DOJ attorneys were laboring away over the holiday weekend as it filed (here) its response brief in the Lindsey Manufacturing prosecutorial misconduct motion to dismiss.
By way of review, in May (see here for the prior post), after a five week trial in federal court in the C.D. of California, a jury returned guilty verdicts against Lindsey Manufacturing and its executives Keith Lindsey and Steven Lee for conspiring to violate the FCPA and for violating the FCPA. During a June hearing on the Lindsey defendants’ motion to dismiss for prosecutorial misconduct, Judge Matz made comments suggesting that the DOJ’s only jury trial conviction of a corporate entity in FCPA history may be hanging by a thread. (See here for the prior post). Judge Matz invited the Lindsey defendants to file a supplemental brief, which they did in late July (see here for the prior post), and yesterday the DOJ filed its response brief.
The DOJ’s brief is 91 pages (the nature of the issues in dispute are highly factual) and states, in summary, as follows. “… [A]lthough the government did make some mistakes during its investigation and prosecution of this case, they were inadvertent and non-prejudicial errors made during a complex matter. The defendants not only unfairly and improperly characterize these honest mistakes as ‘misconduct,’ but the defendants often go even further, alleging misconduct where the government made no error at all.” The DOJ further stated as follows. “In short, the defendants stand fairly convicted, and the jury’s unanimous verdict is amply supported by the evidence and free of prejudicial error. Whether assessed individually or cumulatively, the defendants’ claim that ‘[e]very aspect of this case was infected by purposeful prosecutorial misconduct,’ … cannot withstand scrutiny and is simply not true.”
The Lindsey defendants have until September 26th to file their reply brief and a hearing on the motion is set for October 17th.
