- Hey Detroit, you have a challenger to your throne when it comes to having America’s mot felonious mayor. Yes. Kwame Kilpatrick may have been booted for perjury, lying under oath and then trying to cover it up (along with several other related crimes), but Birmingham, Alabama is coming hard for the crown when it comes to having a convict in the city’s highest office. On Monday, the FBI arrested the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, on federal charges including conspiracy, bribery, fraud, money laundering and filing false income tax returns. Larry Langford has been hit with an indictment that alleges criminal activity while he was a county commissioner. According to the indictment, while president of the Jefferson County Commission and head of its department of finance and general services from November 2002 until about November 2006, Langford put his personal affairs ahead of those of the county. He is alleged to have “sold his public office to his friends and political supporters.” Authorities claim that steered lucrative business to William Blount, a Montgomery, Alabama, investment banker, and in turn Blount funneled $7.1 million in bribes to Langford. Blount is also named in the indictment, as is Albert LaPierre, a Birmingham lobbyist. LaPierre is alleged to have worked with Blount to ensure that Langford's crushing personal debts were paid off through payoffs of loans, store charge accounts, purchases of clothing and jewelry and other items of value that exceeded $230,000 over a period from 2002 to 2006. What did Langford do in exchnage? Well, the allegations of impropriety stretch all the way back to a 1996 consent decree entered into by the commission he headed up to bring Jefferson County into compliance with the Clean Water Act, which required authorizing billions of dollars in transactions. Those contracts went to those Blount wanted them to go to, authorities allege. To ensure that a five-year statute of limitations didn’t nullify some of the counts in the case, authorities filed an indictment back in June and then followed that up with a superseding indictment returned last Tuesday by a federal grand jury. That indictment contains some pretty accusatory language, things like Langford conspiring with Blount and LaPierre "to solicit and to accept bribes, to use influence and position to ensure that Blount and his company, Blount Parrish Inc., was involved in Jefferson County's bonds and swap transactions related to multibillion-dollar sewer debt.” Ironically, the trio then set up financing through companies like J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Bank of America, which have since gone belly up. An example of the type of impropriety of which Langford is accused is cited an October 2003 financial transaction that included Bank of America and Lehman Special Financing Corp. that required Lehman to pay an "arrangement fee" of $35,000 to Blount's company. The $7.1 million figure includes all of the fees Langford received related to Jefferson County's financial transactions. This was a scam that had many layers and featured a tangled web of financing agreements, nearly all of them involving Langford requiring institutions to use Blount as a consultant so Blount would make fees and in turn pay off Langford. Heck, the two of them even made trips together to New York, where Blount bought Langford clothing and jewelry from high-end stores that included Tourneau, Zegna, Ferragamo and Turnbull & Asser.
Hope they hung on to that top-end swag, because the feds are seeking criminal forfeiture of about $7.6 million from each of the men. However, it’s going to be difficult to pay that money back and pay the legal fees they will incur defending themselves from 60 counts of the superseding indictment (Langford); 43 counts (Blount); and 22 counts (LaPierre). All told, each defendant would face a maximum of 10 years for each bribery and money-laundering count, 20 years for each fraud count, five years for the conspiracy count and three years for each tax count. Yes, I do have to say that Detroit’s reign as leader in the corrupt public officials race is about to come to an end….
