Jessica Gabel, a scientific and forensic evidence expert and Georgia State University College of Law assistant professor, carefully watched the facts presented in the Casey Anthony trial and decided the jury was “smarter than everybody gave them credit” for.

Both sides made mistakes, Gabel said. But while the defense was widely slammed for bringing up and then never backing up stories about the defendant being a victim of abuse herself, the prosecution also stated facts never proven. Gabel said she believed the prosecution backed off its contention that Casey Anthony made 84 computer searches for chloroform because it may actually have been only one search. She said her research into the computer software the prosecution used showed it wasn’t reliable. Gabel also said she believed prosecutors got overconfident and “failed to connect the dots” among the facts. Read more »

Gwinnett County District Attorney Daniel J. Porter said his office will present its criminal case against former Gwinnett Commissioner Kevin Kenerly to a regular grand jury and seek reconsideration of a recent appellate decision that overturned a previous indictment against Kenerly.

Porter told the Daily Report earlier this month he was weighing his options on how to proceed after a three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals tossed out a special purpose grand jury’s indictment charging Kenerly with accepting $1 million in bribes and failing to disclose financial interest in two properties that the county commission rezoned. The special purpose grand jury agreed on the charges in October 2010 after a 10-month investigation into costly land deals by county officials. Read more »

After he confirmed the life-without-parole sentence of confessed killer Jamie R. Weis on Friday, Pike County Superior Court Judge Tommy R. Hankinson read a “sentencing commentary” in which he re-capped the tortuous route the case took to its ultimate resolution. Hankinson included a pointed jab at the General Assembly and former Gov. Sonny Perdue whose role in under-funding Georgia’s indigent defense system delayed the case and, said the judge, nearly led to Weis’ charges being dismissed by the state Supreme Court.

Weis, who interrupted jury selection last week to plead guilty to the 2006 robbery-murder of Catherine King and was sentenced following a bench trial, originally was represented by two appointed attorneys – Robert H. Citronberg and Thomas M. West. In 2007, during a hearing in which they complained of not being paid or having any funds to pursue Weis’ defense, now-resigned Judge Johnnie L. Caldwell Jr. unexpectedly replaced them with two local public defenders. Read more »

A former Grand Dragon of the Missouri chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was sentenced in federal court in Atlanta Thursday to serve 20 years in prison for seeking via the Internet to have sex with two teenage girls in Georgia, according to federal prosecutors in Atlanta.

U.S. District Judge William S. Duffey Jr. sentenced Neal Ray Schmidt, 59, of St. Louis, Mo., also known as Raymond  Owens, on a charge of distributing child pornography. Schmidt pleaded guilty to the charge in April. Read more »

ATLaw readers had a lot less time to call the Anthony trial verdict than we expected when we posted our appeal for guesstimates on time and outcome. After a little more than 10 hours, the jury reached its verdict this morning – Casey Anthony is not guilty of murdering her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.

Jury members did find her guilty of four counts of lying to investigators. Each count carries a maximum 1-year sentence. Read more »

On Independence Day, I talked with a college freshman who watched every day of the Casey Anthony trial and said she saw no possible way the jury could fail to convict Anthony of capital murder in the death of her two-year-old daughter Caylee.

At the same gathering, a mother of young adults said the opposite – no way the jury could find her guilty. A father said he thought Anthony did kill Caylee, but that it was an accident. Read more »

A federal grand jury has charged McDonough attorney Robert E. Maloney Jr., 47, in connection with what the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s inspector general in Atlanta on Friday described as “multimillion dollar bank fraud and associated money-laundering activities.”

Christy L. Romero, acting special inspector general for the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, described the conduct of Maloney, formerly corporate counsel of FirstCity Bank of Stockbridge and its top legal officer, as “another unfortunate example of allegedly brazen criminal conduct by senior bank officials who tried to conceal their fraud from regulators and improperly access TARP funds.” Read more »

The U.S. Attorney in Macon this morning unsealed indictments and pleas in an ongoing – and previously secret – investigation of five companies and seven individuals who are charged with engaging in a conspiracy to illegally export military components for American fighter jets and attack helicopters from the U.S. to Iran. Many of the parts eventually ended up in the hands of the Iranian military, according to federal prosecutors.

The indictment charges the defendants – who are based in the U.S., France, the United Arab Emirates and Iran– with violating the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Iranian Transaction regulations by shipping the military parts to Iran. The defendants also are charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S., money-laundering and making false statements. Read more »

The same characteristics that make Atlanta a great city for business also make it a great city for crime, U.S. Attorney Sally Yates told the DeKalb Bar Association during a luncheon at the Old Courthouse in Decatur today.

Yates said Atlanta’s status as a transportation hub and its vibrant investment community are exploited by criminals, making Atlanta a unique crime center.
 
“We are the East Coast hub for Mexican drug cartels,” she said. That hub used to be Miami, she added, but much of the cocaine entering the United States now finds its way to Atlanta because the city’s highway system allows for easy transport to other parts of the country. A tractor-trailer from Atlanta, she said, can reach 90 percent of the United States within three days.
 
Atlanta also is a hub for gun trafficking and has the dubious distinction of being the No. 1 source state for guns used illegally in other states—2,713 guns used in crimes in other states last year originated in Georgia, she said. One factor contributing to that statistic, she said, is the large number of guns in Georgia, “which means they are very cheap.”
 
Also, she said, Georgia law does not limit the number of guns an individual may buy, and individuals are able to purchase guns at gun shows without first submitting to a background check.
 
Yates said the Northern District of Georgia also is a center for human trafficking, a multi-billion-dollar industry she called to “modern-day slavery.”
 
The FBI estimates that 200 to 300 children, most of them from Georgia and some as young as 10 years old, are involved in sex trafficking rings here each month, she said.
 
“Our city is known for its commercial sex industry,” she said, adding that like Thailand, the city is home to so-called “sex tours,” where groups of people looking for illegal sex congregate. 
 
Yates attributed this problem in part to criminals’ use of Atlanta’s airport to transport young victims into and out of the city, and to the convention business here, which brings in visitors who may be looking for illicit sex.
 
Finally, Yates cited financial fraud as a major problem here, driven in part by the economic downturn, the real estate collapse, the high number of bank failures in the Northern District—the highest in the country, she said—and the large financial industry here.
 
Financial frauds, she said, “are not victimless crimes.”

Federal agents arrested the former president of the failed FirstCity Bank of Stockbridge at the Miami International Airport on Sunday – the second anniversary of the bank’s failure. He is charged with bank fraud.

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment naming former bank president Mark A. Conner, 44, formerly of Canton, and the bank’s former senior loan officer, Clayton A. Coe, 44, the day after Conner’s arrest. Conner had just flown into Miami from the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean when he was taken into custody by U.S. marshals, federal prosecutors in Atlanta said. Read more »