Fenwick & West LLP is pleased to announce that Christopher J. Steskal is joining the firm as a partner in the Securities Litigation Group, and as the Chair of its White Collar/Regulatory Practice Group. Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Chris was an Assistant U.S. Attorney, working as part of the Securities Fraud Section and Stock Option Task Force of the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco.

"The breadth of expertise in the Securities Litigation Group and range and volume of matters currently handled by Fenwick & West impressed me," said Steskal. "I was not actively looking to return to private practice when I was approached about the opportunity to join Fenwick & West. My tenure at the U.S. Attorney's Office has been tremendously rewarding and I am very proud of the work I have done for the United States over the past six years. However, I could not resist the unique opportunities available to me at Fenwick & West. The firm's reputation, platform and client base make it well positioned to develop a robust white collar practice. I am excited to add my skills and experience as a federal prosecutor to Fenwick & West's thriving securities litigation group. The firm is an ideal choice for my return to private practice."

Steskal joined the U.S. Attorney's office in 2001. During his tenure there, Steskal handled a wide range of matters, including trials, appeals and investigations involving stock option backdating, securities fraud, corporate fraud, mail and wire fraud, money laundering and public corruption. Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney's Office, Steskal was a litigation attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York, and Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin in San Francisco. He is a former law clerk for Ninth Circuit Judge James R. Browning and U.S. District Court Judge Harry L. Hupp. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1992. Chris will be resident in Fenwick & West's San Francisco office.

"We are thrilled that Chris will be joining us, and believe he augments perfectly one of the top securities litigation practices in the country," said firm Chair Gordon Davidson. "Law firms across the U.S. are competing for attorneys like Chris, who have extensive investigation and trial experience relating to white collar crime and corporate governance issues. Chris will be joining our firm just as many of the ongoing internal stock option investigations move to the regulatory review stage by the SEC and DOJ. We are very pleased that Chris chose Fenwick & West."

A coalition of businesses and environmental groups on Monday called for federal legislation to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. In a letter to President Bush a day before his State of the Union Address, the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) advocated a "cap and trade" system, in which companies whose emissions exceed mandatory limits could buy credits from companies that produce less pollution. "This approach will ensure emission reduction targets will be met while simultaneously ... stimulating investment and innovation in the technologies that will be necessary to achieve our environmental goal," USCAP wrote in A Call for Action, a 16-page report released by the group Monday. Specifically, USCAP recommended that Congress set short-term and long-term targets for cutting emissions, ranging from a 10 percent reduction within 10 years to as much as 80 percent by 2050.

Scientific research suggests that man-made greenhouse gases contribute to global warming. USCAP's 14 members include large corporations such as Alcoa, BP America, DuPont and General Electric as well as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the World Resources Institute [advocacy websites]. Its report is the culmination of a year-long effort. White House press secretary Tony Snow responded to the USCAP proposal  during his daily briefing, noting that although Bush opposes mandatory CO2 limits, he will discuss alternatives to fossil fuels in his address to Congress on Tuesday. AP has more. C-SPAN has recorded video of the USCAP press conference.

Gary B. Evans, 58, of Cocoa Beach, Fla., was sentenced today before Chief Judge Patricia C. Fawsett in U.S. District Court in Orlando. Evans was ordered to forfeit his interest in his house, various computers and electronic equipment, and two cashier’s checks totaling $24,000.

Evans was arrested on May 11, 2006, and indicted on May 23, 2006, on one count of conspiring to arrange the travel of an individual for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct and one count of arranging such travel. After Evans’ computers were seized and examined, agents discovered digital images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. On August 9, 2006, a superseding indictment was returned which added one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. Evans pleaded guilty on October 23, 2006, before Magistrate Judge David A. Baker to one count of conspiring to arrange for the travel of a person to engage in illicit sexual conduct – specifically, a commercial sex act with a person under 18 years of age.

According to the plea agreement, in August 2005, Evans contacted the operator of a Web site which purported to sell "sex tour" packages to overseas locations. According to the Web site, the tour price would include an under-age companion who would have sex with the traveler. Evans proposed a partnership with the operator of the Web site in which they would jointly operate tours to Honduras and Costa Rica, where clients would pay to have sex with minors. However, the Web site was actually part of an undercover investigation being conducted by FBI agents who are part of the Innocent Images task force based in Calverton, Md.

Starting in September 2005 and continuing for several months, undercover agents exchanged several emails, and had numerous online and phone conversations with Evans and his associate in Honduras. Ultimately, Evans agreed to arrange for two clients to travel to Honduras to engage in sex with two girls, ages 16 and 14 respectively. The ultimate price for the hotel, expenses and sex was $2,260, paid in three installments.

On May 6, 2006, undercover agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) met three associates of Evans in Honduras. The three associates ultimately brought two girls, who appeared to be between the ages of 14 and 16, to the hotel. After briefly meeting the girls, the undercover agents told the associates that they had to return to the United States to attend to an emergency. At that point, the girls safely left the hotel.

As part of the plea agreement, Evans admits he possessed images of real children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He also admits that the images depicted prepubescent children, and children engaged in sadistic or masochistic conduct. He further admits he possessed more than 150 images of child pornography. Finally, Evans admits that during the time of the offense, he engaged in a pattern of activity involving the sexual abuse and exploitation of minors.

This case is being investigated by ICE and the FBI. The Brevard County, Fla. Sheriff’s Office is also assisting. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Vincent Citro of the Middle District of Florida and Trial Attorney Alexandra Gelber of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Monday's opinion faulted plaintiffs for making "no compelling reason" for the Court to depart from Eldred's holding and explained the Court's stance on copyright term duration as determined by weighing the impetus provided to authors by longer terms against the benefit provided to the public by shorter terms. That weighing is left to Congress, subject to rationality review. The CTEA also retroactively extended statutory copyright protection by another 20 years beyond the original term of the author's life plus 50 years, thus decreasing the number of works entering the public domain. Ownership of orphan works is often difficult to determine, and archives such as Google, Yahoo!, and academic libraries have lobbied for less stringent copyright laws in order to increase the amount of information open to the public domain.

Ramadan lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano argued Sunday that the Appeals Chamber improperly relied on Article 24 of the IHT statute when directing the trial chamber to increase Ramadan's sentence.