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Mexican cartel leader’s son convicted of violent role in drug trafficking plot
Breaking Legal News |
2024/09/21 06:32
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The son of a Mexican drug cartel leader was convicted Friday of charges that he used violence, including the deadly downing of a military helicopter, to help his father operate one of the country’s largest and most dangerous narcotics trafficking organizations.
Rubén Oseguera, known as “El Menchito,” is the son of fugitive Jalisco New Generation cartel boss Nemesio Oseguera and served as the “CJNG” cartel’s second-in-command before his extradition to the U.S. in February 2020.
A federal jury in Washington, D.C., deliberated for several hours over two days before finding the younger Oseguera guilty of both counts in his indictment: conspiring to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for U.S. importation and using a firearm in a drug conspiracy.
“El Menchito now joins the growing list of high-ranking Cartel leaders that the Justice Department has convicted in an American courtroom,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in an emailed statement. “We are grateful to our Mexican law enforcement partners for their extensive cooperation and sacrifice in holding accountable leaders of the Jalisco Cartel.”
The younger Oseguera, who was born in California and holds dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship, is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 10 by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum of 40 years in prison.
Oseguera didn’t have an obvious reaction to the jury’s verdict. One of his lawyers patted him on his shoulder before he was led out of the courtroom.
The U.S. government has offered a reward of up $10 million for information leading to the arrest of the elder Oseguera, whose alias, “El Mencho,” is a play on his first name.
Prosecutors showed jurors a rifle bearing Oseguera’s nicknames, “Menchito” and “JR,” along with the cartel’s acronym. The gun was in his possession when he was arrested.
“JR” also was etched on a belt found at the site where a Mexican military helicopter crashed after cartel members shot the aircraft down with a rocket-propelled grenade in 2015. Prosecutors said the younger Oseguera, now 34, ordered subordinates to shoot down the helicopter in Jalisco, Mexico, so that he and his father could avoid capture. At least nine people on board the helicopter were killed in the attack, according to prosecutors.
Oseguera ordered the killings of at least 100 people and frequently bragged about murders and kidnappings, according to prosecutors. They said he personally shot and killed at least two people, including a rival drug trafficker and a disobedient subordinate.
During the trial’s closing arguments Thursday, Justice Department prosecutor Kaitlin Sahni described Oseguera as “a prince, an heir to an empire.”
“But this wasn’t a fairytale,” she said. “This was the story of the defendant’s drugs, guns and murder, told to you by the people who saw it firsthand.”
Jurors heard testimony from six cooperating witnesses who tied Oseguera to drug trafficking.
Defense attorney Anthony Colombo tried to attack the witnesses’ credibility and motives, calling them “sociopaths” who told self-serving lies about his client.
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs jailed by judge after sex trafficking indictment
Biotech |
2024/09/17 06:34
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Sean “Diddy” Combs headed to jail Tuesday to await trial in a federal sex trafficking case that accuses him of presiding over a sordid empire of sexual crimes protected by blackmail and shocking acts of violence.
The music mogul is charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. The indictment against him lists allegations that go back to 2008.
He’s accused of inducing female victims and male sex workers into drugged-up, sometimes dayslong sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs.” The indictment also refers obliquely to an attack on his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, that was captured on video.
“Not guilty,” Combs told a court, standing to speak after expressionlessly listening to the allegations with his uncuffed hands folded in his lap.
After U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky declined to grant him bail, Combs took a long swig from a water bottle, then was led out of court, turning toward family members in the audience as he went.
“Mr. Combs is a fighter. He’s going to fight this to the end. He’s innocent,” his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said after court. He plans to appeal the bail decision.
The Bad Boy Records founder is accused of sexually abusing and using physical force toward women and getting his personal assistants, security and household staff to help him hide it all. Prosecutors say he also tried to bribe and intimidate witnesses and victims to keep them quiet.
“Simply put, he is a serial abuser and a serial obstructor,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson told a court.
Agnifilo acknowledged Combs was “not a perfect person,” saying he’d used drugs and had been in “toxic relationships” but was getting treatment and therapy.
