Following a vote last Friday during GTLA’s Annual Gala, Brian “Buck” Rogers took up the gavel to become the organizations 58th president. He succeeds Jay Sadd, a personal injury lawyer at Slappey & Sadd.

“It is a true honor to be elected by my peers to serve as the next president of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association,” Rogers said in a written statement. “The focus of my practice has been dedicated to protecting and securing justice for all Georgians, and no organization stands stronger for this inalienable right than GTLA.”

Rogers earned his law degree from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1994 and was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia the same year. He serves on the boards of directors for Roadsafe America and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, lectures on commercial motor vehicle collisions and holds a Class A commercial driver’s license.
In February, Rogers and Simon Law Firm partner H. Michael Ruppersburg secured a $1 million pre-suit settlement with insurer AutoOwners on behalf of the family of a woman killed in a car wreck in June 2012 on Old Alpharetta Road in Forsyth County.

Rogers participated in a panel discussion on tort reform hosted by the Georgia Defense Lawyers Association last November in which he stood up for GTLA, saying that the organization does not support the abuse of Holt demands in bad faith claims. He also sits on the bar’s committee on third-party litigation lending, though the committee has not been active.

On Monday night, Colbert learned that his PAC, a 501(c)(4), was never granted tax exempt status by the IRS because the Colbert Super PAC SHH never filed for it, even though it is a registered Delaware corporation and hundreds of thousands of dollars have passed through it.

“Your lawyers advised you that there is no legal requirement that you file with the IRS an application for exemption,” Potter explained.

“Wait a second,” Colbert replied. “You can form a 501(c)(4) without asking to form one? These tea party anti- big government organizations didn’t have to ask big government for permission but they did anyway?”

“Right,” Potter replied.

Now that the IRS is in political hot water, it might be under some pressure to approve tax exempt status for any Tea Party group that applied, Colbert sid, and so with Potter’s help, he filed for tax-exempt status for the Colbert Super PAC SHH. But, the comedian said, he was filing for tax-exempt status under a different name because the Colbert Super PAC SHH “is not  sufficiently Tea Party for me. I just want to put a little bit more pressure on the IRS.”

The new name under which the Colbert Super PAC SHH will do business as a 501(c)(4): The Making America a Better Place Tea Party Patriot 9-12 Place to Constitution America Tea Party Nominally Social Welfare Conservative Political Action Tea Party Secret Money Liberty I Dare You to Deny This Application of America Tea Party.

Stay tuned. To see the entire clip, go to: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/426445/may-20-2013/mazda-scandal-booth—the-irs—trevor-potter

On the recommendation of special master Steven Hathorn, the high court accepted Berlon’s petition for voluntary discipline, choosing a reprimand over the harshest possible penalty of disbarment. Berlon has been temporarily suspended while the matter was pending.

The court’s decision, issued Monday, was “based on admissions contained in Berlon’s petition.” The decision said that Berlon represented a client for several years in child support issues. The client  asked Berlon to file an action for change of custody, “but Berlon failed to do so.” The decision said the client, who filed the complaint, only learned the change had not been filed upon appearing at a hearing for child support contempt. “The client confronted Berlon, who then filed the change of custody action.”

The court’s decision said the penalty was mitigated by the fact that Berlon returned $2,500 to the client, and that Berlon had no prior disciplinary sanctions. “Berlon and the client ultimately decided to terminate the attorney-client relationship, and the client later voluntarily dismissed the custody action,” the decision said.

The Daily Report could not reach Berlon. He told the Associated Press that he takes responsibility for the miscommunication with the client on legal strategy.

Phipps’ ascension to the position of chief had been expected. The court’s judges select their own chief but follow a tradition of transferring the chief judge spot by seniority. Phipps was next in line after the current chief, John Ellington. A press release issued by the court today said Phipps’ election to the chief post was unanimous.

Governor Roy Barnes appointed Phipps, Ellington and M. Yvette Miller to the appeals court on the same day in 1999, but by random selection, Phipps was deemed to follow the other two in seniority. Phipps previously had been a judge on magistrate, juvenile, state and superior courts in Dougherty County.

