going to discuss the brady points and the rule or points about the failure to disclose one of the prosecutors involvement with the other defendant in the case of butch bellew and with her prior law firm and of course examination of any extraneous act by her during the trial and finally for her point finally time permitting on one to address i think the sentencing with the new case that i served on the court on friday now in this case what makes this case unique from the ordinary fraud is that mr lanier was a lawyer and everything that he is charged with doing is practicing  law throughout this case and and after lee's brief they describe liniers conduct as drafting various agreements resolving issues legitimate legal practice that that is correct now there's a side note that there was a little blip in his e mails and would stand articles that he saw relating to blue and  represent the lose the dignity to third party sin as that part of a legitimate law practice that is not part of a legitimate law practice but i don't think that was ever part of any of the transactions first of all mr the only time that lanier was around other parties was when he was on a boat off the board of the yard i think he made over the course of five or six years five or six trips down to mexico and there's no testimony about what was said during those trips or whether or not any discussions were had about any of this investment i think the fact that he was referring to blue is either john hill for or martin twin lady or anybody else only shows that lanier knew that billy was a fugitive and that's conceded we all knew that the lose a fugitive and lawyers have a right to represent fugitives it's not against the law to provide continued representation so long as you don't assist the fugitive from escaping justice points that i'm not arguing today but that i can which is assisting a federal fugitive and harboring but even so i cited cases in the brief the say that a lawyer may have a serious a client who is a fugitive may continue to provide representation so you keep get could give them tax advice on how to manage their money to avoid taxes or how about how to time but he needed a pardon ok yeah but before that he was he was on the run for a long time and had lawyers assisting him and i thought if and if you get to that point that gets into the aiding and abetting point blues huge so you've got to address first the criminal intent or if there was no intent to participate in a fraud if he was down there because the balloon needed legal assistance to being a lawyer in america i mean how does he if he's not living here he's not why is that american law is that a legitimate function of an american lawyer i you know i have no texas l we did not agree with this argument about that he wasn't part of the conspiracy but we did agree and this is just completely trying to figure out how this case what's that the venue was not proper for the partnering what happens in this case i'm sorry you say if you find that he did participate in that their evidence and you know you have a very performance of legal services there is nothing in there that indicated that lanier was where of and i can address specific points that were raised in the government's argument if he was legally prohibited in two thousand and three and i noticed that there were three things that balloon was specifically enjoying from he was enjoined from wine violating the securities act number two he was enjoined from violating the exchange act and number three he was enjoined from promoting securities now i'm not a securities lawyer i don't profess to be a securities lawyer and when securities law comes up my eyes often cross but there are ways to strength structure real estate transactions that don't make them promoting securities and if  has the talent and the skills and the ability to come down there and assist putting together real estate transactions without violating the injunction i don't think it's improper for him to render his services in that regard and i don't think that there is an automatic violation of judge atlases injunction it and i understand that that was a real big thing that was out there and one of the things the first jury question in this case is can we see the injunction and that was sent back but i don't think there's been any evidence that injunction was actually violated even by balut there's there's evidence that medder corporation once it got picked was transferred to a canadian name been s and i think that that was the majority of the losses at least from of the canadians in this case and then with respect to the other transaction the one involving aztec slash ultimate lifestyles i think if you look at the record if i'm not mistaken the fake names the the fake names were ballou was not showing up on the records as being  one an officer a director or a promoter i think he is name was showing up as a shareholder of some shares in the corporation and i think that he was dealing with he might have been dealing with some a person and in the lawyer drafted the agreements for this company i i'm going to have to get back to you on that one i'm just i'm totally drawing a blank on that maybe i'm confused  but i don't see bellew's name showing up in any of the documents that he prepared nor do you see and let me tell you what lanier did not do he did not permissive participate in promoting offering or selling he was he wasn't out there promoting offering or selling he wasn't talking to any investor he made no representations to anybody mess less miss less representations to any investor or potential investor he didn't participate in any business or investment decisions of any of the corporation or similar involved and he was paid strictly for his services he didn't receive any incentives based on the sale of any investment nor did he have a financial stake in the enterprise typically that's what one looks at when you look at somebody joining a conspiracy is an intent to participate in it it's kind of like a partnership you're going to dissipate it you're going to share in the proceeds that's not what happened in this case we haven't even talked about the fact that he perhaps thought he was doing something on the