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Tag: judge

  • Judge rejects no-jail plea deal for L.A. deputy charged in death of suicidal man

    Judge rejects no-jail plea deal for L.A. deputy charged in death of suicidal man

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    A Los Angeles County judge made the rare decision to reject a negotiated plea agreement Friday that would have allowed a sheriff’s deputy to avoid jail time on assault charges stemming from the 2021 shooting death of a suicidal man outside his family’s East L.A. home.

    Judge Michael Pastor refused to accept the deal — which would have seen Deputy Remin Pineda receive probation and give up his right to be a cop in California — after hearing emotional pleas from the family of 34-year-old David Ordaz Jr., who was shot to death by four deputies while holding a knife and asking police to kill him in March 2021.

    “I am furious that our system allows Pineda to walk around like nothing happened. What about David?” asked his oldest sister, Hilda Pedroza, during a series of tearful victim impact statements delivered in court Friday. “David doesn’t get to walk like he does. If the tables were turned, David would be put in jail in a second.”

    Pineda was charged with assault with a firearm and assault under color of authority last year. Prosecutors determined they didn’t have enough evidence to charge two other deputies who shot Ordaz Jr., and said a third acted in lawful self-defense. But Pineda’s use of force was excessive, according to L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Guy Shirley, who said the deputy continued shooting even after Ordaz Jr. was on the ground and fired at least one round after he dropped the knife.

    Steven Alvarado, an attorney representing Pineda, declined to comment after the hearing. The Sheriff’s Department did not respond to a request for comment on the status of the other deputies involved in Ordaz Jr.’s death. Pineda is due back in court in December.

    “We continue to believe that the charges are substantiated by the evidence and are prepared to move forward with a preliminary hearing and trial,” said Venusse Navid, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office. “Beyond that, it would be inappropriate to comment as the matter is pending litigation.”

    Pedroza said the district attorney’s office did not consult the family before reaching a deal with Pineda, and only informed her of the terms two weeks ago. Most of her family believed Friday’s hearing was a formality but they wanted to make sure a judge and prosecutors heard their pain.

    “I thought it’s not going to make a difference. There’s no point. They already made up their minds,” Pedroza said outside the courthouse. “I was really shocked. I did not think this was going to be possible. The first words out of my mouth were ‘Thank God! Thank God!’ ”

    After Pastor’s ruling, nearly two dozen of Ordaz Jr.’s loved ones could be seen crying and hugging in a third-floor hallway of the downtown courthouse, many of them wearing pins emblazoned with Ordaz Jr.’s face.

    Pineda was one of several deputies who responded to a 2021 call for help after Ordaz Jr. armed himself with a blade and told his sister he was suicidal at his family’s home in March 2021.

    When deputies confronted Ordaz Jr., he was holding a 12-inch kitchen knife and told deputies he wanted them to shoot him, according to body camera footage taken at the scene.

    “That’s not what we want to do, man,” Pineda said, according to court records.

    Ordaz Jr. was standing about 10 feet from the deputies, who repeatedly said they didn’t want to hurt him and ordered him to drop the knife, according to the video. As his family begged him to let go of the weapon, Ordaz Jr. asked the deputies to summon a helicopter and a news chopper, the footage shows.

    Eventually, deputies fired beanbag rounds in an effort to subdue him. When Ordaz Jr. took several steps forward, they fired their service weapons, killing him with a barrage of at least a dozen bullets. The gunfire continued as Ordaz Jr. collapsed and his relatives screamed out, according to the video.

    Pineda kept firing after the other deputies stopped shooting, even as Ordaz Jr. “continued to lie on the ground on the right side of his body,” according to a 13-page memo explaining the district attorney’s office’s filing decisions in the case.

    Another deputy told him to stop, but Pineda fired another round even while Ordaz Jr. was on the ground, disarmed. Shirley said Pineda fired eight times in total.

    Ordaz Jr. left behind three children. His partner, Jasmine Moreno, said Friday that he had been struggling with anxiety and depression at the time of the shooting. One of his sisters told 911 dispatchers she also feared he had used methamphetamine on the day of the shooting. An autopsy found several types of narcotics in his bloodstream, records show.

