Monday, July 18, 2011

United States Attorney Robert E. O’Neill and the Impending Trial of Kevin L. White

by James Scanlan, Esq.

According to the press coverage of the jury selection in the Roger Clemens perjury case, it was quite an involved matter. In the event that the case is tried again following the mistrial due to the government’s putting inadmissible evidence before the jury, the next jury selection will be complicated further by press coverage concerning the existence of inadmissible evidence that tends to support the government’s version of events.

A case in the Middle District of Florida that I wrote about here in a June 21, 2011 item styled “United States Attorney Robert E. O'Neill as Crusader Against Corrupt Public Officials” may prove to raise similarly difficult jury selection issues – though ones related to the attorney prosecuting the case rather than anything concerning a defendant or public knowledge of the facts of the case. In the June 21, 2011 item, I noted that United States Attorney Robert E. O’Neill’s appearance at a hearing in a case brought against a former Hillsborough County Commissioner, United States v. Kevin L. White, suggested that O’Neill might intend to try the case himself. The case includes a count alleging a violation 18 U.S.C. § 1001, a statute that I have many times here observed O’Neill himself almost certainly violated during the course of his seeking the United States Attorney position by making a false statement concerning the origination of a District of Columbia Bar Counsel investigation of his conduct in United States v. Dean. Apart from the incongruousness of O’Neill’s seeking to prove a violation of a statute that he recently may have violated, I noted that if information about O’Neill’s violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 becomes widely known in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, the court may have problems impaneling a jury and ensuring that such information does not come to the attention of the jury during the trial.

A July 1, 2011 St. Petersburg Times article has since indicated that O’Neill does intend to personally try the case. Given the amount of publicly available material detailing not only the false statement O’Neill made on his Florida Federal Judicial Nominating Commission application for the United States Attorney position, but also the pervasive and often shocking abuses for which he responsible in United States v. Dean, probably I understated potential problems facing the court if Robert E. O’Neill were to attempt to try a criminal case himself, regardless of whether the case contains an 18 U.S.C. § 1001 count. In a September 26, 2010 item styled “The Honorable Robert E. O’Neill Regrets That He is Unable to Answer Questions from the Audience,” in discussing that O’Neill’s appointment as United States Attorney would likely enhance my ability to publicize the nature of his conduct in the Dean case, I noted that O’Neill’s nomination had greatly increased the Google ranking of my treatments of O’Neill’s conduct.

There existed, of course, the possibility that once O’Neill started issuing press releases as the United States Attorney, the rankings of those treatments would fall substantially. But today a Google search for “Robert E. O’Neill” yields that September 26, 2010 item as the second result and my Robert E. O’ Neill profile page as the sixth. A Bing search yields the profile page as the first result, my June 29, 2011 Truth in Justice item styled “Robert E. O’Neill’s Tricks of the Trade – One” as the third, and the June 21, 2011 item discussed in the second paragraph as the seventh, with roughly similar results on Yahoo. In short, anyone who attempts to learn about Robert E. O'Neill the way most people would these days is confronted with my portrayals of Robert E. O'Neill as someone who certainly ought not to hold public office and probably should have spent (or should spend) some time in prison. The September 26, 2010 item, which highlights O’Neill’s prosecutorial tactic of calling people liars even when he knows they have not lied and his “a liar is a liar” comment from United States v. Spellissy, in the context of the undisputable evidence that O’Neill himself lied on his United States Attorney application, certainly suggests a hypocrisy that even the cynical would deem remarkable.

From the government’s perspective, a reader of any of my treatments of O’Neill’s conduct would be an unsuitable juror in a case tried by O’Neill. Apart from the juror’s broad reactions toward O’Neill’s effort to prove a case that may well involve conduct far less nefarious than that O’Neill engaged in under the color or law, the juror would have to regard as ludicrous any effort by O’Neill to impugn the veracity of a witness or to impress upon the jury the importance of 18 U.S.C. § 1001. And, even if the court is able to impanel a juror that is untainted by my accounts of O’Neill’s character and conduct, absent specific instruction that jurors not only should avoid learning anything about the case outside of the courtroom but should avoid learning anything about the counsel outside of the courtroom, there would exist a possibility that, out of simple curiosity, some juror might look up on the internet the United States Attorney who is personally trying the case.

