Tag Archives: featured

Blog, Divorce, Family, Legal News

MELANIE GRIFFITH, ANTONIO BANDERAS DIVORCE FINAL He Keeps ‘Zorro’ Money, They Split ‘Shrek’ Cash

12/8/2015 10:07 AM PST BY TMZ STAFF

Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas are officially single, after dividing a huge chunk of movie change.

According to final divorce docs, obtained by TMZ, Antonio made a lot of dough on “The Mask of Zorro,” “Desperado,” and “Spy Kids.” He keeps all the cash from those flicks and she gets to keep what she made from her earlier work.

Melanie and Antonio split money from every movie either of them did between 2004 and 2014, including “Shrek 2,” “Puss in Boots,” “Machete Kills,” “Expendables 3” and others.

It appears they signed some sort of postnup in 2004 which changed the financial deal of their marriage … they married in 1996 but it seems they kept everything separate from the date of their marriage until 2004.

Antonio is not getting out clean … he’s paying her $65k a month in spousal support.

She gets the house in Aspen and they sold their L.A. mansion and split the profits.

And there’s a lot of rich people’s stuff that was divvied up. She gets a Picasso called “The Painter and His Model.” He gets a pencil drawing by Picasso and another pencil drawing by Diego Rivera.

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2015/12/08/melanie-griffith-antonio-banderas-divorce-zorro-shrek/#ixzz3tnC6ZqUs

Blog, Civil Rights, Immigration, International, Legal News, Supreme Court

Syrian Refugees To Arrive in Texas Despite Governor’s Lawsuit

A legal standoff will not stop the ongoing resettlement

Three Syrian refugee families—including a dozen children between the ages of two and 15—will arrive in Dallas and Houston this week, despite Texas’s on-going lawsuit challenging the federal government’s process in resettling Syrian refugees in the state.

The Obama administration said in a court filing on Friday that a family of six Syrian refugees, who were originally scheduled to arrive in Dallas on Dec. 4 , will now arrive Monday, after spending the weekend in New York. A second family of six is also expected to arrive in Houston Monday. A third, eight-member family, as well as a 26-year-old woman whose mother has already been placed in the area, are expected in arrive in Houston on Thursday.

Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, with the backing of Governor Greg Abbott, filed a lawsuit requesting an immediate order blocking the arrival of all new Syrian refugeesin the state, in light of “reasonable concerns about the safety and security of the citizenry of the state of Texas.”

Two days later, on Dec. 4, Paxton’s office said it would no longer seek an immediate order blocking the arrival of the refugees, but said it would continue with the lawsuit pressing federal authorities to provide more information on those already slated for resettlement in Texas. Paxton rolled back his initial demand after federal authorities provided state officials with demographic information about the Syrian families arriving today, according to his office.

The shift, however, which came just hours before a federal judge was expected to rule on the case, did not sit well with some Texas conservatives. Abbott’s office remained quiet about the decision, which one Texas official told TIME was “not the governor’s first choice.” Abbott has since said publicly that he opposes accepting any more Syrian refugees on the grounds that the background check process is “inadequate.”

Katherine Wise, a spokeswoman for Paxton, told TIME that the attorney general’s office will continue to pursue a lawsuit against both the federal government and the International Rescue Committee, a non-profit that works to resettle refugees, to determine whether federal authorities are complying with the requirements under the 1980 Refugee Act. The state argues that the law requires federal authorities to regularly consult with, and provide information to, state and local officials in advance of resettling refugees in those localities.

Read Full Article – http://time.com/4138560/texas-syrian-refugees-court-battle/

Blog, Civil Rights, Criminal, Legal News, Supreme Court

Don’t Change the Legal Rule on Intent

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Congress is achingly close to passing broad, bipartisan legislation that would reform the federal criminal justice system. There is widespread agreement among liberals and conservatives that many parts of the system — particularly federal drug sentencing laws — are overly harsh and fall disproportionately on minorities.

So it is troubling that the whole enterprise may now be in jeopardy because of an unrelated issue: the dispute over whether prosecutors should be required to prove that corporate defendants knowingly violated laws protecting, among other things, the environment and public health and safety.

