Montanans have a fundamental right to a clean and healthful environment as guaranteed by Article II, Section 3 of the Montana Constitution, which rests at the center of this new citizen driven challenge.
GALLATIN GATEWAY, Mont., August 7, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– In a matter of statewide significance, Gateway Conservation Alliance (“GCA”) is challenging the issuance of TMC, Inc.’s Opencut Mining Permit #3462 for a new gravel pit located in Gallatin County, Montana (the “Black Pit”) and is contesting parts of Montana’s Opencut Mining Law as facially unconstitutional.
More specifically, GCA alleges that House Bill 599 (HB 599) essentially eliminated DEQ’s duty and ability to review proposed opencut mining operations for environmental harms, including surface and groundwater quality, as well as removed public participation opportunities. The result, says GCA, has been to turn the Opencut Mining Act’s (“OMA”) permitting process into a meaningless form-filling exercise.
Montanans have a fundamental right to a clean and healthful environment as guaranteed by Article II, Section 3 of the Montana Constitution. As a result, GCA alleges that HB 599 thereby violates the Legislature’s duty to provide for adequate remedies and administration to maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment under Article IX, Section 1 and Article II, Section 3 of the Montana Constitution and the public’s right of participation under Article II, Section VIII of the Montana Constitution.
GCA argues that passage of HB 599 by the Legislature and signed into law by the Governor has rendered the OMA incapable of ensuring Montanans their constitutional rights to prevent environmental harms; and that HB 599 created arbitrary loopholes with which to avoid permitting altogether, removed essentially all substantive environmental considerations from DEQ’s decision-making, including the ability and authority to prevent harmful projects from occurring and minimized or erased opportunities for the public to give input or for DEQ to conduct a meaningful and rigorous permit review.
Tracie Gibbons for GCA stated: “While we certainly did not ask for this fight or want it forced upon us, we are proud to challenge our government and hold them accountable to our Constitution, which demands that our natural life support system be protected for present and future generations.”
Counsel for GCA and other groups around the state, Graham Coppes, said: “While we expected the mining companies to fight us, we did not expect our biggest opponent to be the State of Montana. What we have learned through this process is that the state – by and through the Department of Environmental Quality – is pouring endless hours, dollars, and resources into fighting against citizens, communities, clean water and air, all to increase the bottom line of a few private companies. The State cannot plausibly contend that ‘cutting red tape’ constitutes an interest of the ‘highest order’ that cannot be ‘otherwise served’ without gutting Montanans Constitutionally enshrined environmental protection against the potentially harmful consequences of these mining operations.”
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About Gateway Conservation Alliance
Gateway Conservation Alliance is a 100% volunteer-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Gallatin Gateway, Montana. To learn more and donate to GCA please visit https://gcamt.org
Jasmine Richardson had been struggling with methamphetamine and fentanyl addiction for more than a decade, but she got sober after completing a six-month program at the Teen Project’s Freehab center on Sunland Boulevard in Sun Valley.
That was right around Thanksgiving last year, and it was the first time the 33-year-old had been clean in years. Still, she wasn’t ready to leave the Freehab just yet; homeless since 2020, she wanted to spend at least a year in the 74-bed rehab facility before finding temporary housing. Then she hoped to move her teenage son up to L.A. to live with her, and to pursue her dream of becoming a veterinarian tech.
All of that was cut short Dec. 4, when the Los Angeles City Fire Department shut down the facility over what it said were building and fire code violations, officials said. The group of 43 women, whose ranks included survivors of human trafficking, substance abuse and homelessness, had a few hours to pack up their belongings and find a new place to stay.
Richardson’s mother, Janet Dooley, picked her up from Freehab and brought her back to Dooley’s home in Huntington Beach. Eight days later, Dooley found her daughter dead from an overdose of meth and fentanyl.
Jasmine Richardson when she was attending middle school in Montana in the 2000s.
(Janet Dooley)
“I believe that if the place hadn’t closed,” Dooley said, “she’d still be alive today.”
More than six months after the closure, questions about why it was forced to shut down are at the forefront of a lawsuit filed by the Teen Project, the nonprofit that operated the Freehab, against A&E Development Co., the facility’s landlord. The nonprofit alleges that A&E breached its lease and failed to maintain conditions that adhered to building codes, regulations, permits and ordinances, resulting in the rehab’s shutdown.
The organization is seeking at least $5 million in damages.
On a GoFundMe page created to raise money for a new treatment facility, the Teen Project blamed its landlord’s “refusal to ensure building’s upkeep” and the Fire Department’s “unwillingness to compromise, and exerting their power, even if it cost our girls their lives.”
According to safety violation notices from the L.A. City Fire Department obtained by The Times, the Freehab had been ordered multiple times since at least September to get a fire permit to operate a residential care facility, hire fire watch personnel, install automatic fire sprinklers throughout the building and obtain a valid permit for the fire door connecting the Freehab and the adjacent building.
The organization was notified via both email and mailed letters addressed to the Sun Valley facility, according to the notices.
The alleged safety issues apparently go back even further. According to Fox 11, LAFD Assistant Fire Chief Kristine Larson told the Freehab’s staff in December: “In 2020, this building was required to have sprinklers, and it does not have sprinklers; therefore, it is unsafe to be occupied for overnight use.”
Lauri Burns, executive officer of the Teen Project, said via email that she found out about the alleged violations a week before the closure.
“They said they weren’t shutting us down and they would give us ample time to fix things, and then they returned one week later and shut us down without notice,” Burns added.
Burns said after learning about the violations, the Freehab complied with nearly all of the requirements and paid around $7,000 a week to have a fire watch on-site at all hours. She said they weren’t able to install sprinklers because that process would take at least a month and require permits and inspections.
Case manager Priscilla Nunez helps put together items in the dining area of the new Teen Project facility in April in Van Nuys.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
In its Jan. 31 lawsuit, the Teen Project alleges that A&E failed to address rat and maggot infestations at the Freehab, ignored unauthorized trailers and homelessness in the Freehab’s shared parking lot and didn’t repay the Teen Project for replacing HVAC systems and other amenities.
Because of A&E’s “inability to provide a useable/safe space to lease for its intended purpose,” the lawsuit states, the Freehab was forced to shut down.
“The residents under The Teen Project’s care were traumatically displaced from their safety net, and horrifically resulted in the relapse and death of a young woman only a few days later,” according to the lawsuit.
In court papers, A&E disavowed responsibility for the shuttering of the Freehab, saying “the facts and the law are clear that the A&E is not responsible for ensuring the Premises could be used as a rehab facility.” A&E argued that the Teen Project “voluntarily vacated” the Freehab after the Fire Department and the California Department of Health Care Services revoked permits to operate the rehab facility.
After the Freehab’s shutdown, A&E said, it received a notice from the Teen Project demanding that A&E bring the Freehab up to code. But according to A&E, the lease required it to fix problems only if they were raised within six months of the start of the lease. The Teen Project terminated its lease on Jan. 19 after the conditions to operate the Freehab weren’t met.
The LAFD said in a Dec. 5 statement after the Freehab’s closure that the agency “will continue to provide guidance to the building owner and lessee regarding required compliance with the fire violations and change-of-use permits to ensure the safety and security of the tenants and the property.”
“The California Department of Health Care Services is responsible for ensuring this type of facility is in compliance with the fire code and questions regarding the status of this facility’s license to operate should be directed to them,” according to the statement. “They are also responsible for rehousing any displaced residents.”
LAFD spokesperson Karla Tovar said that a fire code change in 2020 required sprinklers in the type of building that housed the Freehab. The alleged violations were found during a fire inspection and “much research was done with many other agencies before the facility was closed,” she said.
In response to the Teen Project’s allegation that LAFD’s actions somehow contributed to the overdose death of one of the Freehab’s clients, Tovar said in an emailed statement:
“The LAFD is committed to preserving life, protecting property, and safeguarding our communities. Ensuring that buildings operate according to fire and life safety regulations is a matter we take seriously for residents, patrons, employees, and owners.”
