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UPI
13-07-2025
- Politics
- UPI
Appellate court okays cancellation of 9/11 plotters' plea deals
A federal appellate court on Friday affirmed former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had the authority to cancel plea agreements for three defendants accused of plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Photo by Activedia/Pixabay July 12 (UPI) -- A divided federal appellate court panel canceled plea deals for three defendants who are accused to plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed 2,976 in 2001. A three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed by a 2-1 decision that former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin legally rescinded existing plea deals with the three defendants. The defendants include alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, NPR reported on Friday. The three defendants are being held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where a military court last summer announced the plea deals last summer. Austin withdrew the plea agreements two days later, which raised the question of whether or not he had the authority to do so. The plea agreement would have spared the three men from execution and instead would have sentenced each to life in prison. Austin wanted the case to continue with a trial that included the potential for the death penalty. The cases against the three men have been ongoing for more than 20 years amid a slew of pretrial hearings. Military prosecutors determined a plea deal was the best way to resolve the matter. A U.S. military court had okayed the plea agreements, and defense attorneys argued Austin lacked the authority to negate them because he didn't like the terms. The federal appellate court on Friday ruled Austin had the authority to terminate the plea agreements. Defense attorneys have the option of appealing the decision to a full panel of the federal appellate court in the nation's capital or the Supreme Court.
UPI
19-06-2025
- UPI
Lab owner gets 7 years in prison for faking COVID-19 test results
The owner of a Chicago laboratory was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a $14 million scheme of falsifying COVID-19 test results. Photo by Activedia/ Pixabay June 19 (UPI) -- The owner of a Chicago laboratory was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a $14 million scheme of falsifying COVID-19 test results. Zishan, Alvi, 46 of Inverness, Ill., was sentenced Wednesday for the scheme and was ordered to pay $14 million in illegitimate taxpayer-backed payments. The fraud involved releasing negative test results to patients, even when the laboratory had not conducted the tests, or the results had been diluted by Alvi to save on costs. U.S. District Judge John Tharp sentenced Alvi and called his actions "fraud on a massive scale," and said how it also put the public in unsafe circumstances when they were seeking reassurance through testing. "People were scrambling to get tested for COVID because they didn't want to imperil the safety and health of the people they cared about," Tharp said. "A negative test was like a passport, 'You know, I tested negative. I can go see my grandma, I can go see my children with their newborn baby.' These were people who depended on that report to govern what they could safely do and not do." Alvi knew the laboratory was faking results, but Alvi still reported it back to the Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration, prosecutors said. Alvi stood at the lectern before he was sentenced and told the judge how he was "filled with remorse and a deep sense of regret" for his "selfish decisions." "I should never have put profits ahead of the job we intended to do for the public," Alvi said, as several relatives wiped tears from their eyes in the courtroom gallery. "I should have put the people first."
UPI
04-06-2025
- UPI
California inmate gets 5 years for drone drug delivery scheme
A man already serving time in a California prison was sentenced to five more years for conspiring to obtain and distribute drugs using drone deliveries. Photo by Activedia/Pixabay June 4 (UPI) -- A Pleasant Valley State Prison inmate in California will spend five more years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to possess and distribute illicit drugs via drone deliveries in 2021. Michael Ray Acosta, from May 23 to Aug. 27, 2021, coordinated several drone deliveries of methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana from inside the state prison, Acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith announced on Tuesday. Acosta used a contraband cellphone to schedule the drug deliveries that four co-conspirators delivered by flying drones over the prison and dropped packages that Acosta and others would recover, Beckwith said. The packages included drugs, cellphones, cellphone accessories and other items during what federal investigators dubbed "Operation Night Drop." Accomplice Jose Oropeza is scheduled for sentencing on charges arising from the drone drug deliveries on July 28. Alleged accomplice David Ramirez Jr. is expected to plead guilty on July 29, and Joshua Gonzalez and Rosendo Ramirez have court appearances scheduled on June 11. The four are accused of flying the drones that made the drug deliveries. Investigators with the FBI, Federal Aviation Administration, Drug Enforcement Agency and the California Department of Corrections investigated the case. The prison is located in Central California's Fresno County and about 55 miles southwest of Fresno. A prison record says Acosta is 50, but the Department of Justice's press release indicates he is 48. Neither the DOJ nor the prison record says why Acosta already was imprisoned or for how long.
