Source: Criminal Defense Attorney Claims To Represent Multiple City Employees And Officials In Ongoing Federal Probe

Advance Indiana has learned from a reliable source something about an ongoing federal investigation of corruption within an Indiana municipality that is quite troubling. According to the source, FBI agents have been told by a prominent criminal defense attorney that they may not interview various city employees and officials with knowledge of matters under investigation without his consent and presence because the attorney supposedly has been retained to represent all of those employees and officials. If the source's information is accurate, it raises serious legal and ethical questions

First of all, a municipality cannot retain a criminal defense attorney to represent any municipal officials or employees in any ongoing criminal investigation arising out of their potential actions as officials or employees of the city. If you are under investigation for suspicion of committing a crime while carrying out your official acts as a public servant, you are responsible for hiring your own attorney, not the government. Secondly, joint representation of those city officials and employees by the same criminal defense attorney is only possible if each of those officials and employees retained the services of the criminal defense attorney and agreed to joint representation after being provided informed consent of the possibility that conflict of interests might arise during the course of the representation. Even if their consent to joint representation had been obtained, the attorney may still be barred from joint representation under the rules of professional conduct that govern the conduct of attorneys.

Rule 1.6 imposes an obligation on the part of the attorney to maintain the confidentiality of communications between the attorney and client. If one client reveals information that is detrimental to another, the attorney is faced with a conflict of interest that might compel him to withdraw his representation of one or both clients. Rule 1.7 further provides that a conflict of interest exists "if the representation of one client will be directly adverse to another client, or there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by the lawyer's responsibilities to another client." In this particular case, the attorney's law firm has been retained by the city's mayor to provide various legal services on behalf of the city in the past and currently. Clearly, the law firm serves the city at the pleasure of the mayor and not any of the city's employees.

A recent 7th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision demonstrates how these rules can prohibit an attorney from representing criminal defendants even when the defendants have consented to joint representation. In U.S. v. Volpendesto et al.,  several defendants had been tried and convicted on numerous racketeering charges related to the operation of an illegal gambling business, as well as bombing and conspiracy to obstruct justice, among others. Prior to trial, government lawyers moved to disqualify one of the defendant's attorneys, Alex Salerno, because he had previously represented three of the defendant's co-defendants. The defendant, Mark Polchan, and two of his co-defendants waived any conflicts that may have arisen from Salerno's prior representation of them, while one of the co-defendants objected. Polchan retained co-counsel who would cross-examine the dissenting co-defendant and with whom Salerno offered assurances that he would provide no privileged information. The district court granted the government's motion to disqualify Salerno, observing that it "cannot know what information Salerno has learned from his previous client [Hay] that would be detrimental to that client in this case” and that “[c]ross-examination by an independent counsel would not safeguard against impermissible use of confidential information."

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the district court's ruling disqualifying Salerno. The Court found that an actual conflict of interest existed, not merely the possibility that one might arise during trial. "Hay had already decided to cooperate with the government and testify against his co-defendants when the government moved to disqualify Salerno," the court reasoned. "And Salerno had represented Hay on closely related state charges, including charges that involved Polchan, where he might have obtained damaging evidence about Hay's credibility or his guilt." Salerno could not represent Polchan without breaching his ethical obligations to his former client the Court concluded. I would add that Polchan and one of his co-defendants, Michael Sarno, received what amounted to life sentences as a result of their convictions. Sarno represented the top spot in the criminal enterprise according to the facts recited in the case. The district court had noted that Salerno had been "less than forthcoming" about his prior representation of Sarno. Polchan received a 60-year sentence, while Sarno received a 25-year sentence.

In the case at hand, it seems unlikely that all of the persons the FBI would want to question in its ongoing investigation actually consented and paid for the attorney in question to represent them in its ongoing investigation. It is even more unlikely that most of the persons the FBI would want to question committed any crimes. My concern is that the tactic employed by the criminal defense attorney to block FBI agents from questioning various city employees and officials is more about protecting and obstructing an ongoing federal investigation of the mayor by preventing them from learning information from others with knowledge of the matters being investigated. It is unclear why the FBI would allow the attorney to make such an absurd claim as to represent all of the potential witnesses. The agency certainly doesn't have a reputation for being bullied by criminal defense attorneys. Those employees who want to cooperate and speak to federal investigators should seek their own independent counsel and not merely rely on the representation of an attorney who may not in represent their interests in the matter.

