Justice, Chris Christie style

I take issue with one point, clammyc (4.00 / 1)

You say, "Fact is, crimes were committed and people who committed these crimes were not held accountable."

I don't know that is a fact.  How do you know crimes were committed?  No crime was admitted to, was it?  And the fact no prosecution took place means no evidence was put into public record proving crimes, right?  

Fact is, there is no conviction of any crime.

Christie accused these companies of one crime, not crimes, plural, as I recall.  They were accused of Medicare fraud, because apparently some aspect of paying doctor consultants violated Medicare regulations ... but apparently not any other criminal law, or one would think those other crimes would have been part of the accusation.

Everyone makes these 4 or 5 companies sound like the dregs of the earth, but I've tried googling their so-called sins and don't really see anything that stands out from what all the other medical and pharmaceutical companies were doing at the time, and some even still, giving freebies to doctors in return for pushing their products.  

Fact is, all I found were class-action law firms trying to hustle up "victims."  Point me to testimony from a bona fide Medicare fraud victim at their hands, please, if you can.

It's the same problem I had with Christie and his "public corruption" prosecutions.  No one condones the favors that are status quo in politics to varying degrees, but selective prosecutions and moving the bar depending on whether a D or an R comes after the politician's name only adds to the injustice, adds to the public violation.  

Christie's version of "justice" just  didn't correct anything, imho.    If the companies and their officials were guilty of crimes, I want the evidence placed into  court record and the companies given due process of law to defend themselves.  

If they are so clearly guiltiy, it shouldn't cost taxpayers so much to prove it in court, and even if it takes a company or two down, so what?  If the device was so defective, why would Christie or anyone brag about keeping them in business, anyway?

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by: Jim33 @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 20:16:13 PM CDT

interesting point (4.00 / 1)

however, if there were no crimes committed, why pay tens of millions instead of paying (potentially millions) less to fight it and be exonerated?


Scott Garrett - on the wrong side of, well, everything.

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by: Adam L aka clammyc @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 20:31:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Just speculating .... (4.00 / 1)

Perhaps you're right.  But I'm thinking another scenario.

I think any lawyer would tell you that fellow lawyers can keep anything going in court virtually forever and bankrupt a for-profit enterprise in the process.  

The taxpayers' wallet, on the other hand, has no last dollar to spend.  Christie could have kept them spending on defense, spotlighting the companies' names in the news every day, so putting them out of business altogether if they didn't pay what looks to me llike tribute payments.

Bottom line is that we deserve better with our taxpayer dollars.  If these companies and their execs are guilty of something, the evidence should have been properly and transparently and permanently presented on the court record, not hidden by a secret agreement between the companies and the prosecutor and the prosecutor's closest cronies.

We deserve better.

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by: Jim33 @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 21:01:05 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

your last 3 words (0.00 / 0)

really say it all.

On so many levels....

have a great holiday--

Scott Garrett - on the wrong side of, well, everything.

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by: Adam L aka clammyc @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 21:11:25 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Thanks (4.00 / 1)

You have a great holiday, too.

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by: Jim33 @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 21:20:17 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Actually, Hundreds Of Millions Were... (0.00 / 0)

....paid out.  Of which Ashcroft received several tens of millions for "monitoring" the rehabilitative process.  

It's almost funny that, at the hearing, Christie kept saying that "not one penny of taxpayer monies was spent" to make good on the hundreds of millions paid out by Zimmer et al.   What a line of bullshit!  While, he was technically correct, the money that this company gets all comes from taxpayers and consumers.  The settlement was just another "cost of doing business" that was passed along.   Was anyone fired or demoted?  Did anyone pay a fine or lose their home to make good on what they tried to steal?  If the answer is yes, I certainly haven't heard it from Christie or anyone else.   These crooks got away with murder folks!

As one who watched most of the hearing, i clearly recall the point being made by one of the congressmen that this process denies justice for the victims of the fraud and the taxpayers who often wound up paying the Medicare bills.