edge because the ask in i'm going to need more because i'm out here on the ed that's an odd thing to say if you don't realize that there's something wrong going on i think what you're referring to is the don't put a target on my back here's what's happened he came back and he saw that he was listed as general counsel for the corporation on the i've represented clients before and i don't mind showing up as outside counsel and providing outside services but i don't want to show up as an inside counsel because that indicates that i am a person in control of the corporation and it's a it's a real big difference from being listed as an inside counsel then being an outside cat will you save time for rebuttal but when you do come back for rebuttal related to that you've given  explanation but the jury could take the nefarious explanation to couldn't they they could but i think that would be conjecture and speculation morning hours and he's the court john read on behalf of the united states your honors i think judge all rod hit it right right on the head right at the end there the problem with opposing counsel is argument is that he fails to look at the evidence in the light most favorable accounts and promoting securities and putting deals together in order to defraud unsuspecting investors does it depend on whether we agree that this actually promoting securities is a matter of law helped him violate the injunction shows criminal intent as part of the conspiracy is in part of what you argued to the jury and through evidence and through argument that judge alice's injunction had been violated that's one thing to say in light of how this is going may put that on was barred he the client was barred from doing all this and here is the defendant lawyer swooping in and helping him violate the injunction and that's sort of the theory of that case as presented to the jury i don't disagree with that your honor that's that's correct that was that was the way the case was tried that so do we need them and sees me as a pretty weak support if we in fact don't think there's sufficient evidence to show he was promoting securities or whatever the other two features of the injunction were well pro as far as promoting securities i don't think you have to find that he was promoting securities as a matter of law if you find that lanier did help him to do things like defraud investors it wasn't just promoting securities it was structuring deals in a way that bolu benefited also by not disclosing his prior history his criminal convictions and his actual identity that was part of the  the fraud as well so it wasn't just that he promoted securities which i think he did i can go through some evidence if you're john wants to hear that and you know what i think you have to do is in the light most favorable to the government and the verdict look at what lanier knew it wasn't just that he knew he was a fugitive he was a fugitive and it's true everyone knew that but he was a fugitive from a fraud conviction for a stock manipulation scheme he was wanted by the f b i was on the most wanted list he had been enjoined permanently from promoting securities and he was accused by the f c c even after he became a fugitive of continuing to engage in stock manipulations and and there's evidence cited in the brief that lanier knew that fact as well despite that communications resumed between lanier and bellew in july of two thousand and six the measure transaction didn't used for selling one million shares of or stick restricted stock in easel if that's not promoting securities i'm not sure what the definition of promoting securities is in addition to to helping himself stock he gives him advice like don't after reviewing the easel marketing materials don't use words like investor return on investment because it's going to bring too much attention to you and this was around the same time that he's sending e mails that said with links to articles that he says don't open or are open this only alone or with garza and the link is to an article that says the f b i is searching for you in panama so the f searching for you in panama and oh by the way don't use words like investment because that's going to draw too much attention to reader tell me the usual honest to make of what you're saying is that primarily on the harboring aspect or is it going to criminal that goes to criminal intent but it also does show harboring as well but i would i would suggest that the only the only issue as to harboring is whether venue is sufficient that's the only thing that's letters or s all that if you guys in the briefings i was winning on was just him and in and legal real estate ventures down wherever he was located well if it if they were legal real estate ventures they didn't violate the injunction that did not violate the injunction and they were  fully disclosed to the potential investors that is believed background and blues real name i would have a hard time saying that a lawyer couldn't do that just because he was a fugitive but that's assuming that all of the actions were legitimate and they weren't i don't see any dispute from the other side that what bellew did was a fraud we're only arguing about lanier's intent in participating in the fraud i think it's a given that bellew is committing a fraud at least  for our purposes of this case they have not contended otherwise that anything believed did was legitimate so to the extent that lanier facilitated bellew's ability to commit that fraud and the fact that he's a lawyer is completely irrelevant and it actually was important to his role in the scheme that he was a lawyer because later on when we got to sentencing and as judge rosenthal found his use to give that advice is to help someone not violate an injunction isn't it so that's a helpful positive role except that he's saying don't use those terms because they're going to draw more attention to you not because  additional role with the take the other side contends that that's all he did was online to stock a transaction involving many but from the get go lanier was negotiating with a maryland attorney who was representing the folks on the other side of that and he lies to him the other attorney about the identity