The Most Terrible Crime a Human Being Can Commit

November 18, 2016

Today's BrokeAndBroker.com Blog continues our unique and exhaustive coverage of the epic battle between the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") and Gary L. McDuff. Readers unfamiliar with SEC v. McDuff should reference these recent installments:

By way of a brief, and I mean really, really brief, synopsis, in 2013, a federal criminal jury took only six minutes to convict McDuff of conspiring to defraud investors out of over $11 million in connection with an investment fraud scheme and, further, of laundering the proceeds. In 2014, Defendant McDuff was sentenced to 300 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $6.5 million in restitution. Inmate McDuff is presently incarcerated at a low-security, federal correctional institution in Beaumont, Texas ("FCI Beaumont").

SEC Public-Interest Hearing

Sometime around February 2014, the SEC began its effort to conduct a fairly perfunctory hearing to determine if it were in the public interest to bar McDuff from the securities industry. In trying to conduct the public-interest hearing, SEC Administrative Law Judge ("ALJ") Cameron Elliott encountered all sorts of Federal Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") rules, regulations, policies, and practices. As detailed more fully in previous BrokeAndBroker.com Blog installments, ALJ Elliott wasn't getting even a modicum of cooperation from BOP -- what he was getting was a runaround by small-minded and petty BOP bureaucrats who were more concerned about marking their turf and protecting their territory than seeing that the interests of justice were furthered. ALJ Elliott has been forced to deal with all sorts of dubious BOP objections about the proper transmission of and labeling of mail, arranging for telephone calls, and securing a room at FCI Beaumont for the conduct of the hearing.

June 22, 2016 Order

By way of an update on the progress of the nonsensical relationship between BOP and the SEC, consider this extract from ALJ Elliott's June 22, 2016, SEC Order:

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Before the
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDINGS RULINGS
Release No. 3934/June 22, 2016
ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDING
File No. 3-15764
In the Matter of
GARY L. MCDUFF
POST-HEARING ORDER AND PROTECTIVE ORDER

. . .

Second, to my knowledge this was the first Commission administrative hearing to be held in a prison in over twenty years, and it was a learning experience. I commend the Division's efforts to make the hearing happen, and I am grateful for the assistance of the staff of FCI Beaumont. Nonetheless, of necessity the hearing did not proceed in quite the same way other Commission administrative hearings have proceeded. I am concerned, particularly in light of the Commission's Opinion and Order, that the hearing may need to be reconvened. Alternatively, given the unique circumstances of this case it may not be reasonably possible to conduct a hearing that fully complies with the Commission's Rules of Practice; if so, the appropriate resolution may be dismissal.

Specifically, in addition to the issues raised by the Commission in its June 14, 2016, Opinion and Order, at least six other issues are potentially problematic:

(a) Although Respondent eventually received portions of the investigative file, he received much of it mid-hearing. Because Respondent was incarcerated at the time the OIP issued and has represented himself, he was never able to inspect or copy the investigative file "at the Commission office where [it is] ordinarily maintained, or at such other place as the parties, in writing, may agree," either personally or through counsel (although his family was able to inspect the file). 17 C.F.R. § 201.230(e). And because he defaulted in the underlying civil proceeding, the investigative file was not duplicative of discovery he otherwise would have received. I directed the Division to address this issue post-hearing, but so far there is no evidence that Respondent has ever personally viewed the entirety of the investigative file, or ever had a meaningful ability to do so.

(b) The prison strictly limits who may visit inmates, and the time, place, and manner in which they do so, which makes public access difficult. For example, every participant in the hearing (except Respondent) had to be screened by prison staff before they were placed on the access list. I had to provide prison staff my state bar registration information several weeks prior to the hearing, and when we entered the prison grounds we all had to surrender our driver's licenses to a guard manning the control room. Once locked inside the room used for the hearing, the participants could not leave without the assistance of prison staff. The proceeding therefore may not have complied with the requirement that it be "public unless otherwise ordered by the Commission on its own motion or the motion of a party." 17 C.F.R. § 201.301.

(c) It was not practically possible to avoid ex parte communications on housekeeping matters, especially on the first hearing day, when the participants set up the hearing room and determined how to address the many logistical issues that arose from conducting a hearing inside a prison. Although it is my normal practice to go on the record even for housekeeping matters, I could not carry out that practice under the circumstances. Fortunately, such ex parte communications are not "relevant to the merits of the proceeding" and therefore prohibited. 17 C.F.R. § 200.120. But conducting a hearing where the parties, witnesses, and the ALJ are locked in a room together for hours at a time creates a potentially significant risk of prohibited communications, even though no prohibited communications actually occurred in this instance.