I agree with Jim33 to the extent that it should be possible to track down the specific illicit actions of INDIVIDUALS both within the corporate structure and of the Doctors who accepted the illicit incentives and to prosecute them without necessarily taking down the whole company.

Though I imagine, it would have been quite a legal/logistical chore to indict and prosecute many hundreds of well off individuals all of whom would be saying that they did nothing wrong and that the practices were SOP in "the industry".

This is the nature of systemic/endemic/pandemic corruption.   It's the "too big to fail" idea recast as "too many to prosecute".

And let us not forget "the corporate veil" which must not be pierced!

Meanwhile, there are people in California in jail for LIFE on "three strikes" crimes the third of which may have been shoplifting something expensive or carrying some amount of pot.

If you're working for a corporation and you're a high status person you get special allowances to commit felonies for which you are let off scott free and the "corporation" can "defer prosecution" by giving back some of the money you stole and agreeing to be "monitored" by John Ashcroft for 52 mil......then (what chutzpah) the corporation actually HIRES Ashcroft to help them with OTHER areas where they may have criminal exposure.

Hey, it's a great business, craft a hunk of metal for a few hundred bucks and spend another few hours implanting it and you get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars (when all is added up) and then if there are complications and problems the hospital gets to bill hundreds of thousands more!   What a cash flow!

The bottom line is that Christie, to this day, refuses to acknowledge that what he did even rises to the APPEARANCE of impropriety...and that is so so clearly and obviously either a self serving delusion or an outright lie that it boggles the mind and utterly disqualifies him from being the governor of New Jersey.

From my perspective of someone who strongly disapproves of systemic pay to play corruption in New Jersey politics I see a similar opportunity blown by Christie.   He could have used RICO statutes to go after whole networks of corrupt offcials and contractors in our state.   Had he done that I dare say the dragnet may have caught a couple of thousand fish.....and most of them may have been Democrats...and I STILL would have been thrilled.

I still believe that, at the core, Corzine is a mostly honest and decent man who has done some dumb things here and there. But Christie? Christie is clearly a product of an utterly morally and spiritually corrupt Bush administration that is 100% owned by corrupt corporate establishments.

At least with Corzine we have a fair chance of some progressive evolution in New Jersey.   Christie's election would be a trip back to the dark ages of Bush and Ashcroft and Gonzalez etc.

The deal Christie made with Zimmer  to "defer prosecution" was dirty enough to start with; but to then appoint his old boss to "monitor" it for "up to" 52 million dollars added a mountain of insult to a megaton of injury.

This episode needs to be framed into 15 and 30 and 60 second commercials.   It needs to be the subject of a long and detailed speeches by both Jon Corzine and his LG asap.  It should not be allowed to fade away as an issue that is too arcane or complex for people to get.

The fact that Christie doesn't even acknowledge that there is a problem of perception (at the very LEAST!!!) here is, by itself, sufficient indication that he is an absolute and total hypocrite (or a complete idiot)....and when enough people GET that clear and simple reality, his run for office is over.

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by: Nick Lento @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 21:30:32 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Secrecy (4.00 / 1)

Wasn't secrecy the bone in the DPA deal?  The companies agree to spend the $311 million total on Chrisitie's personal allies, and in return Christie keeps everything out of the public record.

We deserve better.

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by: Jim33 @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 21:34:17 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Christie wants everyone to look away (0.00 / 0)

... Because if we look hard or really think about these companies, we might see the emporer has no clothes.

Nick, you say a couple of times that Zimmer and the other joint makers "stole" from consumers, but even if they were guilty of the accused crime, Medicare fraud, is that synonymous with "stealing"?  Theft was not an accusation.

My impression -- albeit from all sketchy reports -- is that the consulting fees paid to doctors that then recommended these joints to be used in knee and hip replacements for clients were not illegal, except for Medicare patients, because of something I haven't seen that's specified in Medicare regulations.

If those fees were known to be illegitimate or concealed, I think we'd have seen allegations of tax fraud.  Christie also can prosecute IRS cases, but no such accusations were in these DPAs, as reported.

