Top of Utah Courthouse News Roundup

Serial scammer Wayne Ogden "rolls over" and Utah A.G. John Swallow shows Alliance for a Better Utah "who's boss"

Just to provoke a little bit of online discussion, we'll highlight a couple of interesting news court-related news stories this morning, which dovetail nicely with topics previously discussed here at Weber County Forum, which items we'll now submit to our readers in no particular order of importance:

1) As a followup to our last article on the subject, and true to our earlier prediction, it seems that "serial scammer" Wayne Ogden will soon indeed be enjoying an extended meet-up with his soon-to-be new cellmate "Bubba," as the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Ogden City's second most-notorious home-boy con man (Val Southwick being the first) has voluntary "taken a fall" in his latest "ponzi" rip-off criminal case, entering a guilty plea to "two charges of wire and securities fraud, as part of a plea deal with the U.S. attorney’s office." In exchange for rolling over on the federal charges, Wayne will serve an agreed 10-year prison sentence, along with taking on another multi-million dollar restitution order, Trib reporter Tom Harvey reports:

• Serial scammer Wayne Ogden pleads guilty to new fraud charges

Sad outcome for this once-promising "former South Ogden Eagle Scout," wethinks.  Looking at the bright side, however, Ogden's forthcoming 10-year "hard-time" stretch will no doubt afford plenty of time for Wayne to brush up on his Boy Scout Oath, we suppose, a chore which Wayne has plainly neglected in recent years, que no?

"Honest" John Swallow

2) On the civil litigation front, the Standard-Examiner reports on the latest development concerning ethically-challenged Utah Attorney General John Swallow, whose high-priced defense attorneys have filed a routine "Motion for Dismissal" in Swallow's pending election fraud civil case:

• Utah AG says election complaint against him should be dismissed

For those readers who may be unfamiliar with this ubiquitous procedural device, which some legal scholars characterize as a "reaction of some litigators to make a motion to dismiss in virtually every case," amounting to "a bad habit".  Such such motions do generally serve three chief tactical purposes nevertheless:

1. Resolving a case on its own legal merits;
2. Demonstrating to the opposition that they're in for a long and expensive fight; and,
3. Running up everybody's legal bill, thereby promoting a full-employment economy for "Big Time" civil "litigation mills."

We'll take a wild guess at this point and guess that that the motivation behind Swallow's counsels' motion lies behind doors number 2 and 3, folks, but we''l have to wait to see what the District Court has to say about this, we suppose.

Needless to say, we'll be closely following future developments in both cases as they progress...

So who'd like to throw in their own 2¢?