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Man in Iced Body Probe Pleads Not Guilty
Headline Legal News |
2008/03/11 04:00
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| A man arrested after police found a woman's body packed in dry ice in his hotel room pleaded not guilty Monday to two drug-related charges.pStephen David Royds, 46, is charged with one count each of the sale or transport of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell. A prosecutor said the substance was cocaine./ppOrange County Superior Court Judge Derek G. Johnson set Royds' bail at $1 million./ppRoyds was arrested Thursday after police found the body of Monique Trepp packed in dry ice in a large Rubbermaid container in his hotel room. Police had obtained a warrant to search Royds' room for drugs./ppAn autopsy concluded that Trepp's death was not a homicide and Royds has not been charged with killing her. Toxicology reports were pending, but Dennis Conway, an Orange County assistant district attorney, said it appeared the 33-year-old died of an overdose./ppRoyds' court-appointed public defender, Richard Carmona, did not make himself available to reporters after the brief hearing and didn't immediately return a call for comment./ppIn addition to finding Trepp's body, investigators found drug paraphernalia, drugs and Christmas presents in Royds' room, Conway said./ppPolice and prosecutors have released few other details about the case, including how long Trepp's body was kept in the room. Conway said she had been dating Royds./ppRoyds has a prior drug conviction in Orange County in 2002, but did not appear for sentencing. Even if he were to post the $1 million bail on the new charges, he would be held with no bail on the older case, Conway said./p |
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US cracks multimillion-dollar piracy ring
Headline Legal News |
2008/03/10 09:25
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| pTwo brothers in the US have been given lengthy jail terms for selling large amounts of pirated computer software. A federal court in Alexandria, Virginia sentenced Maurice Robberson, 48, to three years in prison and ordered him to pay $855,917 in restitution./ppHis brother Thomas Robberson, 55, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $151,488 in restitution. Maurice Robberson pleaded guilty to conspiracy and felony copyright infringement, while his brother Thomas Robberson pleaded guilty to a single count of felony copyright infringement./ppThomas Robberson grossed more than $150,000 selling software with a retail value of nearly $1m by operating Bestvalueshoppe.com and TheDealDepot.net./ppMaurice Robberson grossed more than $855,000 selling software with a retail value of nearly $5.6m through CDsalesUSA.com and AmericanSoftwareSales.com. Both brothers have agreed to forfeit all proceeds from the illegal businesses./ppPeople who steal the intellectual property of others for their personal financial gain, while defrauding consumers who think they are buying legitimate products, will be punished for their crimes, as today's sentences prove, said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher./p |
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Pfizer Protects Celebrex Patent From Teva
Headline Legal News |
2008/03/08 11:12
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| pPfizer continued to serve up the pain to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries on Friday when the company reaffirmed its patents on the arthritis pain drug Celebrex./ppThe U.S. Court of Appeals of the Federal District said that two of the three patents were valid, but threw out the third, saying that it was not valid for the treatment of inflammation. Teva will now have to wait until May 2014 to market the copycat. Celebrex provided Pfizer with annual global sales of $1.7 billion in 2007. Bear Stearns analyst project that it will reach global sales of $2.5 billion in 2008, an increase of 9%, and that the drug will pull in $3.1 billion by 2012./ppThe New York-based pharma company has been battling it out with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries to hang on to Celebrex for almost four years. Pfizer sued the Israel-based drug maker after it applied to U.S. regulators for permission to sell the generic in 2004. In March 2007, Pfizer won a ruling from a U.S. federal court over three of the main patents regarding Celebrex, barring Teva from manufacturing the generic until 2015. /p |
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US lawmaker fears open-ended US military pact in Iraq
Headline Legal News |
2008/03/06 12:48
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pA top lawmaker voiced fears Tuesday that US President George Bush's administration was negotiating deals with Iraq that would amount to an open-ended commitment to stage US combat missions there./ppAdministration officials say formal US-Iraqi negotiations will begin later this month on a legal framework aimed at keeping security policy options open for both countries beyond 2008, when the UN mandate for US forces ends./ppDavid Satterfield, the State Department's coordinator for Iraq, told a joint meeting of two congressional subcommittees Tuesday that the agreements will not tie the hands of the next president or indeed this president./ppThey will ensure that every policy option remains on the table, Satterfield told the lawmaking panels. The size of the US presence in Iraq, the missions to be performed by such forces if forces are present, are decisions for the president and the next president to make, he added.
The so-called Strategic Framework and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), he insisted, will not include a binding commitment to defend Iraq or any other security commitments that would warrant Senate advice and consent./p |
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Team New Zealand take Swiss champions to court
Headline Legal News |
2008/03/06 08:58
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| The New Zealand syndicate for the next America's Cup race said Thursday it is seeking tens of millions of euros in compensation from Swiss champions Alinghi over the event's postponement.pTeam New Zealand said it had filed a case with a New York court claiming damages for breach of contract arising from an agreement covering its entry for the 33rd edition of yachting's showpiece event./ppThe agreement included an understanding entered into by (Alinghi boss) Ernesto Bertarelli that the America's Cup would go ahead in 2009, it said in a statement./ppIt's now probable we might not see a normal regatta until 2011, Team New Zealand's managing director Grant Dalton said in the statement./ppThe statement did not indicate the amount of damages it was seeking. But Dalton told AFP in a telephone interview from New York that it would be tens of millions of euros./ppWe have a duty to protect the investment in the team over many years by a wide range of loyal supporters, Dalton said./ppWe also have an obligation to honour the trust shown by the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who have supported the team through the years./ppAlinghi retained the America's Cup by beating Team New Zealand in a hugely successful event in the Spanish port of Valencia in July./ppBut the 33rd edition of the race was indefinitely postponed because of a legal dispute between Alinghi and US syndicate Oracle over the rules./ppTeam New Zealand said it has also filed a second case in a Federal Court under US anti-trust laws./ppThat suit claims Alinghi has acted to stifle competition for the Cup and for the right that goes with it of conducting future events by accepting the Spanish syndicate Desafio as its challenger of record, thereby enabling it to impose rules for the next event that were competely one-sided./ppOracle last July filed a lawsuit in the US against Alinghi's decision to name Desafio as its official challenger of record, which gave it the right to negotiate the format of the America's Cup with the Swiss syndicate./ppIn November, a New York court ruled in favour of Oracle and said the US team should be Alinghi's challenger of record./ppBertarelli had the chance to accept a reasonable proposal from Oracle, which was also signed by the majority of the challengers, and which would have allowed the America's Cup to be held in 2009, Dalton said. He would not do so./ppAlinghi said it was disappointed by the action by Team New Zealand, given their previous public acceptance and commitment to the competition./ppThese actions are totally without merit, wildly miss the target and will be defended rigorously, Lucien Masmejan, Alinghi's legal counsel, said in a statement./ppWe share the sailing community's frustration in the delays affecting the America's Cup but Alinghi, as trustee, is duty bound to defend its position in the current legal action and to preserve the integrity of the America's Cup./ppThe format of the 33rd America's Cup challenge is still subject to an imminent ruling by the New York court, with a multihull duel between Alinghi and Oracle seen as the most likely outcome, rather than a regatta involving several teams./ppThe two teams have begun training in catamarans in Valencia in preparation for such an event./ppThe delay in staging the next America's Cup is harming every challenging syndicate as they have to stretch budgets for a two-year campaign over three or perhaps four years, Dalton said./p |
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