Idaho Criminal Defense Blog : Boise Idaho Criminal Lawyer & Attorney : Chuck Peterson Law Firm : Civil Rights, Trial, Felonies, Assaut, DUI : Boise, Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Idaho

The other shoe has fallen.  John Bujak, formerly the Canyon County Prosecutor, has been charged with Grand Theft by Deception and by Embezzlement, and the investigation of the case is set out in a detailed affidavit that is available online at the Idaho Press Tribune website, or here.  But before you think this thing is over, I bet there are more falling shoes in our future.  Here's why:

First, the affidavit indicates that although Bujak maintained neither he nor his chief of staff Tim Fleming would profit from the contract between Canyon County and Nampa City, BOTH did profit and neither apparently thinks there was any problem with their conduct. Bujak told the investigators that the issue wasn't whether he took the money, but rather, whether he was permitted to take the money. Apparently in his mind, those statements that he would not personally profit (the Canyon County Commissioners say that they were led to believe Bujak would not profit) were only intended to refer to his agreement to "not take a salary increase."  So the investigation reveals that as the money came in from the City, which believed it was going to pay the County, Bujak used the money for his personal expenses, transferring money to his own private accounts.  It also shows that in late March 2010, Bujak used the same money to buy a $10,000 cashiers check for Tim Flemming - Bujak's former chief of staff. Why was the $10,000 cashiers check, purchased out of Nampa City funds that were intended for Canyon County, going to Tim Fleming? Gift? Bonus? Mr. Fleming may have some explaining to do.

Second, the affidavit indicates that the contract (Prosecution Services Agreement) was between the City of Nampa and Office of the Mayor, and the Canyon County Prosecutor and Canyon County. Bujak's claim has been that it was a personal contract between he and the City. If the contract actually is not in his name, then the money is likely not his; it belonged to the County. All of this stuff will impact on the pending lawsuits and bankruptcy proceeding. That failure to disclose to the Bankruptcy Court that he had possessed and sold a Rolex watch, could still land Bujak in another criminal case - in federal court. And of course there is the divorce proceeding and Bujak's lawsuit against protagonists Bob Henry and the Michaelson law firm - remember he said they defamed him when they claimed that he had received money that he wasn't entitled to?  Kind of sounds like the charges of Grand Theft in the new criminal case, doesn't it?

Third and foremost in my mind is the likely involvement of the Idaho State Bar.  Bujak has been practicing law on a contract basis while this has been pending. He serves as an officer of the court and his conduct is subject to review by the Bar. 

Then again - I guess that potential fourteen years for each GRAND THEFT count will probably consume his time.  After all - he took the money - admits he got $236,000 from the City of Nampa that they believed was going to the Canyon County Prosecutor's Office. The only question is whether he was ENTITLED to take it.

I bet Kerry Michaelson and Bob Henry will sleep a lot easier tonight. They called it years ago.

And Mayor Dale, City of Nampa, Canyon County Commissioners: who was driving that bus when each of you allowed this mess to go on for a year? Just how is it that Canyon County taxpayers got Bujaked on your watch? You've got some explaining to do, too.

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 After three weeks, I am finally out of trial. Well, out in the sense that I am waiting on a jury verdict. Waiting is a killer for everyone in this situation, and I don't write about cases while they are being tried. So more about that case soon, but this morning I read a little blurb about Boise soldier Andrew Holmes, who is undergoing a pretrial hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma. I spent a little time at then Fort Lewis when I was in the Army ages ago, before austerity brought about its consolidation with McChord.

Last night a friend asked me what the hearing was akin to on the civilian side of the world. The military uses an Article 32 hearing like the grand jury proceeding in state or federal court. The focus of the hearing is to determine if there is probable cause to conclude that a crime was committed by the charged service member. In Holmes' case, additional evidence was ruled admissible by an Army Court, thereby allowing him to re-open his Article 32 hearing. He likely hopes the new evidence will create doubt as to his involvement and it will also lock in the testimony of those appearing.

But the bottom line is probable cause. If the presiding officer finds probable cause, the soldier is headed to trial.

Here's one more thing to think about - the fundamental rule our service members live by in conflict areas is this: we do not intentionally kill noncombatants. Civilians are never targets. That rule gets blurred in war generally and in the middle east perhaps more so because it is so difficult to pick out the bad guys. They don't always wear uniforms. That task is not easy but it is achievable. 

There is much to watch in Holmes' case. What happens at that Joint Base will speak to the difficult decisions our soldiers have to make every day they are at battle.  But don't judge this kid too quickly. Probable cause (if they find it was more likely that a crime occurred) is not the same as proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

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 Laura Silsby is still sitting in a Haitian jail while a judge decides whether to order a trial on charges that she tried to take children from Haiti to the Dominican Republic who she believed were either orphaned or abandoned. The new charge is "arranging irregular travel." You will recall that she and other Idaho missionaries were in Haiti, ostensibly to try and save children left orphaned by the earthquake. The Haitians claim that Silsby and the others lacked the proper papers to remove the kids to an orphanage and that some of the children had living parents who had, apparently, asked that they be taken away in hopes they might have better lives. Haiti is a very complex place. It is also an evil place.

Fast forward to this story from PRI's  (Public Radio International) The World in which E. Benjamin Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face With Modern-Day Slavery, was interviewed about his experience with child slavery in Haiti. Child slavery. Parents selling their children for a few bucks.  