of his client and he refers to billoo as john gel which he knows is a fake name he also refers lied to he lied to gays then he lied to lynn bolduc who was a compliance regulatory attorney out in california that he recruited to work on the ultimate lifestyle deal referred to who as twining told to testify that had she known his real identity she wouldn't have been involved in this and again this is all well to give the appearance of legitimacy to blues endeavors is it correct know that i think you can infer that he did it based on the totality of the circumstances and his so he's preparing what reports to be a legitimate legal document for people to rely on that relies on something that he knows it's that's  areas he was if not wasn't the sole attorney but he was the principal attorney that that blue keeps running all these documents by saying hey review this let me know what you know what you think about this and so  prepared documents but then he also reviewed and edited many other documents including getting back to promoting securities stock subscription agreements and stock option agreements related to easel and he admitted in his own testimony that he knew they were trying to blues trying to package stock options related to the property but you know he gave an explanation for why he thought that was that was ok but the jury didn't have to believe his own explanation as to read  colleague may want to get back to that but my provider's commission i'd like to ask you specifically about count sixteen and seventeen s are and the venue issue that arises from there but let me start with the ramifications question if two i don't remember how this impacted sentence we were a long way from doing this speculating that we might do that saving you was improper on the harboring what happens to this and the sentence on counts twenty two are shooting sixteen and seventeen was twenty two months just rosenthal ordered that to run concurrently with the two hundred four month sentence on the remaining count has any impact it has it has no impact on the total term of imprisonment but if you were to find venue was improper i agree with what opposing counsel said those convictions would be vacated or to merely kaito you can vacate them then what do we have to read no and the reason is because the only lasting effect would be the one hundred dollar assessments that would remain with respect to those counts this court can modify the judgement to vacate the convict vacate the convictions but also vacate the  one hundred dollars special session it's been judged southwick did just that in a case called united states versus thomas from twenty fourteen i pods i don't have the cite for that why do ok i could when you know what i'm talking about i could have been wrong and judge southwick you ruled when you found that harboring convictions were i don't think it was a venue question but it was sufficiency and you vacated those counts and also modified the judgment to remove the one hundred dollars special segment and this court affirmed the judgment as modified so you know if i lose on that you do not have to send it back but of course i don't think i lose on on family why you shouldn't lose on that get back to the hearing the judge rosenthal had on this and you've made it seems to be the same argument in front of her or the government presented the same five or six out on the same arguments as as to how this fit and her response in agreeing with you is to reject that you ought to look at the e mail any particular ones in an isolation that is almost a continuation and this is not the kind of cleancut harboring of of helping somebody hide physically it was something else going on i don't quite know what she meant by that was she time do you take her ruling to be tying the actions lead support of a conspiracy to support the new i think  well the the answer is that the actions serve dual purposes because of the nature of the of this offense lanier's actions did harbor ballou but they also furthered the conspiracy because i mean let me put it this way lanier could have helped bellew without harboring him he could've just prepared you know various various documents but he was involved in documents that also used force names and and that's the i think main point as to harboring is that it allowed him to operate under these false names and that's what allowed him to remain undetected and remember  a notorious character and some of the family investors testified that they googled the name john gell didn't find anything so they went ahead invested but had they googled blue you know the game would have been years actions in any actions that lanier took that were continuation of his efforts to assist bellew in remaining undetected by using false names should be sufficient to establish venue if those acts occurred in the southern district of texas and they were continue and my argument is that the acts the physical acts that he took here in houston were continuations of what he what he did elsewhere primers oh you also have the phone call for yes most numerous things are yes else you also have a phone call yes and i don't know all the technology but there certainly is a challenge that has some resonance with me that technology doesn't work the way the government says and we don't have a jack records and they show that the proxy host which is the server was designated as houston so under pondering so the evidence when balu was calling the houston based number it was a two a one in a seven one three area code which is houston the call  being sent here and then it was being routed to wherever bellew happened to be so our contention is that's a physical act that occurs in the southern district of texas to the phone call itself and again as you put as your are pointed out but if the court is uncomfortable with the phone calls you can look at it look at actual documents that were falsely notarized in the southern district of texas and that's the you discussed in the brief an aztec corp document was fraudulent we notarized in the southern district of texas we know that from the face of the document stamped by a harris county notary it was notarized without a signature the signature that was added later