A former attorney in Texas has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to insurance fraud and barratry, or litigation for profit, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

The Tarrant County district attorney said that Richard Kent Livesay schemed to bill insurers for fraudulent hailstorm damage to roofs without the knowledge or consent of homeowners.

The DA’s office said Livesay would have received more than $300,000 in fraudulent payments if his fraud hadn’t been discovered first by investigators from the Texas Department of Insurance.

Livesay also had to surrender his law license and to provide restitution to his victims, the report says.

Read the Star-Telegram article.

A Georgia lawyer who represented a woman in a divorce told colleagues he was worried about his client’s ex-husband, and a few hours later the man murdered him, according to police.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Antonio Benjamin Mari, 41, died from multiple gunshots Wednesday afternoon, two hours after the final divorce hearing in a Bartow County court.

“After shooting Mari, [Walter Samuel] Radford called his ex-wife, Cindy Radford, to tell her he’d killed the attorney, according to Lt. M.E. Bettikofer with Cartersville police. From there, Walter Radford, 33, allegedly broke into his ex-wife’s house and shot himself while no one else was home. He was found dead in the Willow Bend Drive home at 2:40 p.m. Wednesday,” reports Alexis Stevens.

Mari had worked nearly 18 years as a high school history teacher before becoming a lawyer.

Read the Journal Constitution article.

Attorneys for Dallas-based Fears Nachawati Law Firm have secured a $166 million verdict against the daughter and son-in-law of a North Texas woman who was killed in 2014 for the proceeds of life insurance policies totaling $5 million.

Jurors in Tarrant County’s 141st Judicial District Court determined Mark and Virginia Buckland were central figures in the conspiracy that led to the stabbing death of Anita Fox that was carried out by two members of a nomadic ethnic clan known as Irish Travellers. The multimillion-dollar verdict is believed to be among the largest in Tarrant County this year, according to the firm.

Though the couple has never been charged criminally in the murder, the jury found that they had crafted an insurance scheme in which they would be the sole beneficiaries of a series of policies, in part without the knowledge of the 69-year-old Ms. Fox.

Read details of the case.

Three women have filed a federal class action lawsuit claiming that the Travis County District Attorney’s office and the Austin Police Department have violated the constitutional rights of women and discriminated based on gender in the manner in which they handle sexual assault cases.

The lawsuit notes that while more than 1,000 women report a sexual assault to Austin police each year, the number of cases actually taken to trial annually are in the single digits, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

The lawsuit alleges that Travis County DA Margaret Moore has ratified the discriminatory policies publicly, making statements that acquaintance rapes are really more “traumatic occurrences” than criminal acts.  Moore has also indicated that the testing of the backlog of thousands of rape kits in Austin is for “informational purposes” and not for prosecution, confirming her office’s intent not to seek justice for those victims.

The lawsuit also notes that the Austin Police Department’s sexual assault unit at one time had a wall with photos of victims whose claims had been “debunked” by officers as “trophies of their investigations which determined allegations by purported victims were unsubstantiated.”

Finally, the lawsuit notes that while women make up 91 percent of sexual assault victims, the only case taken to trial in 2017 involved a male victim.  In that instance, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office and the DA were aware of allegations by multiple women in previous years against the same perpetrator, but those cases were never prosecuted.

“[The] unconstitutional conduct by Defendants subjects both victims and all the women of Austin to continued risk at the hands of perpetrators who are never held accountable,” according to the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, claims that the dominant culture and ongoing and historical failures by local law enforcement to pursue sexual assault cases establishes a conspiracy to violate the civil rights of an estimated 6,000 sexual assault victims, while also violating their constitutional rights for equal protection.

“It is shocking that the vast majority of women who survive sexual assault are provided so little protection or recourse, and are essentially blamed for the refusal of law enforcement to seek justice in their cases,” says Jennifer Ecklund of Thompson & Knight and lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “Women go to authorities in order to seek justice and to protect other women, but the policies and practices of law enforcement instead re-traumatize survivors while allowing their attackers to walk free.”

