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Guilty plea for Va. man in $318K Social Security fraud
Headline Legal News |
2011/09/09 15:39
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A Bristol man has pleaded guilty to stealing Social Security benefits and making false statements in an attempt to hide the thefts.
Seventy-one-year-old David Ross entered the plea Thursday in federal court in Abingdon.
Ross faces a sentence of up to 65 years in prison on all counts.
Federal prosecutors say Ross admitted stealing more than $318,000 in benefits that had been intended for his mother, who died in 1971. He told the Social Security Administration that his mother died in December 2010. |
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Court: Samsung can't sell tablet in Germany
Areas of Focus |
2011/09/09 10:39
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A German court rules that Samsung Electronics's Galaxy Tab cannot be sold in Germany because it violated patents of rival Apple's iPad2.
A Duesseldorf state court said Friday it would not allow Samsung, based in Seoul, South Korea, to market its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany because it too closely resembles the iPad2.
Already in August, the court had ruled in favor of Apple, based in Cupertino, California, forcing Samsung to withdraw its tablet from the market.
Samsung challenged the ban. The companies are involved in a series of legal disputes in countries around the world over allegations that each copies the other's technology. |
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Ga. high court ousts pot-smoking judge from bench
Areas of Focus |
2011/09/07 15:44
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A Georgia judge who pointed a gun at himself in the courtroom, berated his boss in a bizarre televised rant and admitted to regularly smoking marijuana was ousted from the bench for life by the state's top court Tuesday.
The Georgia Supreme Court's unanimous opinion also barred Catoosa County Magistrate Anthony Peters from ever holding another judicial office in Georgia, concluding he has done "nothing to show that he has any ability to live up to the high standard of conduct expected of members of the judiciary in Georgia."
Peters' home phone number was disconnected, and his attorney Chris Townley did not return calls and emails Tuesday seeking comment. But Peters said during an April hearing that the violations took place during a "rough patch" in his life, and his attorney blamed his behavior on prescription drug abuse after his client was involved in a devastating 2005 ATV accident.
Peters, who is not an attorney, was a detective for the county sheriff's office for 10 years before he was appointed as a magistrate judge in 1997. But his demeanor started changing after a difficult 2005, which began when his father committed suicide and grew worse after the ATV accident. The magistrate was taking heavy doses of pain medications by 2009 after surgeries didn't ease the pain, his lawyer said. |
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Ex-Pa. House speaker pleads guilty to corruption
Areas of Focus |
2011/09/07 15:44
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The onetime speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives pleaded guilty Wednesday to eight criminal charges stemming from a public corruption investigation, making him the highest-ranking state politician to be convicted in the four-and-a-half-year inquiry.
Ex-Rep. John M. Perzel entered the plea to two counts of conflict of interest, two counts of theft and four counts of conspiracy. He left the courthouse without commenting, but apologized in an e-mailed statement and said he bore responsibility for improprieties in spending public funds he controlled.
"It was up to me to see that taxpayer funds were spent only for the betterment of the people of Pennsylvania, and not for my political benefit (or) that of my party," Perzel said in the news release.
Prosecutors have described Perzel, 61, as being at the center of a scheme to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on computer technology for the benefit of GOP political campaigns.
Also Wednesday, his nephew and co-defendant Eric S. Ruth, 36, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and conflict of interest. Ruth once worked in the House Republican technology office. |
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Shareholder class action hits Leighton
Areas of Focus |
2011/09/01 16:44
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Shareholders set to take legal action against Leighton over alleged failures to properly report a $907 million turnaround in financial performance.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn on Thursday said it intended to launch a class action against the company, alleging Leighton breached continuous disclosure obligations as set out in the Corporations Act.
On April 11 this year, the Leighton announced it was expecting to post a loss of $427 million for the 2010/11 financial year, a turnaround from a $480 million profit in 2009/10.
