Results tagged “grandjury”

Carole Migden's girlfriend (OK then, "wife?" We refuse to use the sterile and patronizing "partner") Cris Arguedas, it seems, now must deal with yet another San Francisco diva: Barry Bonds. According to the Sacto Bee, the letter "h" eschewing lawyer "joined the defense team of baseball star Barry Bonds last week, as the long-time Sam Francisco Giant pleaded not guilty to charges of perjury." Arguedas is now part of a high-profile team that will...

Stepping out of his black Chevy Tahoe SUV, smashingly dressed, and fully aware that the media would bombard him beforehand, former glory Barry Bonds acted like a punk today after arriving at the U.S District Courthouse to make his plea this morning. Oh, and that plea of fibbing under oath to a federal grand jury regarding his steroids use? Not guilty. Ta-da. Basically, he came, said that he didn't do it, had a bond...

Back during his halcyon days. Presumably. Dude. Duuuuuuude. After a four-year federal investigation, today cranky baseball icon Barry Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Ouch. And Jesus. He's like Pete Rose, but worse. Which? Again, ouch. According to CBS 5, "[w]hile Bonds was chasing Aaron amid the adulation of San Franciscans and the scorn of baseball fans almost everywhere else, due to his notoriously prickly personality and nagging steroid allegations, a grand...

Oh, Ed. Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed. This does not seem speedy like you promised. Then again, you promised a lot of things. Sigh. After yesterday's whopping indictment by a federal grand jury, "[s]uspended San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in the city today to expanded federal charges of mail fraud, bribery and extortion," according to the Examiner. Outside the Federal Building courthouse this morning, Jew's attorney said,...

Jew was indicted on charges mail fraud, bribery, and extortion (i.e., his plan to bribe Quickly owners with licensing problems.) Other bits of downfall glory include such antics as accepting $4,000 (in cash!) from the owners of Wonderful Desserts and Cafe, and...well, you know how the story goes.

Like a pesky gnat, the U.S. Supreme Court swatted away an appeal by former San Francisco Police Department Chief Earl Sanders yesterday. He claimed to have been nailed to the wall unfairly over his part in a little known thing called fajitagate.

Oh my. According to the Snitch:

Hey, remember that Grand Jury that was out there looking into the whole BALCO mess? And remember how supposedly the Grand Jury dropped that issue and instead started investigating Barry B? Well, according to the New York Daily News, the Grand Jury got themselves six more months to look at the case against Barry and that supposedly they have a pretty good case against him. The source in the story say that the Grand Jury has enough to go after Barry but wants at least six more months to make the case go from pretty strong to dead-to-rights strong. They are also afraid of making it look too political in handing down the indictment right around the time Barry is on the verge of breaking the big record.

ABC 7 is reporting that Josh Wolf, notorious video blogger and cause du jour is going to be released this afternoon, according to people connected with Wolf. As part of the agreement, Wolf won't have to testify or identify activists involved in the incident but he's posting all of the video footage online.

It looks like the Chronicle's two BALCO reporters, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, will not be joining Josh Wolf in prison as they're no longer on the hook. The main reason being the source who they were protecting finally came forward to admit that that he was the leak. The person in question was the lawyer for Victor Conte and BALCO vice president James Valente, Troy Ellerman. Ellerman is being charged for handing court transcripts over to Fainaru-Wade and Wiliams. In a perfectly oily move that gives lawyers the reputation they have (sorry SFist Rita!), Ellerman was busy complaining to the judge about leaks all the while being the one who was leaking. Of course, it could have all been his master plan. After all, who would suspect the guy complaining the most about leaks?

On Tuesday, Josh Wolf broke the Guiness Book of Records for longest incarcerated reporter, that being 169 days (now 171). For his efforts, he received a plaque commemorating the occasion. In San Francisco, a rally was held, attended by various supporters, Bay Guardian Publisher Bruce Bruggman, and Supervisors Mirkirami, Ammiano and McGoldrick. Mirkirami blasted Gavin for not doing much in the case and well, Gavin probably has bigger things on his mind right now. At the rally, a statement was read from Wolf that was also posted on his blog to supporters to reiterate why he continues to fight on. That night, there was a fundraiser at the House of Shields to raise money for him.

