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Teenager pleads guilty to killing deli owner
Criminal Law Updates |
2007/04/09 16:58
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A 16-year-old Buffalo youth has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for killing a deli owner during a robbery. Robert Gwynn was 15 when he and a 13-year-old accomplice robbed Myheeb's Deli in November. Gwynn shot the deli owner, Mike Saeed, in the chest. He died soon after. Because of his age, Gwynn was prosecuted as a juvenile offender. State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Drury told him he'll likely impose a sentence of eleven years to life when he is sentenced in July. The 13-year-old is being prosecuted in Family Court. His identity hasn't been released. |
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Verdict: Guilty but mentally ill
Criminal Law Updates |
2007/04/09 16:58
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A jury found Gregory Nurrenberg Jr. guilty but mentally ill when he killed 45-year-old Sherry Dickey. Nurrenberg, 24, admitted killing Dickey during Memorial Day weekend 2006, but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Jurors deliberated approximately 4 ½ hours before reaching a verdict about 7 p.m. Monday. The trial in Lawrence Superior Court II lasted five days. |
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Vonage Wins Temporary Reprieve in Verizon Case
Lawyer Blog News |
2007/04/09 16:54
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Vonage won a temporary reprieve from an appeals court on Friday, hours after a lower court barred it from adding new customers while it appeals a finding it infringed Verizon Communications Inc. patents for making phone calls over the Internet.
"We just learned, just now, from our legal counsel that we secured a temporary stay until the appeals court can hear our request for a permanent stay of that order," said Vonage Holdings Corp. spokeswoman Brooke Schulz. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton had limited Vonage to serving its existing customers. He also required Vonage to post a $66 million bond. The stay is good until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit hears Vonage's request for a permanent stay of Hilton's injunction. However, it does not mean that Vonage will necessarily be able to continue its business as usual for the length of the appeals process. An industry analyst, who said Vonage's business would face problems if the company could not add new customers while appealing the case, said the temporary stay was "unnecessary technically," as Hilton was not expected to enter his ruling until Thursday, April 12. |
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Howard K. Stern hires Atlanta lawyer, law firm
Headline News |
2007/04/09 15:59
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Powell Goldstein LLP lawyer L. Lin Wood released a statement Monday saying he will represent Howard K. Stern, an attorney who claims to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith's newborn girl. Wood, a partner with Atlanta-based Powell Goldstein LLP, was the lead civil attorney for Richard Jewell related to reporting about Jewell in connection with the 1996 bombing of Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta; the attorney for John and Patsy Ramsey and their son in matters relating to the 1996 murder of JonBenét Ramsey in Boulder, Colo.; the attorney for former U. S. Congressman Gary Condit over the May 2001 abduction and murder of Chandra Levy in Washington; and co-counsel in the civil action in Colorado against NBA star Kobe Bryant. Stern claims to be the father of Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern. Celebrity photographer Larry Birkhead, Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, actor and a former Smith bodyguard Alexander Denk and former Smith boyfriend Mark Hatten all also claim to be the girl's father.
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Chrysler Gets Big Offer from Billionaire Kerkorian
Business Law Info |
2007/04/09 14:47
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Los Angeles billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Company said Friday that his 4.5-billion-dollar bid for Chrysler would be based on "a true partnership" of the automaker's management, workers and investors. The company said what Kerkorian's camp has "in mind is a true partnership of all the constituencies -- the company's management, all of its employees (both union and non-union) and the investors bringing the necessary new funds to the company to enable it to substantially enhance its product spending -- the life blood of any auto company". "What we are talking about is a transformation in the way the risks and rewards in a large enterprise are shared -- an arrangement in which the interests of all constituencies are more fully aligned than in today's typical structure," the company said in a statement. "We acknowledge that such an approach cannot be 'forced' on any of the parties, but rather can only be achieved with all parties feeling as if they are the recipients of a fair deal," the statement said. Tracinda's offer to purchase Chrysler was announced Thursday. The bid is about one-fifth of what Kerkorian offered for Chrysler in 1995. Last year, Chrysler lost 1.5 billion. In a letter to the board of Chrysler parent company Daimler Chrysler AG, Tracinda officials also offered to post a 100-million-dollar deposit to ensure exclusive negotiating rights on the sale. According to The Detroit News, other bidders for the company include Blackstone Group and Cerberus Capital Management and Magna International Inc. Kerkorian was named by the Los Angeles Business Journal last year as the richest man in Los Angeles, with an estimated worth of 9.3 billion dollars. Born to Armenian immigrants in Fresno in 1917, Kerkorian, who never attended college, made billions of dollars in investments in Las Vegas casinos, airlines, and MGM studios -- which he later sold. He was Chrysler Corp.'s largest shareholder in the 1990s. Last year, Kerkorian sold his holdings in General Motors after a failed proposal to merge the company with Renault and Nissan Motor Co.
