Tag: lawsuits

Judge orders release of Jeffrey Epstein records in response to Miami Herald litigation

A federal judge in New York on Thursday ordered the unsealing of key documents from a settled civil lawsuit involving Ghislaine Maxwell and victims alleging sex abuse and trafficking by the late Jeffrey Epstein.

Senior District Judge Loretta Preska ruled from the bench in a telephonic hearing that the public interest in the matter outweighed Maxwell’s claims that the documents, including depositions of central players in the Epstein saga, would prove embarrassing or interfere with ongoing legal matters.

Maxwell’s opposition to the unsealing effort, filed by the Miami Herald after it published a series of articles on Epstein titled Perversion of Justice, had long preceded her arrest on July 2 at a secluded New Hampshire mansion on allegations that she helped shepherd women and underage girls to Epstein for sexual abuse. She has pleaded innocent but was denied bail in a July 14 hearing.

The documents ordered unsealed by Preska are from the process of discovery, where lawyers from each side can ask detailed questions of each other’s witnesses ahead of a trial. Specifically, they were motions already decided on by a judge who first heard the civil lawsuit from Epstein victims against Maxwell.

Keep reading

Lawsuits Against NYPD Cost Taxpayers $230 Million Last Year

New York City taxpayers are stuck with a $230 million bill for the thousands of lawsuits against the NYPD that the city settled in the last fiscal year, according to a report released this week by Comptroller Scott Stringer.

The annual claims report found that the majority of suits against the department were related to improper police conduct, including excessive force and false arrests. While the number of claims against the NYPD has remained stable—there were 6,472 actions last year, compared to 6,546 in 2017—total payouts have decreased significantly from last year’s high of $335.5 million.

The Comptroller’s report noted that five wrongful conviction suits accounted for $33 million of this past year’s payouts. Four out of five of those claims involved people who spent decades in prison before their sentences were vacated by the late Brooklyn D.A. Ken Thompson’s Conviction Integrity Unit. Their settlements ranged from $1.5 million for Paul Gatling, who was exonerated at the age of 81, to $12.3 million for Andre Hatchett, who spent 25 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

Keep reading