F
The following is from the Wahington Post of 4/11/98:
C. Moxley Featherston, 83, a senior U.S. Tax Court judge who retired in 1991 after 24 years on the bench, died of cancer April 10 at a hospital in El Paso. A former McLean resident, he had lived in El Paso since his retirement.
Judge Featherston was named to the U.S. Tax Court in 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Described as inscrutable and patient, Judge Featherston was elected by his colleagues as chief judge in 1977. It was a status he held until 1981. Three years later, he became a senior judge.
He authored nearly 1,000 opinions during his career. Before his appointment, he had served 20 years with the Tax Division of the Department of Justice, including chief of the review section and assistant for civil trials. In the latter capacity, he supervised all tax refund trial work in the United States. From 1949 to 1951, he was assistant general counsel at the Institute of Inter-American Affairs.
Feffer has been recognized as one of the best tax lawyers in D.C., according to an article in the Washingtonian magazine for February 1997. The magazine cites as its authority for that accolade the directory The Best Lawyers in America 1997-1998, edited by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, who are identified as Harvard Lawyers and Pulitzer Prize Winners.
Feffer and, his parrtner, Jim Bruton, have recently received press as a result of obtaining dismissal of charges in representing a Washington tax preparer with a knack for obtaining refunds for clients, including a number of D.C. policemen. The Washington Post reported on July 26, 1997 that, in addition to the dismissal, the Judge "made public that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility will investigate whether [an] Assistant U.S. Attorney * * * and and [two] tax division attorneys * * * committed prosecutorial misconduct or botched the case." [Note: I have omitted the names of the AUSA and tax division attorneys, but those interested enough can obtain them from the Washington Post article.]
The International Tax Review issue for March 1999 lists Carr as one of the world's leading tax advisers. Congratulations, Carr!
The following is the Washington Post obituary dated 9/8/03.
Susan Findling Fleig, 62, a teacher at Georgetown Day School who changed careers and since the late 1990s had been a lawyer who specialized in estate, tax and charitable giving law, died Sept. 6 at her home in Chevy Chase. She had skin cancer.
Ms. Fleig, who had offices in Washington and Chevy Chase, was born in Washington and raised in Montgomery County. Her father was a longtime associate general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board.
She was a 1958 graduate of Montgomery Blair High School, a 1970 graduate of the University of Maryland and a 1990 graduate of Georgetown University's law school.
From the early 1970s until 1987, she worked at Georgetown Day, serving over the years as head of the mathematics and computer science departments.After her legal training, she clerked for Judge Jonathan Steinberg of the U.S. Court of Veterans' Appeals, practiced with trust and estate lawyers and was a lawyer in the Justice Department's tax division.
In the mid-1990s, she was director of student affairs at Georgetown's law school.
She did volunteer work for the Montgomery Hospice Society and facilitated support groups for the newly separated and divorced.Her marriage to Albert J. Fleig ended in divorce.
Survivors include two children, David Fleig of Chevy Chase and Alison Frank of Madison, Wis., and Austria; a brother; and a grandson.
Tax Division Alumnus’ Conviction Reversed
The Sixth Circuit reversed the conviction of Ted Forman. We announced that conviction previously in the Newsletter.
While an attorney in the Criminal Section of the Tax Division, Forman had obtained a copy of a grand jury transcript from a grand jury on which an office mate was working and had delivered the copy to a colleague of the target. The copy then ended up with the target of the grand jury investigation and was discovered unexpectedly in a search warrant execution against the target.
Forman was charged with obstruction of justice and contempt for violation of Rule 6(e), Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Forman’s defense at trial was that he acted under duress because of threats against his father. He was convicted of contempt but acquitted of obstruction of justice.
On appeal, in which Forman represented himself pro se, the Court determined that Forman could not be charged with contempt for violation of Rule 6(e) because he was not "an attorney for the government" as those words are used in Rule 6(e). Although Forman was clearly an attorney for the government in a broader sense (being a Tax Division attorney), the Court read the rule as requiring some nexus between the attorney’s official assignment and the grand jury investigation in question. Forman had not been assigned as an attorney to work on that investigation and, at most, engaged in some casual conversation with his office mate who had been assigned.
The Sixth Circuit noted that, as to a person in Forman’s position (i.e., an unassigned attorney), the only proper charge was obstruction of justice and that, perhaps inconsistently given the defense, Forman had been acquitted of that charge. The case is reported as United States v. Forman, 71 F.3d 1214 (6th Cir. 1995).
The Government’s petition for rehearing en banc was denied on March 15, 1996.
If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again.
The Detroit News reports (edition of 12/5/96) that Mr. Forman has been reindicted for a single count of theft of government property.
In a recent decision (US v. Forman, ___ F. Supp. ___ (12/30/97), 1997 U.S. Dist. Lexis 21367, Forman failed in a pretrial attack on the reindictment. The Court rejected the attack holding: (1) the theft of government property charge is not double jeopardy for the charges tried earlier; (2) the government is not collaterally estopped from bringing the theft of government property count; (3) Forman could not use affidavits from the jurors on the first trial to bolster his estoppel argument as to what the jurors considered and did; and (4) the indictment for theft of government property was not a vindictive prosecution.
Bill died on 5/11/02. The following is from the Raleigh News and Observer.
FEB 19, 1920 - MAY 11, 2002
RALEIGH -- William Friedlander died Saturday at Raleigh Community Hospital after a short battle with cancer. He was born in Paterson, New Jersey to the late Samuel and Claire Friedlander. He was graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1941. He served in the Army in Europe during WWII from 1943 to 1946. While working for the U.S. Patent Office, he attended Georgetown University at night on the GI Bill and received his law degree in 1951. He then worked for 35 years as an attorney for the Department of Justice where he received numerous commendations for his work in the U.S. Court of Appeals before retiring in 1980. He lived in Washington, D.C. and Kensington, Maryland from 1948 to 1991 when he moved to Raleigh, NC. He enjoyed golf, discussing politics and current events, writing letters to the editor to the News and Observer, reading, and being with family.
He will be greatly missed by his wife of 48 years, Carol, his children, Sue Friedlander of Fayetteville, NC, Jan King and husband John of Raleigh, NC, Paul Friedlander and wife Suzanne of Owings Mill, MD; 4 grandchildren, Daniel, Hayley, Erin, and Alison; and his sister, Florence Campi and husband Chic of Silver Spring, MD; and their children, Lisa and Joseph.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Tammy Lynn Center, 739 Chappell Drive, Raleigh, NC 27606.
The family will receive friends on Tuesday, May 14 from 7-9 p.m. at North Raleigh Funeral Home, 7615 Forks Road, Raleigh, NC 27615. He will be buried at Oakwood Cemetery on Wednesday.
Funeral arrangements by North Raleigh Funeral Home