By now, almost everyone has heard about the infamous and controversial tales of Jeffrey Epstein. The latest news in the back and forth, push and pull situation is that Georgia congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene is warning the public that she could be targeted and attacked due to her stance on the issue.

Congresswoman Greene has been outspoken about her desire to expose the Epstein sex trafficking ring, and she isn’t afraid to use her political position to do so.

She’s been pushing for the passage of House Resolution 581, which would release all the Epstein files to the public. Over 200 democrats signed the passage of this bill, but only four Republicans (including Greene) supported it. The other Republicans who supported the bill were Representative Lauren Boebert, Representative Nancy Mace, and Representative Massie. Other notable females to support the bill includes Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi.

By “Epstein files”, the bill means that all the documents, investigative materials, communications, and unclassified records should be disclosed, along with any details that were learned during meetings and interviews with Ghislaine Maxwell.

Just recently, she posted a long message on the social media platform X to her supporters. In the detailed report, she reiterated that she is a very happy person and would never consider taking her life or harming herself.

She warned her constituents that if something were to happen to her, they should immediately start investigating which “foreign government or powerful people” executed the attack. She further stated that if something does happen to her, it would be done in an effort to suppress “the information” she has from becoming public. Then, she cryptically added, “The People understand what I’m saying.”

Greene thinks she will specifically be targeted because she’s joining together with democrats over this issue. In fact, a recent joint press conference where bipartisan members came together was one of the largest press conferences in recent history.

Sex Crimes in New York

In New York, sex crimes are taken extremely seriously. Sex crimes encompass a wide range of behaviors like forcible touching, sexual abuse, rape, nonconsensual sexual touching, and sexual conduct against a child.

Typically, getting convicted of a sex crime will wreak havoc on a person’s life. Not only will the individual be subject to criminal consequences that will likely include jail time and financial fines, but they will also face penalties after they get released. This special class of offenders must register as a sex offender even once they serve their time in jail. The public sex offender registry will list your name, address, and previous conviction. You will likely be required to stay away from certain areas and occupations, too.

To avoid these consequences, the best thing you can do is hire a solid criminal defense attorney to help you avoid a conviction. Here at the Bukh Law Firm, our team is prepared to advocate and fight for you.

We’ll help you identify your options and navigate your situation to the best of our ability. Schedule a free call with us by leaving your contact details on our online form.

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There’s been an unprecedented level of unprovoked attacks occurring in the New York area over the past several months, and some of these incidents are clearly stemming from unaddressed mental health concerns.

A recent Easter Sunday attack on an actor highlights this fact. On March 31, actor Michael Stuhlbarg suffered a minor cut to his head when he was struck by a rock at around 7:45 P.M. on Sunday. Stuhlbarg was reportedly running alone in Central Park. When he reached the area around 90th Street and East Drive, he suddenly felt himself get hit by a rock. When he looked around, he saw 27-year-old Xavier Israel. Stuhlbarg proceeded to chase the man out of the park.

Once out of the park, the victim noticed nearby police officers who were stationed outside of the Russian Consulate. He quickly alerted them to the running suspect, and authorities were able to promptly apprehend him.

Xavier is being charged with assault. He’s currently being held on $50,000 bail and will face his arraignment on April 8th in Manhattan Criminal Court.

According to police, Xavier was arrested in a similarly unprovoked violent incident two years ago. The suspect also reportedly has a history of mental illness. Back in January of 2022, Xavier was arrested after attacking a 58-year-old resident in a cruel attack. In that incident, the 58-year-old witnessed Xavier sleeping on the sidewalk outside of Bryant Park. Struck with compassion, the man took the coat off his back and attempted to give it to Xavier.

That’s when the suspect became enraged, threw the coat at the victim, and began pushing the older victim until he fell to the ground. At that point, Xavier began punching the man in the face before stealing his wallet and running away.

