It wasn't a perfect year, but it was busy for U.S. attorney
By SEAN O'SULLIVAN, The News Journal

Posted Monday, December 3, 2007

www.delawareonline.com


WILMINGTON -- The past year might not be fondly recalled by federal prosecutors due to the disappointing end to a five-year corruption investigation of three New Castle County officials, but it has turned out to be a record-setting year in terms of volume.

In the fiscal year that ended in September, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware filed more criminal cases than ever before and brought in more than $11 million in fines, debts and seizures, almost three times the department's annual operating budget.

While the criminal prosecutions of former New Castle County Executive Tom Gordon and his aides Sherry L. Freebery and Janet Smith ended in pleas to misdemeanors for Smith and Gordon and a single felony for Freebery, U.S. Attorney Colm F. Connolly's office secured convictions in other high-profile cases. These included convictions of ex-DuPont researcher Gary Min in a $400 million corporate spying case, Igal Sharon Levy for $600,000 in wire and credit card fraud -- the largest such loss in the history of retailer Circuit City -- and a 55-year sentence for crack dealer Ivan Smith.

The number of criminal cases filed in fiscal year 2007 -- 156 -- is up 30 percent over last year and up 101 percent over 2001, the year before Connolly took over the top federal prosecutor's job in Delaware.

This year's jump was primarily due to increases in the number of immigration cases, child pornography prosecutions and cases related to the Fed-Up initiative to curb gun violence in Wilmington.

"We've been pushing productivity," said Connolly. "We are trying to give the taxpayers as much bang for the buck as we can. That has been a theme."

Critics have charged that Connolly "wasted" taxpayer money with the multiyear corruption investigation, but he noted his office took in far more money than it spent last year.

For fiscal year 2007, the office collected more than $11.1 million -- nearly half of which came from a settlement with medical device manufacturer NuMed, which failed to follow FDA regulations -- in criminal and civil fines and penalties and forfeited assets.

Administrative forfeitures -- where the government seizes property and ends up acquiring it without a court proceeding because the defendant does not contest it -- added about another $350,000.

Connolly said his office operated on a $3.8 million budget. "So we are generating almost $4 for every dollar we spend," he said.

Attorney Edmund "Dan" Lyons Jr., a former federal prosecutor who now defends clients in federal court, said it appears that Connolly is doing his job.

He said the office of the federal prosecutor in Delaware has grown from "a sleepy little office 20 years ago with just bank robbery cases" to an increasingly sophisticated and aggressive law enforcement organization.

Strains elsewhere

The increased productivity has had a ripple effect.

The Federal Public Defender for Delaware, Edson Bostic, said his office has seen a 90 percent to 100 percent increase in its caseload since last year.

The federal defender gets 75 percent to 85 percent of all the cases the prosecutors bring.

To compensate for the increase, Bostic said, his office recently added one full-time trial attorney and expects to add a second appellate attorney.

"There is no doubt about it, we have an aggressive prosecutor's office," Bostic said.

In the three types of cases responsible for making this a record-setting year for federal prosecutors -- immigration, child porn and weapons -- defendants are almost always denied release and are instead detained, making more work for the U.S. Marshals Service.

As of Nov. 27, 157 defendants are being held pending trial, up from 42 defendants in 2001, almost a fourfold increase, according to U.S. Marshal for Delaware David W. Thomas.

"It is the largest amount of federal detainees ever in Delaware," said Thomas.

This has put a strain on the marshal's staff, which is responsible for security in the courthouse and moving detainees to and from jail.

As a matter of policy, Thomas said he could not reveal his staff levels but noted he has one fewer person than he did five years ago, when he had far fewer detainees.

Thomas said his office sends defendants awaiting trial to federal facilities in New Jersey and Philadelphia, but has almost used up its space allotment. There are no federal detention facilities in Delaware.

The federal court in Wilmington also has been affected.

"We have noticed [the increase] and it requires us to handle more paperwork or electronic filing," said Clerk of the Court Peter T. Dalleo. "And there is more courtroom activity."

Dalleo said the courts have not been able to add anyone to the staff, and this past year the court has been short one full-time judge.

No one has been nominated to replace District Judge Kent A. Jordan, who was elevated to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2006.

Dalleo said the addition of a second magistrate judge, Leonard P. Stark, in August has helped ease the burden. Magistrate judges are limited in their authority and cannot fully replace a district judge.

Prosecution targets

Immigration and child pornography cases and gun prosecutions fueled the increase. Immigration cases jumped from 13 to 29 since 2006, and child pornography prosecutions increased from 2 to 17.

Connolly said targeting Internet predators has always been a priority but concedes the jump last year was largely due to a single case. In June, police broke up a child pornography ring in the Georgetown area that resulted in nine federal cases.

The increase in immigration cases was due to a new strategy. As part of a national effort called Operation Community Shield, Connolly's office changed its guidelines to start prosecuting illegal re-entry and similar cases.

"It is driven by our concerns about gangs and gang-related criminal activity," he said.

Federal Defender Bostic said one of the new attorneys he hired speaks Spanish so his office can deal with this dramatic increase in immigration cases.

Bostic said his chief concern is cases related to Operation Fed-Up, the program that takes all felons caught with a firearm in the city of Wilmington and charges them in federal court -- where prosecutors say they face stiffer penalties -- instead of state court. The joint effort is designed to reduce gun crimes in the city and take armed felons immediately off the streets.

Weapons cases, which have been a stated priority for Connolly since he took office, were up 55 percent, from 31 cases in 2006 to 48 cases in 2007.

Bostic said his apprehension comes from the fact that the program is based on geography -- limited to Wilmington -- when the federal prosecutor has statewide authority. So the perception, if not the impact of the program, "is disproportionate on the minority community," he said. "That being said, I'm not asking for more to be arrested."

Connolly said race was not a factor in launching Fed-Up. "Our concern was that Wilmington has a disproportionally high rate of shootings and therefore we decided to focus federal resources on Wilmington to address that problem," he said.

The new high water mark for federal prosecutors of 156 cases is less than 2 percent of the more than 9,000 felony cases filed by the Delaware Attorney General's office last year.

"We supplement the state in responding to violent crime," said Connolly, adding that his is one of the smallest U.S. Attorney's Offices in the country. "Therefore we focus on the most serious offenders and try to make the biggest impact we can."