Sodomy appeal rejected
Malaysia’s highest court rejects an appeal by Ibrahim against a sodomy conviction, sending him back to prison for five years. Anwar denies the charge that led to his conviction in a statement read in court:
I will walk again for the third time into prison but rest assured that I will walk in with my head held high. I maintain my innocence.
Won’t be charged in molestation claim
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declines to file charges against Cosby in the alleged child sexual abuse charge made by Judy Huth, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
Grand jury reaches decision
0 0 Kristan M. Kristan M.2014-11-24 15:49:422015-01-26 14:48:31Grand jury reaches decisionWins website name legal battle
WWE wins court battle over the domain name, WWE.org which was claimed to be initials for Western Women Entrepreneurs. The owner of the domain attempted to sell the site name to the trademark holder (WWE) shortly after obtaining the name, launching the legal battle.
Found innocent
Henning’s wife says an ISIS court has found him innocent. Barbara:
I have been told that he has been to a Sharia court and found innocent of being a spy and declared to be no threat. I implore Islamic State to abide by the decisions of their own justice system.
Sentenced to three years probation
Green is sentenced to three years of formal probation and 360 hours of community service after pleading no contest to drugs charges. The singer is accused of secretly slipping ecstasy into the drink of his dinner date at a sushi restaurant in July 2012.
I shared ecstasy with the female but I did not slip her the drug.
Texan pleads guilty to terror support
Texas native Michael Todd Wolfe, also known as Faruq, pleads guilty to ‘attempting to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization.’ Wolfe was caught in an FBI sting as he sought a contact to help him enter Syria and join ISIS. A court complaint describes how he and his wife watched a video of ISIS activities with an FBI agent posing as a contact:
While watching the video, Wolfe occasionally stopped the video to explain the current allegiances of the various groups fighting in Syria. They include ISIS, al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, the Free Syria Army, and Dawla
Foreclosure
After being five months behind in mortgage payments on her Beverly Hills home leaving her over $100,000 in payments, Barton’s $8 million Beverly Hills home is in foreclosure and she will lose the estate unless she makes payment arrangements or gets current on her mortgage soon. She has been splitting her time between her London and Los Angeles properties.
I’ve learned a lot. I’m stronger now, and I’m excited for what’s ahead.
Wins defamation suit
Ventura wins over $1.8 million in damages. The lawsuit began when author Chris Kyle claimed to have punched out Ventura in a bar over criticisms of Navy SEAL involvement in Iraq. After Kyle dies in 2013 Ventura continued his lawsuit against the author’s estate.
I can’t go to UDT-SEAL reunions anymore because that was the place I always felt safe, and who will be next to throw me under the bus? I’d have to spend my time looking over my shoulder.
Concert attendee charged with rape
18 year old Sean Murphy, of Boston, pleads not guilty to a rape charge filed after concert attendees told officers that they saw a possible assault on the venue’s lawn at Urban’s concert in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Onlookers recorded the scene on their cellphone cameras. Murphy says that the act was consensual. The presumed victim, an 18 year old female, tells the individual who intervened that the act was against her will. Police:
Officers conducting the investigation were assisted by patrons that had been concerned and took photos and video of the assault on their cellular phones. Those phones are being processed to recover the digital evidence of the assault.
Liable over 300 Srebrenica deaths
The Hague district court finds the state liable for the death of more than 300 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, but clears the state over the deaths of more than 7,000 other men killed in and around Srebrenica . The said deaths were among the 5,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) sheltering with Dutch UN peacekeepers at that time. The case was launched by the “Mothers of Srebrenica”, a group of relatives of the victims of the Srebrenica massacre. The district court rules that the Dutchbat, the Dutch peacekeeping forces, did not do enough to protect more than 300 Bosniaks and should have been aware of the possibility of genocide to be committed when they handed the Bosniaks over from their UN compound.
It can be said with sufficient certainty that, had Dutchbat allowed them to stay at the compound, these men would have remained alive. By co-operating in the deportation of these men, Dutchbat acted unlawfully.
