Strange: Indicted Baltimore Police Threaten To Sue State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby

According to the British publication The Guardian, on Friday, the Baltimore police officers being prosecuted over the death of Freddie Gray threatened to sue the city’s top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, for arresting them.

They threatened the lawsuit as they demanded that she step down from their case over alleged conflicts of interest.

“As part of a barrage of hostile court filings that also sought to dismiss all charges against the officers on technical grounds, their lawyers attacked Mosby, the state’s attorney for Baltimore, who announced their charges in the Gray case in a shock statement last Friday,” writes The Guardian.

In an “extraordinary 109-page motion,” the officers’ lawyers said all six may sue Mosby and mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake for arresting and detaining them unless the city pays them tens of thousands of dollars in damages.

“They accused Mosby in sharply personal terms of breaching the US constitution, the Maryland declaration of rights, and her professional code,” writes The Guardian.

Constitution?

CNN states:

“On Thursday, the city and the state each received a notice that the defense believes it has cause to file a civil lawsuit claiming unlawful arrest and detention of the six officers. The officers were justified in their arrest of Gray for an illegal knife, the document says, so detaining them amounted to false imprisonment. The motion also says Mosby’s public comments expose her to civil liability. The letters act as a request for a financial settlement for “more than $75,000″ for each officer.”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/08/baltimore-freddie-gray-police-threaten-to-sue-marilyn-mosby

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/08/us/freddie-gray-case-dismissal-motion/

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/05/09/410271/Baltimore-police-officials

Chris Christie Waging 23 Court Battles To Keep State Documents Secret: Mother Jones

According to Mother Jones, media outlets have been forced to sue to obtain even routinely disclosed information, such as payroll data.

Rather than release documents connected to Bridge-gate, pay-to-play allegations, possible ethics violations, and the out-of-state trips Christie has made while looking at a run for president, Chris Christie’s office and several state agencies have waged costly court battles.

As the 2016 presidential primary race draws closer, and Christie considers jumping in, his administration is fighting 23 different open records requests in court.

“The track record is abysmal,” says Jennifer Borg, general counsel for the North Jersey Media Group.

Her organization, which publishes The Record, has sued the state for public documents a half-dozen times since Christie took office. When a judge determines that the state withheld records illegally—which happens frequently—her group wins legal fees. As of September 2014, Christie’s administration had paid $441,000 to North Jersey Media Group and other media outlets for records. And that doesn’t count the cost of government lawyers’ time.

The fight has become expensive for the state because when newspapers go to court for these records, they usually win. But winning doesn’t automatically produce the sought-after records.

“We can and do beat them in court. But as long as they’re appealing—I don’t want to call it a Pyrrhic victory, but we’re not going to get the records,” says Walter Luers, an attorney who helped a transparency project run by the state Libertarian Party sue for public access for Christie’s travel expenses.

“Appeals take two to three years. We’re already into the presidential elections. By the time we get these records, Christie could have a new address.”

Christie’s reluctance to let these records go is understandable. On Tuesday, for example, The New York Times published an investigation of expensive trips, sponsored by donors and foreign leaders, that the governor has taken abroad. Some of those accounts were based on public documents that local newspapers obtained through lawsuits.

New Lawsuit Against McDonald’s

According to sources, a group of minority fast food workers accused McDonald’s Corp. of violating their civil rights in a new lawsuit between the Fight For 15 movement and the Oak Brook, Ill.-based multinational.

Backed by the Service Employees International Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, ten workers filed a federal complaint in Virginia today against McDonald’s and one of its 2,500 independent owner-operators, a franchisee company called Soweva.

Were people fired for being black?

The workers, nine of whom are black, say Soweva managers told them they needed to “get the ghetto out of the store” and fired them after hiring a string of white employees in 2014. McDonald’s corporate headquarters failed to correct the alleged discrimination and should be held liable as well, the complaint said.

The complaint, which also alleges instances of sexual harassment, seeks damages under Title VII of 1964’s Civil Rights Act.

It comes at a time when McDonald’s is facing increased exposure to labor complaints and lawsuits. By naming McDonald’s Corp.in the complaint, these legal actions challenge the legitimacy of McDonald’s’ contractual agreement with franchisees, which stipulates that McDonald’s Corp. can’t be held liable for any labor law violations committed in their restaurants.

More on the lawsuit

Ferguson Prosecutor Bob McCulloch Gets Sued

A member of the grand jury that declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson sued the prosecutor in the case on Monday, criticizing the way evidence was presented to grand jurors and seeking court permission to speak publicly about the way the case was handled.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in St. Louis against St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch by the grand juror, whose name was withheld and was referred to as “Grand Juror Doe.”

The lawsuit relates to the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri.

TYT video.

Blake Farenthold Sued By Former Communications Director

Randolph Blake Farenthold is a congressman who has been the U.S. Representative for Texas’s 27th congressional district since 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party.

According to the Washington Post, he was an attorney and owned a computer consulting and web design firm before being elected in 2010. Now he’s in Congress, where he chairs the subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service. He won re-election for second time this year, defeating Democratic challenger Wesley Reed — a feat made easier by GOP redistricting that made his seat safer for Republicans.

Farenthold sponsored six bills in 2013, according to his last report card from Govtrack.com, which tallies congressional stats. He attracted only four co-sponsors for them, putting him in last place (out of 435) in that category. But he did have perfect attendance.

Farenthold is being sued by a former staffer Lauren Greene over sexual harassment. Greene, Farenthold’s former communications director, claimed in a complaint filed last week that the congressman made inappropriate, sexually related comments to her.

TYT video.

