Ortiz-Heymann: the Prior Generation 57
theodp writes "Two decades before the White House was petitioned to remove U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and her Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann from their jobs for the allegedly overzealous prosecution of Aaron Swartz, the Boston Globe reported on allegations of 'sometimes heavy-handed tactics and inaccuracies' of an NFL investigation into sexual harassment charges made by a sportswriter against the New England Patriots that was led by Watergate prosecutor Philip Heymann (Stephen's father) and included Ortiz. 'From the day Philip Heymann and his colleagues walked into Foxboro Stadium to investigate Lisa Olson's charges of sexual harassment,' the Globe reported, 'the New England Patriots were on the defensive, and apparently, they stayed there to the end. One day after conducting a preliminary six-hour interview with Olson, Heymann introduced each investigator to the Patriots and outlined their backgrounds at a meeting he later called benign. Yet he also said two weeks ago, "They were frightened from the beginning by the way I introduced people. I said that Jerry O'Sullivan had been US Attorney. I said Jim Ring had been FBI special agent in charge of organized crime."'
Regarding Ortiz, the Globe reported, 'Heymann investigator Carmen Ortiz wrote in a memo of her Oct. 18, 1990, interview with [Lisa Olson] that she took no notes and did not tape-record the conversation. Yet she used direct quotes when writing up her 15-page report on the session. When asked to explain, she referred the Globe to Heymann.' Aside from transcripts of two interviews (the tapes of which were destroyed), the Globe reported the NFL kept no notes on its interviews with 89 other people. '"It was contemplated that there would be a motion such as this [a lawsuit by Olson] and we did not want to create that type of document," an NFL attorney explained. According to the Globe, an attorney representing the Patriots said that 'one reason the tapes were destroyed may be that the NFL did not want anyone to hear raised voices or pounding of tables. He said some of those interviewed were not allowed to leave the room and had their livelihoods threatened if they did not cooperate.' Curiously, the elder Heymann featured prominently in a recently-upheld DOJ motion to keep the names of key people involved in the Aaron Swartz case secret — a postcard threat received by Philip Heymann was cited by Ortiz's office as evidence of why such secrecy was necessary."
Regarding Ortiz, the Globe reported, 'Heymann investigator Carmen Ortiz wrote in a memo of her Oct. 18, 1990, interview with [Lisa Olson] that she took no notes and did not tape-record the conversation. Yet she used direct quotes when writing up her 15-page report on the session. When asked to explain, she referred the Globe to Heymann.' Aside from transcripts of two interviews (the tapes of which were destroyed), the Globe reported the NFL kept no notes on its interviews with 89 other people. '"It was contemplated that there would be a motion such as this [a lawsuit by Olson] and we did not want to create that type of document," an NFL attorney explained. According to the Globe, an attorney representing the Patriots said that 'one reason the tapes were destroyed may be that the NFL did not want anyone to hear raised voices or pounding of tables. He said some of those interviewed were not allowed to leave the room and had their livelihoods threatened if they did not cooperate.' Curiously, the elder Heymann featured prominently in a recently-upheld DOJ motion to keep the names of key people involved in the Aaron Swartz case secret — a postcard threat received by Philip Heymann was cited by Ortiz's office as evidence of why such secrecy was necessary."
Telling (Score:4, Interesting)
... a postcard threat received by Philip Heymann was cited by Ortiz's office as evidence of why such secrecy was necessary.
When prosecutors are more worried about covering their own asses than seeing that justice is done, you know things have gotten seriously f*ed up.
Re:Curious (Score:4, Interesting)
Things were different back in the days of the Morris worm. It was expected that future computer experts would get up to no good and play around a bit, and there was a sort of understanding in the field that you didn't want to ruin someone's life for a little curiosity - if you got hacked, good on them, just fix the hole and make repairs. It was seen as a crime akin to graffiti vandalism - not something to lock someone in jail for years over.
Computers are just so much more important to society, infrastructure and economy these days that there is no room left for this blind-eye approach. Ignoring curious hackers was very well when they were stealing a few documents and wasting an administrator's weekend restoring backups, but now they can potentially cause millions of dollars in damage.
Re:Not really a huge surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)
The worst role in law is public defence. Your job is to make your boss's boss look bad - so he'll deliberately overwork you to the point you can't give more than an hour to each case, and if by some miracle you manage to get too many non-guilty verdicts you just get fired or 'promoted sideways' to a position you can't do so much damage in.
The effective role of the public defender isn't to help the clients, it's to convince them to accept a plea bargin and save the state all the expense of having to go to trial.