"The government's case made me sick". The trial, one of the largest prosecutions ever of state prison guards, was considered a watershed because it followed four years of FBI and newspaper investigations that delved into death, brutality and cover-ups at the prison, which rises out of the cotton fields of the San Joaquin Valley.
While dismissal of the case would be an obvious symbolic blow to the Justice Department and its larger prosecution strategy against terrorists, the department insisted today that the prosecution of Mr. Moussaoui was far from over and that the government was hopeful that an appeals court would allow the trial to proceed.
The guilty plea from Robert Taylor, the former leader of Local 983 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, comes as part of a larger prosecution of officials at the union, District Council 37. Mr. Taylor pleaded guilty to stealing $50,000 from the local and rigging the vote when he ran for president.
The case is one of the larger prosecutions brought by the government in its broad investigation into insider trading, which has yielded 69 convictions and resulted in prison sentences for dozens of hedge fund traders.
The plea by Mr. Milken brings to a close the largest criminal prosecution in Wall Street history.
In what prosecutors say is the largest federal prosecution of its kind, the Salvagnos are charged with racketeering -- including running a criminal enterprise -- and conspiracy to violate the federal Clean Air Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Although the Marcone case is the largest smuggling prosecution anywhere so far, investigators believe that smuggled gas is used by other companies in the United States, and European customs officials have intercepted shipments of contraband gas arriving in Finland, Slovenia and Poland in the last two years, said Halvart Koeppen, a United Nations official who tracks illegal trade of the gas.
Last month, a federal jury in Minneapolis convicted several members of the Native Mob, a violent gang, of racketeering and other crimes as part of one of the largest gang prosecutions ever undertaken in Indian Country.
A mining company's own press release and documents can be used as evidence against it in one of the country's largest environmental prosecutions, a Queensland magistrate has ruled.
One official said the government was looking into large-scale prosecution of PA leaders in the US and elsewhere.