At the time, police quickly caught up with Xavier and recovered the wallet. Authorities linked that attack to other assaults that happened within the past 10 days in the city. Xavier was convicted of attempted robbery in one of those incidents and was sentenced to serve two years behind bars and two years of post-release supervision. He was just released on parole on December 7th. His parole was set to end in September of 2025.

Have You Recently Been Accused of Committing a Crime in NY?

Have you recently been implicated in a crime? Did you fall short in a moment of weakness and attack someone else in an unprovoked rage?

Regardless of your circumstances, you always have the right to speak with a legal advisor. A lawyer can help you fully understand your rights, legal options, potential defense strategies, and the charges you’re facing. This always puts you in a better position to make an informed choice on how to handle your charges. Without an attorney, you’ll be on your own when it comes to determining the best legal strategy for dealing with your allegations.

Are you ready to talk to a lawyer in New York? Reach out to our office now to learn more about how we can help.

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Much has been written recently about the sad case of Aaron Swartz. Described as “a brilliant young software programmer and Internet activist,” Swartz, 26, committed suicide in January. At the time of his death, Swartz was under indictment in the District of Massachusetts for wire fraud, computer fraud, and various other cyber-crime-related offenses. The indictment alleged, in essence, that Swartz, without authority, hacked into a restricted-use online service that provided archiving and research services for academic institutions.

The U.S. Attorney in Boston has acknowledged that there was no evidence that Swartz ever intended to use the information for personal gain. Instead, it appears that Swartz’s actions were driven by a desire to make information available on the internet. Swartz’s supporters and friends have blamed the U.S. Attorney, in large measure, for Swartz’s death. They argue that charges should never have been brought against Swartz, and that the U.S. Attorney’s insistence that Swartz plead guilty to a felony was an example of gross prosecutorial overreach. The U.S. Attorney, on the other hand, has defended her office’s handling of the case, stating that the assigned prosecutors, “took on the difficult task of enforcing a law they had taken an oath to uphold, and did so reasonably.” Whether this was a case of prosecutorial overreach or a reasonable prosecution lies in the eye of the beholder. It is a debate in which there will be no clear winner. However, an important lesson should be taken from this tragic case.

Those of us who work in the criminal justice system, whether as defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, or pretrial services officers, need to always keep in mind that we deal in high-stakes cases, where the stresses and emotions can be overwhelming. I am personally familiar with several cases involving defendants who committed suicide after charges were brought against them. (Fortunately, none of those cases involved individuals whom I prosecuted or defended.) The cases involved no discernible pattern as to the ages of the defendants (they included young and not so young), their level of education, their prior criminal records (or lack thereof), or the nature of the charges (they included charges as disparate as possession of child pornography and violent extortion).

What is apparent is that these individuals all suffered depression, at least in part, as a result of the circumstances in which they found themselves; a depression so profound that they decided to take their own lives. Perhaps such tragedies, including that of Aaron Swartz, couldn’t have been prevented, but we should at least be sensitive to the issue and take appropriate action when the signs of serious depression are present and perceived.

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A recurring and vexing issue has arisen again recently in my practice: can an (unlicensed) individual assist a public company in identifying sources of financing without the parties running afoul of the broker-dealer registration requirement under Section 3(a)(4) and 15(a)(1) of the Exchange Act?

The relevant authorities on the issue appear nothing short of schizophrenic. On the one hand, there seems to be a general acknowledgement that finders perform a positive function, providing access to capital for small cap companies that are not yet ready for (or attractive to) primetime players. As noted by the American Bar Association Task Force on Private Placement Broker-Dealers (Task Force), finders “fill a void created by the lack of interest on the part of licensed brokerage firms and venture capital funds in smaller equity transactions.” And courts that have confronted the issue head-on have unequivocally ruled that a finder—so long as his involvement is appropriately limited—may serve as an introducing party and receive percentage-based compensation without being considered a broker.

