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Appeals court temporarily halts upcoming Cosby deposition
U.S. Court News |
2015/11/13 22:22
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A California appeals court on Thursday temporarily halted an order requiring Bill Cosby and his former attorney to give sworn testimony in a defamation lawsuit filed by model Janice Dickinson.
The order Thursday by the 2nd District Court of Appeal puts plans to depose the comedian and his longtime attorney on hold. The depositions were ordered to occur this month by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Nov. 2, but Cosby's attorneys appealed and the appellate court wants legal briefs filed by the end of the month.
An email message sent to Cosby's lawyers was not immediately returned.
"We are confident that once the Court of Appeals hears full argument on the issues it will allow the deposition of Mr. Cosby and his attorney to go forward," Dickinson's attorney Lisa Bloom wrote in an email.
Dickinson is suing Cosby for defamation over denials over her claims that she was drugged raped by the comedian in in 1982. Cosby's lawyers want the case dismissed, but a judge ordered the depositions so Dickinson's lawyers can properly oppose the motion.
She sued Cosby in May, claiming she has been re-victimized and her reputation has suffered because of pointed denials by Cosby's attorney, Martin Singer, that the comedian drugged and raped her in a Lake Tahoe, California, hotel room more than 30 years ago.
Dickinson never reported the rape to authorities and has said she was afraid if she did that her career would be damaged and Cosby would retaliate.
Cosby, 78, has never been charged with a crime and has denied allegations that he drugged and sexually assaulted women.
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Woman charged in slayings of Connecticut couple due in court
U.S. Court News |
2015/11/03 09:38
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A Connecticut woman accused of conspiring with her boyfriend to kill his parents when they were considering cutting him out of their will is scheduled to make her first court appearance.
Jennifer Valiante of Westport is expected to be arraigned Monday in Bridgeport Superior Court on charges including conspiracy to commit murder and hindering prosecution. It's not clear if she has a lawyer.
Her boyfriend, 27-year-old Kyle Navin of Bridgeport, is facing murder charges in the slayings of his parents, Jeanette and Jeffrey Navin of Easton. His arraignment hasn't been set. His lawyer declined to comment.
The Navins disappeared Aug. 4 and their bodies were found Thursday in Weston.
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Chinese woman pleads guilty in college test-taking scheme
U.S. Court News |
2015/11/01 09:39
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A Chinese woman pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to have two other women take college admissions examinations in her place to help her get accepted to Virginia Tech.
Yue Zou acknowledged having her boyfriend contact a China-based test-taking service.
After that happened, Zou, of Blacksburg, Virginia, supplied her passport information through an online network known as QQ Chat, which enabled people in China to create in her name phony passports that were shipped to her in the United States.
On the passports were the photos of two other Chinese women, who took tests in the Pittsburgh area while pretending to be her.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jimmy Kitchen told the judge that Zou forwarded results from the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, to Virginia Tech in November 2013 and results of a Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT, taken by another Chinese impostor in March 2014.
Zou, from Hegang, a city in the Chinese province of Heilongjiang, paid an unspecified sum for the TOEFL and $2,000 for the SAT, Kitchen told a judge in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh.
Zou, 21, faces up to five years in prison when she's sentenced in February. She could also be deported, though that will be handled by federal immigration officials in a separate proceeding.
Federal authorities haven't explained how they learned of the scheme.
Zou's attorney, Lyle Dresbold, told the judge that Zou will remain confined to her Blacksburg apartment with an electronic monitoring bracelet until she's sentenced. He told the judge she's still enrolled at Virginia Tech.
University spokesman Mark Owczarski said he could not comment on her status. But he said students found to have submitted work that is not their own to gain admission would face a range of possible sanctions, including expulsion, under the university's honor code.
Zou's TOEFL test was taken by Yunlin Sun, 24, of Berlin, Somerset County. She pleaded guilty in August and faces sentencing in December. Prosecutors say Ning Wei, from Taiyuan, in the Chinese province of Shanxi, took Zou's SAT. She hasn't been arrested, and prosecutors say they believe she returned to China.
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US court upholds Oklahoma death row inmate's sentence
U.S. Court News |
2015/09/16 10:34
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A divided federal appeals court panel upheld the murder convictions and death sentence Tuesday of a 54-year-old man who went on a multistate crime spree in 2003.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to affirm the death sentence of Scott Eizember, who received the punishment after his first-degree murder conviction in the Oct. 18, 2003, bludgeoning death of A.J. Cantrell, 76. Eizember was also found guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting of Patsy Cantrell, 70, for which he received 150 years in prison, as well as a variety of other charges.
On appeal, Eizember alleged that the trial court allowed two jurors who he alleged were "impermissibly biased in favor of the death penalty," thus "depriving him of trial by an impartial jury and due process in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments."
The court agreed with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals and a federal district judge in rejecting Eizember's claims.
Eizember was the focus of an intense manhunt following the shootings in rural Depew but eluded authorities for 37 days. He was discovered that November by a 75-year-old volunteer at a church, but then stole the volunteer's vehicle, which he abandoned near Waldron, Arkansas.
He was captured later that day outside Lufkin, Texas, after kidnapping an Arkansas physician and his wife, holding them at gunpoint for six hours and forcing them to drive. The physician eventually shot Eizember four times. Eizember was convicted of kidnapping, carjacking and using a firearm in a crime of violence in Arkansas and was sentenced 25 years in federal prison.
In a 30-page dissenting opinion, Chief Judge Mary Beck Briscoe wrote that she would affirm Eizember's convictions "but reverse his death sentence and remand for resentencing before a fair and impartial jury."
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