    The victim’s father, David Ordaz, said the incident has destroyed his family and left him incapable of ever trusting law enforcement.

    “If I have to call the police again, what am I to expect … for them to come and help me or for them to come and kill me or my family?” he asked through a Spanish interpreter.

    Pedroza said she believes her brother would still be alive today if she hadn’t called the sheriff’s department.

    “I know that my error was calling my local sheriff’s station and this will be something I have to live with for the rest of my life. That will be my torment,” she said. “I’m scared to be out in the world. I’m scared to drive and be stopped by deputies. I’m scared to walk on the sidewalk where David was killed. My heart is broken. I feel like I don’t belong in this world. I have lost my place in it.”

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    James Queally

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  • Trump’s Habit of Lying About Everything All the Time May Cost Him Trump Tower

    Trump’s Habit of Lying About Everything All the Time May Cost Him Trump Tower

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    Unless you were dropped on earth just 24 hours ago, you obviously know that Donald Trump is famous for lying about everything all the time, and that he has been telling lies for basically his entire life. He lies about dumb stuff, like that he invented the phrase “prime the pump” and that he was named “Michigan’s Man of the Year.” He lies about serious stuff, like that he saw “thousands” of supposed terrorist sympathizers “cheering” from New Jersey as the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11. He told lies before he was president (sometimes by pretending to be his own spokesman, John Barron), he told lies when he was president (by The Washington Post’s count, a whopping 30,573 “false or misleading claims”), and he’s continued to tell lies since becoming an ex-president (see: the business about having won the 2020 election). At this point, his inability to open his mouth without 47 lies flying out should really be studied by a team of multidisciplinary scientists who can dedicate their life’s work to figuring out what is wrong with him.

    Incredibly, the vast majority of Trump’s lies have never actually hurt him in the slightest. After all, he was elected president of the United States in 2016 and is currently the front-runner—by a landslide—for the GOP nomination. But on Tuesday, a specific set of falsehoods very much came back to bite him in the ass: the ones he told about his real estate holdings as owner of the Trump Organization. 

    We speak, of course, of the explosive ruling issued by Judge Arthur Engoron, who declared—as part of a suit brought by the New York attorney general—that Trump, his two adults sons, and the Trump Organization committed years of fraud by hugely inflating the businesses’ assets (and Trump’s net worth), which led to better loan terms and lower insurance costs. Among the most absurd examples: Engoron found that Trump repeatedly overvalued Mar-a-Lago, and in one instance did so on a financial statement by as much as, wait for it, 2,300%. While an outside appraisal put the value of the Palm Beach club at approximately $28 million, due to restrictions on how the property can be used, the Trump Organization claimed it was worth as much as $612 million.

    In another instance, Trump claimed his triplex at Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet—and valued it at $327 million based on that size—when it is actually only about 10,000. Which, y’know, is a pretty big difference. “A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud,” Engoron wrote, according to The New York Times. Elsewhere, the judge responded to Team Trump’s various defenses of its business practices by writing: “In defendants’ world, rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air…. That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”

    As New York magazine notes, Engoron “ordered that the business certificates that allowed the family’s limited liability companies to operate in New York be rescinded and that independent receivers be put in place to manage them. This could mean that Trump will lose control over the iconic properties that bear his name such as Trump Tower, as well as make it more difficult for the former president to do business in his home state.” On top of all that, five defense lawyers were fined $7,500 a piece for making “frivolous” arguments that the judge had already rejected. As Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter David Cay Johnston notes, “A judge calling a lawyer’s argument ‘frivolous’ is the equivalent of saying it is no better than nonsense from a drunk in a bar.”

    A lawyer for Trump called the decision “outrageous” and “completely disconnected from the facts and governing law,” indicating that Trump will appeal. In the meantime, the ex-president is scheduled to face off at trial with New York attorney general Letitia James, who has accused him of inflating his assets by as much as $2.2 billion and is seeking damages of about $250 million.

