California
Twitter employees sue company over unpaid bonuses
Employees are suing Twitter over tens of millions of dollars in bonuses they say the social media company failed to pay despite promises it would.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco claims that in the month’s leading up to billionaire Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company, executives including former finance chief Ned Segal “repeatedly” promised employees that 50% of their 2022 bonuses would be paid.
The lead plaintiff, Mark Schobinger, served as Twitter’s senior director of compensation until last month. Lawyers for the plaintiff are seeking class action status on behalf of current and former Twitter employees. Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the bonuses Twitter owes are in the “tens of millions of dollars.”
Twitter, which has disbanded its media relations team, did not respond to a message for comment other than with an automated reply. The company is facing multiple lawsuits from former employees as well as over unpaid rent and other unpaid bills.
Massachusetts
Man who stabbed ex-girlfriend in restaurant found guilty of murder
WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A New Hampshire man has been found guilty of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of his former girlfriend in a Massachusetts restaurant where she was attending a book club meeting.
Carlos Asencio, 32, was convicted Tuesday by a jury in Worcester Superior Court. He faces a mandatory term of life in prison without parole at his sentencing scheduled for June 29.
Asencio, of Derry, stabbed Amanda Dabrowski, 31, nearly 20 times in the neck and body inside O’Connor’s Restaurant in Worcester on the evening of July 2019 in front of patrons and workers, some of whom restrained him until police arrived, prosecutors said.
“While no verdict will ever bring Amanda back, we are relieved that a jury found this man responsible for taking her from us,” Edward Dabrowski, the victim’s father, said outside of court after the verdict.
A patron also suffered a stab wound but survived, authorities said.
“The loss of Amanda was devastating and tragic. Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family. No one should ever have to go through something as horrible as this,” Worcester District Attorney Joseph early Jr. said in a statement. “We can only hope this verdict helps the family find some justice.”
The couple had dated briefly.
Asensio’s defense attorney said his client was suffering from a mental illness at the time of the attack and mounted an insanity defense.
Colorado
State Supreme Court strikes law allowing child sex abuse lawsuits from decades past
DENVER (AP) — Childhood sexual abuse victims in Colorado will no longer be able to file lawsuits over abuse that happened decades ago, as the state Supreme Court struck down a law Tuesday that gave victims a three-year window to sue over abuses as far back as the 1960s. The court cited the state Constitution’s ban on legislation that retroactively applies to conduct prior to its passage.
Colorado’s Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act, passed in 2021, was partly intended to allow child victims to bypass the statute of limitations and seek reparations and accountability for their assailant and/or organizations that might have failed to catch and stop any abuse. The bill’s sponsors argued that, particularly for children, such abuse often goes unreported at the time it happens.
The law was part of a national effort following the #MeToo movement to roll back time limitations on victims’ ability to seek justice.
“We certainly understand the General Assembly’s desire to right the wrongs of past decades by permitting such victims to hold abusers and their enablers accountable,” wrote Justice Monica M. Márquez in the opinion. “But the General Assembly may accomplish its ends only through constitutional means.”
The case before the state’s Supreme Court on Tuesday centers on Angelica Saupe, who sued the school district where she said a high school basketball coach sexually abused her in the early 2000s. Saupe appealed the case to the Supreme Court after a lower court ruled against her.
Stuart Suller, the school district’s attorney, argued in an April hearing that under the state Constitution, the General Assembly cannot retrospectively apply laws to past conduct.
The Supreme Court concurred, noting that the law attached “liability for conduct predating the Act and for which any previously available cause of action would be time-barred” and was therefore unconstitutional.
Saupe’s lawyer, Robert Friedman, argued that because school districts are lesser political entities than the state, they cannot claim they are protected against retrospective laws the General Assembly enacts. Friedman also argued that since the statute of limitations for sexual abuse of minors has been flexible, abusers can’t expect to avoid facing a lawsuit.
Georgia
Auto shop owner who paid worker in 91,500 oily pennies ordered to pay nearly $40,000 more
ATLANTA (AP) — The owner of an auto repair shop who paid a former employee with 91,500 oily pennies has been ordered by a judge to pay nearly 4 million more cents.
A federal judge ruled that Miles Walker, who owns A OK Walker Autoworks in Peachtree City, Georgia, owes $39,934 to nine workers for unpaid overtime and damages.
Attorneys for Walker agreed to the payments to settle a civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. Labor Department that accused Walker of retaliating against former employee Andreas Flaten in 2021.