By letter dated July 14, 2011, I raised these issues with the Honorable James D. Whittemore, the trial judge in the White case, addressing as well the reasons that the court should carefully scrutinize O’Neill’s behavior and representations during the course of the trial. Judge Whittemore, as it happens, is the same judge who recently issued the order in United States v. Del Fuoco containing language suggesting that a false statement on O’Neill’s Florida Federal Judicial Nominating Commission application would itself violate 18 U.S.C. § 1001. See my February 19, 2011 Truth in Justice item styled “Robert E. O’Neill and 18 U.S.C. § 1001.” Judge Whittemore was also the presiding when O’Neill made his “a liar is a liar” remark in United States v. Spellissy. I copied Jay Macklin, General Counsel of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. Macklin is the Department of Justice official mentioned in the September 26, 2010 Truth in Justice item and elsewhere who communicated the Department’s refusal to investigate whether O’Neill lied on his United States Attorney application while citing the transparently inapplicable policy of refusing to investigate prosecutorial misconduct issues that were or could have been raised in litigation.

Unless Judge Whittemore and the Department of Justice completely ignore the matter, it would seem difficult to believe that Robert E. O'Neill will end up trying the White case. But I had found it difficult to believe that someone would become a United States Attorney after both the Department of Justice and the Senate Judiciary Committee were made aware that he lied on his application for the position. So we’ll see.

In the case of the Department of Justice, it warrants note, acting responsibly on the matter puts it on a slippery slope. For once the Department takes any action in acknowledgement that O’Neill lied on the application, it will become hard for it to justify having allowed him to become United States Attorney in the first place, allowing him to remain in the position, or, for that matter, failing now to prosecute him for violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001.

The day after I posted my letter to Judge Whittemore, an article in the St. Petersburg Times alerted me to the fact that O’Neill has already tried one case as United States Attorney. In a case involving fraud allegations concerning the purchase of a book for a Head Start program, a jury convicted one defendant while acquitting two. I doubt that a juror’s knowledge of my treatments of O’Neill’s conduct, or of the facts underlying those treatments, had any bearing on the outcome of the case. There is a good chance that no one involved in the case, save for O’Neill himself, was aware of either matter. But these things are not going to remain unknown forever, either in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area or elsewhere. And as they become more widely known, whether they in fact ever affect the outcome of a trial or complicate a jury selection, the spectacle of an individual like Robert E. O'Neill trying cases on behalf of the United States will do little to enhance the public’s faith in the criminal justice system.
Trial in the White case was originally set for August 1, 2011. On July 15, 2011, the defense moved to postpone the trial through the end of the year. The motion is pending.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I missed the motion to move the trial but figured they would take it to 2012 and then to mid-2012.

It's like walking through a nice clean rain to read that you wrote to Whittemore. LMAO !!!!!!!!!! It feels good and I haven't even read the letter yet.
Odd that Whittemore is up again; they are assigned on a rotating basis in Fed.

You'd have to live in Tampa to understand why it's so satisfying for them to know that people ARE watching them. And they KNOW (what the tampa crowd IS)
Recently a DC atty came to Tampa and was arrested on a child exploitation charge. I haven't investigated it yet but I wonder if they framed him. That's an O'Neill FAVORITE. (christine breen poses threats of RSO status) http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_tampa/dc-lawyer-arrested-in-tampa-on-child-exploitation-charges (lieberman). Another reason I wonder about that is one of Robert's buds as I have mentioned is Roberto Batiste/bautiste IAD TPD. Batiste's sister related to me the tale of a guy who gave her a hard time and fired her from a TV station job. Lo and behold this guy (I'd name names but it slips my mind at moment) was SHORTLY arrested in some sting or another and embarrassed (front page) and maybe drummed out of local media. Two-pronged endeavor, they have taken over the media in Tampa as noted in the SPT articles burnishing bobby's glow. Christine Breen, who is the wife of Colin Breen, who is Robert O'Neill's partner at IRA dump bar Three Green Fields in Tampa on Platt st intro'd me to Batiste's sister. We never get more than three people out from O'Neill these days in my family. NEVER. part ONE

Anonymous said...

