Court Digest

Mississippi
Federal judge dismisses lawsuit from ex-officer
COLUMBUS, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that a former Mississippi police officer filed after he was fired.

The Commercial Dispatch reported that the Columbus City Council removed Reginald Adams from his job as a Columbus Police Department investigator in March 2019. He filed a lawsuit in May 2020, claiming wrongful termination and violation of privacy.

The lawsuit said three council members improperly disclosed to the newspaper that Adams would be disciplined for driving a police vehicle to another city to apply for a job, and that he did it while on duty and without permission.

Columbus Police Chief Fred Shelton learned of the incident when the Indianola police chief called and said he had seen Adams applying to become chief in Moorhead, about a two-hour drive from Columbus.

U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock dismissed Adams’ lawsuit Wednesday for failure to state a claim, meaning Adams presented too little evidence to prove he was fired unjustly. The dismissal order said violation of privacy only occurs when the information shared is not a matter of public concern.

New York
Judge rejects mobster’s plea for release over virus
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A federal judge in western New York has rejected a plea for compassionate release by a Rochester mobster who says he’s at risk of death because of the coronavirus.

Dominic Taddeo, imprisoned the past three decades for killing three people and other crimes, said his hypertension, obesity and other health problems put him at higher risk of serious complications if he contracts COVID-19. He’s scheduled to be released from prison in two years.

But U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci Jr. ruled Friday that Taddeo did not prove he was at serious risk and even if he was at serious risk, it does not outweigh the need for him to serve his full sentence, the Democrat & Chronicle reported.

Geraci noted Taddeo was convicted of racketeering charges that involve “the murder of three individuals, attempted murder of two more individuals, and conspiracy to murder a fifth person” while Taddeo was a member of a Rochester mob family.

Federal prosecutors said medical records did not show that Taddeo, who is detained at a Florida federal prison, to be particularly unhealthy.

In 1982 and 1983, Taddeo shot Nicholas Mastrodonato, Gerald Pelusio, and Dino Tortatice to death during local mob wars.

Washington
Gospel Mission anti-LGBTQ hiring policy suit to be reviewed
SEATTLE (AP) — More than two years after a King County Superior Court judge tossed out a bisexual lawyer’s lawsuit against Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission over its anti-LGBTQ hiring policy, the Washington Supreme Court has reversed the ruling and ordered the case back to the lower court.

Attorney Matt Woods in 2017 sued the mission, one of the largest homeless shelter and service organizations in the area, when the nonprofit refused to hire him to its free legal aid clinic after he disclosed his same-sex relationship, The Seattle Times reported.

King County Superior Court Judge Karen Donohue dismissed Woods’ lawsuit, saying that, as a religious nonprofit employer, the mission is exempt from the state’s anti-discrimination law.

The high court’s ruling doesn’t strike down the religious employer exemption, but questions whether that exemption applies to a staff attorney at a legal aid clinic — a decision that could potentially open the door to more LGBTQ staffers working in social services at religious nonprofits.

Woods said he was relieved following the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday.

“To get the affirmation from the court that religious organizations don’t have a right to blanket discriminate against LGBTQ people for who they are no matter what the job is a big relief,” Woods said. “Especially for members of my community that are so much more likely to experience discrimination in the workplace because of their race or gender identity.”

The mission did not immediately provide a comment on the ruling.

Nevada
Top court considers creating water law commission
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Supreme Court has held a public hearing on a petition that would create a commission to study how complex water cases in the state are decided.

The public hearing on Wednesday also addressed how Nevada could improve education, training and efficiency in how the state’s courts handle elaborate water cases.

The court did not vote on any proposals during Wednesday’s hearing.

The petition was brought by Chief Justice James Hardesty, who said the idea came to him after speaking to water law attorneys and judges who handle water cases.

“While water law is a challenging, complex and infrequently agreed upon subject in our law, what was a consistent theme in all of the conversations that I have had was the perceived benefits of a study that would look at how the judicial system adjudicates water law matters in the future,” Hardesty said.

Most of the comments heard in the hearing supported a re-examination of how the state’s courts handle the century-old water law.

White Pine County District Court Judge Gary Fairman said in written comments submitted for the hearing that “there is no doubt” water cases “are complex and require a considerable amount of judicial time.”

One of the things Hardesty would want the commission to consider is allowing the chief justice of the Supreme Court to assign specific District Court judges to handle all water cases in the state, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho and Montana have implemented courts to address water cases.

New York
Antivirus software creator charged with cheating investors
NEW YORK (AP) — Antivirus software entrepreneur John McAfee was indicted on fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges alleging that he and cohorts made over $13 million by fooling investors zealous over the emerging cryptocurrency market, authorities said Friday.

McAfee, 75, was charged in a newly unsealed indictment in Manhattan federal court along with Jimmy Gale Watson Jr., who served as an executive adviser on what prosecutors described as McAfee’s “so-called cryptocurrency team.”