A spokesperson from the California Department of Health Care Services confirmed that the Freehab was deemed noncompliant with the fire code. The agency said it was able to get 32 of the 43 women into other treatment centers across L.A. However, Richardson told them she wanted to go home to be with her son, her mother said.
The Teen Project, whose name was born out of “teenagers exiting foster care to homelessness and trafficking,” according to Burns, opened a new facility in June called the Van Nuys Sanctuary. At least 10 of the women who stayed at the Freehab reached out and asked if they could get a spot at the new center, according to Teen Project program director Melissa Coons.
“They have a safe place to be and we really try to make this place look like a home versus an institution,” she said. “We’re really excited to get back to helping the girls in the community.”
Richardson’s problems began in middle school, when she became depressed and started self-medicating with marijuana, Dooley said. It snowballed after she turned 18, when her father died and she later turned to meth. Richardson, her ex-boyfriend and her son lived with Dooley until well into the pandemic, when Dooley said she had to evict them.
Yesenia Sanchez was in the Teen Project program for substance abuse and now works as a cook at the new facility.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“Things got worse and worse, and I had to get them out because I couldn’t live like that,” Dooley added.
After the Freehab closed, Richardson didn’t know what to do. According to her mother, she thought about going to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. She texted employees from the Teen Project to see if she could get into temporary housing.
On Dec. 11, Dooley dropped Richardson off near the courthouse to handle a legal matter but didn’t hear from her for a few hours. Richardson came home late and said she had been with friends. Dooley got up for work around 3 a.m., and when she came home five hours later, she discovered that Richardson had overdosed.
“Jasmine was incredibly upset and scared” when the Freehab closed, Coons said. “Originally, she wanted to stay with us for a year, and she never really wavered from that.”
Tom Wolf, a recovering fentanyl and heroin addict who founded the Pacific Alliance for Prevention and Recovery, said that structure and routine are especially important in early recovery. Significant emotional events, such as a death in the family, job loss or a breakup can result in relapse.
“These folks were displaced, and even if they were offered shelter or housing in another program, they were displaced from friendships, the support systems and the structure of that specific program,” he said. “If you take all of those things away at once from someone after years of homelessness, it would be easy to go back onto the street and buy fentanyl for $5 and relapse.”
Yesenia Sanchez, 31, struggled with addiction to alcohol, but she has been sober for more than two years after completing the Freehab’s six-month program. She started out as an intern in the kitchen before becoming a full-time cook at the facility.
She wasn’t working the day the Freehab was forced to shut down, but once she heard about the closure, she scrambled to help the women find other places to stay. Some of them, she said, had to go back to living on the streets.
“That was really hard because those were the girls we were helping every day, and we just didn’t have enough time,” she said.
Casey Anderson, another former Freehab client, relapsed almost immediately after the facility closed down. Anderson first started abusing Ritalin as a teenager before getting addicted to meth. She was homeless for more than a year and slept in various parks in Lancaster before deciding she needed to get help.
Casey Anderson outside her sponsor’s home in Simi Valley.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Anderson started living at the Freehab in June 2023 and was two weeks away from completing her program when the facility closed.
“It was heartbreaking,” she said. “We all felt safe. We all felt like we had a place to go and then all of a sudden, it was taken from us.”
Anderson didn’t think she would need to go into another program after the Freehab’s closure. Instead, she reverted to living with her parents in Lancaster and quickly got hooked on drugs again. In early April, she contacted one of the program directors from the Teen Project to get on the waiting list for the new Van Nuys facility, where she moved June 6. There were eight women in the program as of June 25.
She is sober again and is hoping to get back to pursuing her dream of becoming a preschool teacher. In the meantime, she recently got a job working as a registered alcohol and drug technician.
“I thought I was ready to leave, but I wasn’t,” Anderson said. “I only had two weeks left, but it turns out I actually needed more. I probably would’ve known that if we had more time to work on it.”
A federal lawsuit alleges a Dearborn cop killed a 38-year-old father of four by pinning him to the ground at a motel and kneeling on his neck as he suffocated to death in September 2021.
Salvatore “Sal” Cipolloni was in mental distress and yelling for help at the Falcon Inn Motel when the manager called the police.
When officers Ashley Kusnir and Matthew Wilson arrived, they found Cipolloni barricaded behind an emergency exit door, according to the lawsuit, filed last week by civil rights attorney Jon Marko on behalf of the mother of Cipolloni’s four children. Cipolloni was making grunting noises and pleading for help.
About two minutes later, Wilson grabbed Cipolloni’s left arm and shouted, “On the ground!” Wilson grabbed the back of Cipolloni’s neck and forced him to the ground, the officers’ body-worn cameras show.
“Mr. Cipolloni was in obvious distress and kept asking to be let up,” the lawsuit states.
Wilson ignored Cipolloni’s cries for help, and Kusnir knelt on the man’s neck while holding his wrists, according to the lawsuit. At the same time, Wilson knelt on Cipolloni’s upper legs.
“Mr. Cipolloni’s breathing became obviously distressed,” the lawsuit states. “His breathing was faint. Mr. Cipolloni grasped for air.”
Two minutes after Kusnir placed her knee on Cipolloni’s neck, she checked for a pulse and claimed she found one.
Body-worn camera footage shows one of the officers kneeling on Salvatore “Sal” Cipolloni’s neck.
Cipolloni was pronounced dead later that night, and the medical examiner determined the cause of death was not natural.
“The officers had a front-row seat to Cipolloni’s death and did not help him while Kusnir knelt on Cipolloni’s neck for over two minutes,” Marko said Monday. “They failed to render aid to Mr. Cipolloni when they should have and could have saved his life.”
The lawsuit names the two officers and the city of Dearborn and alleges excessive force, deliberate indifference, failure to intervene, and gross negligence.
The incident came more than a year after a Minneapolis cop murdered George Floyd by kneeling on his neck.
“This incident, as evidenced by the video footage, unfortunately shows another instance of a police officer violating an innocent individual’s civil rights,” Marko said.
Metro Times couldn’t reach Dearborn police for comment.
In March 2019, TikTok agreed to a US federal court order barring the social media giant from collecting personal information from its youngest users without their parents’ consent. According to a new lawsuit filed by US authorities, TikTok immediately breached that order and now faces penalties of $51,744 per violation per day.
TikTok “knowingly allowed children under 13 to create accounts in the regular TikTok experience and collected extensive personal information from those children without first providing parental notice or obtaining verifiable parental consent,” the US Department of Justice alleged on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission in a complaint lodged on Friday in federal court in California.
TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes says the company strongly disagrees with the allegations. He reiterates a statement the company issued in June, when the FTC had voted to sue, that many of the issues raised relate to “practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.” Hughes adds that TikTok is “proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform.”
Lawsuits over alleged violations of children’s privacy are almost a rite of passage for social platforms these days, with companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Epic Games collectively having paid hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties.
But the case against TikTok also falls into the US government’s escalating battle with the service, whose ownership by China-based ByteDance has drawn national security concerns. Some US officials and lawmakers have said they worry about China exploiting TikTok to spread propaganda and gather data on vulnerable Americans. TikTok has refuted the concerns as baseless fear-mongering and is fighting a law that requires it to seek new ownership.
The complaint filed on Friday alleges that as of 2020, TikTok wouldn’t let users sign up on their own if they entered a birthdate that showed they were under 13 years old. But it allowed those same users to go back, edit their birthdate, and sign up without parental permission.
TikTok also wouldn’t remove accounts purporting to belong to children unless the user made an explicit admission of their age on their account, according to the lawsuit. TikTok’s hired content moderators allegedly spent just five to seven seconds on average reviewing accounts for age violations. “Defendants actively avoid deleting the accounts of users they know to be children,” the lawsuit states. Additionally, millions of accounts flagged as potentially belonging to children allegedly were never removed because of a bug in TikTok’s internal tools.
