Former prosecutor Stephen Lopresti will keep his law license after jurors acquitted him of fixing tickets. Lopresti was charged with felony DWI after a 2006 accident in the Bronx. Despite the testimony of two corrupt officers, the jury found Lopresti not guilty.
Category: Criminal law
In the latest outrage from China’s burgeoning organ black market, a teenager in China known only as Little Zhern, 17, sold one of his kidneys in arrange to buy an iPad 2.
Continue reading “Now If I Can Only Find a Dialysis App: Chinese Teen Sells Kidney For iPad”
In Laconia, New Hampshire there is an interesting case that may give some of our clients pause before accepting a plea bargain. Jonathan E. Lord, 25, had accepted a plea bargain to spend one year in jail for trying to run over Police officer Michael Finogle. However, Judge James O’Neill III rejected the plea (because he felt the plea was too lenient) so the case went to trial . . . and Lord was acquitted of one felony charge of reckless conduct and two misdemeanor charges of disobeying an officer and reckless operation.
Continue reading “Good Lord: Judge Rejects Plea As Too Lenient, Jury Then Acquits Defendant”
We have been following cases of police detaining or arresting people who either photograph them or photograph public scenes in this country and other countries like England. The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) has been repeated criticized for stopping citizens engaged in entirely lawful photography. The latest such victim is Christopher Fussell who kept the camera running (below) during the confrontation where officers displayed a complete lack of knowledge of the existing laws — and rights of citizens.
Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah is the spiritual mentor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and he is not exactly a kid person. After telling the faithful that suicide bombings are required for Muslims in fighting Israel, he declined to make an exception for children.
There is a bizarre case in Italy where Italian prosecutors have charged the country’s top seismologist with manslaughter for failing to predict a natural disaster that struck Italy in 2009. The massive earthquake killed 308 people and they blame Enzo Boschi, the president of Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. Six other scientists and technicians are also charged.
Continue reading “Seismic Charge: Italian Prosecutors Charge Seismologists With Manslaughter For Failing To Predict 2009 Quake”
I pledge not to use The Jerk in the following story. Steve Martin has been named as one of the victims in an impressive international forgery scheme. Martin paid $850,000 in July 2004 for Landschaft mit Pferden (Landscape With Horses). Later he sold it at a loss of 200,000 euros to a Swiss businesswoman. It was then found to be a fake.
Continue reading “Real Men Don’t Buy Campendonk: Steven Martin Named As Victim in Massive Forgery Scheme”
One of the most senior figures in Australia’s Church of Scientology has been criminally charged in a case of sexual abuse. Jan Eastgate is accused of encouraging a young girl to lie and deny allegations of sexual abuse in the church. In the meantime, another leading Church figure, Tom Cruse, is being sued in an action unconnected to the cases in Australia by ex-Scientologist, Peter Letterese, for $250 million under a RICO claim that includes allegations of bribing a judge.
Continue reading “Senior Scientology Figure Criminally Charged After Allegedly Telling Minor To Lie About Abuse”
Tiffany Startz, 22, is facing has been charged in a bizarre case after she punched a rapper on a dare last September in Joliet, Illinois — killing John “Fatboy” Powell. It is a modern version of the case of Harry Houdini who reportedly died after a college student punched him repeatedly in the stomach to test his claim of being able to withstand blows. As discussed below, the student was never charged. Startz, however, is facing reckless conduct and battery charges stemming from the incident at a garage party.
Continue reading “The Death of Fatboy: Criminal Charges Brought In Dare Gone Bad”
A British author Alan Shadrake, 76, is the latest victim of a worldwide trend of attacks on free speech. Shadrake wrote a book entitled Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore’s Justice in the Dock detailing the inequities and unfairness of the Singapore justice system. The response of Singapore’s courts was to convict Shadrake and throw him in jail for contempt. The abusive case should be a rallying point for civil libertarians around the world, not to mention any Singaporeans who value free speech and the rule of law. The Singapore government compounded the abuse by banning the book.
Zimbabwean police sergeant Alois Mabhunu has joined a large number of his countrymen in jail under the tyrannical rule of President Robert Mugabe. His crime, however, is rather unique: he used Mugabe’s private toilet. The murder detective was arrested for the offense despite the fact that there is no specific law of criminal commoding. However, in Mugabe’s paradise laws are of little import.
Continue reading “Messing With Mugabe’s Throne: Detective Thrown In Jail For Using the Presidential Privy”
San Antonio is dealing with not just the controversial fatal shooting of an unarmed teen but new disclosures that the officer was previously named four times for termination from the police force. Reports indicate that Officer Daniel Alvarado of San Antonio’s Northside Independent School District has been named on four occasions for termination due to misconduct but was never actually fired. He is now on suspension after he chased 14-year-old Derek Lopez, who punched another teen at a bus stop and ended up shooting him to death in a shed.
Continue reading “San Antonio Officer Fatally Shoots Unarmed Teen Who Scared Him — Previously Suspended Four Times From Force”
In a 5-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld an Arizona law imposing sanctions on businesses that hire illegal aliens. The decision (below) in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, 09-115 was long anticipated because of its implications for a possible ruling in the more controversial Arizona provision regarding the state enforcement of immigration laws — a case making its way toward the Court. I will be discussing the case Friday morning on CNN.
Continue reading “Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Immigration Law”
The Postal Service is under fire in Portland, Oregon after it decided to retain a postman who was captured on film peeing and defecating on a home on his route and simply reassigning the postman to another route.
Continue reading “Rain or Shine: Postal Worker Caught Defecating on Home . . . Retained By Postal Service And Given New Route”
In a long overdue action, the Serbian government has finally arrested accused war criminal Ratko Mladic, the highest-ranking war crimes suspect still at large from the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Mladic, 69, is accused of genocide, extermination and murder, including the deaths of over 8000 men and boys after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995.