In cruise ship disaster, an SOS for lawyers is a post from: New York Lawyers And Attorneys

Article source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-italy-ship-lawyertre80r009-20120127,0,6538619.story

    NEW YORK, NY, February 04, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ — According to a gender discrimination lawsuit (INDEX NO. 150042/2012) filed in Manhattan by a former Late Night With Jimmy Fallon stage manager, Jimmy Fallon fired a number of male employees because he “prefers to take direction from a woman.”

“Discrimination and harassment are prohibited on the basis of a person’s sex,” said David Perecman, a New York civil rights violation lawyer with over 30 years of experience helping individuals who have been discriminated against in the workplace because of their sex.

In his New York workplace gender discrimination lawsuit, Paul Tarascio claims he was fired from his position in early 2010 and replaced by a “totally incompetent woman” who repeatedly asked him how to do the job and failed at her stage managing duties more than once.

When he complained about being replaced by a woman, Tarascio says he was told by David Diomedi, the director of the show, “You know Jimmy. He loves his woman.”

“Being fired because a person in a position of power is more comfortable with someone of the other gender is an example of sex discrimination in the workplace,” said New York civil rights violation lawyer Perecman, founder of The Perecman Firm, one of New York’s civil rights violation law firms.

Tarascio also claims in the gender discrimination lawsuit that he wasn’t the only victim of gender discrimination in the workplace. He says Fallon fired other male employees, including audio technicians and the Prop-Master, and replaced them with women.

Tarascio is suing for punitive damages and lost wages.

In July 2010, Tarascio filed his original gender discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the New York Division of Human Rights, according to EOnline (1/26/2012).

New York civil rights violation lawyers at The Perecman Firm represent victims of workplace gender discrimination in New York, as well as individuals who have experienced retaliation after reporting harassment in the workplace.

Individuals who believe they have suffered workplace gender discrimination, sexual harassment or retaliation in New York, please contact The Perecman Firm at http://www.perecman.com.

About David Perecman and The Perecman Firm, PLLC:
For the past 30 years, the New York civil rights violation, medical malpractice, auto accident, and construction accident lawyers at The Perecman Firm, PLLC have handled all types of cases including age and disability discrimination. David Perecman, founder of the Firm, is a Board Director and the past Secretary and Treasurer of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association (NYSTLA) and a chair of its Labor Law Committee. Mr. Perecman’s achievements have brought him recognition as an Honoree in the National Law Journal’s Hall of Fame, in New York Magazine’s “The Best Lawyers in America” and The New York Times Magazine “New York Super Lawyers, Metro Edition” for the years 2007-2010.

The Firm has recovered millions of dollars for its clients. Among the more
recent victories, Mr. Perecman won a $15 million verdict** for a construction
accident, a $5.35 million dollar verdict*** for an automobile accident, and a
$40 million dollar structured settlement for medical malpractice****.
The Perecman Firm serves Long Island, Westchester, Upstate NY, Morris County, and Rockland County.

**later settled while on appeal for $7.940 million
*** later settled for $3.5 million
**** total potential payout

“Lawyer Advertising”
“Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.”

—
Press release service and press release distribution provided by http://www.24-7pressrelease.com

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Press Release Keywords:

• new york city civil rights violation attorney, gender discrimination, employment discrimination, workplace discrimination, harassment, sex discrimination, retaliation, lawyer, attorney, new york, manhattan, nyc, the perecman firm

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New York Civil Rights Violation Lawyer Comments on Workplace Gender Discrimination Complaints Filed Against Late Night with Jimmy Fallon – 24 is a post from: New York Lawyers And Attorneys

Article source: http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/new-york-civil-rights-violation-lawyer-comments-on-workplace-gender-discrimination-complaints-filed-against-late-night-with-jimmy-fallon-260856.php

By David McLaughlin

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) — JPMorgan Chase Co., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo Co. were sued by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman over the use of a mortgage database that the state said led to improper foreclosures.

The banks’ use of the database, known as MERS, misled homeowners, undermined foreclosure proceedings and created uncertainty about ownership interests in properties, the state said in the complaint filed yesterday in New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

“The banks created the MERS system as an end-run around the property recording system, to facilitate the rapid securitization and sale of mortgages,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Once the mortgages went sour, these same banks brought foreclosure proceedings en masse based on deceptive and fraudulent court submissions.”

