Gotti Freed After Mistrial
A judge declared on Tuesday that the racketeering trial of John “Junior” Gotti, son of a famous crime boss, was a mistrial. The jury had failed to reach a verdict against him, making it the case’s fourth hung jury in five years. Gotti later told reporters that he was looking forward to spending time with [...]
Indiana Woman Gets 125 Years, Videotaped Molestation
A babysitter from Indiana has been sentenced to 125 years in prison for videotaping herself performing sexual acts with children as young as two months. Samantha Light, age twenty-six, pleaded guilty to three felony counts of child molestation last month. During her sentencing on Wednesday, Light apologized and said that she had been coerced by [...]
Petters Found Guilty
A jury has found the businessman Tom Petters guilty of twenty counts of fraud, conspiracy, and other charges, composing what prosecutors called a $3.5 billion Ponzi scheme. Petters had claimed that his subordinates carried out the scheme without his knowledge. He was convicted of wire fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering. U.S. District Judge [...]
Ex-bus Driver Convicted in Pedestrian Death
A former bus driver from Cleveland who was on her cell phone when her bus hit and killed a pedestrian in a crosswalk has been found guilty of vehicular homicide. A jury on Wednesday acquitted Angela Williams of a more severe charge of aggravated vehicular homicide – if she had been convicted of that charge, [...]
Virginia Court Upholds Power Line Plan
The Supreme Court of Virginia upheld permits on Thursday for the construction of a multi-state power line. The court rejected a claim by the opponents of the plan that state regulators had given up too much authority to the federal government. The court ruled in a unanimous decision that the State Corporation Commission’s approval of [...]
Store Owes $200K for Failure to Accomodate Worker
A California court of appeals recently upheld a two hundred thousand dollar verdict in favor of an Albertsons grocery clerk who sued the company. The lawsuit was due to her urinating and menstruating on herself because her supervisor did not accommodate her disability. The court rejected Albertson’s argument that the failure to accommodate her was [...]
Official Gets a Year in Prison for Abramoff Scandal
The former top procurement official in the cabinet of George W. Bush was recently sentenced to a year in prison for lying about his relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Paul Friedman, a United States District Judge, told David Safavian that he is being punished for lying to authorities investigating the Abramoff scandal.
Safavian gave Abramoff information [...]
Mexican Man Sentenced in Immigrant Hostages Case
A Mexican man was recently sentenced to twenty-five years in federal prison in connection with a group of men who held almost two dozen illegal immigrants hostage last year in a drop house in Phoenix. Prosecutors said that thirty-seven-year-old Evaristo Ortiz-Jimenez was sentenced Monday in a United States District Court. He had previously pleaded guilty [...]