was the false name lucy ito which was the alias of bellew's wife ito or someone acting as ito sends these documents yes judge via email to near lanier also received them separately from two other email accounts one from garz and one from ballou but the email that yto sends these documents were transmitted by ito to the stock transfer agent and in that email she says our legal counsel pat linear will be in touch with your attorney so that connects these documents to linear and we know that he actually did physically receive them because they were sent to him but we also know that lanier was in contact with the stock transfer agent on multiple occasions in an effort to clear up the relationship between aztec corporation and its stock transfer agent and that was necessary in order for as to corporation to become ultimate lifestyle and begin trading and so what we have is blue maintaining a corporation under the false name itto which was his wife or his wife's alias and we have lanier associating with that and taking actions which the court could find was aiding and abetting a physical act the notarization that occurred here in houston and this is why judge rosenthal said this was not a typical harboring case but rather lanier's actions were multi step you've got to you have to follow the chain and granted it's a long one in finding hard is that ultimately get back the conspiracy and wire fraud counts venue not being challenged by the other side but also proper because there was evidence that balloon of course came from houston and one of the wires one of the victims was paul hudson who wired money from the woodlands texas which is located here in the southern district of texas also so venue is proper here and so the harboring counts were added on as well thank you thank you and you can give an extra minute because they had an extra minute before i get into the the e mail the exposure e mail i want to make one comment about alternate lifestyle that was the situation where if i was all east all and to try going to merge their interests in tubes was going to be the person running ultimate lifestyle and one of the legal acts that when your dad was he referred ultimate lifestyle to lynn bolduc an attorney i believe in california who is going to do the due diligence with respect to that leader whatever name he chose to use there is a danger when you look at evidence and you take it out of context i think of the my favorite movie is my cousin danny where the cousin  robbery or shoplifting and says no you killed him and he said i killed a man and then the police officer testifies the trial he said i killed a man and it's all relating to the tone this relating to the context and when you look at what they refer to as the exposure e mail i keep coming back to this and i think this is where you might have left off was that he didn't want the exposure of being a general council and baloo had a habit of bringing people into these deals that they don't really know about may didn't want to be a part of meds or a corporation is a prime example of that he managed to talk to two mexican investors and before they knew it they they were meddling and that's why lanier got involved was to undo but lose premature actions of getting somebody else involved in a role they didn't want to have and with respect to that exposure email was the government refers to it i think that was lawyer only common sense on lanier's part to say i don't want to be involved in this i don't want to be listed as general counsel i'm not assuming that role i'm not being paid enough to do that it's kind of like when a client asked me to write an opinion letter i don't want to do that either if you make this argument to the were trying it i might have tried it differently and i might have hammered on a lack of intent lack of intent lack of intent lynyrd got seventeen years for being a lawyer and providing legal services faithful legal services we talk about and i think i think that you hammered on or at least picked up on my argument that when you say don't use and terms like invest investor investment i think that sound legal advice for somebody who is under an injunction not to do that and i think that's what lanier was doing and i don't know to what extent this court has already made a determination there have been a lot of hints and those always scare me to get but i try never to read your mind until i see the opinion but i would urge you to look at the facts of this case and look at this as what evidence there was that lanier was doing anything other than providing faithful legal services i know that he was using that i know that he referred to below by an alien but he didn't talk to any investors about that ok also the speaking for myself but i think for all three of us we do come with the ability to be persuaded but the case as it appears to me in these arguments is certainly the support for the for the government's position here in the jury bought it that he was assisting in someone he knew to be a fugitive who was involved in the illegal investment scams in this country to continue to hide his identity to keep investors from knowing who he was to working on documents in the furtherance of whatever his activities were they kept his identity hidden and allowed him to take an enormous amount of money steal from other people and that kind of sounds criminal why am i concerned it kind of sounds criminal and we're all taught that just because somebody runs a stop sign every day of his life doesn't mean that he ran on the morning that he was involved in a car accident just because ballou had been a criminal in the past doesn't mean that he was going to be a criminal when he was in mexico that's an an inference that is  surmise that you'd use don't you've got to have some evidence what he was really doing was criminal other than hiding under an assumed name you may have mentioned this before but lanier said to him that he was going to have to get lorraine to execute a certain document and the rain is the wife not really the rain and they all knew that there is no evidence in the record that lanier knew that it's far as anybody else i think that's what i think it's my and my time is up thank you for your time