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Etan Patz suspect's court date postponed to Oct. 1
Legal Line News |
2012/06/21 12:10
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Prosecutors made it clear Wednesday they are still investigating and assessing a case against a man charged in a notorious 1979 child disappearance, agreeing with his lawyer to postpone a court date for three months for both sides to keep gathering information.
Pedro Hernandez had been due in court Monday as doctors evaluate his mental fitness for trial in the murder case surrounding Etan Patz, one of the first missing children whose picture ever appeared on a milk carton. But the Manhattan district attorney's office said Wednesday that both sides had agreed to put off Hernandez's appearance to Oct. 1 "to allow all parties to proceed with their investigations in a measured and fair manner."
Hernandez's lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, declined to comment.
Postponing court dates is far from unusual. But the three-month timeframe appears to allow plenty of time for both sides to see what information might be available to strengthen — or weaken — a court case that arose from a confession from a man who has struggled with mental illness and hallucinations, according to his lawyer and family. |
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High court will take up wiretaps lawsuit
Legal Line News |
2012/05/22 16:14
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The Supreme Court says it will consider shutting down a legal challenge to a law that lets the United States eavesdrop on overseas communications.
A federal appeals court ruled last year that a lawsuit filed by lawyers, journalists and human rights groups objecting to the latest version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act could proceed. But the Obama administration appealed, and the justices said Monday they will take up the case in the fall.
The lawsuit was brought by those in jobs that require them to speak with people overseas who are possible targets of the surveillance.
No court has ruled on the merits of the lawsuit. The current legal fight is over whether the law's challengers are entitled to make their case in federal court.
The administration says the lawsuit should be dismissed because the plaintiffs only have a fear of having their communications intercepted — as opposed to citing specific instances — which the administration says is insufficient for asking federal judges to intervene. The law's challengers, however, argue that they already have taken costly and burdensome steps to protect the confidentiality of their overseas communications, based on a reasonable belief that the government could be monitoring their calls. |
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Italian court convicts 2 in asbestos-linked deaths
Legal Line News |
2012/02/13 10:21
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An Italian court Monday convicted two men of negligence in some 2,000 asbestos-related deaths blamed on contamination from a construction company, sentencing each of them to 16 years in prison and ordering them to pay millions in what officials called a historic case.
Italian Health Minister Renato Balduzzi hailed the verdict by the three-judge Turin court as without exaggeration, truly historic, noting that it came after a long battle for justice.
It's a great day, but that doesn't mean the battle against asbestos is over, he told Sky TG24 TV, stressing that it is a worldwide problem.
Prosecutors said Jean-Louise de Cartier of Belgium and Stephan Schmidheiny of Switzerland, both key shareholders in the Swiss construction firm Eternit, failed to stop asbestos fibers left over from production of roof coverings and pipes at its northern Italian factories from spreading across the region.
During the trial, which has stretched on since December 2009, some 2,100 deaths or illnesses were blamed on the asbestos fibers, which can cause grave lung problems, including cancer. Prosecutors said the contamination stretched over decades.
The defendants had denied wrongdoing.
Hundreds of people, many of them who had lost parents or spouses to asbestos-linked diseases, crowded the courtroom and two nearby halls to gather for the verdict. When the convictions were announced, some of the spectators wept.
Two hours after announcing the convictions, Judge Giuseppe Casalbore was still reading the court's complete verdict, which included awards of monetary damages from civil lawsuits from some 6,300 victims or their relatives who alleged that loved ones either died or were left ill from asbestos. |
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Former UBS trader pleads not guilty in UK court
Legal Line News |
2012/01/30 13:18
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A former UBS trader arrested in London on charges of fraud linked with unauthorized trades that cost the Swiss bank more than $2bn pleaded not guilty Monday to the charges against him.
Kweku Adoboli, 31, pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud and two of false accounting between 2008 and September 2011 at London's Southwark Crown Court.
The trader was arrested on Sept. 14 after on charges of committing fraud that cost the bank over $2 billion.
The incident pushed then-CEO Oswald Gruebel to resign and damaged the bank's efforts to clean up its image after being involved in a United States tax evasion investigation and sustaining huge losses on subprime mortgages during the financial crisis.
City watchdog the Financial Services Authority and its Swiss counterpart have launched an investigation into why UBS failed to spot allegedly fraudulent trading.
Adoboli's case was delayed last year after he replaced his former lawyers at Kingsley Napley law firm with a new team from Bark amp; Co., which specializes in fraud cases. McCreath set a provisional trial date for September 3 and remanded Adoboli in custody. He said he was willing to hear an application for bail. |
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