Daily Archives: September 14, 2021

Ex-pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli speaks to the press in front of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York with members of his legal team after the jury issued a verdict on Aug. 4, 2017.

Facing a little more than a year left of his seven-year securities fraud sentence, so-called Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli will face a civil trial later this year where state and federal regulators will try to permanently ban him from the pharmaceutical industry.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, who will be hearing the case without a jury, set a bench trial date for Dec. 14.

In an order on Tuesday, Judge Cote ordered Shkrelis counsel to confirm whether Shkreli will be present at his trial.

If so, she wants the parties to request any necessary writ of habeas corpus for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to transfer the 38-year-old from the Allenwood Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania to the Southern District of New York in lower Manhattan.

Shkrelis civil litigation stems from his decision to jack up the price of the live-saving drug Daraprim 40-fold, an act that earned him national scorn and a cult following for his unapologetic defense of that hike.

At the time, Shkreli served as CEO of the company then-named Turing Pharmaceuticals, but regulators claim that the anticompetitive conduct continued after he went to prison and his company got a rebranding as Vyera.

Daraprim is a lifesaving drug for vulnerable patients, Gail Levine, the deputy director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission, noted when unveiling the case in January 2020. Vyera kept the price of Daraprim astronomically high by illegally boxing out the competition.

New York Attorney General Letitia James(D), who also brought the case along with the FTC, echoed those sentiments at the time.

Martin Shkreli and Vyera not only enriched themselves by despicably jacking up the price of this life-saving medication by 4,000 percent in a single day, but held this critical drug hostage from patients and competitors as they illegally sought to maintain their monopoly, AG James wrote more than a year and a half ago. We filed this lawsuit to stop Vyeras egregious conduct, make the company pay for its illegal scheming, and block Martin Shkreli from ever working in the pharmaceutical industry again. We wont allow Pharma Bros to manipulate the market and line their pockets at the expense of vulnerable patients and the health care system.

Citing reporting in the Wall Street Journal, regulators claim that Shkreli exercised shadow power over Vyera and its Swiss corporate parent Phoenixus from behind bars.

In June, Judge Cote found that Shkreli used a contraband phone behind bars to communicate with his associates, including Vyera executive Akeel Mithani and Kevin Mulleady, an owner and former director of Vyera.

The judge gave a light sanction for that violation.

When asked during a deposition earlier this year whether he had a cell phone in prison, Shkreli invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to the ruling.

In late July, the U.S. government sold one of Shkrelis once-prized but since-forfeited possessions: Wu Tang Clans bespoke album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The buyers identity is currently unknown.

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

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Now We Know When Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli Will Face Trial That Could Lead to Pharmaceutical Industry Ban - Law & Crime

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer will miss the rest of the season, including the playoffs, as MLB and the MLB Players Association agreed to extend his paid administrative leave through to the end of the World Series, it was announced on Friday.

"Mr. Bauer agreed to extend his administrative leave through the playoffs in a measure of good faith and in an effort to minimize any distraction to the Dodgers organization and his teammates," Bauer's co-agents Jon Fetterolf and Rachel Luba said in a statement.

With Friday's decision, Bauers paid administrative leave was extended for the ninth time. The league initially placed Bauer on leave July 2 as it began investigating sexual assault allegations against him, stemming from two separate incidents with a woman at Bauer's residence in Pasadena, Calif.

The investigation being conducted by MLB remains active.

When asked Friday if Bauer would ever pitch again for the Dodgers, manager Dave Roberts said he had no idea.

Im just kind of focusing on the guys that are in the room and winning tonight," Roberts said. "I just really havent given any thought to that.

The Pasadena Police Department presented its investigation into sexual assault allegations against Bauer to the district attorneys office on Aug. 27. It is now up to the district attorney to decide whether the case will be filed or rejected.

"We have presented that case to the DAs office, and its currently under review," Pasadena PD Lt. Carolyn Gordon told The Athletic. There is no known timeline for when the district attorney's office will make its decision.

On Aug. 19, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied the woman's request for a long-term restraining order against Bauer.

After a hearing that lasted four days, Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman said that the 27-year-old San Diego womans petition seeking a domestic violence restraining order was "materially misleading," according to a report from the Associated Press. Gould-Saltman said Bauer followed the woman's boundaries when she set them, adding that he couldnt have been aware of the boundaries she didnt express to him, according to AP.