The lawsuit acknowledges that TikTok improved some policies and processes over the years but that it still held on to and used personal information of children that it shouldn’t have had in the first place.
Authorities also took issue with TikTok’s dedicated Kids Mode. The lawsuit alleges that TikTok gathered and shared information about children’s usage of the service and built profiles on them while misleading parents about the data collection. When parents tried to have data on their kids deleted, TikTok forced them to jump through unnecessary hoops, the lawsuit further alleges.
TikTok should have known better, according to the government, because of the 2019 court order, which stemmed from TikTok’s predecessor—a service known as Musical.ly—allegedly violating a number of rules aimed at protecting children’s privacy. Those rules largely come from the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a law dating to the late-1990s dotcom era that tried to create a safer environment for children on the web.
Lawmakers in the US this year have been weighing a major update in the form of the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA. The proposed measure, which passed the Senate earlier this week, would require services like TikTok to better control kids’ usage. Detractors have said it would unfairly cut off some young populations, such as transgender kids, from vital support networks. KOSA’s fate remains uncertain. But as the case against TikTok allegedly shows, stricter rules may do little to stop companies from pursuing familiar tactics.
Attorneys for Elon Musk and Tesla’s corporate directors are asking a Delaware judge to vacate her ruling requiring the company to rescind a massive and unprecedented pay package for Musk.
Friday’s hearing follows a January ruling in which Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick concluded that Musk engineered the landmark 2018 pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent. The compensation package initially carried a potential maximum value of about $56 billion, a sum that has fluctuated over the years but is now estimated to be worth more than $60 billion.
Defense attorneys say the vote makes clear that Tesla shareholders, with full knowledge of the flaws in the 2018 process that McCormick pointed out in her January ruling, are adamant that Musk is entitled to the 11-figure pay package.
“Honoring the shoulder vote would affirm the strength of our corporate system,” David Ross, an attorney for Musk and the other individual defendants, told McCormick. “This was stockholder democracy working.”
Ross told the judge that the defendants were not challenging the factual findings or legal conclusions in her ruling, but simply asking that she vacate her order directing Tesla to rescind the pay package.
McCormick, however, seemed skeptical of the defense arguments, peppering attorneys with questions and noting that there is no precedent in Delaware law for allowing a post-trial shareholder vote to ratify adjudicated breaches of fiduciary duty by corporate directors.
“This has never been done before,” she said.
Defense attorneys argued that while they could find no case that is exactly comparable, Delaware law has long recognized shareholder ratification as a cure to corporate governance errors, and has long acknowledged the “sovereignty” of shareholders as the ultimate owners of a corporation.
“I candidly don’t see how Delaware law can tell the owners of the company that they’re not entitled to make the decision they made,” said Rudolf Koch, an attorney for Tesla.
Donald Verrilli, a lawyer for an induvial stockholder who owns more than 19,000 Tesla shares, suggested that it would be wrong for the lone shareholder who filed the lawsuit to thwart the will of the majority of Tesla shareholders. At the time the lawsuit was filed, the plaintiff owned just nine shares of Tesla stock.
“The voice of the majority of shareholders should matter…. This lawsuit is not representing the interest of the shareholders,” Verrilli said.
Thomas Grady, an attorney for a group of Florida objectors who own or manage almost 8 million Tesla shares with some $2 billion, argued that for McCormick to rule for the plaintiff, she has to “disenfranchise” all other Tesla shareholders.
Attorneys for the plaintiff, who are seeking unprecedented legal fees in the form of Tesla stock valued at more than $5 billion, were to argue their case Friday afternoon.
Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, is suing Elon Musk and his social media network X for $35 million, alleging fraud and breach of contract after the billionaire abruptly scrapped a content partnership between them in March.
The lawsuit, posted by Variety, which earlier reported on the legal claim, claims that Musk and X promised that Lemon would have “full authority and control over the work he produced even if disliked” by the Tesla CEO and his executives. Lemon also alleges he never received any pay for his content deal, which the lawsuit states amounted to a “guaranteed” $1.5 million in the first year.
Lemon’s attorney, Carney R. Shegerian, and a representative for X didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lemon’s suit comes less than five months after the much-touted content deal fell apart even before it officially started. X announced the arrangement was ending just days before its maiden broadcast was set to air on X in March, while Musk derided Lemon’s approach at the time as “basically just ‘CNN, but on social media.’”
The first episode, which Lemon released on social media after the content deal was canceled, showed a sometimes prickly conversation with Musk in which the billionaire defended his prescription usage of ketamine, saying the drug helped him alleviate a “negative chemical mind state.” Musk also complained in the interview about the way Lemon was asking questions, describing it as “not cogent.
The lawsuit alleges that Musk and his representatives, including X CEO Linda Yaccarino, “deliberately misrepresented what they intended to do,” which it claims was to capitalize on Lemon’s name and professional status to rehabilitate X’s reputation after major advertisers fled the service following Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic post.
Lemon alleges he incurred “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to create his own media company to produce the X content.
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, is suing Elon Musk and his social media network X, alleging fraud and breach of contract after the billionaire abruptly scrapped a content partnership between them in March.
The lawsuit, posted by Variety, which earlier reported on the legal claim, claims that Musk and X promised that Lemon would have “full authority and control over the work he produced even if disliked” by the Tesla CEO and his executives. Lemon also alleges he never received any pay for his content deal, which the lawsuit states amounted to a “guaranteed” $1.5 million in the first year.
Lemon’s attorney, Carney R. Shegerian, and a representative for X didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lemon’s suit comes less than five months after the much-touted content deal fell apart even before it officially started. X announced the arrangement was ending just days before its maiden broadcast was set to air on X in March, while Musk derided Lemon’s approach at the time as “basically just ‘CNN, but on social media.’”
The first episode, which Lemon released on social media after the content deal was canceled, showed a sometimes prickly conversation with Musk in which the billionaire defended his prescription usage of ketamine, saying the drug helped him alleviate a “negative chemical mind state.” Musk also complained in the interview about the way Lemon was asking questions, describing it as “not cogent.
The lawsuit alleges that Musk and his representatives, including X CEO Linda Yaccarino, “deliberately misrepresented what they intended to do,” which it claims was to capitalize on Lemon’s name and professional status to rehabilitate X’s reputation after major advertisers fled the service following Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic post.
Lemon alleges he incurred “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to create his own media company to produce the X content.
Editor’s note: The initial version of the story mistakenly reported that Don Lemon is suing Elon Musk for $35 million. The damages haven’t been specified.
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
A lawsuit accuses Uber of not addressing allegations that its platform is being used for sex trafficking.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
The parents of two girls are suing Uber, saying the ride-share company allowed their 12- and 13-year-old daughters to be trafficked from South Carolina to a man’s North Carolina home, where one girl was raped.
The lawsuit says Uber is aware of an “abhorrent problem” with its platform — that it’s a popular “form of transportation to traffic victims sexually, primarily minor girls, across the United States.”
In 2023, the North Carolina man, an accused sex trafficker, started grooming the 12-year-old girl over Facebook and later ordered an Uber to have her and her friend “delivered” to his home, according to a complaint filed July 24 in York County, South Carolina.
Fayvion Jarrod Williams — who was convicted of statutory rape of a minor and sexual exploitation of a minor on July 2 — sent the Uber to pick up the girls down the street from one of their mother’s homes in late November, the complaint says.
Information regarding Williams’ legal representation wasn’t immediately available.
The Uber driver didn’t ask the girls about their ages “even though they were noticeably underage,” according to the complaint.
Out of fear, the 13-year-old girl told the driver “they were younger than their actual ages in an attempt to get him to cancel the ride and refuse to drive them,” the complaint says.
However, he continued the ride and headed to Williams’ home in North Carolina, according to the complaint.
After the girls were dropped off, Williams took them into his backyard and encouraged them to smoke a marijuana cigarette, the lawsuit says. Then he walked them inside his home, where they saw an older man inside playing video games, the complaint says.
