New York Paralegal Blog

PROVIDENCE, RI—A federal grand jury in Providence returned a 37-count indictment today charging Ralph Mariano, 54, of Arlington, Virginia, a civilian engineer with the U.S. Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) in Newport, Rhode Island and Washington D.C.; and his father, Ralph Mariano, Jr., 80, of North Providence, Rhode Island, in connection with an alleged 15-year bribery and fraud conspiracy involving approximately $10 million of U.S. naval funds.

WASHINGTON – Iheanyi Frank Chinasa, 39, of Gaithersburg, Md., was sentenced today to 84 months in prison for his participation in a scheme to defraud Cisco Systems Inc., announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride of the Eastern District of Virginia and Michael Morehart, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Richmond, Va., Field Office. Chinasa also was ordered by Chief U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer to pay restitution of $18,761,825, jointly and severally with co-defendant Robert Kendrick Chambliss, and to serve three years of supervised release following his prison term. Chinasa was convicted on Feb. 7, 2011, by a federal jury in Richmond of one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, eight counts of mail fraud, one count of wire fraud and one count of obstruction of an official proceeding. Chinasa and Chambliss, 31, of Henrico, Va., were indicted on Aug. 18, 2010. Chambliss pleaded guilty on Ja...

Albany, NY (February 28, 2011)Governor Cuomo has signed into law a measure that will allow villages that administer their own village elections to use lever voting machines, rather than the new optical scan voting systems, until the end of 2012. This law was needed to ensure that these villages can transition to the new voting systems in a fair and orderly manner. In July 2010, New York enacted legislation implementing certain provisions of the federal Help America Vote Act ("HAVA"). The New York State law required that all elections, including village elections, must be conducted using the new optically scanned ballots. However, some villages that administer their own elections have faced several major obstacles to shifting over to the new technology. Many of the village elections affected this year by the new requirement will be held on March 15, 2011, and certain villages have not had enough time to budget for, lease, program, and test the new optical scanners. In addi...

Rule provides more predictable path to market Today, the FDA announced a final rule that provides a less-burdensome path to market for certain hardware and software products used with medical devices. The rule classifies these products, known as Medical Device Data Systems or MDDS, as Class I or low-risk devices, making them exempt from premarket review but still subject to quality standards. “This rule is a common-sense regulatory approach that provides clarity and predictability for manufacturers of these data systems,” said Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “This shows our flexibility in applying regulations for medical device data systems that are not overly burdensome for manufacturers but continue to assure that data stored, transferred or displayed on these systems remain reliable.”

Partners HealthCare Systems Inc. and its affiliated hospitals and health care companies throughout eastern Massachusetts have agreed to pay 700 employees more than $2.7 million in overtime back wages to resolve a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor alleging violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). "We are pleased that the department has succeeded in securing such a substantial amount of back wages for these workers who were not properly paid for overtime they had worked," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. The FLSA requires that employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage, and time and one-half their regular rates of pay for hours worked beyond 40 per week. The law also requires that employers maintain accurate records of employees' wages, hours and conditions of employment. Partners' management contacted the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division after realizing that affiliated companies might be in violation of the FLS...