How The DOJ Got Luitgard Fischer

One of the most sympathetic prosecution witnesses is Luitgard Fischer, a German citizen who was a finance director in EBS. John Kroger had his sites on her, but before he could make his move and indict, she got spooked with the threat of deportation and came forward. Kroger discusses this in his autobiography:

There is just so much evil packed into these paragraphs, it is difficult to believe that he had the audacity to publish it. I’m curious why the ETF was not interested in prosecuting low-level executives/employees. Surely if they were guilty, they should go to prison, right? But it isn’t true anyway. Look at Lea Fastow, William Fuhs, Chris Calger, Sheila Kahanek, and Michael Krautz. None of them were hugely powerful inside Enron (or Merrill Lynch, respectively.)

Furthermore, I find it amusing in an ironic way that Kroger would be shocked that people who might be under his microscope would do some research of their own. He calls it “creepy.” I wonder if he thought it was creepy when FBI agents took photographs of Joe Hirko’s house without a search warrant. Does he think it is creepy at all to publish a book in which he says he chose to come aboard the Enron Task Force because he was craving power after his girlfriend left him for another man. In fact, he even says that he was stalking her toward the end of their relationship; was that creepy at all? I think Luitgard’s googling of the “Professor” (hahahah) is completely and totally rational.

Luitgard Fischer testified that Project Braveheart – the project with Blockbuster – was fraudulent because Enron guaranteed a partner, nCube, a profit with no risk.Had such a promise been offered, it would have violated accounting rules (incidentally, it would have been a duplicate of the Nigerian Barge Deal – but with video on demand instead of electricity barges.)

“This transaction was based on accounting rules that I feel we violated,” said Fischer. She blamed Michael Krautz and her boss, Kevin Howard, for issuing promises to nCube. The jury disagreed; Michael Krautz was acquitted and Kevin Howard went to trial two times. Finally he accepted a plea deal to make it go away.

It was certainly not quite the slam dunk that Kroger had hoped.

John Kroger Quits Public Life; Public Rejoices

John Kroger announced that he will finish his term as Oregon attorney general, but will retire from public as soon as it is completed. Kroger stated that due to a “significant but not life-threatening medical condition” he will not run for re-election. He offered no specifics about his illness, saying only that it will not prevent him from completing his current term but requires that he reduce his hours, travel less and tend more to his health.

The Oregon Live website all but devotes its eternal love to the beleaguered AG, but does admit a few “missteps”, including this one:

Kroger’s announcement also comes the day after he took “full responsibility” for the Justice Department’s mishandling of four boxes of evidence believed lost from a 1998 triple murder case. The evidence was recently found in the offices of the Justice Department’s trial division, too late to keep Philip Scott Cannon incarcerated for the murders of a man and two women in rural Polk County in 1998. Cannon was released in 2009 because of the lost and discredited evidence.

How lovely.

I have a point that might add color and depth to this discussion. I recently spoke to a person who said he/she was in possession of certain photographs which show Mr. Kroger in a compromised position. This person contacted me and asked if I wanted them. I stated I most certainly did. I am on the record stating that John Kroger is not fit for public life, and such images would help prove my case. Despite our conversation, I have not received any such photographs. I have come to believe that these photographs might exist but are not in my contact’s hands, or that this person is frightened of the photos being traced back to him/her. In any case, I do find the timing somewhat peculiar. If they do exist and come out in the near future, I will believe that Mr. Kroger is faking his illness in order to procure sympathy before a sex scandal topples him. If no photos ever show up, I will assume that Mr. Kroger is ill and wish him a long and happy life – outside of public life.

John Kroger Seeks Second Term As Oregon AG

John Kroger has announced his intention to seek a second term as Oregon Attorney General. The Democrat, a former federal prosecutor responsible for bringing indictments against the Enron Broadband Services defendants, boasts a 95% conviction rate in actions by the Criminal Justice Division.

