Tag: felony
Judge Slaps Roger Stone With Social Media Restriction For Violating Order

Judge Slaps Roger Stone With Social Media Restriction For Violating Order

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Roger Stone has repeatedly risked his pre-trial freedom as he awaits the court battle over the charges brought against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. And once again on Tuesday, he skirted free of ending up in jail even as Judge Amy Berman Jackson found that he had violated her court order limiting his public comments about the case against him.

Instead of revoking his bail, Judge Jackson banned him from posting on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook while his trial is pending.

“The clarity of my order is undisputed,” said Jackson. “It didn’t take a week before the defendant was emailing BuzzFeed, calling a witness in this investigation a liar.”

She said Stone’s lawyer had to “twist himself into a pretzel” to argue that his client’s posts didn’t cross the line.

Stone has been charged with lying to Congress, obstructing justice, and intimidating a witness. He has denied the charges.

She had previously placed him under a gag order to prevent him from discussing the case publicly after he posted an image of her on Instagram next to crosshairs. However, he is still allowed to raise funds for his defense.

That gag order remains in place. But Jackson said she has to “help” Stone out because he’s shown he’s unable to follow “simple orders.”

Prosecutors have said that Stone has violated the gag order multiple times since it has been issued, leading to the judge’s new social media ban.

 

Former Virginia Governor McDonnell Indicted In Gifts Scandal

Former Virginia Governor McDonnell Indicted In Gifts Scandal

Less than two weeks after leaving office, former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell (R) and his wife Maureen were indicted Tuesday on 14 felony charges related to the Star Scientific scandal that clouded the latter stages of his governorship.

The indictment, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia, accuses the governor and his wife of accepting more than $135,000 in gifts and loans from then-Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams, in exchange for assistance in promoting the company. According to the indictment, this amounted to “a scheme to violate federal public corruption laws.”

The McDonnells have each been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit honest-services wire fraud, three counts of honest-services wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to obtain property under color of official right, six counts of obtaining property under color of official right, and one count of making false statements to a federal credit union.

McDonnell — who was once considered to be a potential 2016 presidential candidate — and his wife have both denied any wrongdoing. Still, as the scandal came to light in 2013, the McDonnells repaid the money and returned the gifts Williams gave them.

If convicted, the pair could each face decades in prison and millions of dollars in fines.

The full indictment can be read below, via Talking Points Memo.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr