Monthly Archives: April 2016

Blog, Legal News, Personal Injury

How Big Is Cycling? Big Enough to Have Its Own Personal-Injury Lawyer.

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Bruce Deming is happy, mostly for the right reasons, to see Washington’s surge in biking. The trim, 59-year-old DC attorney is a once-avid road racer who still takes the occasional 50-mile weekend ride with the National Capital Velo Club.

But he also sees a market in the snarl of cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians jockeying for space amid construction sites, double-parked vans, and gridlocked intersections. Deming specializes in representing injured bike riders, and business is booming.

“The growth is primarily among new riders in their twenties and thirties who use bikes for transportation,” he says, adding diplomatically, “They’re less skilled in the art of accident avoidance. They also trust in bike lanes a little more than they should.”

Deming began his career suing oil companies for price violations at the Department of Energy 30 years ago. After leaving government in the mid-’80s, he “sort of fell into personal-injury law,” he says. “When I started my practice, I did everything, but I rode bikes daily and I raced. Biking friends called for help.” As Washington increasingly took to two wheels, “one case led to another,” he says. “Bicyclists are a social group, so your name gets around.”

Deming takes only about half of the 200 or so cases he hears about each year, earning about a third of damage awards that range from hundreds of dollars to millions: “I pick my fights—and it’s always a fight.”

What makes bike-injury cases difficult, according to Deming, is cops’ casual attitude toward reporting accidents. Last year, Jeanie Osburn,62, a longtime DC bike commuter, was pedaling near FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue when a driver slowed while preparing to turn left and fooled Osburn into thinking he saw her. She was wrong—and went to the hospital with back and shoulder injuries. When it came time for Osburn to make a claim against the driver’s insurance company, the police report was inaccurate and incomplete. “There was a sea of blue,” she recalls of her accident scene, “but no officer took down witness names.”

Read Full Article – http://www.washingtonian.com/2016/04/11/cycling-personal-injury-lawyer-biking-in-dc/

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

How an alleged mafia chief’s appetite for pizza led to his arrest

An alleged mafia chief’s appetite for pizza has cost him his freedom.

Roberto Manganiello, 35, an alleged boss in Naples’ notorious Camorra mafia in southern Italy, has been arrested by detectives disguised as pizza boys who delivered food to his home as he was watching a football match.

Mr Manganiello, one of Italy’s most-wanted crime bosses, had been on the run since 2013.

He was watching the Naples-Inter soccer match on Saturday with his girlfriend when the operation took place this weekend in Caserta, near Naples.

He has been sought since 2013 for two killings in 2004 that launched a clan feud. Police said he also ran a drug and extortion ring and he has been listed as one of “Italy’s 100 most dangerous criminals”.

Mr Manganiello was unarmed and did not resist arrest. A 30-year-old Neapolitan woman was arrested with him.

Angelino Alfano, the interior minister, said on Sunday the arrest was “the result of a high-level investigation” with coordination across several agencies.

It was reported by Germany’s Deutsche Welle that the investigation included at least 50 people working in a team tracking his movements.

Adding to Mr Manganiello’s humiliation, Milan defeated his home team 2-0, all but crushing Naples’ hopes of a first Serie A title in 26 years.

The Camorra is based in Naples and the surrounding region of Campania and has never been stronger than it is now, and is second only in wealth and ruthlessness to the ‘Ndrangheta mafia of Calabria, an expert on organised crime told the Telegraph earlier this year.

In the past, there were more than 100 semi-independent clans within the Camorra, often at war with each other.

In August 2011, Italian and Spanish police swooped on Salvatore D’Avino, then one of Italy‘s most wanted fugitives, as he was filling his car with petrol in a town on the Costa del Sol.

D’Avino, 39, alleged to be a member of the Camorra mafia, had been on the run for four years.

Sourced From – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/18/how-an-alleged-mafia-chiefs-appetite-for-pizza-led-to-his-arrest/

Blog, Criminal, Immigration, International, Legal News

Depp’s Wife Amber Heard Pleads Guilty in Australian Dog Smuggling Spat

Actor Johnny Depp and wife Amber Heard arrive at the Southport Magistrates Court on Australia’s Gold Coast, April 18, 2016

SYDNEY — Actor Johnny Depp’s wife Amber Heard pleaded guilty Monday to providing a false immigration document amid allegations she smuggled the couple’s dogs into Australia.

Prosecutors dropped two more serious charges that Heard illegally imported the Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, into the country last year, when Depp was filming the fifth movie in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series.

A conviction on the illegal importation counts could have sent the actress to prison for up to 10 years. The false documents charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a fine of more than 10,000 Australian dollars ($7,650).

The hearing in Southport Magistrates Court on Queensland state’s Gold Coast was temporarily adjourned on Monday to allow the judge time to review documents.

The debacle over the dogs began last May, when Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce accused Depp of smuggling the tiny terriers aboard his private jet when he returned to Australia to resume filming the “Pirates” movie.

Australia has strict quarantine regulations to prevent diseases such as rabies from spreading to its shores. Bringing pets into the country involves applying for a permit and quarantine on arrival of at least 10 days.