Prosecutors said Watson, 40, was arrested Thursday night in Texas and would make an initial appearance Friday before a federal magistrate judge in Dallas. McAfee, authorities said, is detained in Spain on separate criminal charges filed by the U.S. Justice Department’s tax division.

Attorney Arnold Spencer, representing Watson, said his client is a decorated former Navy Seal.

“He fought for other people’s rights and liberties, and he is entitled to and looks forward to his day in court to exercise some of those very rights,” he said in an email.

“Criminal indictments are blunt instruments, not precise scalpels,” Spencer added. “This is not the right place to debate whether cutting edge technologies like cryptocurrencies are securities, commodities, or something else.”

It was not immediately clear who might represent McAfee. There was still no lawyer listed for him in the Memphis, Tennessee, federal court where tax charges were lodged against him in October.

“McAfee and Watson exploited a widely used social media platform and enthusiasm among investors in the emerging cryptocurrency market to make millions through lies and deception,” U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement describing crimes in 2017 and 2018.

“The defendants allegedly used McAfee’s Twitter account to publish messages to hundreds of thousands of his Twitter followers touting various cryptocurrencies through false and misleading statements to conceal their true, self-interested motives,” she added.

In October, McAfee was charged in Tennessee with evading taxes after failing to report income made from promoting cryptocurrencies while he did consulting work, made speaking engagements and sold the rights to his life story for a documentary.

McAfee developed early internet security software and has been sought by authorities in the U.S. and Belize in the past.

The Tennessee indictment said McAfee failed to file tax returns from 2014 to 2018, despite receiving “considerable income” from several sources.

In July 2019, McAfee was released from detention in the Dominican Republic after he and five others were suspected of traveling on a yacht carrying high-caliber weapons, ammunition and military-style gear, officials on the Caribbean island said at the time.


New York
Wrongful death suit filed on behalf of Daniel Prude’s kids
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Attorneys for the five children of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died after being restrained by police during a mental health episode, announced a federal lawsuit Monday against the city of Rochester, alleging wrongful death and civil rights violations.

The family claims in the suit in U.S. District Court that both the actions of the Rochester police and an “attempted cover-up” by the department and city government violated Prude’s constitutional rights, attorneys for the family said in a statement.

A grand jury  in February declined to bring criminal charges against the officers.

“My father had a hard life, but he was a great dad. He always showed me and my brother and sisters how much he loved us,” Prude’s oldest son, Nathaniel McFarland, said. “Our hearts are broken by his death, but this lawsuit has given us hope for the future.”

Prude, 41, died in March 2020, several days after police officers, whom Prude’s brother had called for help, put a spit hood over his head and pressed his naked body against the street until he stopped breathing.

Police initially described his death as a drug overdose. The county medical examiner listed the manner of death as homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint” and cited the drug PCP as a contributing factor.

The went mostly unpublicized until nearly six months later, when police body camera video was released following pressure from Prude’s family.

Prude had been visiting relatives from his home in Chicago, where McFarland and three of his other siblings live.

“His family sought help from the Rochester police, and that was a mistake — a fatal mistake. Instead of providing him with care and assistance, officers of the Rochester Police Department cruelly abused him, mocked him, and killed him,” according to the complaint.

Attorney Stephen Schwarz cited a culture in Rochester of “deliberate indifference to the rights of Blacks and Latinos who encounter its police officers.”

City spokesperson Justin Roj, when asked for comment Monday morning, said he had not been notified of the lawsuit.

The complaint replaces legal claims previously brought by Prude’s sister.

Alaska
State seeks over $1B in lawsuit against poultry industry
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska has sued 21 businesses involved in the poultry industry, claiming the businesses operated a cartel and illegally inflated the price of most chicken sold in the state.

The Alaska Department of Law filed a consumer-protection lawsuit late last month in state court seeking more than $1 billion from the nation’s largest poultry producers, distributors and pricers, the Anchorage Daily News reported  Friday. The lawsuit also asks for damages, restitution, attorney fees and costs.

The lawsuit involves broiler chickens, which account for 98% of all chicken sold in the U.S.

Maria Bahr, an assistant attorney general and department spokeswoman, said the state alleges a cartel of corporations “engaged in an illegal conspiracy to restrain production and manipulate pricing to artificially inflate the price of broiler chicken throughout the United States, including Alaska.”

The lawsuit is one of many that have been filed since 2016, when the largest chicken producers in the country were accused of working together to cut supply and drive up chicken prices.

The producers collectively responded in 2017 to one lawsuit, calling it a “conspiracy theory” and arguing price fluctuations could be attributed to other causes, including the Great Recession.

Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest meat supplier, agreed in January to pay more than $200 million to settle one class-action lawsuit.

Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said at the time in an email that the company does not admit liability as part of the settlements. Mickelson declined to comment on why Tyson settled when other chicken producers have not.

Bahr said the state has hired two law firms to help with the lawsuit, Nix Patterson LLP and Fosler Law Inc.