Bauer was present in court during the womans testimony but did not testify. His legal team said he would invoke the Fifth Amendment had he taken the stand.

(Photo: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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Trevor Bauer to miss rest of season after MLB, MLBPA extend leave again - The Athletic

CHICAGO (CBS) City attorneys are asking the City Council to approve a $20.5 million settlement for two men who spent 23 years in prison, after prosecutors agreed to dismiss all charges against them, amid claims they were framed by a disgraced former Chicago Police detective.

The proposed settlement with Jose Montanez and Armando Serrano is on the agenda for the Finance Committee on Monday.

The two were convicted in the 1993 murder of Rodrigo Vargas, whose body was found in a van parked near a Chicago elementary school, but were later released after the Illinois Appellate Court reversed the convictions, finding profoundly alarming acts of misconduct in the Vargas murder probe, and Cook County prosecutors later asked a judge to dismiss the case altogether.

Attorneys from the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago said Montanez and Serrano were framed by former Chicago Police Det. Reynaldo Guevara.

Montanez and Serranos nightmare began when eight bullets ripped through a van, killing 28-year-old Rodrigo Vargas. Initially, police had no suspect or motive. But that changed after Guevara connected with a jailhouse informant who testified that Montanez and Serrano told him they did the crime.

His entire account was fabricated based on facts fed to him by Detective Guevara, Russell Ainsworth, an attorney who represents Montanez, told the CBS 2 Investigators in 2016, four months after the pair were released from prison.

The $20.5 million settlement with Serrano and Montanez is not the first multimillion payout Chicago taxpayers are on the hook for due to claims Guevara framed suspects, and it likely wont be the last.

Dozens of other convictions linked to the now-retired Guevara have been thrown out. Hes been accused of manufacturing false evidence and framing the innocent.

In 2018, a federal jury awarded $17 million in damages to Jacques Rivera, who spent 21 years in prison for the murder of 16-year-old Felix Valentin before he was exonerated in 2011.

Rivera has accused Guevara of coercing the sole eyewitness a 12-year-old boy to falsely identify him as the gunman in Valentins death in 1988. He is one of 18 men whose convictions have been tossed out of court amid allegations that Guevara coerced witnesses, beat suspects, and falsified police reports.

Guevara repeatedly has refused to answer questions about allegations of misconduct in cases that have been overturned, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Excerpt from:
City Set To Pay $20.5 Million To Settle Lawsuit For Two Men Who Say They Were Framed By Former CPD Detective Reynaldo Guevara - CBS Chicago

A frequent flier suing seven US airlines said he plans to file an amended complaint on Monday, which will add multiple plaintiffs to his lawsuit over the airlines' mask requirements.

Lucas Wall, of Washington DC, said via email on Friday that he planned to add new charges against the airlines, including "conspiracy to interfere with civil rights."

Wall had previously told Insider: "It will be a stronger case with multiple plaintiffs showing the wide-ranging discrimination in the airline industry."

The lawsuit was filed June in US District Court in Orlando against Southwest, Alaska, Allegiant, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, and Spirit. Wall, who is representing himself, also has an ongoing lawsuit against the Biden administration.

Wall, in his original complaint against the airlines, claimed each had discriminated against those who couldn't wear masks for medical reasons, including himself. In his initial court filings, he included his medical records for generalized anxiety disorder.

In conversations with Insider, several people who were expected to join the lawsuit as plaintiffs claimed they'd had experiences similar to Wall's.

"The disabled are being criminalized during the pandemic attacked, harassed, and blamed," said Shannon Cila, of Kentucky, in an interview on Thursday.

Cila said her involvement with the case began after she was arrested in Kentucky. The arrest rattled her, she said.

"That set me up for a lot of anxiety, with having to deal with these mask exemptions, non-exemption policies, with private businesses everywhere, including airlines," she said. "If you have an invisible disability, people look at you. They think because you're not on an oxygen tank, or something they can't tell what your problem might be."

Cila found Wall through his GoFundMe campaign, she said.

Uriel ben-Mordechai and his wife, Adi, planned to join the lawsuit, he said on Friday. He moved to Israel about four decades ago, but regularly flies back to the Bay Area and Southern California to visit family.