When Williams propositioned the girls to perform sex acts, the 13-year-old girl refused, according to the complaint.
He ordered the other girl, who was scared Williams might hurt her as she knew he likely had a gun, to his room where he violently raped her and filmed the assault, the complaint says.
“This is a horrific and tragic situation that has upended the lives of these families, all made possible by Uber because of their negligence and their steadfast prioritization of profits over safety,” Clarkson Law Firm attorney Tracey B. Cowan, who is representing the case, said in a news release.
“Uber is actively participating in and profiting from the trafficking of minors and doesn’t care who it hurts along the way,” Cowan said.
The girl’s parents are suing Uber on multiple claims, including negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and trafficking, the lawsuit shows.
An Uber spokesperson told McClatchy News on July 26 that “the details of this incident are horrific.”
“We take our role helping to combat human trafficking seriously and have spent years investing in prevention efforts, including providing every driver with educational resources on how to identify the signs of human trafficking and report suspected cases,” the spokesperson said.
The second Uber ride
Following the rape, Williams ordered another Uber ride to drive the girls back to South Carolina, according to the complaint.
The Uber driver who responded to Williams’ request for a ride allowed the girls to get in the car and didn’t ask for their ages, the complaint says.
The driver remained silent during the “hour-long drive across state lines,” according to the complaint.
During the ride, the 12-year-old told her friend she had been raped, the complaint says.
The Uber driver dropped the girl’s off at a park near one of their mother’s homes — a location Williams had chosen — “despite the fact that there were no parents waiting for (them),” according to the complaint.
The 13-year-old’s mother had been searching for the girls and emerged from a parked car at the park as they exited the Uber, the complaint says.
The mother rushed over to the driver, asking where they came from, according to the complaint.
“All Uber Driver #2 said was something along the lines of, ‘Some guy named Fayvion paid for (the ride),’” the complaint says.
A day later, Williams messaged the 13-year-old on Facebook and shared a video of himself raping her friend, according to the complaint.
The rape was ultimately reported to authorities in South Carolina and North Carolina, where Williams was arrested, the complaint says.
Williams is detained at Piedmont Correctional Institution in Salisbury, North Carolina, about a 45-mile drive northeast from Charlotte, according to the state Department of Corrections. He was transferred to the prison on July 17 from Gaston County, records show.
‘No action has been taken’
With their lawsuit, the girl’s parents are hoping for change from Uber.
The lawsuit accuses Uber of not implementing safety measures, including enhanced background checks and mandatory dashboard cameras.
The company told McClatchy News that Uber’s “Global Investigations team works hand in hand with law enforcement to help bring suspected traffickers to justice.”
Uber advises its drivers to cancel rides with unaccompanied minors who don’t have a teen account with the platform, according to the company.
The company also offers drivers tips on preventing underage riding online and how to report a canceled ride due to unaccompanied minors.
However, Sara Beller, a Clarkson Law Firm associate, said in statement that Uber “has continuously ignored their drivers picking up unaccompanied minors” and “no action has been taken.”
The girl’s parents are seeking an unspecified amount in damages and are demanding a jury trial.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 911.
This story was originally published July 26, 2024, 11:23 AM.
Julia Marnin is a McClatchy National Real-Time reporter covering the southeast and northeast while based in New York. She’s an alumna of The College of New Jersey and joined McClatchy in 2021. Previously, she’s written for Newsweek, Modern Luxury, Gannett and more.
Brinker International tried to ill without license, according to a new lawsuit filed by iconic rap group The Beastie Boys.
The Beastie Boys are suing the parent company of Chili’s in a case that accuses the chain restaurant of running an advertisement that used the hip-hop trio’s smash hit “Sabotage” without permission.
In a federal case filed Wednesday in New York, the acclaimed rap-rock group, who rose to fame in the ’80s with the release of their debut album “Licensed to Ill,” allege Brinker International created a Chili’s ad that used significant portions of “Sabotage” and ripped off the song’s music video.
Brinker International did not immediately return an email seeking comment. The court filings did not list an attorney for Brinker.
Debuting in 1994 on the band’s fourth album, “Ill Communication,” the song “Sabotage” became a huge hit for The Beastie Boys. Its accompanying music video, where the group’s three members donned wigs, fake mustaches and sunglasses in a parody of 1970s crime television shows, is one of the most recognizable in the genre.
The lawsuit accuses Brinker of creating a Chili’s social media ad in 2022 that used parts of the song alongside a video of three people wearing 1970’s-style disguises stealing ingredients from a Chili’s restaurant.
The case was filed by surviving group members Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Michael “Mike D” Diamond, along with the executor of the estate of Adam “MCA” Yauch, who died of cancer in 2012 at age 47. Yauch, in his will, specifically barred the use of his music in advertisements.
In 2014, the Beastie Boys won $1.7 million in a copyright violation case against the maker of Monster Energy drink for the company’s unauthorized use of one of the group’s songs. In a separate ruling, Monster was ordered to pay an addition $668,000 of the the Beastie Boys’ $2.4 million legal fees from the trial.
The Beastie Boys, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, have turned out four No. 1 albums and sold more than 40 million records. Last year, the corner of Ludlow and Rivington streets in New York City was officially renamed Beastie Boys Square. The intersection is featured on the cover of the group’s second album, “Paul’s Boutique.”
The Beastie Boys sue Chili’s parent company over alleged misuse of ‘Sabotage’ song in ad
Updated: 11:03 PM EDT Oct 11, 2024
The Beastie Boys are suing the parent company of Chili’s in a case that accuses the chain restaurant of running an advertisement that used the hip-hop trio’s smash hit “Sabotage” without permission. The rap group, in a federal case filed Wednesday in New York, alleged Brinker International created a Chili’s ad that used significant portions of “Sabotage” and ripped off the song’s music video. Brinker International did not immediately return an email seeking comment. The court filings did not list an attorney for Brinker.Debuting in 1994, “Sabotage” became a huge hit for The Beastie Boys, and its accompanying music video, where the group’s three members donned wigs, fake mustaches and sunglasses in a parody of 1970s crime television shows, is one of the most recognizable in the genre. The lawsuit accused Brinker of creating a Chili’s social media ad in 2022 that used parts of the song alongside a video of three people wearing 1970’s-style disguises stealing ingredients from a Chili’s restaurant. The case was filed by surviving Beastie Boys members Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, along with the executor of the estate of Adam Yauch, a band member who died of cancer in 2012. Yauch, in his will, specifically barred the use of his music in advertisements. The Beastie Boys in 2014 won $1.7 million in a copyright violation case against the maker of Monster Energy drink for the company’s unauthorized use of one of the group’s songs.
NEW YORK —
The Beastie Boys are suing the parent company of Chili’s in a case that accuses the chain restaurant of running an advertisement that used the hip-hop trio’s smash hit “Sabotage” without permission.
The rap group, in a federal case filed Wednesday in New York, alleged Brinker International created a Chili’s ad that used significant portions of “Sabotage” and ripped off the song’s music video.
Brinker International did not immediately return an email seeking comment. The court filings did not list an attorney for Brinker.
Debuting in 1994, “Sabotage” became a huge hit for The Beastie Boys, and its accompanying music video, where the group’s three members donned wigs, fake mustaches and sunglasses in a parody of 1970s crime television shows, is one of the most recognizable in the genre.
The lawsuit accused Brinker of creating a Chili’s social media ad in 2022 that used parts of the song alongside a video of three people wearing 1970’s-style disguises stealing ingredients from a Chili’s restaurant.
The case was filed by surviving Beastie Boys members Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, along with the executor of the estate of Adam Yauch, a band member who died of cancer in 2012. Yauch, in his will, specifically barred the use of his music in advertisements.
The Beastie Boys in 2014 won $1.7 million in a copyright violation case against the maker of Monster Energy drink for the company’s unauthorized use of one of the group’s songs.
