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Miss. judge suspended for misconduct
Legal Business |
2011/08/12 10:24
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The Mississippi Supreme Court has suspended Alcorn County Justice Court Judge Jimmy McGee for misconduct.
The Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance had accused McGee of interfering with a criminal case and making "statements in open court encouraging others to engage in vigilante justice."
The complaint involved a case in another court in which McGee's relative was a crime victim. He allegedly said in open court in 2008 that his relative's case should have been handled "down on the farm" instead of in the justice system.
The Supreme Court ordered a suspension without pay for 270 days, a public reprimand and assessed $100 in court costs. |
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New hearings sought in Chicago police torture case
Legal Business |
2011/08/10 08:54
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Fifteen incarcerated men who claim they were sent to prison by confessions that were beaten, burned and tortured out of them by convicted Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge and his officers are getting some high-profile help — including from a former Illinois governor.
In a friend-of-the-court brief to be filed Wednesday with the Illinois Supreme Court, ex-Gov. Jim Thompson and more than 60 current and former prosecutors, judges and lawmakers are asking for new evidentiary hearings for inmates who say their convictions were based on coerced confessions.
The brief marks the first effort on behalf of alleged Burge victims as a group and not separate individual cases, attorneys said.
Burge's name has become synonymous with police abuse in the nation's third-largest city, and more than 100 men — most of them African-American and Latino— have alleged Burge and his men tortured them from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Burge was convicted last year of lying about whether he ever witnessed or participated in the torture of suspects. He's serving a 4 1/2-year sentence at Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina.
Burge never has faced criminal charges for abuse. He was fired from the police department in 1993 over the 1982 beating and burning of Andrew Wilson, a suspect later convicted of killing two police officers. |
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Pozen says Texas court upholds Treximet patents
Legal Business |
2011/08/09 09:16
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Drug developer Pozen Inc. said Monday that a Texas court upheld three patents supporting its migraine drug Treximet.
Pozen said the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled that the patents were valid. The court also found that generic versions of Treximet developed by Par Pharmaceutical Co. and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd. infringed on all three patents, while a version developed by Alphapharm Pty Ltd. infringed on two patents. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. had also challenged the patents, but was dismissed from Pozen's lawsuit in April 2010 after it agreed to abide by the court's decision.
The court said the Food and Drug Administration cannot approve the generics made by Dr. Reddy's and Par until Feb. 2, 2025, and that the agency can't approve the Alphapharm generic until Aug. 14, 2017.
Treximet is a combination of GlaxoSmithKline PLC's drug Imitrex and an anti-inflammatory drug developed by Pozen. GlaxoSmithKline markets the drug and pays royalties to Pozen. In the second quarter, those royalty payments accounted for $4 million of Pozen's $4.6 million in total revenue.
The FDA approved Treximet in April 2008 after years of delays, and Par filed for approval of its generic in October of that year. |
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Once-exonerated Conn. man ordered back to prison
Legal Business |
2011/08/09 09:15
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A month after the Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated murder convictions against two men who had been exonerated, a judge on Monday ordered one of them back to prison but allowed the other to remain free while fighting cancer.
George Gould was sent back to prison while Ronald Taylor, whose lawyer says he has terminal colon cancer, was allowed to remain out on bail. Both men await a new appeal trial connected to their murder convictions in the 1993 fatal shooting of New Haven grocery shop owner Eugenio Deleon Vega.
Gould and Taylor were both sentenced to 80 years in prison for the killing. They filed habeas corpus appeals, challenges to imprisonment that typically come after other appeals fail.
They were freed in April 2010 after 16 years behind bars when Superior Court Judge Stanley Fuger ruled they were victims of "manifest injustice" and declared them "actually innocent." Fuger's ruling came after a key prosecution witness recanted her trial testimony. He ordered both men released.
Prosecutors appealed to the state Supreme Court, which issued a unanimous decision last month saying that Fuger was wrong to overturn the convictions because Gould and Taylor hadn't proven their innocence. The high court ordered a new habeas corpus trial for the two men. |
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Lawyer pleads guilty to $47 million Ponzi scheme
Legal Business |
2011/08/05 09:05
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An Arkansas lawyer and businessman admitted today to staging a Ponzi scheme that netted more than $47 million, a scam that a prosecutor called the largest case of fraud in state history.
Kevin Lewis, 43, pleaded guilty today to one count of bank fraud in federal district court in Little Rock. He could face up to 30 years in prison, though U.S. Attorney Christopher Thyer said Lewis would likely receive between 10 to 13 years.
He will also have to pay restitution of almost $40 million, though that number could go down further as banks work to recover their losses.
Lewis acknowledged that he issued paperwork for fake rural improvement bonds often used by developers to defraud several Arkansas banks starting with a small bond in 1997.
That money went to maintain his business interests across the state, which range from a law firm to a clothing company. He used the money to make the payments on past fake bonds and support a personal lifestyle that included a house valued at more than $1 million, fancy cars and vacations, Thyer said.
Meanwhile, the bank that bought almost $23 million of the fake bonds, First Southern Bank in Batesville, was placed into receivership by authorities, Thyer said. Lewis had purchased majority ownership of First Southern, using a loan from another Arkansas bank that was backed by the fake bonds. |
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