Tommy K’s Greek Vacation

As I suspected, Judge Burns was none too impressed that Tommy K’s daughter bought Phillip Halpern’s long-lost uncle’s house with the ensuing benefit to Halpern of precisely nada.

Halpern, who had last seen his uncle in 1999, said in court papers hehad no knowledge of the deal and did not benefit in any way from it,and removing him or the office was not warranted.

On that matter, Burns agreed. He said the claim of a conflictwas tenuous and could not serve as a basis for removing Halpern or theoffice.

So John Michael’s stated purpose for the motion to throw out his indictment has failed–Burns refused to throw out the indictment or even throw Halpern off the case. As to his probable intended purpose–to expose as much information about the shady crook that is Tommy K as possible to suggest there’s something fishy about his plea deal? That seems to be having more success.

Moreover, Granger said that Kontogiannis has been on vacation in Greecethis summer. Since pleading guilty, Kontogiannis has been free on abond, but surrendered his passport to federal authorities and wasallowed to travel out of the country only if accompanied by federalagents, or with their permission.

Burns seemed intrigued by that revelation, and orderedprosecutors to find out if it was true. He said he might hold anotherhearing to “clarify the terms” of Kontogiannis’ bail.

“On no occasion did I contemplate he would be vacationing in Greece pending sentencing,” Burns said.

Already, Larry Burns seems to have been miffed that the team Tommy K was cooperating with dawdled with that cooperation, and he seems to be cranky they are trying to classify everything after the fact. If he learns that all this secrecy was just a ploy to spirit K off to the Greek islands for the summer, I imagine he’s going to be quite cross.

And as he emphasized to K during the plea hearing, a plea agreement is an agreement between the government and the person making the plea. The sentencing judge still has full discretion about what kind of sentence to give the person.