New York Paralegal Blog

Global Health Care Company Abbott Laboratories Inc. has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1.5 billion to resolve its criminal and civil liability arising from the company’s unlawful promotion of the prescription drug Depakote for uses not approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Justice Department announced today.

TRENTON—A former research chemist with global pharmaceutical company sanofi-aventis (sanofi) was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for stealing sanofi’s trade secrets and making them available for sale through Abby Pharmatech Inc. (Abby), the U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese chemicals company, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

BOSTON—A Leominster man was sentenced today in federal court for conspiracy and wire fraud in connection with a multi-million-dollar scheme run from a former plastics company in Lunenburg, the Gitto/Global Corporation. GARY C. GITTO, 49, of Lunenburg, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV to 59 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and was further ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $23 million. GITTO previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering on October 4, 2010. At the earlier plea hearing, the prosecutor told the court that had the case proceeded to trial, the government’s evidence would have proven that during the period 1998 through September 2004, the principals of Gitto/Global Corporation, a plastics manufacturer in Lunenburg, were engaged in a complex scheme to defraud the company’s secured lenders by systematically overstating the company’s sales and inventory, thereby inducing the...

LOS ANGELES - In its largest human trafficking case in agriculture to date, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced that it filed lawsuits in Hawaii and Washington against Global Horizons Inc., a Beverly Hills-based farm labor contractor, and eight farms. The EEOC contends that Global Horizons engaged in a pattern or practice of national origin and race discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, when it trafficked over 200 Thai male victims to farms in Hawaii and Washington where they were subjected to severe abuse. Hundreds of additional potential claimants and witnesses are expected, according to the EEOC. The EEOC asserts that between 2003 and 2007, Global Horizons enticed Thai male nationals into working at the farms with the false promises of steady, high-paying agricultural jobs along with temporary visas allowing them to live and work in the U.S. legally. The opportunity came at a price: high recruitment fees creating an insurmountable debt...

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced that on Aug.11, 2009, two individuals were sentenced in connection with South Florida business opportunity scams. Stewart Pope was sentenced in connection with his participation in fraudulent business opportunity sales at a Miami firm called Global Resources ("Global"). Pope, who pleaded guilty to mail fraud as well as conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, was sentenced to 27 months in prison and ordered to pay $4,313,093 in restitution. Pope was listed as the President of Global in the company’s marketing materials, communications with potential customers, and disclosure documents. In reality, Pope’s name was used to hide the involvement of Global’s true owners and principals, who, among other things, had a history of selling various sorts of failed business opportunities. Pope’s conviction and sentence brings to eight the number of individuals [Vitale, Mayne, Ladenheim, Eidelstein, Pelle, Kuba, Gold, Bridges, Press, Mraff,...

Court Order Imposes Five-Year Ban on Telemarketing to Consumers A financial services telemarketer who allegedly violated several requirements of the Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Call Rule – from calling hundreds of thousands of consumers on the National Do Not Call Registry to failing to transmit accurate caller ID information – has settled the government’s charges and is banned from telemarketing to consumers for five years. In November 2007, as part of a multi-case crackdown on Do Not Call violators, the government charged Global Mortgage Funding, Inc. (Global Mortgage) and its owner, Damian Robert Kutzner, with unlawfully calling consumers on the Do Not Call Registry in an attempt to sell financial products, including mortgages and related financing services. The complaint also charged the defendants with violating the FTC’s Do Not Call Rule by failing to transmit accurate caller ID information, failing to pay fees required to access the Registry, and abandoning calls by not c...