- Texas Tech may have lost its big showdown against Oklahoma on the football field two weekends ago to drop from the national championship chase, but off the field, the Red Raiders seem to have what it takes to cement their status as an elite program – a resident felon. Every elite program needs criminals and shady characters, it's just a proven fact. Look at the Florida State teams of the '90s, the Miami teams of the '80s, etc. and you'll see my point. Well, if Tech wants to reach and stay in that lofty perch, clearly they need players who don’t believe the law applies to them. That's where junior defensive back De'Shon Sanders comes in. Sanders, a backup on the team, was arrested by federal agents early Thursday and charged with dealing cocaine. Nice job, D. You could have gone for a pedestrian, generic crime like stealing a laptop from another student, maybe getting into a fight at an off-campus bar, but you aimed high and I appreciate that. This wasn’t just any drug bust, either; Sanders was arrested in downtown Lubbock at 1:30 a.m. Thursday by agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He has been charged with felony possession with intent to distribute in excess of 50 grams of cocaine, a pretty impressive figure. Dude wasn’t just rolling with an 8-ball of coke, he was selling some serious blow. Here's a key part of the equation for Texas Tech and its fans, a sign that the program understands how to successfully work the criminal element into its program: Sanders is a backup, a junior who still hasn’t cracked the starting lineup. You may need felons on your team, but you don’t want your key players getting suspended and hauled off the jail, that doesn’t reflect well on your program. Of course, an interestign aspect of thi situation is that Sanders is a housemate of All-American receiver Michael Crabtree, who could be a top-five pick in the upcoming NFL draft. Crabtree been implicated in the investigation of Sanders and it seems unlikely he was involved in Sanders' operation, but head coach Mike Leach has to be sweating bullets on this part of the case. As for me, I'm just going to sit back and watch, see if Texas Tech can keep building this thing and truly become one of the perennial powers in college football. They're off to a great start, that's for sure……
- Nice to know that Guns N' Roses is looking out for its fans.....well, other than dicking around for 17 years when it comes to releasing a new album that those fans have been waiting anxiously for. But try to rip a free soft drink from those same fans and watch the band spring into action. That snafu comes as the band finally released the heavily-anticipated Chinese Democracy, an album that has been nearly two decades in the making and perenially derailed by ego clashes and personal vices withn the band. The album was finally released this past week and soft drink giant Dr Pepper decided to have some fun with it. The idea actually began back in March, when Dr Pepper rolled out a marketing promising a "free soda" to "everyone in America" on one condition that Chinese Democracy be released in 2008. Well, the album is out and so it was time for Dr Pepper to make good on its promise, which the company did – for all of 24 hours. Yes, you could get a coupon for a free can of Dr Pepper if you went to the company’s website, but fans had only 24 hours to go the Web site and print out the coupon. And as often happens when something is free, there was a near-riot to get a single can of soda, so much so that the Dr Pepper website crashed and left many fans on the outside looking in, thirsty to boot. Why is GN’R involved? Because the band believes that right or wrong, fans associate Axl Rose, the band’ enigmatic lead man, with the promotion. “When you go on the blogs and you read the responses from the fans, they associated Axl with this promotion ... and blame him for the fact that they didn't get their free soda,” said GN'R lawyer Laurie Soriano. To combat that perception, Soriano fired off a letter to Dr P. In the letter, she asked the soft drink company to make good on its offer, a request that has gone unanswered so far. For its part, Dr it claiming that it has "taken great steps" to keep up its end of the bargain, including extending the window for the giveaway from 24 to 42 hours, adding a toll-free line to handle consumer requests for the coupons and setting up an interactive voice recorder to accept coupon requests. However, I don’t know of anyone who heard of these extra measures while they were allegedly in effect and at this point, none of them still are. "Additionally," the company said in a written statement, "for those who contacted us in the week after the giveaway about difficulties requesting the coupon, we continued to offer free coupons to address any problems they may have encountered." True or not, GN’R is still demanding an apology for anyone who was shut out of a free can of pop. However, maybe they should be more concerned with the lukewarm reception their new album is receiving. Chinese Democracy has gotten mixed reviews and been pegged largely as Axl Rose and whomever he could cobble together to sustain this self-indulgent project. It was beaten out at the top of the charts in the United Kingdom by the great new album by The Killers, 'Day And Age', this week. Also, there are reports that Rose has more or less gone AWOL the past two months, meaning he has done less than nothing to promote the album. Can’t say I feel sorry for the record company on that one; you deal with a rock star and hang your fortunes on him, you can’t be pissed off when he goes rock star on you. These guys are notorious for not showing up, showing up drunk, making messes and not cleaning them up. It’s part of the rock star mystique we know and love, so you are hypocritical if you rip a guy for doing the very type of thing you basically cultivated his career upon…..
