New York Paralegal Blog

The recent $55 million settlement secured by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Americare, Inc., a major New York City home care agency, shines a critical light on a vital piece of legislation: the New York Wage Parity Act. This case isn't just about a big number; it's about protecting some of our most vulnerable workers and safeguarding taxpayer dollars meant for essential care. So, what exactly is the New York Wage Parity Act, and what happens when companies fail to follow it? Let's break it down. The New York Wage Parity Act: Ensuring Fair Pay for Essential Care The New York Wage Parity Act was enacted with a clear and crucial purpose: to ensure that home health aides, who provide invaluable services to the sick and homebound, receive fair compensation for their demanding work. These caregivers, predominantly women, immigrants, and people of color, assist with everything from bathing and dressing to feeding and lifting. Their work is the backbone...

The recent $16.75 million settlement reached by New York Attorney General Letitia James with DoorDash is more than just a large financial penalty; it's a powerful statement about consumer protection and worker compensation in the gig economy. At its core, this case reveals how an allegedly deceptive business practice can run afoul of New York state law and the significant legal consequences that follow. The Core Allegation: Deception and Misleading Practices The essence of the DoorDash investigation focused on the company's payment model used between May 2017 and September 2019. The Attorney General alleged that DoorDash misled both customers and delivery workers ("Dashers") regarding the handling of tips. 1. The Tip-Subsidization Scheme In this model, DoorDash guaranteed Dashers a minimum payment for a delivery. The deception was not that tips were withheld entirely, but that they were used to subsidize DoorDash's own pay obligations: The Customer...

A recent guilty plea in federal court out of Tacoma, Washington, shines a spotlight on the serious consequences of violating wildlife protection laws. Branden Trager of Brush Prairie, Washington, and his company, Mayhem Services LLC, admitted to breaking federal hunting regulations, specifically the Lacey Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). What Happened? In January 2023, Trager and Mayhem Services conducted a hunting trip in western Washington where they violated the MBTA. While the specific violations weren't fully detailed in the provided information, the MBTA prohibits actions like: Hunting migratory birds with a vehicle. Using a vehicle to herd birds. Exceeding daily bag limits. Failing to retrieve downed birds. Transporting untagged birds belonging to someone else. After these violations, the illegally taken birds were transported, which then violated the Lacey Act—a law designed to prevent the trafficking of unlawfully obtained wildlife across state or ...

Earlier today, former New York City Police Officer Michael Daragjati was sentenced to 9 months of imprisonment for violating the civil rights of an African-American man by falsely charging him with a crime, and a consecutive sentence of 48 months for threatening and assaulting another man whom Daragjati thought had stolen his snowplow equipment. The sentencing proceeding took place before United States District Judge William F. Kuntz, II.

WASHINGTON – In a settlement valued at more than $1.7 million, Clean Harbors of Braintree Inc. has agreed to pay a significant penalty and perform additional projects, to settle a complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), regarding numerous violations of hazardous waste management and emergency planning laws at the company’s Braintree, Mass., facility.

BATON ROUGE, LA—United States Attorney Donald J. Cazayoux, Jr., announced today that DEREK A. LEWIS, age 50, of Port Allen, Louisiana, pled guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Brian A. Jackson to violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). LEWIS, the Mayor of the City of Port Allen, Louisiana, had been charged by a federal grand jury with a variety of offenses related to his taking of bribes while Mayor. His trial had been scheduled to begin on July 25, 2011. RICO provides for a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and forfeiture. Given LEWIS’s acceptance of responsibility and cooperation, the parties have agreed that a sentence of imprisonment not to exceed five years is appropriate. In addition to any term of imprisonment, LEWIS will be required to forfeit all of the proceeds from the offense and faces up to $250,000 in fines and a term of up to three years of supervised release following imprisonment. LEWIS’s conviction is...

URBANA , Ill. — A federal judge in Urbana has ordered Dolores Onate, owner, and Ricardo Onate, manager, of the El Matador Inc. and El Caporal Inc. restaurants in Decatur to pay a total of $1,149,702.50 in back wages and damages to 64 workers employed as servers and kitchen staff. This judgment resolves a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor following an investigation by its Wage and Hour Division that disclosed willful violations of the minimum wage, overtime pay and record-keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act at three locations. "The defendants in this case willfully and repeatedly violated federal labor standards, including forcing their employees to repay wages in an effort to conceal their own violations," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "As a result of the Labor Department's enforcement efforts, these vulnerable workers will receive their rightful pay." The judgment requires the defendants to pay $...

WASHINGTON – Three Colorado-based gasoline distributors have agreed to pay $2.5 million to resolve claims that they illegally mixed and distributed more than one million gallons of gasoline that did not meet Clean Air Act emissions and fuel quality requirements. The settlement with Rocky Mountain Pipeline System LLC, Western Convenience Stores Inc. and Offen Petroleum Inc., was filed in federal court in Denver today, announced the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Use of gasoline that does not meet the Clean Air Act’s standards for fuel can result in increased emissions from car tailpipes, affect vehicle performance, and in some cases can damage engines and emissions controls. The settling companies will pay a $2.5 million civil penalty and conduct an environmental project designed to offset the harm EPA alleges was caused by their failure to meet federal gasoline quality requirements. “Providing and distributing gasoline that fails to...

BATESVILLE, Miss. — The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued 33 citations to the Parker Hannifin Corp. plant in Batesville, alleging numerous safety and health violations as the result of an inspection that began November 2010. Proposed penalties total $487,700. Cleveland, Ohio-based Parker Hannifin has 170 facilities throughout the U.S. and manufactures machinery for hydraulics, air conditioning, refrigeration and aerospace systems. OSHA issued 16 repeat citations with $407,000 in fines. Fifteen are safety-related and cover such violations as allowing the air pressure to exceed more than 30 pounds per square inch for cleaning equipment, failing to conduct periodic inspections of the lockout/tagout process in place to prevent accidental energy start-up, failing to train workers on lockout/tagout procedures, failing to unblock exit doors and routes, failing to provide machine guarding and failing to correct electrical deficiencies. On...

OAKLAND, Calif. - A federal grand jury here has indicted the president of a Pleasanton, Calif., university on 33-criminal counts, charging her with an array of violations, including visa fraud, money laundering and alien harboring, as a result of a two-year investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Tri-Valley University President Susan Xiao-Ping Su, 41, who also served as the school's chief executive officer, is accused of engaging in a two-year scheme to defraud the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by submitting phony documents in support of Tri-Valley University's applications to admit foreign nationals on student visas. The indictment further alleges that after obtaining such approvals, Su fraudulently issued visa-related documents to student aliens in exchange for "tuition and fees." Su was taken into custody Monday morning at her Pleasanton, Calif., home by HSI special agents. She made h...

WASHINGTON – Wajdi Waked, 25, of Las Vegas, pleaded guilty today before Judge Philip M. Pro of the U.S. District Court in Nevada, to one count of violating the Clean Air Act by falsifying emissions test results. A grand jury in Las Vegas indicted Waked in January of 2010. Waked was one of nine other defendants, all at different testing locations, accused of similarly submitting false tests to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (NDMV). The cases came to the attention of Nevada authorities in 2008 when the NDMV hired a contractor to build a vehicle identification database to find possible emissions testing fraud. NDMV discovered that in 2008 alone, there were over 4,000 false vehicle emissions certificates issued in Las Vegas. The database allows investigators to check the vehicle identification number that the emissions tester enters against the vehicle actually tested. Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County is required by the EPA to have emissions testing because the area ...

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that P4 Production LLC, a mining and phosphorus processing company wholly-owned by Monsanto and operating near Soda Springs in southeast Idaho, has agreed to pay a $1.4 million civil penalty for alleged Clean Water Act violations at its South Rasmussen Mine. In addition to the penalty, P4 will spend an estimated $875,000 on monitoring and to prevent pollutants from entering local waters. “The Justice Department and the EPA are committed to enforcing the Clean Water Act to reduce pollution from mining and mineral processing operations,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice. “Clean water is essential for human health, as well as for healthy livestock, fish and wildlife. Today’s settlement agreement will make Idaho’s waters cleaner by preventing selenium and other hazardous pollutants gen...

WASHINGTON – Terra Industries Inc., one of the nation’s largest producers of nitric acid and nitrogen fertilizers, has agreed to pay $625,000 in civil penalties to settle alleged violations of the federal Clean Air Act at nine of its plants in Iowa, Mississippi and Oklahoma, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today. As part of the settlement, Terra will also spend an estimated $17 million to install and implement new controls and technologies that are expected to reduce harmful nitrogen oxide emissions at its facilities by at least 1,200 tons per year. “This agreement will require Terra Industries to make important improvements in pollution control technology at nine acid-producing facilities that will result in cleaner and healthier air for the benefit of communities in Iowa, Mississippi and Oklahoma,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. ...

WASHINGTON - Comverse Technology Inc. (CTI), a New York City headquartered corporation, has agreed to pay a $1.2 million penalty for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division. CTI, through its main operating subsidiary Comverse Inc. and Comverse Inc.’s subsidiaries, is a global provider of software and software systems for communication and billing services. According to the non-prosecution agreement, CTI has accepted responsibility for violating the books and records provisions of the FCPA arising from and related to CTI’s failure to record accurately certain improper payments that were made between 2003 and 2006 by employees and a third-party agent of Comverse Inc. subsidiaries to individuals connected to OTE, a Greek telecommunications provider, in order to obtain purchase orders. The payments, totaling approximately $536,000, were inaccurately characterized as legitimate agent commission...

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration today announced that the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission has upheld civil penalties assessed against Stillhouse Mining LLC for four flagrant violations of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. The violations were found during a Dec. 3, 2006, inspection of the company's Mine No. 1 operation near Cumberland, Ky. The initial inspection was prompted by an anonymous phone call from a miner to an MSHA field office supervisor about weak roof conditions at the mine. During the course of that inspection, enforcement personnel issued a citation for failing to follow mandated procedures after the shutoff of the mine fan. In addition, three orders were issued to the mine operator for intentionally changing the mine ventilation by shutting off and turning back on the mine fan, failing to follow roof control plans and failing to conduct an adequate pre-shift examination.

(USDOJ) WASHINGTON – Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (Siemens AG), a German corporation, and three of its subsidiaries today pleaded guilty to violations of and charges related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced. At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in the District of Columbia, Siemens AG pleaded guilty to a two-count information charging criminal violations of the FCPA’s internal controls and books and records provisions. Siemens S.A.- Argentina (Siemens Argentina) pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging conspiracy to violate the books and records provisions of the FCPA. Siemens Bangladesh Limited (Siemens Bangladesh) and Siemens S.A. - Venezuela (Siemens Venezuela), each pleaded guilty to separate one-count informations charging conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery and books and records provisions of the FCPA. As part of the plea agreements, Siemens AG agreed to pay...

Under the terms of a settlement announced by the Federal Trade Commission today, a list broker, formerly based in Arizona, and the two companies he ran have agreed to a proposed court order barring them from violating the agency’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR). The proposed order settles a Commission complaint charging that the defendants assisted and facilitated telemarketers of fraudulent “advance-fee” credit cards by providing them with unencrypted consumer information. The FTC complaint alleged the defendants sold “full data leads” to these telemarketers that included consumers’ bank account and routing information, credit card numbers, credit card security codes, and credit card expiration dates, without first obtaining authorization from consumers to do so, all the while knowing that the data would be used in schemes designed to mislead and defraud consumers. The proposed order also contains a suspended $120,000 judgment against the defendants. The full judgment will be imposed ...