A Torah scholar and lecturer, ben-Mordechai said his decision to join Wall's lawsuit was in part driven by his faith. He said he looked to Deuteronomy 16:20, part of which translates to "justice, pursue justice."

"It tells you, you have to make justice happen and it's not going to happen unless you do the part that God is giving you to do," ben-Mordechai said in a phone interview from Israel.

Leonardo McDonnell, another traveller seeking to join Wall's lawsuit, was more forceful in his language. "I will sue these sick tyrants' granddaughters if the legal system lets me," McDonnell, of Florida, said in an email when Insider reached out to him.

The airlines in late August filed their initial responses to Wall's lawsuit. Each one sought to dismiss the case on technical grounds, saying in part that Wall didn't have the standing to sue them in federal court under the Air Carrier Access Act.

Some legal experts and academics said they have doubts about whether the wave of lawsuits over federal mask requirements will put an end to Biden's mandate, although they weren't asked specifically about Wall's case.

Others said there were flaws in the Biden administration's argument that the mask mandates were not unconstitutional.

Paul Engel, founder of The Constitution Study, an online guide to the constitution, said the federal mandates were unconstitutional for a few reasons. The Fifth Amendment, for example, requires "due process of law," he said.

"[G]overnments at all levels are prohibited from enforcing mask mandates until they have shown probable cause that the individual is a danger to others," Engel said via email.

Monday is Wall's deadline for filing an amended complaint.

Continue reading here:
Man suing airlines over mask rule plans to accuse them of a conspiracy - Business Insider

HARTFORD, Mich. On May 25, 2021, former Hartford Police Officer Matthew Mistretta was charged with multiple counts of assault and battery, and misconduct in office. He is facing years in prison.

The reason Im telling my story, is I have nothing left to lose," Mistretta said. "Total cumulative charges are seven years,

The charges were brought forth by the State of Michigan Attorney General's office and surround an arrest Mistretta made in August 2020.

The AG's office says Mistretta can be seen throwing a man he is arresting to the ground while they are in handcuffs. This was documented on videos posted to social media.

The person Mistretta is arresting in the video is said to be 21-year-old Lauro Espino. Espino made no complaints about the arrest at the time of the incident.

Mistretta tells FOX 17 Espino was driving fast down Red Arrow highway, and appeared to be driving drunk. Mistretta pulled him over alone.

But shortly after pulling Espino over, Mistretta says he's not sure when exactly, he's told over his radio that Espino is involved in a nearby homicide scene. 911 dispatch audio has not been made available by the state to Mistretta's defense. He says it is critical to understanding what happened that night.

I was told over my radio, you have my shooter at a traffic stop, something to that effect, Mistretta said.

Only it wasn't a shooting. Espino is charged in connection to the death of 17-year-old Jesus De La Rosa.

De Le Rosa was hit by a car and killed.

Mistretta says he saw a passenger, a bloody lead pipe in the car and that Espino smelled of alcohol.

Here I am, as a single officer, with two suspects in the car, that I was just told shot someone in the face. Hes covered in blood, Mistretta said.

This information was not admissible in court on September 2nd for Mistretta's preliminary hearing. Espino invoked his fifth amendment rights to not incriminate himself. He is currently out on bond awaiting trial for the death of De La Rosa. That case is being prosecuted by Van Buren County.

That defendant was able to stand mute, after he gave his full testimony, as he chose to do for the state, Mistretta's attorney Jonathan Paasch said.

Mistretta's case was bound over to circuit court.

Mistretta was let go from Hartford PD months after the August incident for an unrelated issue.

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Former Hartford Police officer charged with assault, misconduct, speaks out - Fox17

The following is a transcript of my radar from Mondays edition of Rising on Hill TV.

Populists on the left and right find common ground on many issues, economic and cultural. Abortion is not one of those issues. But opponents of the powerful political and media establishment should care about elite distortion of the debate.

Theres a serious discussion on the right about the legal and practical wisdom of Texass new abortion law. Every honest person left and right can at least agree its a dramatic piece of legislation with high-stakes consequences. Depending on your perspective thats either tragic or wonderful.

Why, to the right, should it be wonderful? Im not here to debate the wisdom of the bill, which may indeed be replicated soon by other states. But outside, perhaps, Fox News, there is almost no representation of the anti-abortion perspective in major media. That means this entire conversation is completely distorted.

