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Clarence Thomas’ 38 vacations: The other billionaires who have treated the Supreme Court justice to luxury travel
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Pasadena man agrees to plead guilty to machine gun possession By City News Service
By Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica
An AR-15 rifle. | Photo courtesy of Mitch Barrie/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The New York Times recently surfaced VIP treatment from wealthy businessmen he met through the Horatio Alger Association, an exclusive nonprofit. Among them were David Sokol, a former top executive at Berkshire Hathaway, and H. Wayne Huizenga, a billionaire who turned Blockbuster and Waste Management into national goliaths. (The Times noted Thomas gives access to the Supreme Court building for Horatio Alger events; ProPublica confirmed that the access has cost $1,500 or more in donations per person.) Records and interviews show Thomas had another benefactor, oil baron Paul “Tony” Novelly, whose gifts to the justice have not previously been reported. ProPublica’s totals in this article include trips from Crow. Each of these men — Novelly, Huizenga, Sokol and Crow — appears to have first met Thomas after he ascended to the Supreme Court. With the exception of Crow, their names are nowhere in Thomas’ financial disclosures, See Clarence Thomas Page 14
See Machine gun Page 27
Justice Clarence Thomas. | Photo by Thomas Cizauskas (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Series: Friends of the Court: SCOTUS Justices’ Beneficial Relationships With Billionaire Donors upreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ decadeslong friendship with real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and Samuel Alito’s luxury travel with billionaire Paul Singer have raised questions about influence and ethics at the nation’s highest court. During his three decades on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has enjoyed steady access to a lifestyle most Americans can only imagine. A cadre of industry titans and ultrawealthy executives have treated him to farflung vacations aboard their yachts, ushered him into the premium suites at sporting events and sent their private jets to fetch him — including, on more than one occasion, an entire 737. It’s a stream of luxury that is both more extensive and from a wider circle than has been previously understood.
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Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include: At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast. This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount. While some of the hospitality, such as stays in personal
homes, may not have required disclosure, Thomas appears to have violated the law by failing to disclose flights, yacht cruises and expensive sports tickets, according to ethics experts. Perhaps even more significant, the pattern exposes consistent violations of judicial norms, experts, including seven current and former federal judges appointed by both parties, told ProPublica. “In my career I don’t remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served for years on the judicial committee that reviews judges’ financial disclosures. “I think it’s unprecedented.” This year, ProPublica revealed Texas real estate billionaire Harlan Crow’s generosity toward Thomas, including vacations, private jet flights, gifts, the purchase of his mother’s house in Georgia and tuition payments. In an April statement, the justice defended his relationship with Crow. The Crows “are among our dearest friends,” Thomas said. “As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips.”
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Pasadena man who allegedly brandished a loaded ghost gun near a South Los Angeles high school last year has agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of possessing machine gun parts, according to court documents obtained Thursday. Isaac Loftus, 26, is expected to enter his plea on a date to be determined. Prosecutors said law enforcement received a call around lunchtime on Nov. 22 about an armed person wearing a tactical vest and cargo pants in the vicinity of Thomas Jefferson High School. A witness said the man later identified as Loftus had pointed a firearm at two passing motorists, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Loftus, who at first allegedly refused to obey multiple commands to stop and attempted to walk away from officers, eventually complied and was detained and later arrested, prosecutors said. Loftus’ plea agreement, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court, states that law enforcement removed a 9mm handgun with no serial number, commonly known as a ghost gun, that contained one round in the chamber and six rounds in the magazine, from a holster on Loftus’ front right hip area. The holster was decorated with symbols commonly associated with the Boogaloo extremist movement, according to an affidavit filed with a criminal complaint in January. The affidavit states that Loftus told the officers who arrested him that he was named “Yahweh” — Hebrew for God — and they would “be dead” if they continued to question him. After he was arrested and in custody, he spontaneously told officers that “judgment day has been delayed,” according to the sworn affidavit signed by FBI Special Agent Geoffrey Colvin. Loftus is prohibited from possessing firearms as a result of having been declared a danger to himself and others in 2016, the document says. The plea agreement says Loftus would face up to 10 years behind bars at sentencing and a period of supervised release to include participation in an in-patient