Last Friday, after five years of litigation, a federal judge in Louisiana ordered the U.S. government to pay $1.7 million in damages for maliciously prosecuting Hubert Vidrine, a used-oil processing plant manager. The facts of the case, in which the Washington Legal Foundation participated as one of Vidrine’s counsels, evoke daytime TV drama. But Vidrine is an actual victim of federal overcriminalization, and government agencies’ enduring lack of respect for business civil liberties, which this case illuminates, is a real and growing, national problem.
This tale of prosecutorial indiscretion, malice, personal vendettas, hypnotism, a clandestine affair, and perjury began in 1996. As a part of a broader hazardous waste investigation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered its SWAT-like special operations team (equipped with M-16 rifles and police dogs) to raid Canal Refinery, Vidrine’s workplace.
