Tag: lawsuits

Alex Jones agrees to liquidate his assets to pay Sandy Hook families, in move that would end his ownership of Infowars

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Thursday moved to liquidate his personal assets, agreeing to demands from the families of Sandy Hook victims whom he owes more than $1.5 billion in damages over his lies about the 2012 school massacre.

The seismic move paves the way for a future in which Jones no longer owns Infowars, the influential conspiracy empire he founded in the late 1990s. Over the years, Jones has not only used the media company to poison the public discourse with vile lies and conspiracy theories, but also to enrich himself to the tune of millions of dollars.

Prior to Thursday, Jones had resisted converting his personal bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 liquidation. But facing mounting legal pressure, he reversed course and caved to the demands of the Sandy Hook families, who have still not seen a penny from Jones since juries in Connecticut and Texas found him liable in 2022 for defamation and emotional distress. His lawyers said in a filing that there was “no reasonable prospect for a successful reorganization” and that continuing down the path would only result in additional expenses incurred by Jones.

The legal maneuver ultimately “means [Jones’] ownership in Free Speech Systems is going to get sold,” Avi Moshenberg, an attorney who represents some of the Sandy Hook families, told CNN on Thursday night, referencing the parent company of Infowars.

“Converting the case to Chapter 7 will hasten the end of these bankruptcies and facilitate the liquidation of Jones’s assets, which is the same reason we have moved to convert his company’s case to Chapter 7,” Chris Mattei, another attorney representing Sandy Hook families, told CNN.

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Fauci is Put On Notice, Told To Preserve Records For Major Free Speech Lawsuit

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) non-profit has sent a letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci and several medical and other US officials, as well as to Google, making sure they are formally notified of their obligations to preserve communications records.

The records in question are relevant to a major First Amendment case alleging collusion between the government and tech companies, Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden), which is currently in the US Supreme Court.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The NCLA letter specified that the request pertains to all documents and electronically stored information, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34.

Those named in the letter are former chief medical adviser to President Biden Dr. Anthony Fauci, his colleague from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (that Fauci headed during the pandemic) Dr. David Morens, Adam Kirschner of the US State Department, and Google General Counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado, among others.

The letter recalled that Fauci is a defendant in the landmark First Amendment case, alleging that he and other government officials named in Murthy v. Missouri – including the president himself – engaged in unconstitutional censorship of social media around Covid issues such as lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccines.

NCLA has joined the plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri and is now in that capacity requesting that Fauci, Morens, and others preserve all documents, including drafts and copies, and paper files maintained by their staff that are relevant to the case.

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Jeffrey Epstein accuser sues prominent psychiatrist Henry Jarecki for allegedly making her ‘sex slave’

A Jeffrey Epstein accuser is suing a prominent 91-year-old psychiatrist, alleging he raped her for years and turned her into his “modern-day sex slave” after the late sex trafficker sent her to him for treatment for depression.

The unidentified woman, referred to only as Jane Doe 11, claims Henry Jarecki started controlling and raping her in 2011 when Epstein gave her the mental health referral — calling him the “best doctor in New York City,” according to the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court Monday.

The one-time model alleged the “wealthy, well-connected” psychiatrist was Epstein’s “go-to” doctor who would regularly treat the pedophile’s victims and often shared young women’s confidential medical information with him, the filings state.

Jarecki’s lawyer, however, dismissed the allegations as “entirely false and baseless.”

“Dr Jarecki never engaged in any abusive conduct with the complainant or any other person,” the attorney, Sarita Kedia, said in a statement.

The woman claims she began to experience depression when Epstein started sexually abused her after she came to the US in 2010 seeking work as a model, the filing states.

She said she agreed to meet Jarecki, who was then in his late 70s, for an initial mental health consultation at his home in Manhattan’s swanky Gramercy Park neighborhood.

“During this first consultation, Jarecki told Jane Doe 11 that he had something that could make her happy right away. However, instead of prescribing her medication, Jarecki presented her with an expensive wristwatch,” the suit says.

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Students Sue Indiana University Over “Bias Incident” Reporting System

Following our recent reporting about the rise of “bias incident” reporting systems on college campuses, threatening free speech, Speech First has filed a lawsuit against Indiana University and several of its officials, challenging the university’s bias incidents policy. The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, alleges that the policy infringes on students’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

Speech First, a nationwide membership organization dedicated to preserving civil rights and free speech, claims that Indiana University’s “bias incident” policy stifles open discourse and chills protected speech. The policy defines a bias incident as “any conduct, speech, or expression, motivated in whole or in part by bias or prejudice meant to intimidate, demean, mock, degrade, marginalize, or threaten individuals or groups based on that individual or group’s actual or perceived identities.”

According to the complaint, this broad and vague definition allows the university to police a wide range of speech, deterring students from expressing controversial or unpopular opinions. The policy’s enforcement mechanisms include tracking and logging incidents, investigating reports, and potentially referring students for disciplinary action.

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Woman With Vaccine Injury in Clinical Trial Sues AstraZeneca

An American woman who suffered an injury from AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine sued the company on May 13, alleging the company breached a contract by not paying for the medical care she requires to deal with the injury.

“They left us no choice,” Brianne Dressen, a preschool teacher in Utah, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Ms. Dressen has paid tens of thousands of dollars to drugs to treat the nervous system disorder and other issues she’s experiencing, according to the complaint, filed in federal court in her home state.

