General Law and Lawsuits

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DOJ Sues RealPage for Algorithmic Pricing Scheme that Harms Millions of American Renters

The Justice Department
23 Aug 2024

The Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against RealPage Inc. for its unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing and to monopolize the market for commercial revenue management software that landlords use to price apartments. RealPage’s alleged conduct deprives renters of the benefits of competition on apartment leasing terms and harms millions of Americans. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer, and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division held a press conference to make the announcement.

[Rolodex]

I've been following this for a while. It's fascinating. Telles was the public administrator for Clark County, and apparently had a short temper and appeared to be somewhat of a control freak. He stressed out his whole staff, who contacted a Review Journal investigative reporter and asked him to report on the situation (which included an affair with a subordinate who then allegedly got preferential treatment). The reporter, Jeff German, wrote a series of articles which likely led to Telles losing the election for another term. The reporter was then killed. There is a plethora of evidence against Telles. But that's the beauty part of a "There's a conspiracy against me" defense. You can explain away all the physical evidence, including your DNA under the victim's fingernails. I highly recommend watching the cross examination of Telles.

The only thing that has me concerned is that the jury submitted one question after Telles's testimony. They asked if his wife knew about the affair before the killing, and he said yes.

Bonus - the judge is the same one who presided over Kim Blandino's trial.

The first I've seen of this trial was during the cross examination. At that time, I didn't know much about him or the case at all. Just watching Telles on the stand told me volumes about him. I knew he'd probably been insufferable to work for. Very high opinion of himself and everyone else is not nearly as smart as he is. He thinks he's charming. I got all that from about 15 minutes of just watching and listening to him. The funny part is how transparent these types of folks are. What they say, how they say it, body language. SCREAMING what they really are.

I read up on the background of the case after that. The cross exam is where I started watching and the DA certainly had his work cut out for him, trying to get this guy to answer.

So I had to look up Kim Blandino. OMG what a piece of work. That poor judge.

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earlier this year

Texas Judge Finds Pump & Dump Not Wire Fraud

By Benjamin P. Edwards
Thursday, March 21, 2024

A recent decision from Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the Southern District of Texas found that a pump and dump scheme could not be prosecuted as wire fraud.

I'm trying to wrap my head around it and struggling. It seems to find that the government could not prosecute a pump and dump scheme because the defendants only wanted to make money and did not want to deprive any specific people of money or property. The mere fact that the pump and dump scheme occurred through a market and not in direct personal transactions seems to have driven the decision.

Bloomberg's Matt Levine has covered it. It also made CNN.

Notably, the indictment even includes statements that the Defendants said things like "we’re robbing … idiots of their money."



https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/busin ... fraud.html

from https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/did-t ... t-2399919/

Yesterday, Judge Andrew Hanen of the Southern District of Texas dismissed the superseding indictment in full. The Court’s opinion reflects a stunning expansion of the Supreme Court’s Ciminelli v. U.S., 598 U.S. 306 (2023) ruling and a potentially devasting blow to federal securities law enforcement.

In Ciminelli, the Supreme Court rejected the right-to-control theory in wire fraud cases. Ciminelli held that the government cannot premise wire fraud on schemes to merely “deprive a victim of potentially valuable economic information necessary to make discretionary economic decisions.” Rather, money or property must be the object of a wire fraud scheme.

Judge Hanen was tasked with determining whether Ciminelli applies to securities fraud charges under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1348 and 1349, and, if so, how. Judge Hanen reasoned that Ciminelli’s teachings apply to all federal fraud statutes and so Ciminelli must govern securities fraud charges. He then held that because the alleged victims did not purchase their shares directly from the defendants, the defendants could not have engaged in a scheme to deprive them of property or money:

Unlike a traditional fraud cause, in which the victim directly surrenders their property to the defendant (or an entity in the defendant’s control), the investors here surrendered their property to the stock market at market prices, and in return, received the benefit of the bargain in the form of securities.

