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Ex-pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli speaks to the press in front of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York with members of his legal team after the jury issued a verdict on Aug. 4, 2017.

Facing a little more than a year left of his seven-year securities fraud sentence, so-called Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli will face a civil trial later this year where state and federal regulators will try to permanently ban him from the pharmaceutical industry.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, who will be hearing the case without a jury, set a bench trial date for Dec. 14.

In an order on Tuesday, Judge Cote ordered Shkrelis counsel to confirm whether Shkreli will be present at his trial.

If so, she wants the parties to request any necessary writ of habeas corpus for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to transfer the 38-year-old from the Allenwood Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania to the Southern District of New York in lower Manhattan.

Shkrelis civil litigation stems from his decision to jack up the price of the live-saving drug Daraprim 40-fold, an act that earned him national scorn and a cult following for his unapologetic defense of that hike.

At the time, Shkreli served as CEO of the company then-named Turing Pharmaceuticals, but regulators claim that the anticompetitive conduct continued after he went to prison and his company got a rebranding as Vyera.

Daraprim is a lifesaving drug for vulnerable patients, Gail Levine, the deputy director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission, noted when unveiling the case in January 2020. Vyera kept the price of Daraprim astronomically high by illegally boxing out the competition.

New York Attorney General Letitia James(D), who also brought the case along with the FTC, echoed those sentiments at the time.

Martin Shkreli and Vyera not only enriched themselves by despicably jacking up the price of this life-saving medication by 4,000 percent in a single day, but held this critical drug hostage from patients and competitors as they illegally sought to maintain their monopoly, AG James wrote more than a year and a half ago. We filed this lawsuit to stop Vyeras egregious conduct, make the company pay for its illegal scheming, and block Martin Shkreli from ever working in the pharmaceutical industry again. We wont allow Pharma Bros to manipulate the market and line their pockets at the expense of vulnerable patients and the health care system.

Citing reporting in the Wall Street Journal, regulators claim that Shkreli exercised shadow power over Vyera and its Swiss corporate parent Phoenixus from behind bars.

In June, Judge Cote found that Shkreli used a contraband phone behind bars to communicate with his associates, including Vyera executive Akeel Mithani and Kevin Mulleady, an owner and former director of Vyera.

The judge gave a light sanction for that violation.

When asked during a deposition earlier this year whether he had a cell phone in prison, Shkreli invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to the ruling.

In late July, the U.S. government sold one of Shkrelis once-prized but since-forfeited possessions: Wu Tang Clans bespoke album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The buyers identity is currently unknown.

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

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Now We Know When Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli Will Face Trial That Could Lead to Pharmaceutical Industry Ban - Law & Crime

A frequent flier suing seven US airlines said he plans to file an amended complaint on Monday, which will add multiple plaintiffs to his lawsuit over the airlines' mask requirements.

Lucas Wall, of Washington DC, said via email on Friday that he planned to add new charges against the airlines, including "conspiracy to interfere with civil rights."

Wall had previously told Insider: "It will be a stronger case with multiple plaintiffs showing the wide-ranging discrimination in the airline industry."

The lawsuit was filed June in US District Court in Orlando against Southwest, Alaska, Allegiant, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, and Spirit. Wall, who is representing himself, also has an ongoing lawsuit against the Biden administration.

Wall, in his original complaint against the airlines, claimed each had discriminated against those who couldn't wear masks for medical reasons, including himself. In his initial court filings, he included his medical records for generalized anxiety disorder.

In conversations with Insider, several people who were expected to join the lawsuit as plaintiffs claimed they'd had experiences similar to Wall's.

"The disabled are being criminalized during the pandemic attacked, harassed, and blamed," said Shannon Cila, of Kentucky, in an interview on Thursday.

Cila said her involvement with the case began after she was arrested in Kentucky. The arrest rattled her, she said.

"That set me up for a lot of anxiety, with having to deal with these mask exemptions, non-exemption policies, with private businesses everywhere, including airlines," she said. "If you have an invisible disability, people look at you. They think because you're not on an oxygen tank, or something they can't tell what your problem might be."

Cila found Wall through his GoFundMe campaign, she said.

Uriel ben-Mordechai and his wife, Adi, planned to join the lawsuit, he said on Friday. He moved to Israel about four decades ago, but regularly flies back to the Bay Area and Southern California to visit family.

A Torah scholar and lecturer, ben-Mordechai said his decision to join Wall's lawsuit was in part driven by his faith. He said he looked to Deuteronomy 16:20, part of which translates to "justice, pursue justice."

