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Supreme Court allows Stanford Ponzi scheme suits
Attorney News |
2014/02/28 22:10
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The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that victims of former Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford's massive Ponzi scheme can go forward with class-action lawsuits against the law firms, accountants and investment companies that allegedly aided the $7.2 billion fraud.
The decision is a loss for firms that claimed federal securities law insulated them from state class-action lawsuits and sought to have the cases thrown out. But it offers another avenue for more than 21,000 of Stanford's bilked investors to try to recover their lost savings.
Federal law says class-action lawsuits related to securities fraud cannot be filed under state law, as these cases were. But a federal appeals court said the cases could move forward because the main part of the fraud involved certificates of deposit, not stocks and other securities.
The high court agreed in a 7-2 decision, with the two dissenting justices warning that the ruling would lead to an explosion of state class-action lawsuits.
Stanford was sentenced to 110 years in prison after being convicted of bilking investors in a $7.2 billion scheme that involved the sale of fraudulent certificates of deposits from the Stanford International Bank. They supposedly were backed by safe investments in securities issued by governments, multinational companies and international banks, but those investments did not exist. |
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Court: Spain can extradite Liberty Reserve founder
Attorney News |
2014/02/24 22:25
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A Spanish court has ruled that a man accused of being behind one of the world’s biggest money laundering businesses can be extradited to the U.S. to face charges there.
Arthur Budovsky, who founded currency transfer and payment processing company Liberty Reserves, can appeal the ruling, the National Court said late Friday. Spain’s government must also approve the decision for an extradition to happen.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Budovsky would appeal. The 40-year-old Costa Rican, who was arrested at Madrid airport in May 2013, has acknowledged founding Liberty Reserve in 2006, but says he sold his share to stay on only as a consultant.
U.S. officials accuse Budovsky of using Liberty Reserve as a kind of underworld bank which handled about $6 billion worth of illicit transactions. |
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Fight over gay marriage moving to federal courts
Attorney News |
2014/02/20 22:06
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The overturning of Virginia’s gay marriage ban places the legal fight over same-sex unions increasingly in the hands of federal appeals courts shaped by President Barack Obama’s two election victories.
It’s no accident that Virginia has become a key testing ground for federal judges’ willingness to embrace same-sex marriage after last year’s strongly worded pro-gay rights ruling by the Supreme Court. Judges appointed by Democratic presidents have a 10-5 edge over Republicans on the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, formerly among the nation’s most conservative appeals courts.
Nationally, three other federal appeals courts will soon take up the right of same-sex couples to marry, too, in Ohio, Colorado and California. The San Francisco-based 9th circuit is dominated by judges appointed by Democratic presidents. The Denver-based court, home of the 10th circuit, has shifted from a Republican advantage to an even split between the parties, while the 6th circuit, based in Cincinnati, remains relatively unchanged in favor of Republicans during Obama’s tenure.
U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen’s ruling Thursday, that same-sex couples in Virginia have the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals, represented the strongest advance in the South for advocates of gay marriage. She put her own ruling on hold while it is being appealed. |
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Ky. high court to hear death penalty appeal
Attorney News |
2014/02/13 22:41
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The Kentucky Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the case of a death row inmate who has twice won a new trial.
The justices on Thursday will take up the case of 57-year-old Michael Dale St. Clair, who was convicted in the 1991 slaying of distillery worker Frank Brady in Bullitt County.
St. Clair has won three trials in the case, which has lingered for years in appeals.
St. Clair and another inmate escaped from an Oklahoma prison before going on a multistate spree that ended in Kentucky with Brady's death. St. Clair also faces a murder charge in New Mexico for the 1991 kidnapping and slaying of paramedic Timothy Keeling.
St. Clair also received a second death sentence for capital kidnapping from the Hardin County Circuit Court. |
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Court sides with S. Ind. city in man's injury suit
Attorney News |
2014/01/06 18:54
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The Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court's ruling that the Ohio River city of Madison is not liable for injuries a man suffered when he tripped on a sewer grate.
Brad Haskin suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in July 2008 when he tripped on the grate while walking from Madison's riverfront. He sued Madison in 2009, alleging it was negligent in maintaining the sewer drain and did not properly illuminate it.
The Madison Courier reports a Jefferson County judge had ruled that under Indiana law a city cannot be held liable for injuries caused by infrastructure like the grate that had been unchanged for 20 or more years.
The appellate agreed with that ruling, finding that the city was immune from liability in the case. |
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