“The evidence in this case is extremely problematic,” the attorney told the court.
He maintained that the case stemmed from one long-term, consensual relationship that faltered amid infidelity. He didn’t name the woman, but the details matched those of Combs’ decade-long involvement with Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura.
The “Freak Offs,” Agnifilo contended, were an expansion of that relationship, and not coercive.
“Is it sex trafficking? Not if everybody wants to be there,” Agnifilo said, arguing that authorities were intruding on his client’s private life.
Prosecutors said in court papers that they had interviewed more than 50 victims and witnesses and expect the number to grow. They said they would use financial, travel and billing records, electronic data and communications and videos of the “Freak Offs” to prove their case.
Combs was arrested Monday in Manhattan, roughly six months after federal authorities raided his luxurious homes in Los Angeles and Miami.
A conviction on every charge would require at least 15 years in prison, with the possibility of a life sentence.
The indictment describes Combs as the head of a criminal enterprise that engaged or attempted to engage in sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, drug offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
Combs and his associates wielded his “power and prestige” to intimidate and lure women into his orbit, “often under the pretense of a romantic relationship,” according to the indictment.
It says he then would use force, threats and coercion to get the women to engage with male sex workers in the “Freak Offs” — “elaborate and produced sex performances” that Combs arranged and recorded, creating dozens of videos. He ensured their participation by procuring and providing drugs, controlling their careers, leveraging his financial support and using intimidation and violence, according to the indictment. It said his employees facilitated “Freak Offs” by taking care of tasks like travel and hotel arrangements and stocking them with such supplies as drugs and baby oil.
The events could last for days, and Combs and victims would often receive IV fluids to recover from the exertion and drug use, the indictment said.
During the searches of Combs’ homes earlier this year, law enforcement seized narcotics, videos of the performances and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, according to prosecutors. They said agents also seized firearms and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers in his bedroom closet in Miami.
Combs’ lawyer said his client didn’t own the guns, noting that he employs a security company.
The indictment says Combs choked, shoved, hit and kicked people, causing injuries that often took days or weeks to heal. His employees and associates sometimes kept victims from leaving or tracked down those who tried, the indictment said.
It alleges that Combs used explicit recordings as “collateral” to ensure the women’s continued obedience and silence. He also exerted control over victims by promising career opportunities, providing and threatening to withhold financial support, dictating how they looked, monitoring their health records and controlling where they lived, according to the indictment. |
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Alaska man charged with sending graphic threats to kill Supreme Court justices
Bankruptcy |
2024/09/14 06:35
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An Alaska man accused of sending graphic threats to injure and kill six Supreme Court justices and some of their family members has been indicted on federal charges, authorities said Thursday.
Panos Anastasiou, 76, is accused of sending more than 465 messages through a public court website, including graphic threats of assassination and torture coupled with racist and homophobic rhetoric.
The indictment does not specify which justices Anastasiou targeted, but Attorney General Merrick Garland said he made the graphic threats as retaliation for decisions he disagreed with.
“Our democracy depends on the ability of public officials to do their jobs without fearing for their lives or the safety of their families,” he said.
Anastasiou has been indicted on 22 counts, including nine counts of making threats against a federal judge and 13 counts of making threats in interstate commerce.
He was released from detention late Thursday by a federal magistrate in Anchorage with a a list of conditions, including that he not directly or indirectly contact any of the six Supreme Court justices he allegedly threatened or any of their family members.
During the hearing that lasted more than hour, Magistrate Kyle Reardon noted some of the messages Anastasiou allegedly sent between March 2023 and mid-July 2024, including calling for the assassination of two of the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices so the current Democratic president could appoint their successors.
Instead of toning down his rhetoric after receiving a visit from FBI agents last year, Anastasiou increased the frequency of his messages and their vitriolic language, Reardon said.