"It tells you, you have to make justice happen and it's not going to happen unless you do the part that God is giving you to do," ben-Mordechai said in a phone interview from Israel.

Leonardo McDonnell, another traveller seeking to join Wall's lawsuit, was more forceful in his language. "I will sue these sick tyrants' granddaughters if the legal system lets me," McDonnell, of Florida, said in an email when Insider reached out to him.

The airlines in late August filed their initial responses to Wall's lawsuit. Each one sought to dismiss the case on technical grounds, saying in part that Wall didn't have the standing to sue them in federal court under the Air Carrier Access Act.

Some legal experts and academics said they have doubts about whether the wave of lawsuits over federal mask requirements will put an end to Biden's mandate, although they weren't asked specifically about Wall's case.

Others said there were flaws in the Biden administration's argument that the mask mandates were not unconstitutional.

Paul Engel, founder of The Constitution Study, an online guide to the constitution, said the federal mandates were unconstitutional for a few reasons. The Fifth Amendment, for example, requires "due process of law," he said.

"[G]overnments at all levels are prohibited from enforcing mask mandates until they have shown probable cause that the individual is a danger to others," Engel said via email.

Monday is Wall's deadline for filing an amended complaint.

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Man suing airlines over mask rule plans to accuse them of a conspiracy - Business Insider

Bill Cosby celebrated his release in June but he fears that he can be prosecuted again for Los Angeles civil lawsuit.

Judy Huth alleged the disgraced comedian sexually assaulted her when she was 15-years-old at the Playboy Mansion in 1974.

Huth filed the lawsuit in 2014 and Cosby declined to answer the questions for the disposition. Plus, the criminal case filed by Andrea Constand took over and ultimately led to his conviction.

Bill Cosby has the opportunity to testify in Huths case but his attorney Michael Freedman informed the judge that his client will not speak on the alleged assaults and exercise his fifth amendment right.

Defendant does not agree that merely because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated Defendants criminal conviction for a single offense, allegedly arising from an incident that occurred in 2004, Defendant no longer enjoys a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

The document states that Cosby is remaining silent in an attempt to avoid prosecution. This is particularly so where numerous states have no criminal statutes of limitations for sex crimes. It is well-settled that the Fifth Amendment protects both the innocent and the guilty. Having already been forced to face a malicious criminal prosecution that resulted in an unlawful three-year incarceration, Defendant is not confident that such a risk does not still exist in this jurisdiction and others.

Freedman explained, Indeed, prior to a stay being entered in this case, LAPD claimed that the Huth matter is an open criminal investigation. Thus, Defendant anticipates that if he is forced to sit for a deposition, he will exercise his Fifth Amendment guarantees absent a court order ruling that he has no Fifth Amendment right in this jurisdiction or any others.

Read more from the original source:
ICYMI: Bill Cosby to Plead Fifth Amendment in Civil Lawsuit - The Source Magazine

Bill Cosby is out of prison but not clear of trouble. For the first time since June, when he was released from a Pennsylvania jail, his lawyers have addressed a judge. Specifically, a judge serving the Los Angeles Superior Court, where Cosby currently faces a civil suit brought by Judy Huth, who alleges being sexually assaulted by him at the Playboy Mansion in 1974.

The Huth case, originally filed in 2014, has been on hold for years. At one point, Cosby was ordered to sit for a deposition, and he did, but refused to answer questions. The litigation then took a back seat to Cosbys criminal problems. Now that Cosbys conviction for assaulting Andrea Constand has been overturned by the Pennsylvanias highest court because of an old non-prosecution agreement in that jurisdiction, Cosby is free, at least in theory, to testify in civil cases. (Recall, for example, how O.J. Simpson had to take the witness stand in a wrongful death suit he eventually lost after he beat a criminal case for the murders of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman.)

But although he may be contemplating going back on tour, Cosby, through his attorney Michael Freedman, tells a Los Angeles judge that he will continue to resist speaking about his alleged assaults.

Defendant does not agree that merely because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated Defendants criminal conviction for a single offense, allegedly arising from an incident that occurred in 2004, Defendant no longer enjoys a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, states a status conference report made public Wednesday. This is particularly so where numerous states have no criminal statutes of limitations for sex crimes. It is well-settled that the Fifth Amendment protects both the innocent and the guilty. Having already been forced to face a malicious criminal prosecution that resulted in an unlawful three-year incarceration, Defendant is not confident that such a risk does not still exist in this jurisdiction and others.

