All Muck is Local

All Muck is Local: Kiss Your Career Goodbye

Lila Shapiro | April 20, 2008, 11:05AM

In the annals of local muck, lawmaker assault is a consistent subcategory. Maybe it's the pressures of the job, but this week we meet yet another: Rep. Borris Miles (D-Houston).

Miles was indicted this past Monday for two counts of deadly assault. Though many in this category could be called impulsive, few appear quite so conflicted in heart and mind as Borris Miles.

Miles was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2006. His notoriety began only four months later when he was walking through the capitol with his two children and saw a couple of paintings he found offensive. The paintings were curated by an anti-death penalty group. The first depicted a lynching, the second an electrocution with the caption "Doing God's Work." Mile's response? He took them off the walls and hid them in his office. Why Miles freaked out is not quite clear. He later said that part of the problem was that the paintings were displayed without an explanatory note, and "As a black man, I was offended on the first one, and as a Christian on the second one."

The following July, Miles shot a man who was attempting to burglarize his construction site. Miles, a former police officer, had a license for the gun, and was never charged-- he was protected by a self-defense law. A law he opposed. The New York Times reported:

In July, Mr. Miles confronted a robber at his home construction site and shot him in the leg. No charges were filed, but he said he still opposed the new law. "We have a right to defend ourselves in our home. I support that and I always will," Mr. Miles said. But the law went too far, he said, by expanding the right to use deadly force in the workplace and one's automobile.

But apparently restraint is not much of a watchword for Miles.

In December 2007, Miles had a real red letter day.

In the afternoon, he brandished a pistol while threatening Texas Southern University regent Willard Jackson and his wife during a Rockets/Mavericks game at the Toyota Center.

In the evening, he forced his way into an invitation-only party of a business rival, and threatened another husband-wife pair. First brandishing his pistol again, then telling them that he is a "thug" and a "gangster," and then forcibly kissing the wife, then her husband:

Hall (the prosecution) said his client, party host David Harris, decided to press charges after a drunken Miles shocked guests with loud, profane language, grabbed his face and planted a Godfather-style "kiss of death" on his cheeks. Harris also said Miles handed him a pistol and declared, "You don't know what I'm capable of doing."

On January 14th, Miles' lawyer said that Miles "disagrees" with the reports of the event.

However, on Wednesday, he turned himself in. He's currently out on bail, facing up to $4,000 in fines and a year in jail. Unfortunately for Miles, his political career isn't in the balance, since earlier this year he lost in the Democratic primary to the former Texas rep he beat in 2006. Since the indictment, he's managed to keep quiet and has made no statement.

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All Muck is Local

All Muck is Local: Sex and Lots and Lots of Videotape

Lila Shapiro | April 13, 2008, 12:07PM

For days, Bruce Barclay's political career hung in the balance. The Republican commissioner of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, had been accused of rape -- by a man, no less -- and the police were bearing down. Barclay's lawyer issued a strong denial ("This accusation of rape is ludicrous It will be defended forever and is wrong."). But it was clear things were looking pretty dicey. Until... vindication! Well, sort of.

On March 31st, police, investigating the allegation of rape by the 20-year old Marshall McCurdy, obtained a warrant to search Barclay's home. They didn't find evidence of rape. But they did find videotapes of hundreds of sexual encounters with men that Barclay had filmed on high-tech surveillance cameras. The cameras were hidden inside AM/FM radios, motion detectors and intercom speaker systems, among other places. There was also one at his business office.

None of the subjects were aware they were being filmed and no permission had been obtained, Barclay admitted. According to a second warrant issued on April 9th, Barclay also admitted to hiring prostitutes on a weekly basis from the now-defunct website harrisburgfratboys.com.

On April 10th, the rape charges were dropped. One of the videos found during the search showed Barclay and McCurdy engaging in apparently consensual sex. As his lawyer put it:

"It is clear in my client's private life he has made an error of judgment. What is striking is this very same lack of judgment exonerates him from a rape allegation that wasn't going anywhere."

Sadly, his vindication was his undoing. Barclay was forced to resign.

And legally, Barclay's not quite out of the woods yet-- he's still facing possible charges for privacy violations and promoting prostitution. McCurdy, however, has been charged with making false reports to law enforcement authorities and unsworn falsifications to authorities. He's up for a possible 3-year prison stint and $7,500 in fines.

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All Muck is Local

All Muck Is Local: The Family Guy

Lila Shapiro | April 6, 2008, 11:41AM

Nobody expects a corruption trial to be pretty. And in Chicago, the much-anticipated trial of Tony Rezko -- political fundraiser, business man, and thorn in Barack Obama's side -- has not disappointed.

The star witness is Stewart Levine of Chicago, a former Republican Party fundraiser, former millionaire businessman, and former serious coke head (and LSD and Quaaludes and marijuana and kaetamine and crystal meth) now supposedly working for a messenger service -- though he hasn't held a 9-5 job since 1976.

In the spring of 2004, Rezko and Levine allegedly teamed up to skim money off the top of two state pension boards Levine served on (one of them a teacher's retirement fund no less). At the same time, the two also used their influence to pressure outside firms wanting to do business with the funds to give them thousands in kickbacks and bribes.

Levine flipped in 2006, making him the centerpiece of the prosecution's case, the man to describe to jurors how Rezko was "the man behind the curtain, pulling the strings" as one prosecutor put it. Rezko's lawyers, meanwhile, argue that Levine just wants to reduce his own sentence. He's hoping to get 5 and a half years for his cooperation. Must have sounded better than 30 to life.

When he rolled out the indictment against Rezko, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald proclaimed that Tony Rezko and Stuart Levine had "put the word out loud and clear: you have to pay to play in Illinois." Well, at least this much has become clear since Levine took the stand: paying to play is one thing, playing with a full deck is another one entirely.

Levine decidedly makes for a more convincing defendant than star witness. Some gems from the cross-examination:

Read more »

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