“What ever happened to Tyrone Freeman?,” asks a reader
In late 2013, Freeman -- a close ally of SEIU President Emeritus Andy Stern -- was sentenced to a 33-month term at a federal prison in Yankton, South Dakota.
According to a
reliable source, Freeman was eventually released from Yankton and transferred to a halfway house
in Long Beach, Calif.
Tasty’s
source provided answers to some of the long-standing mysteries surrounding
Freeman’s criminal trial:
- Who was the secret financier who funded Freeman’s multi-million dollar legal defense?
- Why didn’t Freeman rat out the higher-up SEIU officials -- including Andy Stern and Eliseo Medina -- who were implicated in the crimes for which Freeman was convicted?
Before Tasty offers
up the source’s answers, here’s some quick background:
After Freeman was indicted, a team of million-dollar attorneys from Mayer Brown LLP -- a global law firm with offices in New York, DC, London, Paris, Beijing, Dubai, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, etc -- parachuted into California to defend him.
They included Kelly Kramer,
a partner at Mayer Brown LLP who leads the firm’s “White Collar Defense and Compliance Team” and has personally defended former members of the US Congress.
According to Super Lawyers, he’s one
of the top white-collar defense lawyers in DC.
 |
| Kelly Kramer, Mayer Brown LLP |
After Freeman was
convicted, Mayer Brown LLP filed
an appeal with the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and
parachuted two more attorneys from the East Coast to try to get Freeman out of
jail.
They included Dan Himmelfarb, a partner in the firm’s DC offices, who specializes in appeals and has “filed more than 200 merits and petition-stage briefs in the US Supreme Court and has argued… 12 cases in the US Supreme Court...,” according to the firm's website. Before joining the firm, Himmelfarb was an Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York and an Assistant to the US Solicitor General.
In other words, these
guys charge beaucoup bucks -- likely $2,000-$3,000 an hour.
Who paid for these
attorneys?
It sure wasn’t
Freeman.
After all, when
Freeman's wife appeared in court during Freeman's criminal trial, she was
assigned a Public Defender because she couldn’t afford a private attorney.
So who paid Freeman’s
legal bills?
 |
| Dan Himmelfarb, Mayer Brown LLP |
Here’s what Tasty’s
source says:
When Freeman was
first indicted on multiple criminal charges, a clutch of nervous SEIU officials met with him to discuss his options.
Option #1: Freeman
could try to beat the rap by pointing the finger at the higher-up SEIU
officials who were apparently complicit in the crimes.
‘But don’t do that,’
argued the SEIU officials. ‘We’ll offer you a better option: SEIU will hire you the
best attorneys in the whole damn country and we guarantee you’ll never see a
day of jail time. But you can't implicate any of us.’
Of course, we all
know that Freeman chose Option #2. And that’s why, during the trial, he never ratted
out the SEIU higher-ups who, after all, were paying for his lawyers.
In the end, SEIU
officials didn’t come through with their end of the deal -- their fancy
attorneys didn’t keep Freeman out of jail.
Freeman has
gotta feel burnt by his SEIU handlers, right?
Which leads Tasty to
wonder whether SEIU officials might now be slipping him some hush money, given that
Freeman has stayed silent even after getting out of jail.
Although Tasty’s source
has provided answers to some of the long-standing mysteries, others remain unanswered:
 |
| Andy Stern, SEIU |
- How much money did SEIU officials pay for Freeman’s defense and appeal?
- After the Los Angeles Times outed Freeman's corruption scandal, SEIU officials publicly condemned Freeman for stealing from low-paid SEIU members. Why did SEIU officials turn around and secretly fund his criminal defense for crimes committed against SEIU's own members? Isn't this proof that SEIU higher-ups are implicated in Freeman's crimes? After all, why else would they have funded his defense against stealing money from SEIU members?
- Who authorized SEIU's payments to Freeman's attorneys? What role did Andy Stern, Anna Burger and Mary Kay Henry play?
- Will Freeman tell his story to the public?
- Or is SEIU currently paying hush money to keep Freeman silent?
