watchpaul: Hedlund/Schectman/Vilica

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Hedlund/Schectman/Vilica

Looks like some new info on the Hedlund/Schectman/Vilica mess
◼ CalLaw Law.com Pot Lawyers Walk Fine Line (image source)
How even THIS story gets twisted into an anti-Bush, pro-Obama thing I don't quite get, but the article is interesting: The Recorder's Dan Levine writes that ...(Josh) Hedlund's indictment didn't put the brakes on his real estate deals, though. And when he embarked on a second, monster land acquisition in Humboldt County, he hooked up with attorney Steven Schectman....

According to prosecutors, Hedlund's agricultural land buys are part of his overall strategy to make money from marijuana: The developer secured thousands of acres from defunct timber companies, sold them to buyers with criminal histories, and cloaked the transactions with LLCs...

,,,Schectman, who keeps offices in Arcata and Los Angeles, is well known for representing pot dispensaries — he's led the fight against DEA pressure on landlords who rent to co-ops. But Schectman first made a name for himself in Humboldt County prosecuting environmental claims against the timber industry, and it was his credibility in this arena that Hedlund says he found valuable.

"We thought that Steve was especially qualified to deal with any timber-related litigation," Hedlund told The Recorder . "Steve's knowledge of the timber industry and local activists helped greatly."

In 2006, three months after Hedlund's indictment, he had Schectman establish Vilica LLC, according to corporate filings. That company then bought 7,600 acres in Humboldt County. Schectman became Vilica's president and chief legal officer, according to documents filed in court. Schectman, who once ran for district attorney in Humboldt County, wouldn't answer questions about his responsibilities as Vilica's president.

Vilica ran into problems with the authorities. In June 2007, the federal Bureau of Land Management received a complaint about a new gate wrongly installed on public land adjacent to a Vilica parcel. Rangers checked out the scene, where they met two of Vilica's property buyers operating heavy equipment, according to a BLM incident report....

...Beyond Vilica, Hedlund and Schectman's relationship is murky. In a letter to the federal probation office, Schectman said he took Hedlund under his wing as a paralegal and a clerk, and even tried to help him gain a State Bar apprenticeship.

However, after pleading guilty, Hedlund told the government that he had moved his office into Schectman's "to protect [my] documents from seizure by federal authorities," according to a DEA affidavit.

Hedlund entered his plea on Feb. 4, 2008, after preparing his holdings for forfeiture. On Feb. 3, Schectman resigned as Vilica's president. Hedlund's sentencing is scheduled for the end of this month; the government is seeking 63 months in prison.

Grade? Slightly informative, but more of a puff piece on the pot traders than anything else. There sure is a sh-i-ite load more info on these two boys. And walking a fine line? More like cheating the system. I'd expect California's Legal News Source to be a bit more about the law, since the structure of those LLCs and what people get away with is actually pretty interesting.

h/t: "heraldo"

Related:
◼ Assessor Parcel Information a 38 page pdf document
A million bucks in assets forfeited! AND his right to the 36 parcels, $5,803,000.00 + Eel River Saw Mill Vilica properties? Now that's a story! SO-O-O, if the property he is forfeiting was owned by Vilica LLC (president Steve Schectman), but sold (at least some of the parcels) to Paradise Palms LLC, who is out the money? Do the partners get to keep the property? How many partners are there? Are they all from this area? Who, then is going to pay for the abatements ordered by the Board of Supervisors? Sure it's the least of Hedlund's problems - does he go to jail?

◼ Mercury News - Man pleads guilty to massive pot growing, money laundering The Associated Press 02/04/2008
◼ sf gate - BERKELEY - 12 charged in raid of pot, guns, cash Saturday, May 13, 2006 - Twelve men face federal drug charges stemming from a Berkeley raid that netted 5,800 marijuana plants, a dozen weapons and $220,000 in cash.
◼ Guilty plea in Berkeley pot operation Man, 31, agrees to forfeit 7,000 acres
◼ Virtually identical article in SF Examiner Feb 5, 2008 8:22 AM (11 hrs ago) News Reports, AP
◼ Related post: Rules are for little people
◼ Related post: 36 parcels, $5,803,000.00 + ?

"If you get it by hook or by crook, you get a pass," My favorite Schectman quote

4 comments:

Anonymous2/12/2009 4:09 AM
I wonder what the State Bar would say about letting your crminal client store his documents in your law office? Kind of sounds like CONSPIRACY to me.

Seems like Stevie should join Josh in prison.
ReplyDelete
Replies
Rose2/12/2009 7:16 AM
By all accounts, not just 'criminal client' but criminal PARTNER client.

Steve "don't you know who I am, don't you know I'm friends with Paul and will ruin you' Schectman, the Recall-shill.

Steve 'didn't pay my "interns"' Schectman.

The kind of lawyer who gives lawyers a bad name, no?
ReplyDelete
Replies
Anonymous2/12/2009 8:57 AM
the kind of lawyer that gives lawyers a worse name.