The case is Amy Smith, Julie Ann Nitsch and Marina Conner v. City of Austin, Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore, Rosemary Lehmberg and Travis County, Texas.

Dallas attorney Walter Thomas Finley was indicted after police said he stole $365,000 from a client, according to Dallas-Fort Worth NBC affiliate KXAS.

“The indictment came weeks after the FBI seized money from the lawyer in a separate case, according to forfeiture.gov, a government website that posts seizure notices,” writes reporter Scott Gordon.

Finley, 70, is charged with felony theft in a case involving the trust fund of an East Texas woman. The woman’s family gave Finley $416,000 in late 2012 to set up the fund and make quarterly payments to her, but he stopped after a year, according to a Highland Park police report and court records.

Read the KXAS article.

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President Donald Trump’s long-time lawyer Michael Cohen has been telling pals he expects to be arrested soon, according to new reports Tuesday.

CNBC reports that a Vanity Fair article also quoted an ex-White House official saying that “Trump should be super worried about Michael Cohen” deciding to cooperate with federal prosecutors against the president.

“If anyone can blow up Trump, it’s him,” the source told Vanity Fair about Cohen, who is under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in New York City.

Federal Judge Kimba Wood had given attorneys for Cohen and Trump until Monday to raise any objections they had to a special master’s findings on whether seized documents were privileged. She later rejected their request to be allowed to file their objections under seal.

Read the CNBC article.

Reuters is reporting that federal prosecutors charged a vice president at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Thursday with insider trading by illegally using non-public information about several companies that were clients of the investment bank.

Woojae “Steve” Jung, a 37-year-old Korean citizen, is charged with trading illegally on confidential information relating to upcoming transactions and merger negotiations that he was privy to through his job. Reporter Brendan Pierson writes that Jung made more than $130,000 through the scheme.

Prosecutors said Jung conducted his trades through a brokerage account in the name of a friend living in South Korea. The brokerage account was accessed from internet addresses that were traced to Jung, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Read the Reuters report.

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The Washington Post is reporting that federal prosecutors investigating President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen are poised to receive on Wednesday 1 million files from three of his cellphones seized last month, according to a filing submitted to the court Tuesday night by special master Barbara Jones.

Jones said investigators have already been given access to nearly 300,000 pieces of potential evidence seized from Cohen’s office and residences in an April raid, according to reporters Philip Bump and Mark Berman.

Cohen’s attorneys initially said thousands of the seized documents might be covered by attorney-client privilege, but Jones noted that so far only 252 items have been flagged by Cohen’s or President Trump’s attorneys as privileged.

Read the Post article.

Bloomberg Law is reporting that a federal magistrate judge recommended the dismissal of a lawsuit that accuses Reed Smith LLP and Clark Hill PLC of using baseless lawsuits, discovery delays—and even thuggish private eyes—to help a client conceal its criminal activities.

Reporter Samson Habte writes that the recommendation could bring an end to one of several high-stake lawsuits that LabMD Inc. is pursuing against cybersecurity firm Tiversa Inc. and some of the nation’s largest law firms.

In a lawsuit, LabMD accused former U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP of trying to prevent a whistleblower from revealing Tiversa hacked LabMD with “FBI surveillance software” it got from Buchanan.

The suit also claimed that Reed Smith and Clark Hill helped Tiversa cover up Tiversa’s allegedly criminal activities. “The firms allegedly did so by bringing baseless defamation suits that drained LabMD’s resources, and by using private investigators to intimidate and silence the whistleblower,” according to Habte.

Read the Bloomberg article.

The NRA called on a self-described “aging Jewish hippie” who doesn’t own a gun and who frequently defends drug defendants to speak at the organization’s recent annual convention — because he’s a drug attorney who understands how the nation’s Byzantine drug laws could threaten gun owners.

Gerry Goldstein said he was as surprised as anyone to receive the invitation, reports The Dallas Morning News.