Phipps will be sworn into the new position in a ceremony in the Court of Appeals courtroom on June 25 and will officially take over the job on July 1, the court’s release said. Two years ago,  Phipps swore in Ellington as chief in an unusually low-key investiture held in the court’s banc room.

Not so in Atlanta, where MARTA police arrested a traveling violinist after his impromptu concert inside the Five Points station downtown.

The MARTA violinist spent five days in jail.  It’s a good thing that world class violinist Joshua Bell opted for the Washington D.C. Metro instead of MARTA when he decided in 2007 to play incognito for tips.

In Washington, Bell was just ignored.

Scott was speaking at “Guns 101: What journalists need to know to shoot straight and get it right when reporting on firearms,” a seminar at the Georgia Press Association offices Thursday.

After presenting diagrams showing possible lines of travel for bullets and close up pictures of gun shots that look like those in TV crime shows such as CSI, Law & Order and Castle, Scott was asked,  what’s his favorite crime show?

“I don’t watch any of them,” he said. Of their realism, he added, “They’re not even close.”

Securing the crime scene and gathering evidence takes days or weeks, not an hour. DNA results might take six months to come back, not five minutes. The work is tedious, time consuming and painstaking.

Finger prints don’t automatically turn up a photograph of the killer. Scott said he’s had more luck with shoe impressions. “People don’t usually get rid of their shoes,” he said.

Working conditions are often unsanitary. Murders in real life don’t usually happen in lovely homes, upscale apartments or resort villas as they do in fiction. “It’s not at the governor’s mansion,” he said. “It’s not at the beach.”

“Nasty” is the adjective he used. One crime scene had a trail through the house piled high on either side with debris that included lawn mowers and liquor bottles – empty of course. He heard something running though it but couldn’t tell if it was “a rat or a possum.”

Crime scene’s he’s investigated include: Centennial Olympic Park bombing, in which evidence was blown up to 300 yards away; the Tri-State Crematory, which featured more than 300 bodies or parts of bodies; a home in Northwest Georgia where a toddler was clinging to the body of a mother stabbed to death by a husband, whose father-in-law showed up to confront his daughter’s killer.

“I always say, ‘Don’t second guess a police officer who’s trying to do the right thing,’” he said. “There’s a lot going on.”

Katheryn Hayes Tucker

“Out of an abundance of caution to avoid potential litigation, the commissioner removed the Bibles from rooms – though they were still available on site – after a complaint from a visitor,” the governor’s office said in a written statement. “The attorney general and I agree that the state is on firm legal footing as we move to return the Bibles to the rooms. These Bibles are donated by outside groups, not paid for by the state, and I do not believe that a Bible in a bedside table drawer constitutes a state establishment of religion. In fact, any religious group is free to donate literature.”

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Sam Olens confirmed the Law Department is reviewing the matter.

“Nothing in the Constitution prohibits private organizations from purchasing Bibles and placing them in a public lodge, so long as other groups wishing to place their own literature are offered similar accommodation,” the AG’s office said in a written statement.

Georgia State Constitutional Law professor L. Lynn Hogue said having donated religious books in state park cabins and lodges does not present a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, unless the state parks were soliciting them.

“If the Gideons volunteered them, and the state-owned inns allowed them to be put in the rooms, that presents no Establishment Clause problem,” Hogue said via email.

“The more pertinent issue is whether placing the Bibles in inn drawers transforms them into something like a public forum, which would open them to others with religious books to provide,” added Hogue. “ If I am right, and other religions wanted to place their books in the drawer (say books from other non-traditional or non-Christian religions) they would have to be allowed to do so.  If the drawer fills up, access could be rationed on some neutral basis or they could all be removed at that point.  They could not be removed based on preference for particular religious faiths.”

The grand jury indicted Steven E. Thompson and Tierra Michelle Waters on charges of sex trafficking a juvenile.  The couple, who had invited the teen to stay at their Buckhead condominium, informed her after she moved in that she would have to have sex with men they solicited in order to earn her rent, federal prosecutors said.

Additional details are in the U.S. attorney’s news release.

In the column, headlined “Judicial Vacancies Typify Capital Dysfunction,  Seib noted that Pryor shares that distinction with Rosemary Marquez of Arizona, a  nominee to the U.S. District Court in Arizona,  who has waited 689 days for the Senate to act.

