New York Paralegal Blog

WASHINGTON - Recognizing the tremendous unmet housing, economic and infrastructure needs following this year's natural disasters, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston today announced HUD will immediately allocate more than $2.1 billion to 13 States and Puerto Rico. The emergency funding is provided through HUD's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program and will support the States' long-term disaster recovery. "Families, businesses and communities are struggling to rebuild following this year's natural disasters. Today, we are making another installment of disaster assistance to help them get back on their feet," said Preston. "Once we have conducted a more thorough year-end analysis, HUD will make further allocations to States struggling to recover from dozens of storms in 2008." More...

WASHINGTON - Daryl Lee Fierce, 69, of Charleston, W.Va., was indicted by a federal grand jury for using fire to intimidate and interfere with a person’s housing rights because African-American and biracial individuals visited the person in her home. The indictment, which was unsealed today, also charges Fierce with using fire to commit a felony. According to the indictment, on or about July 16, 2007, Fierce set fire to a home located on Noyes Avenue in Charleston because the tenant occupying the home, a white woman, associated with persons of another race and color. Fierce's alleged objective was to injure, intimidate and interfere with the woman in the occupancy of the home, a violation of her housing rights. More...

The Federal Trade Commission has filed suit to block the merger of CCC Information Services Inc. and Mitchell International Inc., charging that the merger would hinder competition in the market for electronic systems used to estimate the cost of collision repairs, known as “estimatics,” and the market for software systems used to value passenger vehicles that have been totaled, known as total loss valuation (TLV) systems. The FTC’s administrative complaint alleges that the merger, which is valued at $1.4 billion, would harm insurers, repair shops and, ultimately, U.S. car owners by reducing from three to two the number of competitors in the two related businesses. “These estimating and valuation solutions are key tools in the auto insurance and collision repair industries,” said Acting Bureau of Competition Director David P. Wales. “There is no doubt that this merger would reduce competition that benefits auto insurers and auto body shops and ultimately would lead to higher prices and ...

WASHINGTON – A Maryland resident, who previously worked as an attorney in the District of Columbia, was sentenced today for one count of receiving child pornography, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich of the Criminal Division announced. Emerson Vincent Briggs, 41, was sentenced by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to 70 months in prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release and a fine of $12,500. According to the plea documents, Briggs admitted that between November 2005 and April 2006, while at his law office in the District of Columbia, he used peer-to-peer software to deliberately download and store multiple videos of child pornography. Briggs admitted that some of these images involved minors who were younger than 12 years old. More...

WASHINGTON - A San Francisco federal judge has ordered Edwin Lichtig III and his Walnut Creek, Calif.-based firm, GSL Advisory Solutions, to stop promoting unlawful tax schemes, the Justice Department announced today. The defendants agreed to the permanent injunction order without admitting the government’s allegations against them. The United States sued Lichtig and GSL alleging that they promoted tax fraud schemes involving Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) that helped customers improperly avoid federal income tax on more than $25 million. According to the federal suit, Lichtig, a Lafayette, Calif., insurance salesman, promoted a scheme called PAT (Pension Asset Transfer). It allegedly helped customers improperly avoid income tax on untaxed assets held in their IRAs through the use of a series of transactions with sham businesses, self-employed retirement accounts and understatements of the value of life insurance policies. The government complaint said a second scheme called F...

By: Joel Irving The U.S. Department of The Treasury and the FDIC have agreed to provide protection against losses on a large asset pool of approximately $306 billion dollars in loans and securities backed by residential and commercial real estate and other related assets that will remain on Citigroups's balance sheet. Moreover, the Treasury will invest $20 billion dollars in Citigroup from the Troubled Asset Relief Program in exchange for preferred stock with an 8% dividend to the Treasury. More...

U.S. Bank, National Association, Minneapolis, MN, acquired the banking operations, including all the deposits, of Downey Savings and Loan Association, F.A., Newport Beach, CA, and PFF Bank & Trust, Pomona, CA, in a transaction facilitated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The combined 213 branches of the two organizations will reopen as branches of U.S. Bank under their normal business hours, including those with Saturday hours. Depositors will automatically become depositors of U.S. Bank. Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance coverage. More...

Academy Collection Service, Inc. and its owner, Keith Dickstein, have agreed to pay $2.25 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that Academy and its collectors misled, threatened, and harassed consumers; disclosed their debts to third parties; and deposited postdated checks early, in violation of federal law. This is the largest civil penalty the FTC has obtained in a debt collection case. “These defendants are responsible for their debt collectors’ abusive practices,” said Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “They ignored people's complaints and rewarded the collectors who broke the law. This is not a business model that the FTC tolerates.” More...

NEW ORLEANS — Ceres Environmental Services Inc., headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., has agreed to pay $1,500,718 in back wages to 2,256 former debris removal workers. An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division found that these workers were not properly paid for work they performed throughout Louisiana in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as required by the Service Contract Act (SCA) and the Contract Work Hours Safety Standards Act (CWHSSA). The workers were employed by 266 subcontractors of Ceres. "As a result of the department's investigation, we are securing more than $1.5 million in back wages for these workers whose efforts were vital to the Gulf Coast's recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. More...

WASHINGTON – Trevor L. Blackann, 34, a former legislative assistant in the U.S. Senate, pleaded guilty today to making a false statement on his 2003 tax returns by failing to report as income thousands of dollars in illegal gifts that he received from lobbyists, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich of the Criminal Division announced. Blackann pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts in the District of Columbia. According to court documents, Blackann was employed throughout 2003 as a legislative assistant for a member of the U.S. Senate. Blackann was responsible for advising and counseling the Senator on matters of legislative interest and representing the Senator in communications with other congressional offices and staff, officials in the executive branch and members of the public. More...