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FTX founder could be sent to US after extradition hearing
Legal News Feed |
2022/12/17 12:32
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Sam Bankman-Fried is back in a Bahamian court Wednesday for an extradition hearing that could clear the way for the one-time billionaire to be sent to the U.S. to face criminal charges related to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
In a court in Nassau, Bahamas, on Monday, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers said he had agreed to be extradited to the U.S., but the necessary paperwork had not yet been written up. If approved, Bankman-Fried could be on a plane to the U.S. as early as Wednesday afternoon.
Bahamian authorities arrested Bankman-Fried last week at the request of the U.S. government. U.S. prosecutors allege he played a central role in the rapid collapse of FTX and hid its problems from the public and investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Bankman-Fried illegally used investors’ money to buy real estate on behalf of himself and his family.
The 30-year-old could potentially spend the rest of his life in jail. Bankman-Fried was denied bail Friday after a Bahamian judge ruled that he posed a flight risk. The founder and former CEO of FTX, once worth tens of billions of dollars on paper, is being held in the Bahamas’ Fox Hill prison, which has been has been cited by human rights activists as having poor sanitation and as being infested with rats and insects.
Once he’s back in the U.S., Bankman-Fried’s attorney will be able to request that he be released on bail.
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US woman who killed UK teen in crash gets suspended sentence
Law Firm Press |
2022/12/11 13:16
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An American woman who left the U.K. after killing a teenager in a road accident was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence on Thursday, though she declined to come to Britain for the court hearing.
Anne Sacoolas, 45, was sentenced over an August 2019 accident in which 19-year-old Harry Dunn was killed when his motorcycle collided with a car outside RAF Croughton, an air base in eastern England that is used by U.S. forces. Sacoolas was driving on the wrong side of the road at the time.
Sacoolas and her husband, an American intelligence officer, returned to the U.S. days after the accident. The U.S. government invoked diplomatic immunity on her behalf, prompting an outcry in Britain and causing tensions between the governments in London and Washington.
Sacoolas admitted causing death by careless driving, which carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said Sacoolas’ actions were “not far short of deliberately dangerous driving,” but she reduced the penalty because of Sacoolas’ guilty plea and previous good character.
The suspended sentence means that Sacoolas faces jail if she commits another offense within a year — though the judge acknowledged the sentence could not be enforced if she remains in the U.S.
The sentencing follows a three-year campaign by Dunn’s family, who met with politicians on both sides of the Atlantic in a campaign to get Sacoolas to face British justice. American authorities refused to extradite her.
Sacoolas entered a guilty plea in October, but the U.S. administration advised her not to come to Britain for sentencing. She attended the hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court by video link.
Lawyer Ben Cooper said Sacoolas had not asked for the diplomatic immunity asserted on her behalf by the U.S. government. He read a statement from Sacoolas in which she said she was “deeply sorry for the pain I have caused.”
“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about Harry,” the statement said.
The judge said the “calm and dignified persistence” of Dunn’s parents had led Sacoolas to acknowledge guilt and appear before the court.
Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles said in a victim impact statement that her son’s death “haunts me every minute of every day and I’m not sure how I’m ever going to get over it.”
“As a family we are determined that his death will not have been in vain and we are involved in a number of projects to try to find some silver lining in this tragedy and to help others,” she said. “That will be Harry’s legacy.”
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Former Nazi camp secretary voices regret, seeks acquittal
Legal Line News |
2022/12/06 14:41
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Lawyers for a 97-year-old former secretary to the SS commander of Nazi Germany’s Stutthof concentration camp asked Tuesday for their client to be acquitted, arguing that she didn’t know about the atrocities committed at the camp located in what is now northern Poland.
Irmgard Furchner has been on trial for over a year at the Itzehoe state court in northern Germany. In her closing statement, Furchner said she was sorry for what had happened and regretted that she had been there at the time, according to a court spokesman.
Her lawyers requested her acquittal, arguing that the evidence hadn’t shown beyond doubt that Furchner knew about the systematic killings at the camp, meaning there was no proof of intent as required for criminal liability.
Prosecutors accused Furchner of being part of the apparatus that helped the Nazis’ Stutthof camp function during World War II. In their closing arguments last month, they called for her to be convicted as an accessory to murder and given a two-year suspended sentence.
Tens of thousands of people died at Stutthof and its satellite camps, or on death marches at the end of World War II.
Furchner, who made headlines last year when she absconded from trial, is being tried in juvenile court because she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes.
The court said a verdict is expected on Dec. 20.
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Justices spar in latest clash of religion and gay rights
U.S. Court News |
2022/12/02 17:20
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The Supreme Court ’s conservative majority sounded sympathetic Monday to a Christian graphic artist who objects to designing wedding websites for gay couples, a dispute that’s the latest clash of religion and gay rights to land at the highest court.
The designer and her supporters say that ruling against her would force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their faith. Her opponents, meanwhile, say that if she wins, a range of businesses will be able to discriminate, refusing to serve Black customers, Jewish or Muslim people, interracial or interfaith couples or immigrants, among others.
The lively arguments at the Supreme Court ran well beyond the allotted 70 minutes.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of three high court appointees of former President Donald Trump, described Lorie Smith, the website designer, as “an individual who says she will sell and does sell to everyone, all manner of websites, (but) that she won’t sell a website that requires her to express a view about marriage that she finds offensive.”
The issue of where to draw the line dominated the questions early in Monday’s arguments at the high court.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked whether a photography store in a shopping mall could refuse to take pictures of Black people on Santa’s lap.
“Their policy is that only white children can be photographed with Santa in this way, because that’s how they view the scenes with Santa that they’re trying to depict,” Jackson said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor repeatedly pressed Kristen Waggoner, the lawyer for Smith, over other categories. “How about people who don’t believe in interracial marriage? Or about people who don’t believe that disabled people should get married? Where’s the line?” Sotomayor asked.
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