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[RTH10260]

How to buy a car with a bonus - specific to Michigan state consumer rules

RAW DEAL Dealership repossessed my car after they filed for a loan using my info – I sued, and now I’m owed $350k
The dealership called the fine "excessive," but a federal judge disagreed

Kristen Brown, Motors Reporter
Published: 18:14 ET, Aug 27 2024Updated: 9:26 ET, Aug 29 2024

A WOMAN's car was repossessed after a dealership filed a loan application using her information - they didn't have permission.

An Ann Arbor dealership was found guilty of violating trade and state laws after applying to a third lender with a customer's information without permission

Four years ago, Tina McPherson bought a 2017 Dodge Durango from Suburban Chevrolet Cadillac of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Before driving it home, she'd applied to two lenders for a loan to finance the rest of the vehicle after making a $2,000 down payment.

She was approved by both lenders and drove the Durango home.

A week after she drove her car home, she received an adverse action warning from a third lender.

McPherson never applied to a third lender and discovered the dealership had used her information to apply to the lender with different terms without her permission.

She refused to sign the new financing documents and return the title.

As a result, the dealership hired a towing company to repossess her car three months later, along with a message from the finance manager that they'd keep $900 of her down payment to cover towing expenses.

McPherson hastily sued the dealership for a spot delivery wrongful repossession.



https://www.the-sun.com/motors/12305828 ... ossession/

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NYPD officer lands $175K settlement over 'courtesy cards' that help drivers get out of traffic stops
A New York City police officer has reached a $175,000 settlement with the city in his lawsuit that illuminated the use of the “courtesy cards” that officers dole out to friends and relatives to get out of traffic stops and other minor infractions

PHILIP MARCELO Associated Press
September 11, 2024, 12:35 AM

NEW YORK -- A New York City police officer has reached a $175,000 settlement with the city in a lawsuit that illuminated the use of the “courtesy cards” that officers dole out to friends and relatives to get out of traffic stops and other minor infractions, according to an agreement filed in Manhattan federal court Monday.

The deal brings an end to a lawsuit brought last year by Officer Mathew Bianchi that claimed he'd been punished by his superiors for failing to honor the cards, though the settlement itself makes no substantive changes to how the cards are used by NYPD officers.

The laminated cards, which typically bear an image of an NYPD badge and the name of one of the city's police unions, are not officially recognized by the police department but have long been treated as a perk of the job.

The city’s police unions issue them to members, who circulate them among those who want to signal their NYPD connections — often to get out of minor infractions such as speeding or failing to wear a seat belt.

Bianchi said his views about the courtesy cards haven’t changed. The 40-year-old Staten Island-based officer said there should be more oversight over how many of the cards are distributed to officers and better protections for those who speak out against their misuse.

“It's a form of corruption,” he said by phone Tuesday. “My approach to how I handle them is not going to change, even if some boss is going to try to punish me. I’m still going to go out there and I’m going to do exactly what I feel is right.”

Bianchi's lawyer John Scola said he hoped the officer's efforts would inspire others in the department to step forward as whistleblowers.

“Officer Bianchi displayed remarkable courage by standing up to the NYPD, doing what was right despite the significant risks to his career," he said.

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration confirmed the settlement terms but declined to comment further.



https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/nyp ... -113565525

[Rolodex]

televised for us trial junkies!

[pipistrelle]

https://chicago.suntimes.com/environmen ... -club-fish

Trump Tower ruled 'public nuisance' over fish kills
A Cook County Circuit Court judge agreed with Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Illinois Sierra Club and Friends of the Chicago River that Trump Tower violated state environmental laws protecting the Chicago River.

Trump Tower is a public nuisance that threatens the Chicago River with its cooling water intake system that illegally sucked in and killed thousands of fish over a number of years, a judge ruled this week.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and a pair of environmental organizations asked Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thaddeus L. Wilson last year to rule on failures of the building operator to comply with environmental laws.
***
Those facts are that the Trump Tower “has created and continues to create a a public nuisance in violation of Illinois law,” and the intake system operates “in a manner that substantially and unreasonably interferes with the public right to fish and otherwise recreate in the Chicago River,” Wilson said in an order dated Monday.