Gray-haired and shackled at the ankles above his salmon-colored plastic slippers, Anastasiou wore a yellow prison outfit with ACC printed in black on the back, the initials for the Anchorage Correctional Facility, at the hearing. Born in Greece, he moved to Anchorage 67 years ago. Reardon allowed him to contact his elected officials on other matters like global warming, but said the messages must be reviewed by his lawyers.
Defense attorney Jane Imholte noted Anastasiou is a Vietnam veteran who is undergoing treatment for throat cancer and has no financial means other than his Social Security benefits.
She told the judge that Anastaiou, who signed his own name to the emails, worried about his pets while being detained. She said he only wanted to return home to care for his dogs, Freddie, Buddy and Cutie Pie.
He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for each count of making threats against a federal judge and up to five years for each count of making threats in interstate commerce if convicted.
Threats targeting federal judges overall have more than doubled in recent years amid a surge of similar violent messages directed at public officials around the country, the U.S. Marshals Service previously said.
In 2022, shortly after the leak of a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a man was stopped near the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh with weapons and zip ties. |
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Protesters storm Mexico’s Senate after ruling party wins votes for court overhaul
Court Watch |
2024/09/11 08:26
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Hundreds of protesters broke into Mexico’s Senate on Tuesday as lawmakers weighed a contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary, forcing the body to take a temporary recess for the safety of the senators.
The shut down came just hours after Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, wrangled the votes it needed to jam through the proposal after one member of an opposition party flipped to support it.
That move and other political maneuvering ahead of a vote on the plan championed by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador fueled even more outrage after weeks of protests by judicial employees and law students.
Critics and observers say the plan, in which all judges would be elected, could threaten judicial independence and undermine the system of checks and balances.
Some protesters entered the Senate chambers in an effort to block the vote after they said lawmakers were not listening to their demands. Protesters broke through the door of the Senate chamber pushing aggressively, using pipes and chains. At least one person fainted after protesters broke in.
“The judiciary isn’t going to fall,” yelled the protesters, waving Mexican flags and signs against the overhaul. They were joined by a number of opposition senators as they chanted in the chamber. Others outside the court roared when newscasters announced the Senate was taking a recess.
Among them was Alejandro Navarrete, a 30-year-old judicial worker, who said that people like him working in the courts “knowing the danger the reform represents” came to call on the Senate to strike down the proposal.
“They have decided to sell out the nation, and sell out for political capital they were offered, we felt obligated to enter the Senate,” he said, carrying a Mexican flag. “Our intention is not violent, we didn’t intend to hurt them, but we intend to make it clear that the Mexican people won’t allow them to lead us into a dictatorship.”
Despite unrest in recent weeks, the plan sailed through the lower chamber of Congress last week, and was passed onto the Senate, where López Obrador’s Morena party lacked the necessary supermajority to approve it. In recent weeks, it was able to peel off two senators from an opposition party, but came into this week still missing one more.
It was unclear where that vote would come from because the country’s opposition vehemently opposes the plan. But over the weekend, observers began to speculate that a senator from the conservative National Action Party (PAN), Miguel Ángel Yunes Márquez, would support Morena as he refused to answer calls from his party leadership.
On Tuesday, Yunes Márquez announced he would take leave due to health issues and be replaced by his father, Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares, a former governor of Veracruz said he would vote for the plan. He said he knew the plan was “not the best” but said more laws down the line could improve it.
“Mexico is not going to be destroyed for approving this reform, nor will the reform automatically change the reality of a justice system that is calling out for fundamental change,” Yunes Linares said.
Yunes Linares strolled into the Senate chambers and was met with applause and chants of “hero!” by Morena senators and screams of “traitor!” from his own party. One PAN senator, Lilly Téllez, even threw dozens of coins at Yunes Linares, calling him a ”traitor who sold out his country” for his own benefit. A Senate vote was expected Wednesday.
The national head of PAN, Marko Cortés, claimed that it “is evident” that there was an “impunity pact” between the Yuneses and the government so he would vote in favor of the overhaul. Cortés was referring to a July arrest order for Sen. Yunes Márquez, for alleged falsification of documents and fraud related to his candidacy.
