The complaint alleges that Green and Baine fraudulently prepared a return for one customer—a gospel singer––that claimed that he purchased 6,214 gallons of diesel fuel for off-highway business use. The suit notes that for the claim to be accurate the gospel singer (whose total income for the year was less than $2,341) would have to have spent approximately $12,248 to purchase that volume of fuel, and would have to have driven approximately 24,280 offroad miles during the year, an average of 340 miles each day of the year.

The government complaint alleges that the IRS has identified more than $150,000 in fraudulent fuel tax credits in returns TAS Services prepared.

The Justice Department obtained an injunction in April against a Miami tax preparer in a case involving allegations of similar fraudulent fuel tax credits. http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv07254.htm

Since 2001 the Justice Department has obtained injunctions against more than 240 tax preparers and tax-fraud promoters. Information on those cases is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2007.htm. More information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division can be found at www.usdoj.gov/tax

In a victory for 3M Co., a judge ruled today that 67,700 residents of Washington County will not be considered as a a single group in a lawsuit against the company for damages allegedly suffered because of chemicals detected in their water.

The ruling The ruling by Washington County District Judge Mary Hannon denied class certification for the residents - which will greatly help 3M as it defends one of the biggest environmental lawsuits in state history.

"3M is pleased. The entire ruling is a victory," said company spokesman Bill Nelson.

Six county residents brought the lawsuit, which has been joined by another 1,000 people, according to the plaintiffs' lawyers.

Hannon's ruling means anyone wishing to sue the company for similar damages will have to do so in a separate legal action.

The chemicals detected in trace amounts are PFCs, or perfluorochemicals, made by 3M for such products as Teflon and Scotchgard stain repellant. They were legally disposed of by 3M in landfills in Washington County. In 2004, the chemicals were discovered in drinking water in Lake Elmo and Oakdale.

The discovery of a related chemical in drinking water in communities including Cottage Grove and Woodbury was announced in January.

Mega-doses of PFCs have caused cancer and other problems in rats. But state officials said they pose no short-term health risk to humans because they are in such minute amounts in the drinking water.

PFCs in water are measured in parts per billion - the equivalent of one second in 32 years. It is calculated that a Woodbury resident would have to drink 500,000 glasses of water a day to match the dose at which rats begin to show an effect. Longer-term studies of the effects of PFCs are under way.

The stakes in the case are potentially huge. If the case had gone to trial with the larger group certified as a class, no one could have predicted the amount of a potential settlement. But an Ohio case involving the same chemicals ended in 2005 with a settlement of $300 million.

In that case, the DuPont Company agreed to pay to remove chemicals from drinking water and monitor the health of water-drinking residents in the future. It did not pay for any alleged damages done to the water-drinkers.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs wouldn't comment Tuesday, but said in a written statement that their case would go forward without class certification.

But others suing 3M - or who may want to in the future - were disappointed.

"I think this is a setback," said Jon Archer, who noticed many neighborhood children with developmental disabilities when he lived in Oakdale.

He has blamed the water. "It shows you how big powerful attorneys manipulate the system," Archer said of today's ruling.

Mike Bradley, a Woodbury attorney with thyroid cancer, could have joined the lawsuit if the certification was allowed. Now, if he wants to sue 3M, he will have to take separate legal action.

"It's tremendously frustrating," said Bradley. "I am not sure what the judge was thinking. I am really concerned that corporate interests not be placed above families and children."

Earlier this month, former EBS Chief Operating Officer Kevin Hannon was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $125,000 for defrauding investors. Hannon also was sentenced subject to a plea deal, but was convicted of lesser crimes and was facing a maximum of 5 years in prison.

Thai Attorney General Phatchara Yutithamdamrong said Monday that he would seek a criminal trial against former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife regarding a 2003 land purchase by Pojamarn Shinawatra from the government-directed Financial Institutions Development Fund. Yutithamdamrong also recommended the seizure of the land, valued at approximately $23.7 million USD. The announcement came as the Assets Examination Committee (AEC) ordered the additional seizure of $245.7 million USD of Thaksin's family assets, saying that the funds had been shifted from accounts seized last week shortly before the seizure was ordered. The previous seizure amounted to approximately $1.6 billion USD, held by Thaksin and members of his family. Thaksin made his fortune after founding what is now the Shin Corporation in 1983, and is estimated to be worth in excess of $2 billion.

The AEC recommended that charges be brought against Pojamarn and other members of Thaksin's family in February for tax evasion in the sale of Shin Corporation stock. Investigators have been having difficulty linking Thaksin to corruption, which was the stated reason for last year's bloodless coup. Thaksin has complained that the charges against him amount to a persecution, and has called the AEC findings "libelous, unfair, and unethical."

The state argued that because Brendlin was not the driver of the car, he was not the subject of the illegal stop, and so did not have the right to have the evidence suppressed because of the stop's illegality. In the unanimous opinion written by David Souter, the Court found:

Brendlin was seized because no reasonable person in his position when the car was stopped would have believed himself free to "terminate the encounter" between the police and himself. Bostick, supra, at 436. Any reasonable passenger would have understood the officers to be exercising control to the point that no one in the car was free to depart without police permission.

Peer-to-Patent, an initiative of New York Law School's Institute for Information Law and Policy in cooperation with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), began on Friday of last week.

In an Official Gazette Notice published on June 6, 2007 (www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/dapp/opla/preognotice/peerreviewpilot.pdf), the USPTO announced that this pilot program to test the value of public participation in the patent examination process will run for one year. The USPTO has committed to provide feedback on the usefulness of public submissions. The results of the pilot will be compiled by the USPTO and New York Law School.

CA, GE, HP, IBM, Intel, International Characters, Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft, Oracle, Out of the Box Computing, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo! have requested to participate in the pilot. As of Friday, June 15, five applications (from HP, IBM, Intel, and Red Hat) were made available for public review on the Peer-to-Patent Web site at www.peertopatent.org, and the public has already begun to review and comment. Descriptions of the applications are available at http://dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/applications.html.

Special note: Peer-to-Patent Organizers and Steering Committee members will present the project and answer questions at the Peer-to-Patent auditorium on New York Law School's Democracy Island, Second Life on Monday, June 18 at 12 p.m. PST/3 p.m. EST. Attendees can find the event by searching Second Life's directory for Democracy Island, or by following this link: www.tiny.cc/rfqh3.

Patent applicants with computer software patent applications to be published during the coming year may apply to join the pilot by completing the form available from the USPTO at www.uspto.gov/web/patents/peerpriorartpilot/submission.pdf. Applications accepted to the pilot will be advanced out of turn and reviewed at no charge within one year, instead of the average four-year waiting period. Applicants can also request early publication without payment of an early publication fee.

The Peer-to-Patent Web site enables the public to find information to help the USPTO evaluate the patent application. The custom-designed Web site facilitates: review and discussion of posted patent applications sharing of research to locate references to relevant earlier publications submission of these prior art references with an explanation of relevance annotating and evaluating submitted prior art winnowing of top ten prior art references, which, together with commentary, will be forwarded to the USPTO patent education to inform public participation forwarding of public submissions directly to the USPTO for consideration. Reviewing patent applications is free and open to all via the Peer-to-Patent Web site at www.peertopatent.org.

Knight is one of several people who were arrested and charged with drug-related offenses following an investigation of several months that was conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Portsmouth Police Department and other law enforcement agencies. The investigation focused on the distribution of Ecstacy, cocaine and marijuana in the Portsmouth area.

Knight will be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph DiClerico next September. The maximum prison sentence for the offense to which Knight pleaded guilty is 20 years.