Washington
Tech companies settle lawsuit alleging they overcharged the U.S. Army
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two companies agreed to pay the U.S. government $2 million each to settle a lawsuit that alleged the businesses fraudulently inflated the price of computers and other hardware sold to the U.S. Army, the Department of Justice announced on Tuesday.
Both Iron Bow — a company that resells technology products to the government — and Dell competed for contracts to sell basic hardware to the Army between 2020 and 2024, while Iron Bow also distributed Dell products, the lawsuit said.
At the same time, the lawsuit alleged Dell gave Iron Bow discounts on Dell products to sell to the U.S. Army, while simultaneously offering the government higher prices than it offered to Iron Bow. The arrangement artificially increased the price of goods sold to the military while simultaneously providing the illusion of competition, the lawsuit said.
“This settlement demonstrates the department’s commitment to hold accountable those who overcharge the government through collusion or other unlawful conduct,” said Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division.
Dell agreed to pay the U.S. government $2.3 million, while Iron Bow agreed to pay just over $2 million. In separate settlement documents, Dell denied the allegations made in the lawsuit, while Iron Bow said the settlement was reached “to avoid the delay, uncertainty, inconvenience, and expense of protracted litigation.” Neither of the company agreements included an admission of liability.
“Dell has entered into a settlement agreement because we believe it is in the best interest of Dell, our customers and partners,” a spokesperson for the company said in an email.
A message seeking further comment were left Tuesday for the media contact at Iron Bow.
The executive of a different technology company, Brent Lillard, filed a lawsuit in Northern Alabama District Court against Dell and Iron Bow in 2020 under a whistleblower provision in the False Claims Act, which allows private citizens to sue on behalf of the government if they believe that there has been a fraudulent application for government funds. Under the law, Lillard will receive $345,000 of the $2.3 million owed by Dell.
California
Newsom will not make clemency decision for Menendez brothers until new DA reviews case
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he won’t make a clemency decision on the murder convictions of Erik and Lyle Menendez until newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman reviews the nearly 35-year-old case.
In October, prosecutors submitted a recommendation for the brothers’ resentencing on the murder conviction in the 1989 killings of their parents in their Beverly Hills home. George Gascón, the current district attorney, asked a judge to impose a new sentence 50 years to life, which could make them eligible for parole immediately.
Gascón, who was supported by Newsom, lost reelection this month, so the governor said he would give the incoming district attorney time to review the case.
“The governor respects the role of the district attorney in ensuring justice is served and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect Hochman to carry out this responsibility,” the governor’s office said in a statement Monday. “The governor will defer to the DA-elect’s review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”
Hochman told The Associated Press last week that he could not comment on the resentencing recommendation until he has time to review confidential documents related to the brothers.
The two were originally sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they fatally shot their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez.
They were tried twice for their parents’ murders, with the first trial ending in a hung jury. The brothers said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent the disclosure of the father’s longtime sexual molestation of Erik Menendez. Prosecutors argued that they killed their parents for financial gain and contended that no such abuse occurred.
The brothers’ extended family has pleaded for their release. Several family members have said that in today’s world — which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse — the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Their attorney first filed a petition for their case to be reexamined in May 2023.
Louisiana
New Orleans agrees to pay Orleans Parish School Board $20 million to settle long-running suit
The New Orleans City Council and Orleans Parish School Board announced Monday that they have found a partial solution to the NOLA Public Schools district’s estimated $36 million budget gap. The school board will agree to dismiss a 5-year-old lawsuit against the city and, in return, the city will pay the district $20 million in new money.
Speaking at a press conference announcing the agreement, New Orleans City Councilmember Joe Giarrusso, who chairs the budget committee, said the council will allocate the first part of the payment this week when it passes the 2025 city budget at its Thursday meeting.
“This has been a result of two different parties who wanted to make sure we could make something happen right now and get something done for New Orleans and to make sure there’s a good future for our children,” Giarrusso said.
The School Board’s multimillion-dollar deficit resulted from a catastrophic accounting error. It is unclear who or what was directly responsible for the error, but a miscalculation caused the board to grossly overestimate what it would collect in property and sales taxes for the 2024-2025 school year.
