There is a growing scandal in the Bronx that has led to the resignation of two legal aid attorneys (Ryan Napoli and Kumar Rao) and calls for the defunding of Bronx Defenders, an organization that represents over 35,000 indigent persons each year under a $20 million annual contract with the city. The controversy erupted after the release of the video below entitled “Hands Up” featuring a popular rap artist and noting sponsorship and participation by the Bronx Defenders. The video includes repeated images to two African-American men about to shoot a white police officer and lyrics call for the shooting of police officers.
Month: February 2015
Attorney Timothy Griffin, 55, has been sentenced to a six-month prison stint in a pile up of criminal and unethical conduct, including the theft of $1.8 million from a non-profit Jewish cemetery. It turns out that he was not the first professional to victimize the cemetery.
I had the pleasure this month of writing a piece on free speech in the leading policy magazine in Switzerland, “Schweizer Monat.” The piece is published in German (Charlies falsche Freunde or Charlie’s False Friends), which is particularly cool for my son Benjamin who is taking German at McLean High School in Virginia. The German version can be found here. Germany is currently our fifth highest supplier of readers with Switzerland close behind. Ironically, Harvard Professor Cass Sunstein also wrote a piece in the same issue this month. The translated column is below:
Rev. Wayne Marlon Jones, 53, has been criminally charged in a case where police say that he sexually assaulted a woman during exorcisms and defrauded her over the course of years. The case could raise questions over questions of consent and religious beliefs.
Continue reading “Toronto Pastor Charged With Sexually Assaulting Woman As Part of Exorcism”
There was a shocking arrest for many in the Texas bar this week when former dean of Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law John B. Attanasio was charged under prostitution laws. Attanasio, 60, is free on $500 bail for the class B misdemeanor.
Continue reading “Former SMU Dean Arrested On Prostitution Charges”
In the conclusion of ten years of intense litigation, Dr. Sami Al-Arian and his wife Nahla boarded a plane last night and left the United States for Turkey. He arrived in Istanbul a couple hours ago. I was Dr. Al-Arian’s lead criminal defense counsel in Virginia until all charges were eventually dropped by the United States Department of Justice against him. I have received many calls from the media over the last couple of days and I have declined to respond because Dr. Al-Arian was represented by an immigration law team after the criminal proceedings concluded. I wanted to defer to those lawyers in any media comments, as I have since handed over the case last year. Dr. Al-Arian issued the statement below this morning.
Continue reading “Dr. Sami Al-Arian Leaves The United States”
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that Pom Wonderful was engaging in deceptive advertising over health claims in ads urging consumers to “Amaze your cardiologist” and “Drink to prostate health.” The Court found that the company lacked the medical or scientific foundation to make such claims in upholding the actions taken by the Federal Trade Commission.
There is a horrific videotape capturing the crash of a TransAsia airplane crashing in Taiwan. The plane in the videotape below appears to lose control after takeoff, clip a bridge, and then crashes into a river. That is amazing is that people survived this crash and were seen swimming from the wreckage. This video is likely to be analyzed for years not just in the crash investigation but the likely litigation over the accident.
We have repeatedly dealt with stories of parents who leave their children in cars while they gamble or party (here) or even commit criminal acts(here). This week, another such arrest was made near our school but this one involves clearly affluent parents who left their two toddlers — a 22-month-old boy and a slightly older girl — in a gray Volvo wagon while they went to a wine tasting at the upscale restaurant Ris. I hope the wine bouquet was satisfying because “the finish” was rough. They were both arrested and now face two counts of attempted second-degree cruelty to children, which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
The teachers at Kermit Elementary School in West Texas has suspended Aiden Steward, 9, for threatening the safety of a fellow student with magic. That’s right. Aiden told a friend he could turn him invisible like Bilbo Baggins if he put the “one ring” (from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” books) on his head in the Fourth Grade. Before he could carry out his threat, the school suspended him and sent him no doubt to Mordor in the middle earth. There appears a growing consensus: either Aiden is a real wizard or his teachers are real morons.
I have long been a critic of “excessive celebration” violations in the NFL and the growing crude and thuggish conduct of players. While some may view me a bit prudish, I find it incredibly offensive to see NFL players (or entertainers at games) swearing and making offensive gestures as millions of people, including children, are watching. The latest such transgression was committed by Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin who decided to pretend that he was defecating on a ball in Super Bowl XLIX last Sunday. While the network quickly cut away, my family (including my kids) immediately saw and understood what Baldwin was doing. Even my nine-year-old thought it was “disgusting.” The Seahawks seem determined that they will, to use their motto, “leave no doubt” that they will not comply with minimal standards of conduct in the NFL.
There is a controversy over a police incident in Groveland, Florida this month where two officers are accused of using excessive force on an 11-year-old girl while responding to a burglary call at her home over the weekend. The officers then failed to put the incident in their report to the police department.
There is an interesting ruling by Judge Donald J. Cosby of the District Court in Fort Worth on a curious property claim. Cosby has ordered Allen S. Baumgardner Sr., the owner of Baumgardner Funeral Home to return the coffin that once held the body of Lee Harvey Oswald to his brother, Robert Oswald, 80. Baumgardner was attempting to sell it for roughly $90,000 and was accused of concealing the coffin’s existence from Oswald’s family members. Cosby described that Baumgardner was engaging in “wrongful and wanton and malicious conduct.” It is a bit creepy too. Baumgardner’s slogan is “THERE WHEN YOU NEED US.” Indeed, they often appear in places that you don’t need them . . . like auction houses trying to re-sell the casket of your family member.
For conservatives, it must sound like “better red than dead” all over again. A new study in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health suggests that liberals live longer than conservatives in the United States. The researchers looked at more than 32,000 adults and tracked them over 15 years. The result was surprising: conservatives seemed to be expiring faster than their counterparts on the left. However, conservatives claimed to be happier than their counterparts in life.
Continue reading “Choose Life, Live Left? Study Finds That Liberals Outlive Conservatives”
The Islamic State has continued its campaign of religious fascism in murdering thousands and “cleansing” areas for its view of the true Islamic faith. This process appears to include the burning of books in cities like Mosul, which once held a treasure trove of ancient texts including works dating back to 5000 BC. Some 2,000 books that range from children’s stories to poetry to historical texts were burned in front of residents who were told that such texts “promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned.”