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[1/2] The logo of FTX is seen at the entrance of the FTX Arena in Miami, Florida, U.S., November 12, 2022. Ellison, who ran trading firm Alameda Research, has hired Washington-based law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr to represent her, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Semafor previously reported Mills' advisory work for Bankman-Fried. FTX secretly transferred customer funds to its affiliate Alameda Research to fill a shortfall at the crypto trading firm, Reuters has previously reported. The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that Ellison and senior FTX officials knew the crypto exchange had dipped into its customer funds to help Alameda meet liabilities.

☆ In major setback for Trump, appeals court ends special master's review of seized Mar-a-Lago records
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Zoë Richards | Daniel Barnes | Zoë Richards Is The Evening Politics Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

A federal appeals court Thursday ruled that a judge’s order appointing a special master to review documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort should be dismissed. "Accordingly, we agree with the government that the district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction, and that dismissal of the entire proceeding is required." In a separate order, the panel said its order will take effect in seven days, barring any intervention by the Supreme Court. Trump could appeal Thursday's ruling and request that the appeals court order be put on hold. Two of the three judges on the appeals court panel -- Britt Grant and Andrew Brasher -- were appointed by Trump.

WASHINGTON — Jack Smith, the newly named special counsel in the Trump investigations, most recently served as the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes committed during the Kosovo War. Before The Hague, Smith served as the vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America, the nation’s largest nongovernmental health care provider. Smith began his prosecutorial career in 1994 as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office. From 2008 to 2010, Smith worked at the International Criminal Court where he oversaw war crimes investigations. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday that Smith would be returning to the U.S. from his position at The Hague, and would begin his role as special counsel immediately.

☆ Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing DOJ's Trump cases, is a former war crimes investigator who prosecuted election crimes
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Natalie Musumeci | C. Ryan Barber | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Since 2018, Smith had served as the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo. Since 2018, Smith had served as the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo. Smith's prosecutorial career began nearly three decades ago when he started as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney's Office in 1994. Smith served with the International Criminal Court from 2008 to 2010 and it was there where he supervised all war crimes investigations conducted by the Office of the Prosecutor. Smith served as the vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America — the nation's biggest non-governmental healthcare provider — from 2017 to 2018.

Companies Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc FollowNEW YORK, Nov 7 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday said British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson must face shareholder claims he concealed problems in Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc's (SPCE.N) spaceship program, and sold hundreds of millions of dollars of stock at inflated prices. Lawyers for Virgin and Branson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The lawsuit covers shareholders who owned the stock of either from July 10, 2019, to Oct. 14, 2021, when Virgin grounded Unity and delayed its commercial space travel service. In Monday afternoon trading, Virgin shares were up 5 cents at $4.97. The case is Kusnier et al v. Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, No.

A lawyer for CBS, now known as Paramount Global (PARA.O), said the company has tentatively agreed to pay $7.25 million and Moonves would pay $2.5 million to shareholders. Neither the company nor Moonves will admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement. Lawyers for CBS, Moonves and the shareholders did not immediately respond to requests for comment. CBS and Moonves agreed in April to pay $14.75 million to settle the shareholder case, which alleged they initially hid the misconduct allegations while publicly supporting the #MeToo movement. In December 2018, CBS said it had fired Moonves for cause and withheld his $120 million severance package.

☆ Goran Gogic: Former heavyweight boxer charged with trafficking over $1 billion worth of cocaine
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Matt Foster | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic was charged with the maritime trafficking of over $1 billion worth of cocaine through US ports, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. The 43-year-old Montenegrin was arrested on Sunday night as he tried to board an international flight from Miami, the DOJ said in a news release. Gogic has been charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act and three counts of violating the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, according to court documents. The DOJ says US law enforcement officers seized three shipments of cocaine. It was “one of the largest seizures of cocaine in United States history” and worth over $1 billion, the DOJ said.

☆ Family questions death of domestic violence victim whose case made it to Supreme Court following yearslong custody battle
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Julianne Mcshane | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +10 min

Narkis Golan outside the Supreme Court after the unanimous decision in her domestic violence case. But domestic violence victims, advocates and experts say that today, abusers and judges weaponize the clauses to punish women who flee domestic abusers to protect themselves and their children. Though there are no definitive statistics, research estimates that domestic violence could be a factor in up to 70% of Hague Convention child abduction cases. Both Fidler and Weiner criticized the ruling, alleging it did not take into account the realities of domestic violence. Golan also hoped, once her custody battle was over, to establish an organization to help protect kids and their mothers from domestic violence, Morin said.