The Beastie Boys sue Chili’s parent company over alleged misuse of ‘Sabotage’ song in ad
Updated: 8:03 PM PDT Oct 11, 2024
The Beastie Boys are suing the parent company of Chili’s in a case that accuses the chain restaurant of running an advertisement that used the hip-hop trio’s smash hit “Sabotage” without permission. The rap group, in a federal case filed Wednesday in New York, alleged Brinker International created a Chili’s ad that used significant portions of “Sabotage” and ripped off the song’s music video. Brinker International did not immediately return an email seeking comment. The court filings did not list an attorney for Brinker.Debuting in 1994, “Sabotage” became a huge hit for The Beastie Boys, and its accompanying music video, where the group’s three members donned wigs, fake mustaches and sunglasses in a parody of 1970s crime television shows, is one of the most recognizable in the genre. The lawsuit accused Brinker of creating a Chili’s social media ad in 2022 that used parts of the song alongside a video of three people wearing 1970’s-style disguises stealing ingredients from a Chili’s restaurant. The case was filed by surviving Beastie Boys members Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, along with the executor of the estate of Adam Yauch, a band member who died of cancer in 2012. Yauch, in his will, specifically barred the use of his music in advertisements. The Beastie Boys in 2014 won $1.7 million in a copyright violation case against the maker of Monster Energy drink for the company’s unauthorized use of one of the group’s songs.
NEW YORK —
The Beastie Boys are suing the parent company of Chili’s in a case that accuses the chain restaurant of running an advertisement that used the hip-hop trio’s smash hit “Sabotage” without permission.
The rap group, in a federal case filed Wednesday in New York, alleged Brinker International created a Chili’s ad that used significant portions of “Sabotage” and ripped off the song’s music video.
Brinker International did not immediately return an email seeking comment. The court filings did not list an attorney for Brinker.
Debuting in 1994, “Sabotage” became a huge hit for The Beastie Boys, and its accompanying music video, where the group’s three members donned wigs, fake mustaches and sunglasses in a parody of 1970s crime television shows, is one of the most recognizable in the genre.
The lawsuit accused Brinker of creating a Chili’s social media ad in 2022 that used parts of the song alongside a video of three people wearing 1970’s-style disguises stealing ingredients from a Chili’s restaurant.
The case was filed by surviving Beastie Boys members Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, along with the executor of the estate of Adam Yauch, a band member who died of cancer in 2012. Yauch, in his will, specifically barred the use of his music in advertisements.
The Beastie Boys in 2014 won $1.7 million in a copyright violation case against the maker of Monster Energy drink for the company’s unauthorized use of one of the group’s songs.
A Connecticut woman is suing JetBlue for $1.5 million after she allegedly suffered extreme burns from hot tea she claims was spilled on her chest and lap during a turbulent flight.
On May 15, Tahjana Lewis was traveling with her 5-year-old daughter on a JetBlue flight from Orlando, Florida, to Hartford, Connecticut, when flight attendants started beverage service during a bout of turbulence, according to the lawsuit filed in June. In her suit, Lewis claims that a passenger seated in the row in front of her requested a cup of hot tea, the contents of which spilled onto Lewis as it was being served by the flight attendant, resulting in severe burns.
Lewis is suing the New York-based carrier for negligence, arguing that JetBlue’s flight staff served water for tea and other beverages at an unreasonably hot temperature that was beyond food service standards. The flight staff also failed to properly administer first aid to Lewis after the incident happened, according to the lawsuit.
“They did basically nothing to dissuade her pain,” Lewis’ attorney Edward Jazlowiecki told CBS MoneyWatch.
Lewis claims she suffered severe burns on her upper chest, legs, buttocks and right arm as a result of the spill, and that some of burns will be permanently disabling and involve a great deal of pain and medical expenses.
JetBlue didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Aircraft turbulence, which can range from mild bumps and jolts to dramatic changes in altitude, is caused by “atmospheric pressure, jet streams, air around mountains, cold or warm weather fronts, or thunderstorms,” according to the Federal Aviation Administration, and is considered a normal occurrence in the airline industry. According to a 2021 National Transportation Safety Board report, deaths and serious injuries caused by turbulence are rare.
Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. He previously worked as a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, Newsday and the Florida Times-Union. His reporting primarily focuses on the U.S. housing market, the business of sports and bankruptcy.
You may have recently heard of Katie Johnson. Though it’s gotten almost no coverage in the media landscape obsessed with the fact Biden is old, her horrifying story is at least being shared now.
Katie (not her real name) is a woman who filed a lawsuit in 2016 in which she claimed Donald Trump and a then mostly unknown to the public Jeffrey Epstein had raped her when she was just 13 years old. It’s a truly disgusting story. You can read more HERE.
Katie Says
But something which goes somewhat overlooked in that story is the other little girl. See, in Katie’s legal filing from April 2016 she says she was “forced to engage in an unnatural lesbian sex act with her fellow minor and sex slave” — Maria Doe — in front of Trump for his “sexual enjoyment.” Afterward “both minors were forced to orally copulate Defendant Trump by placing their mouths simultaneously on his erect penis until he achieved sexual orgasm.” The complaint adds:
“After zipping up his pants, Defendant Trump physically pushed both minors away while angrily berating them for the ‘poor’ quality of their sexual performance.”
It’s horrifying this should have happened to 13-year-old Katie. But she says Maria was even younger — just 12 years old!
Obviously the story was largely dismissed in 2016… but given what we know about Epstein and his underage sex trafficking ring now it all seems much more plausible. Hell, we’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to a few key men known to have been close associates with the billionaire pedophile. And it turns out it may have dropped years ago before anyone knew they were looking for it.
Katie allegedly dropped her lawsuit to protect herself, claiming she and her family’s lives had been threatened by Trump and Epstein. Just before going public with her identity she got too scared and basically vanished. She remains a bit of a mystery — all we have is her legal filings. But perhaps an even bigger mystery is this Maria Doe. She didn’t even come forward with her own accusations. Who was she?
Maria’s Story
Well, here’s where it gets really tricky. There is a report out there which claims to have identified Maria as a child kidnapping victim… something which makes sense if she was a “sex slave” to Epstein at just 12 years old. But be warned, we’re kind of going down the rabbit hole here. This investigation was a partnership between a political watchdog group called the Justice Integrity Project and an independent reporter named Wayne Madsen. Madsen is actually known as a conservative conspiracy theorist, having once been connected to Alex Jones, though the two reportedly had a falling out. So take this all with a healthy dose of skepticism… Unlike Katie’s legal filing, this is not a firsthand account but rather investigative reporting which has not been corroborated by larger outlets. (Though to be fair, we don’t know if it’s even been looked at by larger outlets.)
According to this report, Maria was abducted from Waterbury, Connecticut when she was just 11 years old. They claim this child, the same one who would end up in that NYC town house with Epstein and Trump, was first reported missing by her mother on March 20, 1993. She was allegedly last seen the day before, talking with a man who was later IDed as a Colombian national who went by the nickname “Papito.” Little Daddy, for those who don’t habla.
The Waterbury Police Department‘s report says the tween was last seen outside of Nash’s Pizza, a popular eatery in the Puerto Rican neighborhood where she lived. Wait, sorry, not an actual real pizzagate?? Not exactly… Madsen and the Justice Integrity Project don’t point fingers at the restaurant — instead they say she was kidnapped by men involved in a trafficking ring like ones you might see straight out of the movies, taking little girls off the street for wealthy and powerful men.
It seems literally unbelievable… until you remember what we know to be true about what Epstein was doing. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t seem all that farfetched anymore…
So if they’re right, somehow this little girl was trafficked and ended up held by Epstein — and was sexually abused by the future President of the United States. Just a rotten sentence we wish we didn’t have to even think about.
