Durham Search Warrant To Remain Sealed

A federal judge in Ohio has turned down a petition by several newspapers filed last December in a federal district court seeking to unseal the search warrants issued against businesses operated by alleged Ponzi scheme operator Tim Durham in Ohio and Indiana. "Judge Sara Lioi of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio ruled the right of access to search warrant records connected with an ongoing investigation is “not absolute” and was not justified in this case," the IBJ's Greg Andrews reports. “In view of the fact that the government’s investigation is ongoing, unsealing the relevant records, especially the detailed affidavit in support of the search warrant ... would reveal a virtual ‘road map’ of the government’s investigation, investigative techniques and the information derived therefrom, the identities of sources and potential targets of the investigation, and an impression (possibly mistaken) concerning who may or may not be cooperating with the government,” Andrews quotes from Judge Lioi's opinion.

The slow pace of this criminal investigation is disturbing to say the least, particularly given the swiftness that the feds took in cases against several other high profile Ponzi scheme operators once formal investigations were launched. The fact is the U.S. Attorney's Office in Indianapolis could have filed criminal charges against Durham before the end of last year if it weren't so interested in protecting several high profile politicians connected to Durham. The office has been privy to damning evidence about Durham for years and just sat on it. If Durham had hoodwinked the elites of Indianapolis out of their life savings rather than rural Amish farmers and other middle class people living in Ohio, he would have been locked up long ago. I'm waiting for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Indianapolis to disabuse me of this highly cynical view I have of the way business is conducted there. I've about had my fill of their endless string of press releases boasting about their prosecutions of nobody drug dealers, losers who like looking at kiddie porn and small-time con artists. It would be nice if the office just once prosecuted one of the scores of political hacks raping the taxpayers of our state and local government on any given day.