☆ 2 Chinese agents tried to bribe an undercover FBI agent with $61,000 in Bitcoin in an attempt to steal classified information: DOJ
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Federal prosecutors say two Chinese agents tried to bribe a government worker to steal information. The duo wanted to obtain secrets about an investigation into a Chinese telecommunications firm. The person they tried to bribe was an undercover FBI agent. He Guochun and Wang Zheng offered an unnamed government employee $61,000 in Bitcoin for secret information regarding the prosecution of a big Chinese telecommunications firm, prosecutors said. He is also charged with two counts of money laundering because of the $61,000 bribe, the complaint said.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterChinese nationals Guochun He and Zheng Wang were charged with trying to interfere in the prosecution, the prosecutors said. Court documents did not name the company, but the complaint referenced the same dates in which the U.S. unsealed its charges against Huawei, in 2019 and 2020. In addition to the case against the two Chinese nationals accused of interfering in the Huawei prosecution, the Justice Department also announced charges in two other schemes. The second case charges four Chinese nationals out of New Jersey with running a decade-long intelligence campaign, while the third accuses seven others of waging a harassment campaign against a U.S. resident in a bid to convince him to return to China. Of the 13 people charged, 10 are Chinese intelligence officers and Chinese government officials.

Prosecutors charged Chinese nationals Guochun He and Zheng Wang with trying to interfere in prosecution of an international telecommunications company. While court documents did not name the company, a person familiar with the investigation said they were trying to interfere with the prosecution of Huawei (HWT.UL). Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterA spokesperson for Huawei could not be reached for comment on Monday. Prosecutors also unveiled charges against four Chinese nationals in what they called a long-running intelligence campaign. The complaint against He and Wang alleges they tried to obtain confidential information concerning witnesses, trial evidence and any potential new charges the company could face.

Companies Huawei Technologies Co Ltd FollowNEW YORK, Oct 24 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have charged two Chinese nationals with trying to obstruct the prosecution of a Chinese global telecommunications company, according to a filing in federal court in Brooklyn. The defendants Guochun He and Zheng Wang were charged in a criminal complaint dated Oct. 20 and made public on Monday. The telecommunications company is a defendant in an ongoing prosecution, where the U.S. Department of Justice announced a superseding indictment in February 2020. The complaint does not name the company, though it contains details which suggest the case pertains to Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. According to the complaint, He and Wang first started trying to access non-public information about the Justice Department's investigation when the company was initially charged in 2019.

☆ Chinese intelligence officers charged with obstructing Huawei prosecution as DOJ reveals 2 more cases of China interference
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Dan Mangan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Photo of He and Wang respectively included in D.O.J. Two Chinese intelligence officers have been criminally charged with attempting to obstruct the prosecution of the Huawei global telecommunications company by trying to steal confidential information about the case, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday. Garland also announced two more criminal cases related to efforts by the Chinese government to interfere in U.S. affairs. One in New Jersey charges three Chinese intelligence agents with conspiring to act in the United States as illegal agents on behalf of a foreign government. "As these cases demonstrate, the government of China sought to interfere with the rights and freedoms of individuals in the United States and to undermine our judicial system that protects those rights," Garland said.

☆ 7 Chinese nationals charged in alleged plot to repatriate U.S. resident
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Leila Sackur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

Federal authorities have charged seven Chinese nationals over an alleged long-running harassment campaign to try and intimidate a U.S. resident into returning to China. “The United States will firmly counter such outrageous violations of national sovereignty and prosecute individuals who act as illegal agents of foreign states,” he added. Surveillance footage showed Guanyang An, left, and Weidong Yuan visited the victim's residence and took photographs of it, according to the indictment. “That same government sent agents to the United States to harass, threaten, and forcibly return them to the People’s Republic of China,” he added. In 2020, federal prosecutors arrested five people accused of trying to coerce Chinese citizens to go home.

☆ Russian Nationals Arrested Over Alleged Scheme to Evade U.S. Sanctions
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Richard Vanderford | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

Two Russian nationals were arrested for allegedly using their Germany-based company as a front to move black market oil and sensitive equipment with military uses in defiance of U.S. sanctions. Three other Russian nationals and two Venezuelans were also charged in what prosecutors described as a global scheme to evade U.S. sanctions and export controls. The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday unveiled sanctions against Mr. Orekhov, NDA and Opus Energy Trading LLC, another Orekhov-linked company. The alleged oil buyers included a Russian aluminum company controlled by a sanctioned oligarch and a Chinese energy conglomerate, neither of which were named by prosecutors. Some of the same electronic components obtained through the scheme were found in Russian weapons platforms seized in Ukraine, prosecutors said.

