New York Paralegal Blog

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FORT SMITH, Ark. -- Big Lots Stores, Inc., which operates the Big Lots store at 4900 Rogers Ave. in Fort Smith, will pay $155,000 to four claimants and furnish other relief to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

MINNEAPOLIS - Alliant Techsystems, Inc. (ATK), a Minnesota-based company that is one of the nation's largest aerospace and defense manufacturers, will pay $100,000 and furnish other relief to settle a race discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.

WASHINGTON—A Hungarian woman pleaded guilty today in Nashville, Tennessee, for her role in moving approximately $550,000 in illicit proceeds derived from an international online marketplace fraud scheme, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jerry E. Martin for the Middle District of Tennessee.

By ADAM KLASFELD MANHATTAN (CN) - A New York City police officer accused of conspiring to kidnap, cook and eat women he fantasized about in Internet chat rooms will remain in solitary confinement until his January trial, a federal judge ruled.

MEMPHIS - A Cerritos, Calif.-based plastic bag manufacturer will pay $150,000 in monetary damages to resolve a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.

Is success measured by how dishonest a person is ? The charges unsealed today describe cheating coming and going – specifically, insider trading first on the long side, and then on the short side, on a scale that has no historical precedent.

AUSTIN, Texas - Two Texas state agencies will pay $175,000 to settle sex discrimination lawsuits filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, the federal entities announced today. The EEOC and DOJ had charged the state agencies with responsibility for gender-based pay discrimination at another, now-defunct, state agency.

Sandy Annabi, the former Democratic Majority Leader of the Yonkers City Council, and Zehy Jereis, the former head of the Yonkers Republican Party, were sentenced today to six years and four years in prison respectively for their bribery and extortion convictions related to their sale of Annabi’s City Council seat.

Empire State Alliance of Paralegal Associations is hosting the Paralegal Education Conference on Friday & Saturday, May 3rd - 4th, 2013. The event will be held at the Holiday Inn located at 232 Broadway Sarasotoga Springs, NY 12866.

Adis Medunjanin a thirty-four year old man who is a resident of Queens, NY was sentenced on November 16, 2012 to life imprisonment for multiple offenses under federal law. The Queens resident joined al Qaeda and then planned and attempted to commit suicide terrorist attacks. Adis Medunjanin, along with his accomplices were within days of executing a plot to conduct coordinated suicide bombing attacks in the New York City subway system in 2009. When Adis Medunjanin failed to carry out the suicide bombing attacks in the New York City subway system, he tried to commit a terrorist attack by crashing his car on the Whitestone Expressway in an attempt to kill himself and others. Adis is truly a piece of garbage and he deserves all that is coming to him for the rest of his life in prison!

The auto parts maker allegedly demoted and then fired many employees because of their age. Based on the alleged discrimination the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a civil complaint against TERPO in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Winchester Division on November 15, 2012.

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Mary Galligan, the Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced today the unsealing of an indictment charging Brian Ramnarine with attempting to sell a bronze sculpture that he falsely represented to be a genuine work of art by Jasper Johns, the well-known American artist.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., today announced the sentencing of BERNARD MOULTRIE, a/k/a “B-HI,” a/k/a “LITTLE BRO,” 40, to 35 years in prison and 5 years of post-release supervision for his role as kingpin of a major drug trafficking organization and for the murder of a competing drug trafficker.

NEW YORK - Sparks Steak House, an upscale steakhouse in New York City, will pay $600,000 and take other steps to settle a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A middle school principal pleaded guilty Friday to one count of enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity. The charge resulted from an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the South Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

By NICK MCCANN VANCOUVER, Wash. (CN) - Washington will become the ninth state to allow gay marriage after opponents conceded defeat Thursday. The state is the third, after Maine and Maryland, to approve gay marriage through popular vote.

Alleged Mexican drug kingpin Luis Rodriguez-Olivera was extradited from Mexico to the United States yesterday and will be arraigned later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Roanne L. Mann at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn on charges contained in a second superseding indictment returned on May 22, 2009. Rodriguez-Olivera is one of two brothers alleged to be the leaders of “Los Gueros,” an international drug organization responsible for shipping more than 100 tons of cocaine to the United States.

Thirty-eight defendants charged in United States v. Andrew Russo, et al., a case brought as part of the Department of Justice’s largest single-day operation against La Cosa Nostra, have pleaded guilty to federal charges. According to court documents, those who have pleaded guilty include the members of the entire administration of the Colombo organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra (the “Colombo family”), as well as numerous leaders, members, and associates of the Colombo family.

WASHINGTON—Thirty-four alleged members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT) gang, including four of its most senior leaders, have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Houston for allegedly conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson of the Southern District of Texas; Special Agent in Charge Melvin D. King of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Houston Division; and FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen L. Morris of the Houston Field Office.

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Randall C. Till, the Inspector in Charge of the New York Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), announced today that Anand Sekaran, the president and director of Wasson Capital Ltd. (Wasson), an investment fund, surrendered and pled guilty today in Manhattan federal court to engaging in a $2.3 million fraudulent scheme to defraud Wasson’s investors.