- I've waited too long to do this, but before we kick off Week 14 of the NFL season, I need to salute the Detroit Lions for keepin alive the dream of an 0-16 season. Last week, the Lions played in their traditional Thanksgiving spot and were absolutely massacred by the Tennessee Titans, 47-10. This game was over before the first quarter ended, just the way I like it when it come to the Lions. No messing around with taking a lead, looking competitive….just get behind and pad that deficit as much as possible. The Titans led 21-0 after the opening quarter thanks to two touchdown runs and an interception return for a TD by a defensive tackle, of all people. Quarterback Daunte Culpepper was absolutely crap-tacular, failing to mount enough offense to even make the game remotely competitive. He threw that INT for a TD, lobbing an ill-advised pass high into the air right in the middle of the field, absolutely perfect. The Lions showed no heart and failed to execute in all three aspects of the game, just what I and millions of like-minded fans rooting for this dream season wanted to see. Surrendering two 100-yard rushers is a tough feat, but the Lions did it with ease. Here's my concern, though; losing has become too easy for the Lions. They have just been able to show up and not do what it takes to win for most of this season, but these last four games are where they will truly be tested. Yes, they have the 8-4 Colts and 7-5 Vikings looming, but there are also games against the erratic New Orleans Saints and underachieving Green Bay Packers left. Losing all four is going to take bad play across the board. It's not enough for one or two guys to not try, make mental errors and play badly. This is going to take a team effort and dammit fellas, it needs to happen. This might be the worst NFL team ever and you need the 0-16 record to prove it. No one is going to remember a 1-15 team; we just had one of those last year in the Miami Dolphins. But people will remember an 0-16 team and you all will be freaking legends, so get it done…..
- Would it be a problem if your local pharmacy were dispening drugs without valid prescriptions and trying to pawn bottles filled with M&M's that the pharmacy was trying to pass off as painkillers? Allow me to introduce you to Thomas Husak of Auburn, Calif., the pharmacist as Skyridge Pharmacy in Auburn (in the Sacramento area). He is being charged with 50 counts of state narcotics violations and four misdemeanor counts of sexual misconduct offenses. What exactly was Husak doing? Well, among his alleged crimes was selling oxycodone and OxyContin to people who didn’t have valid prescriptions and then filling the empty bottles with M&M's and marking them for destruction so no one would know where the pills really went. Also, investigators found that Skyridge Pharmacy could not provide records for more than 20,000 dosage units of hydrocodone products. So? You want to quibble over a minute amount like 20,000 dosage units of hydrocodone products? Heck, who doesn’t have that many dosage units of hydrocodone products rattling around under their couch cushions at home? What else do you have? What's that? You also found excessive shortages and overages of controlled substances? Okay, so maybe there is a small problem here, that problem being a crooked pharmacist who is willing to put dangerous, addictive drugs in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them, all so he can make a few extra bucks. But is that any reason to rip the pharmacy's authority to dispense prescriptions and send the pharmacist to jail? Oh, it is? Well, I guess that happens when you run this kind of crooked operation for a three-year period. That kind of business usually leads the Drug Enforcement Administration to suspend your Certificate of Registration to dispense Schedule II-V controlled substances. And as you might expect, Houck and his budding drug cartel were done in by the infamous anonymous tipster. Last May, a good Samaritan spilled the beans to the Auburn Police Department, which began an investigation into. That investigation led to searches of Skyridge Pharmacy and Husak's home, which in turn brought us to where we are now. So unless you are a fan of using M&M's to ease your pain after back surgery, you should probably be rooting for Husak to spend the rest of his life behind bars…..
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