A 60-year-old bookkeeper who embezzled more than $1 million from a small, family-owned law firm in downtown Cincinnati will spend the next six years in prison.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Charles J. Kubicki Jr. ordered the sentence this morning for Candace Vail, who pleaded guilty last month to a charge of theft. Kubicki also ordered Vail to re-pay the $1,038,499 she stole from from Goodman & Goodman between Jan. 1, 2001, and Feb. 16, 2006.

Vail’s excuse in a letter to the court? She wasn’t paid enough and often did errands for the attorneys she worked for without extra compensation.

Vail used the money to bankroll her son's landscaping business, according to Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Andy Berghausen.

Court records show Vail filed for bankruptcy last October.

Vail took client checks to Goodman & Goodman from the mail, deposited them into little-used firm accounts and then wrote 1,325 checks to herself and her family. She forged attorney names on another 91 checks she wrote to herself, according to court records.

She even duped the Ohio Supreme Court, which began investigating shortly before she was caught. When the firm's trust account, which by law must be kept by law firms, was overdrawn, the bank alerted the Ohio Supreme Court.

Vail intercepted letters notifying the attorneys about the investigation, forged attorney signatures on documents and told Ohio Supreme Court officials they should deal with her. That investigation has been resolved since the theft was discovered, Goodman said.

The firm realized money was missing on March 8 when one of the firm's attorneys went to the bank himself and discovered several bounced checks. Vail was immediately fired, Goodman said.

Although the government generally respected and promoted human rights at the national level by investigating, prosecuting, and sentencing public officials and members of the security forces, a deeply entrenched culture of impunity and corruption persisted, particularly at the state and local level. The following human rights problems were reported: unlawful killings by security forces; kidnappings, including by police; torture; poor and overcrowded prison conditions; arbitrary arrests and detention; corruption, inefficiency, and lack of transparency in the judicial system; statements coerced through torture permitted as evidence in trials; criminal intimidation of journalists, leading to self-censorship; corruption at all levels of government; domestic violence against women often perpetrated with impunity; criminal violence, including killings against women; trafficking in persons, sometimes allegedly with official involvement; social and economic discrimination against indigenous people; and child labor.

On Friday, Calderon said he plans to replace each state's individual criminal code with a single, nationwide code. He also wants to make it easier to fire corrupt police officers and to transition to trials similar to those in the US. Trials are currently held behind closed doors.

Kent Slater, retired Illinois Appellate Judge in the Third District, has joined the Joliet law firm of Spesia, Ayers and Ardaugh, effective immediately. He will focus his areas of concentration on appellate practice, civil litigation and mediation.

Slater, a graduate of the University of Illinois with a BS degree in agricultural science, served as an officer in the Army, stationed in Vietnam. He received his law degree from John Marshall Law School, where he served on the law review and graduated first in his class in 1975. He later received his Master of Law (LL.M.) degree from the University of Virginia in 2001.

From 1975 to 1988, Slater practiced law in Macomb, with the general practice law firm of Lucie, Heiser and Slater. Elected in 1984 to the House of Representatives, Slater served two terms in the Illinois General Assembly before being elected circuit judge in the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Illinois.

In 1990, Slater was elected to the Illinois Appellate Court, Third District, a position he held for 16 years. Prior to his retirement from this post in 2006, he served for three years as the court's presiding officer.

Slater is a member of the Will County and McDonough County Bar Associations, Illinois Judges' Association and Illinois State Bar Association.

Thousands of Italians rallied in Rome on Saturday in support of a bill that would give legal status to unmarried gay and heterosexual couples couples. The proposal, which has been harshly criticized by the Italian justice minister and the top Italian bishop, would give unmarried couples combined medical insurance, the right to visit their partner in prisons or hospitals, inheritance rights, and decision-making authority should one partner become sick. Couples would have to live together for nine years before they would be entitled to property rights, but if the legislation is passed, couples would be able to take advantage of the other legal protections immediately.

The Vatican has said that giving unmarried couples rights would threaten traditional families. A "traditional" family is held by the Vatican to be a marital union between a man and a woman.

