Tony Bombassi
Case Brief- U.S. v. Martha Stewart and Peter Bacanovic, 305 F. Supp. 2d 368 (SDNY 2004)
December 5, 2016
Facts
Martha Stewart was CEO of her own publicly traded company. Bacanovic was a stock broker at Merrill Lynch who handle the stock sale. The criminal charges against Stewart and Bacanovic came about on December 27, 2001 after the sale of 3,928 shares of stock in ImClone Systems, Inc. ImClone was a biotechnology company. ImClone had a new cancer treatment drug named Erbitux and had classified it as their lead product. On December 28, 2001, ImClone announced that the Food and Drug Administration had rejected the company’s application for approval of Erbitux. The indictment alleges that on the morning of December 27, 2001, defendant Bacanovic learned that
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Rule(s)
The government asserted that defendant lied about the reasons for selling stock she owned in ImClone is order to cover up an illegal trade. Also, the government asserted that defendant made materially false statements regarding the sale of the stock with the intention to defraud and deceived investors in order to slow or stop the erosion of the value of her company’s securities.
In the civil securities fraud context, the Supreme Court has held that intent indicates that the plaintiff act willfully with a realization that she was acting wrongfully, Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U.S> 185, 193, 47 L.Ed. 2d 668, 96 S. Ct. 1375 (1976). Or in the criminal securities indictment did the plaintiff have a mental state embracing intent to deceive, manipulate, or defraud, United States v. Dixon, 536 F.2d 1388, 1395 (2d Cir. 1976).
The issue is not which definition of intent to apply, but whether, taking into account the heightened standard of proof in criminal cases, is there sufficient evidence of Stewart’s intent to deceive investors.
While Agent Althouse was executing his duties, he was parked at a Chevron Service Station waiting on a colleague, when the defendant Clemons exit a car driven by Kenny Reed with a firearm. He then walked over to the Z-28 Camaro and shot agent Althouse in an attempt to steal the vehicle. The Defendants Clemons and Smith are charged with violating 18 U.S.C.&&1111 and 1114. Clemons
POINTS AND AUTHORITIES IN OPPOSITION TO DEMURRER Plaintiff, Alicia Mandolin, submits these Points and Authorities in opposition to Defendant Elvin Evans's demurrer. STATEMENT OF FACTS In our case, Alicia Mandolin bought a 100-year-old house from Gerald Ross about a year ago. Ross bought the house from Elvin Evans, Evans told Ross that he had rewired the entire property and done a good job before selling the house to him. Evans lied, some portion of the property's wiring had been replaced but the majority of the wiring was not replaced.
In the case of Adelphia, the individuals found guilty in this case neglected their duties as managers and their duties to the SHAREHOLDERS. With the positions as Chairman of the board of directors, President, and Vice President, they all had "fiduciary duties to both the corporation and its shareholders" Beatty & Samuelson (2016). The SEC's suit against them for multiple frauds on different counts, did not protect them from the BUSINESS JUDGEMENT RULE based on the fact that they weren't acting in good faith by putting the company in debt and manipulating statements to conceal the
There were a number of serious disclosure issues in this case that had to be resolved which in turn led to other, fairly large, party discoveries. CIBC’s defense to the wrongful dismissal of Mr. Saturley is just cause. Mr. Saturley was accused of causing trades for many clients without their consent, and that he had performed a task which was outside of his duties to perform. Throughout the trial Mr. Saturley had been pushing for details of the accusations towards him.
Case: Carl M. Miles, et al., vs City council of Augusta, Georgia, et al. 710 F.2d 1542 Facts: In 1983, Mr. and Mrs. Miles were conducting an activity where they utilized a kitten’s linguistic ability for a course of speech therapy which enabled them to obtain moneys from passersby in the City of Augusta, Georgia. After being reported to the police, Mr. and Mrs. Miles were told they would have to purchase a $50 business license for a business and the activity would be taxable in accordance with City of Augusta’s Business License Ordinance. Mr. and Mrs. Miles eventually challenged the constitutionality of the Business License Ordinance enacted by City of Augusta, Georgia. Procedural History: Plaintiffs, Mr. and Mrs. Miles brought the case to
Linda Brown was 7 years old when her father and 12 other families tried to enroll their children in the all white public school in their neighborhoods. Linda had to walk seven blocks in freezing weather and then take a bus for another two miles. Her trip to school took two hours even though there was a school only three blocks from her home. She was sad and confused that she couldn't go to school with the other kids in her predominantly white neighborhood. Linda's father was a minister and leader in his community.