While most criminal laws require the government to prove “mens rea,” or intent on the part of the defendant, some do not, and the proposed change would apply indiscriminately to all of those. Ignorance of the law is generally not an excuse for breaking it, and it certainly should not be turned into an excuse when the action inflicts serious harm to large numbers of people or to the environment.

Leading the charge to change the standard are the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by David and Charles Koch, who have also supported the wider criminal-justice reforms.

If the new provision becomes law, corporate actors could avoid prosecution by claiming, as they commonly do now, that they didn’t know what they were doing was illegal. And corporations that now go to great lengths to train employees on their legal responsibilities would have far less incentive to do so.

The proposed provision would require that prosecutors prove that a defendant “knew, or had reason to believe, the conduct was unlawful,” if a “reasonable person” would not have had reason to believe it was unlawful. This confusing standard would create endless litigation as the government and defendants argued over how, exactly, to meet it in each new case.

If anything, it is still too hard for prosecutors to go after corporate bad actors who endanger the health and safety of the public or the environment. And when they do bring charges, they’re generally doing so with good reason. A University of Michigan study examining almost 700 prosecutions brought under federal environmental laws between 2005 and 2010 found that virtually all involved one or more of the following: repeat violations of the law, deceptive or misleading conduct, a refusal to follow regulations at all, or actions that caused significant harm to the environment or to public health.

It is true that many federal laws are sloppily drafted, and some may need to be re-examined and rewritten. But a broad, sloppy fix is not a solution, especially when it is pushed through without meaningful deliberation.

Bipartisan agreement on any major legislative package is a rare and fragile thing these days. Congressional leaders should not allow the proposed “mens rea” provision to scuttle criminal-justice reforms the nation desperately needs.

 

Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Organized Crime

Top Trump business adviser admitted role in Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme

WASHINGTON –  Donald Trump tapped a man to be a senior business adviser to his real-estate empire even after the man’s past involvement in a major mafia-linked stock fraud scheme had become publicly known, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of court records.

Portions of Trump’s relationship with Felix Sater, a convicted felon and government informant, have been previously known. Trump worked with the company where Sater was an executive, Bayrock Group LLC, after it rented office space from the Trump Organization as early as 2003. Sater’s criminal history was effectively unknown to the public at the time, because a judge kept the relevant court records secret and Sater altered his name.

When Sater’s criminal past and mafia links came to light in 2007, Trump distanced himself from Sater.

But less than three years later, Trump renewed his ties with Sater. Sater presented business cards describing himself as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, and he had an office on the same floor as Trump’s own office in New York’s Trump Tower, The Associated Press learned through interviews and court records.

Trump said during an AP interview on Wednesday that he recalled only bare details of Sater.

“Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it,” Trump said, referring questions about Sater to his staff. “I’m not that familiar with him.”

According to Trump lawyer Alan Garten, Sater’s role was to prospect for high-end real estate deals for the Trump Organization. The arrangement lasted six months, Garten said.

The revelation about Sater’s role is significant because of its timing and directness, and marks the first time the Trump Organization has acknowledged publicly that Sater worked for Trump after the disclosures of Sater’s criminal background. Trump has said that among his secrets of success is that he surrounds himself with the “best and most serious people” and with “people you can trust.”

Sater never had an employment agreement or formal contract with the Trump Organization and did not close any deals for Trump, Garten said.

“He was trying to restart his life,” Garten said. “I believe he was regretful of things that happened in the past.”

Trump did not know the details of Sater’s cooperation with the government when Sater came in-house in 2010, Garten said. But Garten noted that U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch praised Sater’s cooperation with the federal government, when senators asked about him during her confirmation hearings early this year. She said Sater cooperated against his mafia stock fraud co-defendants and assisted the government on unspecified national security matters.

“If Mr. Sater was good enough for the government to work with, I see no reason why he wasn’t good enough for Mr. Trump,” Garten said.

