphy, Chalmers etc.
Maybe the SEC will take some action, perhaps after the criminal case closes and the stay on the SEC case is lifted. Not holding my breath ....
Geebus!! http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2012/2012-91.htm
"Operation Shell-Expel" - no offence meant, I'm sure :)
Interesting - I wonder if that will ever happen to the AIM?
Deregulating access to capital markets for obscure little companies is such a *bad* idea. Investing in start-ups requires more diligence and professionalism than for big caps, not less.
Book rec: http://media-center.knopfdoubleday.com/2012/05/02/media-center-a-disposition-to-be-rich-by-geoffrey-c-ward/
The story of the guy who swindled Ulysses S. Grant and helped bring about the 1880's crash, by his great-grandson. Great story excellently told.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/14/books/a-disposition-to-be-rich-by-geoffrey-c-ward.html
Going back to prosecutors arguing for lower sentences than recommended by the probation office, another Victor Wild case (completley unrelated to LP/PDGT/etc) shows some of the detailed issues.
http://openjurist.org/229/f3d/1/united-states-of-america-v-sanjay-saxena
Wild reached plea agt with defendant; between that and sentencing, the SEC noticed that the defendant was doing new dodgy stuff; Wild felt it his duty to inform probation office; which then recommended no contrition down-tick and therefore a higher sentence than provided for in the plea deal.
At the sentencing hearing, Wild continued to argue for the lower sentence, as he was contractually obliged to do under the terms of the plea agreement; while giving the court details and his negative views on the defendant's continued dodgy behaviour.
The court went with the probation office's higher recommendation.
Defendant appealed, asserting inter alia breach of contract against Wild for informing the probation office and using negative language at the sentencing hearing. Court rejected the appeal, saying that Wild had successfully traversed a narrow line between his contractual obligation to defendant under the plea agreement and his obligations to the court.
Only the attorney for the Locateplus ex-CFO seems to have shown any interest in this history. He's filed numerous pleadings in the criminal case seeking various forms of relief, all pretty much unsuccessful.
One issue is that none of this stuff has any bearing on the guilt or otherwise of the ex-CFO - maybe some other people should have been charged as well, and maybe O'Riordan got off lightly, but so what?
The prosecution says there was no taint; none of the team investigating and prosecuting the ex-CFO were involved in any of this stuff; the attorney is just trying to muddy the waters.
The attorney hasn't been able to put forward specific, concrete allegations of any taint, just a picture. There is nothing anywhere to suggest that the ex-CFO was wrongly charged, set up, made a pigeon of etc etc.
Another issue is that this attorney can be a bit ummm hysterical. He's the guy who filed a motion for the abolition of SOX executive certifications on 5th amendment grounds: public company execs as a group are largely shady and forcing them to incriminate themselves is a 5th amendment violation. Riiiight ...
Maybe the SEC will go deeper into things in the civil case once the ex-CEO/ex-CFO trial is complete later this year & the civil stay is lifted. Not holding my breath for that, but there does seem to be a fresh new team at Boston SEC.
In the normal course of events the debt remains owing and the liquidator might go after the company for it, if it appears there si a chance of getting a recovery bigger than the expense involved in recovering.
You have to understood that these bogus deals had a dual benefit for NIR/AJW etc.
On the one hand where the stock was liquid they could get highly profitable cash-flow to pay any redemptions and their own management fees.
On the other hand, they could use the terms of the loans to value them at inflated levels to scam a bigger management fee out of their own investors (2% of the value of the assets under management per annum, and 20% share of the annual paper profit).
They only needed the first piece to the extent they couldn't Ponzi cash-flow from new investors via the second piece.
This model wasn't unique to CR and he wasn't some super-evil-genius inventing it. All of the penny PIPE players have a similar model, IMO, evolved over many years. As CR says somewhere, he doesn't seem to have been doing anything vastly different from YA Global/Cornell, Laurus/Valens, Dutchess etc etc etc.
The Ponzi element means that they all collapse after a while but in the meantime the fund manager has made a $gadzillion and it can be very very difficult to successfully prosecute. Usually the main ripped-off parties are the fund investors, but on the other hand they usually have signed agreements with the fund manager which allow the manager in effect to run a Ponzi scheme on them.
It's one of those stories where you get frustrated that the regional press doesn't do more with it.
The judge in the O'Riordan trial was US district court chief Michael Wolf. I am a simpering fanboi of Wolf's from his excellent judgeship in the Whitey Bulger FBI cover-up. He basically ripped the lid off the cover-up and from the bench lashed the FBI for its appalling behavior.
A major early FBI Whitey Bulger cover-upper was the then-SAC Boston Jim Ahearn, who came in for his share of Wolf-lashing at the time.
Years later, Ahearn turns up out of the blue as a director of Locateplus. At the time the criminal investigation of the LP insiders has commenced. Reasonable guess that he was brought in to help "manage" the situation by an old buddy who was himself an LP shareholder and ex-director.
Ahearn then evidently takes a leading role in recruiting Ken Kaiser, another ex-SAC Boston, away from his job heading up the FBI criminal investigation division nationally, to work as "Chief Risk Officer" at LP. Kaiser immediately (and quite probably illegally) starts meeting with FBI agents and DoJ people on the LP case, evidently trying to steer them into investigating Dutchess in one instance (an LP "investor", aligned somehow with the ex-CFO).
In the emails relating to all this filed in court pleadings, a major role alongside Ahearn is evidently taken by by a long-time associate of Chalmers from their days at bucket-shop Oftring, LP's former underwriter, one Thomas E. Murphy. He is a former LP director and former chair of its audit committee. Both Chalmers and Murphy are shown as playing major roles in obstructing the former LP auditors from getting at the truth in the SEC admin action against the auditors.
A year or so after Kaiser's hiring, O'Riordan works his plea agreement with AUSA Wild, board colleague of Chalmers on another pennyscam deal. I have never seen a softer approach from a prosecutor than Wild's testimony in the O'Riordan sentencing hearing transcript. O'Riordan gets painted as borderline-retarded, a nice boy running in bad company, a star informant against others etc etc. He dumps everything on the ex-CEO/ex-CFO; nothing on the other insiders.
Wolf buys the painting and gives O'Riordan 6 months. None of the FBI-related or other insider stuff is brought to his attention in this case, as far as I can see.
As a Wolf fanboi, I'm offended by the possibility that he might have been hoodwinked by the old FBI and DoJ meatheads (& their spiritual successors) that he had lambasted so tellingly back in the day.
He wasn't on the board of Locateplus or PDGT. He and Locateplus' shady outside counsel (Geoffrey Chalmers) were both on the board of another pennyscam company.
The attorney for Locateplus' ex-CFO raised a stink about it in his claims that the investigation and prosecution were protecting Chalmers and others at the expense of his client. The DoJ conducted a little taint investigation and reported that there was nothing to see here, move along.
James Field's plea agreement drama: Proecution says that the arguments of his attorney (ie basically that the prosecution's draft offer of a min 4 year/max 5 year deal should actually be construed as min 0 year/max 5 year) are nonsense. They say JF's attorney has by these games in effect rejected the offer and that the only thing now is to get ready for trial in October.
I read a subtext inviting JF to get a new attorney if he wants to cut a deal.