Nagla Wafa, 39, an Egyptian wedding planner and designer, had a simple business dispute with a partner over a cashed check and a joint business venture. The partner says that she cashed a check and reneged on opening a restaurant. It is the type of thing that is standard fare for courts around the world. However, this is Saudi Arabia and the partner was a princess in the Royal family. Wafa was arrested without charge and held for months. She was then belated charged with fraud and sentenced to 500 lashes and five years in prison in a case that has drawn rightful condemnation in Egypt. She is shown here with her two sons.
Category: Criminal law
Reports now indicate that all nine wounded bystanders in the recent shooting near the Empire State building were shot not by the gunman, Jeffrey Johnson, 58, (left) but by police officers.
Continue reading “All Nine Wounded in New York Were Shot By NYPD Officers”
Coley Mitchell, 32, has been arrested after he was found drunk with his pants down in a campus locker room with two lab monkeys at the Georgia Health Sciences University. The charge of public intoxication is interesting since he was presumably working at the lab.
Lois Ann “Lolo’’ Goodman, 70, was a well-known US Open judge who faced down the likes of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors in heated calls. However, Goodman is now in jail after police accused her of killing her husband Alan Goodman, 80, with a coffee mug back in Los Angeles.
We have yet another case of passengers being thrown off planes because of a message on their clothing. Arijit Guha and his wife were returning from a funeral on Delta at the Buffalo-Niagara Airport when they were told that his tee-shirt mocking the TSA made passengers and employees feel “very uncomfortable”. Guha is an Arizona State University graduate student.
Continue reading “TSA and Delta Force Couple Off Plane For Wearing Tee-Shirt Mocking TSA”
It could be the homosexual version of the Tawana Brawley case. In Lincoln, Nebraska, former University of Nebraska women’s basketball star Charlie Rogers crawled to a neighbor’s house covered in blood with anti-gay slurs of “dyke” and “c*nt” curved into her skin. Her case became a rallying point for the community which is debating a “fairness ordinance” to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. However police now say that she faked the attack.
Continue reading “Lesbian In Nebraska Charged With Allegedly Faking Anti-Homosexual Attack”
While Rep. Akin may have doomed Republican efforts in retaking the U.S. Senate, a Minnesota state representative may have done the same for Democrats in that state. Rep. Kerry Gauthier, 56, has admitted to having a liaison with a 17-year-old boy at a rest stop but insists that it was all perfectly legal since the boy was over 16 years old. The thing that struck me as the most interesting is his claim that it is not a crime to have sex at a rest stop in Minnesota.
Three Delaware day care givers — Tiana Harris, 19, Lisa Parker, 47, and Estefania Myers, 21 — have been charged with organizing a type of baby fight club where they encouraged 3-year-olds to fight for their entertainment. We now know the third rule of fight club after you don’t talk about fight club you don’t talk about fight club . . . you don’t use pre-school toddlers.
Continue reading “The Third Rule Of Fight Club: Don’t Use Toddlers”
Massachusetts Judge Cheryl Ann Jacques is facing a bizarre misdemeanor larceny charge for allegedly misrepresenting the features of a combination crib-and-playpen set she sold on Craigslist. Jacques, 50 sold the Graco Pack ’n Play to Tracey Christopher, 39, for $75. It sells for roughly $150 new. Christopher insisted that there were parts missing but that Jacques refused to return her money. On both this allegation and a prior ethics charge, the level of scrutiny does not appear (in my view) justified by the underlying allegations.
Winston Dudley (shown left) has won a false arrest case where a police account was proven to be false after the review of security tapes. Officer Daniel R. Gowans wrote a report that said that Dudley was “disorderly intoxicated” and resisted arrest on Sept.18, 2010. However, the video directly contradicted Gowans account. While Dudley will receive $30,000, there is no indication that the officer will be fired for a early false report following a false arrest.
There is an interesting ruling out of Australia where lawyer Michael Gerard Sullivan, 54, has succeeded in avoiding a conviction for theft. That would seem rather surprising since Sullivan previously pleaded guilty after being captured on CCTV taking the two paintings of the Katoomba Fine Art Gallery in December 2008. However, Sullivan claimed amnesia and Judge Jennifer English agreed with the diagnosis and declined to record the conviction.
Pakistan may have another opportunity to execute another blasphemer for insulting Islam. This time it is an 11-year-old Christian Pakistani girl Rifta Masih accused of burning Islamic texts. In the meantime, Christians have been persecuted in the area as a local mullah claimed a witness saw the girl burn pages from an Islamic text.
Oregon police have arrested the Rev. Angel Armando Perez at Saint Luke Catholic Church in Woodburn after he was allegedly seen chasing a 12-year-old boy down the street dressed only in his underwear.
Ecuador granted asylum to Julian Assange today, an act that will further escalate the conflict between Britain and Ecuador. As I discussed on BBC last night, there are some common legal misunderstandings about the status of an embassy, but as a practical matter Assange should be beyond the reach of the English. While the government has threatened to strip the embassy of diplomatic status and grad Assange, it is in my view an empty threat. However, Assange is not likely to see Ecuador any time soon since he can be arrested trying to leave the country.
Continue reading “Assange Granted Asylum As Britain Threatens A Raid On Ecuadoran Embassy”
We often discussed the lack of deterrent for prosecutorial misconduct in the United States. When cases are overturned due to destruction or withholding of evidence or other violations, few reporters track down the original prosecutors to hold them accountable. Prosecutors are rarely punished for such acts. The article below in the New York Times details a shocking example of alleged misconduct and the lack of action by the Queens District Attorney in dealing with what appears gross violations by prosecutors in the office.
Continue reading “Lawsuit Details Alleged Prosecutorial Misconduct In New York Murder Case”