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Mistrial granted in trial of Harvard graduate student
Court Watch | 2007/12/15 07:40
A judge declared a mistrial Friday in the case of a former Harvard graduate student accused of stabbing a teenager to death during a fight.

After 10 days of deliberations, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the manslaughter charges against Alexander Pring-Wilson, 29, who was being tried for a second time.

Pring-Wilson said he acted in self-defense after he was attacked by 18-year-old Michael Colono and his cousin, Samuel Rodriguez, outside a Cambridge pizza parlor as he walked home from a bar on April 12, 2003.

Rodriguez testified that Pring-Wilson became enraged when Colono ridiculed him for stumbling home drunk.

The case attracted widespread media attention because of long-standing tensions between Ivy Leaguers and working-class Cambridge residents.

Pring-Wilson, the son of Colorado lawyers, was studying for his master's degree in Russian and Eurasian studies at Harvard. Colono, a high school dropout, had fathered a child at 15. He had earned his high-school equivalency diploma and was working as a cook at a Boston hotel when he was killed.

Pring-Wilson will remain free on bail. Prosecutors said they will put him on trial a third time.

"We will honor the memory of Michael Colono by continuing to fight for justice on behalf of him, his family, and the commonwealth," Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said in a statement.

Pring-Wilson was convicted of manslaughter in 2004, but won a new trial eight months later when the state's highest court ruled in another case that juries should be allowed to consider a victim's violent history if it is relevant to a claim of self-defense.

During the second trial, jurors were given details about Colono's criminal record, including a 2001 episode in which he threw money in the face of a cashier at a pizza restaurant, then kicked in the front door and shattered the glass.

Pring-Wilson testified Colono and Rodriguez both pounded him relentlessly in the head, and he pulled out his folding knife because he was afraid they would kill him.

The fight between Pring-Wilson and Colono broke out as Pring-Wilson walked by a car Rodriguez and Colono were sitting in as they waited for a pizza order. Pring-Wilson said he approached the car because he heard someone call to him and thought they needed directions.

But Rodriguez said Pring-Wilson pulled open the car door and started the fight after Colono ridiculed him. Colono was stabbed five times in the chest and abdomen.

The prosecution focused on the lies Pring-Wilson acknowledged telling police during a 911 call he made seconds after the fight ended, and during police interviews the next morning. He initially said he had witnessed a young man being stabbed, but described himself as a bystander.

Pring-Wilson's attorney, E. Peter Parker, said the deadlock showed that at least some jurors rejected the prosecution's claim that Pring-Wilson was the aggressor.

"We are thrilled that a number of jurors at this trial saw the commonwealth's case for what it was, and found that Alex's conduct was a justified act of self-defense," Parker said.

Colono's brother, Marcos, and mother, Ada, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.



Baseline Killer Suspect Gets 438 Years
Court Watch | 2007/12/15 04:43
A man accused of being the Phoenix Baseline Killer was sentenced to 438 years in prison Friday for a brutal attack in which he raped a woman while pointing a pistol at her pregnant sister's belly. "It is clear from the record that you cannot function in a civilized society," Superior Court Judge Andrew Klein told Mark Goudeau, who still faces trial for the slayings of eight women and a man in 2005-2006.

The 43-year-old former construction worker was convicted in September of 19 counts, including sexual assault and kidnapping, for assaulting the sisters in 2005 as they walked home from a park.

The sisters told the jury how Goudeau forced them into the bushes near a road and told them to strip, then raped the younger victim while pointing the gun at the other.

"My daughter was in danger before she was even born," said the woman who had been pregnant when the attack occurred. Speaking through an interpreter, she said she still wakes up crying sometimes.

"I will hope for him to never get out," she said.

DNA evidence linked Goudeau to the rape, but he maintained that he was innocent.

"What happened to those two girls was indeed horrible," he told the judge, "but I had nothing to do with it."

