|
|
|
Man in Iced Body Probe Pleads Not Guilty
Law Firm News |
2008/03/11 04:00
|
| A man arrested after police found a woman's body packed in dry ice in his hotel room pleaded not guilty Monday to two drug-related charges.pStephen David Royds, 46, is charged with one count each of the sale or transport of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell. A prosecutor said the substance was cocaine./ppOrange County Superior Court Judge Derek G. Johnson set Royds' bail at $1 million./ppRoyds was arrested Thursday after police found the body of Monique Trepp packed in dry ice in a large Rubbermaid container in his hotel room. Police had obtained a warrant to search Royds' room for drugs./ppAn autopsy concluded that Trepp's death was not a homicide and Royds has not been charged with killing her. Toxicology reports were pending, but Dennis Conway, an Orange County assistant district attorney, said it appeared the 33-year-old died of an overdose./ppRoyds' court-appointed public defender, Richard Carmona, did not make himself available to reporters after the brief hearing and didn't immediately return a call for comment./ppIn addition to finding Trepp's body, investigators found drug paraphernalia, drugs and Christmas presents in Royds' room, Conway said./ppPolice and prosecutors have released few other details about the case, including how long Trepp's body was kept in the room. Conway said she had been dating Royds./ppRoyds has a prior drug conviction in Orange County in 2002, but did not appear for sentencing. Even if he were to post the $1 million bail on the new charges, he would be held with no bail on the older case, Conway said./p |
|
|
|
|
|
|
US cracks multimillion-dollar piracy ring
Law Firm News |
2008/03/10 09:25
|
| pTwo brothers in the US have been given lengthy jail terms for selling large amounts of pirated computer software. A federal court in Alexandria, Virginia sentenced Maurice Robberson, 48, to three years in prison and ordered him to pay $855,917 in restitution./ppHis brother Thomas Robberson, 55, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $151,488 in restitution. Maurice Robberson pleaded guilty to conspiracy and felony copyright infringement, while his brother Thomas Robberson pleaded guilty to a single count of felony copyright infringement./ppThomas Robberson grossed more than $150,000 selling software with a retail value of nearly $1m by operating Bestvalueshoppe.com and TheDealDepot.net./ppMaurice Robberson grossed more than $855,000 selling software with a retail value of nearly $5.6m through CDsalesUSA.com and AmericanSoftwareSales.com. Both brothers have agreed to forfeit all proceeds from the illegal businesses./ppPeople who steal the intellectual property of others for their personal financial gain, while defrauding consumers who think they are buying legitimate products, will be punished for their crimes, as today's sentences prove, said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher./p |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pfizer Protects Celebrex Patent From Teva
Law Firm News |
2008/03/08 11:12
|
| pPfizer continued to serve up the pain to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries on Friday when the company reaffirmed its patents on the arthritis pain drug Celebrex./ppThe U.S. Court of Appeals of the Federal District said that two of the three patents were valid, but threw out the third, saying that it was not valid for the treatment of inflammation. Teva will now have to wait until May 2014 to market the copycat. Celebrex provided Pfizer with annual global sales of $1.7 billion in 2007. Bear Stearns analyst project that it will reach global sales of $2.5 billion in 2008, an increase of 9%, and that the drug will pull in $3.1 billion by 2012./ppThe New York-based pharma company has been battling it out with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries to hang on to Celebrex for almost four years. Pfizer sued the Israel-based drug maker after it applied to U.S. regulators for permission to sell the generic in 2004. In March 2007, Pfizer won a ruling from a U.S. federal court over three of the main patents regarding Celebrex, barring Teva from manufacturing the generic until 2015. /p |
|
|
|
|
|
|
US lawmaker fears open-ended US military pact in Iraq
Law Firm News |
2008/03/06 12:48
|
pA top lawmaker voiced fears Tuesday that US President George Bush's administration was negotiating deals with Iraq that would amount to an open-ended commitment to stage US combat missions there./ppAdministration officials say formal US-Iraqi negotiations will begin later this month on a legal framework aimed at keeping security policy options open for both countries beyond 2008, when the UN mandate for US forces ends./ppDavid Satterfield, the State Department's coordinator for Iraq, told a joint meeting of two congressional subcommittees Tuesday that the agreements will not tie the hands of the next president or indeed this president./ppThey will ensure that every policy option remains on the table, Satterfield told the lawmaking panels. The size of the US presence in Iraq, the missions to be performed by such forces if forces are present, are decisions for the president and the next president to make, he added.
The so-called Strategic Framework and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), he insisted, will not include a binding commitment to defend Iraq or any other security commitments that would warrant Senate advice and consent./p |
|
|
|
|
|
Legal Marketing News RSS
