|
|
|
Whitey Bulger's girlfriend pleads not guilty
Legal Business |
2011/08/16 09:26
|
The longtime girlfriend of reputed Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger pleaded not guilty Thursday to helping him elude authorities during his 16 years as a fugitive.
Catherine Greig, 60, entered her plea in a brief appearance in federal court in Boston that lasted less than five minutes. She also waived a reading of the indictment.
Greig was indicted last week on a charge of conspiracy to harbor and conceal a fugitive, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years. Greig has been jailed since she and Bulger were captured in June in Santa Monica, Calif. Bulger has pleaded not guilty to participating in 19 murders.
Prosecutors say Greig actively helped Bulger escape capture, but her attorney says she's a subservient woman who wasn't aware of the extent of Bulger's alleged crimes when she fled with him.
On Thursday, Greig smiled at her twin sister when she entered the courtroom. She did not speak during the hearing, except to tell the judge she understood the charges against her and was ready to enter her plea.
After the hearing, Greig's attorney Kevin Reddington was asked if Greig was cooperating with authorities against Bulger. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tech blogger won't be charged in Apple iPhone case
Legal Business |
2011/08/15 09:27
|
Prosecutors said Wednesday that they will not bring charges against a tech blogger who bought an Apple iPhone prototype after it was found at a bar in March 2010 in a case that ignited an unusual First Amendment debate.
San Mateo County Assistant District Attorney Morley Pitt said charges were not filed against Gizmodo.com's Jason Chen or other employees, citing California's shield law that protects the confidentiality of journalists' sources.
"The difficulty we faced is that Mr. Chen and Gizmodo were primarily, in their view, engaged in a journalistic endeavor to conduct an investigation into the phone and type of phone it was and they were protected by the shield law," said Pitt.
"We concluded it is a very gray area, they do have a potential claim and this was not the case with which we were going to push the envelope."
Chen's house was raided and his computer seized after Gizmodo posted images of the prototype. The website and other media organizations objected, saying the raid was illegal because state law prohibits the seizure of unpublished notes from journalists.
"We feel there was not a crime to begin with and still believe that, and are pleased the DA's office has an appropriate respect for the First Amendment," said Thomas J. Nolan Jr., a lawyer for Chen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nigerian who allegedly scammed 80 law firms, lawyers out of $31M extradited to US
Topics in Legal News |
2011/08/14 09:27
|
A Nigerian man who fled to his homeland after being accused of defrauding dozens of lawyers and law firms of more than $31 million dollars has been extradited to the U.S., Nigeria’s anti-graft agency said Friday.
Emmanuel Ekhator was arrested in Nigeria’s Benin City by the country’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in August. He was handed over to U.S. marshals in New York on Thursday, said Femi Babafemi, the anti-graft body’s spokesman.
“With the latest extradition, ... the message should be clear to anyone who travels abroad to commit crime and run back home to hide that Nigeria is no longer safe for them,” Farida Waziri, the anti-graft body’s chief, said in a statement. “We will get them and hand them over to face the law.”
Court records show Ekhator has yet to be assigned a lawyer. He remained in custody on Friday.
Charging documents from the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania show that Ekhator and others are accused of mail and wire fraud after using bank accounts in South Korea, Singapore, China and Japan to collect the stolen money.
Federal prosecutors say the complicated scam involved multiple players, with a fraudster calling a U.S. or Canadian law firm posing as someone usually in Asia who needed to collect a debt from a person or organization based in North America. Another scammer poses as the debtor and agrees to pay off the debt — using a fake check, authorities say.
The law firms or lawyers collect the fake check, which gets validated by a third scammer posing as a bank employee over the telephone. Before the victims realize the check is fake, they’ve already used their own money to pay the fake settlement amount to their supposedly Asia-based client.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Serbia seeks to block execution of citizen in Nev.
Legal Business |
2011/08/13 09:27
|
The Serbian government is asking a Nevada court to block the execution of one of its citizens, saying its consulate was not informed of his 1994 arrest as required by international law.
Serbia, in a friend-of-the-court brief filed last week in Washoe County District Court in Reno, maintains the notification would have provided Avram Nika with assistance that could have spared him the death penalty.
Nika, 41, is on death row at Ely State Prison for the 1994 killing of a good Samaritan who stopped to help him along Interstate 80 near Reno. He has yet to exhaust his state and federal appeals.
"(Nika was) particularly vulnerable to the denial of consular assistance due to his inability to speak English and his lack of familiarity with the U.S. legal system and culture," Serbia's brief says.
The failure to notify the consulate caused no mitigating evidence to be presented at his sentencing hearing — such as that he was a hard-working family man who came from poverty and was discriminated against because he was a member of a nomadic ethnic group known as Roma, also called Gypsies, according to the document.
District Attorney Dick Gammick says there was no consulate to contact because the former Yugoslavia where Nika was from was undergoing drastic change at the time. Serbia did not exist as a country then, he said, and other countries in the region came and went.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
$168 million securities fraud settlement proposed
Headline Legal News |
2011/08/12 10:35
|
The New York State Common Retirement Fund has announced a proposed $168 million settlement of its securities fraud class-action lawsuit against National City Corp. alleging misrepresentations to investors.
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, trustee of the $146.5 billion fund and lead plaintiff, says the defendants agreed to the settlement but admitted no wrongdoing.
PNC Financial Services Group Inc., which bought Cleveland-based National City in 2008, declined to comment.
The suit alleges National City misrepresented the quality of its mortgages and home equity loans and the severity of its losses.
The settlement is expected to go before U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. in the Northern District of Ohio for preliminary approval in the next few weeks, with all class members notified after that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