Ballard Administration Intentionally Exacerbates Funding For More Police To Force Tax Increase

In what can only be described as a deliberate act on the part of the Ballard administration to pressure the Indianapolis City-County Council into raising taxes to hire more police officers, the administration chose not to re-apply for a federal COPS grant for the next three fiscal years that would have funded 15 to 20 full-time additional police officers during that period. The administration told Fox 59 News that it didn't apply for the grant money because it would have been irresponsible to do so without enough money to pay for the positions when the grant money expires. In other words, the mayor has no intention of finding additional money to hire more cops unless the council passes a tax increase. Yet his administration has been relying for the past three years on a federal COPS to fund 50 full-time police officer positions. I don't recall Mayor Ballard saying that was irresponsible as he sought re-election in 2011 when he was boasting about reducing crime while honestly balancing the city's budget.

During the IMPD Staffing Commission deliberations, the Ballard administration repeatedly represented to the commission members that part of its future funding of police officers included applying for a new COPS grant. IMPD received full funding for 50 full-time positions the past three years despite the fact that the City did not actually use that money to hire additional police officers. In fact, the number of full-time police officers actually fell during that period. The Ballard administration used money it received from the COPS grant to pay for existing police officers. The Justice Department could have forced the City to repay that money since it failed to comply with the terms of the grant, but since the federal government just passes out money like candy, it chose not to penalize the City for failing to comply with the terms of the grant.

This latest news came as leaders of the local FOP flew out to Washington this past week to meet with members of Indiana's congressional delegation to plea for more federal dollars. The FOP claim without proof that the recent shooting deaths of two IMPD officers is to blame on too few police officers patrolling the streets.  “Somebody has got to do something, and just like I said it’s time for people to stop talking about it. I’m tired of talking about it, you’re tired of listening,” said FOP Prsesident Bill Owensby. Of course, Owensby could care less whether any additional funding is used to hire more police officers. His organization didn't start clamoring for a tax increase to support funding for more police officers until it became apparent that promised pay increases for police couldn't be funded. Police received generous pay raises following the enactment of the 65% increase in the local income tax dubbed the public safety tax in 2007 that was supposed to fund at least 100 additional police officers. The FOP never complained then about officer safety when the money from the tax increase wasn't used to hire more police officers as promised to the public.

New York Cops Kill Unarmed Man As Onlookers Watch And Record

New York Police have a public image crisis on their hands after a video goes viral on the Internet of several officers forcibly taking an unarmed, 350-pound man with health issues into custody leads to his death. Police claimed he was illegally selling cigarettes on Staten Island by hawking Lucky cigarettes for 50 cents a piece. One police officer placed the 43-year Eric Garner in a chokehold as others assisted in wrestling him to the ground. The man repeatedly tells officers he couldn't breath, but they persisted until he laid motionless. He was later declared dead after being transported to a hospital.

Two officers have been placed on desk duty pending an investigation according to the New York Daily News. One of the officers, Daniel Pantaleo, is already the subject of two lawsuits brought by African Americans in which he was accused of false arrest. One of those lawsuits has been settled for $15,000 where he was accused of forcibly stripping two men in public so they could be searched. Charges against the two men were later dropped. In another suit, Pantaleo, is accused of trumping up charges against a man in Brooklyn who was held in a jail for a day. New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio postponed his scheduled vacation to Italy to deal with the crisis.

Police Commissioner William Bratton conceded at a press conference that the video appeared to show a police officer placing Garner in a chokehold, a maneuver that was banned by the New York Police Department more than 20 years ago. According to family members, Garners suffered from asthma, sleep apnea and diabetes. He couldn't walk a block without having to sit down to take a rest they said.

IMPD: New Roving Covert SWAT Team Here To Stay

If you thought it was something out of the ordinary earlier this week when an IMPD SWAT team was immediately on the scene as an 18-year old with a lengthy criminal record began firing on another car to take him out, you were right. IMPD tells the Star's Jill Disis that it is a new covert SWAT team established to covertly track the City's most violent offenders.

The gunfire was over almost as soon as it started.

One minute, the man was talking with people inside a red car.

The next, police said, he began shooting — prompting two officers to jump from an unmarked police car nearby, guns at the ready.

When the man didn’t comply with ­police commands, the officers fired.

Suspect down. Incident over.

The operation early Tuesday in the 1300 block of West Pruitt Street wasn’t like others the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has conducted in the past. This time, the responding officers were not from the department’s ­patrol units.

They were members of IMPD’s new full-time SWAT force — a tactical change that is here to stay, Chief Rick Hite said.

“It’s a more direct approach to support the mission of the district commanders in each of the districts they’re assigned to,” Hite said. “They’re targeting those violent offenders in those areas where we have violent crime.”