After Flaten filed a complaint with the agency saying Walker owed him a final $915 paycheck, the employer dumped that amount in oil-covered pennies in Flaten’s driveway. The mountain of loose change came with a pay stub signed with an expletive.
The Labor Department said further investigation found that Walker’s business had also violated overtime provisions of the federal Fair Standards and Labor Act.
The judge on June 16 signed a consent order in which Walker agreed to pay nearly $8,700 more to Flaten in owed overtime and damages. Eight other workers are to receive amounts between $14,640 and $513 within the next year.
“The court has sent a clear message to employers such as Miles Walker who subject employees to unfair wage practices and outright intimidation and retaliation,” Tremelle Howard, the Labor Department’s regional solicitor in Atlanta, said in a statement.
Walker’s attorney, Ryan Farmer, said the conflict with Flaten doesn’t reflect his client’s “true character as a businessman.”
“Mr. Walker is like many other small business owners in America — he wakes up every day doing everything he can to put food on the table,” Farmer said in an emailed statement Tuesday. “Unfortunately, emotionally charged decisions can come back and bite you in the rear end.”
New York
Gannett sues Google, Alphabet claiming they have a monopoly on digital advertising
Gannett has filed a civil lawsuit against Google and its parent company Alphabet, claiming that they unlawfully hold monopolies in the advertising technology tools that publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell online ad space.
The largest U.S. newspaper publisher by total daily circulation alleges in the suit that Google controls how publishers sell their ad slots and forces them to sell an increasing amount of ad space to Google at lower prices. This in turn results in less revenue for publishers and Google’s ad-tech rivals and more money for Google.
In January the Justice Department and eight states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, seeking to shatter its alleged monopoly on the entire ecosystem of online advertising as a hurtful burden to advertisers, consumers and even the U.S. government. The suit accused the company of unlawfully monopolizing the way ads are served online by excluding competitors.
The European Union launched an antitrust investigation into Google’s digital ad dominance in 2021. And last week EU regulators hit Google with fresh antitrust charges, saying the only way to satisfy competition concerns about its lucrative digital ad business is by selling off parts of the tech giant’s main moneymaker.
The unprecedented decision to push for such a breakup marks a significant escalation by Brussels in its crackdown on Silicon Valley digital giants, and follows a similar move by U.S. authorities seeking to bust Google’s alleged monopoly on the online ad ecosystem.
Gannett CEO Mike Reed, in an opinion piece published Tuesday by Gannett-owned USA Today, said that the company is looking to “restore fair competition in a digital advertising marketplace that Google has demolished.”
Reed claims that local news outlets are hurting because of unlawful bid-rigging practices used by Google.
“The core of the case and our position is that Google abuses its control over the ad server monopoly to make it increasingly difficult for rival exchanges to run competitive auctions,” Reed wrote.
“These claims are simply wrong. Publishers have many options to choose from when it comes to using advertising technology to monetize – in fact, Gannett uses dozens of competing ad services, including Google Ad Manager,” Dan Taylor, vice president of Google Ads said in a written statement. “And when publishers choose to use Google tools, they keep the vast majority of revenue. We’ll show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.”
Gannett’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks an unspecified amount of damages and injunctive relief. The Virginia company is seeking a trial by jury.
Maine
Woman senenced to 6 years for abandning her baby in gravel pit
HOULTON, Maine (AP) — A Massachusetts woman who abandoned her newborn daughter to die in a gravel pit in northern Maine on a cold winter day in 1985 has been sentenced to six years in prison.
Lee Ann Daigle, of Lowell, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to manslaughter after DNA evidence helped police solve the decades-old crime. The baby’s body was discovered after a dog found it in the gravel pit and took it to a family’s front lawn in Frenchville.
Daigle gave a tearful apology in court on Tuesday, saying she panicked instead of seeking help.
“I could’ve done more. I should’ve done more,” she told the judge.
Her name was Lee Ann Guerrette when police were alerted to the grisly discovery on Dec. 7, 1985. Detectives tracked the dog’s path to the gravel pit where the baby had been born and abandoned in sub-zero temperatures.
The death of Baby Jane Doe went unsolved for years until a DNA match provided a break in the case, leading to Daigle’s indictment last year. In the intervening years, Daigle had raised two daughters, both of whom testified at her sentencing.
She was originally charged with depraved indifference murder, but she pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The judge sentenced her to 16 years in prison but suspended most of the sentence.
