Jury convicts Blackwater guards in 2007 Iraq deaths. Seven years after American security contractors killed 14 unarmed Iraqis by firing machine guns and grenades into a Baghdad traffic circle, a jury in Washington on Wednesday convicted all four Blackwater Worldwide guards charged in the incident, one of the most ignominious chapters of the Iraq war. The guilty verdicts marked a sweeping victory for prosecutors, who argued in a 10-week trial that the defendants fired wildly and out-of-control in a botched security operation after one of them falsely claimed to believe the driver of an approaching vehicle was a car bomber. The guards claimed they acted in self-defense and responded appropriately to the car-bomb threat and the sound of incoming AK-47 gunfire, their defense said.
Overall, defendants were charged with the deaths of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of 17 others at Baghdad’s Nisour Square shortly after noon on Sept. 16, 2007. None of the victims was an insurgent. “The verdict is wrong,” he said. “We’re devastated. Keith L. City of Chicago to pay man $3.6 million for wrongful conviction. CTA Board Member Charles E. Robinson at a board meeting at CTA headquarters in 2009. Brian Jackson/Chicago Sun-Times BGA Public Eye: Clout Questions at CTA, RTA and CHA. Hearing on officer's firing concludes. BLOOMINGTON — A two-day hearing on the termination of a Bloomington police officer investigated for an incident involving a special-needs child at Stevenson School has concluded.
A ruling could come before summer. The Bloomington police union filed a grievance in June challenging the termination of then-officer Scott Oglesby. The first grievance arbitration hearing took place Jan. 30, the second on Monday. Bloomington city attorney Todd Greenburg said each side has until April 20 to file post-hearing briefs with independent arbitrator Jeanne Vonhoff of Chicago. Oglesby had been placed on paid leave following a Dec. 21, 2010, incident at Stevenson Elementary School. Police reports said Oglesby told the boy he was giving him a headache, then picked up the child by the neck. In March, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which also investigated the incident, placed Oglesby on its state register of “indicated” child abusers. Hedge fund billionaire gets 11-year sentence in fraud case.
But it was also substantially less than what the prosecution had sought against the man it called “a billion-dollar force of deception and corruption on Wall Street.” The 54-year-old Rajaratnam, who headed Galleon Management, was convicted in May on 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud for illegally using inside information to trade in stocks such as Goldman Sachs, Google, Hilton and Intel. The trading generated profits or avoided losses of $72 million, the government estimated.
The case pulled back the curtain on illicit trafficking in corporate secrets that involved people at the highest echelons of the financial world and gave hedge funds a competitive edge. The 11-year sentence reflects a trend toward tougher treatment of insider-trading convicts, said former federal prosecutor Robert W. Ray. Less than a decade ago, it would have been unusual for a defendant in a major insider trading case to get more than two years, Ray said.
WorldCom’s Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years. Appeals Court: Arresting Guy For Filming Cops Was A Clear Violation Of Both 1st & 4th Amendments. We've had a lot of stories this year about police arresting people for filming them. It's become quite a trend. Even worse, a couple weeks ago, we wrote about a police officer in Massachusetts, Michael Sedergren, who is trying to get criminal wiretapping charges brought against a woman who filmed some police officers beating a guy. This officer claims that the woman violated Massachusetts anti-wiretapping law, a common claim from police in such situations. Segederin may have been better off if he'd waited a couple weeks for an appeals court ruling that came out Friday, because that ruling found that arresting someone for filming the police is a clear violation of both the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. How the case got to this point is a bit complex, but basically, a guy named Simon Glik saw some police arresting someone in Boston, and thought they were using excessive force.
He took out his camera phone and began recording. News Corp.’s Lost $7 Billion Shows Investor Concern Over Hacking Fallout. News Corp. (NWSA)’s loss of $7 billion in market value over four trading days shows investor concerns that a probe into alleged phone hacking by journalists at one London newspaper could have a broader impact on the company. Rupert Murdoch’s New York-based media company fell 7.6 percent in Nasdaq Stock Market trading yesterday, the biggest drop since April 2009. It was the fourth straight decline in the company’s closing price, cutting its market value by 15 percent. The stock declined another 13 cents to $15.35 today, giving the company a market capitalization of about $41 billion. The slide is far out of proportion with the lost profits from closing the News of the World tabloid or from delaying the acquisition of the satellite-TV provider British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc (BSY), said David Bank, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York.
“There’s a lot of noise out there,” said Bank, who rates the stock “outperform” and doesn’t own any. Close Open Lawmaker Hearing ‘Reconsider’ Bid? Law Firm That Worked With HBGary Hit With Bar Complaint - Andy Greenberg - The Firewall. Breaking News on EFF Victory: Appeals Court Holds that Email Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment. Chevron chiefs face shareholders after huge $18bn Ecuador fine | Environment. Chevron bosses are facing shareholders for the first time since the company was fined a total of $18bn (£11.1bn) by a court in Ecuador over contamination from oil extraction in the Amazon. California's largest oil company is coming under increasing pressure from institutional investors and long-term shareholders who are gathering at the annual general meeting at Chevron's HQ in San Ramon, near San Francisco.
A judge ruled in February this year that the company was liable to pay $8.6bn in damages, mostly to decontaminate polluted soil. The judge also awarded $860,000 to plaintiffs and a further $8.6bn in punitive damages. Chevron has appealed the decision, which amounts to the largest award in corporate history, exceeded only by BP's $20bn compensation fund after the Gulf oil spill. Chevron's earnings were $6.2bn in the first quarter of 2011, up from $4.6bn last year. A delegation from the affected region in Ecuador is due to attend the AGM, alongside 22 proxy voters.