The Mayor of Waterbury
An interesting link to all this… Does the name of the city sound familiar? Waterbury, Connecticut? No reason why it might to most, but it just might if you’re from the general area… or extremely knowledgeable on the subject of America’s worst political scandals of all time…
A man named Philip Giordano was elected mayor of Waterbury in 1995, just a couple years after Maria’s disappearance. He was also the Republican Party’s candidate for Senate in 2000 against Joe Lieberman. He lost that race, however, and instead of joining Congress continued to serve as Mayor until 2001.
Wait, so he started after Maria was abducted?
So… No reason it should be considered a connection… except for the coincidence he left office in disgrace when he was ARRESTED. See, Mayor Giordano was under investigation for municipal corruption, something about kickbacks, self-dealing, and working with the local mafia. Crazy stuff. But the craziest part is, during the investigation the FBI found something else — phone records and photos with a prostitute… and her 8-year-old daughter and 10-year-old niece. He had apparently paid the drug-addicted woman to let him have sexual contact with these two little girls.
Giordano was ultimately convicted of 14 federal counts of using his phone to solicit sex from two minors. He was sentenced to 37 years — apart from all the municipal corruption stuff. After that he faced state charges. Back in Connecticut he pleaded no contest to 4 counts of first-degree sexual assault and 4 counts of conspiracy to commit sexual assault. He got another 18 years for that, though they’re to be served concurrently.
He’s still in prison, thankfully.
Look, this is probably all a coincidence. A Republican president accused of raping a 12-year-old girl who happens to have been abducted from a town which, right after, had a Republican mayor who ended up being a convicted pedophile? We’re not saying it’s all part of some vast conspiracy, some huge ring of child molesters, but… Well, we know there was an underage sex trafficking ring. And while Epstein may be dead, and Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison, NO ONE ELSE has faced any consequences or been fully confirmed as a participant. We may not want to believe it, but we know for a fact there are many big names in business and politics who were involved. And frankly, the fact the news isn’t leading with this every night is kind of crazy… right?
Where Is Maria?
One last thing… though maybe the most important… What happened to Maria after all this??
We hope she’s living a happy life somewhere, healed and moved on. We don’t know how naive that hope may be, but that’s what we’d like to believe. The problem is…
As part of Katie Johnson’s lawsuit against Trump and Epstein, she found a corroborating witness. Tiffany Doe came forward as well, admitting to working for Jeffrey Epstein as a “party planner” — the one who first convinced Katie to attend his parties. (This started when Tiffany was just 22, so we may be talking about another trafficking victim being promoted here. She does say she started out “being paid to entertain various guests.”)
Tiffany backs Katie’s story completely, saying she “personally witnessed the sexual encounters” described. She adds something Katie doesn’t mention about Maria though.
In her sworn testimony she says she “personally witnessed” Trump and Epstein “physically threaten the life and well-being” of Katie. But she remembers something specific Trump told the 13-year-old:
“I personally witnessed Defendant Trump telling the Plaintiff that she shouldn’t ever say anything if she didn’t want to disappear like the 12-year-old female Maria, and that he was capable of having her whole family killed.”
JFC. He’s implying Maria was killed. What in the actual f**k. You can read Tiffany Doe’s entire declaration HERE btw.
So it’s possible the reason Maria never came forward is that she couldn’t… because he made her “disappear”?? This is… a whole other level of scary from a guy we were already terrified of. If this is true, it suddenly makes sense why Katie chose to drop her suit and run away, back into anonymity.
Of course, one other person could have testified against Trump here… Unfortunately before Jeffrey Epstein could be prosecuted and turn on all his co-conspirators in the sex trafficking ring, well… he died in police custody. It was reported a suicide, though no one has really believed that for five years.
Seems like we’ll never know what really happened to Maria. A 12-year-old girl. A sixth grader, ffs.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn more about resources, consider checking out https://www.rainn.org/resources.
[Image via MEGA/WENN/NYC Sex Offender Registry/Connecticut Department of Correction.]
Parents of five Black elementary and middle school students in Livingston County are suing the district, alleging their children endured “severe, pervasive, and persistent” racist comments as administrators looked the other way.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by the prominent civil rights law firm Marko Law, says the students at Pathfinder Middle School and Navigator Upper Elementary School were called the n-word, “monkeys,” and “cotton pickers,” among other derogatory slurs.
Despite a repeated pattern of white students mocking Black children, administrators at Pinckney Community Schools have failed to “take any meaningful action to correct the behavior or end the racism,” according to the lawsuit.
The students are as young as 11 years old.
At Pinckney Community Schools, 92.3% of the students are white.
The lawsuit also alleges that Black students are disciplined more harshly than white students. In one case, the district refused to punish the harassers “out of fear of labeling them a ‘racist,’ while the harassed child was suspended for two days,” according to the lawsuit.
“Any school district has a duty and obligation to look out for the welfare and wellbeing of its students,” Jon Marko, principal attorney and founder of Marko Law, said in a statement Wednesday. “Not only did Pinckney Community Schools breach its duty when it failed to protect these children from racial discrimination, but it also failed to act or protect from the incessant bullying and humiliation the children experienced. As a consequence, racism continues to permeate throughout the school district. No parent should be scared to send a child to school for fear of racial harassment.”
Metro Times couldn’t immediately reach district administrators for comment.
The lawsuit was filed against the district, Superintendent Rick Todd, and principals Janet McDole and Lori Sandula.
According to the lawsuit, the school failed to review the incidents collectively to determine if there is a racist, hostile environment. And the harassers who were disciplined faced lenient corrective action, the lawsuit claims.
Marko also alleges that district administrators are not properly trained in investigating harassment complaints. In addition, the administrators failed to accurately record the incidents of harassment and didn’t follow school procedures to address the behavior.
The lawsuit lists multiple, troubling incidents of harassment. At Pathfinder Elementary School, one student, identified as S.C. in the lawsuit, was physically assaulted, called the n-word, “cotton picker,” and “monkey,” and was told she does not belong, according to the lawsuit. To avoid the harassers, she hid in hallways until the instigating students reported to class. As a result, she has repeatedly been written up for being tardy to class.
When the students’ parents complained, they often didn’t hear back from administrators, the lawsuit states. A father of one of the students said he asked a principal why she did not alert him to racial harassment targeting his child. The principal responded that she didn’t want to bring negative attention to the behavior or label the white student as a racist.
At Navigator Upper Elementary School, a Black child was called various derogatory names, and each time the teachers failed to do anything about it. At one point, the student was so distraught that his teacher failed to take action that he asked his parents to pick him up from school.
“Teachers are present when slurs are used against African
American students, administrators are informed of racist behaviors, including physical assaults, and parents routinely escalate racist incidents to principals and the superintendent,” the lawsuit states. “Yet, Defendant has failed to take meaningful action.”
Civil rights activists on Friday announced a “groundbreaking settlement agreement” in connection with a lawsuit filed by a Black man who was arrested by Detroit police based on a false facial recognition match.
Robert Williams was arrested in front of his wife and young daughters at his Farmington Hills home in January 2020 after the facial recognition system incorrectly flagged him as a shoplifting suspect. He was locked up for 30 hours in an overcrowded detention facility where he was forced to sleep on a cement floor.
Based on two blurry surveillance photos, Williams was accused of stealing watches from a Shinola store in Detroit in 2018.
In April 2021, the ACLU of Michigan filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Williams, alleging the police department violated his Fourth Amendment rights and that his wrongful arrest was in violation of the Michigan Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
Williams is among at least three innocent Black people who have been arrested by Detroit police due to a false facial recognition match.
Featured in the far-reaching settlement are restrictions in how the Detroit Police Department can use facial recognition technology.
The core components of the settlement include:
Prohibiting police from arresting people based solely on facial recognition results or photo lineups following a facial recognition search.
Banning police from conducting lineups based solely on facial recognition leads without independent and reliable evidence linking a suspect to a crime.
Mandating police training on the risks and dangers of facial recognition technology and highlighting its higher misidentification rates for people of color.
Requiring an audit of all cases in which facial recognition technology was used to obtain an arrest warrant since 2017.
Over the next four years, the U.S. District Court will retain jurisdiction of the case to ensure the agreement is enforced.