He pleaded guilty in 1998 to one count of racketeering for his role in a $40 million stock fraud scheme involving the prominent Genovese and Bonanno crime families, according to court records. Prosecutors called the operation a pump-and-dump scheme, in which insiders manipulate the price of obscure stocks and then sell them to hapless investors at inflated prices. Five years earlier, a New York State court had sentenced Sater to more than a year in prison for stabbing a man in the face with a broken margarita glass.

Sater declined to discuss his work with Trump.

“Obviously a Donald-and-the-bad-guy piece is not interesting for me to participate in,” Sater wrote in an email to AP. His lawyer, Robert Wolf, said information about Sater in public records and lawsuits obtained by the AP was defamatory. He credited Sater’s stint as a government cooperator with potentially saving American military lives, although he did not provide details. Wolf told the AP to write about Sater’s past “at your own risk” but did not cite specific concerns.

After his 1998 racketeering conviction, Sater spent more than a decade as an informant on the mafia and on national security-related matters. Federal prosecutors kept even the existence of Sater’s racketeering case out of publicly available court records for 14 years.

During that time, Sater launched a luxury real estate development career. Sealed court records prevented potential customers or partners from learning about his past association with organized crime. Sater altered his name, to Satter, and became a top executive in Bayrock, a development firm that partnered with Trump on the Trump Soho high-rise hotel in Manhattan and other branded luxury real estate deals.

Civil lawsuits have alleged that Bayrock engaged in a pattern of misconduct during Sater’s tenure, sometimes involving potential Trump projects. Bayrock’s attorney told AP the firm did not mislead anyone about Sater’s past and denied any misconduct.

The firm has not yet responded to a version of the complaint refiled in U.S. court last month.

Trump’s lawyer, Garten, said Trump had no knowledge of alleged improprieties at Bayrock or reason to believe that Sater was a major stakeholder in Bayrock’s projects. Trump only learned of Sater’s troubled past when The New York Times reported details in December 2007. In the article, Trump distanced himself from Sater, saying: “I didn’t really know him very well.”

Garten said Trump had no further interactions with Sater at Bayrock following the revelations of his criminal history. But a new relationship was formed in 2010 when Trump offered Sater office space and a chance to round up new business possibilities for the Trump Organization.

“The guy’s been in business a long time, he’s got a lot of contacts,” Garten said of Sater.

Full Article – http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/04/top-trump-business-adviser-admitted-role-in-mafia-linked-stock-fraud-scheme.html

Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Military Laws, Organized Crime

Since Obama can’t handle ISIS, what say we outsource the job to the mafia?

POSTED AT 2:01 PM ON NOVEMBER 29, 2015 BY JAZZ SHAW

A significant majority of the country recently spoke up in a NY Times/CBS poll saying that they had essentially given up hope that the President was going to figure out what to do about the JV Team. These perceptions were likely buttressed a bit when the White House informed us that ISIS was largely “contained” just hours before they lit up Paris like a pinball machine. So maybe we need a new approach? Anonymous apparently declared war on the terrorists recently, though aside from ruining their credit rating I’m not sure exactly what they’re going to accomplish. But lo and behold, a new force is stepping up to the plate and may be positioned to do something a little more… forceful. It arrives in the person of Giovanni Gambino (yes, from those Gambinos) and if nothing else he seems to have the messaging right. (Apologies for NSFW language in graphic and several quotes to come.)

“These people are like walking machines. ISIS brainwashes them through the Internet,” Giovanni Gambino told Mic of the terrorist threat. “You need to beat the fuck out of them to the point where they stop coming back to life.”

Gambino, a prolific author of mob history and a scion of the family that saw the rise of the likes of John Gotti and Paul Castellano, said the nature of the mob made it fundamentally better equipped than traditional law enforcement to handle a threat like ISIS.

“Back in the day, probably the safest place ever was an old Sicilian neighborhood like Bensonhurst or Knickerbocker Ave.,” said Gambino of two Brooklyn neighborhoods. “We got our kids going to those schools. We got families in those neighborhoods.”

Read Full Article – http://hotair.com/archives/2015/11/29/since-obama-cant-handle-isis-what-say-we-outsource-the-job-to-the-mafia/