Arizona
Judge orders Phoenix to clean up large homeless encampment
PHOENIX (AP) — A judge has ordered Phoenix to clean up a homeless encampment that spans nearly 10 blocks in the city’s downtown area.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled Monday that Phoenix is maintaining a “public nuisance” and city officials must show evidence at a July 10 hearing that they’re cleaning the area.
Blaney sided with downtown Phoenix business owners who sued the city over the homeless camp known as “The Zone,” where about 700 people have lived in recent months. The business owners cite an increase in crime, drug usage in public, biohazards and break-ins.
According to the lawsuit, the city should have no tents within public property and biohazards that include drugs, trash and human waste should be picked up.
Attorneys for the business owners said Phoenix has allowed homeless people to set up permanent tent encampments on public sidewalks and decreased enforcement of loitering, drunken and disorderly conduct and drug use among other things.
Kristin Couturier, a city spokesperson, said officials were reviewing the court ruling.
“We remain committed to address the needs of all residents and property owners,” Couturier said in a statement Monday. “We continue to work with local and regional partners to address the complex issues surrounding those experiencing homelessness and to connect people in need with safe, indoor spaces and resources to help end their homelessness.”
New York
FTX founder Bankman-Fried charged with paying $40M bribe
NEW YORK (AP) — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with directing $40 million in bribes to one or more Chinese officials to unfreeze assets relating to his cryptocurrency business in a newly rewritten indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The charge of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act raises to 13 the number of charges Bankman-Fried faces after he was arrested in the Bahamas in December and brought to the United States soon afterward. The indictment was returned on Monday.
The charge also contains language revealing that a fifth arrest was imminent in what U.S. Attorney Damian Williams has repeatedly described as a continuing investigation. That unidentified individual, according to the indictment, participated in the bribery conspiracy with Bankman-Fried and “will be arrested in the Southern District of New York.”
FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, when it ran out of money after the equivalent of a bank run on the global cryptocurrency exchange. He has remained free on a $250 million personal recognizance bond that lets him stay with his parents in Palo Alto, California.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he cheated investors out of billions of dollars before his business collapsed.
A spokesperson for Bankman-Fried’s lawyers told The Associated Press Tuesday that they had no comment.
An arraignment on the rewritten indictment was set for Thursday by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. He also on Tuesday banned Bankman-Fried from communicating with current or ex-employees of FTX or Alameda Research, its affiliated cryptocurrency hedge fund trading firm. The order also limits Bankman-Fried to one laptop and phone and bans him from encrypted communications or other cellphones, computers, or “smart” devices with internet access.
The alleged bribes stemmed from the operation of Alameda Research. The indictment said Chinese law enforcement authorities in early 2021 froze certain Alameda cryptocurrency trading accounts containing about $1 billion in cryptocurrency on two of China’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
Bankman-Fried, 31, understood that the accounts had been frozen by Chinese authorities as part of an ongoing probe of a particular Alameda trading counterparty, the indictment said.
After Bankman-Fried failed multiple attempts over several months to unfreeze the accounts through methods including using lawyers to lobby, Bankman-Fried ultimately agreed to direct a multimillion dollar bribe to try to unfreeze the accounts, the indictment said.
Among failed attempts, the indictment said Bankman-Fried and others he directed opened new fraudulent accounts on the Chinese exchanges using personal identifying information of several individuals unaffiliated with FTX or Alameda to try to evade freeze orders and move cryptocurrency from frozen accounts to the fraudulent accounts.
A portion of the bribe payment of cryptocurrency, then worth about $40 million, was moved from Alameda’s main trading account to a private cryptocurrency wallet in November 2021 and the frozen accounts were unfrozen at about the same time, the indictment said.
After Bankman-Fried received confirmation that the accounts were unfrozen, he authorized the transfer of additional tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to complete the bribe, according to the indictment.
Among those already charged in the case is Carolyn Ellison, Alameda’s former chief executive. She has agreed to testify against Bankman-Fried, as have two former FTX executives who have pleaded guilty in cooperation deals with the government.
Messages for comment were sent to the Chinese consulate in New York and the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C.
New York
Ruling: Some pot dispensary licenses to go ahead
NEW YORK (AP) — New York officials will be able to issue licenses for recreational marijuana dispensaries in some parts of the state after an appeals court on Tuesday narrowed the scope of a temporary injunction that had halted them because of a legal challenge.
The ruling from the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals allows the state to hand out licenses in Brooklyn, central New York, the mid-Hudson region and western New York, while upholding the block on them in the Finger Lakes region while a lawsuit continues.
A federal judge in Albany, New York, in November issued a temporary injunction against the licenses being handed out in those areas, after a lawsuit filed by Variscite NY One. The company, owned by a Michigan resident, is challenging how New York is issuing its licenses.
In designing the New York market, legislators intentionally looked for the first round of licenses to go to those who had pot convictions in their pasts or their relatives, in an attempt to make sure those directly impacted by drug law enforcement had access to the new opportunities.
Variscite’s lawsuit, which is ongoing, says that is a violation of constitutional interstate commerce protections. An email seeking comment was sent to one of the company’s attorneys.
In a statement, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was pleased by the decision and “for the first time, New Yorkers in nearly every region of the state will have access to safer, high-quality, adult-use cannabis products.”
The issuing of licenses in nine other regions of the state, including the rest of New York City, were not impacted by the lawsuit or the injunction.
