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Ohio man pleads guilty to scamming storm victims
Court Watch |
2012/08/29 11:18
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A man accused of ripping off storm victims in Ohio and Kentucky has pleaded guilty to nine counts of theft.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said Joshua Salyers entered the guilty pleas in Hamilton County court in southern Ohio Tuesday. He admitted stealing more than $43,000 from the victims.
DeWine spokesman Mark Moretti said the 39-year-old Salyers ran a storm damage restoration business and took money from homeowners in Butler, Hamilton and Stark counties in Ohio and in Campbell County, Ky., to repair their homes after storms in 2010 and in 2011.
But Moretti said Salyers never began the work and refused to refund the money. |
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Court orders Chevron to stop drilling for oil
Court Watch |
2012/08/02 16:37
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A federal court has given Chevron Corp. and driller Transocean Ltd. 30 days to suspend all petroleum drilling and transportation operations in Brazil until the conclusion of investigations into two oil spills off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
The court says in a statement posted Wednesday on its web site each company will be fined 500 million reals ($244 million) for each day they fail to comply with the suspension.
About 155, 000 gallons of oil crude began seeping from cracks in the ocean floor at the site of a Chevron appraisal well in November. Two weeks later, the National Petroleum Agency said the seepage was under control. But in March, oil again started leaking and Chevron voluntarily suspended production in the field.
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Court rejects Florida prison privatization appeal
Court Watch |
2012/07/25 14:58
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An appellate court on Tuesday tossed out Attorney General Pam Bondi's request for a decision to uphold the proposed privatization of 29 South Florida prison facilities.
A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal rejected her plea to reverse a lower court's ruling against privatization, saying Bondi couldn't appeal on her own after her client, the Department of Corrections, declined to do so. The panel unanimously dismissed the case because Bondi was not a party.
"A party who suffers an adverse judgment in Circuit Court has the right to appeal, but nonparties whose rights have not been adjudicated have no right of appeal," Chief District Judge Robert Benton wrote for the court.
Leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature had urged Bondi to appeal after Gov. Rick Scott decided the department, which is part of his administration, would not.
One of Bondi's assistants acknowledged during oral argument last month that it was too late to carry out the privatization due to the expiration of a budget provision authorizing the plan. Nevertheless, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Glogau asked the appellate court to issue a ruling upholding the privatization provision that would set a precedent for future budgets.
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Pa. high court denies Orie Melvin request
Court Watch |
2012/07/20 12:07
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A Pennsylvania state Supreme Court justice who is fighting political corruption charges has lost a request for her fellow justices to intervene in her criminal court case and require that an out-of-county judge preside over it.
The state Supreme Court issued the one-page order denying the request from suspended Justice Joan Orie Melvin on Tuesday. Melvin had sought to keep Allegheny County judges from hearing her case, complaining that one Allegheny County judge is married to a key prosecution witness, Lisa Sasinoski.
Melvin also had objected to a local district judge presiding over her preliminary hearing, saying the case may be too complex. Melvin asked her colleagues on the state Supreme Court to intervene after an Allegheny County judge denied her initial request. |
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La. high court upholds murder conviction
Court Watch |
2012/07/03 02:09
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The Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a woman in the shooting death of her live-in boyfriend in 2009.
The Advocate reports that Mary Henderson Trahan was convicted of second-degree murder in Lafayette Parish in 2010 in the death of George Barbu.
An appeals court ruled the evidence did not support her conviction. Prosecutors appealed.
The Supreme Court this week said a rational juror could find from the evidence that Trahan had "specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm" to Barbu.
Trahan had claimed she accidentally shot Barbu after she slipped and fell while holding a gun.
The Supreme Court said jurors heard no evidence to support Trahan's claim.
Trahan faces up to life in prison when she is sentenced.
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