The lawsuit came three days before a Feb. 6 deadline for states to join a proposed multistate agreement over foreclosure practices said to be worth as much as $25 billion. Last week, Schneiderman was selected by the Obama administration to help lead a state-federal group probing misconduct in the packaging and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities.

Servicing Rights

MERS tracks servicing rights and ownership interests in mortgage loans on its electronic registry, allowing banks to buy and sell loans without recording transfers with individual counties. The system was created by the mortgage industry to evade recording fees, avoid the need to publicly record mortgage transfers and facilitate the packaging of mortgage loans into securities, Schneiderman said in the complaint.

Merscorp Inc., which operates the mortgage registry, was sued by Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden last year. Biden claimed the registry is deceptive and harms consumers by permitting foreclosures “for which the authority has not been fully determined and may not be legitimate.”

Janis Smith, a spokeswoman for Reston, Virginia-based Merscorp, which was also named as a defendant in the New York complaint, said in an e-mailed statement that the company rejects the attorney general’s allegations and will fight the suit.

Reviewing Complaint

Rick Simon, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, and Tom Kelly, a spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan, declined to comment on the suit. Tom Goyda, a spokesman for San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, said the bank was reviewing the complaint.

The state’s complaint, which couldn’t be immediately verified in court records yesterday, states that MERS eliminated the ability of the public and homeowners to track the purchase and sale of properties through the traditional public records system. That information is stored in the MERS private database, which Schneiderman called unreliable and inaccurate. The mortgage industry has saved more than $2 billion in recording fees with the system, according to the complaint.

Use of Registry

Banks’ use of the registry, coupled with “faulty and sloppy” document preparation, has resulted in foreclosures being filed against New York homeowners where the foreclosing party lacked the authority to sue, Schneiderman said.

By relying on legally invalid mortgage assignments using MERS, foreclosure judgments have been obtained “through fraudulent and illegal means,” according to the complaint.

MERS’ conduct and the banks’ use of the system “have resulted in the filing of improper New York foreclosure proceedings, undermined the integrity of the judicial process, created confusion and uncertainty concerning property ownership interests and potentially created clouds of title on properties throughout the state of New York,” the state said.

–Editors: Stephen Farr, Glenn Holdcraft

To contact the reporter on this story: David McLaughlin in New York at dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at jpickering@bloomberg.net

JPMorgan, BofA Sued by New York Over Use of Mortgage Database is a post from: New York Lawyers And Attorneys

Article source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-04/jpmorgan-bofa-sued-by-new-york-over-use-of-mortgage-database.html

Two years into Mr. Vance’s tenure running one of the nation’s most prominent prosecution offices, the cases in which the office’s actions have received the most criticism involved highly publicized allegations of sexual assault. Those were the cases against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, which Mr. Vance ultimately dropped; and against on-duty police officers, Kenneth Moreno and Franklin L. Mata, who were convicted only on lesser charges.

The facts of the complaint against Greg Kelly are far from fully known; sources said a woman accused Mr. Kelly of raping her in October in her office building in Lower Manhattan after they shared cocktails at a bar. Because it involved the commissioner’s son, the Police Department referred the matter to Mr. Vance’s office for investigation.

Robert M. Morgenthau, Mr. Vance’s predecessor and onetime boss, who ran the office for 35 years, said he could not recall a case in which the entire Police Department was left out of a criminal inquiry because of a potential conflict of interest.

Some experienced New York lawyers said that for Mr. Vance, the case was an opportunity, not so much for a high-profile conviction as to show competency in the political aspect of his job.

One longtime observer of the office, who would speak only anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter, said: “I would think that people would be looking to see, O.K., is this going to be kind of a reasonable process that instills confidence that there has been a competent investigation, things have proceeded fairly, and people can see that justice has been done.”

To be sure, Mr. Vance has shown no hint of shying away from difficult cases involving sexual assault, which can be among the most challenging to pursue.

In this case, the woman’s complaint was filed three months after the encounter she described.

She told the police that her boyfriend had become angry when he learned about the night. He approached the police commissioner at a public event and told him that the younger Mr. Kelly had sexually assaulted his girlfriend. The commissioner, according to the woman’s account, told the boyfriend to write a letter. A spokesman for Commissioner Kelly, Paul J. Browne, said he was not aware of the commissioner’s having received such a letter.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took no issue with the commissioner’s handling of the matter. “In this case I thought the Police Department did exactly what they should do,” the mayor said Thursday in a news conference.

The younger Mr. Kelly, 43, has denied the accusation, through his lawyer, Andrew M. Lankler.