Seib’s column notes that 85 federal judgeships sit vacant, about 10 percent of the federal judiciary, and offers that while President Obama must shoulder some of the blame, “The lion’s share of the blame lies with the Senate, a body that’s becoming an embarrassment to itself and that increasingly infects the rest of government with its paralysis.”

The firm, Ranbaxy USA Inc., also agreed to pay fines and forfeitures totaling $150 million and pay an additional $350 million to settle civil whistleblower claims filed under the federal False Claims Act.

In addition, Ranbaxy USA also pleaded guilty to four counts of making material false statements to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has oversight over the manufacture and distribution of prescription drugs in the U.S. , the DOJ said. The charges stem from violations at the parent manufacturing plant in India that dated back to 2003.  The U.S. contends that Ranbaxy manufactured and distributed drugs with strengths and quality that differed from the drug’s specifications.

The adulterated drugs distributed by Ranbaxy USA included Sotret – a generic brand of isotrentinoin, which is used to treat cystic acne; gabepentin, which is used to treat epilepsy and nerve pain; and antibiotic ciprofloxacin, also known as Cipro, according to the DOJ.  Ranbaxy USA also admitted making false statements about tests that resulted in unreliable results concerning the shelf life  of other drugs—including Cefaclor, cefadroxil, amoxicillin and clavulanate potassium—that were manufactured in India for U.S. distribution, the DOJ said.

“The investigation that led to this settlement uncovered evidence showing that certain lots of specific drugs produced at the Paonta Sahib facility [in India] were defective, in that their strength differed from, or their purity or quality fell below, that which they purported to possess,” said John Roth, director of the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations.

In an unrelated matter, Ranbaxy USA issued a nationwide recall last November of lots of Atorvastatin calcium—which is prescribed to lower cholesterol—because the affected lots may contain small glass particles resembling fine grains of sand.

Last year, the FDA secured an injunction barring any drugs produced at Ranbaxy’s two Indian manufacturing plants from entering the U.S. market until the plants are in full compliance with FDA regulations. Ranbaxy has not imported any products manufactured at those facilities to the U.S. since 2008 when the FDA issued an import alert, the DOJ said.

The false claims civil suit was filed in federal court in Maryland by a former Ranbaxy executive who is slated to receive $48.6 million of the federal government’s estimated share of $231.8 million, the DOJ said. The funds will reimburse federal programs that include Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the federal employees health benefits program and other federal health care plans that reimbursed drug purchases from Ranbaxy USA, the DOJ said. The balance of the settlement will go to state-administered government health care plans for states that joined in the litigation.

R. Robin McDonald Staff Writer Daily Report Atlanta, GA 30303 190 Pryor St. SW 404.419.2835 rmcdonald@alm.com www.dailyreportonline.com

U.S. District Senior Judge W. Earl Britt  sentenced Hysen Sherifi, 29, to life for what federal prosecutors said was a “sinister murder for hire plot” against six witnesses, including three FBI agents, who had testified against him during his 2011  trial, the U.S. Justice Department in Washington announced.

Britt also sentenced co-defendants Shkumbin Sherifi, 23, to three years and Nevine Aly Elshiekh, 48, to 3 ½  years in prison for their roles in the plot.  Federal prosecutors said that the two men pleaded guilty in November to a charge of conspiring to engage in a murder-for-hire plot and testified at the elder Sherifi’s trial last year on the murder-for-hire charges.  Shkumbin Sherifi is the younger brother of Hysen Sherifi; Elshiekh was a local school teacher who assisted the elder Sherifi brother in raising funds to hire an assassin to kill the six witnesses.

In 2011, Hysen Sherifi – a Kosovo native living in Raleigh who had become a permanent legal resident of the United States — was convicted of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, kill federal personnel and murder or otherwise harm people in a foreign country, as well as multiple counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. He was serving a 45-year prison sentence.

