Attorney Minor files appeal of judicial bribery conviction
Washington attorney Abbe Lowell, Minor’s lead defense attorney during the 2005 trial, filed the appellate brief with other members of his firm, McDermott, Will & Emery.
U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate presided over both trials. A jury in 2007 convicted Minor of bribing former Circuit Court Judge John Whitfield and former Chancery Court Judge Wes Teel. Whitfield and Teel were convicted at the same trial of accepting the bribes.
Lowell argues the loans Minor extended and then repaid for the judges were not bribes as defined under the law because prosecutors failed to show he expected or received specific favors in exchange. Wingate, the brief says, failed to accurately define bribery in instructions given to the jury that returned the guilty verdicts in 2007.
The brief also details charges of selective prosecution, currently under investigation by Congress, that Wingate rejected.
Sun Herald
6/30/8
hattip Phunk & Wagnalls
