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Husband of Ohio ex-fugitive to plead guilty
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/29 16:09
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The husband of a former fugitive who spent more than two years in Mexico following her conviction in Ohio in a $1.9 billion corporate fraud has agreed to plead guilty to lying to investigators about her whereabouts, according to documents made public Friday.
U.S. marshals say their search for Rebecca Parrett was hurt by false information they received from Gary Green in 2008 and 2009.
Green is expected to receive a five-month prison sentence followed by five months of house arrest, federal public defender Steve Nolder said Friday.
"Obviously the statements he made were false and had direct impact on the government's case," Nolder said. "In that regard, there's no getting around the charge."
But Nolder said Green, now living with his daughter in Los Angeles, eventually cooperated with investigators after he was charged and gave them information that allowed them to seize assets of Parrett.
The tentative sentence is on par with the six-month sentence that Parrett's sister, Linda Case, received in July 2010 for lying to federal investigators searching for Parrett.
Parrett was arrested in Mexico last year, more than two years after she fled the country rather than appear for her sentencing in a corporate fraud case investigators likened to the Enron or WorldCom scandals.
Parrett had disappeared in March 2008 after she was convicted of securities fraud, wire fraud and other charges in a scheme at health care financing company National Century Financial Enterprises. |
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Wyoming Supreme Court rules for bar owners
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/29 13:07
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The Wyoming Supreme Court has ruled that state law protects bar owners from lawsuits arising from the actions of their intoxicated patrons.
In a split decision Friday, the court upheld a lower court ruling against relatives of a Ten Sleep couple who died in a head-on crash in 2008. The couple's relatives had sued the owners of two Big Horn County saloons claiming they continued to serve the driver who plowed into the couple after he was drunk.
The court majority ruled state law from the 1980s holds bar owners can't be held liable for their patrons' actions.
Chief Justice Marilyn S. Kite and Justice William Hill filed a dissenting opinion saying they would allow lawsuits against bar owners if they violated local ordinances against serving alcohol to intoxicated persons. |
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No choking charges for Wis. Supreme Court justice
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/26 17:00
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A conservative Wisconsin state Supreme Court justice who staved off an unusually intense campaign to replace him this summer will not face criminal charges over allegations that he tried to choke a liberal colleague, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Sauk County District Attorney Patricia Barrett, a special prosecutor in the case, said that after reviewing investigators' reports, she decided there's no basis to file charges against either Justice David Prosser or Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who accused Prosser of choking her.
Barrett, who is a Republican, told The Associated Press that the accounts of the other justices who were present when the alleged altercation occurred varied widely, however she declined to elaborate.
"I believe a complete review of the report suggests there is a difference of opinion. There are a variety of statements about what occurred ... the totality of what did happen does not support criminal charges against either Justice Bradley or Justice Prosser," Barrett said.
Walsh Bradley accused Prosser of choking her in June while the justices were deliberating the merits of a lawsuit challenging Republican Gov. Scott Walker's contentious law stripping public workers of most of their collective bargaining rights. Walsh Bradley, 61, is seen as part of the court's three-justice liberal minority, while Prosser, a 68-year-old former Republican legislator, is considered part of the four-justice conservative majority. The factions have been feuding for years.
The court delivered its verdict the day after the alleged incident, ruling 4-3 to uphold the law and allowing it to finally take effect. As expected, Prosser voted with the majority. |
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Strauss-Kahn free after NY court ends sex case
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/24 15:39
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Dominique Strauss-Kahn, his wife by his side, walked to a Manhattan courtroom through shouting protesters carrying signs that read: "Put the rapist on trial — not the victim." Just hours later, the French diplomat was a free man — his attempted rape case formally dismissed. The former International Monetary Fund leader can leave the United States after he's handed back his passport — which could happen as soon as Wednesday — but he will return to France to face an uncertain future that includes another investigation into an alleged sexual assault. "I can't wait to get back to my country, but there are some things I have to do first," he said in French outside the posh Tribeca town home where he was kept under house arrest. The New York case was dismissed Tuesday after prosecutors said they no longer trusted the hotel maid who accused him of attacking her in his luxury suite on May 14. Though evidence showed Strauss-Kahn had a sexual encounter with Nafissatou Diallo, prosecutors said the accuser was not credible because of lies she has told, including an earlier false rape claim. But an investigation continues in France into claims by novelist Tristane Banon, who said Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in 2002. She recently filed a new criminal complaint. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers have called her account "imaginary." And in New York, Strauss-Kahn still faces a lawsuit Diallo filed against him. Her attorneys said they would aggressively litigate the civil case — but it could take two years before it gets to trial. |
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Agreement reached in Mo. suit against LegalZoom
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/23 11:09
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A proposed settlement has been reached in a federal class-action lawsuit against LegalZoom Inc., the online vendor of legal forms and documents.
The lawsuit had been scheduled go to trial Monday in U.S. District Court in Jefferson City.
But California-based LegalZoom has announced an agreement in principle to settle the lawsuit that claimed the company wasn't licensed to provide legal services in Missouri. LegalZoom says it contains no admission of wrongdoing and lets the company continue offering services to Missouri residents with certain changes.
The original plaintiffs were a Missouri resident who used LegalZoom to prepare a will, and two others who used it to organize a remodeling business.
An attorney for the plaintiffs says only that the settlement involves compensation for Missouri customers and changes to how LegalZoom operates. |
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Government probe of Standard and Poor's
Lawyer Blog News |
2011/08/19 15:33
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The Justice Department is investigating whether the Standard & Poor's credit ratings agency improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The investigation began before Standard & Poor's cut the United States' AAA credit rating this month, but it's likely to add to the political firestorm created by the downgrade, the newspaper said. Some government officials have since questioned the agency's secretive process, its credibility and the competence of its analysts, claiming to have found an error in its debt calculations.
The Times cites two people interviewed by the government and another briefed on such interviews as its sources. According to people with knowledge of the interviews, the Justice Department has been asking about instances in which the company's analysts wanted to award lower ratings on mortgage bonds but may have been overruled by other S&P business managers.
If the government finds enough evidence to support a case, it could undercut S&P's longstanding claim that its analysts act independently from business concerns. The newspaper said it was unclear whether the Justice Department investigation involves the other two major ratings agencies, Moody's and Fitch, or only S&P. |
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