He was one of eight defendants—all born in the U.S. or naturalized U.S. citizens — who were indicted in 2009  on charges that they had conspired to engage in violent jihad outside of the U.S., train to become mujihadeen and die as martyrs, according to the 2009  indictment. They also conspired to radicalize other young Muslims or converts to Islam, obtain and offer training in weaponry, arrange overseas travel and contacts to further their cause, the indictment said.   A federal arrest warrant said the group had also plotted attacks on Marines and their families housed at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va.

A federal prosecutor said that while Hysen Sherifi was awaiting sentence for his 2011 conviction at the New Hanover County detention center in North Carolina, he initiated the murder-for-hire of three FBI agents and three government informants who had testified against him. Prosecutors said he did so as revenge for his conviction and to prevent their testimony at the trial of one of the co-conspirators who had been indicted with him in 2009.

Federal prosecutors said that in January 2012, Elshiekh met with a government informant masquerading as a middleman for the hitman, Sherifi. Elshiekh then relayed the information to Sherifi, who specified that he wanted each of the six targets beheaded and photographed after they were beheaded, federal authorities said.  At a second meeting with the middleman informant, Elshiekh gave him the name of a government witness and made a down payment on his assassination, prosecutors said.

Elshiekh and the younger Sherifi subsequently arranged a series of meetings with the middleman in order to pay for the murder and accept what purported to be photographic confirmation of an alleged beheading, prosecutors said. The two men were arrested after accepting a photograph of a purporting to show a beheaded government witness, prosecutors said.

R. Robin McDonald

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones on Tuesday also ordered Clayton Coe to pay $19.6 million in restitution, a punishment shared with other banking officers who have been convicted in connection with the bank’s failure.

Coe pleaded guilty last year to charges of bank fraud and making false statements.  His attorney, Richard Rice Jr., declined to comment on the case.

Coe is the third Stockbridge bank officer to plead guilty to criminal charges associated with the bank’s demise.  Last year, Mark Conner – the bank’s former chairman, president and CEO – pleaded guilty to charges that he had conspired with Coe and the bank’s former attorney  to routinely mislead federal and state bank regulators to conceal a scheme in which he reaped more than $7 million, federal prosecutors said. Conner is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence.

According to federal authorities, Conner, Coe and Robert Maloney Jr. – the bank’s former corporate counsel – pursued a criminal scheme through which the bank made loans to buy land owned by Coe and Conner and funneled millions of dollars to a string of companies in which Conner and Coe had financial interests.

The trio misrepresented the nature, terms and underlying purpose of the loans they directed the bank to authorize, and they falsified documents and information presented to the bank’s loan committee and the bank board of directors, according to federal authorities.  The trio also persuaded at least 10 other banks to invest in the fraudulent loans and shifted all or part of the risk to other banks, prosecutors said.

According to the  indictment, Maloney — while he was bank counsel — also performed legal work for Conner and Conner’s corporate entities, many of which had FirstCity loans. Maloney also was accused of helping to disguise, hide or otherwise conceal Conner’s personal financial interests in commercial real estate and other loans made by FirstCity, according to the indictment.

In return, Maloney not only received a bank salary, he also received additional payments in the form of legal fees.

In addition, according to the indictment, Maloney disguised Conner’s personal financial interests in a series of allegedly illegal short-term property flips and transfers to front men, also known as straw buyers. Maloney did so, in part, by receiving or paying out funds through an escrow account in his name at FirstCity Bank, according to the indictment.

Maloney was given a three-year prison sentence in March and ordered, along with his co-defendants, to pay $10.5 million in restitution.

R. Robin McDonald Staff Writer Daily Report Atlanta, GA 30303 190 Pryor St. SW 404.419.2835 rmcdonald@alm.com www.dailyreportonline.com

As of 5:15 p.m., the Georgia legal community had raised $59,656.20 for the state’s food banks, which can stretch those funds into nearly $420,000 worth of food for hungry people.

Final results in the competition among legal groups are not available yet, as actual food and cash donations will be collected next week.  And the online results could change as the final hours of the contest tick by, given how close the top competitors are.

For now, however, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton has regained its lead, with $6,555 in online donations.  It eclipsed Georgia Tech’s legal department, which has $6,021.  King & Spalding holds a narrow lead on Alston & Bird for third place, with $5,575 over A&B’s $5,530.