Reporter David Tarrant writes that federal law could cause pot users to lose their right to carry firearms, even in states where marijuana possession is legal. And the NRA could see a natural alliance between gun rights activists and people like Goldstein.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recently sent a letter to all federally licensed gun dealers, stating: “Any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her state has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for medical purposes … is prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition.”

Read the Dallas News article.

Bloomberg is reporting that the Justice Department is considering whether to accuse Rabobank NA’s ex-Chief Executive Officer John Ryan, former general counsel Dan Weiss and its past compliance chief of obstructing U.S. bank examiners’ efforts to dig into the firm’s failures to prevent money laundering.

Reporters Jesse Hamilton and Tom Schoenberg based their report on information from two people with knowledge of the probe who asked not to be named because the investigation is ongoing.

“The potential charges could close a dark chapter for Rabobank Groep, a Netherlands banking titan with $723 billion of assets,” they write. “Thousands of miles away from its Dutch headquarters, California bank branches near the Mexican border became a pipeline for the profits of organized crime starting in 2009, according to the Justice Department. In February, the U.S. unit admitted guilt to felony conspiracy allegations and agreed to pay $369 million, including a $50 million OCC fine.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

An Atlanta jury found Claud “Tex” McIver guilty of felony murder on Monday in the fatal shooting of his wife, Diane McIver, while they were riding in an SUV in 2016.

McIver is a former Fisher & Phillips partner.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: “Known as ‘The Fixer’ because of his ability to grease the wheels of bureaucracy and get things done, McIver appeared stunned as he was handcuffed by a Fulton County sheriff’s deputy and led from the courtroom following the verdict. McIver had lived a mostly charmed existence until the evening of September 25, 2016, when he shot his wife Diane in the back as they were being driven near Piedmont Park. He claimed it was an accident. Jurors didn’t buy it.”

The sentence carries a mandatory life sentence for the 75-year-old defendant.

“It’s unclear whether the jurors who leaned toward involuntary manslaughter knew they were accepting a deal that would likely send McIver away until death,” the Journal-Constitution reports in another article.

Read the Journal-Constitution article.

Dallas lawyer Tshombe Anderson had his niece obtain an internship at the U.S. Labor Department so she could snoop through claims files, learn the system and act as a “mole,” prosecutors say.

The Dallas Morning News reports that on Thursday a U.S. district judge sentenced Anderson to the maximum punishment of 10 years in prison and ordered him to pay more than $26 million in restitution minus what the government has already collected from him.

“Anderson stole patient information from over 200 injured federal workers and then used the information to fraudulently bill OWCP [workers’ comp], enriching himself and others with taxpayer dollars intended for the treatment of injured federal workers,” said Steven Grell, Special Agent in-Charge for the Dallas Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General.

Read the Dallas News article.

The lawyer who taught New York’s first family of tax evasion the tricks of the trade might be spending his golden years in prison, according to Crain’s New York Business.

A Manhattan jury found Michael Little, 67, guilty of helping the adult children of a Wall Street executive tap into their Swiss bank accounts, which held millions in inheritance money, without alerting the IRS.

Reporter Aaron Elstein writes that the case appears to mark the end of an extensive government crackdown on wealthy families and their advisers who avoided paying taxes by parking money offshore. Federal authorities have charged more than 60 account holders with tax evasion and 30 bankers or lawyers with enabling them during the past eight years.

Little’s troubles began in 2001 when the children of Harry Seggerman, who’d made his fortune at Fidelity investing in Japanese and later Korean companies wanted to access their late father’s $24 million estate, about half of which was tucked away in a Zurich vault.

“Little advised the Seggermans that they could get their inheritance dollars back into the United States without alerting authorities by taking ‘little chunks’ using travelers checks or disguising transfers by saying they were related to sales of art or jewelry,” writes Elstein.

Read the Crain’s article.