As Skinner tells it he flew there and went downtown to buy a child.  That didn't take long. From his cab he ordered a young girl who would be a domestic servant and sex slave.  The price - $100.

"Within two minutes I was able to negotiate the price down to $50."  

"In Haiti, what we’re talking about is a very particular form of child domestic slavery. This takes place when desperately impoverished, socially isolated rural parents give their children to traffickers in hopes that their children will be able to find a better life and some degree of education. In fact, what often happens is these children wind up in brutal domestic bondage."

Over the weekend I saw one of the TV newsmagazines (can't recall which one) report that there are likely 250,000 or more children in Haiti who have been sold into slavery. So roughly the population of Boise - only kids in slavery. And we give that government aid? They work for families as domestics and sexual slaves, having been sold by their families. When the family they have been sold to leaves for the day to go to work, they leave the slave kids outside without food, water or shelter. The Haitian government does nothing about this. Nothing. The kids are called Resteveks - and this is hardly a new problem for Haiti.

And the Haitians are still holding Silsby for trying to save children. Outrageous!

Don't tell me that this is all the missionaries' fault because they did not know the law in Haiti. The law in Haiti does not outlaw child slavery. Missionaries trying to save children are not a problem - they are the solution. Poverty there likely makes it more of a problem as parents wanting better lives for children "give them away or sell them" to "traders" who then peddle them on the streets like trinkets, but Silsby and the others were clearly not "traders." They and the hundreds or thousands of other Americans who went to Haiti to rescue kids are not the problem there - it is the combination of poverty and opportunity that causes child slavery.

So let's try and raise a little hell. Go and read the report. PRI is hardly some right-wing, conservative Christian propaganda machine. If anything it "suffers" from a more "moderate" view of the world. But there is nothing moderate about child slavery. It is evil.

Let's see if we can't raise awareness on this subject. Laura Silsby and the rest of her group of missionaries may have been naive about the workings of the law in Haiti - but this is just cover for the Haitian government. They live in a glass house. Let's throw some stones and work to free child slaves there.

Free Laura Silsby and let's demand that if our money is going to Haiti they must stop child slavery.

What does this have to do with criminal defense in Boise, Idaho. Nothing - and everything. So what can we do from here!?

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 I was struck by the irony of it all - abandoned and orphaned children being delivered to another orphanage by apparently well meaning Americans - while the government of Haiti cannot deliver even the most basic essentials to its people. They cannot take so much as water to their own but they presume American missionaries are trafficking in children. Sick. That is the single word to describe their miserable failure. And these missionaries who have traveled from thousands of miles away and were simply taking helpless children to another orphanage are - by the government of Haiti - presumed to be criminals. Here is how it was reported:

"But the prime minister said some legal system needs to determine whether the Americans were acting in good faith - as they claim - or are child traffickers in a nation that has struggled to fight exploitation of children."

I will not presume the guilt of Americans who spent their own money to go to the aid of children, and neither would our judicial system. Not in our country. Not in America. And that is just one of the important differences between the greatest justice system in the world and every other. We do not presume guilt, we require proof. And no criminal defendant in this country has to prove innocence. We presume you are innocent unless proven otherwise in a court of law. Yes - people are arrested and held before trial, but they are not used by the government to shift focus away from their own failings.

America. Filled with people who would give up their money for others and travel to tragedy to try and save children. We do not have to apologize here.  And maybe the government of Haiti should spend a little more time trying to save its own children.

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Here's how the New York Times announced it:

"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday."

And of course the talking heads will be weighing in on how this course of action will impact on other Gitmo detainees.  Four others are reportedly also headed to NY to face trial, but some of those prosecutions may still occur before military commissions.  The biggest concern for prosecutors has reportedly been the fact that KSM has been water-boarded some 170 times.  Evidence (confessions) that is the result of torture is generally not admitted in criminal trials, and any defense lawyer tasked with defending the man accused of killing 3000 people will have to make the government meet its burdens under the Constitution.  Still, a show trial in NY seems right to me.  The towers came down in NY.  New Yorkers lived with the terror.  Ground Zero remains a work in progress. The federal courts there are used to handling big cases and providing great security.  And this is a country dedicated to the proposition that we try these cases in public, before the people of this country.  And did I mention the 3000 or so who died that day in NY?  Their children, spouses and families deserve the chance to see the system at work.  That won't make the case easy for the United States - quite the contrary.  That collision of personal rights and public anger will lead to hours of interesting "education" for Americans and others as they watch the court system in action. 

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 Idaho's distinction as one of two states (the other is Oklahoma) that still permits the use of the firing squad as a lawful means of execution, appears to be in jeopardy.  Deputy Attorney General Bill von Tagen is pushing a bill before the legislature to get rid of the bullet as a means of "lethal injection."  So what is the big deal? Aside from Keith Wells (who volunteered to be executed in the 90s) there hasn't been an execution in decades.  Three of my clients who were on death row (I did not represent them at trial, just on appeal and habeas) are all off the row and now serving life.  That is the norm - people sentenced to die do - but mostly of natural causes.  So no more firing squad? I wonder when the last person was executed by firing squad.  In any event, the State would like to end that possibility.  Check out my friends Idaho Supreme Court Blog for more on this, and other absurdities - at scoidblog.blogspot.com/ .

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