    For their part, the Trump boys have responded to the ruling by doing…exactly how what you’d expect. On Truth Social, the ex-president raged that his “civil rights” had been violated, and called Engoron a “Deranged, Trump hating judge.” In one post on X, Eric Trump claimed that the ruling is “an attempt to destroy my father” and that Mar-a-Lago is actually “arguably the most valuable residential property in the country.” Later, he accused Engoron of dragging his name “through the mud,” calling the ruling “cruel.” Trump’s namesake declared the decision “nonsensical and asinine,” adding: “This is weaponized Blue State Marxist America, & another example of the sheer impossibility of a fairness & impartiality in these areas.”

    Last year, in an unrelated case, the Trump Organization and its longtime chief financial officer were found guilty of tax fraud, among other crimes. Trump, of course, has been indicted four separate times since late March, for a total of 91 felony counts related to hush money deals, his handling of classified government documents, and trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He has pleaded not guilty in all cases. 

    Republicans aren’t even trying to hide their bigotry anymore 

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    Bess Levin

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  • ‘Taco Tuesday’ is for everyone, argues Taco Bell. Taco John’s says it owns the trademark to the phrase.

    ‘Taco Tuesday’ is for everyone, argues Taco Bell. Taco John’s says it owns the trademark to the phrase.

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    CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Declaring a mission to liberate “Taco Tuesday” for all, Taco Bell is asking U.S. regulators to force Wyoming-based Taco John’s to abandon its longstanding claim to the trademark.

    Too many businesses and others refer to “Taco Tuesday” for Taco John’s to be able to have exclusive rights to the phrase, Taco Bell asserts in a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filing that is, of course, dated Tuesday.

    It’s the latest development in a long-running beef over “Taco Tuesday” that even included NBA star LeBron James making an unsuccessful attempt to claim the trademark in 2019.

    “Taco Bell believes ‘Taco Tuesday’ is critical to everyone’s Tuesday. To deprive anyone of saying ‘Taco Tuesday’ — be it Taco Bell or anyone who provides tacos to the world — is like depriving the world of sunshine itself,” the Taco Bell filing reads.

    A key question is whether “Taco Tuesday” over the years has succumbed to “genericide,” New York trademark lawyer Emily Poler said. That’s the term for when a word or phrase become so widely used for similar products — or in this case, sales promotions — they’re no longer associated with the trademark holder.

    Well-known examples of genericide victims include “cellophane,” “escalator” and “trampoline.”

    “Basically what this is about is you cannot trademark something that is ‘generic,’ ” Poler said. “That means it doesn’t have any association with that particular source or product.”

    Basketball legend James — a well-known taco lover — encountered this problem when he tried to trademark “Taco Tuesday” in 2019. The Patent and Trademark Office, in a ruling that didn’t refer to Taco John’s, deemed “Taco Tuesday” too much of a “commonplace term” to qualify as a trademark.

    With more than 7,200 locations in the U.S. and internationally, Taco Bell — a Yum Brands
    YUM,
    -2.45%
    chain along with Pizza Hut, KFC and the Habit Burger Grill — is vastly bigger than Cheyenne-based Taco John’s. Begun as a food truck more than 50 years ago, Taco John’s now has about 370 locations in 23 mainly in western and midwestern states.

    The chain’s size hasn’t discouraged big-time enforcement of “Taco Tuesday” as trademark, which dates to the 1980s. In 2019, the company sent a letter to a brewery just five blocks from its corporate headquarters, warning it to stop using “Taco Tuesday” to promote a taco truck parked outside on Tuesdays.

    Actively defending a trademark is required to maintain claim to it, and the letter was just one example of Taco John’s telling restaurants far and wide to stop having “Taco Tuesdays.”

    Taco John’s responded to Taco Bell’s filing by announcing a new two-week Taco Tuesday promotion, with a large side of riposte.

    Press release: Ring the Bell! Every Day is Taco Tuesday® at Taco John’s

    “I’d like to thank our worthy competitors at Taco Bell for reminding everyone that Taco Tuesday is best celebrated at Taco John’s,” CEO Jim Creel said in an emailed statement. “We love celebrating Taco Tuesday with taco lovers everywhere, and we even want to offer a special invitation to fans of Taco Bell to liberate themselves by coming by to see how flavorful and bold tacos can be at Taco John’s all month long.”