Schools across New Orleans were facing the possibility of dramatic cuts. The school board currently estimates a $36 million deficit, but OPSB Member Olin Parker, who chairs the board’s finance committee, said officials are still working to confirm the precise amount of the gap.
In the midst of the fallout from the error, NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Avis Williams announced last week that she will step down on Dec. 1, though she did not provide a reason for her departure. Deputy Superintendent Fateama Fulmore will serve as interim superintendent in the meantime. Chief Financial Officer Stuart Gay left his position in September before the error became public.
What was a catastrophic error for the School Board became an opportunity for the New Orleans City Council to settle the long-running lawsuit, which OPSB filed in 2019. The legal dispute was due to the city’s practice of charging a 2% administrative fee on the taxes it collected on behalf of other Orleans Parish agencies. OPSB long maintained that those fees were unconstitutional and that the city owed the city’s schools millions of dollars in back tax revenue.
The lawsuit had been ongoing for years with no end in sight. But now the city and the School Board look poised to settle it.
OPSB President Katie Baudouin, who previously worked as a staffer in Giarrusso’s office, thanked city officials for their work to resolve the legal dispute.
“This agreement will ensure that our schools get the tax revenue that they’re entitled to from now on,” she said at the press conference. “I will mention when Councilmember Giarrusso first hired me almost 8 years ago, one of the first conversations we had was how important public education is to New Orleans, and I’m very gratified to be standing with him here today.”
According to preliminary terms of the agreement, obtained by Verite News, the city has offered to pay the $20 million in two $10 million payments to the School Board. The first payment, which Giarrusso said will be approved on Thursday, will come before the end of the year, and the second payment will come before April 1, 2025.
The city has also agreed to allocate Caesars (formerly Harrah’s) casino support funds for education — which amount to slightly less than $6 million for 2025 — to the School Board over the next ten years, and the city will dedicate money to education programs supporting mental and behavioral care for students, as well as programs providing career counseling and vocational training over the next decade.
Altogether, this will amount to an additional $10 million per year in allotments to NOLA Public Schools programs
The school board will agree to pull its lawsuit against the city. And the city will stop deducting fees from the sales and property taxes it collects unless the school board approves them in advance.
West Virginia
Ex-jail officers plead guilty to civil rights violation in fatal assault on inmate
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Two more former correctional officers in West Virginia have pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation in the death of a man who died less than a day after being booked into a jail.
As part of plea agreements, Johnathan Walters entered a plea Monday in U.S. District Court and Corey Snyder pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring with other officers to beat Quantez Burks as retaliation at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver.
Walters and Snyder each face up to 30 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000. No sentencing date for either defendant was immediately announced.
They were among five ex-correctional officers and a former lieutenant at the jail who were indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2023, the same month that two other former jail officers entered guilty pleas in the beating.
Burks, 37, was booked into the jail on a wanton endangerment charge in March 2022. According to court documents, Burks tried to push past an officer to leave his housing unit. Burks then was escorted to an interview room where correctional officers were accused of striking him while he was restrained and handcuffed.
Walters and Snyder admitted knowing the interview room had no surveillance cameras and that inmates and pretrial detainees who had previously engaged in misconduct had been brought to the room for punishment, according to court documents.
Two other defendants face sentencing in the case in January, and three more are set for sentencing in February. A trial for the remaining defendant is scheduled for Dec. 10.
The case has drawn scrutiny to conditions and deaths at the jail. Last year, West Virginia agreed to pay $4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by inmates who described conditions at the jail as inhumane. Gov. Jim Justice’s administration fired a Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation official and the chief counsel for the state Department of Homeland Security after a federal magistrate judge cited the “intentional” destruction of records in recommending a default judgment in the lawsuit.
The state medical examiner’s office attributed Burks’ primary cause of death to natural causes, prompting the family to have a private autopsy conducted. The family’s attorney revealed at a news conference in 2022 that the second autopsy found Burks had multiple areas of blunt force trauma on his body.