On Thursday, he did not appear in his usual spot as co-anchor of “Good Day New York” on the Fox station WNYW (Channel 5). Lew Leone, the general manager of the station, said Mr. Kelly had requested some time off, but he declined to elaborate.

The case was the talk of local courthouses.

The defense lawyer Gerald L. Shargel said that because of the complexity of such accusations and the involvement of the commissioner’s son, if he were a prosecutor he “would hate to see this one dropped on my head.”

Linda A. Fairstein, who became the nation’s best-known prosecutor of sex crimes during a 30-year career in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said the case would not be at all extraordinary if it did not involve a well-known suspect. Rape accusations that include the accuser drinking are as common as they are difficult to prove, she said.

“Alcohol is a horribly influential factor in these cases when it’s voluntarily ingested,” said Ms. Fairstein, who has written several legal thrillers since her retirement a decade ago. “When a victim tells you she can’t remember what happened, it’s very hard to make a case.”

Ms. Fairstein said Mr. Vance could have passed the case off to a district attorney in another county if its implications had unduly concerned him.

“I don’t think this is a case that is going to trouble Cy or the office,” she said.

Mr. Morgenthau said complicated cases involving public figures come with the turf. “That’s what you get that big salary for,” he said. “You have to take the hard cases. I’m sure he’ll handle it appropriately.”

Al Baker, Michael M. Grynbaum and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

With Rape Inquiry, District Attorney Again Finds Himself in a Tough Spot is a post from: New York Lawyers And Attorneys

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/nyregion/rape-accusation-against-raymond-kellys-son-puts-da-in-tough-spot.html

The letter urged Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate NYPD’s surveillance operations, revealed by an Associated Press investigation, which monitored entire neighborhoods and built databases about everyday life in Muslim communities.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have insisted that police only follow legitimate leads and do not conduct preventative surveillance in ethnic communities. A May 2006 report addressed to Kelly, however, recommended increased spying at mosques and an assessment of the region’s Palestinian community to look for potential terrorists.

Even before the AP published the document, Kelly was under fire from Muslim groups who were angry that a controversial movie about Muslims, “The Third Jihad,” was shown at NYPD training sessions. Kelly appears briefly in the movie.

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Muslims to NY Attorney General: Investigate NYPD is a post from: New York Lawyers And Attorneys

Article source: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Muslims-Spy-NYPD-Surveillance-Mosque-Intelligence-Protest-138705969.html

Crawford Shaw, 76, said on Thursday he was withdrawing his claim to a Hot Lotto ticket worth up to $14.3 million “because I’m not going to argue with the lottery.”

Shaw’s decision appears to end what Iowa lottery officials called the strangest jackpot pursuit they had ever experienced.

The winning ticket was turned in December 29, less than two hours before it would have expired a year after the drawing. Iowa Lottery officials tested and validated the ticket, but refused to pay out the winnings until they could verify the purchaser’s identity, among other things.

Shaw, who had signed the ticket as a trustee for an entity he called the Hexam Investment Trust, never revealed who was in the trust.

Iowa Lottery officials gave him a deadline: Tell us who you represent by 3 p.m. Friday afternoon or forget about collecting the millions.

In the meantime, the lottery said it had learned that Shaw was “associated with criminal proceedings and bankruptcy filings in New York and Delaware,” and officials were investigating.

Shaw is the former chief executive officer of Industrial Enterprises of America Inc., a bankrupt public company that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said was looted in a $100 million securities fraud scheme.

Shaw, who was not charged with criminal wrongdoing, is a defendant in a civil suit by the company. He claims to know nothing about the suit.

In any case, he chose on Thursday to call off his pursuit of the winning ticket payout, telling Reuters he had asked a local law firm to pass along his decision to lottery officials.

The Iowa Lottery said that it received confirmation of the claim withdrawal shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday.

The Iowa Lottery recently asked the state Division of Criminal Investigation and the Iowa attorney general to investigate the circumstances surrounding the purchase and redemption of the ticket.

The investigation will continue “to ensure the integrity of the lottery and to determine whether those involved complied with state law,” Iowa’s attorney general said in a statement Thursday night.

Asked if he thought he’d get to the bottom of what happened, Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich said, “If we knew the details, we’d probably be writing a check tonight.”