(d) Along similar lines, the logistical assistance provided by the Division went well beyond the typical. Normally this Office locates a hearing venue, notifies the parties of the location, and, in some cases, arranges for a court reporter. In this case, the Division made all arrangements with prison staff to hold the hearing in the prison visiting room, otherwise acted as a liaison between the prison and this Office, arranged for a court reporter, and forwarded my identifying information to prison staff. Although I am unaware of any formal proscription against such intertwining of the activities of the Division and this Office, it was an intertwining that potentially threatened this Office's independence and that I am disinclined to repeat.

(e) The physical location of the hearing may have been acceptable as a prison visiting room, but it was otherwise inhospitable. Of particular concern is that witnesses may not reasonably be expected to appear and give testimony if the hearing were to reconvene in the same venue. This is especially true as to witnesses for Respondent, because the Division has greater resources available to obtain witness testimony, and as to witnesses hostile to the proponent of their testimony. The hearing was held in a locked prison visiting room inside the grounds of the prison. The room was approximately the size and shape of a tennis court, with a number of plastic chairs, a few padded chairs, and several banquet tables where the parties, the court reporter, and I sat, and where the witnesses sat while testifying. The room had air conditioning, windows, restrooms, and a drinking fountain (which on the second hearing day disrupted the proceedings by periodically emitting a very loud noise). I adjourned the hearing for lunch for thirty minutes each day, but the only food available was from several vending machines. The vending machines contained the usual vending machine fare (chips, candy, and the like), plus sandwiches, microwaveable pizzas, and a locally popular sausage. I ate no lunch either hearing day, or anything else from the vending machines. One of the witnesses was a retired woman who walked with a cane; although she did not complain about being locked in the hearing room from approximately 8:45 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., she should not have been expected to endure such an experience. The second hearing day I prevailed upon the prison staff to release the Division's two remaining witnesses at approximately 11:30 a.m., after they had completed their testimony and we broke for lunch. On balance, the physical location of the hearing was undesirable, so much so that the hearing may not have been "conducted in a fair, impartial, expeditious and orderly manner," and any further proceedings in the same location may suffer from the same deficiency. 17 C.F.R. § 201.300.

(f) It may be, however, that no other venue or method of hearing testimony is reasonably available. Several other methods were discussed over the course of this proceeding, including: a furlough for Respondent, which I determined was so unlikely that it was not worth the effort to seek; a video hearing, to which Respondent objected and which would make it difficult to evaluate credibility for any witnesses appearing by video (particularly Respondent himself); and transferring Respondent to a prison with better hearing facilities, which would require the assistance of other agencies and a budget to pay for the transfer. If there are any other procedures that are both reasonably available and reasonably likely to comply with the Commission's Rules of Practice, the parties should describe them in their post-hearing briefs.

This list of issues is not meant to be exhaustive. The parties should address in their posthearing briefs any other issues relevant to affording Respondent a lawful and fair hearing.

_______________________________

Cameron Elliot Administrative Law Judge

The Tennis Court Oath . . . Hearing

Quite the word picture painted by ALJ Elliott in his June 22, 2016, Order! What wonderful imagery.

SIDE BAR: The hearing was held in a locked prison visiting room inside the grounds of the prison. The room was approximately the size and shape of a tennis court, with a number of plastic chairs, a few padded chairs, and several banquet tables where the parties, the court reporter, and I sat, and where the witnesses sat while testifying. Quote fromALJ Elliott'sJune 22, 2016, SEC Order,Subparagraph (e) above.
BrokeAndBroker.com Blog obtained an artist's rendering of the hearing room used for SEC v. McDuff, as illustrated below. Readers may note striking similarities to the famous painting "Le Serment du Jeu de paume" ("The Tennis Court Oath") by Jacques-Louis David. I believe ALJ Elliott is the central figure below in black with his right hand raised. Not shown in the illustration is the noisy vending machine. You can, however, see someone eating a microwaveable pizza in the ninth row, third person to the left of the second raised hat:


My, how the above illustration brings the SEC hearing to life! You can feel the claustrophobic atmosphere of the hearing as it was conducted in a tennis-field-sized locked, prison visiting room. You can almost hear the clanking -- a loud and disruptive cacophony -- endlessly droning from the drinking fountain. The whole scene is so animated and viewers become so enthralled that we are immediately hungry and clamor for microwaveable pizza or any sort of intriguing "locally popular sausage."