It doesn't mean the patients overpaid, or that they got a bad product -- although there is very speculation that the material used in the earliest versions of these devices oxidized in a way that left patients' joints irritated after a decade or two.

Even though there are lots of class-action lawyers trying to find patients to pimp, I found only one single case that went to trial -- and the joint maker WON the case, because the prosecution didn't prove the product was defective and, even if they had, didn't prove the companies should have known at the time about the oxidation.

I'm just not seeing the facts behind the indignation against the companies.  And I blame Christie for not making the real facts public.

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by: Jim33 @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 21:53:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Sin-onymous (0.00 / 0)

Jim33 says

............but even if they were guilty of the accused crime, Medicare fraud, is that synonymous with "stealing"?  Theft was not an accusation.

http://www.merriam-webster.com...

Function:
   noun
Etymology:
   Middle English fraude, from Anglo-French, from Latin fraud-, fraus
Date:
   14th century

1 a: deceit, trickery ; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right b: an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : trick2 a: a person who is not what he or she pretends to be : impostor ; also : one who defrauds : cheat b: one that is not what it seems or is represented to be

Fraud is one method of stealing.   The acquisition of that which is not justly yours by means of deception.

Fraud is theft as much as is any armed bank robbery.

White collar fraudsters STEAL far more than all the "common thieves" put together times a hundred.

Ironically, in America, fraud is so endemic that we have come to see it almost as an acceptible "business" practice.  lol

Tragically, it ain't really funny.....it causes horrible suffering, misery and even death.

It all boils down to good vs evil.  An old story...

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by: Nick Lento @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 12:28:21 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not necessarily (0.00 / 0)

Inducing someone to "part with something of value" by trickery does not necessarily mean stealing.  Every salesman does that.

I'm sorry to disagree, but it's my opinion that you're paraphrasing the definition of "fraud" with a personal interpretation that isn't there.

I should have put "theft" in quotes because I was remarking that theft, as a legal term, was not alleged or proved.  No criminal conviction or confession was obtained here.  It's libelous to accuse these companies of being criminal or corrupt, IMHO.

My understanding is that people needing hip and knee replacement received hip and knee replacement.  I don't recall seeing allegations that they overpaid or that they had unnecessary surgeries.  The only allegation I saw was that doctors who were paid consulting fees from the manufacturers failed to disclose that relationship to patients to whom they offered that product.

I saw no claim any surgery was unnecessary or overpriced.  Ashcroft was quoted as telling a reputable media that 95% of the hip and knee replacement companies were doing this same thing at that time, so it's not as if the choices would have been different if the consultant doctors HAD disclosed those relationships.

If there were any bigger dirty deeds going on, the DOJ has not disclosed those dirty deeds to the public.  Christie just goes around calling those companies "corrupt" and stealing from the public, and we all just accept that as truth without any evidence of it.  Why would you believe Christie?  

This is not the way justice works.  It's not American jurisprudence.  It's Mafia justice.  Read what Rep. Pallone released from Christie's email to Zimmer Holdings' lawyers.  Mafia don Chris Christie.

We can see in the facts that Christie used what I think are shameful extrajudicial practices.  I don't see the evidence of truly corrupt practices from these 5 companies.  

Did Christie offer them secrecy in return for the cash?  Maybe, but if so, who's the bigger "crook"?, I ask.  Christie enabled these companies to continue selling the same products to the Medicare patients!

Certainly, none of the companies was tried and convicted of a crime; none of the companies admitted to crimes in the DPA.

Thus, yes, no crimes -- including the crime legally defined as "theft" -- are a factual matter of record here.  At least not that I've seen reported.

It's irresponsible to say crimes must have taken place, albeit unprosecuted, because you don't understand why Christie and/or the companies would behave this way if they had not committed crimes.  I can think of many reasons why both sides might behave that way sans any crime.

The simple fact, from the information I've seen, is there is no criminal indictment, plea, confession or conviction.

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by: Jim33 @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 20:48:20 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

No crimes? (0.00 / 0)

You mean he was shaking down these companies to give big contracts for his friends?