In the past, the city’s SWAT team operated on a callout basis, suiting up specifically to deal with dangerous situations such as crowd violence or armed suspects barricaded inside buildings.  

The full-time SWAT team, with about a dozen members, has a different mission: to seek out and neutralize violent offenders . . .

Because this SWAT team is operating under cover, the SWAT team members ride in unmarked cars and are not wearing uniforms.  The covert SWAT team was operating in this particular area on that given night because of reports of shots being fired in recent days. Disis' report says that full-time SWAT teams of this sort are out of the ordinary in police departments across the country, but they are "a staple in some of the nation's biggest cities, such as Chicago, New York and Los Angeles." Her report notes that such efforts have been criticized by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, which argues that some police departments are becoming too militarized and adopt a "warrior mentality," seeing the people they serve as the enemy. It looks like there's no need for any Paul Kerseys in Indianapolis as long as this SWAT team is here to stay.

Beware: False Flags Will Attack

Virtually every war in modern times has been started by false flag attacks. The supposed shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 by a missile in flight between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur in the Ukraine very close to the Russian border is a bit too convenient for the agenda pursued by the permanent war industry folks. The talking head experts are already conflating this event as a Russian-caused tragedy in an energy-rich area where the West has been itching to start another regional war. Naturally, CNN had an expert on hand, Tom Foreman, with a virtual replica of a Russian-made BUK missile launcher rolled into the studio from a warehouse on the back lot for today's breaking news story that is being fingered as the likely weapon used to down an the airliner with 280 passengers and 15 crew members, reportedly including 23 Americans.

The plane supposedly shot down today was not only from the same airline involved in the missing Flight 370 that took off from Kuala Lumpur enroute to Beijing last April when it disappeared without a trace, but also the same Boeing 777 model. This comical prank call to MSNBC's Krystal Ball from a Howard Stern fan posing as a U.S. staff sergeant stationed at the American embassy claiming to have witnessed the missile shooting down the plane is all the proof you need that you simply cannot believe the crap the mainstream media feeds to you every time one of these events occurs, which coincided with Israel launching a ground offensive into the Gaza region.


If this plane was blown out of the sky at 33,000 feet by a missile launched by Russian-backed rebels, if not the Russians themselves, as reported, how is their video footage of an explosion and a large plume of smoke on the ground without any visible trail of smoke in the sky where the missile impacted the plane and would have blown it into pieces before hitting the ground? And never forget that whistle blowers in the investigation of the crashed TWA Flight 800, which occurred 18 years ago today, insisted that the FBI manufactured a story to cover up the true cause of the downing of that airliner. Remember a fact the mainstream media will not report. Every Boeing aircraft is equipped with an uninterruptible autopilot system that allows the aircraft to be remotely piloted without any action on the part of the plane's crew that prevents the crew from controlling any aspect of the aircraft once that system is turned on.


UPDATE: Check out the photo of dozens of perfectly intact passports being found at the crash site. Not credible unless your eyes are wide shut. I'll spare you the images of the intact, uncharred bodies popping up on the Internet that were found in the wreckage that was totally consumed by intense flames from the explosion. Again, not credible. I'm assuming this was a staged event until proven otherwise.

There's also evidence that the smoking gun evidence produced by the Ukranian government in the form of alleged evidence showing a rebel leader talking to a Russian commander about the successful shooting down of the airliner was produced the day before the actual downing of the airplane. Questions are also being raised about why the airplane diverted from its normal flight path route to take it over the war-torn region of Ukraine.

Ballard Taps Malone To Become Indianapolis' Fire Department Chief

Mayor Greg Ballard has named the first second African-American to serve as chief of the Indianapolis Fire Department. Fox 59 News says Ballard made the announcement that Ernest Malone had been chosen over nearly a dozen other applicants for the position. Malone joined the department in 1986 and most recently held the position of assistant fire chief. The announcement of Malone's appointment was politically-timed during Black Expo's Summer Celebration Fest.

Chief Brian Sanford recently announced that he was retiring from the department due to health reasons; however, the Department of Public Safety Director Troy Riggs created a new chief of staff position for Sanford to fill that he originally said was unnecessary when he became the department's director. With Malone's appointment, now both the City's police and fire departments are run by African-Americans. IMPD Chief Rick Hite, a former police officer from Baltimore, became the first African-American to hold that position.