Consider, for example, Foundation Ventures LLC v. F2G Ltd., 2010 WL 3187294 (S.D.N.Y. 2010), in which plaintiff sued for breach of a contract that required it to “identify qualified institutional investor candidates to provide equity financing to F2G,” in exchange for a “success fee” equal to 6 percent of the investment amount. Defendant argued that the contract was void and unenforceable because plaintiff had agreed to act as a broker-dealer but had failed to comply with the registration requirement under Section 15(a)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

In rejecting that claim, the court carefully delineated the factors that bear on the issue, and expressly held that “neither the Contract nor FV’s performance pursuant to it is illegal as a matter of law.” The court noted that plaintiff did not conduct negotiations. It also stated that the fact that plaintiff was supposed to receive a commission rather than a salary was not sufficient for the court to conclude that it had acted as a broker. See also DeHuff v. Digital Ally, Inc., 2009 WL 4908581 (S.D. Miss. Dec. 11, 2009) (discussing “certain limited circumstances in which a person or entity – a finder – may perform a narrow scope of activities without triggering broker/dealer registration requirements” where the finder brings the parties together with no involvement on his part in negotiating the price or any of the other terms of the transaction”) (citing Cornhusker Energy Lexington LLC v. Prospect Street Ventures, 2006 WL 2620985 (D. Neb. Sept.12, 2006) & Mike Bantuveris, 1975 SEC No-act. LEXIS 2158 (Oct. 23, 1975)). See also SEC v. Kramer, 2011 WL 1230808 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 1, 2011) (where the defendant did “nothing more than bring[] parties together,” held that receipt of transaction-based compensation was not, alone, sufficient to require broker-dealer registration); Salamon v. Teleplus Enterprises Inc., 2008 WL 2277094 (D.N.J. June 2, 2008) (where consultant was to receive a finder’s fee of 10 percent of amounts funding received by Teleplus, court noted the “finders’ exception” to the broker-dealer registration requirement and denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment); Hazen & Markham, Broker Dealer Operations at § 3:5.

On the other hand, various commentators continue to suggest that anyone who receives transaction-based compensation based on the introduction of an investor will be considered a broker, and that the use of such an individual places the company and its financing in peril. See, e.g., Using Finders to Assist in Financings Can Impose Significant Risks, Insight, Volume 25, No. 6, June 2011. Those opinions are generally predicated on the SEC’s responses to No Action Letters as opposed to judicial decisions.

This dichotomy led the Task Force to acknowledge that “there exists a major disconnect between the various laws and regulations applicable to securities brokerage activities, and the methods and practices actually in daily use by which the vast majority of capital is raised to fund early stage businesses in the United States.” Report and Recommendation, ABA Task Force on Private Placement Broker Dealers, Business Lawyer, May 2005.

Cries for a clear resolution of the issue—perhaps a “broker-lite” kind of registration—have gone unheeded by the regulators, and there is no indication that the matter will be addressed any time soon, even as the current sluggish economy could plainly benefit from the availability of alternative financing. In the meantime, I am involved in a matter in which a company sorely in need of funding rejected the involvement of a finder because there “might” be a problem down the road. In my view, a kneejerk rejection of the involvement of a finder is simply unsupported by existing authority, and a more productive course would have been to carefully circumscribe the participation of the finder to comport with the holdings in Foundation Ventures and Kramer.

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The requirement is enshrined in the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, 2004 Chapter 7, Section 34 of which states, inter alia, that any person who holds a position of authority and who knows or ought to have reasonably known or suspected that another person has committed the offence against Chapter 2 of the Act (offences in respect of corrupt activities) or the offence of theft (my italics), fraud, extortion, forgery or uttering a forged document involving an amount of R100,000 or more must report such knowledge or suspicion or cause it to be reported to any police official. And get this: failure to report carries a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment or a fine if the case is heard in the High Court, or in a Magistrate’s Court 3 years imprisonment or a fine.
The Act defines a person of authority as:

