Government

High-Ranking Prison Official Charged with Seeking Bribes for Help with Discrimination Case

A high-ranking official with the New Jersey Department of Corrections has been arrested on federal bribery charges. Among the accusations against Lydell Sherrer, 51, is that he accepted $4,000 in bribes to provide a fellow employee with internal documents to use in a discrimination lawsuit against the department, reports the…

Oct 14, 2010 12:47 AM CDT

Retired Judge to be Tried for Perjury, Admits Letting Witness Lie to Protect Paid Informant

A retired Michigan judge has been ordered to stand trial along with two Detroit-area police officers and Wayne County’s former chief drug prosecutor, who has also retired, for allegedly encouraging witness lies in a 2005 trial in a major cocaine case. Allegedly told by the prosecutor, Karen Plants, that false…

Oct 13, 2010 7:57 PM CDT

Proposed Leaf-Blower Ban Generates Lots of Noise from Irked Citizens

A proposal to ban most, but not all, leaf-blowing in a South Florida city has generated lots of noise from irate citizens. While some in Coral Gables welcome the green initiative, which is intended to reduce not only the racket from the machines but the mold spores and chemicals they…

Oct 13, 2010 7:09 PM CDT

Dozens Arrested in $100M Medicare Case Bust; Doctor & Patient IDs Allegedly Stolen

Developing: Perhaps 100 people have been arrested in California, Georgia, Ohio, New Mexico and New York, in a record-breaking Medicare fraud case that allegedly involved $100 million in bogus billings and the use of stolen doctor and patient identities. Some 40 individuals were arrested in New York alone and an…

Oct 13, 2010 6:42 PM CDT

Judge Strikes ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Policy

A federal judge in Southern California issued an injunction today that bans the U.S. military from enforcing its 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning gay and lesbian service members anywhere in the world. The policy violates their constitutional rights, held U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, including due process, freedom…

Oct 12, 2010 9:21 PM CDT

Lawyer Introductions Led to $550K Fine for Manatt Phelps in NY Pension Fund Case

Updated: A California law firm has agreed to pay $550,000 to the state of New York and refrain from appearing before public pension funds there for the next five years, after several unidentified partners introduced, or tried to introduce, financial firms seeking money to several of the institutional investors. Although…

Oct 12, 2010 8:22 PM CDT

2 Teens Get $185K, Lawyer Gets $425K in School Webcam Spy Case

The school board of a suburban Philadelphia district has agreed to pay $610,000 to settle a suit by two students who say they were spied upon in their own homes via district-issued laptop computers equipped with webcams. Of that total, $175,000 will be put in trust for the student who…

Oct 12, 2010 5:44 PM CDT

Judge OKs Teen’s Church of Body Mod Beliefs, Says School Must Let Her Wear Nose Stud

A lawyer for a 14-year-old high school freshman kicked out of school for wearing a peridot nose stud says a federal judge in Raleigh, N.C., ordered today that she be readmitted. However, an attorney for the school district declined to comment, reports the Associated Press. Ariana Iacono and her mother…

Oct 8, 2010 4:42 PM CDT

Calif. AG Sues 2 Companies, 3 Attorneys & Others for $60M, Says Homeowners Duped Into Suing Banks

Updated: Saying that consumers got little or nothing for hefty upfront fees and put their homes at greater risk of foreclosure by listening to purported home-rescue schemes marketed by two California-based companies that promoted dubious litigation, the state attorney general has a filed a $60 million lawsuit. It names as…

Oct 7, 2010 7:41 PM CDT

Court: Metadata in Citizen’s E-Mail Is Public Record, Justifying Search of Official’s Home Computer

Ruling on a case of first impression, the Washington Supreme Court today held that metadata in a citizen’s unsolicited e-mail sent to a public official on her home computer is a public record that must be disclosed upon request to another citizen, under state public records law. The court also…

Oct 7, 2010 6:45 PM CDT

EEOC Sues Port Authority, Alleges Women Lawyers Paid Less, Older Female Attorneys Fired

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a direct action against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, alleging that it pays women lawyers in non-supervisory jobs less than men who do substantially the same work and has fired two women lawyers in their fifties in order to…

Oct 6, 2010 9:26 PM CDT

Fla. AG Can’t Probe Law Firms in ‘Foreclosure Mill’ Investigation, Judge Says

A probe of four “foreclosure mill” law firms by the Florida attorney general’s office suffered a setback today. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jack Cox not only quashed a subpoena against one of the firms as overbroad and unduly burdensome but suggested in his ruling that the AG lacks power to…

Oct 4, 2010 10:38 PM CDT

Newspaper: ‘Weak-Kneed’ Discipline Council Stumbled in Probate Judge Matter

In a 2004 will, Josephine Smoron left almost all her considerable assets, which included a dairy farm, to her longtime caretaker. A subsequent estate document in 2006 explained that she had expressly disinherited several churches. But as she lay dying in 2009 her court-appointed conservator transferred her assets to two…

Oct 4, 2010 6:58 PM CDT

Defunct Debt Collection Law Firm Found Liable for Nearly $24M

A shuttered debt-collection law firm has been found liable for $23.7 million in a suit claiming it withheld money from a onetime client: an Illinois agency pursuing debtors who defaulted on student loans. The Illinois Student Assistance Commission had claimed the firm, Friedman & Wexler, failed to turn over at…

Oct 4, 2010 11:31 AM CDT

Ohio Official Asks Federal Prosecutor to Review Chase Mortgage Foreclosures

Upping the ante in a mortgage foreclosure mess that already reportedly has prompted the attorney general’s office in six or more states to initiate probes of various lenders, an Ohio official has asked a federal prosecutor to take a look at Chase Home Mortgage and a company that was created…

Oct 1, 2010 3:33 PM CDT