A 2020 survey found that eight in 10 journalists who said they lean towards one party or ideology which was 78 percent of them identified as liberal or Democrats. The same survey found sampled journalists were far to the left of the average Twitter user and even to the left of prominent liberal politicians like former president Barack Obama. The vast majority of Democrats, of course, support abortion rights, as Gallup found in recent years.

Even all the way back in 1990, David Shaw of the LA Times noted Most major newspapers support abortion rights on their editorial pages, and two major media studies have shown that 80% to 90% of U.S. journalists personally favor abortion rights.

We know from the bulk of legacy media coverage that journalists are liberal on abortion. Some on the left actually dispute this, arguing that medias insistence on including both sides of the debate in coverage gives abortion opponents undue moral equivalence.

The public is not broadly pro-life. The right should understand that. According to Gallup, only 32 percent of Americans support overturning Roe. A full 58 percent oppose it. That said, according to Gallup, Americans who believe abortion should be legal in all circumstances are easily outnumbered by those who believe it should be legal only under certain circumstances. Actually, as of 2021, the percentage of Americans who identify as pro-choice and pro-life differs by only two points, 49 to 47 respectively. That includes 43 percent of women.

So why is this important? Because, as with many issues, it means our national debate pits the liberal perspective against a straw man, rendering the whole discussion completely unproductive.

Chris Cuomo demonstrated this well recently. It almost feels unfair to pick on Cuomo at this point given how hes so thoroughly beclouded himself. But hes employed as an anchor at one of the countrys largest news networks, which oversees one of the most-visited websites in the world.

As people digested the news out of Texas, Cuomo tweeted a quote from professor Carliss Chatman that asked whether opponents of abortion would back starting child support, citizenship, and life insurance for unborn babies implying they would not because they are hypocrites. Cuomo purports to follow this issue closely, as is his job. He once claimed the pro-life movement was more about faith and feelings than facts, which would be fine if he didnt claim to be neutral.

Nevertheless, if he actually understood the pro-life position, he would know that Chatmans attempted counterpoint isnt a dunk at all. Its something most pro-life people would get behind. Thats exactly why child care proposals like Sen. Mitt Romneys start during pregnancy.

If you dont talk about these issues with the 47 percent of the country that considers itself pro-life, you end up operating off a stereotype that caricatures the pro-life movement as feeling-based fundamentalists who havent fully thought through their position. Thats how the debate is then represented by the political establishment. Pro-life activists are as skeptical of the GOP elite as progressives are of the DNC. As I said on this show after the Texas law was signed, I bet it made a whole lot of people at the RNC very, very nervous.

College graduates and people whose households earn over $100,000 a year are much, much more likely to identify as pro-choice than people with some or no college education in lower household income brackets. Those old white Republican men Democrats like to imagine as villains from the Handmaids Tale? A whole lot of them would be pretty unhappy if Roe were overturned because theyre much more concerned about the politics than the policy. Why do you think Republicans in Congress rarely prioritize pro-life causes when theyre in control?

My political philosophy is basically that Big Business and Big Government are inherently corrupt and power-hungry and need reasonable checks. Im a cultural conservative Christian. I used to be much more libertarian on abortion, especially up until about 12 weeks. Even so, Im so opposed to government controlling womens bodies that I believe prostitution should be legal. As I learned more about abortion, my perspective changed. I think life begins at conception and the Fifth Amendment, then, legally and morally protects that life. You dont have to agree with me at all. I know most of you watching probably dont.

But the bad-faith partisan caricature of abortion opponents as fundamentalist rubes and cynical sexists is not broadly true and is therefore not helpful. People are not uniformly pro-life because theyre religious zealots eager to control womens bodies. Its often pro-abortion men who coerce women into aborting their babies against their will who try to control the female body. One of them is CNNs chief legal analyst.

But the political establishment and the media do not accurately represent this debate, which splits the country almost perfectly in half. People are pro-life because they believe the baby is alive and should not be killed. That is the proper starting point for the pro-life side of the debate. As conversation over new state laws and legal challenges to Roe heats up in the coming months, wed all do well to recognize that.

Continue reading here:
Media's Lack Of Pro-Life Representation Reveals Bias And Distorts Debate - The Federalist