New York Paralegal Blog

WASHINGTON – The United States has intervened and filed a complaint in a whistleblower suit pending under the False Claims Act against Education Management Corp. (EDMC) and several affiliated entities, the Justice Department announced today. In its complaint, the government alleges that EDMC falsely certified compliance with provisions of federal law that prohibit a university from paying incentive-based compensation to its admissions recruiters that is tied to the number of students they recruit.

WASHINGTON– Karen L. Blyth and David H. M. Phelps were sentenced yesterday in federal court in Mobile, Ala., to 33 months and 24 months in prison, respectively. The pair was also fined $5,000 each, and barred for three years from working in the seafood industry or owning any seafood related business. Blyth and Phelps had been convicted in January 2011 of 13 felony offenses for their roles in purchasing and selling farm-raised Asian catfish and Lake Victoria perch falsely labeled as grouper, selling foreign farm-raised shrimp falsely labeled as U.S. wild caught shrimp, selling shrimp they falsely claimed to be larger, more expensive shrimp than they actually were, and for buying fish they knew had been illegally imported into the United States. Blyth and Phelps, on the eve of trial on January 24, 2011, pleaded guilty to the offenses, which included one conspiracy count, nine violations of the Lacey Act, two counts of receiving smuggled goods and one count of misbranding. A thir...

WASHINGTON— Stephen C. Delaney, 55, of Quincy, Mass., was found guilty on April 8, 2011, by a federal jury in Boston of falsely labeling frozen fish fillets from China. Specifically, Delaney was convicted of a felony violation of the Lacey Act, a federal wildlife statute. The jury found that, on or about April 15, 2009, Delaney falsely labeled approximately $8,000 worth of frozen fillets of pollock, product of China, as cod loins, product of Canada. The labeling of pollock as cod is identified by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the list of examples of substituted seafood and economic fraud on its website. Evidence at trial established that the price of cod is approximately $1.00 per pound higher than that for Alaska pollock. In addition, Delaney was convicted on one misdemeanor violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for misbranding seafood. Specifically, the jury found that Delaney sent into interstate commerce approximately $203,000 worth of frozen fish fille...

(FTC) - At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a U.S. district court has issued a temporary halt to a massive “scareware” scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and illegal pornography on consumers’ computers. According to the FTC, the scheme has tricked more than one million consumers into buying computer security products such as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus. The court also froze the assets of those responsible for the scheme, to preserve the possibility of providing consumers with monetary redress. According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants used an elaborate ruse that duped Internet advertising networks and popular Web sites into carrying their advertisements. The defendants falsely claimed that they were placing Internet advertisements on behalf of legitimate companies and organizations. But due to hidden programming code that the defendants inserted into the advertisements, consumers who visited ...