· The Director-General or head, or equivalent officer, of a national or provincial department
· A municipal manager appointed in terms of section 82 of the of the Local Government and Municipal Structures Act, 1998
· Any public officer in the senior management service of a public body
· Any head, rector or principal of a tertiary institution
· The manager, secretary, or a director of a company as defined in the Companies Act, and includes a member of a close corporation as defined in the Close Corporation act
· The executive manager of a bank or any other financial institution
· Any partner in a partnership
· Any person who has been appointed CEO or an equivalent officer of any agency, authority, board, commission, committee, corporation, council, department, entity, financial institution, foundation, fund, institute, service, or any other organisation, whether established by legislation, contract, or any other legal means
· Any other person who is responsible for the overall management and control of a business of an employer
· Any person described above who is in an acting capacity.
It can be seen from the above that the spectrum is wide and most managers reading this will recognise their position in the list.
The Act also specifies that any policemen receiving a report must issue a receipt in writing for it. This receipt is obviously an important document and should be guarded with care. It follows that if a person of authority as defined above submits a report to a superior to cause it to be reported to a police official, the person reporting is well advised to obtain a written receipt for his/her report.
I would also like to draw attention to the phrase “ought to have reasonably known or suspected”. The Act defines this to mean that if the conclusions that a person ought to have reached are those which should have been reached by a reasonably diligent and vigilant person having both the general knowledge, skill, training and experience that may be expected of a person in his or her position; and the general knowledge, skill, training and experience that he or she in fact has, then the person ought to have reasonably known or suspected.
The fact that the offence of theft is included in this particular Act together with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for many of the offences listed in the legislation is a clear illustration of the seriousness of the Government’s intentions. Although the Act is relatively new and it is not yet backed by case law, it is extremely comprehensive and unambiguous. Certainly my advice to persons of authority is to take heed of the reporting requirements, for I would not wish the dubious pleasure of time in our prisons on anyone.

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Bronx’s “Number One Enemy” has been captured.

Ruben (Chullo) Pizzano, 23, was caught after a tipster led law enforcement to Pizzaro was wanted in the shooting death of David Rivera, 24, in November. The murder was caught on camera.

INSERT VIDEO HERE: https://youtu.be/wRfzCIXVtKE

Pizzaro and Rivera fought outside a Crotona Avenue day care center. The argument, over a woman, led to Pizzaro blasting Rivera in the stomach, thigh and groin.

It wasn’t the first time Pizzaro had shot Rivera. In 2011, the two came to blows — and shots were fired. In that case, Rivera wouldn’t cooperate with law enforcement. Pizzaro went into hiding.

Pizzaro appeared on the streets on New Year’s Eve as he carjacked a man in Inwood. Pizzaro told the carjacking victim to drive him to the location of a second victim whom Pizzaro shot in the shoulder before stealing a PlayStation 4.

Pizzaro and his gang then holed up in an abandoned house on Kingsbridge Terrace in Marble Hill.

A tipster, responding to a media blitz, point cops to the building where Pizzaro was staying. Law enforcement captured Pizzaro as the felon tried to escape through a back window.

“The city is much safe tonight with him off the streets,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.

Pizzaro’s rap sheet includes 30 arrests. Two were for attempted murder. Pizzaro was acquitted in two trials, and the other cases against him failed to move forward because of a lack of victim cooperation.

Avi Moskowitz, Pizzaro’s court-appointed lawyer, told reporters that as Pizzaro was acquitted on gang-related robbery charges, the government would have to prove he is a gang member.

Noted New York Criminal Defense Attorney, Arkady Bukh, says that the biggest gangs in NYC are influenced by the Department of Corrections.

“Since 1993, the Bloods have been the machine in Rikers Island,” said Bukh. “From there, the gangs filter out into the streets. The staying power of the local Blood sets despite the gang sweeps and crackdowns has been remarkable.

Gangs are found in every corner of New York City. This map, based on data from the city’s police department, shows that gang territories overlap as they spread throughout the city.

http://interactive.nydailynews.com/2015/12/gangs-of-new-york-city-interactive-map/

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The Russian creator of a computer program that American law enforcement claim drained bank accounts in a variety of countries was sent to federal prison for 9.5 years.