The rest of the four-digit field looks like this:

DeKalb County Solicitor-General: $4,373.45

Georgia Department of Law: $3,815

Southern Company/Georgia Power legal department: $2,900

Hunton & Williams: $2,540

Atlanta Legal Aid Society: $1,470

Coca-Cola Co. legal department: $1,375

Kutak Rock: $1,285

Siemon Law Firm: $1,220

Rogers & Hardin: $1,170

Daily Report: $1,152.

For more information or to donate, go to this site: http://engage.acfb.org/site/TR/LegalFoodFrenzy/GeorgiaLegalFoodFrenzy?fr_id=1560&pg=entry

Counts called the decision by Cobb County State Court Judge Melodie Clayton a “First Amendment victory.” Counts delivered that news to the Daily Report in an email with this subject line: You can say “F— the police” without violating the law.”

According to Counts, Amy Barnes admits to making obscene statements Easter Sunday 2012, when she saw two Cobb County police officers questioning a burglary suspect about 7 p.m. on Austell Road. As she was riding by on her bicycle, Barnes said, among other things, “F— the police,” and “police suck,” Counts said, calling the statements “a protest of police abuse.”

“Upon hearing her statements, the officers left the suspect to pursue Ms. Barnes, who they stopped and arrested,” said Counts. The burglary suspect got away. Barnes was arrested and taken to jail, charged with one count of disorderly conduct under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-39(a)(4), which bars “without provocation” the use of “obscene and vulgar and profane language in the presence of a person under the age of 14 years which threatens an immediate breach of the peace.”

The police justified this charge by alleging that a child was present when Barnes made her statement, Counts said.

“After hearing testimony from two officers and viewing a video of the incident taken from a camera in one of the officer’s cars, the judge concluded that the officers simply took issue with what Barnes had said and were determined to arrest her,” Counts said.

Clayton also concluded that the alleged presence of the child was “inconclusive” and “irrelevant,” because, “the mere presence of children does not transform the defendant’s statements into ‘fighting words.’”

“Her criticism of the police was certainly caustic, but criticizing the police and other public officials is a basic right,” Counts said. “Certainly, the police cannot arrest someone for disrespecting them by the use of a curse word.”

Ken Hodges and Alex Bartko of Rafuse, Hill and Hodges also defended Barnes, saying her “First Amendment rights were clearly violated by the arrest and prosecution.”

Hodges, a former prosecutor, said, “It is a travesty that Ms. Barnes spent 23 hours in jail, including six hours in solitary confinement. She should also not have had to spend the last year awaiting vindication. The officers should have thicker skin. There was no reason to arrest a woman on a bicycle who presented no threat.”

Chatham County Superior Court Judge Louisa Abbot started her term as president on Wednesday. Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley is president-elect, and Appalachian Judicial Circuit Superior Court Chief Judge Brenda Weaver is secretary-treasurer. Their terms last until April 30, 2014.

Abbot earned her law degree from the University of Georgia in 1982 and was appointed to Superior Court in the Eastern Judicial Circuit in October 2000. During the last four years, she was chairwoman of the council’s uniform rules committee and she  is a past-president of the Savannah Bar Association and the Georgia Bar Foundation.  Governor Nathan Deal reappointed her chairwoman of the Georgia Child Support Commission earlier this year.

Staley, who graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1979, began her legal career as an assistant Cobb County district attorney. She was elected to the Cobb County State Court in 1983 and was elected to superior court in 1992.

Weaver served as an Associate Juvenile Court Judge for the Appalachian Judicial Circuit from 1991 until her appointment as chief judge of the juvenile court in 1995. A year later, she was appointed to the Superior Court, where she presides over its felony drug court.

Weaver is also an administrative law judge, a member of the Judicial Qualifications Commission and chairwoman of the Council of Superior Court Judges’ Accountability and Treatment Courts Committee. She earned her law degree from the now closed Woodrow Wilson College of Law in 1983.

The three judges will lead the council, which is composed of the state’s 207 Superior Court judges and more than 70 retired judges, as it assists trial courts with budgeting, legislation, uniform rules, bench publications and continuing judicial education. They also will serve on the Judicial Council of Georgia with representatives from other courts.