Meanwhile, the Oregon State Bar has imposed a 30-day suspension on a former top aide Mr. Kroger for Brent Foster’s actions in a Hood River pollution case.

The 39-year-old Foster resigned as John Kroger’s special counsel for environmental matters in April 2010 after admitting that he untruthfully denied taking a water quality sample to support a criminal case against the owner of Hood River Juice.

The bar’s stipulated order says Foster “sought to avoid any political consequences” by denying his involvement to state Department of Justice officials.

The order noted he had no disciplinary record and made “timely good faith efforts to rectify the misconduct.”

Amanda’s Affair

In his memoirs, Convictions, John Kroger describes how he became obsessed when his girlfriend, Amanda, began cheating on him with another attorney.

Infidelity is never funny or okay. Except when it totally is and in this case, I hope Amanda was getting properly fucked two to four times a day. I hope she missed meetings to fuck him, sent him sexy texts when he wasn’t bending her over the finely-crafted Italian sofa John paid for, and had phone sex while John was taking a shower in the other room. I hope she didn’t even bother to shower off the evidence after writhing under loverboy from noon till four, then sharing a pizza naked wrapped up in the sheets, drinking wine, then fucking some more. I hope she was hot like lava all the fucking time until John came into her range of vision and her vagina closed up like a bank vault. I hope she mentally compared their sizes and reflected on the fact that the last time she’d seen John naked, his tiny zipper weasel hung there like a windsock in the basement while loverboy wore cock slings that made him look like he was smuggling an overfed housecat. I hope she took his phone calls while her boyfriend went down on her. I hope she fed John intentionally ridiculous lies about where she was and what she was doing, to prove to herself he was stupid. I hope Amanda felt no guilt or shame or even concern about fucking the other guy, and I hope she tortured him with it.

And John cried like a little fucking bitch.

Are Kroger’s Hardball Tactics Over The Line?

I think so, of course, but the question is now arising from others.

Last week was an interesting one for Oregon’s Department of Justice. On Tuesday, Attorney General John Kroger appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the right of a school district and police to pull a 9-year-old schoolgirl out of class and interrogate her for two hours, without the knowledge of her parents or a lawyer present, leading her to make false charges of sexual abuse against her father.

This leopard is never going to change his spots. He did pretty much the same thing with defendants in the Enron case – though, of course, the circumstances were different. He would corner witnesses and “urge” them to testify against defendants. If they remained strong and refused, he found a reason to indict them. Thus, his unindicted co-conspirator list was basically a hit list of people he wanted to destroy.

By all means, please check out both the above links. It is time to make it common knowledge that John Kroger is lawless and abusive and should be disbarred.

The John Kroger Craigslist Ad

In February, Representative Chris Lee (R-NY) was caught trolling for women on Craigslist. The picture that he sent his potential paramour was so embarrassingly textbook:

Dude flexing into a mirror. Ladies and gents, there is your definition of a douche. But anyway, I can’t get this picture out of my head because he looks a lot like John Kroger to me, with a huge stipulation that whatever Chris Lee’s failings as a husband and a decent human being, his body is about a thousand times hotter than John Kroger’s. Still, I can absolutely see John Kroger doing something like this, and worse, I can actually visualize, quite easily, him sending pretty much this exact picture.

The fact that John Kroger is utterly lacking in sex appeal is ironically the reason I can see it. I think most women see him as gravel. Or shoe-gum. He probably senses this. After all, though I think he’s an intellectual lightweight, he’s gotta have the IQ of a mollusk, at least. Though he’s married, I get the feeling vows don’t mean much to him. He’d be the type to go to a hooker or try to set something up through Craigslist. This would be his ad:

Sexy Classy Guy For Discreet Lady

Insanely aggressive, territorial d-bag in search of a timid lady with no self-esteem who I can fuck and then indict on any charge I can find (I once indicted someone for littering during Mardi Gras. That was fun.) I do not have supersized genitalia, washboard abs or hyperactive stamina, but I can provide you with a picture of my penis.