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FBI Pays to Replace Valuable Property Missing After Unconstitutional Raid
Lawsuit reveals shockingly sloppy work that resulted in valuable property not returned to innocent owners. Years after the fact, the FBI still has not investigated its own misconduct.

Andrew Wimer ·
September 16, 2024

LOS ANGELES—At her deposition, an FBI agent described her reaction when she learned that the agency had misplaced dozens of valuable gold coins: “Uh oh.” Now, to resolve lawsuits brought by the Institute for Justice (IJ), the government has agreed to fully compensate property owners who had cash and coins go missing after the FBI raided their safe deposit boxes.

Don Mellein was one of hundreds of safe deposit box holders at US Private Vaults who had his box opened, searched, and subjected to civil forfeiture during an FBI raid in March 2021. A federal appellate court in January held that the entire raid violated the Fourth Amendment. This separate case arose because the FBI failed to return 63 gold coins worth over $166,000. The FBI refused to compensate Don for his lost coins, so he was forced to sue.

The FBI responded to Don’s lawsuit by claiming immunity, but a federal judge rejected that position earlier this year. The FBI continued to fight the case for months, but it finally gave up and agreed to compensate Don after it was ordered to produce records of instances where other box holders’ property was misplaced or went missing.

“The FBI had no reason to go through my box and they were careless in losing my coins,” said Don. “It should not have taken a lawsuit for the government to do the right thing.”

While the FBI’s decision to compensate Don means that it can avoid sharing documents and records concerning other lost or misplaced property, Don’s lawsuit has already uncovered troubling details about the FBI’s handling of valuable property during the raid.

The agent in charge of the raid testified, at her deposition, that the raid “didn’t go down exactly as we planned it.” The process of searching through hundreds of boxes was far more time consuming than the FBI had planned, and “we weren’t moving fast enough.” So the FBI abandoned procedures that it had planned to safeguard property—for instance, jettisoning plans to videotape all the searches and to keep a log of people going in and out of the vault.

“We really did try,” the agent testified about the plan to keep an access log. “Maybe the first shift it worked and then after that it probably did not.”

In Don’s case, although there was a total of 110 gold coins in his box, the agents who searched it did not list any coins on the property receipt or any other paperwork. As far as the FBI’s records reflected, the coins did not exist.

Valuable property was supposed to be removed and stored in a secure valuables vault, while the boxes themselves were allowed to sit in a parking lot and eventually were taken to a less secure evidence room. When the FBI went to return Don’s box, they found 47 of his coins still inside the unlocked and unsecured box, a scenario that one of the FBI’s evidence technicians described as a kind of “malpractice.” As the agent in charge later testified, “There should not have been coins in that box.” She added, “This is a problem.”

Even after the FBI found 47 of Don’s 110 coins in the unsecured box, the FBI concealed the existence of those coins from Don for almost six months. The FBI finally fessed up and returned the 47 coins, but it still had no answer for what happened to Don’s other 63 coins, prompting this lawsuit.

“The FBI is supposed to protect innocent people, but they misplaced Don’s property and then fought tooth and nail to keep him from being compensated,” said IJ Attorney Joseph Gay. “They stonewalled, claimed immunity, and tried to block discovery. This shows why it’s so vitally important for courts to hold government accountable.”

Don’s is not the only box that had valuable property misplaced. After finding coins in Don’s unsecured and unlocked box, the FBI searched through all the boxes and found misplaced property in three others. In addition, multiple other box holders have alleged that property has gone missing. The Institute for Justice filed another lawsuit on behalf of boxholders Jeni Pearsons and Michael Storc after $2,000 in cash went missing from their box. The FBI agreed to pay Jeni and Michael the full value of the misplaced property to settle that case as well.

Discovery also revealed the shocking lack of internal accountability at the FBI. The FBI agent in charge of the raid testified that nobody from the FBI had asked her about any missing property. The agents who initially searched Don’s box were not even told by their superiors that any coins had gone missing until they were called for deposition. Although the FBI conceded that it wrongly left hundreds of thousands of dollars in valuable property unsecured, apparently the FBI did not conduct any internal investigation into what happened to Don and other hapless box holders whose property went missing.



https://ij.org/press-release/fbi-pays-t ... onal-raid/

[pipistrelle]

Can’t recall if there’s a Favre topic.