A doctor and a nurse were separated from Bedford County Medical Center as defendants in a medical malpractice case that's sought at least $2.5 million over the death of a man who sought treatment at the hospital's emergency room.
The ruling came Thursday from Bedford County Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell in the case brought by the widow and children of Samuel Harrison Butcher III, who died on Sept. 4, 2004, three days before his 29th birthday, according to the complaint filed by the plaintiffs' attorney, Russell Thomas of Murfreesboro.

Named in the original complaint as defendants are Dr. Kent Clark, a nurse named only as L. Brashier in the complaint, the hospital, and Quorum Health Resources LLC which was the hospital's management service hired by Bedford County before the facility was sold in July 2005.

All defendants have denied wrong-doing, indicating they worked to provide good health care and their attorneys have stated that a jury trial would prove to be successful for their clients.

The latest development in the case was on a request from the hospital's attorneys who pointed out that doctors and, in this case, nurses are technically independent contractors who work at the facilities available at the hospital.

There was no opposition to the request from attorneys representing the hospital which is now owned by Community Health Services, a hospital holding and management business headquartered in Williamson County.

Russell's ruling eliminates what's called "vicarious responsibility" by the hospital, but other defendants can be added to cases as evidence is gathered during depositions and other aspects of the discovery process prior to trial.

In the original complaint, Thomas outlined the chain of events which led Butcher to the hospital and what's claimed to be the cause of his death.

Butcher was involved in a one-vehicle crash in which a truck overturned, Thomas wrote in the complaint. While medical treatment was not sought the day of the crash, a Sunday, Butcher went to the emergency room on the next Thursday. Having presented himself with a history of smoking and high blood pressure and after a motor vehicle accident, Butcher was seen subsequent to decisions made at the emergency room based on triage assessments of patients.

That was on Sept. 2, 2004 when Butcher was discharged to see his family physician. But a heart specialist was not mentioned, according to the complaint that alleges a breach of a standard of medical care that might be expected at a rural county hospital.

Butcher continued to experience pain and died two days later, according to the complaint in the case file.

Tracy Lynn Butcher is the widow of the man for whom wrongful death is alleged. Mrs. Butcher has two children; Chase Butcher, 4, and Samantha Butcher, 10.

A revised version of a controversial bill granting amnesty to groups that allegedly committed war crimes was signed into law Saturday by Afghan President Hamid Karzai after being approved earlier in the day by the Afghan parliament, which includes many former militia leaders. The resolution bars the state from independently prosecuting individuals for war crimes absent accusation from an alleged victim. It also extends immunity to all groups involved in pre-2002 conflicts, as opposed to only leaders of various factions alleged to have committed war crimes during the 1980s resistance against Soviet forces and war crimes committed during the country's civil war. The Taliban and other human rights violators active before the establishment of the December 2001 Interim Administration in Afghanistan are protected under the bill. Critics say the law may violate Afghanistan's constitution as well as certain international human rights treaties. MPs opposing the bill reportedly were threatened by former militiamen in the national assembly.

Both houses of the Afghan parliament initially approved a resolution calling for amnesty for leaders in February. That resolution drew some popular support but was criticized by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and other rights advocates. Afghanistan's highest body of Islamic clerics also opposed the issuance of a blanket amnesty, arguing that the perpetrators of war crimes can only gain forgiveness from the victims and not the parliament.

Weil Gotshal helped improve the law for disabled veterans in a major way when it successfully represented two nonprofit groups dedicated to the interests of disabled veterans, the Disabled American Veterans and the National Veterans Legal Services Program, as amici. In an appeal before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal, disabled veterans prevailed on every issue, reversing the anti-disabled veteran state of the law in two key areas. First, disabled veterans seeking to vindicate their rights under the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act are now entitled to have their case heard by the Board Of Veterans Appeals if they miss the filing deadline as a result of a severe disability or other good reason. Second, disabled veterans who have suffered from discrimination are now entitled to a hearing before the Merits Systems Protections Board if they appeal a denial of benefits under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act.

The Weil Gotshal team working on this matter consisted of Edward Reines, Jeff Homrig and Sonal Mehta.

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