Known online as “Gribodemon” and “Harderman,” Aleksandr Panin was sentenced in Atlanta after being accused of creating the malware program SpyEye. Panin sold the software through a variety of online cybercrime forums.

Panin pleaded guilty in January 2014, to conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud for his role in the development and sale of SpyEye.

SpyEye is an advanced malevolent computer code devised to automate the appropriation of financial information including banking paperwork, credit card data, usernames, and passwords. The virus assists in the theft of data by infecting victims’ computers which then allows cyber crooks to remotely command the infected computers. Once infected, the computers give cyber swindlers access, and the stolen financial data is then sent to command and control (C2) servers, where it is employed to take money from financial accounts.

Primary Developer

Panin was the principal developer and merchant of SpyEye. From 2009 until 2011, Panin operated from Russia where he conspired with others, including codefendant Hanza Bendelladj, an Algerian national. Panin permitted cyber crooks to customize their purchases to include customized methods for obtaining victims’ personal data as well as marketing versions that targeted financial institutions. Advertised on invitation-only criminal forums, Panin sold a variety of versions for as much as $8,500. Panin is thought to have marketed the virus to somewhere above 140 clients who then set up their own C2 services.

Industry experts believe the virus infected over 1.3 million computers in America as well as globally. The virus was the pre-eminent malware toolkit from 2009 until 2011; it is still available and in use. Based on data from the financial services industry, over 10,000 bank accounts were compromised by the SpyEye virus in 2013 alone.Despite its effectiveness being limited since software makers added the virus to malicious software removal programs, some cyber crooks continue to use it today.

Bendelladj

Bendelladj was picked up at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport in January 2013. Extradited from Thailand to American in Mary 2013, Bendelladj faced charges in the Northern District of Georgia in the US.

Sentencing

Panin, 27, of Tiver Russia was sentenced by Federal District Court Judge Amy Totenberg to nine years and six months in prison. He will have to fulfill three years of managed freedom when he gets out.

Bendelladj, 27, of Tizi Ouzou, Altera was also sentenced by Judge Totenberg. Bendelladj was given 15 years in prison, also to be followed by three years of supervised release.

Panin Beats Decades in Prison

Panin’s attorney, Arkady Bukh, is an experienced criminal defense attorney in New York City. Bukh’s client roster looks like a Hall of Fame of CyberHackers, and he has successfully defended dozens of defendant’s over the years.

Panin is one of the fortunate ones to have retained Bukh. Initially facing decades behind bars, Panin will be out in nine — even earlier for good behavior.

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Although Ken Shigley is a practicing attorney in Atlanta and isn’t a Memphis personal injury or accident lawyer I wanted to share his latest blog post with all of my readers. Ken has written an exceptional post concerning “billboard” and “tv lawyers”. Even though he is writing about Atlanta, the same thing rings true here in Memphis, Tennessee and Northern Mississppi.
As a serious personal injury attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, I am frankly embarrassed by the inundation of billboards and TV ads for personal injury lawyers who have little respect within the profession and seldom if ever set foot in a courtroom.
If you or a loved one has a serious injury or wrongful death case, you would do better throwing a dart at the attorneys section of the phone book than choosing a lawyer on the basis of a billboard or a 30 second TV ad. At least you would have a chance of getting to a decent, honest attorney who would know how to identify a specialist for an appropriate referral, rather than a “mill” that focuses on volume and accepts low offers rather than doing the hard work of litigation.
The subtly misleading slogans of the billboard and TV lawyers, e.g., “one call that’s all” and “all the help the law allows,” and their use of celebrity spokesmen on TV, does a real disservice to members of the public who are drawn into personal injury “mills” rather than to serious lawyers who would fight for them.

Of all the lawyers who heavily advertise on billboards, city buses and television, I know of only one (and I won’t say which one) who is actually a credible trial attorney. Most are virtually unknown in professional circles, except by reference to their advertising. Most seldom if ever try a case in court. Most never speak at continuing legal education programs, and attend barely enough CLE to keep their licenses. Hardly any are active in professional organizations.

