New York Paralegal Blog

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced today that Vincent Johnson of Brick, N.J., was sentenced to 50 months in prison and three years supervised release for sending a series of threatening email communications to employees of five civil rights organizations that work to improve opportunities for, and challenge discrimination against, Latinos in the United States. Johnson was also ordered to pay a fine of $10,000. Johnson, 61, who went by the internet pseudonym “Devilfish,” pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2010, to 10 counts related to threatening conduct towards the victims, who included employees of the LatinoJustice Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; the National Council of La Raza; the League of United Latin American Citizens; and the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders. Johnson admitted that between November 2006 and February 2009, he emailed numerous threats to the victims to preve...

William Johnson, also known as “Dollar Bill,” pleaded guilty today to sex trafficking of a minor between August 2010 and September 2010. The plea was entered this morning before United States District Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf at the U.S. Courthouse in Brooklyn. When sentenced, the defendant faces a minimum of 10 years’ imprisonment and a maximum of life imprisonment, as well as forfeiture of his residence and other property used in the commission of his criminal conduct. The guilty plea was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Janice K. Fedarcyk, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office; and Raymond W. Kelly, Commissioner, New York City Police Department. At today’s proceeding, the defendant admitted to harboring a 15-year-old girl in his home in St. Albans, Queens, between August and September 2010, and having the victim work for him as a prostitute. As alleged in the government’s...

WASHINGTON—Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has agreed to pay a $21.4 million criminal penalty as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice to resolve improper payments by J&J subsidiaries to government officials in Greece, Poland, and Romania in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the Justice Department’s Criminal Division announced today. The agreement also resolves kickbacks paid to the former government of Iraq under the United Nations Oil for Food Program. J&J is headquartered in New Brunswick, N.J., and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company manufactures and sells medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer health care products.

(openPR) CHICAGO – A jury in Chicago has found two Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries liable in the death of a Cicero, Ill., woman who died while using a Duragesic® patch, and ordered the companies to pay her family $16,560,000. The verdict in the case involving 38-year-old Janice DiCosolo, a mother of three, was delivered in Judge Thomas Flanagan’s courtroom in the Cook County Circuit Court, after a three-week trial. When Mrs. DiCosolo died on February 15, 2004, she was using a Duragesic patch that her doctor prescribed to reduce the almost constant pain she experienced as a result of a neurological condition called reflex sympathetic dystrophy. Duragesic is a patch containing a gel form of the drug fentanyl, which is 100-times stronger than morphine. More...