Maybe Gallegos should start to investigate his buddy Steve????
ReplyDelete
Replies
Anonymous2/12/2009 3:02 PM
I think that Schectman would look very stylish in an orange jumpsuit.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Comments are closed for the time-being.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Paul Gallegos

The Humboldt County Grand Jury found that "Weak leadership and poor managerial practices" have undermined the office... Implicit in all evidence gathered by the Grand Jury - including interviews with the D.A. (Paul Gallegos) - is the unfortunate truth that the D.A. (Paul Gallegos) exhibits a limited understanding of how things are done in the department" Gallegos "lacks the global perspective needed to keep the department operating efficiently," and quotes an unnamed staff member as saying, "The D.A. (Paul Gallegos) does not fully understand the functionality of many of the things we do here" - Years later, in his own words: "I’m not an administrator, they didn’t elect me to be an administrator, they elected me to make sure this office runs..."

Douglas & Zanotti

CASE TOSSED The district attorney misrepresented the law and failed to provide evidence of former Eureka Police Chief David Douglas' and Lt. Tony Zanotti's innocence during a criminal grand jury inquiry into the 2006 shooting death of Cheri Lyn Moore, defense attorneys argued in court documents filed Thursday... ”Our judicial system stands as a real and necessary check on the grand jury indictment process,” one of the documents states. “This court has the authority and the means by which to halt this prosecution, which is justified neither by the undisputed facts, nor by the law.”

Gallegos has taken what was "arguably the state's best small DA's office, with a cutting edge CAST program that "trained the trainers"... into a bunch of time serving bureaucratic wannabee brown nosers, lightly sprinkled with a couple of earnest learners who are sure to split as soon as possible.

One weeps for Max Cardoza who won Angellel, and for Maggie Fleming who won so many impossible victories. Mired in Humboldt for personal reasons, they have to suffer the ignominy of working for Paul, with Yougo, yes, yougo who has freed more people as a prosecutor than he did as a defense attorney. As has Paul. Anonymous comment

Gallegos has answers for everything. I’ve never met anyone whose answers came so quickly, with such polish - except about his law school(s). He likely sounded the same way when promising to get prosecutors off their anachronistic “at will” status and onto civil service status. It never happened. Indeed, he told them, “Disloyalty will not be tolerated” – a real morale builder.

He sounds great. What progressive doesn’t want to believe in him? But it’s a myth. He’s an intellectual lightweight and self-aggrandizer who tries to please everybody with glib answers. Jim Fahey for The Arcata Eye

The Humboldt County DA's office is one of the most exciting prosecutorial
offices in California.

Its District Attorney, Paul Gallegos, is willing to charge anyone who commits
wrongdoing--no matter how wealthy, sacrosanct, or ruthless. He believes in total equality before the law. He also plans to be innovative in promoting programs of prevention and treatment. He wants to make it the best prosecutorial office of its size in the nation.... Gallegos' Help Wanted ad

Gallegos' OWN Quotes

★ ...District Attorney Paul Gallegos said he believes the statute of limitations clock, even on misdemeanors, doesn't start running until law enforcement knows or reasonably should have known of the offense. In this case, Gallegos said, that means the statute of limitations would not run out at least until Feb. 8, 2009, or one year after Gundersen's arrest and the discovery of the photographs in question...

★ "...some people actually molest out of different feelings, some times out of feelings of love....” DA Gallegos explaining why Child Abuse prosecutions were down

★ “I never said that the information was not available under the Freedom of Information Act. Quite the contrary, I informed you that our use of force policy is not a public record.” Paul Gallegos to the Times Standard 5/25/07

★ ...“One is that I do everything to make people happy which means I don’t stand for anything except for just something,” he said. “The other is I stand for something and I try to be a leader and take some people, a group of people, a community someplace and I say guess what folks, this is who I am. I stand for your beliefs. We share these beliefs or we don’t. You get the option to judge that. This is who I am and I am committed to leading us this place, wherever it is...." Eureka Reporter Gallegos defends record, looks ahead 7/3/2005

★ Note the difference between what he SAID, and what he DOES..."...So what are these issues? Top on Gallegos' list is the proliferation of "garbage cases," small-time crimes and overcharged cases that he said are clogging up the court system.

Garbage cases, said Gallegos, come in two forms: Cases that would lose if actually brought to trial and cases that are overcharged for the crimes committed. The idea behind filing both kinds of garbage, he said, is to get the defendant to plead guilty, netting a conviction without having to go into court.

Again, the IRONY is astounding! Look at what he SAYS, and then think about what he DOES! "Probably 95 percent of the cases that are filed plead guilty. In fact, there are a lot of cases that are filed on the assumption they will plead guilty, because of the time and expense involved in defending them. But these cases shouldn't even be filed in the first place, because if they were challenged, they would lose," Gallegos said. Better yet: If they weren't filed at all, it would save the county time and money...." North Coast Journal 2/21/02 Too bad he didn't take his own advice.

★ “Tim’s a stud,” he said. “He really is; anyone would be stoked to have him.” Gallegos on his second in command right hand man Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen. (Former second in command right hand man to Jim Jones/People's Temple.)

NOTE:

"Helping Crush Progressivism" - ie: exposing the predatory litigious orgs and those who seek power for power's sake.... The original purpose of watchpaul is to post important documents relating to Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos and his handlers who seek to gain power through the acquisition of political offices. This includes, but is not limited to, the manipulations of "Humboldt Watershed Council," "EPIC," "Baykeeper," and other activist groups - the unregulated orgs. It also includes the master manipulators, such as Richard Salzman and Ken Miller.

Links to key stories and documents are also included in the sidebar, so that you do not have to try to scroll back through what has become a lengthy series of posts. I encourage you to use the Search and Labels features as well.

Pages

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Hedlund/Schectman/Vilica

4 comments: