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Ex-Con Pleads Guilty in N.H. Killings
Court Feed News | 2007/08/17 14:26

An ex-convict who authorities say went on a multistate crime spree after leaving prison this spring pleaded guilty Friday to killing three men during a botched robbery last month in Conway. After hearing from the victims' families, Judge Edward Fitzgerald sentenced Michael Woodbury, 31, to mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole.

Woodbury admitted fatally shooting James Walker, manager of the Army Barracks outdoors gear store in Conway, on July 2, along with two customers, William Jones, 25, and his friend Gary Jones, 23.

Woodbury gave short answers in Merrimack County Superior Court as Fitzgerald and public defender Caroline Smith reviewed his history of mental problems, including bipolar disease, and his understanding of the process and his options.

"I'm pleading guilty because I am guilty," he said.

He apologized to each victim by name, and to their families.

But Walker's father, also named James, told him, "You are a coward, a thief and a cold-blooded murderer."

Woodbury, of Windham, Maine, was released May 4 from the Maine State Prison after serving five years for robbery and theft. Authorities say he left the state a month later, heading south with two teenage sisters in a car allegedly stolen from their mother.

Woodbury is accused of robbing a bank in Florence, S.C., on June 6; breaking into a million-dollar home in St. Simons Island, Ga., and then setting it on fire June 12; and holding up a clothing store June 19 in Chattanooga, Tenn., wielding a knife in a scuffle with the shop owner's son before escaping.

Both sisters eventually broke away from Woodbury, one of them hiding from him in a gas station restroom the day before the Chattanooga robbery.

After his arrest for the murders, Woodbury told authorities he thought Walker, 34, was reaching for a weapon, so he shot him. He said he then shot the other two men because they got in his way. Relatives said William Jones of Walpole, Mass., and Gary Jones, of Halifax, Mass., were not related but were as close as brothers.

Woodbury complained after his arrest that he had warned prison officials in Maine he would be a danger.

"I reached out, asking for help. I reached out and told them I need medication. I reached out and told them I shouldn't be out in society. I told numerous cops, numerous guards," Woodbury told reporters outside a courthouse on July 5.

Maine authorities said Woodbury had access to a wide variety of mental health services.

When the judge declined to let Woodbury speak a second time on Friday, he scribbled a sign and pointed it toward the family members. "U have a lawsuit," it said.

A relative of one victim had said Woodbury pleaded guilty in order to choose his prison, but Jeffery Strelzin, head of the criminal division in the Attorney General's Office, said Woodbury was promised nothing in return for his plea.



Tocchet gets 2 years probation in gambling case
Court Feed News | 2007/08/17 14:18

Suspended Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach Rich Tocchet won't serve any jail time for his role in an illegal sports gambling ring. The former National Hockey League forward was sentenced to two years probation in a Mount Holly, N.J., courtroom Friday. Former NHL forward Rick Tocchet talks to his attorney Kevin Marino in Mount Holly, N.J., courtroom Friday.
(Mel Evans/Associated Press) Tocchet could have received up to five years in state prison for conspiracy and promoting gambling, charges to which he pleaded guilty in May.

Before being sentenced, Tocchet told Burlington County Superior Court Judge Thomas S. Smith: "I'm sorry to the court, my family and friends I was involved in this."

Tocchet, 43, partnered with former New Jersey state trooper James Harney and another man in a sports betting venture they ran for five years.

Harney, who pleaded guilty on Aug. 3, 2006, was sentenced two weeks ago to five years in jail. He could be eligible for parole in about a year. Tocchet remains on indefinite leave from his job with the Coyotes.



US court OKs Dura sale of Atwood unit, equity plan
Business Law Info | 2007/08/17 13:23

Dura Automotive Systems Inc. has received U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval for the $160.2 million sale of its Atwood Mobile Products unit and an equity plan with Pacificor LLC to support its reorganization.

Dura, which filed for bankruptcy in October 2006 in Delaware, announced the approvals late on Wednesday. It expects to emerge from court protection in the fourth quarter.

The agreement with Pacificor provides a $140 million to $160 million commitment and would make Dura a privately held company upon its emergence from Chapter 11, with protections for minority shareholders, Dura said.

Several parties objected to an earlier equity plan led by Pacificor, but Dura filed an amended agreement earlier this week to address the objections.

Private equity firm Insight Equity is acquiring the Atwood unit from Rochester Hills, Michigan-based Dura. Atwood is based in Elkhart, Indiana.



Appeals court may let NSA lawsuits proceed
Court Feed News | 2007/08/16 16:01
Three federal appeals court judges hearing challenges Wednesday to the National Security Agency's surveillance programs appeared skeptical of and sometimes hostile to the Bush administration's central argument — that national security concerns require that the lawsuits be dismissed.

