Jury selection begins this morning in Dallas for the retrial of five Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) officials accused of conspiring to route millions of dollars to Hamas.
To win convictions, prosecutors must overcome two obstacles exposed by last October's mistrial, when jurors could not reach unanimous verdicts on most of the counts in the case.
The first is convincing jurors that charities receiving HLF money were serving Hamas at the same time they may have provided humanitarian aid or medical care. Based upon juror comments in this and similar cases, prosecutors also must make it clear that even charitable aid can violate U.S. law regardless of how jurors may feel about that.
It won't be easy. Complex white collar cases are among the most difficult to prosecute, said attorney Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement. He pointed to the 2005 fraud and money laundering acquittal of former HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy (later convicted of bribery), Robert Altman's acquittal on fraud charges in the BCCI trial and a series of racketeering mistrials against John Gotti, Jr. (recently indicted again in Tampa) as illustrations. Read more ...
To win convictions, prosecutors must overcome two obstacles exposed by last October's mistrial, when jurors could not reach unanimous verdicts on most of the counts in the case.
The first is convincing jurors that charities receiving HLF money were serving Hamas at the same time they may have provided humanitarian aid or medical care. Based upon juror comments in this and similar cases, prosecutors also must make it clear that even charitable aid can violate U.S. law regardless of how jurors may feel about that.
It won't be easy. Complex white collar cases are among the most difficult to prosecute, said attorney Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement. He pointed to the 2005 fraud and money laundering acquittal of former HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy (later convicted of bribery), Robert Altman's acquittal on fraud charges in the BCCI trial and a series of racketeering mistrials against John Gotti, Jr. (recently indicted again in Tampa) as illustrations. Read more ...
Source: IPT News
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