Fifth Canto of Hell

If memory serves me right, the Fifth Canto of Dante's Hell was a locked, prison visiting room with a noisy water cooler where you could only eat frozen mini-pizza, and endless quantities of locally popular sausage. Throw into this comical scene a retired woman with cane (sort of sounds like a Dali or Picasso oil painting, no?). On top of that, add the growing panic of two witnesses who had testified as to all that they could but upon trying to leave the hearing room found that they were locked in and the BOP screws refused to let them out. There were rules. There were policies. There were procedures. There were forms. All of those things conspired to lock-down McDuff, the SEC staff, the ALJ, the reporters, and the witnesses. Was a body cavity search necessary to get into and out of the room?

SIDE BAR: On June 15 and 16, 2016, SEC ALJ Elliott managed to conduct hearings at FCI Beaumont. BrokerAndBroker.com Blog received a secretly filmed video of a portion of the SEC v. McDuff hearing conducted at FCI Beaumont. No bureaucrats or inmates were harmed in the filming of this scene:


And so it continues. Achilles dies. The Greeks build a wooden horse. Troy falls. Odysseus attempts to make his way home but is shipwrecked. ALJ Elliott returns to Washington, DC and demolishes a food vending machine at the SEC. One of the SEC Staff realizes that they have left the retired woman with cane behind but when they ask BOP to release her, they receive a letter providing instructions on how to file a Writ of Habeas Corpus.

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of SEC v. McDuff


Motion To Compel or Motion to Strike

On September 7, 2016, ALJ Elliot considered a Motion to Compel, or in the alternative, a Motion to Strike filed by McDuff on September 2, 2016. In the Matter of Gary L. McDuff (Order Denying Motions, Admin. Proc.Rulings Rel. No. 4132; Admin. Proc. File No. 3-15764 / September 7, 2016) Ya gotta hand it to McDuff, this guy really doesn't know when to quit. In his motions, McDuff argued that Enforcement: 

should be compelled to furnish him copies of legal authority and webpages on which it relies in its post-hearing brief, or that the Division's references to such legal authority and webpages should be stricken.

ALJ Elliot denied the motions.

Motion for Leave to Supplement

On November 16, 2016, ALJ Elliot considered a Motion for Leave to Supplement the Record and a Motion for Leave to File a Sur-Reply Brief and Supplement And Sur-Reply Subject Thereto filed by McDuff on November 11, 2016. In the Matter of Gary L. McDuff (Order Denying Motions, Admin. Proc.Rulings Rel. No. 4362; Admin. Proc. File No. 3-15764 / November 16, 2016) Ya gotta hand it to McDuff, he got a pretty catchy title for one of his motions and, geez, this guy really doesn't know when to quit. Notwithstanding his effort from behind bars, ALJ Elliot ruled:

The motions are DENIED. McDuff has not adequately shown how the proposed supplemental evidence is relevant to this proceeding.

The Most Terrible Crime a Human Being Can Commit

Hopefully, we are nearing the end of this long SEC hearing process. ALJ Elliott should be getting combat pay for enduring this seemingly endless war of attrition. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, McDuff will hear ALJ Elliot echo the words of President-Elect Trump to his adversary Hillary Clinton: "I want to thank you very much, you were a great competitor." 

I'm sure that inmate McDuff is having a grand old time jerking around the SEC. He may even be the toast of the town in his cellblock. Yes, McDuff strikes me as a resourceful and clever fellow -- in fact, he may even be very intelligent and probably had a life before him that could have yielded tremendous rewards. In the end, after exerting all his energy and intellect, he wound up getting caught in a droll fraud and sentenced to 300 months in federal prison. 

Great con artists don't get caught. Fact is, we never even know that they pulled off a fraud. The truly subtle sting ends without anyone knowing that they have been defrauded. Things just didn't work out like we had hoped. 

As such, inmate McDuff shouldn't think himself too much of a hero because he's not. Fact is, he hardly rises to the stature of an anti-hero. When he looks around, he's not on an exclusive beach surrounded by servants. He's not a guest at some remote, expensive, exotic resort dining on gold plates with sterling silver flatware. He's in a federal prison waiting for 300 months to pass. It's all fairly summed up in that wonderful film "Papillon"