Bad Week For Carmen Ortiz: Admits To Botched Gang Arrest As Congress Kicks Off Swartz Investigation

from the complete-flops dept

Carmen Ortiz is not having a good month. The US Attorney who was in charge of the ridiculous Aaron Swartz prosecution -- and now has over 50,000 people asking the White House to fire her -- now will have to deal with an official investigation by Congress into that particular case. A bipartisan pair of Congressional representatives, Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings -- who are basically the top dogs from each party on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee -- have officially kicked off their investigation. They're asking these specific questions:

• What factors influenced the decision to prosecute Mr. Swartz for the crimes alleged in the indictment, including the decisions regarding what crimes to charge and the filing of the superseding indictment?
• Was Mr. Swartz's opposition to SOPA or his association with any advocacy groups among the factors considered'?
• What specific plea offers were made to Mr. Swartz, and what factors influenced the decisions by prosecutors regarding plea offers made to Mr. Swartz?
• How did the criminal charges, penalties sought, and plea offers in this case compare to those of other cases that have been prosecuted or considered for prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
• Did the federal investigation of Mr. Swartz reveal evidence that he had committed other hacking violations?
• What factors influenced the Department's decisions regarding sentencing proposals?
• Why was a superseding indictment necessary?

Combine these with the questions already sent by Senator Cornyn, and the DOJ is going to be busy.

But, of course, that's not all that is weighing on Carmen Ortiz. Last week, we noted, she lost a highly questionable case in which it appears she tried to seize a family-owned motel based on some trumped up charges concerning drug deals, even though there weren't that many drug problems there (less than others in the area) and the owners of the motel had worked with law enforcement to try to crack down on them.

And... that's not all. Today there's news of an even bigger embarrassment as it appears that Ortiz had to go to court to admit that her office arrested the wrong man in a gang takedown a few weeks ago. Basically, her office is coming to the conclusion -- weeks later -- that one of the guys arrested may just look like the guy they wanted.

In the latest setback for Boston’s beleaguered U.S. attorney, red-faced feds admit they may have arrested the wrong man during a massive gang and drug takedown two weeks ago because he looked like someone they wanted, after they were forced to tell a judge there was “sufficient doubt” that he was the suspect.

How many screw-ups do you get to make and keep such a job?