You should be waxed like a barbie doll and a deep-throating goddess.

I am not all about sex, however. I am amenable to post-coital readings of Dave Barry and I can teach your cat how to walk on a leash.

Serious inquiries only.

Having “Something On The Boards”

John Kroger is a mean, small, ignorant and arrogant little man who cares nothing about the US Constitution or the rights of individuals he targets. He pretty much admits it in this passage from his book, Convictions. Notice he never mentions justice, or the so-called “Enron victims” or anything else. Just his own desire to “get something on the boards.”

Lea Fastow and Blackstone’s Ratio

Perhaps you are familiar with Blackstone’s ratio, the principle that that “it is better ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”. Other great minds have uttered similar statements and it is consecrated in our culture as a fundamental truth. Guilty men can go free and might harm again (OJ Simpson springs to mind) but an innocent man in prison is an atrocity that as a culture and a civilized people, we can not tolerate.

It was Blackstone’s ratio that I thought of when I saw this snippet from John Kroger’s book, Convictions:

Lea Fastow wouldn’t have had to go to prison if her husband had talked. The mind reels.

Marriage is a sacred institution but no union can make one’s punishment or rewards transferable. In other words, just because we are married, we are still individuals. Lea’s guilt or innocence has nothing to do with Andy Fastow, who had to consider his own well-being. And likewise, Andy should not have been in the position of choosing between a longer sentence for himself vs. a shorter sentence for his wife.

This statement by John Kroger is nothing less than inhuman.

Lea Fastow was a mother with two young children. The only thing she did was sign a tax return. For the government to take a mother from her children as punishment for her husband not talking – regardless of her innocence, as Kroger concedes here – is truly monstrous. If they will do this, they will do anything.

I find it fascinating that the title of Kroger’s book is Convictions. I realize the double meaning – a firm belief and a formal declaration of guilt. But Kroger doesn’t spend any time in the book examining what his convictions are. Indeed, he only relishes the discussion of sending people to prison, and the various machinations to get them there. Based on hundreds of interviews, and his own words, I believe John Kroger is a sociopath and a tyrant as evil as Pol Pot, dressed up like a law professor. He thirsts for power, specifically generated by others’ defeat.

The men he’s attacked are strong, and they’ve managed to survive. But an innocent mother taken from her children? How could he be so cruel?

John Kroger Is Disappointing His Coworkers

This OregonLive article reveals that John Kroger’s leadership skills as AG in Oregon are less that sterling.

But now, his own staff was giving him low marks.

“The front office is more interested in good publicity than quality of legal work,” wrote one assistant attorney general in an unprecedented survey of Justice Department lawyers.

“The advent of John Kroger was at first invigorating, but now dispiriting,” wrote another, lamenting low morale.

Kroger, affable yet resolved, was taken aback by the in-house criticism, which his office released to The Oregonian under open-records laws.

“I was kind of depressed. … A lot of it was my own fault,” Kroger said, acknowledging failures to adequately explain departmental changes to his staff as he centralized decision making previously spread throughout the agency’s various divisions.

As his first months unfolded, he lost key people, sometimes in controversial ways. He went after corrupt public officials but cut deals that later were questioned as something never done before at the Justice Department [I am sure Ken Rice, Kevin Hannon, and Joe Hirko can fill in the citizens of Oregon about his nasty "deals" -- CE.] He got money for his favorite projects but watched legislators whittle away at one of the agency’s most crucial tasks — defending criminal convictions.

Poor John Kroger. He’s the little prosecutor who couldn’t.

Googlelicious: Searching The Enron Task Force

I am pleased that I’m on the front page of several of the ETF’s google results. It warms my cold, cold heart. Or it would if I had a heart.

I have to say I’m more than a little amused that google picked up my break up letter instead of any of the other Berkowitz posts. But that’s just as well, I think. I rather like having that as the fourth link.

