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Court orders YouTube to give Viacom video logs
Breaking Legal News | 2008/07/05 08:50
Dismissing privacy concerns, a federal judge overseeing a $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the popular online video-sharing service to disclose who watches which video clips and when.

U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton authorized full access to the YouTube logs after Viacom Inc. and other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips.

The data would not be publicly released but disclosed only to the plaintiffs, and it would include less specific identifiers than a user's real name or e-mail address.

Lawyers for Google Inc., which owns YouTube, said producing 12 terabytes of data — equivalent to the text of roughly 12 million books — would be expensive, time-consuming and a threat to users' privacy.

The database includes information on when each video gets played, which can be used to determine how often a clip is viewed. Attached to each entry is each viewer's unique login ID and the Internet Protocol, or IP, address for that viewer's computer.

Stanton ruled this week that the plaintiffs had a legitimate need for the information and that the privacy concerns are speculative.

Stanton rejected a request from the plaintiffs for Google to disclose the source code — the technical secret sauce — powering its market-leading search engine, saying there's no evidence Google manipulated its search algorithms to treat copyright-infringing videos differently.



Judge sentences ex-Refco CEO to 16 yrs in prison
Securities | 2008/07/03 11:35

The former chief executive of Refco Inc. was sentenced Thursday to 16 years in prison for a financial cover-up that brought down one of the world's largest commodities brokerages. Phillip Bennett, 59, a British citizen living in Gladstone, N.J., had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and other charges.

Bennett said he didn't meant to hurt anyone. His voice cracked when he apologized to his family for their "unimaginable agony."

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald imposed the sentence, saying the 20 separate crimes Bennett admitted he had committed and the $1.5 billion in losses he had caused were enough to explain it.

"To sentence you, I don't have to paint you as a monster and I have no intention of doing so," Buchwald said. But she said Bennett and others like him who break the law in their zeal to be among the world's richest people are "staggeringly arrogant."

"You and others like you play a truly high stakes poker game," Buchwald said.

Prosecutors had asked that Bennett be sentenced to between 16.5 and 22 years in prison. The judge told Bennett to remain at his New Jersey home until he reports to prison on Sept. 4. She rejected a request by prosecutors that he be sent to prison immediately.

Refco went public in August 2005. It filed for bankruptcy just weeks later -- after disclosing that a $430 million debt owed to Refco by a firm controlled by Bennett had been concealed. The disclosure caused Refco's stock value to plummet.



Judge: IRS can seek tax info from Swiss bank
Tax | 2008/07/03 09:26
A federal judge agreed Tuesday to allow the IRS to serve legal papers on Swiss banking giant UBS AG in an expanding investigation into U.S. taxpayers who may have used overseas accounts to hide assets and avoid taxes. The order from U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard came one day after the Justice Department requested authority for the IRS to issue "John Doe" summons to UBS. The summons are used in IRS tax fraud investigations when the identity of the people involved isn't known.

Lenard said in a two-paragraph order that based on the government court filings, "there is a reasonable basis for believing such a group or class of persons may fail or may have failed to comply" with U.S. tax laws.

The summons will allow the IRS to obtain information about American taxpayers who have UBS accounts but did not file required forms detailing their taxable income.

"The order clears the way for the IRS to take the next steps against wealthy individuals who don't pay their taxes," said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman in a written statement. "People with hidden foreign accounts can no longer rest easy."

UBS has said it is cooperating with Swiss and U.S. investigations and will disclose records involving U.S. clients who might have broken tax laws.

"As we have noted, UBS takes this matter very seriously and is working diligently with both Swiss and U.S. government authorities, consistent with Swiss law and the legal frameworks for intergovernmental cooperation and assistance," UBS said in a statement Tuesday.

U.S. taxpayers are required to report all foreign financial accounts if their total value exceeds $10,000 at any point during a given year, prosecutors said. Failure to report the accounts can result in a penalty of up to 50 percent of the amount in the accounts.

The Justice Department requested the summons after former UBS private banker Bradley Birkenfeld, 43, pleaded guilty in a Florida federal court to defrauding the IRS. Birkenfeld, who is cooperating with investigators, said in court that UBS has about $20 billion in assets in undeclared accounts for U.S. taxpayers.

