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Thai military court adds to singer's jail term for insults
Law Firm News |
2016/07/05 08:33
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A Thai country singer and political activist was sentenced Monday by a military court to more than three years in jail for insulting the monarchy, adding to a 7½-year sentence a criminal court imposed on him earlier for the same offense.
Thanat Thanawatcharanon, known by his stage name Tom Dundee, was convicted and sentenced under Article 112, which makes criticism of the monarchy and the king punishable with up to 15 years in jail. The lese majeste law has been used prodigiously by the military government that came to power in a May 2014 coup.
Thanat got into trouble because of the speeches he made in 2013 at a rally organized by the so-called Red Shirts, who are supporters of a charismatic prime minister ousted in an earlier military coup supported by the Yellow Shirt royalists.
The case in criminal court followed complaints by a Yellow Shirt group. The second case involving the same speeches was transferred to a military court after the 2014 coup.
Thanat's lawyer Saowalux Po-Ngam said his client was sentenced to five years in jail for the second case, but the time was reduced to three years and four months because he confessed.
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NY court: Case against ex-AIG execs can continue
Law Firm News |
2016/06/02 10:31
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New York's attorney general can continue his legal effort to bar two former American International Group Inc. executives from the securities industry and forfeit any improperly gained profits, the state's highest court ruled Thursday.
The Court of Appeals for the second time refused to dismiss the lawsuit originally filed in 2005 by then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, ruling it should go to trial.
The suit claims ex-AIG chief executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and ex-chief financial officer Howard Smith had engaged in fraudulent reinsurance transactions to conceal from investors a deteriorating financial condition.
AIG itself resolved state charges as part of a $1.64 billion agreement with regulators in 2006. The insurance giant was bailed out by the federal government in the 2008 financial crisis.
Greenberg and Smith settled related federal Securities and Exchange Commission complaints without admitting wrongdoing in 2009.
Their attorneys challenged the state lawsuit, arguing that New York's Martin Act against securities fraud authorizes neither a permanent industry ban nor disgorgement of profits, and that releases from other settlements barred further financial forfeit.
"As we have previously stated, in an appropriate case, disgorgement may be an available 'equitable remedy distinct from restitution' under the state's anti-fraud legislation," Judge Leslie Stein wrote. "Moreover, as with the attorney general's claim for an injunction, issues of fact exist which prevent us from concluding, as a matter of law that disgorgement is unwarranted."
The court rejected another dismissal motion two years ago, concluding there was sufficient fraud evidence for trial. |
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Passport mark for sex offenders law challenged in court
Law Firm News |
2016/03/30 10:13
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A judge in Northern California is set to hear arguments over whether to block a new federal law that requires sex offenders to have "unique identifiers" in their passports.
U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton has scheduled a hearing Wednesday in Oakland on a nonprofit group's request for a preliminary injunction against the so-called International Megan's Law, which President Barack Obama signed into law in February.
The law requires the government to add a mark to the passports of registered sex offenders and for foreign nations to be notified that some registrants intend to travel there.
The group, California Reform Sex Offender Laws, filed a lawsuit challenging the law a day after Obama's approval.
It says a symbol on a passport identifying people as registered sex offenders violates their constitutional rights and puts them and others traveling with them in danger, including family members and business colleagues.
"For the first time in the history of the United States, American citizens will be forced by the government to label and stigmatize themselves on a document foundational to citizenship," the lawsuit filed Feb. 8 reads. |
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Court papers: Woman to plead guilty to terrorism charge
Law Firm News |
2016/03/27 10:13
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A young Mississippi woman plans to plead guilty to a terrorism charge Tuesday, months after authorities say she and her fiance tried to go to Syria to join the Islamic State group.
Court papers show 20-year-old Jaelyn Young, originally from Vicksburg, will plead guilty in Aberdeen federal court to conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization.
Young faces up to 20 years in prison, $250,000 in fines and lifetime probation.
Lawyers for Young did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Monday.
Her fiance, Muhammad Dakhlalla, pleaded guilty March 11 to a similar charge and awaits sentencing. The pair at one point planned to claim they were going on their honeymoon while traveling to Syria.
The couple was arrested Aug. 8 before boarding a flight from Columbus, Mississippi, with tickets for Istanbul. Authorities say they contacted undercover federal agents last year, seeking online help in traveling to Syria. Both are jailed in Oxford.
Young, a sophomore chemistry major at Mississippi State University at the time of her arrest, is the daughter of a school administrator and a police officer who served in the Navy reserve. She was a former honor student, cheerleader and homecoming maid at Vicksburg's Warren Central High School.
Dakhlalla grew up as the youngest of three sons of a prominent figure in Starkville's Muslim community. He is a 2011 psychology graduate of Mississippi State who and was preparing to start graduate school at the university.
Prosecutors have portrayed Young as the leader of the plot. They said that by the time Young began dating Dakhlalla in November 2014, she was already interested in converting to Islam. She announced her conversion in March and began wearing a burqa, a garment worn by some Muslim women to cover their face and body. |
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