Ms. Dressen chose to participate in AstraZeneca’s clinical trial in 2020 because she wanted to help the company develop its COVID-19 vaccine. The consent form she signed stated in part that AstraZeneca would “cover the costs of research injuries” and “pay the costs of medical treatment.”

“With these reassurances should something go wrong, Bri signed the form, rolled up her sleeve, and let the drug company inject the experimental product into her arm. Her mind was at peace, as Bri believed she was doing the right thing for her country, her students, and her family,” the suit states.

Ms. Dressen soon started experiencing problems, including blurred vision, tinnitus, and vomiting. She later became extremely sensitive to light and suffered spikes in her heart rate.

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Pfizer agrees to settle 10,000 lawsuits accusing pharma giant of hiding cancer risks of heartburn drug Zantac

Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits alleging it it of hiding the cancer risks of its heartburn drug Zantac.

The financial details have not been revealed but pharma rival Sanofi agreed to pay more than $100million to resolve 4,000 Zantac-cancer claims last nonth.

The over-the-counter pill was pulled in the US in 2020 after animal studies found a key ingredient released ‘probable human carcinogens’.

Pfizer was the primary manufacturer of Zantac from 1998 to 2006, when several suits claim it should have known that the drug was contaminated with NDMA.

Plaintiffs claimed the drug was contaminated with the impurity through improper manufacturing practices, and that Pfizer withheld this information from consumers.

NDMA is a chemical byproduct of many industrial manufacturing processes, including the production of rocket fuel.

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TikTok Sues US Government Over Forced Divestment Law

TikTok filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to block a new law requiring either the sale of the app by its Chinese parent company or its removal from app stores and web-hosting services. About two weeks ago, President Joe Biden signed the bill, which had passed both legislative chambers with broad bipartisan support.

In a filing with a federal appeals court in Washington, TikTok challenges the constitutionality of the new law on the grounds that the U.S. government infringed the First Amendment rights of TikTok and its hundreds of millions of users over national security concerns.

The new law sets the initial deadline for a TikTok sale by January 2025, and President Biden can decide to extend the deadline by another three months to allow the deal to be completed.

Lawmakers supporting the new law argued that it was not a ban but a divestiture aimed at preventing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from accessing American consumer data and the algorithm owned by TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, from potentially influencing Americans.

However, the company has maintained that it has not and will not share American user data with the CCP. According to China’s counterespionage law, ByteDance must hand over data on American users if requested.

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NYPD union sues over officers’ rights to use steroids

Lawyers from the Police Benevolent Association have filed a lawsuit against NYPD Police Commissioner Edward Caban and Mayor Adams over recent policy changes relating to the use of performance enhancing drugs such as steroids by active duty officers. From NY Daily News:

The 2011 contract prohibited officers from ingesting or possessing any anabolic steroid or other forms of human growth hormones without a medical prescription. However, the old standard didn’t require officers to run any such prescription by their NYPD district surgeon before starting to use it.

The new protocol — which was enacted on Dec. 26, 2023, and described in an internal memo reviewed by The News as a “zero tolerance drug policy” — beefs up the old rule by affirming that officers must “immediately notify their district surgeon” of any steroid prescription they receive and provide “all supporting medical documentation” to the surgeon backing up the need for the drug.

If officers are caught violating the new rule by, for example, deviating from a prescribed dosage, they can face firing, the memo says.

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Biden Files Lawsuit Against Gas Station Chain Sheetz the Same Day He Was Mocked for Shuffling Into It

President Joe Biden stopped by a Sheetz location on Wednesday to purchase snacks while on a campaign swing through Pennsylvania on the same day that his Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit against the company and two of its subsidiaries.

Apparently, no one informed the president that his administration considered Sheetz guilty of racial discrimination against applicants. Or someone did tell Biden that, and he just didn’t care.

It might not matter, given the questionable nature of the claim against the company.

“According to the lawsuit, Sheetz has maintained a longstanding practice of screening all job applicants for records of criminal conviction and then denying them employment based on those records,” the EEOC said in a news release (available below).

Those screenings resulted in 14.5 percent of blacks being turned down for jobs, compared with 13.5 percent of “multiracial” applicants, 13 percent of Native Americans, and nearly 8 percent of whites.

The EEOC did not accuse Sheetz of active racism, but said federal law prohibits hiring practices that impact minorities differently than non-minorities.

Even if the criminal background checks are shown to be necessary, an EEOC lawyer said, they could still be unlawful if some other means could be employed that would provide safety without the allegedly discriminatory effects.

The EEOC statement suggested no such alternatives, however.

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Biden Admin Sues Sheetz Over ‘Discriminatory’ Hiring Practices Days After He’s Torched Online Over Botched Photo Ops At Other Gas Stations

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under the Biden administration took legal action against the Sheetz convenience store and gas station chain on Thursday.

The lawsuit, which comes one day after Biden made a campaign stop at a Sheetz in Pennsylvania, and on the heels of the president’s “scripted” Wawa stop in Philadelphia last week that was widely blasted online, alleges that the Sheetz’s hiring procedures “disproportionately screened out Black, Native American/Alaska Native, and multiracial applicants.”

The EEOC asserted in a press release that the Sheetz chain’s utilization of criminal conviction records as a basis for screening and rejecting applicants constitutes a breach of Title VII’s prohibition on “disparate impact discrimination.”

The EEOC, however, did not allege that the convenience store chain “was motivated by race when making hiring decisions.”

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