Blogger fined for Google placement
A French court rules that food critic Caroline Doudet must pay a fine of €1,500 ($2,000) because her negative review of a restaurant is too high on the Google search results and may affect business. She also must rename her post, The Place to Avoid in Cap-Ferret: Il Giardino, to something that is less likely to drive business away from the restaurant. The owner acknowledges that the complaints in the blog are possibly true but says her post causes unwarranted harm:
Maybe there were some errors in the service, that happens sometimes in the middle of August – I recognise that. But this article showed in the Google search results and did my business more and more harm, even though we have worked seven days a week for 15 years. I could not accept that.
Sentence: Eight years
U.S. District Court Judge Charles A. Pannell, Jr. sentences Nida to eight years of jail on charges of conspiring to commit mail, wire and bank fraud. The sentence will be followed by five years of supervised release. Nida is also ordered to pay restitution to the victims of his offenses. The U.S. Attorney’s office says:
Nida’s sentence should be an eye opener for other like-minded criminals who scheme to steal victims’ identities, defraud them and ignore the consequences of their actions
$5 million for victims’ families
A civil court judge allows the families of murder victims Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado to freeze up to $5 million of Hernandez’s mansion’s worth. He denied their bid for a court order that would block the Patriots from paying their former tight end a $3.3 million signing bonus. The attorneys for the family say:
That’s one skirmish. We’re going to go forward. All we can do is pursue money. There’s no way $3.3 million will bring back these two men, so this is what the system leaves us with.
Texas man pleads guilty to terror support
University of Texas student Rahatul Ashikim Khan, 23, of Round Rock, Tx., pleads guilty to charges of supporting terrorism after investigators say he had been recruiting jihadi fighters through an online chat room under the user name AuthenticTauheed19. He faces up to 15 years in prison. No sentencing date has been set. A statement by U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman:
Rahatul Khan’s admissions during this morning’s guilty plea should serve as a sobering reminder that we need to remain vigilant in our efforts to detect and root out terrorism, even in our own back yard
Khatallah ordered held until trial
During a brief detention hearing yesterday, a federal court magistrate rules that Abu Khatallah will remain in jail until his trial. Court documents released before the hearing allege he “conspired to participate and then participated” in the September 11, 2012, attack on the American outpost in eastern Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. In the document, prosecutors allege:
The defendant’s participation in the attack was motivated by his extremist ideology.
They also allege that Khatallah “voiced concern and opposition to the presence of an American facility in Benghazi” days prior to the attack.
Judge says no to gag order
Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke refuses to issue a gag order in the matter of the alleged murder of two people by Hernandez in 2012. The judge said he sees no sign that Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office had violated ethical rules for prosecutors by leaking information .
The Court is satisfied that the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office is aware of and operates consistent with the restrictions imposed by the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct, rendering a detailed order regarding extrajudicial statements unnecessary at this time.
Workers cannot be forced to pay union dues
The courts rules that home healthcare workers in Illinois can not be forced to pay union dues. The 5-4 ruling mostly applies to a group of Illinois home care providers challenged that a state decision to classify them as public employees, which would have meant they would have to pay union dues. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the conservative majority, says the practice was a clear violation of the First Amendment:
If we accepted Illinois’ argument, we would approve an unprecedented violation of the bedrock principle that, except perhaps in the rarest of circumstances, no person in this country may be compelled to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she does not wish to support.
Allows corporate contraceptive religious objection
The court rules 5-4 in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby to allow corporations to hold religious objections and opt out of the new health law requirement that say they must cover contraceptives for women. Contraception is among a range of preventive services that must be provided at no extra charge under the health care law that President Barack Obama signed in 2010 and the Supreme Court upheld two years later. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion:
Under the standard that [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] prescribes, the HHS contraceptive mandate is unlawful…Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs.
The court’s four liberal justices called it a decision of “startling breadth” and said that it allows companies to
opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Must pay Canadian workers
The Supreme Court of Canada rules that the workers at the Jonquiere, Quebec store must be compensated. The workers lost their jobs at the store when it was suddenly shut down months after its employees unionized. The court ruled in a five-to-two decision that the the store modified working conditions for the employees without a valid reason when it shut down the store in February, 2005. A spokesman for Wal-Mart Canada says the company will consider its options:
We are disappointed by the decision. This was an appeal of a unanimous decision by the Quebec Court of Appeal to reject the UFCW’s claim, which in our view was a legally correct decision. We will review the decision carefully in order to determine what our next steps will be.