{"id":866,"date":"2019-04-11T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T08:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/?p=866"},"modified":"2019-10-23T22:13:31","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T22:13:31","slug":"prosecutorial-misconduct-in-the-case-of-former-congressman-rick-renzi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/2019\/04\/11\/prosecutorial-misconduct-in-the-case-of-former-congressman-rick-renzi\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Case of Former Congressman, Rick Renzi"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A formal complaint and request for investigation was filed with the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility within the Department of Justice on April 10, 2019 regarding misconduct committed by Gary Restaino, Esq., an Assistant United States Attorney in Arizona (\u201cAUSA Restaino\u201d), and Daniel Odom, a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (\u201cSA Odom\u201d). Factual Findings and Sanctions by the Court against these DOJ officials clearly established that the government deliberately and with foreknowledge repeatedly engaged in corrupt and illegal acts during the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Renzi, proving irrefutably that his trial was fundamentally unfair and that his convictions were fraudulently obtained and are without merit.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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  1. Fabricated Dossier\/\u201cOperation Eagle\u201d<\/b> \u2013 The government investigation was driven by a fabricated dossier procured by Resolution Copper Company (a foreign-owned mining company) President Bruno Hegner (a South African citizen) and Democratic lobbyist Ron Ober who together hired former FBI agent Jim Elroy to launch a covert plot which they code-named \u201cOperation Eagle\u201d to target Mr. Renzi in a blatant political \u201chit job.\u201d Although the allegations in the dossier were false, the scheme was handed off to the politically-driven AUSA Gary Restaino, a staunch partisan Democrat whose wife was Arizona\u2019s then-Governor Janet Napolitano\u2019s General Counsel.<\/li>\n
  2. Illegal Media Leaks and Electioneering<\/b> \u2013 In the weeks leading up to the 2006 mid-term election, DOJ officials intentionally leaked details of the grand jury\u2019s investigation of Mr. Renzi to Arizona and national media outlets, calculated to sabotage Mr. Renzi’s hopes for re-election.<\/li>\n
  3. Illegal Wire Taps of Mr. Renzi\u2019s Attorneys<\/b> \u2013 After an evidentiary hearing in 2008, the district court found that the government had deliberately and illegally recorded dozens of attorney-client privileged phone calls between Mr. Renzi and his counsel and had lied regarding the manner in which the calls were recorded.<\/li>\n
  4. Destruction of Evidence<\/b> \u2013 In order to cover up the illegal wiretap, SA Odom ordered the transcript of an illegally recorded call to be destroyed, falsely claiming it was done to \u201cprevent agents from being tainted by exposure to the privileged calls.\u201d However, another case agent kept a CD with a copy of this call in his unlocked desk throughout the investigation.<\/li>\n
  5. Witness Payoff Scheme<\/b> \u2013 The government repeatedly engaged in witness manipulation by inducing key witness, Phillip Aries, to make a monitored phone call to Mr. Renzi and to change his testimony to match the false narrative contained in \u201cOperation Eagle\u201d in exchange for a significant future payoff that Mr. Aries later claimed would be \u201clike winning the lottery.\u201d<\/li>\n
  6. Suppression of Exculpatory Evidence<\/b> \u2013 The government deliberately concealed and withheld exculpatory evidence provided by Mr. Aries regarding the nature and origins of a proposed land exchange underlying the criminal case, information that would have revealed Mr. Renzi\u2019s innocence.<\/li>\n
  7. Knowingly Sponsoring False Testimony to the Jury<\/b> \u2013 The government contrived and knowingly elicited false and misleading testimony from Mr. Aries while under oath and deliberately concealed from Mr. Renzi and the jury the offer of a future payoff to Mr. Aries in exchange for his false testimony.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We ask with all humility that you support our efforts by contacting the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility to demand a thorough and honest investigation of corruption and prosecutorial misconduct in Mr. Renzi\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

    Breaking News Story on thehill.com<\/a><\/p>\n

    Download the complete letter PDF<\/a><\/p>\n

    Press Release<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A formal complaint and request for investigation was filed with the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility within the Department of Justice on April 10, 2019 regarding misconduct committed by Gary Restaino, Esq., an Assistant United States Attorney in Arizona (\u201cAUSA Restaino\u201d), and Daniel Odom, a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[30,42,26,43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abuseofpower.org\/grid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}