Yunes had challenged it and got a temporary suspension, calling it a political persecution by the governing Morena party, the same party his father now appears ready to support.
His father, Yunes Linares, dodged questions from the media about how he would vote but accused Cortés of “lynching” him and claimed it was “absolutely false” that he has been coerced to vote for the overhaul. He was flanked by two Morena senators as he spoke.
A Yunes vote in favor would allow the ruling party to clear the biggest hurdle in making the proposal law. If it passes the Senate, it will have to be ratified by the legislatures of 17 of Mexico’s 32 states, but the governing party is believed to have the necessary support. |
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Google faces new antitrust trial after ruling declaring search engine a monopoly
Bankruptcy |
2024/09/06 08:27
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One month after a judge declared Google’s search engine an illegal monopoly, the tech giant faces another antitrust lawsuit that threatens to break up the company, this time over its advertising technology.
The Justice Department, joined by a coalition of states, and Google each made opening statements Monday to a federal judge who will decide whether Google holds a monopoly over online advertising technology.
The regulators contend that Google built, acquired and maintains a monopoly over the technology that matches online publishers to advertisers. Dominance over the software on both the buy side and the sell side of the transaction enables Google to keep as much as 36 cents on the dollar when it brokers sales between publishers and advertisers, the government contends in court papers.
They allege that Google also controls the ad exchange market, which matches the buy side to the sell side.
“It’s worth saying the quiet part out loud,” Justice Department lawyer Julia Tarver Wood said during her opening statement. “One monopoly is bad enough. But a trifecta of monopolies is what we have here.”
Google says the government’s case is based on an internet of yesteryear, when desktop computers ruled and internet users carefully typed precise World Wide Web addresses into URL fields. Advertisers now are more likely to turn to social media companies like TikTok or streaming TV services like Peacock to reach audiences.
In her opening statement, Google lawyer Karen Dunn likened the government’s case to a “time capsule with with a Blackberry, an iPod and a Blockbuster video card.”
Dunn said Supreme Court precedents warn judges about “the serious risk of error or unintended consequences” when dealing with rapidly emerging technology and considering whether antitrust law requires intervention. She also warned that any action taken against Google won’t benefit small businesses but will simply allow other tech behemoths like Amazon, Microsoft and TikTok to fill the void.
According to Google’s annual reports, revenue has actually declined in recent years for Google Networks, the division of the Mountain View, California-based tech giant that includes such services as AdSense and Google Ad Manager that are at the heart of the case, from $31.7 billion in 2021 to $31.3 billion in 2023,
The trial that began Monday in Alexandria, Virginia, over the alleged ad tech monopoly was initially going to be a jury trial, but Google maneuvered to force a bench trial, writing a check to the federal government for more than $2 million to moot the only claim brought by the government that required a jury.
The case will now be decided by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton and is best known for high-profile terrorism trials including that of Sept. 11 defendant Zacarias Moussaoui. Brinkema, though, also has experience with highly technical civil trials, working in a courthouse that sees an outsize number of patent infringement cases.
The Virginia case comes on the heels of a major defeat for Google over its search engine, which generates the majority of the company’s $307 billion in annual revenue. A judge in the District of Columbia declared the search engine a monopoly, maintained in part by tens of billions of dollars Google pays each year to companies like Apple to lock in Google as the default search engine presented to consumers when they buy iPhones and other gadgets. |
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Trump in court as lawyers fight to overturn verdict in E. Jean Carroll sex abuse suit
Bankruptcy |
2024/09/03 08:29
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Veering from the campaign trail to a courtroom, Donald Trump quietly observed Friday as his lawyer fought to overturn a verdict finding the former president liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
The Republican nominee and his accuser, E. Jean Carroll, a writer, sat at tables about 15 feet (4.5 meters) apart, in a Manhattan federal appeals court. Trump didn’t acknowledge or look at Carroll as he passed directly in front of her on the way in and out, but he sometimes shook his head, including when Carroll’s attorney said he sexually attacked her.
Trump attorney D. John Sauer told three 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges that the civil trial in Carroll’s lawsuit was muddied by improper evidence.