"This is just another freak show of a hearing where they convicted an innocent man," Goudeau's wife, Wendy Carr, said outside the courthouse.

Klein said before handing down the sentence that Goudeau must have two "diametrically opposed" personalities, one calm and respectful in court and the other sociopathic and brutal.

Maricopa County Prosecutors had said earlier that Goudeau faced a maximum of 285 years in prison. But Deputy County Attorney Suzanne Cohen proved a prior violent record in court Friday that made him eligible for the higher sentences.

Goudeau still faces trial on 74 other criminal charges, including nine murder counts, from a crime spree police have attributed to the Baseline Killer, named for the south Phoenix street where many of the early attacks took place. He has pleaded not guilty.

If Goudeau is convicted of murder, County Attorney Andrew Thomas has said he will pursue the death penalty.

Goudeau is the first of three suspects in serial killing to go on trial for a rash of random attacks that terrorized the Phoenix area for more than a year in 2005 and 2006. All three were arrested last year.

Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman were arrested in the so-called "Serial Shooter" case in August 2006 and are expected to go on trial next year. Hausner faces seven murder counts and Dieteman is charged with two. Their trial is expect to begin next year.



Kid-Care founders settle debt with IRS
Tax | 2007/12/15 02:44

The Internal Revenue Service has settled a claim against the founders of Houston's Kid-Care for about $1,000 — a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott claimed the couple had stolen from the charity.

The agreement, dated Nov. 7, says Carol Porter owes $938.93 in unpaid taxes from 2001 and 2002, while her husband, Hurt Porter, owes $37 from 2002. The document stipulates that the Porters have not acknowledged any improper expenditures.

In a lawsuit filed in April 2003, Abbott said the Porters had used some of the charity's funds for personal expenses such as airline trips and lavish meals.

Abbott settled the case with the Porters' insurance company for $495,000 in August 2004.

Abbott's investigation identified almost $500,000 in questionable expenses the Porters billed to Kid-Care's credit cards from 1999 through 2002. The IRS case involves the Porters' tax returns from 2001, 2002 and 2003.

"The expenses laid out by the attorney general seemed to be the same expenses that the IRS was questioning," said Juan Vasquez, a tax attorney who represented the Porters.



Lawsuit claims Kidd groped model at club
Court Watch | 2007/12/15 02:42

New Jersey Nets star Jason Kidd is being sued by a 23-year-old model who accused him of groping and threatening her at a Manhattan nightclub two months ago.

An attorney for Kidd called the allegations "false" and "defamatory" and the lawsuit an attempt to get money from the All-Star guard, who earns almost $20 million a year.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, says Kidd "battered and assaulted" the woman in the Lower West Side club Tenjune on Oct. 10 when he "grabbed her buttocks and crotch on multiple occasions."

"He kept staring at her and then went over and grabbed her butt," the woman's lawyer, Russell S. Adler, said yesterday. He said, "She told him 'Get off me! Get away from me!'" before bouncers pulled Kidd away.

Words were exchanged and Kidd grabbed the woman again, pushing her against a wall and putting his hand under her dress, Adler said.

A spokesman for the New York City Police Department confirmed Oct. 17 that the woman had filed a criminal complaint against Kidd, accusing him of the acts alleged in the lawsuit that was filed Thursday.

But Adler said officials from the district attorney's office told him late yesterday that prosecutors would not pursue charges against Kidd.

The woman is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Kidd's lawyer Paul Grand said, "This lawsuit is nothing more than a brazen and defamatory search for a payout."

A Nets spokesman said the team had no comment because the claims involve a pending legal matter.



Groups say FTC, law firm hiding DoubleClick conflict
Legal Business | 2007/12/14 07:44

The Web site of a law firm employing the husband of U.S. Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras contradicts an FTC explanation that Majoras has no conflict of interest in reviewing DoubleClick's $3.1 billion acquisition by Google, two privacy groups said Thursday.  On Wednesday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) asked Majoras to recuse herself from the merger review, saying her husband, John Majoras, is a partner with Jones Day, the law firm that is advising DoubleClick on antitrust issues relating to the acquisition.

