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Wife of NY pharmacy suspect pleads not guilty
Court Feed News |
2011/07/19 12:54
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A woman accused of driving the getaway car after her husband allegedly massacred four people in a holdup for prescription painkillers pleaded not guilty to an upgraded robbery charge on Tuesday.
Melinda Brady now faces a first-degree robbery charge, which carries up to 25 years in prison if she's convicted. She had previously been charged with third-degree robbery.
The judge ordered her held without bail. She had been jailed on $750,000 bail since she and her husband were arrested last month.
Police said Brady told investigators that she and her husband, David Laffer, plotted the Father's Day robbery in Medford, N.Y., but that she did not know the plan involved killing.
About 20 relatives of the victims watched from the gallery of the crowded courtroom.
Brady, 29, was arrested on robbery and obstruction charges. She blamed her husband when she was led from police headquarters to a nearby precinct holding cell following her arrest last month. |
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Women guilty of having 80 cats in car
Court Feed News |
2011/07/14 13:39
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Two New York women have pleaded guilty to animal cruelty charges after 80 cats were found in two cars in Vermont.
They were arrested last October. At the time police said they were driving from shelter to shelter trying to put some of the cats up for adoption.
Sixty-two-year-old Bertha Ryan and 55-year-old Regina Millard, who are sisters from Troy, N.Y., each pleaded guilty Tuesday in court in Bennington to 13 misdemeanor counts of cruelty to an animal.
The Bennington Banner reports that the two women received 18-month deferred sentences. As part of their sentences, they must undergo mental health treatment and they are forbidden from having animals.
Officials have found homes for most of the cats. Some were euthanized. |
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Domino's sued after Texas deliveryman's death
Court Feed News |
2011/07/14 11:40
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Domino's is being sued by the widow of a Texas employee who died a year after being robbed and beaten with a baseball bat by teens who lured the deliveryman to a vacant house.
The lawsuit alleges the company was negligent in failing to follow safety procedures and seeks "all damages" available under state law to Fred Rein's widow, Jackie, plus exemplary and punitive damages. The suit filed Monday in Tarrant County names as defendants the local franchise and national corporation, including Mark of Excellence Pizza Co., Domino's Pizza and Domino's Pizza Franchising, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
"The purpose of this lawsuit is to ensure that nothing this tragic ever happens to anybody else," said attorney Geno Borchardt, who represents Jackie Rein.
Borchardt said the teens used a prepaid cell phone to place a phony order, and that Domino's had never before delivered pizza to the vacant Fort Worth house. When Rein arrived with the pizzas that night in 2009, he was attacked and suffered brain damage. His death 14 months later was ruled a homicide.
Domino's spokesman Tim McIntyre said the company does not comment on lawsuits but is saddened by the loss and sorry for Rein's family.
The three teens were charged as juveniles, but the cases went to court before Rein died. |
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Lawyer defends Nevada truck firm in Amtrak crash
Court Feed News |
2011/07/11 08:47
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A lawyer for the Nevada trucking company whose tractor-trailer slammed into an Amtrak train, killing six people, defended the company’s safety record Thursday and said it was not at fault in two previous accidents cited in state safety records.
John Davis Trucking Co. has been cooperating with local, state and federal investigators and is as anxious as anyone to learn why the driver who died in the June 24 crash ignored flashing lights and crossing gates before skidding the length of a football field into the side of the train, Steven Jaffe of Las Vegas said.
But he said four negligence lawsuits filed against the Battle Mountain company — combined with the ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board — has kept the brothers who own the family-run business from sharing information that would help shed more light on the tragedy.
“There’s a lot more than meets the eye,” Jaffe told The Associated Press. “I think when it all comes down to it, the public is going to see a very different John Davis Trucking than was originally put out there.
“I believe the evidence will show their conduct was defensible in all of this,” he said. “I have a great deal of trust in the legal system, and if some day we go in front of a jury, I’m confident it will give us the chance to say that we did everything right.”
Federal records reviewed by the AP show the state Department of Public Safety cited the company for 16 vehicle maintenance violations over the past two years and noted it had been involved in two crashes during that period, including one in February 2010 that injured a person in Washoe County. |
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Ohio appeals court rules in against Browns in Bentley suit
Court Feed News |
2011/07/10 07:47
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An Ohio appeals court has ruled in favor of former Cleveland Browns center LeCharles Bentley, saying the team can't force NFL arbitration to halt a lawsuit on the career-ending staph infection he says he contracted at the team's training facility.
The Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals in Cleveland on Thursday upheld a Cuyahoga County judge's ruling, saying the issue is not related to the collective bargaining agreement and can be handled in county court.
Bentley's attorney has said he nearly died from the infection he contracted while rehabbing from a knee injury at the team's suburban Berea facility. The team is accused of persuading Bentley to rehab at the training site and failing to tell him about unsanitary conditions and other players who had contracted staph.
The team had argued that state and federal laws support arbitration over litigation.
Bentley never played a game for the Browns after signing a six-year, $36 million contract as a free agent. He tore his left patellar tendon in training camp in 2006, and his career never recovered after the infection.
In 2007, Bentley told The Associated Press that he had undergone four operations since getting hurt, the final two to clean out the staph infection, which ate away at his tendon. |
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Court: Firing worker who took hot dogs unjustified
Court Feed News |
2011/07/08 14:29
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The Indiana Court of Appeals says a department store wasn't justified in firing a worker who took two leftover hot dogs from a company picnic, so it must pay him unemployment benefits. The court ruled Thursday in the case of Nolan Koewler, who was fired from a Dillard's store in Evansville a year ago. Dillard's hosted a Fourth of July cookout for employees. Afterward, a manager ordered the leftovers stored in a break room freezer until Labor Day. The next day, Koewler took two hot dogs and ate them, an act caught on surveillance video. He claimed he never heard the instruction to save the hot dogs, and the three-judge panel sided unanimously with him. The opinion didn't reveal the amount of unemployment benefits at stake. |
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