 "don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternatives." ---Mayor Kevin White

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by: Babs NJSD @ Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 22:23:56 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

huh? (0.00 / 0)

I think there were crimes.

Scott Garrett - on the wrong side of, well, everything.

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by: Adam L aka clammyc @ Fri Jul 03, 2009 at 11:00:43 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Why? (0.00 / 0)

What crimes, and what facts substantiate that?  

Of course, your opinion is your right, but Christie isn't stating this as his opinion.  He states that as fact.

And without a single successful prosecution against any of the medical-device makers on any legally defined crime, I think Christie's accepted claims are potentially libelous.  In his position, it's reckless and malicious, I think, and could overcome the higher bar even for public figures.  Some courts HAVE held that corporations and even whole industries can be libeled.

I really think there may be a bigger, related scandal here that most people are overlooking because they are assuming these companies committed crimes even though there is no such factual record.  

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by: Jim33 @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 21:08:54 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

very interesting (0.00 / 0)

and I misunderstood - I thought you were defending Christie here, not that it takes away from your point that I also assume that there were crimes.

But that is something that would be very interesting to try and turn against Christie.  Only problem is (in theory, bc the facts won't come out) that he has more knowledge than we do, and maybe he DOES know for sure that crimes were committed.

Scott Garrett - on the wrong side of, well, everything.

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by: Adam L aka clammyc @ Sun Jul 12, 2009 at 15:42:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The Conyers hearings (0.00 / 0)

Secrecy is a problem. Christie faced some criticism a couple of weeks ago at that Conyers hearings regarding the fact Christie's DPA deals, if I understood correctly, seem to promise secrecy to the corporations about what exactly they did or didn't do.

Christie's deals sound to me more and more like la Cosa Nostra than American jurisprudence.

But I do think the libel thing IS an interesting aspect of this to look at, especially because Christie in his failed political past had a lot of trouble understanding libel law, didn't he?  

IMHO, he's still having a lot of trouble understanding libel law, if it's true what I read that the DPAs with the medical-device manufacturers, unlike all others entered  by him or any prosecutor, state that the companies admit no wrongdoing.

Technically, only a grand jury can determine a crime took place and only a court of law can convict any entity for that crime.

I don't see anywhere that Christie took any evidence related to these five companies to a grand jury to hand up a bill of criminal indictment.  In his testimony, Christie said he took his accusations and the DPAs all at once to a judge for approval of the DPAs.  

To my thinking, that means a sitting federal judge has given the seal of approval that these companies have officially done no wrong.  So, why does Christie keep calling them "criminal companies" that needed to be punished for their "wrongdoing" by having to pay many millions to federal monitors he picked out without bids or negotiation?

Christie putting iinto public record in his Congressional testimony that these companies are "criminal" seems pretty libelous to me.  

I brought this up because I wish here, at least, people wouldn't parrot Christie's upside-down reality of these companies being "criminal."  It only helps him glorify himself as our savior against corruption.

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by: Jim33 @ Mon Jul 13, 2009 at 17:38:52 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Oh, the irony (0.00 / 0)

The irony of all that is Christie's righteous indignation when one of the Democrats on Conyer's panel brought up his brother Todd and the Wall Street investment fraud scandal.  

Christie retorted that "no wrongdoing" was "found" on Todd's part.  But no grand jury or court proceedings "found" such a thing.

The prosecutor at the time in the Southern District of New York,  David Kelley, gave Todd a deal .. and then quit his federal job and in short order Chris Christie doled him one of those very no-bid, no-accountability, many-multimillion-dollar DPA monitorships, LOL!

In fact, Todd Christie's verdict of criminal right- or wrong-doing is exactly the same as these medical companies, which is nothing more than an action by one prosecutor and including some civil settlement.  Todd made a secret deal that apparently didn't require him to admitting wrongdoing -- just like the deal Chris Christie made with these companies!

The court system didn't "find" guilt or innocence of crime in either matter.

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by: Jim33 @ Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 07:09:57 AM CDT

[ Parent ]