Mizhuara pleads guilty | Insider trading trial begins | Judges correct DJ's Carney profile
I'll be covering the federal insider trading trial of Ontrak founder Terren Peizer in Los Angeles this month while I track the Young Thug trial. Testimony begins Thursday.
I made it to the federal courthouse in Santa Ana on Tuesday in time to see the tail end of the media mob for Ippei Mizuhara’s entrance.
Mizuhara is the former interpreter for Major League Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani who admitted stealing almost $17 million from him in a years-long embezzlement he blamed on his gambling addiction. He pleaded guilty to felony counts of bank fraud and subscribing to a false tax return, just as he agreed to do when he signed his plea deal on May 8.
The hearing before U.S. District Judge John W. Holcomb lasted about an hour. He moved to Judge David O. Carter’s larger courtroom to accomodate the crowd, and it worked well: I walked in shortly before the scheduled 9 a.m. start time and still got a seat.
The biggest news to come out of the hearing is Mizuhara won’t be sentenced until Oct. 25. That’ll be the first hearing actually worth covering. A couple weeks ahead of it, prosecutors and Mizuhara’s attorney, Michael Freedman, will file memorandums that details their recommended sentencings. I discussed this on CBS Chicago this morning (above) and LiveNOW from Fox last night.
Judge Holcomb clarified with prosecutors that the plea deal puts Mizuhara’s offense level at 25, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Mitchell said includes a one-point reduction under the new sentencing guideline for first-time offenders. That gives Mizuhara a standard sentencing range of 57 months to 71 months in prison under the U.S Sentencing Guidelines, but prosecutors could recommend a lower sentence, and Holcomb could impose a lower sentence without a recommendation.
U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Martin Estrada said a prison sentence is “likely.”
Estrada during the press conference reminded me of case that deserves more coverage than Mizhuara’s: The hate crimes case against Jaime Tran, who on separate days in February 2023 shot two Jewish men leaving a synagogue in Los Angeles.
Tran pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts of hate crimes with intent to kill and two counts of using, carrying, and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. U.S. District Judge George Wu scheduled his sentencing for Aug. 5.
Judges criticize Daily Journal article on colleague
In a rare move, three federal judges complained to the Los Angeles Daily Journal that the newspaper omitted important information from its retirement article on U.S. District Cormac J. Carney.
The article said Carney departed as chief judge in 2020 “after using the term ‘street smart’ to describe a Black clerk of the court during a webinar. He apologized amid criticism that the comment was racially insensitive.”
“That is simply not true,” wrote Senior U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips and U.S. District Judges Philip Gutierrez and Kenly Kiya Kato of the Central District of California in a letter published Tuesday.
“First, Kiry K. Gray, to whom the article presumably referred, was not simply ‘a Black clerk of court.’ She was a dedicated public servant with over three decades of service to the Court who rose to the historic first African American Clerk of Court in the Central District of California."
Second, the statement that led to the premature end of Judge Carney’s tenure as Chief was his comment to Ms. Gray in an apparent attempt to address the ‘street smart’ comment in which he said, ‘At least I did not put my foot on your neck like the police officers’ in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s murder.
Had the Daily Journal chosen to speak with Ms. Gray or anyone with knowledge of the facts, they would have reported the events as they actually happened, rather than as some have misled people to believe.”
Lawrence Hurley, NBC News’ U.S. Supreme Court reporter, commented on X, “Judges criticizing the media for not being harsh enough about a colleague is not something you see very often...”
My article on Carney’s dismissal of Robert Rundo’s charges in February explained his departure as chief judge.
Carney retired on May 31, according to the U.S. Senate website.
Insider trading trial begins and I’m here for it
I’ll have an article soon on the criminal trial of Terren Peizer, the founder and former CEO of Ontrak Inc. He is charged with insider trading and securities fraud related to his selling of stock in the behavioral health company just before it lost Cigna as its largest health insurance client.
Peizer is the first person to be prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice based only on his 10b5-1 trading plans.
I watched opening statements in Senior U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer’s courtroom on Tuesday and the highlight was seeing James Bergener in the gallery, also known as Sweet James the billboard lawyer. He is friends with Peizer.
Peizer’s defense centers on advice he received from Ontrak’s chief financial officer. His lead lawyer, David K. Willingham of King & Spalding LLP, also is hoping jurors can write off comments presented by prosecutors as incriminating as Peizer simply using “emotion to push buttons and motivate the people who work there.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, his personality, the way he manages those people, is not on trial,” Willingham said.
The comments apparently include, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Della G. Sentilles’ opening statement, Peizer comparing Ontak’s potential loss of Cigna to “a baby losing its care from chemotherapy.”
Sentilles is prosecuting Peizer with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ali Moghaddas and Matthew S. Reilly.
After the jury left on Tuesday, Willingham complained to Judge Fischer that prosecutors violated her order to only have the court seal visible on their laptops when jurors are present. He also said they didn’t seem to care when he confronted them.
In response, Moghaddas said he was looking at unrelated work email, and Fischer said that didn’t violate her order.
So, basically, it’s going to be one of those trials. I might have to go every day.
You can read the prosecution’s trial memo here. Testimony begins Thursday morning; I’ll be there.
Me on the Scientology civil court frontlines
One of the first things I did when I moved to downtown Los Angeles last month was text Tony Ortega and request he send me to the next Scientology-related court hearing. He happily obliged. There hasn’t been much to report, but I’ve attended a couple hearings and sent him dispatches that you can check out here and here.
Is Rich Homie Quan on deck in Young Thug’s trial?
He could be. The never-ending cluster that is the racketeering conspiracy trial against Atlanta-based rapper Young Thug and his five-trial co-defendants was in session Tuesday and Wednesday, with slain gang leader Donovan Thomas’ father testifying Wednesday.
Fulton County Chief Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love said one witness will take up Thursday’s half-day session (the 86th day of testimony), and she didn’t want to publicly identify the next witness yet, which indicates it could be someone famous, and Quan was recently subpoenaed.
Prosecutors allege Thomas was murdered as part of a feud between his gang and Young Thug’s Young Slime Life gang related to Quan.
Deputy District Attorney Simone Hylton told Judge Ural Glanville last week that Thug, legal name Jeffery Lamar Williams, was cool with Thomas and his gang associates until Thomas became concerned that Bryan “Birdman” Williams was trying to get Quan to sign with his label and leave a label associated with Thomas.
Judge Glanville claims trial will begin at 9 a.m. on Thursday, which is 6 a.m. here in California. I’ll stream on YouTube like always.
In other news, Glanville, described by The Washington Post as a “joyful disciplinarian,” told Thug’s lawyer Brian Steel on Wednesday that he’ll be in contempt of court, which the judge specified can included up to 20 days in jail, if he makes one more extra comment in front of the jury.
Steel had made some earlier comments, but what really set Glanville off was him saying, “It came into evidence already, Your Honor,” after prosecutors complained that one of his questions that stated the date of the exhibit as fact was commentary.
Here’s the exchange:
Remember, we are not even half way through the prosecution’s case in chief, and we’re seven months into testimony. This is going to go on forever.
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