    The filing is one of two from Taco Bell involving “Taco Tuesday.” One contests Taco John’s claim to “Taco Tuesday” in 49 states, while a similar filing contests a New Jersey restaurant and bar’s claim to “Taco Tuesday” in that state. Both Taco John’s and Gregory’s Restaurant and Bar in Somers Point, N.J., have been using “Taco Tuesday” for over 40 years.

    A Taco John’s franchisee in Minnesota first came up with “Taco Twosday” to promote two tacos for 99 cents on a slow day of the week, Creel told the Associated Press in a recent interview.

    The Patent and Trademark Office approved the Taco John’s “Taco Tuesday” trademark in 1989. Even with its many letters, Creel said, the company — established in 1969 in Cheyenne, Wyo. — has never had to go to court over the phrase.

    He’s not feeling too picked on, either, by the much bigger Taco Bell. “It’s OK. It’s kind of nice that they’ve noticed,” Creel said.

    From the archives (January 2022): Taco Bell takes taco subscription program nationwide

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  • Supreme Court puts Texas judge’s abortion pill ruling on hold

    Supreme Court puts Texas judge’s abortion pill ruling on hold

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    Supreme Court puts Texas judge’s abortion pill ruling on hold – CBS News


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    The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday put on hold a ruling last week from a Texas federal judge which halted the FDA’s longtime approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. Caitlin Huey-Burns has the latest.

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  • Judge in Trump criminal case targeted with threats

    Judge in Trump criminal case targeted with threats

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    Trump vows to fight criminal charges


    Trump vows to fight New York criminal charges

    06:23

    New York judge Juan Merchan has received threats to his safety since he began presiding over the arraignment of former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, according to a law enforcement source.

    The NYPD intelligence division is investigating the threats to Merchan, which came in the form of social media posts. 

    A spokesperson for New York courts said that “we continue to evaluate and reevaluate security concerns and potential threats.” 

    “We have maintained an increased security presence in and around courthouses and throughout the judiciary and will adjust protocols as necessary,” said spokesperson Lucian Chalfen.

    trump-merchan-court-sketch.jpg
    A court sketch shows former President Donald Trump and Judge Juan Merchan, at right, during Trump’s arraignment on charges of falsifying business records in New York on April 4, 2023.

    Jane Rosenberg


    Since Trump’s arraignment hearing, there has been a marked increase in death threats against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the team of prosecutors working on the Trump case, according to a second law enforcement source.

    Threats have landed in Bragg’s office by phone, email, and social media post. The source did not specify how many threats the D.A.’s office has received but said the number is significant. 

    Court officers and NYPD have increased security for Bragg and his prosecutors and tightened overall security at the Manhattan criminal courthouse. 

    The courthouse received bomb threats before and after the indictment, and on Mar. 24 received a threatening note in an envelope with white powder that was later deemed non-hazardous.

    During Trump’s court appearance Tuesday, a prosecutor gave Merchan a printout of social media posts made by Trump, describing them as “public statements threatening our city, our justice system, our courts, and our office.”

    Merchan, who was also targeted in a Trump post, asked defense attorneys to ask the former president to “please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest.”

    Trump entered a “not guilty” plea to 34 counts of felony falsification of business records. He has denied all wrongdoing in the case.

    Pat Milton


    CBSNEWS_blogbio_pat_milton_1_75x56.jpg

    Pat Milton is a CBS News investigative producer

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  • Is climate change changing baseball? Hotter air means hotter MLB home-run hitters, study says.

    Is climate change changing baseball? Hotter air means hotter MLB home-run hitters, study says.

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    Should we save a spot in the baseball annals for the “climate-ball” era? Climate change and its impact on home-run-favorable thinner air may earn a place in recorded history alongside Major League Baseball’s dead-ball era and the notorious black eye on America’s pastime when steroids juiced the power game.

    The way that climate change heats up the air is sending an extra 50 or so home runs a year over the fences, and fans can expect several hundred more home runs per season with future warming, according to a new study out…

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  • Reinstated conviction of Adnan Syed being reviewed

    Reinstated conviction of Adnan Syed being reviewed

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    Reinstated conviction of Adnan Syed being reviewed – CBS News


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    The Baltimore state’s attorney’s office is reviewing a decision reinstating the murder conviction of Adnan Syed — a man made famous by the “Serial” podcast. Paul Cassell, a law professor for the University of Utah and a former federal judge, joins CBS News to break down the new development in this widely known case.