"Is it the government's position that when our country is engaged in a war that the power of the executive when it comes to wiretapping is unchecked?" Judge Harry Pregerson asked a government lawyer in a tone of incredulity and frustration.

Gregory G. Garre, a deputy solicitor general representing the administration, responded that the courts have a role, though a limited one, in assessing the government's assertion of the so-called state secrets privilege, which can require the dismissal of suits that could engender national security. Judges, he said, must give executive branch determinations "utmost deference."

"Litigating this action could result in exceptionally grave harm to the national security of the United States," Garre said, referring to the assessment of intelligence officials.

The three judges, on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, were hearing arguments in two combined lawsuits challenging the highly classified surveillance programs, which the administration said were essential in combatting international terrorism. The appeals were the first to reach the court after dozens of suits against the government and telecommunications companies over NSA surveillance were consolidated last year before the chief judge of the federal trial court here, Judge Vaughn R. Walker.

The appeals concern two related questions that must be answered before the merits of the challenge can be considered: whether the plaintiffs can clearly establish that they have been injured by the programs, giving them standing to sue; and whether the so-called state-secrets privilege requires dismissal of the suits on national security grounds.

Though the questions are preliminary, the impact of the appeals court's ruling may be quite broad. Should it rule for the government on either ground, the legality of the NSA programs may never be adjudicated.

All three judges — appointed by Democratic presidents — indicated that they were inclined to allow one or both cases to go forward for at least limited additional proceedings before Walker.

The two cases deal with different secret programs, but are broadly similar. One, a class action against AT&T, focuses mainly on allegations that the company provided the NSA with its customers' phone and Internet communications for a vast data-mining operation. The lawyers in the AT&T case call that program, which the government has not acknowledged, a "content dragnet."

The second case, brought by an Islamic charity and two of its lawyers against the government, concerns a targeted program which the Bush administration calls the Terrorist Surveillance Program. The program, which has since been submitted to a secret court's supervision, bypassed court warrants to monitor international communications involving people in the United States.



Class-action lawsuit filed against Radian
Class Action News | 2007/08/16 15:04

A class-action shareholder lawsuit has been filed against Radian Group, the mortgage insurer whose endangered half-billion dollar stake in a subprime mortgage investor has sunk its stock price and put a planned merger with rival MGIC Investment Corp. in doubt. The U.S. District Court suit, filed in Philadelphia by San Francisco-based law firm Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, is on behalf of investors who bought securities between Jan. 23 and July 31, the firm said late Wednesday.

Among other things, the suit stated, Radian of Philadelphia failed to disclose that its $518 million investment in Credit-Based Asset Servicing and Securitization, known as C-BASS, was materially impaired and quickly declining in value, and that it overstated financial results by failing to write-down that investment in a timely fashion.

Radian (NYSE:RDN) has said that the entirety of its investment in C-BASS may be lost. Since Radian issued a statement July 30 about the investment, its stock price has tumbled far below its pre-announcement price of about $40. It was trading down 3 percent Thursday at $16.14.

MGIC (NYSE:MTG) of Milwaukee has said it is not obligated to go through with the merger but Radian has disputed that. The stock deal was originally valued at nearly $4.9 billion, but shares of both companies have lost more than half their value since it was announced Feb. 6. The deal called for an exchange of shares with Radian's stock valued at $60.78 per share



White House backs banks in Supreme Court case
Lawyer Blog News | 2007/08/16 14:55
The brief by the U.S. solicitor general contradicts a brief filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which argued for shareholders' rights to sue those third parties. "Allowing liability for a primary violation under the circumstances presented here would constitute a sweeping expansion of the judicially inferred private right of action" under securities law, wrote Solicitor General Paul Clement.

Such a move could expose customers, vendors and others to "billions of dollars in liability when issuers of securities make misstatements to the market," he wrote.
Clement wrote that allowing third parties to be sued would "vastly expand liability in unpredictable ways."

The case, Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., has attracted considerable interest from lawmakers and industry associations. On Tuesday, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., asked President Bush to back the SEC's position.

Meanwhile, Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association President Marc Lackritz said allowing third parties to be held liable would result in skyrocketing litigation costs for companies.

"Investors already receive substantial protections under the law, and the Securities and Exchange Commission and other securities regulators are already armed with all the necessary regulatory tools to recoup lost money for investors," Lackritz said.
Similarly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a business trade group, had urged the court to reject the expanded liability, known in legal terms as "scheme liability."

"Congress authorized the SEC to enforce securities laws against third parties and disburse funds to harmed investors," said Robin Conrad, executive vice president of the National Chamber Litigation Center.

"The Supreme Court should not upset that legislative decision by allowing class action lawyers to increase litigation risk and further hamper the competitiveness of American markets," Conrad said.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case in its fall term.


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