(Editing by Paul Thomasch)

Lawyer gives up $14 million Iowa lottery ticket claim is a post from: New York Lawyers And Attorneys

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/lawyer-gives-14-million-iowa-lottery-ticket-claim-001415710.html

The Associated PressNew York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, center, and Theo Epstein right, the president of baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs, meet with reporters prior to a joint appearance Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, at Sacred Heart in Fairfield, Conn.

NEW YORK (AP) – A woman stalked and shook down New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, getting him to pay her $6,000 and demanding more by threatening to harm his reputation, prosecutors said Thursday.

The case represents “a long-term effort to control and manipulate the victim,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eric Iverson told a judge as Louise Neathway, 36, was arraigned on grand larceny, stalking and harassment charges.

Her lawyers said Cashman had had “an inappropriate relationship” with Neathway, a medical sales worker and single mother of a 14-year-old daughter, and he turned on her when it ended badly.

“The Manhattan district attorney’s office bought his account of how this happened, hook, line and sinker,” lawyer Stephen G. McCarthy said. He and fellow Neathway lawyer Alan M. Abramson said Neathway denied the allegations.

Cashman said through spokesman Chris Giglio that he is “very grateful that this matter is in the hands of law enforcement.”

The Yankees declined to comment.

Neathway – who has a history of arrests on similar charges, prosecutors said – sometimes called and texted Cashman more than 10 times a night and threatened to harm someone he knew, prosecutors said.

After he told her last April that he didn’t want to talk to her anymore and even changed his contact information to avoid her, she asked him to pay for a $15,000-plus medical procedure and threatened to contact the press and his family with claims that would hurt his personal relationships and professional standing, according to a court complaint.

In response, he put $6,000 into two of her bank accounts Jan. 18 and tried again to extricate himself, but she instead demanded more money for operations, the complaint said.

A British native who also goes by Louise Meanwell, Neathway has a record that goes back to a 1998 trespassing arrest in North Carolina, Iverson told a judge. She’s still on probation stemming from a 2008 trespassing conviction in a New Jersey case that involved allegations of stalking and sending someone as many as 200 text messages in a weekend, and she has an open 2010 Manhattan harassment case, Iverson said.

McCarthy noted in court that the Manhattan case had been put on track to be dismissed, and he suggested prosecutors were making too much of the New Jersey case.

As for the current case, “it would be unfair to all of the parties involved to speculate about what occurred,” he and Abramson said in a written statement.

Neathway was being held on $300,000 bond. Her next court date is Tuesday.

Woman charged with stalking New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman is a post from: New York Lawyers And Attorneys

Article source: http://www.masslive.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/02/woman_charged_with_stalking_ne.html

A. The five-story building, which houses the Akdeniz Turkish restaurant on the ground floor and a beauty salon on the second, is 12 ½ feet wide. It was built in 1865; the upper stories contain apartments. It lies on an eclectic block of buildings between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas that Christopher Gray described in The New York Times in 2006 as “an architectural thrift shop” mixing “everything from ancient brownstone to Art Deco.”

Several bloggers have done research on the short, narrow building. Postings on the Web site Scouting New York explain the narrowness: lots were often sold in 25-foot widths, and some commercial developers squeezed two narrow buildings side by side to increase profits. That happened in this case: No. 19 had a twin — No. 17 — also 12 ½ feet wide, but it was later torn down.

The writer of the blog Secondat, who asked that his name not be printed, said his great-grandfather Louis Windmuller, a merchant, had a long commute in the 1860s between his office on Reade Street and his home in Woodside, Queens. So he took an apartment at 19 West 46th Street, probably soon after the building was erected. In 1884, the Windmullers celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary there.

Thinness was no barrier to marital bliss, apparently. In 1891, an article about the wedding of Dr. Albert H. Ely and Maud L. Merchant said the newlyweds would be living at 19 West 46th.

Other newspaper articles detail a rich history for such a small place. Tenants have included an architect, a milliner, a car salesman, a homeopathic physician, a coin dealer, an art gallery and a lawyer who, as a young man in Oklahoma, prosecuted the Dalton gang.

Westbound Garbage

Q. I was driving on the George Washington Bridge recently and passed two New York City Department of Sanitation garbage trucks heading to New Jersey.  Where were they going? And do they have to pay the toll when they come back?

A. Sanitation Department collection trucks bound for New Jersey take refuse to a waste-to-energy company, Covanta Energy, in Newark, and to a solid-waste transfer station, Interstate Waste Services, in Jersey City, replied Matthew LiPani, a Sanitation Department spokesman. And yes, he added, the trucks pay the required tolls.