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  • Missouri inmate released after being imprisoned 27 years, with help from judge who sentenced him

    Missouri inmate released after being imprisoned 27 years, with help from judge who sentenced him

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    Missouri inmate released after being imprisoned 27 years, with help from judge who sentenced him – CBS News


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    Missouri inmate Bobby Bostic was serving a 241-year sentence for a series of robberies he committed when he was only 16. Bostic, now 43, changed his life in prison. He went to school, read and wrote books, even though he had no hope of ever getting out. CBS News was there when Bostic was released thanks to the judge who first put him behind bars.

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  • CBS Evening News, November 1, 2022

    CBS Evening News, November 1, 2022

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    CBS Evening News, November 1, 2022 – CBS News


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    Suspect in Pelosi hammer attack pleads not guilty; SpaceX launches rocket on Space Force mission

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  • Suspect in Pelosi hammer attack pleads not guilty

    Suspect in Pelosi hammer attack pleads not guilty

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    Suspect in Pelosi hammer attack pleads not guilty – CBS News


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    The suspect accused of assaulting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was arraigned on Tuesday. A judge denied David DePape, who pleaded not guilty, bail during the hearing. Jonathan Vigliotti has the latest.

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  • 11/1: CBS News Prime Time

    11/1: CBS News Prime Time

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    11/1: CBS News Prime Time – CBS News


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    John Dickerson reports on the plea entered by the Pelosi attack suspect, the last-minute push for midterm voters from Obama and Biden, and the impact of Russia’s withdrawal from a grain deal on global food supplies.

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  • Judge vacates 67-year-old Sioux City man’s guilty verdict for enticing a minor

    Judge vacates 67-year-old Sioux City man’s guilty verdict for enticing a minor

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    SIOUX CITY — A judge has vacated a jury verdict in which a Sioux City man was found guilty of offering a 14-year-old girl $600 for sex, ruling there was not enough evidence presented at trial to show the man knew the girl was underage.

    District Judge Jeffrey Neary granted a defense motion for a judgment of acquittal, found Danny Beard not guilty of the charge of enticing away a minor and dismissed the case.






    Beard




    A jury in August found Beard, 67, guilty at the conclusion of a two-day trial in Woodbury County District Court. He had faced a five-year prison sentence for the Class D felony.

    Neary, who presided over the trial, focused his ruling on the fourth element of the crime: that at the time of the Nov. 14 incident, Beard “reasonably believed (the girl) was under 16.”

    In his ruling, Neary said his review of the trial transcript and video exhibits and recollection of the evidence led him to conclude the prosecution presented no definitive evidence Beard knew the girl’s age prior to the incident.

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    “It is clear to the court on this evidence that the age of (the girl) was not clear at the time of the incident and further that nothing in this evidence would indicate that (she) was under the age of 16 at the time of the incident,” Neary wrote.

    Beard was accused of pulling up next to the girl in his pickup truck as she was walking in the parking lot of her grandmother’s apartment complex, asking what a “pretty girl” like her was doing out so late and then asking, “You want to come with me?” before saying, “I’ll give you 500 (dollars).”

    Beard, who lived in the same apartment complex, parked his pickup and approached the girl as she was entering the apartment building and offered the girl $500 to come up to his apartment, then raised his offer to $600. The girl went to her grandmother’s apartment, and her grandmother filed a police report.

    Beard later told an investigator he thought the girl was someone else and that his offer of money was for cleaning his apartment, not for sex. He told police he did not know the girl’s age until after the incident.

    In his resistance to the defense’s motion for a new trial, Assistant Woodbury County Attorney James Loomis said the evidence should be taken together in context rather than singled out. Video surveillance, he said, showed not only what Beard said to the girl, but how he said it, leaving viewers to conclude he was offering money for sex. The girl also visited her grandmother several times a week and often encountered Beard, who was familiar with her and would have “reasonably known” she was under age 16.

