William Jefferson loses appeal on all but 1 charge

Former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson could soon be ordered to begin serving his 13-year sentence on public corruption charges after a three-judge appellate court panel Monday unanimously affirmed all but one of 11 guilty counts returned against him by a Virginia jury in 2009. The ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., is unlikely to change the length of the sentence handed down by trial Judge T.S Ellis III.

But several legal experts said it’s possible the ruling could prompt prosecutors to request that Jefferson, 65, whom Ellis has allowed to remain free pending resolution of his appeal, be immediately imprisoned on grounds further appellate efforts are likely to fail.

Harry Rosenberg, a New Orleans attorney and former federal prosecutor, said such a request wouldn’t be surprising, though probably not until the full 4th Circuit decides whether to take up a likely request from Jefferson’s attorneys to reverse the ruling by three of its judges.

The only victory for Jefferson — and it likely will be merely symbolic — was the panel’s dismissal of a wire fraud conviction that the judges said was improperly prosecuted in Virginia because it involved a phone call from Africa to Kentucky.

Yes, that’s right. He was convicted in 2009 but has been free pending this appeal.

Oh, I almost forgot … IN HIS FREEZER!

Bloomberg News

March 20, 2012

The chief executives of Chevron Corp.‘s and Transocean Ltd.’s Brazilian units are among 17 executives at the two companies banned from leaving the country pending an investigation into an offshore oil spill.

Chevron’s George Buck and Transocean’s Michael Legrand were on the list of managers that federal prosecutors asked Judge Vlamir Costa Magalhaes to ban from leaving Brazil, according to a copy of the request sent Monday by the prosecutor’s office. The judge issued the ban Friday.

The Nov. 7 leak of 3,000 barrels of oil at Chevron’s $3.6-billion Frade field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro occurred at a time when Brazil is increasing scrutiny of deepwater drilling after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, which was about 1,630 times bigger. Transocean owned the rig involved in last November’s spill.

State and federal lawmakers’ reaction was “out of proportion,” said Cleveland Jones, an oil specialist and geology professor at Rio de Janeiro State University. He said the spill is “far from the coast and it’s a small volume.”

Seepages are common in regions such as the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, Jones said.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-chevron-20120320,0,5825587.story

http://m.npr.org/news/U.S./147506525?singlePage=true

Only 7 percent of plastic waste in the United States is recycled each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A startup company in Niagara Falls says it can increase that amount and reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil at the same time. …

Each barrel of oil costs about $10 to produce. JBI can sell it for around $100 through a national distributor. The young company is already producing a few thousand gallons of oil a day. It has signed lucrative deals to set up operations next to companies with large volumes of plastic waste. …

If JBI has its way, plastics will become a significant source of domestic fuel that reduces the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But just how "green" is JBI’s recycling, when it produces a fossil fuel that pollutes just like any other?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/us/drilling-property-mortgages-may-get-closer-look-from-agriculture-dept.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

“We will no longer be financing homes with gas leases,” Jennifer Jackson, program director for rural loans in the Agriculture Department’s New York office, wrote in an internal e-mail this month, citing several factors, including the costs of conducting such reviews.