When clients have asked me to consider taking over cases that those firms had been handling, I have been appalled at the lack of the most basic forms of investigation and preparation.

When I have had occasion to walk through the offices of a couple of “personal injury mills” I have been shocked at the high ratio of support staff to lawyers. In some instances I have found that secretaries and scantly trained paralegals have been handling the cases from beginning to end, and actually negotiating the settlements with insurance companies, with little attorney supervision.

I have seen letters from those firms to their own clients, twisting the clients’ arms to accept insurers’ settlement offers of no more than ten percent of the fair value those cases would have if aggressively represented.

Out of morbid curiosity, I ran a Westlaw search of the names of the top advertising lawyers in metro Atlanta, seeking reported decisions in which they appeared representing a party. Certainly court decisions that are reported in Westlaw are the tiny tip of the iceberg, and often do not reflect a lawyer’s greatest successes. Most cases are resolved one way or another long before they would result in a reported decision. However, I would expect that a lawyer who really fights the good fight for clients would occasionally have a case make it into reported decisions, even when we and our clients would much rather get cases settled without taking them that far.

First I ran a search for my own cases. It turned up 38 reported decisions in state and federal courts in 30 years, a little more than one per year. Nine of those were in the past decade, involving trucking accidents, serious personal injury, wrongful death and insurance law.

Then I ran the same search for four law firms we see constantly on billboards and television advertisements.

• Perhaps the largest volume advertising lawyer has his name appear in only one reported court decision, a 1992 uninsured motorist insurance claim. But his ads with misleading jingles are on television in every major media market in Georgia, claiming that he is in each of those cities.

• One of the biggest advertisers, who uses a Hollywood actor as a TV spokesman to portray him as a specialist in trucking litigation, appears in only one reported decision, losing a no-fault insurance case in 1992 while employed as an associate at a former firm. (No one in his firm has tried a trucking accident case, participates in the organizations of trucking trial attorneys, or has shown up at any of the national trucking litigation seminars where I have been a speaker.)

• Another big advertising firm appeared in five reported cases between 1997 and 2001, losing four out of five times, but has appeared in no reported cases since 2001.

• Yet another heavy advertiser, who has billboards and bus placards plastered as thick as they can stick all over the metro area, appears in just three reported court decisions, in 1983, 1986 and 1987. But the first of those doesn’t count because he wasn’t representing a client. He was unsuccessfully defending himself in a landlord’s dispossessory action.
Unfortunately, the United States Supreme Court has tied the hands of state bar organizations to effectively regulate lawyer advertising. The Bar can only prohibit “false or misleading” ads, and then only if someone files a grievance. Those who spend millions on TV ads and billboards, and who are better advertisers than lawyers, are skillful at staying just within the bounds of what they can get by with.
Federal courts have tied the hands of bar organizations to limit the sleaze and misrepresentation in lawyer advertising, on the basis of constitutional protection of commercial free speech. I am keeping an eye on federal litigation in other states challenging stricter rules to restrict misleading lawyer advertising. If the federal courts allow tighter definitions of what constitutes false and misleading advertising by lawyers, I expect Georgia would follow suit.

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New York City has agreed to a settlement in the long-running legal battle over abuses at Rikers Island, the country’s second-largest jail system, federal and city officials said on Monday.

The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio committed to a host of far-reaching reforms in the deal, including the appointment of a federal monitor, an expansive new policy restricting the use of force by guards against inmates and the installation of thousands of surveillance cameras at the jail complex, the office of the United States attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara, said in a court filing.

The agreement also includes a major focus on the safety and supervision of teenage inmates, which was the subject of a lengthy civil rights investigation by Mr. Bharara’s office.

“This comprehensive framework requires the city to implement sweeping operational changes to fix a broken system and dismantle a decades-long culture of violence,” Mr. Bharara said in a statement.

Mr. de Blasio, in a statement, said the city had “a moral imperative to ensure every New Yorker in this city’s care is treated with decency and respect.”

