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Pole Dance Teacher Sues City To Combat 'Pall Of Orthodoxy'
Legal Topics |
2008/08/29 16:53
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Adams Township unconstitutionally refused a permit to a woman who wants to open a "dance and fitness studio ... to teach women how to pole dance, power lap dance, and strip tease - all while fully clothed," Stephanie Babines claims in Federal Court. She says her class contains "absolutely no nudity, spectators, or sexual activity," but is part of a "growing national exercise movement" which has spread even to China, but is unreasonably feared, and illegally proscribed, by "small-town municipal officials."
Represented by the ACLU, Babines says she is being deprived of her livelihood because "the small-town municipal officials do not approve of the type of dance she teaches. They believe it is 'provocative,' full of sexual 'innuendo,' and too dangerous for their township."
Au contraire, Babine says. "The instruction contains absolutely no nudity, spectators, or sexual activity. The studio is not a men's entertainment club or strip joint, nor is it a mere front for such activity. Rather, the dance Ms. Babines hopes to teach is part of a growing national exercise movement. Chronicled in U.S. News and World Report, The New York Times, Pittsburgh Magazine, and Oprah Winfrey's talk show, pole dancing provides 'a workout that combines aerobics, dance, yoga, (and) strength training.' Ms. Babines has seen her dance classes help women get in shape, build self-confidence, and express their sexuality. A recent report documented how the craze has even spread to China. But while a repressive country like China allows dance studios to teach pole dancing, the defendants in this small Butler County town have misapplied their zoning code to deny Ms. Babines her right to teach this new combination of art and sport to interested adult women.
"Ms. Babines brings this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief to challenge the pall of orthodoxy imposed by defendants on the people in their town who wish to communicate unconventional ideas and to vindicate her free-expression rights under the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions to teach others about lawful and constitutionally protected activity." |
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San Francisco Mayor's Wife Says She Was Swindled
Legal Topics |
2008/08/26 16:53
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Moviemakers swindled the mayor of San Francisco's wife out of $75,000 by promising she would act in and produce a film in China, then making another movie, without hiring her for anything and without repaying her "one cent," Jennifer Siebel claims in Superior Court. Siebel demands punitive damages from Jay Rothstein and China Venture Films.
"This is a simple case of dishonesty," the complaint states. "Plaintiff Jennifer Siebel was swindled out of $75,000 by defendants Jay Rothstein and his company, China Venture Films, LLC based on false promises that they were producing and financing an independent film in China in which plaintiff would act and produce. Based on those false promises, plaintiff entered into an agreement with the defendants in which she invested $75,000. When soliciting her investment, defendants never had any intention of fulfilling the agreement, including repaying plaintiff the $75,000 that she invested and that defendant Rothstein, pursuant to the contract, agreed to be personally liable for."
Siebel claims Rothstein's flick, "Milk and Fashion," shot in China, "is essentially the same film as the film in which plaintiff invested. Plaintiff was not invited to appear in this film, was not offered the chance to take part in the production of the film, and has not been offered any rights to this film."
And, she says, Rothstein has blown off her requests to be repaid the $75,000. Siebel says he also owes her 6.5 percent of U.S. net income from the film.
Siebel, a Stanford graduate and actress, married Mayor Gavin Newsom on July 26.
She demands damages and punitive damages for fraud, conversion, breach of contract, unjust enrichment and negligent misrepresentation. She is represented by Steven Williams with Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy. |
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Prosecutors trying to get obese defendant to court
Legal Topics |
2008/08/22 15:24
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| Prosecutors are trying to decide how to jail and bring to court a nearly half-ton, bedridden woman accused of killing her 2-year-old nephew. A grand jury on Thursday indicted Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, on one count of first-degree murder and on one count of injury to a child in the death of Eliseo Gonzalez Jr. She previously had been charged with capital murder. Rosales weighs nearly 1,000 pounds and cannot fit through a door to leave her home, leaving prosecutors wondering how to bring her to court. As of Thursday evening, she was not in custody. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino said holding her at the county jail for her trial would be impossible because she needs extensive medical care. "She would die," said Trevino in Thursday's online edition of The Monitor in McAllen. The grand jury indicted Rosales after an autopsy confirmed investigators' suspicions that the child died March 18 because he had been struck. Investigators believe the toddler was struck at least twice, crushing his head. Authorities recommended Rosales' bond be set at $150,000. The boy's mother Jaime Rosales, was charged earlier with injury to a child because she allegedly left her son alone with his aunt. Her bond has been set at $100.000. |
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Ninth Circuit upholds school policy on special education children
Legal Topics |
2008/08/20 15:37
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The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday upheld a California public school district's policy that parents may only observe their disabled children in the classroom for twenty minutes in order to evaluate the school's proposed education plan. The parents of a student with autism filed suit after the psychologist they hired to evaluate the proposed plan was allowed only twenty minutes in the classroom, even though the district's own experts viewed L.M. in his home for three hours. The court rejected the parents' allegations that the district's policy violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act by denying their child access to a free and appropriate public education. The court also ruled against the parents' argument that the policy infringed upon their right to due process by interfering with their ability to participate in a placement hearing. The court explained:
The District’s policy...was harmless because Parents nevertheless had a full opportunity to participate in the process to fashion an appropriate educational plan for L.M. with help from an informed and knowledgeable expert. There is no evidence to support a finding that Parents’ right to participate was significantly affected. The court also denied the parents' request for a "stay put" order which would allow their child to remain in his current private educational program until litigation of the matter concluded, because the program did not constitute "current educational placement" under IDEA.
Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit found that a district court erred when it refused to grant qualified immunity to school officials who placed a child in a special education program designed to control his repeated outbursts. The child's mother had originally sought relief under IDEA because her child suffered from severe mental and emotional health problems, but this claim was dismissed by a lower court. In 2007, the US Supreme Court held that parents of special needs children have independent, enforceable rights under IDEA, overturning a Sixth Circuit decision holding that rights under IDEA are held only by the child. When US President George W. Bush signed IDEA into law in 2004, he stated that it had been designed to ensure that students with disabilities would have special education teachers with the necessary skills and training. Bush was subsequently criticized for underfunding the related programs. |
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Businessman Says Joe Arpaio Ruined Him
Legal Topics |
2008/08/18 17:03
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Joe Arpaio, the publicity-hungry sheriff of Maricopa County, staged a media event by bursting into a man's home and accusing him of running an illegal chop shop, though Arpaio was simply serving a warrant for an unpaid traffic ticket, a man claims in Maricopa County Court.
Terry Jorgensen claims Arpaio also seized more than $100,000 in tools and jet skis and refused to return them, driving Jorgensen out of business and making him homeless.
In his pro se, but cogent, complaint, Jorgensen says Arpaio staged the raid on Feb. 6, 2003, then on April 6, 2006, charged him with six felonies, including running a chop shop. Jorgensen claims that in August 2007, "Superior Court Judge Roza Mroz ruled that the search warrant violated the plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable search, dismissed the case, and ordered the return of plaintiff's property. Although plaintiff has a court order for its return, the MCSO (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office) refuses to return a single item."
Jorgensen says he was earning $100,000 a year when Arpaio staged his raid and ruined his business. He claims Arpaio's stunt cost him more than $500,000 and made him homeless.
Arpaio, the self-proclaimed "Toughest Sheriff in America," has made national news for years by, among other things, putting prisoners to work on chain gangs and housing them in tents. |
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Pakistani woman alleged to be al-Qaeda appears in US court
Legal Topics |
2008/08/07 16:06
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The first woman scheduled to stand trial in the US on charges related to suspected al-Qaeda ties has been extradited to the US and appeared before the District Court for the Southern District of New York Tuesday on terrorism charges. Aafia Siddiqui, who comes from Pakistan, was charged with assault and the attempted murder of a US officer after allegedly opening fire on agents at the Afghan detention facility where she was being held last month. According to the complaint:
AAFIA SIDDIQUI, the defendant, who will be first brought to and arrested in the Southern District of New York, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly did use a deadly and dangerous weapon and did forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, and interfere with a person designated in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1114, namely, officers and employees of the FBI and the United States armed services, while engaged in and on account of the performance of official duties, to wit, SIDDIQUI obtained a United States Army Officer's M-4 rifle and fired it at officers and employees of the FBI and the United States armed services. If convicted, she could face 20 years in prison on each charge.
Siddiqui's family has insisted that she is not an al-Qaeda agent and that the FBI has publicized misleading information about her. They say that Siddiqui, a former student at Brandeis University and MIT in Boston, may have been a victim of extraordinary rendition after she vanished from Karachi, Pakistan in 2003. Family lawyer Elaine Whitfield Sharp alleged that Siddiqui may have been wrongly detained and tortured at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. |
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ICE launches voluntary deportation program
Legal Topics |
2008/08/06 17:41
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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a new program Tuesday that allows certain illegal immigrants to coordinate their removal from the US with ICE without the risk of home raids, arrest or detention. The Scheduled Departure Program, a pilot program that will run through August 22 in five major cities, is designed for illegal immigrants without criminal records who have ignored official removal orders. According to the ICE press release:
The agency recognizes there are those less inclined to accept the intentions of such a compassionately conceived enforcement initiative, but remains committed to providing sensible alternatives that balance the welfare of the individuals and families in question with its clear obligation to uphold the law.
The Scheduled Departure Program will not alter a participant's immigration status or provide any immigration benefit. The program is not a form of voluntary departure or voluntary return. Participants will continue to have a final order of removal, deportation or exclusion.
ICE stressed that illegal immigrants without formal removal orders, those with criminal records and those who pose a threat to national security would not qualify for the program and would be detained, but said that participation by those who qualified would ease the transition process and the impact on the immigrants' families. ICE also began an ad campaign in the five participating cities, but critics have said the program will be ineffective because eligible immigrants will not voluntarily surrender.
ICE maintains a number of additional initiatives [fact sheet] to combat illegal immigration. In May, 270 illegal immigrants arrested during an ICE-led raid at an Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant in Iowa were each sentenced to five months in prison and 27 more received probation after pleading guilty to the use of false immigration documents. ICE also carried out a raid in California the same month targeting 495 people who had ignored deportation orders, resulting in the arrest of more than 900 illegal immigrants. In general, US immigration prosecutions continued to increase in March 2008, jumping nearly 50 percent from the previous month and nearly 75 percent from the previous year, according to a report released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. |
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