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Key Reasons that e-Commerce Raises Tax Issues
Attorney Blogs |
2007/04/09 13:13
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E-Commerce creates new challenges to the tax systems. One of the challenges derive from the fact that a business can engage in e-commerce without having a physical presence. This is way beyond what was imagined during the formative states of present tax laws. However, some major issues which raises tax issues are unresolved. These issues may create problems for the authorities and they also could generate opportunities for legitimate tax planning so that businesses can reduce their tax payments in some, most or all the countries in which they operate. Businesses could also face risks in the tax treatment of their methods and structures. Some of the key reasons that E-Commerce raises tax issues are as follows: 1. Location. Existing tax systems tend to determine tax consequences based on where the taxpayer is physically located. Hence, existing laws relating to Direct and Indirect taxes have developed definitions of what constitutes the location of suppliers and consumers of goods and services. There are small differences between the definitions for the two types of taxes. Generally the location is determined by reference to whether there exists a "permanent" or "fixed" place of business or, where there is no business, the usual residence. The presence of a network server might constitute a place of business, but probably only where it is part of a range of human and technical resources used to deliver a complete business transaction i.e. it is used to advertise, take orders, process payments and make deliveries. 2. Types of Products. E-commerce allows for some types of products, such as newspapers and music CDs, to be delivered in digitized form, rather than in tangible form. The digitized products raise issues at the state level as to whether sales tax applies and in which state income is generated for state income tax purposes. It also raise federal issues regarding the type of revenue generated and how it is to be reported. See Overview to Federal Domestic Tax Considerations for an Internet Company, by Professor Annette Nellen, San Jose State University.
3. Latest Marketing Techniques. The Internet has introduced new ways of selling and buying goods and services. For instance, anyone no matter where they located can offer their unwanted items to a worldwide group of potential buyers via auction sites, such as E-Bay. Also, the Internet can be used to link business buyers and sellers through exchange web sites where sellers post what they have to sell and buyers post what they need to buy. Almost, all of these sites can operate without human intervention . Additionally, the Internet has increased the use of bartering, with respect to exchange of web banners that serve as advertisements. These new marketing techniques raise various tax issues at all levels. At the federal domestic level, issues include whether an exchange intermediary or broker should be accounting for inventory, and what amount of information reporting should be required for low-value bartering transactions? See Overview to Federal Domestic Tax Considerations for an Internet Company, by Professor Annette Nellen, San José State University. 4. Types of Transactions. Because, the Internet allows paperless transactions and use of electronic cash, thus it raises administrative concerns for the Internal Revenue Service as to whether transactions were properly reported, whether an audit trail exists, and whether new reporting rules are needed. The U.S. Treasury is aware of the looming tax compliance problems. In its 1996 report, the U.S. Treasury expressed its fears of this as follows: "The major compliance issue posed by electronic commerce is the extent to which electronic money is analogous to cash and thus creates the potential for anonymous and untraceable transactions."
These anonymous transactions, and the use of anonymous money, create a huge problem for tax compliance. The U.S. Treasury rightly sees this as one of the most important issues in the taxation of e-commerce. Another significant category of issues involves identifying parties to communications and transactions utilizing thesenew technologies and verifying records when transactions are conducted electronically. In a speech entitled, "Tax Administration in a Global Era," Treasury Secretary Summers stated: "The Internet provides new ways for tax administrations, such as the IRS, to improve the ease and transparency of tax collection. But new technology also raises certain problems. In a world where cyber-transactions are growing at a rapid pace, tax administrations face the challenge of adapting existing tax systems to an economy that increasingly ignores physical borders. In such a world, it will be easier for companies to avoid tax collectors by operating worldwide through web-sites based in jurisdictions that are unwilling to share taxpayer information."
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Recent Lawyer News Updates |
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