Prosecutors said Birkenfeld and others helped California billionaire Igor Olenicoff hide $200 million in assets overseas. Olenicoff, who controls a real estate empire, pleaded guilty last year to tax charges and agreed to pay the IRS more than $52 million.



W.Va. Gov. seeks review of $400M DuPont case
Business | 2008/07/03 08:23
Gov. Joe Manchin wants the West Virginia Supreme Court to clarify whether DuPont has the right to be heard as it appeals $196.2 million in punitive damages, about half the amount a jury awarded in a case involving health threats from a former zinc smelting plant.

The lead attorney for the plaintiffs on Wednesday called the governor's action unprecedented.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Florida lawyer Michael Papantonio. "This just further delineates how badly the deck is stacked in West Virginia against people trying to recover when they're taking on DuPont. It's stacked against people who have been wronged by corporate America."

The jury in Harrison County Circuit Court last fall awarded damages totaling nearly $400 million to residents living near the former plant in Spelter. The plaintiffs argued the chemical giant spent decades downplaying and lying about health threats from arsenic, cadmium and lead that contaminated air, soil and water.

Punitive damages are designed to deter future misconduct, and the jury ruled that DuPont had engaged in wanton, willful and reckless conduct in its operation of the smelter. Non-punitive damages included $130 million to fund a 40-year health screening plan to monitor plaintiffs for any ailments related to exposure to chemicals.

Last week, DuPont appealed the entire verdict, arguing it has been unfairly punished for doing the right thing at the site and for the community. The state Supreme Court, which is in summer recess, has not yet indicated whether the appeal will be heard.

In a "friend of the court" brief filed last week, Manchin urged the justices to clarify what sort of appellate review is to be afforded DuPont under its constitutional right to due process. His lawyers cited a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision to argue that the 14th Amendment guarantees appeals of punitive damages.



Florida Supreme Court nixes Indian casino pact
Breaking Legal News | 2008/07/03 07:22
The Florida Supreme Court is overturning the agreement Gov. Charlie Crist signed with the Seminole Tribe to expand gambling at its casinos.

The court ruled Thursday that Crist doesn't have the constitutional authority to enter into the agreement that allows Las Vegas-style slot machines, black jack and other card games at facilities such as the Hard Rock Casinos in Tampa and Hollywood.

House Speaker Marco Rubio challenged the agreement after Crist signed it in November. The tribe has already given the state $50 million as part of the deal that was expected to generate at least $100 million a year for the state.



NYC crane inspector pleads not guilty
Court Watch | 2008/07/03 06:22
A former inspector accused of lying about examining a crane that later collapsed in midtown Manhattan and killed seven people has pleaded not guilty in a New York City court.

Edward Marquette entered the plea at his arraignment in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on Thursday. He was charged with tampering with public records, offering a false instrument for filing, falsifying business records and official misconduct.

He had been scheduled to inspect the crane on March 4. It collapsed 11 days later, but officials said it was unlikely the inspection would have prevented that.

Justice Marcy Kahn allowed Marquette to remain free and ordered him back in court on Aug. 14. Neither he nor his lawyer would comment



Court proceedings begin for killing-spree suspect
Criminal Law | 2008/07/03 05:20
Now that the multistate manhunt has ended, legal wrangling has begun over an ex-convict suspected in a killing spree that left eight people dead in Illinois and Missouri.

Nicholas T. Sheley appeared at a brief court hearing Wednesday via a video feed from a jail in southwestern Illinois, not far from where he'd been captured a day earlier as he smoked a cigarette outside a bar.

Judge Edward Ferguson read Sheley the first-degree murder, aggravated battery and vehicular hijacking charges that accuse him of the beating death of 65-year-old Ronald Randall. Randall's body was found Monday behind a grocery store in Knox County in the northwestern part of the state.

Sheley, 28, said he understood the charges and could not afford the $100,000 necessary to post his $1 million bail. The judge then ordered Sheley held until Knox County authorities could pick him up.

Authorities believe Sheley, 28, killed seven other people in the past week, including a 93-year-old man and a 2-year-old child. He is charged in only two of the eight deaths, but authorities say evidence links him to each crime scene.

Sheley has had several brushes with the law, including a pending home invasion case, and has spent time in jail. But investigators said the brutality of the killings — the victims were bashed with blunt objects — has left them puzzled about Sheley's motives.

They said they're not ruling out drug abuse as a possible factor, though Sheley had no drugs on him when he was captured.



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