The announcement came after a review of its operations, which led to a $282 million drop in profit from its desalination plant project at Wonthaggi in Victoria, a before-tax loss of $430 million on the Brisbane Airport Link and a $295 million write-down on its equity in the Middle East-focused Habtoor Leighton Group.
Maurice Blackburn principal Andrew Watson said Leighton should have told the market about those write-downs by November 2, 2010, or, at the very latest, February 14 this year.
'Shareholders expect a company like Leighton to have proper risk management and internal reporting systems to ensure timely announcements are made when there are difficulties,' Mr Watson said.
Maurice Blackburn says it believes Leighton was seeking approval for design changes on the Brisbane Airport Link because of expected delays as early as April 2009.
Leighton also advised the market that construction of the Victorian desalination plant was on time at least five times between November 2010 and March 2011, Maurice Blackburn alleges.
In response to a query from the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) several days after its announcement of the losses, Leighton said it informed the market of its expected losses as soon as it was aware of them.
'At all times, the company has been mindful of its continuous disclosure obligations,' Leighton secretary Ashley Moir said on April 18.
Last week, the Leightonboard terminated the contract of chief executive David Stewart, who took over from long-time chief executive Wal King in January.
That followed chairman David Mortimer's decision to depart the Leighton board a day earlier. |
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Group seeks appellate action on gays in military
Headline Legal News |
2011/09/01 16:43
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The military's ban on openly gay troops will be lifted within weeks, but the policy can still be re-enacted in the future.
That's why a Republican gay rights organization that sued the Obama administration to stop enforcement of the policy says it will ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday to declare the nearly 18-year-old law unconstitutional, affirming a lower court's ruling last year.
With several Republican presidential candidates, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, indicating they would favor reinstating the ban if elected, such a ruling is needed, said Dan Woods, the attorney for the Log Cabin Republicans. Declaring the law unconstitutional would also provide a legal path for thousands discharged under the policy to seek reinstatement, back pay or other compensation for having their careers cut short, Woods said.
"The repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' doesn't say anything about the future," Woods said. "It doesn't (explicitly) say homosexuals can serve. A new Congress or new president could come back and reinstitute it. We need our case to survive so there is a constraint on the government to prevent it from doing this again."
During her campaign stop in Iowa in August, Bachmann told interviewer Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of The Union" when asked whether she would reinstitute the law: "It worked very well and I would be in consultation with our commanders, but I think, yes, I probably would."
Justice Department attorneys have filed a motion asking the appeals court to dismiss the case, arguing that the repeal process that will lift the ban Sept. 20 makes the lawsuit irrelevant.
The Log Cabin Republicans successfully won an injunction by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips last year that halted enforcement of "don't ask, don't tell" briefly, before the 9th Circuit reinstated it. |
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Colombia court reinstates conviction in Galan hit
Legal Topics |
2011/09/01 09:43
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated the murder conviction of a former justice minister for masterminding the 1989 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, a courageous foe of drug cartels.
The court also reinstated the 24-year prison sentence a lower court imposed in 2007 on Alberto Santofimio, who was widely considered the "political godfather" of the late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Hitmen employed by Escobar killed Galan, and a key witness in Santofimio's trial said he saw the defendant urge Escobar to order the murder.
"Kill him, Pablo," testified John Jairo Velasquez, or "Popeye," who was Escobar's chief henchman at the time and has confessed to organizing the assassination.
Santofimio, a senator who had been justice minister in the 1970s, was at the time a rival of Galan for the Liberal Party's presidential nomination.
The Aug. 18, 1989, assassination badly traumatized a nation already reeling from a terror campaign by Escobar's henchmen, who killed hundreds of judges, journalists and police. Escobar also targeted civilians with car bombs, even blowing up an airplane in midflight.
The drug kingpin was trying to pressure Colombia's leaders not to extradite drug lords to the United States. Nonetheless, Galan, the presidential frontrunner when he was killed, promised to battle the narcos with extradition. |
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