    Neary said in his ruling that in the video and during her trial testimony, the girl appeared mature for her age, and he himself would have guessed she was between age 16-18. Neary also said it was dark at the time Beard encountered the girl, who, the judge said, resembles her older sister who was living with their grandmother.

    The prosecution’s evidence, Neary said, did little more than “raise suspicion, speculation and conjecture” that Beard would have reasonably known the girl was under age 16.

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  • Tulsa Prosecutor Recovering After Being Stabbed By Daughter

    Tulsa Prosecutor Recovering After Being Stabbed By Daughter

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    An Oklahoma prosecutor who police said was stabbed by his adult daughter, on Wednesday called for more state funding for mental illness programs.

    “(Tuesday) my family endured one of the toughest days in our lives,” Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said in an approximately nine-minute statement to reporters before leaving without taking questions.

    “The elected leaders of our state, the elected leaders of our state Legislature need to make this a priority,” and increase funding for mental health treatment, said Kunzweiler, 60, who showed no visible sign of the attack.

    Jennifer Kunzweiler, 30, was arrested following the stabbing at Kunzweiler’s home Tuesday, Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin said on Twitter.

    “Tulsa Police has criminal jurisdiction and will work this case like all other cases,” Franklin wrote.

    Police Capt. Richard Meulenberg said Wednesday that Jennifer Kunzweiler was taken to a hospital after her arrest at the family home, where she also lived. She was treated for self-inflicted cuts sustained before she stabbed her father in the arm and midsection.

    A motive for the stabbing remained under investigation, according to Meulenberg.

    “We know there is some mental illness here,” Meulenberg said, “but we haven’t interviewed her” to determine a motive.

    Jennifer Kunzweiler remained hospitalized Wednesday and will likely face a charge of domestic violence with a dangerous weapon when released, Meulenberg said.

    Meulenberg said Tulsa police have no record of previous criminal contact with Jennifer Kunzweiler and online court records show no charges on her record.

    Steve Kunzweiler, who was first elected district attorney in 2014 and won reelection in 2018, is unopposed for reelection in November.

    The stabbing is the third of an elected official in Oklahoma in recent years.

    Tulsa District Judge Sharon Holmes was wounded in a stabbing at her home by her adult daughter, Adrienne Smith, in 2019.

    State Labor Commissioner Mark Costello was killed in a 2015 when he was stabbed in a restaurant parking lot in Oklahoma City by his adult son, Christian Costello, in 2015.

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  • Texas Judge and Sheriff Create Specialized Treatment Program for Incarcerated Veterans

    Texas Judge and Sheriff Create Specialized Treatment Program for Incarcerated Veterans

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    Press Release
    –


    updated: Nov 7, 2018


    MCKINNEY, Texas, November 7, 2018 (Newswire.com)
    –
     VALOR (Veterans Accessing Lifelong Opportunities for Rehabilitation) is a groundbreaking program that offers work opportunities and extensive treatment alternatives for felony and misdemeanor Veteran offenders who either face the prospect of incarceration or who are already incarcerated. This program is available for veterans from across the State of Texas. The program is an unprecedented collaborative effort between the North Texas Regional Veterans Court, Collin County Community Supervision and Corrections Department (CSCD) and the Collin County Sheriff’s Office.

    The VALOR Program provides Veteran-specific services and programming for offenders who need a supervised, intensive, and structured mental health/addiction treatment program to successfully reintegrate into civilian society. Treatment within the facility includes group counseling related to Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD), Military Sexual Trauma (MST), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), individual counseling, life/parenting skills, anger management, substance abuse/addiction therapy, Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT), AA and NA support groups, Chaplain services and employment services.

    While presiding over Veterans Court I realized that there was a gap in services for Veterans who become incarcerated. Rather than having the Veteran just sitting there doing time, I wanted a way to provide substantive treatment for those struggling Veterans with invisible wounds. There is no doubt in my mind that the VALOR program will be a model for the Country.

    John Roach, Texas State Judge, North Texas Veterans Court

    The program was created by Judge John Roach of the North Texas Veterans Court. “While presiding over Veterans Court I realized that there was a gap in services for Veterans who become incarcerated,” Roach said. “Rather than having the Veteran just sitting there doing time, I wanted a way to provide substantive treatment for those struggling Veterans with invisible wounds. There is no doubt in my mind that the VALOR program will be a model for the Country.”