Eight people were arrested today in the murder of a San Francisco cop. In 1971. They are charged with the murder of Sgt. John V. Young who was killed when two people pulled a Terminator and burst into the Ingleside Police Station and fired a shotgun through a bulletproof glass window. Now we in now way are condning what happened and have nothing but sympathy for the people who were shot during the incident, but bursting into a police station to shoot things up is pretty ballsy.

Josh Wolf's Ninth Circuit appeal is officially dead, and it looks like he's stuck in jail for the next 18 months -- unless he wants to turn over his video footage. And in other grand jury contempt of court news, an animal rights activist is scheduled to stay silent before the federal grand jury today, and the LA Times laments the fate of Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada.

Pete Wilson (the anchor, not the ex-Governor) says "sorry about that" over his comments in regards to gay people having babies. -Oakland sues landlord for being very, very bad.

As our former co-editor Eve moves on in at the Chronicle as their Blogging and Interactive editor today, we do a little imagining about how her first day might be going!

We were psyched yesterday because we though a decision would be reached about Chronicle Reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams and their refusal to name who leaked to them the Grand Jury testimony in the BALCO case. We even had a posting all ready to go the moment the judge threw them in jail. Everyone seemed to be pumped in anticipation for it as reporters held a protest and sports writers everywhere weighed in. So what happened? Pretty much nothing. Late Thursday afternoon, a judge basically said that they might go to prison if they lose an appeal. In other words, he told them "this time, I'm really, really serious about sending you to jail and if you don't, I really, really, really might have to do something...."

SPN is reporting the Victor Conte told friends that not only did Barry take "the cream" and the "clear" but knew damn well what they were. This is the very-same Victor Conte who swore to everyone that Barry didn't take steroids and was completely innocent of anything. Also the very same Victor Conte who leaked all that Grand Jury testimony (allegedly) that put Barry into potential trouble over perjury charges. With friends like these....

The 'Gate is reporting that Josh has been granted bail by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, to wit:

In a brief order, two judges of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Wolf was entitled to bail because the government had not shown his appeal of a judge's contempt-of-court ruling was frivolous or intended solely to delay the proceedings...The court said another panel would rule on Wolf's appeal of the contempt order while he is free on bail. If he loses the appeal, he could be sent back to federal prison until the grand jury's term expires next July.

If life were a Monopoly game, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada just rounded the Free Parking corner -- the next roll might put them in jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Earlier this week, Judge Jeffrey White of the local federal district court ordered the Chronicle's sports reporters who broke the BALCO story to testify before a grand jury which is investigating how the BALCO grand jury's testimony got leaked to the press in the first place. Judge White indicated (.pdf) that he was stuck with the Ninth Circuit's rulings that reporters are not shielded from grand jury subpoenas under federal law. The Chron is appealing the ruling, says the reporters won't testify, and vows to take it to the Supreme Court if they have to. If they don't testify, they could be sent to jail for contempt of court.

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly. Do you want to be a fill-in copy editor for the Weekly? First question: does fill-in need a hyphen? Also, you must know Quark. We skipped Matt Smith this week, we just weren't up for the hate. The Apologist on traffic. Can we also confess that we don't really get the Ephraim the Track Bike column, though we do love it. Advice on effective protesting. Cover article: a con artist in jail made some prank phone calls and punked the police into letting a bunch of people out of prison. Dang! Hawaiian hardcore at El Rio on Saturday. Meredith takes her mom to the seafood place on 14th and Church that SFist Ced went to a month or so ago. A listing of your latest indie rock darlings -- the name Oh No! Oh My! is pretty good. And SFist Eve's horoscope: Rob Breszny suggests listening to Emmylou Harris.

Screw getting Dooced, Josh Wolf has set the blogger bar a bit higher than getting fired. He's been jailed. Judge William Alsup, presiding over a federal grand jury case investigating the attempted burning of a police car and assault of an officer during an anti-war protest last year, has held Mr. Wolf in contempt of court, and ordered him imprisoned. The crime? Refusing to answer a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's office for raw footage of the event and to stand witness before the Grand Jury.

