M. Barnes

Defendant’s appeal seeking to disqualify entire county prosecutor’s office and appoint special prosecutor was dismissed as moot; newly-elected Prosecutor had not been involved with the challenged conduct, and defendant could separately pursue disqualification of particular Deputy Prosecutors who were involved.

State-court restitution award to Ponzi scheme victims was improper; their losses resulted from defendant’s related federal crimes, for which restitution had already been ordered. Five counts of conducting business as a broker-dealer without registering constituted a “single episode of criminal conduct”; gravamen of the offense not the precise number of times defendant transacted business, but rather the initial failure to register, which is a grievance against the Secretary of State and did not directly harm the victims.

Forensic interviewer’s testimony vouching for child victims’ testimony, admitted over defendant’s timely objection, was reversible error. But detective calling children’s statements “powerful” when interrogating defendant was not error because it was meant only to elicit response from defendant, not as assertion of fact.

Defendant’s admission to injecting “methamphetamine,” without more, was insufficient to prove that he injected the legend drug “methamphetamine hydrochloride”; there was no evidence or basis for judicial notice that the two substances were the same