DoubleClick and the FTC have denied that Jones Day has represented the company before the FTC.

But on Thursday, EPIC and CDD filed a second complaint with the FTC, showing a cached Web page claiming that Jones Day is advising DoubleClick "on the international and U.S. antitrust and competition law aspects of its planned $3.1 billion acquisition by Google Inc." The Jones Day Web page was later changed, the groups said.

EPIC and CDD said Thursday they were filing a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all records on the relationship between Jones Day and DoubleClick.

One conclusion to draw is that "Jones Day has sought to conceal the nature, scope, and duration of the relationship with its client DoubleClick by altering web pages," said a letter signed by executive directors of both organizations. FTC spokespeople who denied the relationship were "either misinformed or willfully misled the public," the letter says.

An FTC spokeswoman declined to comment on the new complaint. Representatives of Jones Day and DoubleClick weren't immediately available for comment.

The FTC and DoubleClick downplayed the connection Wednesday, saying Jones Day has not advised DoubleClick on matters before the FTC. Instead, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has been DoubleClick's outside counsel since July of 2005 and has advised it in matters before the FTC, DoubleClick said in a statement.

"Jones Day was not engaged to represent, and has not represented DoubleClick before the Federal Trade Commission or appeared before the commission on DoubleClick’s behalf," the company said.

In April, EPIC, CDD, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) asked the FTC to block Google's acquisition of DoubleClick unless the combined company made changes to its privacy practices. The combined company would hold a vast amount of private information on Web users, the groups said.



Guilty Pleas in Fake N.Y. College Grades
Breaking Legal News | 2007/12/14 07:42
Two former college students avoided jail when they pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge related to paying school officials to falsify their grades and transcripts. Uzi Azizov, 22, and Boris Yakubov, 25, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor state charge of falsifying business records. Each was sentenced to seven days of community service and fined $1,000.

The two former Touro College undergraduates were among 10 people indicted by a grand jury in July in a scheme to use the city college's computer system to change grades and create fake degrees in exchange for money.

Azizov admitted during his plea that in January he paid a Touro official to change his grades. Prosecutors said when Azizov was arrested his grade point average had jumped to 3.63 from 1.23 because of the transcript changes.

Yakubov admitted he paid a college official in February to falsify his records. Prosecutors said when Yakubov was arrested that he bought a fake transcript showing he had earned a master's degree from Touro's Graduate School of Education and Psychology.

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said in announcing the indictments that the defendants included Touro's former director of admissions, the former director of the school's computer center and three public school teachers.

The indicted school officials created or altered records for at least 50 people since January 2007, Morgenthau said, charging fees of $3,000 to $25,000 for better or deleted grades and for bachelor's and master's degrees. Cases involving those defendants are pending.

Lawyers for Azizov and Yakubov said that they had no comment as they left court Thursday.



Woman Pleads Guilty in NY Fatal Stabbing
Court Watch | 2007/12/14 06:33
The girlfriend of a former tour manager for Billy Joel and Paul Simon pleaded guilty Thursday to stabbing the man to death two years ago during a fight in their apartment. Kathleen Connors, 39, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of first-degree manslaughter in the slaying of Daniel L. Harrison, 57, on Nov. 20, 2005. She is to be sentenced Jan. 10 to 23 years in prison.

Connors and Harrison argued violently before she stabbed him in their Manhattan apartment, police said. A neighbor called police after hearing the ruckus, they said.

Connors initially was charged with second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree assault. She faced a sentence of 25 years to life in prison if she had been convicted after trial.

Published reports quoted Harrison's former wife, Eileen Cavallaro, of Kings Park, N.Y., as saying he had managed Simon's "Graceland" and "Rhythm of the Saints" tours and was in charge of Joel's "Glass Houses" tour.



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