Krogerwatch

A few days ago I posted a note that I received from someone asking about John Kroger. Victoria Taft is the author of said note and she’s not happy with Kroger. Her blog is mostly political, but it is nice to know that others are watching John Kroger’s descent into insanity as closely as I.

John Kroger As Attorney General: Tyrant Untethered

I received an email a few days ago (which I still need to respond to!) about John Kroger, former Enron Task Force prosecutor and current Portland Attorney General. I think the author is discovering what I learned when Kroger indicted the EBS defendants: he is a power-hungry madman who needs to be stopped. He is reckless with the power bestowed upon him, using it to punish people who disagree with his worldview. I used to call him the Lesser Prosecutor because he was constantly whining about wanting more power, needing to flex his power, blah blah blah. Well, he flexed his power over the Enron defendants, and now he’s flexing his power over the people of Oregon.

I thought I would post the note here:

The guy moves to Oregon to teach law, writes his book telling what a fabulous lawyer he was in another state, decides to run for office, wins (!?), and demonstrates himself to be one of the most hyperpolitical AG’s we’ve ever had. I mean, he INFUSES his office with politics.

A) His aim is to beef up his investigation of environmental crime. That’s right, go after companies that commit environmental crimes. That’s his priority. We are a hub of child prostitution and we’ve got Mexican drug cartels carving up the national forests to put in their marijuana grows. Does he go after them? Oh, no!

B) One of his first hires to beef up his environmental agenda is the head of a far left environmentalist group. He was on the record as being against Liquified Natural Gas and, in fact, was lawyering on behalf of his environmental group against it. Kroger got the governor to give the lawyer an ethics waiver. Together they have been running a political campaign against LNG out of the AG’s office. When a little lady who runs a blog in the middle of nowhere found out about the waiver and everything else she put out the story. The lawyer was gone and Kroger has been hiding.

C) Portland’s mayor admits having sex with an 18 year old teenager, but had been grooming him for months before (if not having sex). The Mayor’s attorney pays a late night call (11pm) to the teen and, over a period of hours, coerces the kid into signing an affidavit which says they didn’t have sex before he turned 18. Kroger cites difference between the document and the real story the kid tells the media as the reason he can’t bring charges against the pervert. The lawyer later loses a judgeship, which was surely his before this incident, because of the unethical nature of getting that affidavit. The “ethics” of the document is never commented upon by Kroger. He will investigate the far left, gay, pedophile mayor no further. A recall of the mayor fails due to their being no charges. The mayor doesn’t have class enough to resign. Odd, isn’t it, that a guy who will seek out wrong doing or supposed wrong doing by any other party–especially evil polluters–isn’t the least bit curious about the back story and rights of a teenager predated upon and wronged by a mayor?

D) Attends a rally by SEIU in favor of government health care. It just seems odd that a guy who’s the top law enforcement officer chooses to spend his time politically advocating for socialized medicine. His right, but just the same, odd.

E) When 20 + other AG’s decide to fight Obamacare due to the unfunded state medicaid mandates, 10th amendment concerns, individual mandate I ask Kroger if he’ll join. Instead, he issues a press release saying he thinks socialized medicine is such a great idea, he’ll use taxpayer funds to write an amicus brief in favor. Even when his side gets its way Kroger has to go in for the political kill.

John Kroger’s Crushing Insecurity

In John Kroger’s book, Convictions, he writes about his girlfriend, Amanda, who cheated on him with another prosecutor in New York. He describes some rather stalkerish behavior, and his sudden impotent feeling of powerlessness, his horror at being “just another civilian”. I think this is instructive.