Now, we should take this all with a grain of salt and maybe a few more grains after that and possibly some pepper for good measure, but according to the always credible NY Daily News, an indictment could come next week against the Barry. Or more like it could possibly, maybe, you never know, why not? come soon. The main reason for the thinking is that the grand jury's term is about to expire in a few weeks and usually, whoever is trying to get some sort of indictment thingy tries to get it before the grand jury expires. You wouldn't want to have to go through the whole rigmarole of working a court case all over again would you?

Looks like the Google guys can dish out the privacy-invasion but can't take it -- they've sued the guy who was designing their super-secret Boeing 767 for violating a confidentiality agreement. After the designer was fired, he went to the press and revealed, among other things, that the Google founders wanted to install hammocks and a California king-sized bed in the plane, and that the project had been described as "a party plane."

So of course we were over at Deadspin rooting for SFist Jon (Australia, not so much, but Go Black Stars!), and in one of those media circle-jerk moments we saw their post about a Slashdot article pointing to a PDF posted by the Chronicle that's a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office regarding their case against the reporters who got their hands on grand jury transcripts. Wow, boring legal brief, and redacted to boot, what's the story? Well, as Slashdot pointed out, all you have to do is select the 'redacted' passages, copy, and then paste into a text editor. Yes, the irony of passages being leaked by lawyers prosecuting a leak case tastes absolutely delish!

Don't know what to do with that formerly-trendy FREE WINONA t-shirt? Just cross out her name and write in "LANCE WILLIAMS AND MARK FAINARU-WADA" in sparkle-pen instead -- the Chronicle's getting ready to send those guys to jail on principle, as the Hearst Publishing legal team files a motion to quash (i.e., ignore) the subpoenas that the US Attorney's office sent out to them to find out just where they got all their juicy secret grand jury information from.

The storybook romance of Gavin and Kim seems more concluded than ever, as Kim's announced her betrothal to another.

Hey, the Examiner said it first, not us: BALCO Reporters Could Face Prison Time reads the thrilling headline to their article on Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, who have been have been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury regarding leaked testimony in the BALCO case.

Everyone's talking about the man in the SF DA's witness protection program that was shot outside a Bayview auto body shop yesterday, in broad daylight. He had testified against two murder suspects before a grand jury. DA Kamala Harris called it "horrific," but otherwise seemed remarkably unsympathetic about the situation, saying that he shouldn't have come back to the Bayview if he wanted protection. "The first and last rule in witness protection is, don't go back to your danger zone," she said. The suspects in yesterday's shooting remain at large. He's dropped the Li'l, and maybe now he should change his name to Pow-Pow -- two people were shot outside the HP Pavilion last night after the Bow Wow show. Bow Wow (no longer dating Ciara, if you care) was performing at Wild 94.9's Bomb 21 show, along with E-40, Federation, Rihanna, and Bubba Sparxxx. The two people's injuries are not considered life-threatening. And we can't tell if this is encouraging people to take public transportation or not: apparently people are now stealing gas from cars parked in BART parking lots in the East Bay. BART did warn everyone, but also doesn't plan on increasing security -- no doubt because they're like, "see? we told you it was better to take public transportation." The police say to buy a locking gas cap, or "buy a Prius."

We're on the Other Coast this week, ensconced with family for Pesach-- that yearly holiday that celebrates our people's release from bondage and their subsequent peaceful and uneventful existence, and even though we can barely find out how the Giants are doing, it's not so difficult to see the latest in Barry news. It's a perjury investigation, baby!

A judge just denied the lawsuit filed against the authors and publishers of the Barry Bonds' bombshell book, "Game of Shadows," citing freedom of speech issues. Bonds' lawyers had sued the publishers because it was "unfair" that the authors were able to use secret transcripts from the Grand Jury. In other words, the lawsuit wasn't to help Barry's reputation, but to help all the other muckrakers out there trying to bust Barry who didn't have the luxury of leaked testimony. He was, then, doing it for the little people. Or something like that.