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EMT furious over punishment for RPD detective who handcuffed her in ER

News10NBC
27 Sept 2024

The EMT who was handcuffed in the middle of Strong Memorial Hospital’s emergency room while she had a patient on the stretcher tells News10NBC she’s furious about the punishment handed down to the Rochester Police Detective who did it.

[Whatever4]

Gotta love cases like this:

IMG_3112.jpeg (396.47 KiB) Viewed 342 times

The case: https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/d ... o-4689.pdf

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Butt v. Butt in Licking county

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Court revives lawsuit of Black pastor who was arrested while watering his neighbor’s flowers

SAFIYAH RIDDLE
Updated 10:13 PM CEST, September 27, 2024

Montgomery, Ala. (AP) — The police officers who arrested a Black pastor while he watered his neighbor’s plants can be sued, a federal appeals court ruled Friday, reversing a lower court judge’s decision to dismiss the pastor’s lawsuit.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the three officers who arrested Michael Jennings in Childersburg, Alabama, lacked probable cause for the arrest and are therefore not shielded by qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity protects officers from civil liability while performing their duties as long as their actions don’t violate clearly established law or constitutional rights which they should have known about.

Jennings was arrested in May 2022 after a white neighbor reported him to police as he was watering his friend’s garden while they were out of town. The responding officers said they arrested Jennings because he refused to provide a physical ID. Body camera footage shows that the man repeatedly told officers he was “Pastor Jennings” and that he lived across the street.

Attorneys for Jennings argued that the footage shows that the officers decided to arrest Jennings without probable cause “less than five minutes after” they arrived.



https://apnews.com/article/black-pastor ... 00a317d709

[RTH10260]

Baby Reindeer was wrongly billed by Netflix as a ‘true story’, judge finds
Fiona Harvey, the inspiration for Martha, can proceed with defamation lawsuit after judge agrees the show suggested she was convicted for stalking creator Richard Gadd

Sian Cain
Sun 29 Sep 2024 22.50 EDT

A US judge has ruled that that the woman accused of stalking Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd can pursue her defamation lawsuit against Netflix, noting that the show was wrongly billed as a “true story” when Netflix “made no effort” to fact check Gadd’s story or disguise Harvey as the inspiration for Martha.

Fiona Harvey, the woman whom the show’s character Martha is based on, has alleged the show falsely implied that she sexually assaulted Gadd and gouged his eyes, and that she had been sent to prison for stalking him. After viewers managed to identify her as the inspiration for Martha – against Gadd’s wishes – Harvey filed a US$170m lawsuit, arguing that the show had defamed her by depicting Martha as a convicted stalker as she had not been convicted of a crime.

In his ruling, handed down on Friday in California, US district judge Gary Klausner noted that because the show’s episodes begin with the line “This is a true story”, it invited viewers to take the story as fact. But while Harvey’s “purported actions are reprehensible”, Klausner found, Martha’s actions in the show are “worse” than what Harvey is accused of in reality.

“There is a major difference between stalking and being convicted of stalking in a court of law,” he wrote. “Likewise, there are major differences between inappropriate touching and sexual assault, as well as between shoving and gouging another’s eyes. While plaintiff’s purported actions are reprehensible, defendants’ statements are of a worse degree and could produce a different effect in the mind of a viewer.”

In his defence, Gadd alleged that Harvey stalked him for years while he worked at a London pub, would pinch his behind, and sent him thousands of disturbing emails and voicemail messages. He said that while he reported her to the police, she got a “harassment warning” and was not criminally prosecuted or sent to jail.

Gadd has said that the Netflix show and the stage play on which it was based, were both fictionalised and not intended as a “beat-for-beat recounting” of reality. In June, the Sunday Times reported that Gadd had reservations about the line “This is a true story,” but that it was included at Netflix’s request.

Klausner noted the Sunday Times article in his ruling, arguing that it could demonstrate “actual malice” if Netflix chose to represent the story as fact when they knew it was fictionalised.



https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... dd-netflix