Remote Detonator For IEDs Stolen From Camp Atterbury

Military police at Camp Atterbury have reported a weekend break-in that resulted in the theft of a MPT-30 Firebox, a "sensitive item" that is used to remotely detonate roadside bombs. Thieves shattered a window of a building where the device was stored at the military installation to gain access to it and completely removed a door without being detected. The FBI has been notified of the theft. Looks like someone knew exactly what they were looking for and where they could find it.

UPDATE: The Star report, unlike other reports I read, says the device is merely a "training tool" and cannot actually be used to remotely detonate IEDs. "All the parts needed and pieces [needed] are not there to detonate anything." That report adds to the list of items stolen: four rolls of black Gorilla tape, a Kobalt tool bag, Kobalt tools, screw drivers, wire cutters, wire strippers, two 10x10 blue tarps, two ratchet tie down straps with a 5,000 lbs rating, several cans of Rustoleum black spray paint, and six power inverters.

Police Merger Study Confirms No Net Savings Achieved

When the City-County Council adopted the merger of law enforcement responsibilities between the former Indianapolis Police Department and the Marion Co. Sheriff's Department into a consolidated Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department in 2007, the report that recommended the consolidation forecasted annual savings of about $9 million a year. A newly-released report prepared by KSM for the council confirms that the merger actually led to higher, not reduced costs.

At least half of the savings was supposed to come from reduced personnel costs. Those savings never materialized for several reasons, including: sheriff's deputies' pay had to be increased to reach parity with the pay of their counterparts in IPD; savings from social security contributions was lost when the deputies voted to continue participation in both social security and their police pension plans; and less overtime pay from better management failed to occur. A new contract with police that offered more generous pay raises than provided to other city-county employees further exacerbated spending on police. Savings in fleet management also never materialized.

IMPD reached peak staffing levels in the first year of the merger in 2007 with 1635 full-time sworn officers. That number had fallen by nearly 100 by last year, even with the public safety tax increase enacted in 2007, which raised local income tax rates 65% and promised funding for at least 100 additional officers. While the sheriff's department saw savings from transferring 390 merit law enforcement officers into the newly-organized IMPD initially, growth elsewhere in its budget in subsequent years has more than surpassed its spending levels prior to the merger. Prior to the merger, IPD and the sheriff's department spent a combined amount of $265 million. That figure grew to more than $331 million last year. Last year's sheriff's department spending of $110 million was about $1 million more than pre-merger spending. IMPD's pre-merger spending grew from $155 million to $221 million last year.

The administration and fiscally irresponsible members of the City-County Council are now seeking another $25 million a year increase in taxes by eliminating the homestead property tax credit and raising local income tax rates. Pay raises promised behind-closed doors to the FOP under a new contract will consume most of the new revenues. More importantly, the plan to build a new criminal justice center will increase annual outlays tens of millions annually once it's brought online, necessitating yet another tax increase within a few short years.

Report: Carmel TIF Revenues Could Fall Tens Of Millions Of Dollars Short In Repaying Debt

A special study commissioned to determine whether Carmel's TIF district revenues will be sufficient to cover long-term indebtedness incurred by the Carmel Redevelopment Commission is expected to be unveiled at tonight's Commission meeting which will reveal that revenues will fall as much as tens of millions of dollars short over the next 23 years. When the Carmel City Council agreed to refinance the CRC's nearly $200 million debt last year, it could put the city's property owners on the hook to repay any shortfalls through a special benefits tax that kicks in automatically if the CRC's revenue stream falls short. From the Indianapolis Star:

City councilors who had reviewed a draft TIF report said they could not release the document, because they were told that the projections were preliminary and the document was not to be distributed. 

However, Councilor Rick Sharp said that unless the projections have changed drastically between May and today, TIF revenues will fall short of what is needed. 

 "They are in a negative position in almost every year of the remaining years to pay off the bonds," Sharp said. "And the shortfall in TIF revenue to debt service will run eight figures."

As long as Mayor Jim Brainard's campaign contributors keep getting wealthier from the sweetheart city-backed deals, that's all that really counts. Right?

UPDATE: It looks like TIF revenues alone will come up about $43 million over the life of the CRC's current debt. The report indicated that there will be sufficient revenues, however, to cover the shortfall as long as the supplemental reserve fund established by the council as part of the debt refinancing continues to be properly funded in anticipation of the shortfall, along with additional revenue sources earmarked to help service the debt. The CRC members tried to give the impression the report indicated that the revenues would be available to avoid the need for imposing the special benefits tax; however, that's contingent upon the vigilance of the council in protecting the supplemental reserve fund from being poached by Mayor Brainard or his successors for use on other projects. Apparently, Brainard has already made one such attempt to divert funds since the CRC bailout was approved but was blocked by the council.