Subject: James Jacks

• In Case Against Holy Land Foundation, Government Says: C'mon, What Sixth Amendment?

  December 26, 2006

• The plantation burns

  Al Lipscomb is on trial for bribery. The real charge is "traitor."

  January 20, 2000

• After Four Years as U.S. Attorney, Richard Roper Has Left the Balcony

  First he leaves At the Movies; now, he's no longer the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. As of tomorrow, Richard Roper's back in the private sector, working for Thompson & Knight, after four years spent as U.S. Attorney. Course, this was inevitable: Barack Obama will pick a new person for the job, and Roper, a President Bush appointee and a federal prosecutor for 21 years, figured it was better to jump now than get pushed later. Still, as recounted in the media release after

  December 30, 2008

• For Seven Years, Dallas Law Firm Faked Car Accidents. Says Judge, Not Cool.

  Not every day you get a press release about an law firm being sentenced in federal court. But such a missive just arrived in the Unfair Park in-box courtesy the U.S. Attorney's Office concerning yesterday's sentencing of Trey Allen, P.C., the Firm Formerly Known as The Law Office of John H. Allen, III, P.C.In September, it admitted in court that, well, see, yeah, it staged a few car accidents in order to defraud insurance companies -- did it for, oh, seven years, matter of fact. There were also

  January 8, 2009

• The Feds Claim That in Weatherford, a Restaurant Owner Wanted to Burn the Mother Down

  First off, Unfair Park calls dibs on the movie adaptation of the story of Jorge Gomez Pinto Sr. Just so we're clear. Because what follows, again courtesy the U.S. Attorney's Office, is a crisply written tragicomic short story about a restaurant owner who's due in Fort Worth federal court at this very moment following his arrest last night on allegations he hired someone to torch his Weatherford eatery for half a mil in insurance money.Times are tough for restaurant owners, no doubt; tales of woe

  January 8, 2009

• I Had a Fake I.D. Once. Bought Beer With It. These Folks? A Little Busier With Theirs.

  Sixty-six-year-old Levander Carlton McLean and his wife Rita Murphy McLean, who's 21 years his junior, are gonna be spending a little time apart -- five years or so, give or take, thanks to U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade, who yesterday sentenced the Garland couple to federal prison for using fake driver's licenses, stolen W-2s and "130 false federal income tax returns" to pocket hundreds of thousands in ill-gotten gains. And, they had someone on the inside of the Texas Department of Public Safe

  January 23, 2009

• In Dallas This Week, the World's Most Famous "Li'l Hacker" Phoned In a Guilty Plea

  The novella-like media release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, which just landed in our in-box, explains the case of Matthew Weigman, also known as the "Li'l Hacker." He's a blind 18-year-old "phreak" from East Boston who became infamous last year for his "quick telephone con jobs," as Wired put it in a profile that, as  it turned out, only scratched the surface. The story's a complicated one involving threats made against a Verizon security officer who was hot on his trail, an attempt to

  January 29, 2009

• U.S. Attorney Set to Announce Arrest in "Amarillo White Powder Letters" Investigation

  Federal Bureau of InvestigationOne of the letters sent to a Chase branch, accompanied by a white powder later ruled to be calciumLast night, the U.S. Attorney's Office sent word that at 11 a.m. today there would a media conference at the Earle Cabell Federal Building downtown "to announce developments in a pending investigation." This morning, a second missive arrived with further details: Acting U.S. Attorney James Jacks; Robert Casey Jr., the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Dallas office;

  February 3, 2009

• "There Will Never Be a Paper Trail." Whoops.

  OK, Don Hill, raise your finger every time you hear a defendant in the City Hall corruption case plead guilty.This afternoon, as promised, the U.S. Attorney's Office forwards John Lewis's plea agreement -- the one that finds him promising to testify against former Dallas City Council member Don "What Me Worry?" Hill. You'll find that and two other absorbing court documents filed today -- a little light weekend reading for those of us working on our novels about the city that likes to live large

  March 6, 2009

• Fake Local Attorney Looking at Real Federal Prison Time For Securities Fraud

  In July 2008, federal authorities arrested a Carrollton man named Joseph Kelly Lara, whom the feds had accused of creating a phony name (Nick DeAngelis Mancuso) and a fake job (securities attorney and investment professional), which he then used to sell securities (including Google stock) he claimed he owned but didn't. It was quite the complicated scheme: Lara went to Arizona to have his name legally changed to Mancuso (maybe he was just a fan of a particular Canadian character actor?), came ba

  June 5, 2009

• At This Rate, Don Hill's Gonna Be Awful Lonesome When His Trial Starts

  Hey, Don Hill, how many weeks till your trial starts? Wrong. It's two, not one.First, there was Allen McGill. Then, Andrea Spencer. Then, John Lewis. To that roster of names of folks who've pleaded guilty in the Dallas City Hall corruption case, add a fourth: Kevin Dean, president and a principal of Kevin Dean Asphalt Technology and a concrete subcontractor who today in a Dallas federal courtroom copped to one count of conspiracy to commit extortion for which the mandatory max is five years in p

  June 8, 2009

• The 19-Year-Old Blind "Little Hacker" Gets 135 Months in Federal Prison For "Swatting"

  Kathy Colvin in the U.S. Attorney's Office just sent word that late Friday, Matthew Weigman -- otherwise known as the "Little Hacker" about whom we wrote in January -- was sentenced to 135 months behind bars by U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn, who, at this very moment, is presiding over the public corruption trial involving, among others, ex-Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill and former Dallas plan commissioner D'Angelo Lee. Weigman, as you may recall, is the blind 19-year-old who gained nation

  June 29, 2009

• Feds Say They've Arrested an Arlington Man Who Leads the "Electronik Tribulation Army"

  One day after sending word that the "Little Hacker" got 135 months in prison for "swatting," the U.S. Attorney's Office says today it has arrested an Arlington man federal authorities allege is the leader of the hacker group called "Electronik Tribulation Army." (As in ...?) According to the press release, both of which you'll find after the jump, 25-year-old Jesse William McGraw -- who, the feds claim, is also known by such monikers as "GhostExodus," "PhantomExodizzmo," "Howard Daniel Bertin,"

  June 30, 2009

• Hacked! Dallas Federal Grand Jury Indicts Electronik Tribulation Army's GhostExodus

   Back at the end of June, the U.S. Attorney's Office sent word that it has arrested 25-year-old Jesse William McGraw -- otherwise known as "GhostExodus," founder and ostensibly the leader of the Electronik Tribulation Army -- for threatening to cause serious damage to the computer systems at the Carrell Clinic hospital building on North Central Expressway near Walnut Hill Lane, where McGraw was employed as a security guard. Then we learned how McGraw was brought down -- by posting his explo

  July 23, 2009

• The police raid on the Rainbow Lounge has rocked the world of Fort Worth gays

  August 20, 2009

• Eugene Lockhart Indicted: Feds Accuse The Former Hitting Machine of Mortgage Fraud

  ​The U.S. Attorney's Office just sent word that former Dallas Cowboy hitting machine, 48-year-old Eugene Lockhart, is among nine people indicted by a federal grand jury. They're accused of a running a mortgage scheme out of Dallas between 2001 and '05 under such monikers as America's Team Mortgage, America's Team Realty and America's Team Funding Group. The entire release follows, as does the 33-page indictment itself, but here's an excerpt in advance of the nine-year Cowboys vet's scheduled 1

  September 3, 2009

• What Don Hill's Conviction Means for Dallas

  October 15, 2009