Thursday, July 12, 2012

Walkergate: Lawyerpalooza

After Tim Russell had his hearing yesterday, I thought I'd have a few days off from Walkergate, at least until next week when we find out whether Darlene Wink finally gets sentenced or if there will be another adjournment while the investigators glean more information from her.

I should have know better.  I should have listened to myself. After all, aren't I the one that always says when it comes to anything with Walker, there's more...there's always more?

And indeed, there is more.

Russell is headed back to court tomorrow. It turns out that he has a severe lawyer retention issue:
A new wrinkle in the embezzlement case against Timothy Russell, a former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker, surfaced Thursday that might mean a delay in his September trial.

Prosecutors disclosed that Russell’s lawyer, Dennis Krueger, had taken a job as a Fond du Lac County prosecutor. While that job doesn’t formally begin until July 30, Krueger was appointed prosecutor June 13 had already begun reviewing criminal case files, according to a letter by Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf.

"This development has obvious and potentially serious consequences for the orderly progression of this case," Landgraf wrote in a letter to the presiding judge in the Russell case, David Hansher.

Krueger didn’t return a call seeking comment on whether he would withdraw as Russell’s lawyer.

A court hearing on the issue was slated for Friday.
This article was written by Steve Schultze again. And par for the course, he got another wrong.

He identified Krueger as Russell's third attorney in the case. The fact is that Krueger is Russell's fourth attorney. Russell also had Attorneys Andrew Franklin and John A. Birdsall before Krueger. And from the time of questioning on, Russell has retained the services of Michael Maistelman - at least until yesterday.

If Krueger is unable to continue to represent Russell, his next attorney will be number five.

There's a couple of other things that the corporate media won't report on.

One, Russell has been trying to avoid the media spotlight. That's why he's OKed his attorneys to leak information. He wanted to move the heat onto Walker or anyone else to take the attention off of him. This must be driving him even battier than normal.

Secondly, and possibly more importantly, Russell has been going through money like crazy. These extra hearings won't be helping his already deplenished checkbook at all. Whether Krueger gets to remain on the case or he has to get a fifth attorney, I would think he'd be all the more eager to see if he could reach some sort of plea deal. If not to lower the charges against him and those he could still be facing, but just to stop the money hemorrhaging.

I dare say that the Fourth of July won't be the last of the fireworks we'll be seeing this year.

8 comments:

  1. I still can't believe all the rich guys that gave money to Walker won't come through to pay for a lawyer for Russell. Does that mean they are trying to pin everything on him? You would think that somebody would get him a lawyer just to be sure he keeps quiet. His lawyers keep leaving, is it because they can see he is going to take the blame?

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    1. "You would think that somebody would get him a lawyer just to be sure he keeps quiet."

      Read the criminal complaint (warning disturbing content) against Brian Pierick which might explain why no one is ready to help either Pierick or Tim Russell.

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    2. So, do you take Krueger leaving for another job as him not being ready to help?

      I want to know how this works. When somebody hires a lawyer, don't they read the case and give them some sort of hourly estimate of how much it will cost?

      These lawyers must have known more or less what the case against Russell was about. Why represent him for awhile and then drop him, as they seem to be doing?

      Did he have to get the Maistleman because no Republican-affiliated lawyers would touch his case?

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  2. And then, if the Republicans don't want Russell to talk, why don't they hire him a lawyer?

    I take it that this means everything will be pinned on Russell, either IS the head guy or the Republicans are making him be the fall guy.

    Of course, there is probably a bunch of stuff I don't know about the case.

    If anyone wants to explain to me why I am on the right track or the wrong track in my thinking, I would appreciate it. Maybe I am missing something.

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  3. Never mind. I read the report.

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  4. Lets face it his first attorney is just a hack and it's gone downhill from there. Who ever is advising Russell is doing him a great harm. 5 attorneys! Maistelman get's himself named as a "person of interest" and on and on. Hey Capper still think Maistelman is such a great guy, I mean he leaked info to his buddy Sykes right.....

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    1. Maistelman is a "person of interest" because of what they suspect he knows, not because of what he's done. And he rubbed Sykes' face in the fact that Team Walker is corrupt as all hell. And you think that's bad? Apparently you're nothing more than a RWNJ troll.

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  5. I think Capper addressed that issue in this very column. He says that Sykes already knew that, everyone did who read this column. Maistelman did that to taunt Sykes.

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