Tech companies settle lawsuit alleging they overcharged the U.S. Army
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two companies agreed to pay the U.S. government $2 million each to settle a lawsuit that alleged the businesses fraudulently inflated the price of computers and other hardware sold to the U.S. Army, the Department of Justice announced on Tuesday.
Both Iron Bow — a company that resells technology products to the government — and Dell competed for contracts to sell basic hardware to the Army between 2020 and 2024, while Iron Bow also distributed Dell products, the lawsuit said.
At the same time, the lawsuit alleged Dell gave Iron Bow discounts on Dell products to sell to the U.S. Army, while simultaneously offering the government higher prices than it offered to Iron Bow. The arrangement artificially increased the price of goods sold to the military while simultaneously providing the illusion of competition, the lawsuit said.
“This settlement demonstrates the department’s commitment to hold accountable those who overcharge the government through collusion or other unlawful conduct,” said Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division.
Dell agreed to pay the U.S. government $2.3 million, while Iron Bow agreed to pay just over $2 million. In separate settlement documents, Dell denied the allegations made in the lawsuit, while Iron Bow said the settlement was reached “to avoid the delay, uncertainty, inconvenience, and expense of protracted litigation.” Neither of the company agreements included an admission of liability.
“Dell has entered into a settlement agreement because we believe it is in the best interest of Dell, our customers and partners,” a spokesperson for the company said in an email.
A message seeking further comment were left Tuesday for the media contact at Iron Bow.
The executive of a different technology company, Brent Lillard, filed a lawsuit in Northern Alabama District Court against Dell and Iron Bow in 2020 under a whistleblower provision in the False Claims Act, which allows private citizens to sue on behalf of the government if they believe that there has been a fraudulent application for government funds. Under the law, Lillard will receive $345,000 of the $2.3 million owed by Dell.
California
Newsom will not make clemency decision for Menendez brothers until new DA reviews case
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he won’t make a clemency decision on the murder convictions of Erik and Lyle Menendez until newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman reviews the nearly 35-year-old case.
In October, prosecutors submitted a recommendation for the brothers’ resentencing on the murder conviction in the 1989 killings of their parents in their Beverly Hills home. George Gascón, the current district attorney, asked a judge to impose a new sentence 50 years to life, which could make them eligible for parole immediately.
Gascón, who was supported by Newsom, lost reelection this month, so the governor said he would give the incoming district attorney time to review the case.
“The governor respects the role of the district attorney in ensuring justice is served and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect Hochman to carry out this responsibility,” the governor’s office said in a statement Monday. “The governor will defer to the DA-elect’s review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”
Hochman told The Associated Press last week that he could not comment on the resentencing recommendation until he has time to review confidential documents related to the brothers.
The two were originally sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they fatally shot their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez.
They were tried twice for their parents’ murders, with the first trial ending in a hung jury. The brothers said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent the disclosure of the father’s longtime sexual molestation of Erik Menendez. Prosecutors argued that they killed their parents for financial gain and contended that no such abuse occurred.
The brothers’ extended family has pleaded for their release. Several family members have said that in today’s world — which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse — the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Their attorney first filed a petition for their case to be reexamined in May 2023.
Louisiana
New Orleans agrees to pay Orleans Parish School Board $20 million to settle long-running suit
The New Orleans City Council and Orleans Parish School Board announced Monday that they have found a partial solution to the NOLA Public Schools district’s estimated $36 million budget gap. The school board will agree to dismiss a 5-year-old lawsuit against the city and, in return, the city will pay the district $20 million in new money.
Speaking at a press conference announcing the agreement, New Orleans City Councilmember Joe Giarrusso, who chairs the budget committee, said the council will allocate the first part of the payment this week when it passes the 2025 city budget at its Thursday meeting.
“This has been a result of two different parties who wanted to make sure we could make something happen right now and get something done for New Orleans and to make sure there’s a good future for our children,” Giarrusso said.
The School Board’s multimillion-dollar deficit resulted from a catastrophic accounting error. It is unclear who or what was directly responsible for the error, but a miscalculation caused the board to grossly overestimate what it would collect in property and sales taxes for the 2024-2025 school year.
