Category Archives: Legal News

Blog, Civil Rights, Criminal, Drug Companies, Legal News, Organized Crime, Personal Injury

Ohio attorney general sues 5 pharmaceutical companies over opioid epidemic


The Ohio attorney general has filed a lawsuit against five leading prescription opioid manufacturers, alleging that the companies intentionally misled patients regarding the risks and benefits of opioid use with fraudulent marketing.

Attorney General Mike DeWine accused the companies of leading patients to believe that opioids were not addictive, which the lawsuit says fueled the current opioid epidemic in Ohio.

“We believe the evidence will also show that these companies got thousands and thousands of Ohioans — our friends, our family members, our co-workers, our kids — addicted to opioid pain medications, which has all too often led to use of the cheaper alternatives of heroin and synthetic opioids,” DeWine said in a statement. “These drug manufacturers led prescribers to believe that opioids were not addictive, that addiction was an easy thing to overcome, or that addiction could actually be treated by taking even more opioids.”

The five manufacturers listed in the lawsuit, filed in the Ross County Court of Common Pleas, are Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and its subsidiary Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Allergan.

The lawsuit was filed in Ross County since Southern Ohio was the area hit the hardest by the opioid epidemic, the press release states. A record of 3,050 people in Ohio died from drug overdose in 2015, The Associated Press reported. That figure is expected to rise significantly once the 2016 figures have been tallied, according to the AP.

The lawsuit alleges that the drug companies violated the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act and created a “public nuisance by disseminating false and misleading statements about the risks and benefits of opioids.”

Full Read – http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-attorney-general-sues-pharmaceutical-companies-opioid-epidemic/story?id=47750198

Blog, Criminal, Legal News

To fight crime, Miami-Dade may deploy blanket surveillance from the air

BY DOUGLAS HANKS

dhanks@miamiherald.com

Miami-Dade police may deploy sophisticated aerial surveillance capable of photographing everyone outside for 32 square miles in an effort to track vehicles and individuals involved in crimes.

The proposal, first reported by the Miami New Times, would send a surveillance plane high above high-crime neighborhoods to film everything below, according to Lt. Juan Villalba Jr. Already used in Baltimore, the technology lets police pull footage after a crime occurs and try to recreate where the perpetrators came from on their way to the scene and where they fled to afterward.

“It’s kind of like a DVR,” Villalba said, referring to playing back television shows hours after they air. “This will allow us to go back and look at what happened.”

Already used in Baltimore and other cities, the technology has helped spark a national debate on civil liberties as it pushes the edge of what’s possible now in mass surveillance. The camera system tracks how the U.S. pursued suicide bombers in Iraq, and the American Civil Liberties Union has called it “terrifying” for the potential to record every citizen’s movement when he or she is visible from the sky.”

“This is not the way to adopt public policy — no system of surveillance should be put into place until it is first established that there is a need which this system addresses, and that there are protections in place for the privacy of the people of Miami-Dade County,” the ACLU’s Florida said in a statement Thursday from executive director Howard Simon. “Until these protections for the rights and privacy of the people of Miami-Dade County are put into place, the grant request should be withdrawn.”

With increasingly cheaper surveillance cameras already mounted on lampposts, buildings, traffic lights and homes throughout Miami-Dade — not to mention the prevalence of cellphone footage — the sophisticated aerial surveillance arrives at a time when people are used to being recorded when they leave home.

Full Read – http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article153901379.html

Blog, Criminal, Family, Legal News, Organized Crime

From the big house to the ‘burbs: Scottsdale ‘Mafia’ family stars in reality show

Check out Monique Griego’s full story on the Cantarella family’s transition from a life of crime to life in the Sonoran Desert TONIGHT on 12 News at 10.

It’s a lifestyle most of us only know about from the movies: The Mafia life.

“It was a great life — there wasn’t anything we couldn’t have,” said Richard Cantarella.

As a former mobster with the Bonanno crime family, Cantarella and his son Paul grew up in the Mafia. But in 2002, their world came crashing down when the FBI came knocking.

“I got arrested in 2002 and I wound up cooperating with the government,” Cantarella told 12 News.

Cantarella faced life in prison for his alleged ties to a string of Mafia hits and Paul was looking at 20 years for racketeering.

Both decided to cooperate with Paul heading into witness protection as his father waited in prison.

“I chose to be loyal to my family rather than my boss,”

Back then, he never imagined he and his wife Lauretta would end up out west, far away from New York.

“My son picked the state. He flew here, found a home and loved it,” Cantarella said.

In 2004, Paul left witness protection for sunny Scottsdale.

“It was like paradise to me,” said Paul, “The palm trees and your pool was open all year.”

Cantarella later followed, leaving the big house for the Phoenix suburbs.

“You know what I notice out here? There’s a lot of money out here,” Cantarella said. “I’ve never seen so many Bentleys, Maseratis … This would actually be a haven for the Mafia.”

Once in Arizona, the Cantarellas traded a life of crime for a legit family business.

Their Valley car washes are also now serving as the backdrop for the family’s latest endeavor: Unprotected, a reality show on the Oxygen network.

Blog, Business Law, Criminal, Legal News

Ja Rule on Fyre Festival Being Under FBI Investigation

BY TRACE WILLIAM COWEN

As expected, the Fyre Festival woes continue. A criminal investigation into the Fyre proceedings is reportedly being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, the New York Times reported Sunday. Federal authorities, according to a Times source, are looking into “possible” mail, wire, and securities fraud.

The Times report also adds greater context to the botched Great Exuma fest’s wide range of victims. Blink-182, who pulled out of their headlining Fyre slot in the nick of time “after much careful and difficult consideration,” still have tour equipment stuck in customs limbo. Festival employees are awaiting payment. One restaurant owner, who catered meals, told the Times she’s still waiting on her $134,000.

 Full Read – http://www.complex.com/music/2017/05/ja-rule-failed-fyre-festival-false-advertising-not-fraud?