Civil rights lawyer, disbarred and jailed for passing notes from an accused terrorist,

[No Elephants]

released because of terminal breast cancer.

When Koelt sentenced Stewart in Oct. 2006, it was for 28 months, significantly lower than the 30 years prosecutors asked for. The judge declared to the courtroom that "by providing a criminal defense to the poor, the disadvantaged and unpopular over three decades, it is no exaggeration to say that Ms. Stewart performed a public service not only to her clients but to the nation."

He added that she performed her role as criminal defense lawyer with "enormous skill and dedication." He later extended the sentence to 10 years.

The Bureau of Prisons and Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, recommended that Stewart be released from the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, and allowed to live in Brooklyn, New York, with her son, a lawyer.

The government said Stewart has Stage IV breast cancer that has metastasized to the lung and bone and she no longer than 18 months.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/1/us-judge-releasesdyinglawyerconvictedofaidingterrorism.html

Of course, seeking 30 years for a woman that age is asking for life in prison. So, I guess getting a humanitarian release with a few more months to live was her lucky break.


The D of J sure has it some aggressive prosecutors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

The same prosecutor who drove Aaron Swartz to suicide a year ago at age 26 did not ask for the death penalty for Whitey Bulger, who was the number 1 criminal wanted by the FBI for years, until Osama knocked Whitey to number 2.





Then again, Whitey was only responsible for gang murders in the Boston area for decades, while shielded by an FBI agent because Whitey was allegedly an "informer." Swartz had (gasp) allegedly violated copyrights.

(She is the same prosecutor now in charge of the Tsarnaev case.)

The more administrations change, the more they stay the same.

[Enthusiast]

1. Justice has become a mysterious thing in the good ol' USA.

Some can literally get away with murder. Others, like whistle blowers, are treated like a scourge.

[No Elephants]

2. Whitey did get away with murder for many years.

Now that he is in his 80s, he finally got convicted and arrested.

Sure, he finally got two life sentences. But, he is in his 80s. What does that mean? I feel the frustration that I feel when a couple of pedophile priests out of many finally get arrested when they're in their 70s or 80s. Better than nothing at all, but jeez!

There were several reports of his whereabouts. According to my California buddy, there is a bar in California where Boston expats, like him and Whitey, gather together to watch games with like-minded fans. Whitey's presence at that bar had been reported several times over the years, including one time during a live radio broadcast.

The radio show was a Boston show about sports where listeners are invited to call in. My friend was in Boston listening to that show when someone called from that very bar, saying "He's here. I am looking at him right now, I swear to God." (Why this bozo calls a sports show in Boston instead of 911 to get the Santa Monica police is another story. Maybe he had too much to drink to think straight?)

The FBI claims it followed every lead, but geez. You'd think, wouldn't you, that, after several of those reports about the bar in Santa Monica, at least one agent would have been issued a Red Sox cap and shirt and assigned to sit in that bar during every game played by a Boston team for a year?

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/june/bulger_062311

Over the years, there were also stories of Bulger having been spotted in Italy, in Ireland, etc. Meanwhile, he was in Santa Monica all along. I wish I knew if the "Whitey spotted abroad" stories were generated by the FBI itself? If he's being spotted all over the globe, it's easy to roll eyes and groan when someone says he's in a sports bar in Santa Monica, watching the Red Sox (or the Pats or the Bruins or the Celts).

I'd love a chronology of the sightings, to see how the reports of his being in Santa Monica correlate in any way with reports of his having been sighted elsewhere. I wonder if I'd see a pattern of a report of a sighting in Santa Monica followed shortly by a report of sighting in New York, or Ireland or Gibraltar.

I just looked at the current FBI ten most wanted list. They are some rough guys on that list (no women currently), but most of them committed one horrible crime, being it murder or robbery, not scores of both, as in Whitey's case.

The FBI sure had protected him for a long time. He was in crime all his life and didn't even make it to the Most Wanted List until the mid 80s. Then he stayed on it for 16 years before he was arrested. Even after the arrest, the survivors of the murder victims were not at all happy with the FBI. Many feel their loved one would have been alive if the FBI had not protected Whitey for so long. The judge in Whitey's trial was not too happy with the FBI, either. And I bet we don't know the half of it.

Maybe the FBI did not want all that raked over in a federal courthouse in Boston?

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/06/24/defense-says-they-need-talk-with-press-defend-whitey-bulger-both-inside-and-outside-courthouse/C1PzGo4PoL2vdHFOLkiOWO/story.html

At the time of his arrest, it seemed to me like a pretty big coincidence. Whitey had been Number 1 on the list from the 1980s until Bin Laden replaced him as Number 1, whereupon Whitey slid to Number 2. Ben Laden had been on the list from 2001 or thereabouts. And bing, Osama gets his May 2, 2011 and Whitey is arrested June 22, 2011, not two months later. I don't know what to make of that, if anything.

Do one spectacular thing that most people in the Western world will think is great, like getting Bin Laden. Then, while the government is basking in the afterglow of that, drag in Whitey, Number 2 on the list and figure the news of the FBI's complicity will not seem like such a big deal? Or, it could have been a sheer coincidence, albeit a huge coincidence. We'll probably never know for certain.