Robert S. Mueller

The recent assurance that President Trump is not officially a target n Robert Mueller’s investigation may not be worth much, reports Politico. Mueller may not be able to secure an indictment against a sitting president, but his report could serve as a trigger to impeachment proceedings.

Reporter Josh Gerstein interviewed lawyers who told him that it’s more significant that Mueller reportedly plans to writes a report about Trump’s potential obstruction of justice in the probe.

“The key isn’t that Trump is not (yet) a ‘target’ but that he IS a SUBJECT of Mueller’s investigation & that Mueller will write a REPORT on what Trump did, why, and what it adds up to. That is HUGE,” Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe wrote on Twitter.

Read the Politico article.

Reuters reports that Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with Microsoft Corp’s dispute with the U.S. Justice Department over whether prosecutors can force technology companies to hand over data stored overseas, with some signaling support for the government and others urging Congress to pass a law to resolve the issue.

“The case began when Microsoft balked at handing over a criminal suspect’s emails stored in Microsoft computer servers in Dublin in a drug trafficking case. Microsoft challenged whether a domestic warrant covered data stored abroad” according to reporters Lawrence Hurley and Dustin Volz.

Two of the justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, questioned whether the court needed to act now,  considering the fact that Congress is considering bipartisan legislation that would resolve the legal issue.

Read the Reuters article.

Individuals who are hoping for a preemptive pardon from President Trump for any role they may have had in criminal activity should be aware that they run a significant risk that acceptance of a pardon would be used by state prosecutors as an admission of guilt.

Writing for Slate.com, New York University School of Law professor Ryan Goodman explains that a president’s pardon power applies only to federal crimes, leaving that individual liable for state crimes that cover the same underlying conduct.

“Officials like New York’s [Attorney General Eric] Schneiderman may feel they have an ace in hand if they can walk into a state courthouse with a defendant’s admission of guilt implied by having accepted a presidential pardon,” writes Goodman. “This get-out-of-federal-jail card comes at a price.”

He cites a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that acceptance of a pardon carries with it a “confession of guilt.”

Read the Slate.com article.

A Texas jury found State Senator Carlos Uresti guilty on 11 felony charges — including fraud and money laundering — for his role as general counsel for a now-bankrupt oilfield services company that perpetrated a Ponzi scheme against its investors.

The Texas Tribune reports that Uresti could face a long prison sentence and fines amounting to millions of dollars.

“Uresti was charged last year in connection with FourWinds Logistics, a now-bankrupt oilfield services company that perpetrated a Ponzi scheme against its investors,” reports Emma Platoff. “Uresti served as general counsel for FourWinds and owned 1 percent of the company. He also earned commission for recruiting investors, according to court documents.”

Read the Tribune article.

Bloomberg Law is reporting that U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has extracted a guilty plea from a former associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom who admitted in court in Washington that he misled investigators in the Russian election meddling case.

Alex van der Zwaan admitted he misled investigators about the last time he talked with Rick Gates, who was indicted in October with Paul Manafort over their consulting work in Ukraine. But van der Zwaan was the first of those who didn’t enter into a cooperation agreement with the special counsel’s office, according to Bloomberg.

He faces as long as six months in jail under advisory guidelines.

Skadden said it terminated van der Zwaan’s employment in 2017 and has been cooperating with authorities.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

An assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice has warned that the DOJ would soon launch criminal enforcement actions against companies that have so-called “no poaching agreements” with each other, whereby they agree not to solicit one another’s employees, reports Bloomberg.

Makan Delrahim, assistant AG in the Antitrust Division, says his division has “been very active” in reviewing potential violations of the antitrust laws caused by these agreements and added that “in the coming couple of months,” the public “will see some announcements” of DOJ actions.

Writing for Bloomberg, three Seyfarth Shaw lawyers warn, “The bright line has now been drawn: Any violative anti-poaching policies after October 2016 expose employers to criminal punishment. In fact, for the DOJ Antirust Division, such enforcement actions might prove to be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Read the Bloomberg article.