First, he hammered the FDIC with a record sanctions award in the long-running case against Maxxam chairman Charles Hurwitz.

Then, he challenged the Enron Task Force’s bludgeoning of a plea bargain from a mid-level former Enron executive.

Now, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes accused federal prosecutors of “reckless and conscious indifference” for bringing a fraud charge against Oklahoma lawyer John Claro and said he would award attorney’s fees to Claro under the Hyde Act that provides sanctions for bad-faith prosecutions.

“The charges are a jumble of claims and stray facts,” U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes said about a health-fraud indictment against John Claro and seven others.

Giving short shrift to protests by Assistant U.S. Attorney Vernon Lewis, Hughes allowed Claro to present the court a bill for $327,000, or 1,090 hours at $300 per hour, from Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin.

Grizzled courthouse veterans observed that Claro must have received DeGuerin’s discount rate.

The Chronicle article goes on to explain:

A Houston grand jury issued indictments March 25, 2004, accusing Claro and the others of fraudulently enticing employers to buy health insurance policies administered by offshore companies not licensed to do business in the United States.

In announcing the indictment, then U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby said in a news release, “Today’s indictment brings to light a fraud of unimaginable proportions that victimized thousands of working men and women across the United States and the small businesses that employ them.”

[Judge Hughes] threw out the charges against Claro and the other defendants July 20 [2005] after DeGuerin invoked the Hyde Amendment, a 1997 law that allows a court to award reasonable attorney’s fees and other expenses if a prosecution is found to be “vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith.”

Judge Hughes has scheduled a May 9th hearing to determine the amount of fees and expenses that he will award in favor of Claro.