Cosbys lawyer even points to the potential for prosecution in Los Angeles.

Indeed, prior to a stay being entered in this case, LAPD claimed that the Huth matter is an open criminal investigation, continues Freedman. Thus, Defendant anticipates that if he is forced to sit for a deposition, he will exercise his Fifth Amendment guarantees absent a court order ruling that he has no Fifth Amendment right in this jurisdiction or any others.

(A Cosby spokesperson did later note to The Hollywood Reporter that theres documentation how that LAPD investigation had concluded.)

The status report also highlights another coming development in this case involving Huth, who is represented by Gloria Allred.

At the beginning of 2020, California civil law was amended to allow victims of childhood sex abuse to sue over very old events. Specifically, the amended law allows such a plaintiff to sue upon becoming an adult within five years of discovering a psychological injury caused by the sexual assault.

Huth says she was 15 years old at the time of the alleged assault (Cosby is disputing her age) so this amended law opens the door to a potentially viable case. Cosbys attorney appears to agree that the look-back provision, which largely abolished the statute of limitations, applies in cases like the Huth suit, not litigated to finality.

But in the face of this change in law (plus others, as in New York, which has similarly gotten rid of the statute of limitations for childhood sexual assaults), Cosby wishes to make a constitutional challenge. A judge is told that neither the California Supreme Court nor the United States Supreme Court has addressed the constitutionality of such an amended law presumably whether it violates due process. With respect to a nearly five-decade-old occurrence, Cosbys attorney anticipates making the argument its legally out of bounds.

Read more from the original source:
Bill Cosby to Invoke Fifth Amendment Due to Fear of New Prosecution - Hollywood Reporter

The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld a decision of a Board of Professional Responsibility Hearing Panel denying an attorneys petition seeking relief from costs associated with his disbarment proceedings.

This case stems from a petition of discipline filed against Knoxville attorney Loring Edwin Justice by the Board of Professional Responsibility on September 25, 2013. A hearing panel of the Board determined that Mr. Justice had violated four provisions of the Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct, and he was sanctioned with twelve additional hours of continuing legal education and a one-year active suspension. The Board and Mr. Justice both appealed to the Sixth Judicial District Chancery Court, which affirmed the hearing panels findings of fact and conclusions of law, but modified the sanction to disbarment. Mr. Justice appealed to the Supreme Court, and it affirmed the Chancery Court. Following the Supreme Courts decision, the Board assessed costs and expenses amounting to $25,403.65 against Mr. Justice under pre-2014 Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 9. These expenses were detailed in an August 22, 2019 invoice.

Mr. Justice filed a petition for relief from costs and objected to certain time entries and expenses, arguing that he should be relieved from all costs because the disciplinary proceedings were unconstitutional, the standard of proof used in the proceedings was preponderance of the evidence rather than clear and convincing evidence, and his Fifth Amendment privilege againstself-incrimination was violated. He also argued that certain time entries were inflated and other expenses were unnecessary. Mr. Justice then filed a written request to depose disciplinary counsel, propound interrogatories, and conduct discovery. The Board filed a response in opposition to Mr. Justices request to conduct discovery and responded to Mr. Justices petition for relief from costs. A Board of Professional Responsibility Hearing Panel held two telephonic hearings and ultimately issued orders denying Mr. Justices request to conduct discovery and his petition for relief from costs and objections to costs assessed, except that the Hearing Panel reduced the attorney time the Board billed for certain activities. Mr. Justice appealed to the Supreme Court.

In a unanimous opinion, the Court affirmed the Hearing Panels decision. The Court held that the Hearing Panel did not abuse its discretion when it denied Mr. Justices discovery request and heard his case on the pleadings and arguments of counsel. The Court further held that, while pre-2014 Rule 9 gives attorneys the opportunity to seek relief from costs assessed for a disciplinary proceeding, it does not provide attorneys with a second chance to relitigate issues decided against them in the underlying disciplinary proceedings. Therefore, the Court concluded that the Hearing Panel did not abuse its discretion when it declined to address Mr. Justices claims that his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in the underlying disciplinary case was violated. Finally, the Court held that the Hearing Panels decision to not reduce the Boards assessment of fees and costs and enforce the Boards assessment of costs against Mr. Justice was supported by substantial and material evidence.

To read the Supreme Courts opinion in In re: Loring Edwin Justice, authored by Justice Cornelia A. Clark, go to the opinions section of TNCourts.gov.

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Tennessee Supreme Court Upholds Assessment of Costs Against Disbarred Attorney - Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts