Furthermore, Siegelman pointed out that Justice Department whistleblower Tamarah Grimes has repeatedly stepped forward to allege misconduct by her colleagues on the Siegelman prosecution team. Grimes, a Republican paralegal with a quarter century experience in legal support, began alleging years ago that the Republican U.S. Attorney Leura Canary remained active in overseeing Siegelman's prosecution despite Canary's public claims that she was recused from the case since 2002 because of her husband's longtime opposition to Siegelman, Alabama's top Democrat.
The paralegal was fired in June and cut off from health benefits a week after writing a 10-page letter to Attorney Gen. Eric Holder documenting the problems, as I reported for Huffington Post July and at greater length this month for the national paralegal magazine Know.
Meanwhile, Siegelman's co-defendant Richard Scrushy also filed 62-pages of legal arguments today. Scrushy, former HealthSouth CEO, underscored among other arguments the reprisal risks for the case's whistleblowers such as Grimes, who has twice been threatened by DoJ with criminal prosecution and who was sent a letter by DoJ this month with the inscription: ˜Legal Mail " Open Only In Presence of Inmate.
Also, Siegelman made his clearest call yet for recusal of Alabama Middle District Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller. Siegelman cited conflict of interest grounds stemming from Fuller's secret review of potential jury tampering without alerting the defense. The prosecution initiated an investigation of improper jury emails, and presented findings to the judge, who secretly ruled that no problem existed.
"If there was ever anything that smacked of the appearance of judicial impropriety, this was it, says Siegelman's filing. "It was also a screaming violation of due process to have secret investigations arranged by the Government and to conceal the results from the defense.
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