Gordon Hirabayashi v. United States On December 7th, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The immediate reaction of the United States government was to enforce curfew on all people of Japanese descent, and even to go as far as force people into internment camps. Though most people of Japanese descent followed the United States government’s commands without question, Gordon Hirabayashi was one of the few that stood against this discrimination. Gordon Hirabayashi was born in Auburn, Washington in 1918 and was a part of the first generation of Japanese Americans in his family.
Additionally, the People allege that defendants’ knowingly, intentionally,
I. FACTUAL HISTORY On August 16, 2011, Defendant pled guilty for conspiracy to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. There were no disputed facts at the time of the sentencing. A Presentence Investigation Report was conducted, by the Probation Office, to identify ameliorating
The reading gives the interview of an individual named Robert, a former lawyer, who was arrested for the crime ‘structuring’ and ended up being convicted on ‘conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service.’ The whole situation started in the handling of money as Robert gives the examples that sometimes his clients needed to borrow money to close on a mortgage or would lend money to him, a couple of these individuals turned out to be his secretary’s cousins who would later do work for. Her cousins lent Robert a large sum of money and to avoid depositing the $10,000 all at once and having to deal with the subsequent requirements of depositing such a large sum, he simply broke up the amount and deposited $9,500 over a period of days to avoid detection. This went on for months, during this time the
Cristina Terrell Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton a top law enforcer, found himself on the other side of the law. In 2014, Paxton was faced with three felony charges, including fraud, back in 2011 when Paxton was a lawyer. The charges that Paxton is being accused of, are of security fraud before Paxton took office, before he became the state’s Attorney General. The charges brought before Paxton, were two counts of first degree securities fraud, and one count of third degree failure to register as an investment adviser with the state regulators. Of the lesser charges, “Paxton admitted to violating state securities law by not disclosing to regulators, the Texas Ethics Commission, that he was receiving commissions.
"The State of California versus Scott Lee Peterson (Case number 1056770, 2005)", was an interesting case. This case was interesting because Laci was a very beautiful and seemingly young, friendly, and happily pregnant woman with lots of friends. Her husband, although attractive, had a kind of macho tough guy womanizer type of persona about himself. It is hard to believe or fathom someone being so cruel as to kill their pregnant wife, regardless of their marital problems. Laci came up missing on December 24, of 2002, the day before Christmas.
Mens rea is the element of a crime which alludes to what is known as the “guilty mind”. The case of R v Mohan [1976] QB 1 , the case dealing with the meaning of intention in the context of the offence of murder, James LJ clarified that intention meant ‘aim’ or ‘a decision to bring about a certain consequence’ whilst mens rea is generally related with motive what it more directly links to the notion of intention. There are two types of intention, direct intention and oblique intention .Oblique intention is difficult for a jury to infer and difficult for a prosecutor to prove. Defining mens rea of intention precisely is very difficult over the years.
The mens rea is the mental element of an offence. It refers to the mental state of the accused in terms of the offence. If no mens rea is present the accused cannot be convicted with the exception of absolute or strict liability. In order for a person to be guilty of a specific crime it is expected that the defendant has the necessary mens rea.(4) ‘Intention means the conscious objective or purpose of the accused.’(1) Intention is not the same as motive or desire to achieve a particular result.
This three element fraud is often referred as a fraud triangle by the researchers (Cohen, Ding, Lesage & Stolowy, 2010, p. 276). On the other hand the theory of planned behavior focuses on the intentions behind the planned behavior. Ajzen (1991, p. 188) explains this as “attitude toward the behavior… refers to the degree to which a person has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation or appraisal of the behavior in question”. Cohen, Ding, Lesage & Stolowy (2010) have combined the fraud triangle and theory of planned behavior to understand that how the two theories can be collectively studied to find out the reasons behind the unethical activities that results in corporate frauds. Cohen, Ding, Lesage & Stolowy (2010) in their work studied various organizations including WorldCom and identified following: • WorldCom’s management had an excessive interest in maintaining the entity’s stock price and earning trends (p. 287).