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Ex-AT&T executive pleads guilty in NY insider case
Court Watch |
2012/06/19 09:53
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A former executive at AT&T has pleaded guilty in New York to charges in an insider trading scheme that authorities say involved the passing of secrets disguised as expert guidance.
Alnoor Ebrahim pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Manhattan to charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud. He was formerly an associate director of channel marketing at AT&T.
Prosecutors say the information that Ebrahim provided through his work for an expert networking firm involved information about product sales for the company's handset devices.
The government said Ebrahim was paid more than $180,000 to serve as a consultant for employees of Manhattan-based investment firms. |
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Supreme Court says tribes must be fully reimbursed
Court News |
2012/06/18 12:59
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The Supreme Court says the government must fully reimburse Native American tribes for money they spent on federal programs.
The federal government had agreed to fully reimburse money tribes spent on programs like law enforcement, environmental protection and agricultural assistance, but Congress capped the amount of money earmarked for that reimbursement. The tribes sued, and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver said the money must be fully reimbursed.
The high court on Monday said the Ramah Navajo Chapter and other Native American tribes must get their money back.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion for Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito dissented. |
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Massive LA County court layoffs to begin Friday
Headline Legal News |
2012/06/15 11:01
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Squeezed by state budgets cutbacks, the Los Angeles County court system is launching massive job layoffs, pay cuts and transfers, court officials said Thursday.
Cutbacks that will be implemented Friday will affect 431 court employees and 56 courtrooms throughout the nation's largest superior court system.
Presiding Judge Lee Smalley Edmon bemoaned the loss of longtime employees as well as the impact on public services.
"We are laying off people who are committed to serving the public," she said. "It is a terrible loss both to these dedicated employees and to the public."
The union representing state and municipal employees called Friday's action a "freeze on justice in Los Angeles" and warned that the county would experience "an end to timely justice" with cases being delayed for years, particularly in civil courts.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — AFSCME — planned to have representatives on hand to assist employees who will not know they are losing their jobs until they are informed individually Friday.
A spokeswoman for the California Judicial Council said other courts in the state will also be impacted by the budget cuts but will handle them individually. Los Angeles' court system, as the largest, will be the most heavily affected.
Edmon said the drastic actions are the result of a state mandate to reduce annual spending by $30 million. She noted that earlier reductions already saved $70 million, but more cuts in state support for trial courts are scheduled for the next fiscal year. |
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Accused Auburn shooter in court on 3 murder counts
Headline Legal News |
2012/06/14 10:17
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The man charged in three slayings near Auburn University has had three attorneys appointed for him after telling a judge he cannot afford to pay for his legal defense.
Desmonte Leonard had his first appearance before a judge in Opelika, Ala., on Thursday morning. He's facing three counts of capital murder and two assault charges in the shootings last weekend.
The dead included two former Auburn football players, and a current player was among the three injured.
The 22-year-old Leonard told a judge he can't afford to pay for a legal defense. So the judge appointed three Montgomery attorneys to represent Leonard at taxpayer expense.
Leonard says he understands the charges against him. Leonard was chained at his hands and feet during the brief appearance and is jailed without bond. |
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Arizona court approves fifth execution this year
Topics in Legal News |
2012/06/13 15:36
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The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday approved the execution of a death-row inmate who was spared from the death penalty last year after winning a last-minute delay from the nation's highest court.
Daniel Wayne Cook, 50, is now scheduled for execution on Aug. 8 at the state prison in Florence.
Cook was sentenced to death for killing a 26-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, Carlos Cruz-Ramos, and a 16-year-old boy, Kevin Swaney, in 1987, after police say he tortured and raped them for hours in his apartment in Lake Havasu City in far western Arizona.
Cook had been scheduled for execution on April 5 of last year, but the U.S. Supreme Court granted him a last-minute stay to consider whether he had ineffective counsel during his post-conviction proceedings. They since have turned him down.
Another death-row inmate, Samuel Villegas Lopez, is set to be executed in two weeks.
Lopez would become the fourth inmate executed in Arizona this year, while Cook would become the fifth. Two other inmates who are nearing the end of their appeals could bring the number of executions in the state this year to seven.
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