PART TWO of THREE
Like that Kevin Bacon game only I do not know Robert O'Neill and feel it is sinister that everyone in my child's life is attached to Christine Breen. Well, I KNOW it is sinister but that's a subject for another day.

Anyway, best travel in the buddy system if you're going to visit Robert's DEN OF EVIL here in Tampa and Florida and parts of GA one assumes includes Valdosta murder/crack capital of the world. I never go ANYWHERE without the ability to video record in an instant the events around me. O'Neill shirts at the water park. Haven't seen one since the Rooms 2 Go Tshirt day. Okay, yep they ARE water clothes but you'd have to see the thugs jumping in front of me ... if it weren't so pathetic it would be even more hilarious. I walk fast so they have a devil of a time trying to saunter casually and it always has to be a leap. Others notice. I gather names.

Now, that said ... what cracks me UP about the Jimenez trial is Judge Bucklew throwing out a charge. She's like, "yeah .. he might be guilty but NO ONE proved it." (read Robert O'Neill did not prove it) Must be his busy schedule.

Anonymous said...

Part III
People have tried to say bad things about Bucklew but I believe these are people who would prefer to curry favor and court results rather than those seeking justice/truth.
I have only observed Judge Bucklew several times and I have read many articles mentioning her name; she has never been interviewed where I have read. My impression is she's a straight-up jurist. No nonsense, not crass, no meanness, by the book with leeway where she can give and feel it is deserved and just the opposite where there is the need. She is a thoughtful judge and very attentive. I thought she was fair but tough.
Robert didn't get his "evidence" past her either.

NOT that I think the head start thing was OK but they're probably just trying to take down that lil crowd, too. Almost no one in tampa has escaped unscathed so far. Still many victims of the silent IRA out there in Tampa/St.Pete. In fact, one IRA member just moved in on the corner from me. Heroin family relations.

I have recently discovered another young member of my family is receiving this same treatment from the O'Neill criminal krewe. I suspected it but can now prove it thanks to a Tampa fireman. It's paper-by-paper trail traced and printed. One thing a banker knows: building and maintaining a paper trail.
Due to the people I have connected Robert to in this fashion, I feel obliged to report that Robert also has ties to the nasty gambling families. So, if you're keeping count: That's stalking, illegal and legal gambling, the Irish Republican Army, criminal friends and business partners, frame-ups, DRUGS, theft, covering up arsons, selective prosecution, dishonest and evasive trial tactics (which in my opinion is still more dangerous than stalking which is a crime of violence)and just plain suffering from the shakes. I think Bobby has developed a case of the shakes.

Here is a man who does what he is told all day, MADE IN DA BRONX and he is using a not very clever woman to trifle with a child (children) starting when that child was a minor. My home is less than a block from the Tampa gambling license. I can connect him to so much criminal activity you think he would pack a bag and board the train out of town before he is tarred and feathered out. But, yes, FIRST THE PRISON CELL.
Robert, please check yourself into prison, you fraud.
I smell your fear. You are a pawn.
Lord knows what tomorrow will be like with the last comment I made here resulting in the whole Rooms to Go stalking about and other things I will contain.

Incidentally, I believe the reason Robert does not discuss/name his offspring has nothing to do with security. More to do with they are obscured players in the cult like workings of the young crowd surrounding these evil posers. It's much easier to commit bad acts when no one knows your Daddy put you up to them or even what your name is. Anyone have any idea??? My cousin is much higher placed in the hierarchy of life than Robert O'Neill and his family actually poses for photos.

Robert is a poser. He could not be farther from what one would want to see in a prosecuting attorney.

Anonymous said...

Check it out ! It's a MEDIA BLITZ of goodness and good will for Robert E. O'Neill. He took some moments from his "too busy to comment due to his taxing schedule day" to burnish his image.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/article1181231.ece

Though he actually had little to do with the case and one commenter can't find the alleged perps in prison.


The link because I think it feeds back better/