Fed Prosecutors respond to misconduct allegations in Vang Pao case

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Web search powered by YAHOO! SEARCH sacbee.com Web 5-Day Weather | Traffic 51° F Vang Pao is a Hmong leader in the United States who fought communists in the Vietnam War. More Information Defense claims U.S. fabricated case alleging Lao coup plot Feds' Laos plot case full of lies, defense lawyer says Case of alleged Laos coup planners makes brief return to court Latest News Comments (2) | Recommend (0) | Print Federal prosecutors respond to misconduct allegations in Vang Pao case ShareThis By Denny Walsh dwa...@sacbee.com Published: Monday, Apr. 6, 2009 - 1:47 pm SACRAMENTO -- Federal prosecutors fired back Monday in response to a motion that seeks dismissal of charges against 11 men accused of plotting the violent overthrow of the communist regime in Laos. The motion by defense lawyers alleged government misconduct. Monday's response declared: The defendants have "failed to demonstrate that law enforcement agents or prosecutors in this case engaged in any sort of misconduct, much less conduct that would violate due process standards." It accused defense lawyers of "'cherry pick(ing)' a series of seemingly supportive facts from the record (frequently out of context), omit(ing) other pertinent non-supportive facts, and then blithely alleg(ing) that the government 'concocted' its entire case, lied repeatedly to judicial officers...., and otherwise committed outrageous....conduct." In March, defense attorneys alleged that that agents and prosecutors fabricated a case against the men, including Gen. Vang Pao and retired Army Lt. Col. Harrison Jack of Woodland, and that the dishonesty of the charges is revealed in hundreds of pages of reports and dozens of hours of wiretap recordings turned over to the defense team by prosecutors. Vang, 79, is a leader of the Hmong community in the United States. Under the guidance of the CIA, he led a guerrilla army during the Vietnam War. A number of Hmong who fought under him are defendants. The case dates back to 2007. ShareThis Comment Guidelines Dear Readers, Thank you for coming to sacbee.com. We welcome your participation in our commenting boards and forums, but we ask that you follow a few simple rules to keep the boards open and the discourse civil. We reserve the right to delete comments that contain inappropriate links, obscenities or vulgarities, spam, hate speech, personal attacks, plagiarism or copyright violations. You can help notify us of potential abuses by flagging comments that you find offensive. Action will be taken against users who repeatedly or flagrantly violate the rules. Keep it clean and you should have no problems. Add a comment (max 1000 characters) Comments: 2      Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first csr4452 wrote on 04/07/2009 07:04:35 AM: "It accused defense lawyers of "'cherry pick(ing)' a series of seemingly supportive facts from the record (frequently out of context), omit(ing) other pertinent non-supportive facts." Sounds like the prosecution is accusing the defense of using the same methods the prosecutors often use in making closing argument to the jury. Recommend (0) Report abuse corruptpigs wrote on 04/07/2009 02:28:01 AM: throw those crooked prosecutors in prison starting with mcgregor scott. These guys cover their own crimes, but have no problem doing political dirty work to have job security. Sen. Ted Stevens got his conviction tossed due to scummy prosecutors, trust me the sac office is the dirtiest. Recommend (0) Report abuse More comments on this story: 1 @Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@: @Nyx.CommentBody@ @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@