Schools across New Orleans were facing the possibility of dramatic cuts. The school board currently estimates a $36 million deficit, but OPSB Member Olin Parker, who chairs the board’s finance committee, said officials are still working to confirm the precise amount of the gap.
In the midst of the fallout from the error, NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Avis Williams announced last week that she will step down on Dec. 1, though she did not provide a reason for her departure. Deputy Superintendent Fateama Fulmore will serve as interim superintendent in the meantime. Chief Financial Officer Stuart Gay left his position in September before the error became public.
What was a catastrophic error for the School Board became an opportunity for the New Orleans City Council to settle the long-running lawsuit, which OPSB filed in 2019. The legal dispute was due to the city’s practice of charging a 2% administrative fee on the taxes it collected on behalf of other Orleans Parish agencies. OPSB long maintained that those fees were unconstitutional and that the city owed the city’s schools millions of dollars in back tax revenue.
The lawsuit had been ongoing for years with no end in sight. But now the city and the School Board look poised to settle it.
OPSB President Katie Baudouin, who previously worked as a staffer in Giarrusso’s office, thanked city officials for their work to resolve the legal dispute.
“This agreement will ensure that our schools get the tax revenue that they’re entitled to from now on,” she said at the press conference. “I will mention when Councilmember Giarrusso first hired me almost 8 years ago, one of the first conversations we had was how important public education is to New Orleans, and I’m very gratified to be standing with him here today.”
According to preliminary terms of the agreement, obtained by Verite News, the city has offered to pay the $20 million in two $10 million payments to the School Board. The first payment, which Giarrusso said will be approved on Thursday, will come before the end of the year, and the second payment will come before April 1, 2025.
The city has also agreed to allocate Caesars (formerly Harrah’s) casino support funds for education — which amount to slightly less than $6 million for 2025 — to the School Board over the next ten years, and the city will dedicate money to education programs supporting mental and behavioral care for students, as well as programs providing career counseling and vocational training over the next decade.
Altogether, this will amount to an additional $10 million per year in allotments to NOLA Public Schools programs
The school board will agree to pull its lawsuit against the city. And the city will stop deducting fees from the sales and property taxes it collects unless the school board approves them in advance.
West Virginia
Ex-jail officers plead guilty to civil rights violation in fatal assault on inmate
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Two more former correctional officers in West Virginia have pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation in the death of a man who died less than a day after being booked into a jail.
As part of plea agreements, Johnathan Walters entered a plea Monday in U.S. District Court and Corey Snyder pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring with other officers to beat Quantez Burks as retaliation at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver.
Walters and Snyder each face up to 30 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000. No sentencing date for either defendant was immediately announced.
They were among five ex-correctional officers and a former lieutenant at the jail who were indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2023, the same month that two other former jail officers entered guilty pleas in the beating.
Burks, 37, was booked into the jail on a wanton endangerment charge in March 2022. According to court documents, Burks tried to push past an officer to leave his housing unit. Burks then was escorted to an interview room where correctional officers were accused of striking him while he was restrained and handcuffed.
Walters and Snyder admitted knowing the interview room had no surveillance cameras and that inmates and pretrial detainees who had previously engaged in misconduct had been brought to the room for punishment, according to court documents.
Two other defendants face sentencing in the case in January, and three more are set for sentencing in February. A trial for the remaining defendant is scheduled for Dec. 10.
The case has drawn scrutiny to conditions and deaths at the jail. Last year, West Virginia agreed to pay $4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by inmates who described conditions at the jail as inhumane. Gov. Jim Justice’s administration fired a Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation official and the chief counsel for the state Department of Homeland Security after a federal magistrate judge cited the “intentional” destruction of records in recommending a default judgment in the lawsuit.
The state medical examiner’s office attributed Burks’ primary cause of death to natural causes, prompting the family to have a private autopsy conducted. The family’s attorney revealed at a news conference in 2022 that the second autopsy found Burks had multiple areas of blunt force trauma on his body.
