2nd Circuit Court

Federal judge in $1.2B Silk Road drug case is threatened online

Threats have been made against a federal judge overseeing the New York prosecution of a man accused of masterminding the underground ‘Silk Road” website on which bitcoins were used to purchase drugs. Private information including the home address of U.S. District Judge Katherine Bolan Forrest has been posted online on…

Oct 22, 2014 4:50 PM CDT

Facebook sues DLA Piper, other firms, 9 attorneys, says they conspired on fraudulent case

Sued in 2010 by Paul Ceglia, who claimed a majority ownership interest in Facebook Inc. based on documentation since determined by a federal court to have been faked, the social media goliath and its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, have now turned the tables. A new lawsuit (PDF) filed Monday by Facebook…

Oct 20, 2014 5:00 PM CDT

Settlement saves convicted attorney from making lengthy handcuffed trip to testify about law firm

A dispute between a bankruptcy administrator and a company to which $137 million was transferred before Marc Dreier’s law firm collapsed has been settled. So the former New York lawyer, who is serving a 20-year federal prison term in Minnesota for defrauding hedge fund investors of $400 million, won’t have…

Oct 17, 2014 11:25 AM CDT

Wall Street law partner sues New York police, says he was arrested for talking to Occupy protesters

A partner of a well-known law firm thought he had a constitutional right to talk with Occupy Wall Street anniversary protesters on his way to an appointment last September. But New York City police officers disagreed, according to partner Stephen Kass of Carter Ledyard & Milburn. Taken to a police…

Sep 26, 2014 1:10 PM CDT

Lawyer guilty in client money-laundering case; his own words at trial helped convict him, juror says

After more than a week of trial and over a day of deliberation, a Connecticut lawyer was found guilty Thursday by a federal jury in a client money-laundering case. As the verdict was announced, Ralph Crozier, 62, slumped his shoulders, shook his head slightly and put his hands down on…

Sep 26, 2014 11:25 AM CDT

Judge nixes ex-lawyer’s plea to avoid weeks of handcuffed travel, says he must attend law firm trial

Remember Marc Dreier? Convicted in 2009 of a running a $400 million fraud from his now-defunct New York City law firm, the former attorney is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Minnesota. But a bankruptcy case concerning the Dreier firm is ongoing and, despite Dreier’s objection, he…

Sep 24, 2014 10:30 AM CDT

Senior bin Laden aide gets life in terror case; defense argued his only crime was offensive speech

Rejecting a defense argument that a Kuwaiti cleric who served as a senior adviser to Osama bin Laden was guilty only of offensive speech, a federal judge in Manhattan on Tuesday sentenced Sulaiman Abu Ghaith to life in prison for his terrorism-support conviction earlier this year. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan…

Sep 23, 2014 1:40 PM CDT

Lawyer helped launder drug profits, ex-client testifies

Ordinarily, Bruce Yazdzik spends his days in a federal prison in New Jersey, where he is serving a 10-year sentence for a drug conviction. But on Tuesday he was in a federal court in New Haven, Connecticut, where Yazdzik testified that his former lawyer, Ralph Crozier, helped him launder profits…

Sep 17, 2014 10:00 AM CDT

Employee of Wilson Sonsini is charged with insider trading; firm calls case ‘deeply disturbing’

An information technology worker at a powerhouse Silicon Valley law firm was arrested Tuesday in an insider-trading case. Dmitry Braverman, 41, is accused of using information he learned from his work at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati about potential mergers and acquisitions when purchasing stock. He faces a single count…

Sep 16, 2014 3:05 PM CDT

Onetime law student Mathew Martoma gets 9 years in ‘most lucrative’ $275M insider-trading case

A onetime Harvard University law student expelled for altering his transcript was sentenced Monday to nine years in prison in a case billed by federal prosecutors as “the most lucrative insider-trading scheme ever charged.” Mathew Martoma, 40, had faced as much as 20 years in the Manhattan case over his…

Sep 8, 2014 4:05 PM CDT

NYC will pay $41M to five men who served time in Central Park jogger case, but admits no liability

A federal magistrate judge in New York has OK’d a settlement in which New York City will pay $41 million to five men who were wrongfully convicted and served time for a brutal 1989 rape and beating in Central Park. However, the city admits no liability for the conviction and…

Sep 5, 2014 12:50 PM CDT

Former top NYC lawyer sues police department, says she was arrested for standing on a sidewalk

A former top lawyer for New York City is suing the municipality’s police department. She says she was arrested for simply standing on a public sidewalk in Times Square this summer as she waited for her husband and children to return from using the restroom at a nearby restaurant. Chaumtoli…

Sep 4, 2014 11:45 AM CDT

Pacer deletes older case files for four appeals courts; compatibility issues cited

Be prepared to jump through some hoops if you would like to access older, closed court records for patent appeals or cases in federal appeals courts based in Chicago, Atlanta and New York. On Aug. 10, the federal courts announced that older court records were being deleted from Pacer for…

Aug 27, 2014 11:15 AM CDT

Man exonerated by own research gets $13M for wrongful conviction in rabbi slaying

Wrongfully convicted of murdering a rabbi in 1994, a high-school dropout who served 16 years before being exonerated due largely to his own pro se legal work from prison has won one of the largest settlements in New York City history. Now represented by a lawyer, Jabbar Collins, 42, is…

Aug 19, 2014 9:25 PM CDT

Man who says he was arrested for taking cellphone photos of NYC cops gets $125K settlement

Dick George was allegedly pulled out of his car, arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for taking cellphone photos of New York City police officers as they were stopping and frisking three youths in Brooklyn on June 14, 2012. George reportedly spent less than an hour in custody. However, he…

Aug 18, 2014 4:05 PM CDT