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White Collar
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August 07, 2024
FTX, Alameda Agree To Pay $12.7B To Resolve CFTC's Action
A New York federal judge Wednesday signed off on a consent order requiring FTX Trading Ltd. and its affiliated trading firm to pay back $8.7 billion to those duped by disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and disgorge an additional $4 billion.
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August 07, 2024
Exec Unlikely To Get New Trial In SEC's 'Shadow Trading' Suit
A California federal judge said at a hearing Wednesday that he wasn't inclined to grant a new trial in a novel SEC "shadow trading" case, saying "there's no question" that a former executive of Medivation, a pharmaceutical company, knew that he was using inside information from his company when he purchased a rival's stock.
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August 07, 2024
'Something Sketchy Was Going On,' Girardi Client Tells Jury
A man horribly injured in a gas explosion told a Los Angeles federal jury Wednesday that Tom Girardi lied to him for years about the true details of his civil settlement and withheld millions he was owed, but it took him years to figure out "something sketchy was going on."
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August 07, 2024
4th Circ. Approves Payout Plan In $550M Ponzi Case
Investors defrauded in a $550 million Ponzi scheme can't reverse a receiver's asset distribution plan on the basis of arguments that the plan unfairly divides up recovered funds among claimants, the Fourth Circuit has determined.
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August 07, 2024
DOD Contractor Wants No Prison For Parts Sales From Turkey
A Florida defense contractor who admitted to using a front company to supply critical military components that were made in Turkey asked Tuesday for a non-prison sentence, arguing that her participation in the scheme to defraud the U.S. Department of Defense was driven by financial desperation and a misplaced trust in those who ran the operation.
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August 07, 2024
Bank Dropped From Suit Over Alleged $100M Ponzi Scheme
Washington-based First Fed Bank and its brass have been dropped from a lawsuit claiming they aided a $100 million Ponzi scheme to defraud would-be investors in a water-vending machine company.
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August 07, 2024
Santos, Feds Agree Jurors' Identities Should Be Secret
Expelled congressman George Santos wants jurors' identities protected for his trial next month on theft and identity theft charges, telling a New York federal judge on Tuesday that prosecutors feel the same given the "astounding" media attention on the case.
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August 07, 2024
6th Circ. Backs 20 Years For Chinese Spy Who Targeted GE
The Sixth Circuit upheld a 20-year prison sentence for a Chinese spy convicted of espionage for trying to steal trade secrets from General Electric's GE Aviation unit, noting in an opinion unsealed Wednesday the punishment was reasonable as he continuously pursued the confidential information using sophisticated tradecraft processes for several years.
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August 07, 2024
Pipe Co. Exec Says Criminal Antitrust Charges Unconstitutional
A former executive of an aluminum pipe company defending the Fourth Circuit's reversal of his bid-rigging conviction has told the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that all criminal antitrust prosecutions under Section 1 of the Sherman Act are unconstitutional, claiming they violate "fundamental constitutional principles" of nondelegation and objectivity.
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August 07, 2024
SEC Accuses Urban Commons REIT Founders Of $70M Fraud
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused the founders of the Urban Commons real estate investment trust of running a pair of fraud schemes involving investments in U.S.-based hotels that the regulator said collectively cost investors $70 million.
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August 07, 2024
6th Circ. Voids Man's Death Penalty Over 'Judicial Malfunction'
The Sixth Circuit on Wednesday granted a capital defendant's habeas petition based on a trial court's decision to recruit the prosecutor to ghostwrite a "corrupt opinion" issuing the death penalty and refusing to allow the defendant to proffer relevant mitigating evidence at his re-sentencing, in violation of his constitutional rights.
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August 07, 2024
Ex-Pharma Exec Gets 20 Months In SEC Contempt Case
A former pharmaceutical executive who used an alias to flout a 2016 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission consent judgment barring him from the securities industry was sentenced Wednesday to 20 months in prison by a judge who called him "incorrigible."
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August 07, 2024
Ripple Ordered To Pay $125M Penalty In SEC Case
A New York federal judge ordered Ripple Labs Inc. to pay a $125 million civil penalty on Wednesday in a long-awaited order addressing remedies for the blockchain company's failure to register institutional sales of its XRP token with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
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August 07, 2024
Young Thug Decries 'Horror' Of Working With Prosecutors
Atlanta rapper Young Thug launched another bid to boot prosecutors from his long-running gang trial, citing various episodes of alleged misconduct and arguing that prosecutors' inability to provide "the simplest and most basic fundamental fairness" requires their disqualification.
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August 07, 2024
Rising Star: Cohen & Gresser's Sri Kuehnlenz
Sri Kuehnlenz of Cohen & Gresser LLP was instrumental in securing the dismissal of six out of 13 criminal counts leveled against Sam Bankman-Fried for fraud related to the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and she helped an engineer avoid prosecution who was swept up in the U.S. Department of Justice's China Initiative, earning her a spot among the white collar law practitioners under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.
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August 07, 2024
Logistics Co. CEO Denies Role In NJ Racketeering Scheme
The chief executive officer of logistics firm NFI Industries on Wednesday denied that he played a role in an alleged scheme led by a New Jersey power broker accused of reaping millions in tax credits by using extortion to acquire waterfront property in the distressed city of Camden.
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August 06, 2024
Ex-US Atty, Mayor Poised To Face Off In Wash. AG Race
Seattle's former U.S. attorney and an Eastern Washington mayor who's also a gun rights advocate were leading the statewide primary Tuesday night to become the state's next attorney general.
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August 06, 2024
Convicted Mango Markets Crypto Trader Wants Acquittal
The crypto trader who was convicted of fraudulently draining more than $100 million from trading platform Mango Markets told a Manhattan federal judge that he should be fully acquitted on the grounds that federal prosecutors failed to prove at trial that he violated the law.
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August 06, 2024
Pakistani Man Plotted To Kill US Officials, Feds Say
A Pakistani man with ties to Iran is in custody Tuesday as the U.S. Department of Justice says it foiled his plans to assassinate U.S. government officials, which one Republican House member said included former President Donald Trump.
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August 06, 2024
Girardi Used Client Funds As 'Personal Piggy Bank,' Jury Told
The prosecution and defense painted starkly different portraits of Tom Girardi during opening statements Tuesday in the disbarred attorney's criminal fraud trial, with a California federal prosecutor saying Girardi stole millions from vulnerable clients while his lawyer described him as an "old man" losing his memory and exploited by an underling.
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August 06, 2024
Ill. Jury Hits Cop With $22.5M Wrongful Conviction Verdict
An Illinois federal jury awarded $22.5 million on Monday to the estate of a man who served 22 years in prison for a 1995 arson-murder he was later acquitted of committing.
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August 06, 2024
Feds Say Bid-Rigging Bros. Aren't Owed New Trial
Federal prosecutors moved Monday to block two brothers' bids for a new trial after they were convicted last month of involvement in a coastal Georgia concrete bid-rigging and price-fixing scheme, telling a judge a few offhand remarks from witnesses can't topple the mountain of evidence behind the guilty verdict.
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August 06, 2024
Possible Juror Naps Don't Tank Conviction, Conn. Justices Rule
A man's murder conviction and 65-year prison sentence will stand despite his protests that the trial judge should have intervened more strongly when a juror seemed to fall asleep several times on the first day of testimony, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
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August 06, 2024
NYC Prof Found Guilty Of Acting As A Secret Chinese Spy
A Brooklyn federal jury on Tuesday unanimously convicted an academic and author of secretly acting as an agent of the Chinese government by feeding information about Chinese dissidents and pro-democracy activists to China's intel service, following a weeklong jury trial, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.
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August 06, 2024
7th Circ. Upholds Bitcoin Fraudster's 8-Year Sentence
The Seventh Circuit on Monday rejected the resentencing bid of a Nigerian man serving eight years in prison for carrying out an $8 million bitcoin fraud scheme, saying a lower court properly considered that he tried but failed to steal more than $51 million in crafting the appropriate sentencing range for his type of crime.
Expert Analysis
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A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates
Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.
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A Timeline Of Antisemitism Legislation And What It Means
What began as hearings in the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce has expanded to a House-wide effort to combat antisemitism and related issues, with wide-ranging implications for education, finance and nonprofit entities, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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Criminal Enforcement Considerations For Gov't Contractors
Government contractors increasingly exposed to criminal liability risks should establish programs that enable detection and remediation of employee misconduct, consider voluntary disclosure, and be aware of the potentially disastrous consequences of failing to make a mandatory disclosure where the government concludes it was required, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.
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Opinion
States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
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FBI Raid Signals Growing Criminal Enforcement Of Algorithms
The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division's increased willingness to pursue the use of algorithmic pricing as a potential criminal violation means that companies need to understand the software solutions they employ and stay abreast of antitrust best practices when contracting with providers, say attorneys at Rule Garza.
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How Attorneys Can Reduce Bad Behavior At Deposition
To minimize unprofessional behavior by opposing counsel and witnesses, and take charge of the room at deposition, attorneys should lay out some key ground rules at the outset — and be sure to model good behavior themselves, says John Farrell at Fish & Richardson.
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Best Text Practices In Light Of Terraform's $4.5B Fraud Deal
Text messages were extremely important in a recent civil trial against Terraform Labs, leading to a $4.5 billion settlement, so litigants in securities fraud cases need to have robust mobile data policies that address the content and retention of messages, and the obligations of employees to allow for collection, say Josh Sohn and Alicia Clausen at Crowell & Moring.
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Tricky Venue Issues Persist In Fortenberry Prosecution Redo
Former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry was recently indicted for a second time after the Ninth Circuit tossed his previous conviction for improper venue, but the case, now pending in the District of Columbia, continues to illustrate the complexities of proper venue in "false statement scheme" prosecutions, says Kevin Coleman at Covington.
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Series
Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.
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Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
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6 Lessons From DOJ's 1st Controlled Drug Case In Telehealth
Following the U.S. Department of Justice’s first-ever criminal prosecution over telehealth-prescribed controlled substances in U.S. v. Ruthia He, healthcare providers should be mindful of the risks associated with restricting the physician-patient relationship when crafting new business models, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.
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In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.
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Opinion
Justices' Malicious-Prosecution Ruling Shows Rare Restraint
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon, Ohio, declining to limit malicious-prosecution suits, is a model of judicial modesty and incrementalism, in sharp contrast to the court’s dramatic swings on other rights, says Steven Schwinn at the University of Illinois Chicago Law School.
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Opinion
Trump Immunity Ruling Upends Our Constitutional Scheme
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Trump v. U.S. decision elevates the president to imperial status and paves the way for nearly absolute presidential immunity from potential criminal prosecutions — with no constitutional textual support, says Paul Berman at the George Washington University Law School.
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High Court Paves Middle Ground For Proceedings Obstruction
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Fischer sensibly leaves the door open for prosecutors to make more nuanced assessments as to whether defendants' actions directly or tangentially impair the availability or integrity of anything used in an official proceeding, without criminalizing acts such as peaceful demonstrations, say attorneys at Perry Law.