“The Detroit Police Department’s abuses of facial recognition technology completely upended my life,” Williams said. “My wife and young daughters had to watch helplessly as I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit and by the time I got home from jail, I had already missed my youngest losing her first tooth and my eldest couldn’t even bear to look at my picture. Even now, years later, it still brings them to tears when they think about it.”
Civil right activists say the settlement is important because facial recognition technology is significantly flawed, inevitably leading to false arrests.
The technology has come under increasing fire after studies have shown that the software misidentifies people of color more often than white people, which Metro Times reported in a cover story in July 2019.
“This settlement finally brings justice to Detroit, and the Williams family, after years of fighting to expose the flaws of this dangerous technology,” Phil Mayor, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan, said. “Police reliance on shoddy technology merely creates shoddy investigations. Under this settlement, the Detroit Police Department should transform from being a nationwide leader in wrongful arrests driven by facial recognition technology into being a leader in implementing meaningful guardrails to constrain and limit their use of the technology.”
Nationwide, at least six people have reported being falsely arrested based on flawed facial recognition matches. All have been Black.
Three of those cases were in Detroit.
In February 2022, Porcha Woodruff was eight months pregnant when six cops arrested her at her home in Detroit based on a false facial recognition match. She spent 11 hours at the Detroit Detention Center and was charged with robbery and carjacking. A month later, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office dismissed the case.
The technology also misidentified Michael Oliver in July 2019. Oliver was arrested and falsely accused of stealing a teacher’s cellphone and throwing it. He also filed a lawsuit against the city.
“We hope this groundbreaking settlement will not only prevent future wrongful arrests of Black people in Detroit, but that it will serve as a model for other police departments that insist on using facial recognition technology,” Michael J. Steinberg, director of the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative at the University of Michigan Law School, said. “We are also thrilled that Mr. Williams, who has become a face of movement to stop the misuse of facial recognition, will receive some measure of relief.”
In a statement to Metro Times, Detroit Police Chief James White said his department raised the standards for making an arrest based on facial recognition matches after Williams was misidentified. Under the newer policies, police can only use matches as a tip to further an investigation, and matches cannot be the sole basis for an arrest.
But even under the new policies, police arrested the other two Detroiters who were later found to be victims of faulty matches.
“The Department is pleased with its work with the ACLU and University of Michigan over the last year and a half and that our new facial recognition policy, we firmly believe will serve as a national best practice and model for other agencies using this technology,” White said. “While the work DPD and the ACLU may differ, our goals are similar — to ensure policing is done in a fair, equitable, and constitutional manner.”
Detroit’s Real Time Crime Center, where facial recognition software is used.
Less than a year before Williams was arrested, Detroiters urged the city’s Board of Police Commissioners to ban the technology, saying it would lead to false arrests. But the commissioners and Mayor Mike Duggan stood behind the technology, saying it wouldn’t be abused.
Detroit’s facial recognition software is especially pervasive because it’s used on an ever-expanding surveillance network of high-definition cameras under Duggan’s Project Green Light, a crime-fighting initiative that began in 2016 at gas stations and fast-food restaurants. Since then, the city has installed more than 500 surveillance cameras at parks, schools, low-income housing complexes, immigration centers, gas stations, churches, abortion clinics, hotels, health centers, apartments, and addiction treatment centers. The city also installed high-definition cameras at roughly 500 intersections at a time when other cities are scaling back surveillance because of privacy concerns.
Williams said everyone should be worried about facial recognition.
“The scariest part is that what happened to me could have happened to anyone,” Williams said. “But, at least with this settlement, it will be far less likely to happen again to another person in Detroit. With this painful chapter of our lives closing, my wife and I will continue raising awareness about the dangers of this technology.”
The ACLU still supports a ban on the technology.
“The multiple wrongful arrests by police in Detroit and other American cities show that face recognition technology is fundamentally dangerous in the hands of law enforcement,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “The most effective way to avoid abuses is for lawmakers to ban police use of the technology, as city councils from Boston to Minneapolis to San Francisco have done. But in jurisdictions where lawmakers have yet to act, police departments should look to Detroit’s new policies, which will seriously mitigate the risk of further false arrests and related harms.”
A federal lawsuit filed in California on Thursday by a woman identified as Jane Doe accuses the DJ and producer Diplo of distributing revenge porn. According to the suit, Doe began communicating with Diplo, born Thomas Wesley Pentz, on Snapchat in April 2016, when she was 21 years old, and they exchanged pornographic images for two months. Doe and Diplo began having sex, according to the suit, and their relationship continued until October 2023, the month before Doe learned that Pentz had been distributing images and videos of their sexual encounters without her knowledge or consent.
Doe’s suit is the second set of revenge porn allegations filed in recent years against Pentz, whose globe-trotting lifestyle has become grist for his prolific social media presence. According to her account, she made Pentz aware that she didn’t want him to record their sexual activities without her consent or distribute images or video to third parties. In November of last year, Doe claims, another woman she didn’t know at the time reached out to her and said she was in possession of images and videos of Pentz and Doe having sex. The woman told Doe that she received the materials from Pentz via Snapchat in October 2018. The suit claims that Diplo continued to distribute Doe’s intimate images and videos up until the present.
On November 7, according to the suit, Doe reported Pentz to the New York Police Department, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The NYPD didn’t immediately return a request for comment, and it’s unclear whether Pentz has been in New York since November.
Representatives for Pentz didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pentz achieved musical acclaim and prominence during the 2000s, but in more recent years, he has developed a public profile more readily tied to his social ubiquity. A staple of red carpets and A-list sports events, his winking presence tends to land as a Waldo-like trope.
That persona has endured through a separate sexual misconduct case that made headlines for a period beginning in late 2020. In October of that year, a woman named Shelly Auguste alleged that Pentz sexually assaulted her, recorded their sexual activity without consent, and distributed revenge porn. The following year, after Pentz and Auguste sued each other, he denied her claims in a detailed Instagram slideshow, calling her a “stalker” attempting to extort him. In September 2022, an arbitrator awarded Pentz $1.2 million after finding that Auguste’s social media posts violated a mutual restraining order she had signed with Pentz.
Auguste is currently suing Pentz for claims including sexual battery and defamation; a civil trial is scheduled for January 2025. In November, according to a Pitchfork report, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office began reviewing Auguste’s revenge porn allegations after she filed a police report. (The office didn’t return a request for comment on the status of that review.) “For more than three years,” Pentz’s attorney Bryan Freedman told the outlet, “Shelly Auguste has been orchestrating an ongoing smear campaign against Wes—and this is just more of the same.”
Doe is seeking damages from Pentz for violations of revenge porn statutes. “Tragically, this is not the first time the defendant has shamed and violated a woman by disseminating intimate images without her consent,” Helene Weiss, an attorney for Doe, said in a statement. “Diplo’s alleged illicit pattern of behavior illustrates the harm he’s caused Jane Doe, and other young women just like her.”
HOUSTON – A Texas-based company is accused of stealing millions of dollars from intended parents meant for surrogates and more alleged victims are coming forward claiming to be caught in the middle of the scheme.
Surrogacy Escrow Account Management, LLC (SEAM) and owner Dominique Side are facing mounting allegations of theft as lawyers connected to a civil lawsuit told Bryce Newberry, a reporter at the NBC affiliate in Houston, that additional victims have reached out from Egypt, China, and France.
“When people come to surrogacy, it’s not a choice. It’s not like, ‘Oh, this is my first choice. I want to do this.’ It’s like, ‘I don’t really have another option’,” said Arielle Mitton, an intended parent from Bellingham, Washington.
She is the fourth alleged victim to share her story publicly with the NBC affiliate in Houston, but the lawsuit claims hundreds of families have been impacted.
Mitton is experiencing secondary infertility, which is why she and her husband took the surrogacy route for their fourth child, expected in December.
“I think this will complete our family,” Mitton said.
