In 1911, after years of scandal and high-profile corruption trials, California voters overwhelmingly approved one of the most rigorous ballot initiative laws in the country. The idea was to allow voters to bypass state lawmakers when they were too timid, cowed, or corrupt to act on the voters’ behalf. Almost a century later, the process […]
John Geluardi
Posted inNews
The Trial of Charles Hurwitz
The anticipation was palpable in a hallway of the Ron Dellums Federal Building last week as the fraud trial of Texas financier Charles Hurwitz, the former owner of Pacific Lumber, was about to get started. Small groups of people gathered outside of U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken’s courtroom. On one side of the hallway a […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Hurwitz Fraud Trial Begins
The federal trial in which Texas financier Charles Hurwitz, the former owner of Pacific Lumber, is being sued for defrauding the U.S. government of hundreds of millions of dollars got off to a quick start on Monday. By lunchtime of the first day of trial, attorneys had agreed on a nine-member jury. By late afternoon, […]