    The VALOR program is rehabilitation (physically, mentally, emotionally, morally, spiritually) and reintegration focused and is designed to help Veteran defendants develop better decision-making and coping skills, provide them with the necessary tools to enhance their well-being, and assist with their reintegration into society.

    In the VALOR program, detained Veterans are housed together, mimicking the unit structure familiar to Veterans. Veterans are surrounded by others who are suffering from similar mental illnesses, substance abuse issues, and unhealthy coping mechanisms and who understand the sacrifice of military service. Putting them together allows them to begin to heal through unit bonding, allowing them to be open and vulnerable and to assist one another. Veteran-specific programming is offered by qualified treatment providers, who have experience working with Veterans or are Veterans themselves, providing an integrative and holistic approach for re-entry based on treatment plans developed by licensed clinicians to comprehensively address their individual needs.

    The program will have its opening ceremony on Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, at 2 p.m. It will be held at the Collin County Minimum Security Facility located at 4800 Community, McKinney, Texas and will initially be able to treat 15 Veterans at a time with plans to be able to house 30 within the year.

    PRESS CONTACT – Brennan Rivera-Jones, 469-974-7731, brijones@co.collin.tx.us

    Source: North Texas Veterans Court

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  • JUST CONFIRMED – PTAB Chief Judge to Speak at Momentum’s Complimentary IP Counsel Exchange

    JUST CONFIRMED – PTAB Chief Judge to Speak at Momentum’s Complimentary IP Counsel Exchange

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    Press Release
    –

    Jul 14, 2016


    New York, NY, July 14, 2016 (Newswire.com)
    –
    ​​​​​Momentum announced that Hon. David P. Ruschke, newly confirmed Chief Judge for the Patent and Trial Appeal Board (PTAB) will be speaking at Momentum’s IP Counsel Exchange taking place on December 1, 2016 in New York City.

    Dr. Ruschke will join a panel of his peers on the topic, Cross-Jurisdictional IP Litigation Interplay – Pet Peeves from the Bench on Timing, Discovery, Evidence, Claim Construction and the Management of Joint Proceedings – Practice Recommendations for Counsel from the Federal District Court, PTAB and ITC Bench.

    As Chief Judge, Dr. Ruschke manages the PTAB as it conducts trials, including inter partes, post-grant, and covered business method patent reviews and derivation proceedings, hears appeals from adverse examiner decisions in patent applications and reexamination proceedings, and renders decisions in interferences. In his previous role, Dr. Ruschke managed the intellectual property portfolio of Medtronic’s CSH business unit, with sales in excess of $3 billion. As Chief Patent Counsel, Dr. Ruschke participated in numerous patent appeals, interferences, post grant reviews, inter partes reviews, and covered business method patent reviews.

    Additional topics to be explored at the IP Counsel Exchange will include –

    ·      PTAB Litigation Crash Course: A Litigator’s Guide to Obtaining Successful Results at the PTAB
    ·      In-House Benchmarking – Strategies for Using IP as a Catalyst for Your Business
    ·      Building Your IP Litigation Dream Team – Tips for Selecting, Screening & Managing Outside Counsel to Oversee a Diverse IP Litigation Docket
    ·      Settlement & Appeals: When and How to Approach Settlement and Perspectives on the Treatment of IP Proceedings By Way of Appeal – From the Federal Circuit to the Supreme Court

    To view the most up-to-date program agenda, confirmed speaker list and reserve space for you and your colleagues in your IP department, visit the event site at ptabevents.com​ or call (646) 807-8555. Registration to this event is complimentary and only offered to in-house IP executives and corporate patent counsel.

    About Momentum

    Momentum is a leading international event creation and execution specialist working with numerous partners in order to bring their brands to life through customized live-event experiences. With an emphasis on rigorous research and world-class customer service, its team comprises many of the leading names in event creation and execution. For more information about Momentum, visit momentumevents.com.

    Momentum contact:

    Julia Guarini
    Marketing Manager
    Momentum
    julia@momentumevents.com

    Source: Momentum

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