Student Sues Her Divorced Parents For Tuition, Wins

On Monday, a Superior Court judge in Camden, NJ ordered the parents of 21-year-old Temple University student Caitlyn Ricci to pay $906 of her tuition from Gloucester County College (now known as Rowan College at Gloucester County). She has been in a legal battle with her parents, Maura McGarvey and Michael Ricci, for more than a year.

The decision follows a ruling from this fall that bound her parents to pay $16,000 toward her tuition at Temple. The two have appealed that ruling.

Ricci sued her parents last spring, and reports say the woman has not seen her parents outside of court appearances in about two years. Her grandparents are paying her legal fees

Ricci’s legal victory has a legal precedent in Newburgh v. Arrigo, 88 N.J. 529 (1982). In that case, a judge ruled that divorced parents were legally responsible for paying for their children’s higher education.

In November, the parents told Chris J. Brown, a New Jersey assemblyman working to create legislation blocking adult children from suing their parents for tuition, that while they are divorced, they have jointly made decisions about raising their daughter.

Family Of Tamir Rice Files Lawsuit Against Cleveland Police

The family of the 12-year-old boy who was fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer over a toy gun have filed a federal lawsuit claiming the officers “recklessly” shot the boy and then failed to give him immediate medical care.

Officer Timothy Loehmann, who fired the fatal shots, Loehmann’s partner Officer Frank Garmback and the City of Cleveland are all named as defendants in the suit.

The suit accuses Loehmann and Garmback of acting “unreasonably, negligently, recklessly, wantonly, willfully, knowingly, intentionally, and with deliberate indifference to the safety and rights of Tamir Rice.”

The suit also accuses the officers of failing “to secure timely medical assistance.” Surveillance video of the incident shows that Rice wasn’t given first aid by the officers until a medically-trained FBI agent arrived on the scene.

The lawsuit also attacks the policies of the City of Cleveland as a whole.

“Defendant City of Cleveland has a policy, practice and custom of using excessive force on African American citizens and that policy practice and custom was the moving force behind the excessive force used on Tamir Rice and proximately caused his suffering and death,” the suit states.

The suit does not specify how much money Rice’s relatives are asking for in compensation and damages but it asks that the issue be brought before a jury.

Spat Between Russell Brand And The Sun

 

In the U.K., the publication The Sun is having an increasingly bitter spat with Russell Brand with a Friday front page article declaring that 64 per cent of Brits don’t find the comedian funny and 68 per cent think he is a hypocrite.

The findings appear accompanied by the headline “THE NATION SPEAKS”, though the survey, conducted by YouGov, polled just 574 people.

Earlier this year Brand won a libel payout from The Sun on Sunday.

Recently, Brand became agitated when British Channel 4 News reporter Paraic O’Brien asked him much he paid to rent his east London home during a protest over the cost of housing.

He was with a 400-strong group that was demonstrating against the tripling of rent on a Hoxton estate due to a planned development currently threatening 93 families with eviction.

The hundreds of residents and supporters of the New Era estate in east London were taking part in the protest over fears that a takeover by US investment firm Westbrook could lead to further rent hikes.

The reporter O’Brien suggested that the housing problem was being exacerbated by the super-rich buying property in the capital.

During the interview, Brand told the reporter: “I’m not interested in talking to you about my rent, mate. I’m here to support a very important campaign.”

When asked about the value of his home, he went on: “It’s rented. We don’t know the value, you would have to talk to my landlord.”

He ended the interview by saying to the reporter, “Snides like you, mate, undermine [the campaign]. You’re a snide.”

Russell Brand / Trews video.

Glenn Beck Sued For Defamation By Saudi He Accused Of Boston Bombings

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck is being sued by a Saudi Arabian student who Beck repeatedly accused of being affiliated with the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Abdulrahman Alharbi’s allegations “easily permit an inference” that Beck, his company The Blaze Inc, and a distributor of his radio show were negligent toward him over Beck’s comments.

The lawsuit claims that Beck made repeated false statements about Alharbi on his radio show, including that he helped fund the bombing, even after the probe was dropped.

Alharbi, 21, had been a spectator near the marathon’s finish line on April 15, 2013, and suffered minor injuries when two homemade pressure-cooker bombs went off in the crowd.

He was later mentioned in news reports as federal authorities briefly investigated him, but quickly concluded he had no involvement.

TYT video.

Reuters article:

http://news.yahoo.com/glenn-beck-must-face-saudis-lawsuit-over-boston-170459994.html

Irresponsible Government Meltdown? 17 States To Sue Obama Over Immigration Executive Order

John Boehner

According to Reuters, Texas is leading a 17-state coalition that sued the Obama administration on Wednesday over its executive order to ease the threat of deportation for some 4.7 million undocumented immigrants, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said.

“The President’s unilateral executive action tramples the U.S. Constitution’s Take Care Clause and federal law,” Abbott said in a statement.

(The Take Care Clause states that the President must exercise his law-execution power to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”)

The case filed at the Federal Court in the Southern District of Texas said the executive order was unlawful.

Abbott, a Republican and the Texas governor-elect added the order requires federal agencies “to award large benefits to individuals whose conduct contradicts the priorities of Congress.”

With 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, Obama’s plan would let some 4.4 million who are parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents to remain in the country temporarily, without the threat of deportation.

“The President is abdicating his responsibility to faithfully enforce laws that were duly enacted by Congress and attempting to rewrite immigration laws, which he has no authority to do,” Abbott said.

Several presidents have, of course, issued executive orders on immigration, including Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Many of the states in the coalition are Republican strongholds and include Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi and Utah.

Meanwhile, in Washington this week, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner urged fellow Republicans to pass a long-term government spending bill next week, hoping to avoid a government shutdown and pushing any budget fight over Obama’s executive order on immigration into 2015.