I Am John Kroger

I wake up annoyed. It takes a moment to figure out why. My anger is a moving object; there is an assemblage of annoyances, peeves, issues that orbit my existence and require my examination. On this day, my thoughts immediately skid into Enron Broadband Services. I actually have no animus toward the executives themselves. My issue today is with my own group, the Enron Task Force. I fear others are making more progress than I am. They are more accomplished than I am. They have better jobs. Sean Berkowitz, a big world-smasher, has the glam job of prosecuting Skilling and Lay. My job is to flush Ken Rice to him so Rice can finger Skilling. My job is important. Maybe the most important. But I don’t get the credit I deserve. Berkowitz gets the credit. Or Kathy Reummler. She’s hot. I’d love to do her. Arrogant, bitchy. She sort of treats me like an errand boy. I fucking hate her, but I’d totally do her. I’d shut her up by sticking my dick in her mouth. Everyone else is doing it, why not.

You read the Houston Chronicle or the New York Times or so-and-so and what you never see my name. I’m doing something important and nobody fucking cares. I’m hanging those Broadband guys. I’m gonna hang em. Imagine it. Being Jeff Skilling and Ken Rice and thinking you can build a whole company that’s basically just smoke and mirrors. Of course they say it is a real thing. They try to explain the tech but I’m smart enough to cut them off. I’m a lawyer. I’m not a technology guy. So I just turn off when they start talking EIN this and BOS that. Instead, I find the guys on the floor. The badly compensated schmoes, the ones with a grievance. They’re the ones I talk to. Those guys, those are the ones who will put away the Broadband guys. I have to do it fast though. That’s the thing. If I wait too long, Berkowitz is gonna beat us to indict, and to get convictions. If that happens, my name will never appear in the papers, even if I get convictions against all seven of the Broadband execs because Berkowitz’s win will overshadow it.

I can’t let that happen. I have to move. I have to get scalps on the boards. I write the indictments with broad, general language. No real specifics. Cast a net and see what comes back. I have to get Ken Rice to plead guilty so he will talk about Jeff Skilling. I have to win.

My ex girlfriend, Amanda will see me differently. Amanda cheated on me. Amanda is the reason I took this job… well, part of the reason. She cheated on me with another attorney in the New York Prosecutor’s office. She knows how badly she hurt me because I told her. Horrible, sobbing phone calls in which she said she’s happier now. “I love him,” she said. As if that would excuse anything! As if she hadn’t loved me. But I guess she loved him more. That’s the key word she omitted, “more”. Word games. After she left, I was devastated. It’s one thing when your girlfriend leaves you. It’s something else when she cheats on you and publicly humiliates you. In a way, I thank her now. Because she destroyed me. She gave me something to work for – myself, my honor. When they offered me this job at the ETF, I took it because I needed to taste my own personal power again. I needed respect, which had been denied me. Even now, the sound of her name fills me with rage.

A lot of things fill me with rage. Amanda. Sean Berkowitz. Kathy Ruemmler. Ken Rice. Only one thing makes me happy. The certainty that I will correct all that is wrong with my life when I succeed in convicting every single one of the people I indict. They will know my name. The papers will know my name. Sean Berkowitz will be forced to acknowledge that I achieved something faster than he could. He will have to admit I am instrumental in delivering Jeff Skilling to him. Kathy Ruemmler will give me the time of day. The Enron Task Force will give me the respect I deserve.

I am petty, small, and full of rage.

I am John Kroger.

John Kroger “Less Boring Than He Looks”

The faint praise of the interview headline notwithstanding, this conversation with the former Enron Broadband prosecutor left me with the impression that he’s not only evil, he really is boring:

MD: Could you give me an idea of some of the other alternative titles that were proposed? I’d be interested.

JK: I don’t remember…boy, it’s funny — I was thinking, just as you asked that first question I was thinking about the process of choosing the title and I don’t even remember. We had a working title for a long time, but I don’t remember what it was.

How about Tales of My Douchebaggery? That certainly would have been more honest.

Weirdly, he spends the longest amount of the interview time talking about Lea Fastow. He spends not even a sneeze on the Broadband Three, his so called “big fish”. Maybe he’s just embarrassed by the whole thing, though I doubt it. He doesn’t even have the conscience to be ashamed of what he’s done.