Is using a private company car for personal use a federal crime?
I think people in position of public trust can, and should, be treated a bit more harshly than the average Joe when they violate that trust. I’m willing to concede that a multi-count federal indictment in this case might be overly harsh. Kick him out of office and disbar him, and I’ll be satisfied.
It’s also not like padding his mileage is the only thing he’s being charged with. It’s just one part of the whole pattern of behavior. You don’t excuse a bank robber who stole a million bucks by describing it as a million counts of stealing $1. This guy stole a lot from the government, in a lot of different ways, and he’s being charged for the total amount.
It is not the use of the government car that got him indicted. It was the use of an “instrumentality” of interstate commerce to defraud. IOW, he allegedly used a government credit card to pay for gas on personal trips, and that credit card was routed through the interstate banking system.
Further, when he emailed his expense reports, he did so on a server that was maintained outside of the State of West Virginia and was therefore, you guessed it, interstate commerce.
Also, by his alleged misrepresentations, he CAUSED other parties to deposit a check in the U.S. mail to be delivered to him, affecting the postal service and, yes, interstate commerce.
Frankly, I think that the interstate commerce hook is absurd. If he ripped off the state by his use of furniture and vehicles, I see it to be a state matter.
Well, sure does suck for that judge. Also, as a judge, you’d think he would know to not speak to the FBI without a lawyer.
He had a lawyer when he spoke to the FBI. His “lies” are pretty thin.
In addition to what I said above, he justified taking the furniture home because he believed that Supreme Court Justices were allowed to have a home office.
Well, it turns out that wasn’t true, that justices were only allowed to take laptops and other equipment home for work.
So, is that a lie? If I say something that I believe to be true, but turns out to be wrong, did I lie? The other Justices (who are still under investigation and don’t like Loughry) all said that there was no oral or written policy on “home offices.” Well, he was the new guy and maybe he heard wrong.
I don’t know how the government can prove that he lied in this or the other instances.
Can a knowledgeable Doper elaborate on this quote from the article:
Isn’t there a conflict of interest there in that all five justices will be interested in any vacancy that arises on the one hand or may have loyalty to the accused on the other? Would it not make more sense for the justices to be from other states? For example, here in the UK, police forces are investigated by other police forces, not themselves.
I’m not sure what you mean. The State of West Virginia has the sole authority to determine its membership on the court. We don’t look to other states anymore than the UK would look to France if there was a dispute about a member of Parliament. The U.S. is unique in that way.
Many states have procedures to appoint temporary substitute Supreme Court judges for a particular case when one or more of the regularly appointed judges cannot serve. Most often a judge from the intermediate appellate court would be temporarily elevated. Apparently West Virginia has such a procedure.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in contrast, only has its nine regularly appointed active members, and there is no procedure for substitution, even where there are multiple recusals or vacancies. Six Justices are a quorum, and if there are less than six available for service, the Court cannot act.
No, you’re not. The same thing would happen in Canada: if all the judges of the provincial Court of Appeal were disqualified, the Chief Justice would appoint judges ad hoc from the provincial superior trial court. There’s no provision to bring in a judge from another province to sit on the Court of Appeal.
Ulta Vires, I can’t tell from your previous posts if it’s the fact that he’s been charged with a criminal offence with respect to his expense claims that you’re bothered by, or that the charges are federal?
Would you be less upset if the charges were brought under state criminal law?
Just curious, not trying to play “gotcha” or anything.
I know Allen. We grew up together. I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I do think he probably did the same kind of stuff that most people do. He saw some desks sitting in storage and took them home, figuring he’d bring them back. He padded his expense reports. His big crime really was not a crime at all, but optics. He spent a buttload redoing his office and when they audited him he panicked and said it wasn’t him. The same thing Carson did. Once that turned the spotlight on him, they started finding these other things. Don’t get me wrong, he skirted the rules and deserves comeuppance, but he’s not some evil mastermind bent on defrauding the state. He’s a guy that screwed up and i bet he wishes he never bothered redoing his stupid office.
A little bit of both. I don’t condone what he is alleged to have done at all. But it seems to me at bit much that he is charged with a crime, let alone a federal one.
I also work closely with someone who grew up with Justice Loughry and she has very kind things to say about him. I think he means well and I agree with you analysis of the situation; it seems he padded his mileage a bit and noticed a spare desk that wasn’t being used and wanted to use it at home with no intention of stealing it. I think criminal charges are too much in this situation.
However, what I think was the straw that broke Loughry’s back was his unyielding and hardcore attitude towards attorneys and criminal defendants. You can read his opinions and he had, at least publicly, no sympathy at all for them. If an attorney screwed up: disbarred. If some schmuck committed one incident of criminal conduct that happened to violate several laws and got an effective life sentence: too bad, don’t commit crimes.
The day before the ethics charge came out, Loughry was the only Justice in a 4-1 ruling to deny the petition for reinstatement of an attorney who by all measures had rehabilitated himself after a battle with drug addiction:
http://www.courtswv.gov/supreme-court/docs/spring2018/16-0869d-loughry.pdf
I don’t want to come across as condoning stealing from the taxpayers or using the State of West Virginia for your home furnishing needs. I just don’t see this as something so heinous that criminal charges are appropriate.
Since you don’t condone it, that would suggest that you do think some action is appropriate to remedy the situation. What do you propose instead of criminal charges?
Translation: I got caught red-handed in hypocrisy and I want to get away with it.
Huh I never thought of padding mileage as being a thing. I list the date and addresses of my travel. I can’t make Baltimore any farther away from DC. And for the current job, we use a system that calculates the distance for me and subtracts my daily commute.
Except it’s not that he alleged that he exaggerated mileage. The allegation is that he claimed for mileage reimbursement without actually paying for it.
The allegation is that he drove to conferences, using a car and credit card provided by the court for work trips. So he’s not out of pocket anything.
Then he is said to have put in claims for reimbursement from the conference organisers and got paid money for the trip.
Sorry, but that’s not an over-generous assessment of mileage. That’s fraud.
Right, mileage reimbursement is for my car. Company car or rental? Yeah that’s straight up fraud.
The interstate commerce aspect of it does seem a bit odd to me.