But she is part of a growing list of intended parents who say SEAM, which came recommended, stole money in their escrow accounts that should be paying their surrogates.
Mitton’s surrogate in Indiana hasn’t been paid since early May and at last check, her escrow account with SEAM had more than $38,000 in it.
She hasn’t been able to access SEAM’s online portal to get an updated number.
According to a lawsuit filed in Harris County, SEAM and Side defrauded clients by luring them into a fiduciary relationship earlier this month erasing social media accounts and deleting business websites.
An estimated $10 million in escrow funds have vanished, the lawsuit alleges, and have possibly been misappropriated by SEAM and Side for years to fund “other business ventures and (a) lavish lifestyle.”
On Wednesday, Bryce Newberry knocked at the Brazoria County address where Side was served the lawsuit Tuesday evening, but no one answered the door.
An automated response from Side’s email on Wednesday claimed she’s the subject of an “active investigation by federal authorities” and at the advice of counsel, “not permitted to respond to any inquiries.”
“It feels premeditated to me,” Mitton said. “How can someone have millions of dollars disappear without some sort of plan?”
Mitton has picked up extra hours at work and said she’s working on a plan to pay her surrogate, which included the creation of a GoFundMe entitled Donate to Aid for Surrogacy Journey After Escrow Fraud.
She’s also part of a Facebook Group entitled SEAM Breach, which had nearly 800 members Wednesday evening, all of whom have been somehow impacted.
“People are just desperate at this point,” Mitton said. “She just needs to do what’s right.”
SEAM borrowed money earlier this year using the value of the escrow fund, which is money that belongs to the intended parents, as collateral. Records show that lender has filed a lawsuit for defaulting on loan payments.
The FBI is seeking potential victims of SEAM and any information at this website, which was created Wednesday.
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general in backing a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) order aimed at halting deceptive advertising practices by Intuit, the maker of TurboTax.
The order targets Intuit’s “misleading promotion” that falsely claims its preparation software is free when, in reality, most consumers end up paying for the service.
In the ongoing case of Intuit v. FTC, the attorneys general have filed a brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to uphold the commission’s order and dismiss Intuit’s appeal.
“Too many Americans have suffered unnecessary financial losses as a result of Intuit’s deceptive practices, especially low-income families and veterans who were otherwise eligible for free filing services elsewhere,” Nessel said in a news release Wednesday. “I stand firmly with my colleagues in urging the court to uphold the FTC’s decision. We must hold corporations like Intuit responsible for deceptive and misleading advertisements.”
A few years ago, I was lured into using TurboTax when I saw an advertisement claiming it was free. But after spending more than a half hour filling out the electronic form, TurboTax demanded money for its services.
I felt conned. Since I had already filled out the form, I was on the verge of paying the fee and chalking it up to a lesson learned. But I decided the principle was more important and used another service that acknowledged up front that a fee was involved.
The actions by the attorneys general followed a significant settlement in 2022, when a coalition of 50 states and the District of Columbia settled for $141 million over the company’s deceptive marketing and advertising.
In 2023, the commission issued an order requiring Intuit to stop advertising products as free unless there is no cost to all consumers. The company appealed the decision and is seeking to overturn the FTC’s cease-and-desist order.
As a result of the deceptive advertising, millions of Americans, especially low-income taxpayers and military families, have been harmed, the attorneys general claim. The brief details how Intuit allegedly manipulated search results to entice consumers into paying for tax preparation software, even when they were eligible to file their taxes for free. Many TurboTax customers ended up paying for services they should have received for free.
The other states involved in the legal action are Illinois, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin, along with the District of Columbia.
Thirteen children and teens in Hawaii took the state government to court over the threat posed by climate change. Now they’re celebrating a settlement that emphasizes a plan to decarbonize Hawaii’s transportation system in the next 20 years.
It’s the latest example of frustrated youth in the United States taking their climate concerns into the courtroom.
The settlement reached in Navahine v. Hawaii Department of Transportation recognizes children’s constitutional rights to a life-sustaining climate, Gov. Josh Green and attorneys with public interest law firms Our Children’s Trust and Earthjustice said in separate statements Thursday.
The youths in the suit had argued that Hawaii was violating the state constitution by operating a transportation system that harms the climate and infringes upon the right to a clean and healthy environment. More specifically, they accused the Hawaii Department of Transportation of consistently prioritizing building highways over other types of transportation.
The burning of fossil fuels —oil, gas and coal— is the main contributor to global warming caused by human activity. Hawaii is the state most dependent in the U.S. on petroleum for its energy needs, according to Our Children’s Trust.
The parties said the settlement was the first between a state government and youth plaintiffs to address constitutional issues arising from climate change.
“Climate change is indisputable,” Director of Transportation Ed Sniffen said in the governor’s statement. “Burying our heads in the sand and making it the next generation’s problem is not pono,” or not right.
Personal frustrations led to the 2022 lawsuit, along with a larger sense of activism that has driven youth climate movements around the world.
The lawsuit said one plaintiff, a 14-year-old Native Hawaiian raised in Kaneohe, was from a family that has farmed taro for more than 10 generations. However, extreme droughts and heavy rains caused by climate change have reduced crop yields and threatened her ability to continue the cultural practice.
The complaint said that rising sea levels also threatened to put their lands underwater.
The settlement’s provisions include the establishment of a greenhouse gas reduction plan within one year of the agreement that sets out a road map to decarbonize Hawaii’s transportation system in the next 20 years.
Provisions also include “immediate, ambitious investments in clean transportation infrastructure” such as completing the pedestrian and bicycle networks within five years, and dedicating at least $40 million to expanding the public electric vehicle charging network by 2030.
A volunteer youth council will advise the Department of Transportation.
The plaintiffs said they found some hope in the settlement.
“Being heard and moving forward in unity with the state to combat climate change is incredibly gratifying, and empowering,” one plaintiff, identified as Rylee Brooke K., said in a statement.
Elsewhere, youths’ efforts to press the state or federal government have been mixed.
The city of Honolulu filed two lawsuits against major oil and gas companies accusing them of engaging in a deceptive campaign and misleading the public about the dangers of their fossil fuel products and the environmental impacts. The oil companies have appealed to the Supreme Court in an attempt to halt the lawsuits from going forward.
In May, a federal appeals court panel rejected a long-running lawsuit brought by young Oregon-based climate activists who argued that the U.S. government’s role in climate change violated their constitutional rights.
Early this year, the state Supreme Court in Montana declined a request by the state to block the landmark climate ruling that said regulators must consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions when issuing permits for fossil fuel development while its appeal was pending. That case was filed by youth plaintiffs. Oral arguments before the Montana Supreme Court are set for July 10.
The U.S. government is suing Adobe, accusing the software maker of steering customers toward its most expensive subscription plans while concealing how much it costs to cancel.
The Federal Trade Commission said Monday that Adobe deceives customers by “hiding” the early termination fee for the company’s services, which includes popular tools such as Acrobat, Photoshop and Illustrator.
Specifically, Adobe encouraged consumers to enroll in “annual paid month” plans without disclosing that canceling could cost hundreds of dollars, according to the agency. Users who do try to cancel are met unfair roadblocks, the suit also alleges.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court by Department of Justice based on the FTC’s findings, names Adobe vice president Maninder Sawhney and the president of Adobe’s digital media business, David Wadhwani, as defendants. The FTC alleges that Adobe’s practices violate the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act.
“Adobe trapped customers into year-long subscriptions through hidden early termination fees and numerous cancellation hurdles,” Samuel Levine, the FTC’s consumer protection bureau director, said in a statement. “Americans are tired of companies hiding the ball during subscription signup and then putting up roadblocks when they try to cancel.”
Adobe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The FTC in 2023 proposed a “click to cancel” rule that would require businesses to make it as easy to cancel subscriptions as it is to enroll.
Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. He previously worked as a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, Newsday and the Florida Times-Union. His reporting primarily focuses on the U.S. housing market, the business of sports and bankruptcy.