UPI
03-06-2025
- Business
- UPI
'Real Housewives' hubby Girardi sentenced to 7+ years for embezzlement
A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced former attorney and "Real Wives of Beverly Hills" husband Tom Girardi to more than seven years in prison for embezzling $15 million from former clients. Photo by Activedia/Pixabay June 3 (UPI) -- "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills " husband and former attorney Tom Girardi will spend real time in a federal prison for stealing $15 million from his former clients. U.S. District Court for Central California Judge Josephine Staton on Tuesday sentenced Girardi, 86, to seven years and three months in federal prison. Staton also ordered Girardi to pay $2.3 million in restitution and fines and on Monday ruled his dementia won't keep him out of prison. Girardi is the estranged husband of the reality show's Erika Jayne, and a federal jury in August convicted him on four counts of wire fraud for embezzling millions from his clients over 10 years. His victims include relatives of some of the victims of the 2018 Lion Air crash in the Java Sea that killed 189 people. Girardi embezzled $3 million from several surviving family members of the tragedy's victims. Instead of ordering Girardi to stay in a long-term care facility due to his dementia, Staton ordered him to report to prison to start serving his sentence on July 17. Staton presided over a three-hour hearing on Monday, during which two medical experts brought by the prosecution testified about Girardi's medical condition. Two witnesses also testified on Girardi's behalf, and he took the stand to testify in his defense. Girardi's testimony indicated confusion and a lack of awareness regarding his current situation. He told the court he recently traveled the country and has an active case in Oklahoma. Girardi, though, was a resident in an assisted living home in California and kept in its secure memory care area for the past two years. He also underwent psychological evaluation for six weeks in North Carolina at the start of the year. During Monday's hearing, Girardi at times said he has "serious memory loss" when asked about his current situation. Staton ruled that his responses demonstrated Girardi's self-awareness. As Girardi exited the witness stand, his trousers began to drop, but he quickly righted them, which Staton said further demonstrated his mental awareness. His attorneys asked Staton to require him to stay at his current assisted living facility, but she sentenced him to serve his time at an appropriate federal prison facility. Girardi formerly was among attorneys representing victims during the 1993 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. lawsuit that inspired the "Erin Brockovich" film starring Julia Roberts that was released in 2000.
UPI
25-05-2025
- Politics
- UPI
No right to information at public libraries, 5th Circuit rules
A Texas county public library did not violate patrons' free speech rights by removing 17 titles from its shelves, an en banc Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled in a 10-7 decision on Friday. Photo by Activedia/Pixabay May 24 (UPI) -- A Texas public library did not violate patrons' right to free speech by removing books due to their content, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled on Friday. The entire appellate court, in a 10-7 decision, overturned federal district court and appellate court rulings finding the Llano County (Texas) Library System erred in removing 17 books due to their content. The courts initially ruled that library officials violated plaintiffs' right to receive information under the Constitution's Free Speech Clause by removing the books and ordered that they be returned to the library's shelves. The plaintiffs are seven library patrons who in 2022 filed a lawsuit challenging the removal of 17 books due to their "content on race, gender and sexuality as well as some children's books that contained nudity," the Austin American-Statesman reported. A federal district court and a three-judge appellate court panel each ruled against the library. The Fifth Circuit appellate court's en banc panel on Friday reversed the prior court decisions and dismissed the free speech claims against the Lloyd County Library System for two reasons. No right to receive information "Plaintiffs cannot invoke a right to receive information to challenge a library's removal of books," Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote in the majority decision. "Supreme Court precedent sometimes protects one's right to receive someone else's speech," Duncan continued. "Plaintiffs would transform that precedent into a brave new right to receive information from the government in the form of taxpayer-funded library books," he said. "The First Amendment acknowledges no such right." Instead, a patron could order a book online, buy it from a bookstore or borrow it from a friend, Duncan wrote. "All Llano County has done here is what libraries have been doing for two centuries: decide which books they want in their collection," he said. Such decisions are very subjective, and it's impossible to find widespread agreement on a standard to determine which books should or should not be made available, the majority ruling says. "May a library remove a book because it dislikes its ideas? Because it finds the book vulgar? Sexist? Inaccurate? Outdated? Poorly written?" Duncan wrote. "Heaven knows." The plaintiffs "took the baffling view that libraries cannot even remove books that espouse racism," Duncan added. Public library collections are 'government speech' The majority decision also ruled that the library's collection decisions are government speech and not subject to First Amendment-based free speech challenges. Duncan said many precedents affirm that "curating and presenting a collection of third-party speech" is an "expressive activity." Examples include editors choosing which stories to publish, television stations choosing which programs to air and museum officials deciding what to feature in exhibits. "In the same way, a library expresses itself by deciding how to shape its collection," Duncan wrote. He cited another court's ruling that said governments speak through public libraries by selecting which books to make available and which ones to exclude. "From the moment they emerged in the 19th century, public libraries have shaped their collections to present what they held to be worthwhile literature," Duncan said. "Libraries curate their collections for expressive purposes," he said. "Their collection decisions are, therefore, government speech." He called arguments made in the case "over-caffeinated" and said plaintiffs warned of "book bans," "pyres of burned books," and "totalitarian regimes." "Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people," one brief filed by plaintiffs claimed, according to Duncan. "Take a deep breath, everyone. No one is banning (or burning) books," he said. Won't 'join the book burners' Judge Stephen Higginson was joined by six others in a lengthy dissenting opinion. The Supreme Court in prior rulings affirmed the right to receive information and the right to be "free from officially prescribed orthodoxy," Higginson said. "Public libraries have long kept the people well informed by giving them access to works expressing a broad range of information and ideas," Higginson wrote. "But this case concerns the politically motivated removal of books from the Llano County Public Library system by government officials in order to deny public access to disfavored ideas," he said. The majority "forsakes core First Amendment principles and controlling Supreme Court law," he wrote. "Because I would not have our court 'join the book burners,'" Higginson said, "I dissent."
