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Mississippi jurors get oil spill fraud case against lawyer
U.S. Court News |
2016/08/25 15:04
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Texas lawyer Mikal Watts and six other people each had plenty of opportunity to know they had a fake client list and were pursuing bogus claims after 2010's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, prosecutors told Mississippi jurors Wednesday in closing arguments.
Watts himself and lawyers for the six others though said the government had failed to prove criminal intent to defraud, blaming fellow defendants or saying the government was misconstruing innocent actions.
U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. handed the case to jurors Wednesday, telling them to decide 66 felony counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, identity theft and aggravated identity theft.
It's one of the biggest fraud cases to result from the 2010 BP PLC oil spill, featuring a list of more than 40,000 clients that included dead people and a dog whose name was apparently lifted from a phone book. Prosecutors said most of those clients never agreed to be represented by Watts, and that at some point following the spill, all the defendants in the case knew the law firm's documents were riddled with errors, but kept pursuing claims anyway because of a potential multi-million dollar payoff. |
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Indiana officer accused of shooting detective due in court
U.S. Court News |
2016/08/19 17:16
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An Indianapolis police officer who allegedly shot and wounded a fellow officer is due in court for a hearing to face an attempted murder charge.
Officer Adrian Aurs is scheduled to appear Thursday afternoon in a Marion County courtroom for an initial hearing on the attempted murder charge.
Authorities say Aurs shot an Indianapolis police detective July 29 as that officer was interviewing Aurs' estranged wife about a domestic violence incident.
The detective suffered non-life-threatening injuries to his right side and arm.
Aurs allegedly fled his wife's Indianapolis apartment in his truck after the shooting. Cincinnati police arrested the 17-year department veteran early Saturday and he was returned to Indianapolis on Tuesday after waiving extradition.
Aurs' defense attorney, James Voyles, has not returned messages seeking comment. |
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Egyptian lawyer, journalist released after prison sentence
U.S. Court News |
2016/08/12 17:17
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Egyptian authorities have released two prominent human rights activists who had been jailed for over a year for demonstrating against police brutality.
Lawyer Mahienour el-Masry and journalist Youssef Shabaan were freed Saturday after serving 15 months in jail having been convicted of "storming a police station" at a demonstration in the coastal city of Alexandria in 2013.
El-Masry had been incarcerated before for her activism, and in 2014 received the Ludovic Trarieux Human Rights Award while on hunger strike in prison. Hunger striking is often used in Egypt to protest ill treatment and lack of due process.
Egypt has undergone an unprecedented crackdown on free speech, political opposition and any dissent under general-turned-President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who has promised stability and the revival of a still-faltering economy in need of reform.
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Court won't reinstate church official's conviction
U.S. Court News |
2016/07/28 12:48
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The first U.S. church official convicted over his handling of priest-abuse complaints could soon leave prison after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed Tuesday that his conviction was flawed.
Monsignor William Lynn, who served two cardinals at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has been imprisoned for almost three years for child endangerment.
But the high court Tuesday declined to reinstate his 2012 conviction. A lower appeals court had found the trial judge allowed too much indirect testimony from other church-abuse victims.
Defense lawyer Tom Bergstrom will ask that his client be released this week. Lynn, 65, has nearly served the minimum of his three- to six-year term.
"He was in the middle of this thing, by direction of the cardinal," Bergstrom said. "He was thrown into this melting pot of awfulness, without a whole lot of experience (and) without a whole lot of education. ... And he did his best."
Prosecutors after two grand jury investigations found that Lynn played a key role helping the archdiocese transfer known pedophile-priests through his job as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004.
The trial revealed that his bosses kept a half century of abuse complaints in secret, locked files under Lynn's control and that he reviewed them to compile lists of suspected pedophiles.
Lynn was charged, though, with enabling the abuse of a single, 10-year-old altar boy by a priest transferred to the parish despite other complaints.
Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, in sentencing Lynn, said he had "enabled monsters in clerical garb ... to destroy the souls of children."
Lynn's novel case has reached the state Supreme Court twice, and he has been in and out of prison amid several rounds of appeals.
Prosecutors could ask to retry the case. A spokesman for District Attorney Seth Williams said the office would review its options.
Lynn, during several grueling days on the stand, said he tried his best but "my best was not good enough."
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