The settlement, which comes after months of negotiations, follows a decision by Mr. Bharara’s office in December to join an existing class-action lawsuit, Nunez v. City of New York, that had been brought by the Legal Aid Society and private law firms seeking broad changes at Rikers.

In August, Mr. Bharara’s office, after a two-and-a-half-year investigation, issued a blistering report that found rampant use of unnecessary and excessive force by correction officers against adolescent inmates and the widespread violation of their civil rights.

The New York Times first reported details of the expected settlement on Thursday.

The government’s seven-page filing on Monday in Federal District Court noted that the settlement would also include “robust requirements” for reporting the use of force by correction officers, the development of an “early warning” program to flag guards whose conduct may warrant corrective action, and the wearing of body cameras by guards in a pilot project.

The document said the monitor who will oversee and help to develop the reforms at Rikers is Steve J. Martin, a lawyer and national corrections expert who has been an expert witness and a court-appointed monitor in previous prison class-action lawsuits in New York City. He declined to comment on Monday.

In the court filing, Mr. Bharara’s office said it was also writing on behalf of the Legal Aid Society and the law firms Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady and Ropes & Gray, as well as for the city. The parties expect to be able to submit the agreement for approval by the court no later than July 1, the filing said.

Although the agreement was embraced wholeheartedly by Mr. de Blasio; Joseph Ponte, the city’s correction commissioner; and Zachary W. Carter, the city’s corporation counsel, the negotiations dragged out in recent weeks, to the point that Mr. Bharara publicly expressed frustration at their pace. He declared at a news conference this month that “every day that goes by where we don’t have enforceable and enduring reform at Rikers Island is one day too many.”

In one dispute, The Times reported, the city objected to a provision that would require the Department of Correction to notify the United States attorney’s office whenever it referred a potentially criminal use of force episode to the city’s Investigation Department. The filing on Monday indicates that the provision remains in the final deal.

In focusing on the treatment of young inmates, the agreement ends the use of punitive segregation for inmates under 18 as well as for 18-year-olds with serious mental illness, the filing says. Mr. Ponte has already imposed a series of reforms at Rikers, including, for example, ending solitary confinement for 16- and 17-year olds.

The filing says that the lawyers for the individual named plaintiffs in the Nunez class action had reached an agreement in principle with the city to resolve most of their individual damages cases, which are still subject to approval by their clients. The 11 plaintiffs, all men, said they had been beaten by correction officers at Rikers and two other city correction facilities, the lawsuit shows. A 12th plaintiff settled his case in December for $200,000, according to the Law Department.

Despite the current and pending reforms, the city is still struggling to get violence at Rikers under control. As recently as Monday, three inmates were slashed in gang-related attacks, prompting the department to take the unusual step of locking down the city’s entire correction system, including the 10 jails on Rikers Island and three borough jails, two officials with knowledge of the situation said on the condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak to the news media. The lockdown was still in effect on Monday evening.

One of the slashings occurred aboard a bus that was transporting inmates, the officials said. The extent of the inmates’ injuries was not immediately known.

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The U.S. Supreme Court recently addressed the roles of two entities that often have a substantial impact on the sentence actually served by a federal criminal defendant—state courts and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). District court judges have discretion to impose sentences that are either consecutive to or concurrent with a federal sentence that is being imposed at the same time or a federal or state sentence that was imposed earlier. But do district judges have that same discretion with respect to a sentence that has not yet been imposed? In Setser v. United States, No. 10-7387 (S.Ct. March 28, 2012), the Supreme Court answered that question in the affirmative, but with some practical qualification.

In a relatively common scenario, defendant was arrested on state drug charges while he was already on probation for another state drug offense. The state authorities charged the new offense and also moved to revoke defendant’s probation. Then the feds piled on, charging defendant based on the new offense conduct. The federal case came up for sentencing first, and the district court imposed a 151-month sentence—the top of defendant’s Sentencing Guidelines range. The judge ordered that this sentence be concurrent with defendant’s anticipated state court sentence on the new charge, but consecutive to the one to be imposed upon the revocation of his state court probation. While defendant’s appeal from his federal sentence was pending, the state court imposed a five-year term on the probation violation and a 10-year term on the new state charge, but complicated matters substantially by making those sentences concurrent with one another.