DENVER -- Interstate Distributor Company will pay $4.85 million and provide other significant relief to settle a nationwide class disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC's suit said the nationwide trucking firm unlawfully denied reasonable accommodations to hundreds of employees and fired them pursuant to Interstate's maximum leave policy.

By RYAN ABBOTT WASHINGTON (CN) - The man who blew the whistle on UBS Bank, getting a $104 million award and costing the bank $780 million for tax evasion, has sued his attorneys, claiming he went to prison because they failed to secure whistleblower protection for him.

TUCSON, AZ—Jared Lee Loughner, 24, of Tucson, Arizona, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns in federal district court on charges stemming from the January 8, 2011 shooting in Tucson in which he killed six people and wounded 13 others. Loughner was sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility for parole.

Daniel Sheehan, 50, a Home Depot employee, has been charged in a federal criminal complaint with attempting to extort Home Depot, a business in interstate commerce, and using a destructive device in furtherance of the extortion scheme. The defendant faces a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of life in prison if convicted of these charges.

IRWIN LIPKIN, the former controller of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (“BLMIS”), pled guilty in Manhattan federal court to a two-count superseding information charging him with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, to falsify records, to make false filings with the SEC, and to falsify statements in relation to documents required by ERISA, as well as a substantive count of falsifying statements in relation to documents required by ERISA. LIPKIN pled guilty before United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., today announced the indictment of CESAR LUCAS, 16, for raping a woman in her Upper West Side apartment in September. The defendant is charged in New York State Supreme Court with Rape in the First Degree, Sexually Motivated Burglary in the Second Degree, Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, and Endangering the Welfare of a Child. On October 24, 2012, LUCAS was arraigned in New York State Supreme Court on a separate indictment charging him with one count of Burglary in the Second Degree for unlawfully entering a different woman’s apartment on August 21, 2012, with the intent to commit a crime.[1]

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., today announced the guilty plea of DELMON YOUNG, 27, to Aggravated Harassment in the Second Degree, for approaching four men outside the Hilton New York hotel at 1335 Avenue of the Americas at approximately 2:30 a.m. on April 27, 2012, and shouting an anti-Semitic slur before tackling one of the individuals to the ground.

BALTIMORE - Rite Aid, one of the nation's largest drug store chains, will pay $250,000 and furnish other relief to settle a disability and retaliation discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.

BOTHELL -- A woman is suing Bothell Mayor Mark Lamb, saying she was fired unjustly from a paralegal job at his law firm earlier this year after they ended a nearly two-year affair. This is why people should not date people they work with, especially the boss. Source: The Herald Net

CHICAGO – As part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) ongoing commitment to prioritizing the removal of criminal aliens and egregious immigration law violators, 31 convicted criminal aliens, immigration fugitives and immigration violators were arrested during a two-day operation in the greater Chicago area.

KANSAS CITY, MO—David M. Ketchmark, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Kansas City, Missouri man was sentenced in federal court today for drugging and molesting 13 child victims, with some of the sexual abuse videotaped, over a four-year period.

NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced an investigation into post-Hurricane Sandy price gouging after receiving hundreds of complaints from consumers across the state of New York. Before the storm made land fall, the Attorney General issued an open letter to vendors in areas forecast to be affected by Hurricane Sandy to warn against price gouging, the inflation of the price of necessary goods and services. General Business Law prohibits such increases in costs of essential items like food, water, gas, generators, batteries and flashlights, and services like transportation, during natural disasters or other events that disrupt the market. Attorney General Schneiderman also issued a guide to New Yorkers recovering and rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy, including tips on how to avoid scams as they restore and rebuild their homes and businesses.

WASHINGTON—Jacqueline Wheeler, 55, the chief executive officer and owner of two health care companies, was sentenced today to six years and three months in prison for health care fraud and other federal offenses stemming from the submission of more than $7 million in fraudulent claims to the District of Columbia Medicaid program.

HONOLULU - Señor Frog's, a popular chain of Mexican-themed restaurants and bars, violated federal law by allowing the rampant sexual harassment of its female employees in Honolulu by high-level officials including the company owner, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it filed today against both Señor Frog's and Altres, Inc. Altres, a Hawaiian staffing company, was contracted by Señor Frog's to provide human resources services and oversee the company's non-management staff at the Señor Frog's restaurant & bar in Honolulu.

By ADAM KLASFELD NEW YORK CITY (CN) - With city and federal agencies overwhelmed by Sandy, public housing residents in the "Zone A" evacuation area in Queens and Brooklyn sought aid from grassroots relief workers Wednesday.

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice, the FBI and the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) remind the public there is a potential for disaster fraud in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Suspected fraudulent activity pertaining to relief efforts associated with Hurricane Sandy should be reported to the toll-free NCDF hotline at 866-720-5721. The hotline is staffed by a live operator 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the purpose of reporting suspected scams being perpetrated by criminals in the aftermath of disasters.