“This case is a textbook example of implausible allegations being propped up by highly inflammatory, inadmissible” evidence, Sauer said, noting that jurors saw the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted in 2005 about grabbing women’s genitals because when someone is a star, “you can do anything.”
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, told judges the evidence in question was proper, and that there was plenty of proof in the nearly two-week-long trial of Carroll’s claim that Trump attacked her in a luxury department store dressing room decades ago. She said the “Access Hollywood” tape, as the trial judge had noted, could be viewed as a confession.
“E. Jean Carroll brought this case because Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996, in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, and then defamed her in 2022 by claiming that she was crazy and made the whole thing up,” Kaplan said.
Carroll, standing with Kaplan outside the courthouse afterward, declined to comment.
Trump left court in a motorcade, then delivered a lengthy diatribe against the case at Trump Tower, where he said again that Carroll — and other women who had accused him of sexual assault — were making everything up.
“It’s so false. It’s a made up, fabricated story by somebody, I think, initially, just looking to promote a book,” Trump said. Carroll first spoke publicly about her encounter with Trump in a newly published memoir in 2019.
In remarks to reporters Friday, Trump repeated many claims about Carroll that a jury has already deemed defamatory, and added some new ones, like suggesting that a photograph of him and Carroll together in 1987 was produced by artificial intelligence. It was unclear whether his comments could lead to a new defamation lawsuit by Carroll.
“I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: all options are on the table,” Kaplan said after Trump’s news conference.
The three-judge panel, if it follows the pattern of other appeals, would be unlikely to rule for weeks, if not months.
A jury found in May 2023 that Trump sexually abused Carroll. He denies it. That jury awarded Carroll $5 million.
Trump did not attend the trial and has expressed regret that he was not there. The civil case has political and financial implications for Trump. |
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Supreme Court rebuffs plea to restore multibllliou-dollar student debt plan
Breaking Legal News |
2024/08/31 13:38
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The Supreme Court on Wednesday kept on hold the latest multibillion-dollar plan from the Biden administration that would have lowered payments for millions of borrowers, while lawsuits make their way through lower courts.
The justices rejected an administration request to put most of it back into effect. It was blocked by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In an unsigned order, the court said it expects the appeals court to issue a fuller decision on the plan “with appropriate dispatch.”
The Education Department is seeking to provide a faster path to loan cancellation, and reduce monthly income-based repayments from 10% to 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income. The plan also wouldn’t require borrowers to make payments if they earn less than 225% of the federal poverty line — $32,800 a year for a single person.
Last year, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority rejected an earlier plan that would have wiped away more than $400 billion in student loan debt.
Cost estimates of the new SAVE plan vary. The Republican-led states challenging the plan peg the cost at $475 billion over 10 years. The administration cites a Congressional Budget Office estimate of $276 billion.
Two separate legal challenges to the SAVE plan have been making their way through federal courts. In June, judges in Kansas and Missouri issued separate rulings that blocked much of the administration’s plan. Debt that already had been forgiven under the plan was unaffected.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that allowed the department to proceed with a provision allowing for lower monthly payments. Republican-led states had asked the high court to undo that ruling.
But after the 8th Circuit blocked the entire plan, the states had no need for the Supreme Court to intervene, the justices noted in a separate order issued Wednesday.
The Justice Department had suggested the Supreme Court could take up the legal fight over the new plan now, as it did with the earlier debt forgiveness plan. But the justices declined to do so.
“This is a recipe for chaos across the student loan system,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group.
“No court has decided on the merits here, but despite all of that borrowers are left in this limbo state where their rights don’t exist for them,” Pierce said.
Eight million people were already enrolled in the SAVE program when it was paused by the lower court, and more than 10 million more people are looking for ways to afford monthly payments, he said.
Sheng Li, litigation counsel with the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a legal group funded by conservative donors, applauded the order. “There was no basis to lift the injunction because the Department of Education’s newest loan-cancellation program is just as unlawful as the one the Court struck down a year ago,” he said in a statement.
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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