“If we start letting movie stars — even though they’ve been the sexiest man alive twice — to come into our nation (with pets), then why don’t we just break the laws for everybody?” Joyce said at the time. “It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States.”

Depp and Heard were given 72 hours to send Pistol and Boo back to the U.S., with officials warning that the dogs would otherwise be euthanized. The pooches boarded a flight home just hours before the deadline ran out.

The comments by Joyce, who is now the deputy prime minister of Australia, elevated what might otherwise have been a local spat into a global delight for comedians and broadcasters. One newspaper ran a doggie death countdown ticker on its website that marked the hours remaining before the dogs had to flee the country, and comedian John Oliver dedicated a more than 6-minute segment to lampooning the ordeal.

Depp himself poked fun at the drama during a press conference in Venice last year where he was asked if he planned to take the dogs for a gondola ride. “No,” he replied. “I killed my dogs and ate them, under direct orders from some kind of, I don’t know, sweaty, big-gutted man from Australia.”

The couple was swarmed by reporters when they arrived at court Monday. They said little apart from Depp responding “Fine, thank you,” to reporters shouting questions about how they — and Pistol and Boo — were doing.

Sourced From – http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/amber-heard-pleads-guilty-australian-dog-smuggling-spat-n557431

Blog, Criminal, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

Hot chocolate: Did a Mafia drug network smuggle tonnes of stolen Lindor into Canada?

 REUTERS

FIRST POSTED: | UPDATED:

ROME – A Mafia drug-smuggling network moved millions of dollars worth of stolen Lindt chocolate across Europe and into Canada, Italian prosecutors say.

About $17.6 million worth of wrapped Lindor chocolate balls were stolen from a transport hub near Lodi in Italy between April and August 2014.

But the thieves were stuck with the logistical problem of how to move the 175 tonnes of illicit treats.

So they reached out to a flower-seller previously busted with drug trafficking. He in turn got in touch with his friend, Mob boss Vincenzo Crupi, according to transcripts of conversations contained in court documents.

When Dutch police raided Crupi’s Fresh BV offices in March of last year, they found chocolate stored there, but did not let on that they suspected it had been stolen.

Instead, they watched.

In December, as a truck left Fresh BV carrying some 15 tonnes of the stolen chocolate, police stepped in.

A further 20 tonnes of chocolate were seized south of Rome.

Investigators also say refrigerated containers carrying 25 pallets of the stolen Lindt chocolate were sent to Canada.

Giuseppe Belcastro, one of Crupi’s lawyers, said his client denies having tried to sell stolen goods. The case is still under investigation and no trial has yet been sought.

Lindt & Sprungli, the maker of the chocolate balls, confirmed the theft when it happened, but had no comment on the continuing investigation.

Sourced From – http://www.torontosun.com/2016/04/11/hot-chocolate-did-a-mafia-drug-network-smuggle-tonnes-of-stolen-lindor-into-canada

Bankruptcy, Blog, Business Law, Civil Rights, Criminal, Legal News, Organized Crime, Supreme Court

Wells Fargo admits deception in $1.2 billion U.S. mortgage accord

BY JONATHAN STEMPEL

Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) admitted to deceiving the U.S. government into insuring thousands of risky mortgages, as it formally reached a record $1.2 billion settlement of a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit.

The settlement with Wells Fargo, the largest U.S. mortgage lender and third-largest U.S. bank by assets, was filed on Friday in Manhattan federal court. It also resolves claims against Kurt Lofrano, a former Wells Fargo vice president.

According to the settlement, Wells Fargo “admits, acknowledges, and accepts responsibility” for having from 2001 to 2008 falsely certified that many of its home loans qualified for Federal Housing Administration insurance.

The San Francisco-based lender also admitted to having from 2002 to 2010 failed to file timely reports on several thousand loans that had material defects or were badly underwritten, a process that Lofrano was responsible for supervising.

According to the Justice Department, the shortfalls led to substantial losses for taxpayers when the FHA was forced to pay insurance claims as defective loans soured.

Several lenders, including Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Citigroup Inc (C.N), Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), previously settled similar federal lawsuits.

But Wells Fargo held out, and its payment is the largest in FHA history over loan origination violations.

Friday’s settlement is a reproach for “years of reckless underwriting” at Wells Fargo, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said in a statement.

“While Wells Fargo enjoyed huge profits from its FHA loan business, the government was left holding the bag when the bad loans went bust,” Bharara added.

The accord also resolved a probe by federal prosecutors in California of alleged false loan certifications by American Mortgage Network LLC, which Wells Fargo bought in 2009.

No one has been criminally charged in the probes, and the Justice Department reserved the right to pursue criminal charges if it wishes, according to the settlement.

Franklin Codel, president of Wells Fargo Home Lending, in a statement said the settlement “allows us to put the legal process behind us, and to focus our resources and energy on what we do best — serving the needs of the nation’s homeowners.”

Lewis Liman, a lawyer for Lofrano, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Wells Fargo on Feb. 3 said the settlement would reduce its previously reported 2015 profit by $134 million, to account for extra legal expenses.

The case is U.S. v. Wells Fargo Bank NA, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-07527.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)