In his federal appeal defendant argued that district judges don’t have the discretion to impose sentences that run consecutively to a sentence that has not yet been imposed; according to defendant, in those situations it is the BOP that should make the call once the later sentence has been imposed, based on what would then be “complete information.” In the U.S. Supreme Court the government agreed, and the Court appointed a lawyer to argue in defense of the ruling below as amicus curiae. Although the government and defendant took the same position, they both lost . . . sort of.

Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion for a 6-3 majority finds him in full statutory construction mode. The Court first considered 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a), part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. That subsection addresses the imposition of sentences that are consecutive to or concurrent with those that are “imposed at the same time” or that a defendant is “already subject to.” Although the statute says nothing about future sentences, the Court declined to read that silence to imply any limitation on discretion, rejecting application of the hoary maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius. It also rejected defendant’s and the government’s argument that the consecutive-or-concurrent issue with respect to future sentences should be resolved by the BOP after the later sentence is imposed, when the BOP would have before it all the necessary information to carry out the federal sentencing court’s intent. The Court felt that doing so would allocate too much of the district court’s sentencing authority to the BOP, which is, after all, an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Court also considered defendant’s argument that his federal sentence had become impossible to administer once the state court imposed its subsequent sentences concurrently to each other. The Court seemed sympathetic to the notion that the state court had complicated things by imposing concurrent sentences based on distinct conduct, but held that this problem did not undermine the federal sentence, which was lawful at the time it was imposed. Importantly, though, the Court left defendant an out when it went on to suggest that he could still take up the issue with the BOP, “which ultimately has to determine how long the District Court’s sentence authorizes it to continue [defendant’s] confinement.”

The Court observed that defendant could ask the BOP to credit his time served on the concurrent state sentences, and that if the BOP refused he could pursue administrative review and ultimately seek a writ of habeas corpus (a proceeding that might, it should be noted, take place before the same federal judge that had sentenced him). In that way the Court recognized that problems could arise when a later-sentencing court does not get it, but pointed the way to allowing the BOP to make sure the federal sentence works as intended without limiting district court discretion up front. In the end, then, the issue could be left to the BOP after all—or possibly returned to the federal sentencing court.

Although the Court rejected defendant’s and the government’s position, it thus acknowledged that the BOP may have the last word anyway. Indeed, it is telling that both the government and defendant favored letting BOP decide how long defendant would actually serve. As most incarcerated defendants soon learn, once a sentence has been imposed, the BOP has far more to say about the place, conditions, and even the length of confinement, than the sentencing judge does. While judges can recommend a particular facility or admission into certain educational or rehabilitation programs, the BOP’s implementation of those recommendations is far from certain. Recent experience of federal criminal practitioners indicates, for example, that defendants are sent to, or even near, a federal institution recommended by the sentencing judge less than half the time.

Because it is the BOP that actually bears the responsibility of keeping and caring for more than 200,000 prisoners, and of doing so largely out of the public eye and within budgetary and constitutional constraints, it often brings a more practical perspective to a prisoner’s situation than do other branches and agencies of the government. The same might be said for state judges and correctional systems facing budget deficits. State prison populations have actually fallen in the past year in most states (although, oddly, not in Illinois, which finds its government teetering on default). Is this a tacit recognition that we cannot afford to keep so many in prison?

While lengthy sentences and mandatory minimums may be popular with elected officials, don’t be surprised to see additional discretion given to the BOP to allow for earlier release, along the lines of the early release programs some states have instituted to cut costs (though perhaps with a lower public profile). Setser did not on its face endorse a greater role for BOP, but the costs of keeping prisoners for historically lengthy sentences suggests it may well happen.

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