A view of a Lafarge Cement plant is seen in Paris, France on September 8, 2021. The nearly $17 million payments to ISIS were made from August 2013 through October 2014, and occurred even as the terror group was kidnapping and killing Westerners. In a statement, Lafarge said, "Lafarge SA and [Lafarge Cement Syria] have accepted responsibility for the actions of the individual executives involved, whose behavior was in flagrant violation of Lafarge's Code of Conduct. "The DOJ noted that former Lafarge SA and [Lafarge Cement Syria] executives involved in the conduct concealed it from Holcim before and after Holcim acquired Lafarge SA, as well as from external auditors," Holcim said. Lafarge was indicted by French authorities in 2018 in connection with the ISIS payments on charges of being complicit in crimes against humanity.

Decades later, prosecutors should be thinking about whether that same statute could be used against former President Donald Trump, his inner circle and even Giuliani himself. First, there was an allegedly criminal effort to win the presidency, including through a foreign-influence campaign. Third, there was the allegedly criminal effort to monetize the presidency, including by using Trump’s hotels and golf clubs in ways that may constitute corruption. Fifth, there was the allegedly criminal effort to protect Trump’s future political prospects by obstructing the House’s Jan. 6 commission. Sixth, and finally, there was the allegedly criminal effort to conceal state secrets at Mar-a-Lago — although Trump’s reasons for holding onto confidential documents remain unclear.

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump filed an emergency request Tuesday asking the Supreme Court to intervene in the case involving classified records he kept at Mar-a-Lago after he left office. In their request, Trump's attorneys asked the court to vacate part of a ruling issued Sept. 21 by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the Justice Department could resume using classified documents taken from Mar-a-Lago in its criminal investigation and barred the special master from reviewing them. The latter part of the appeals court decision "impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the special master,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the filing Tuesday. Justice Clarence Thomas, who handles emergency applications from the 11th Circuit, asked the Justice Department on Tuesday to file a response to Trump's request by Oct. 11 at 5 p.m.

☆ A New York man was unwittingly scammed out of his childhood home. For 12 years, he fought to regain control. He's now facing eviction: 'I want my house back'
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-04 | by ( Molly Grace | Yelena Dzhanova | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Since he was a child, the home was a site of cookouts and family gatherings, Jackson told Insider. Since he was a child, the home was the site of cookouts and family gatherings, Jackson told Insider. That's when he drove out to his local district attorney's office. He told the Nassau County district attorney's office what happened, and the office referred it to the US Attorney's Office, his lawyers told Insider. When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Nassau County district attorney's office said records prior to 2011 have been destroyed.

☆ Alzheimer's disease, retirement 'pacts,' and serving until you're 104 years old: Inside the federal judiciary's reckoning with age
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( C. Ryan Barber | Camila Dechalus | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +23 min

She was nearly two decades older than the median age — 68 — for all federal judges, according to an Insider analysis. More than a century later, in the 1920s, future Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes argued for a mandatory retirement age. In 1954, the Senate passed a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that'd require retirement at age 75 for federal judges. A recent poll by Insider and Morning Consult found that 71% of 2,210 respondents said the federal judiciary should have a mandatory retirement age. For Scheindlin, the former federal judge in Manhattan, Weinstein was an example of an older judge who was "terrific to his last day."

☆ The special master Trump requested is calling for extra help to review the seized Mar-a-Lago documents — and will be billing Trump $500 an hour for it
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Cheryl Teh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Judge Raymond Dearie is calling for help to get through the documents the FBI seized. He nominated a retired judge, James Orenstein, to aid him — at the cost of $500 per hour. This bill will be footed by Trump, who has been asked to pay for the special master he requested. During its raid on Mar-a-Lago, the FBI seized batches of classified documents, including some marked "top secret." In the filing, Dearie asked that Orenstein, who is retired, be "compensated at the hourly rate of $500."

☆ Trump's legal team is trying to avoid turning over information about whether or not the documents found at Mar-A-Lago were declassified
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Cheryl Teh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Dearie asked Trump's team to hand over specific information about files he claims he declassified. Dearie is asking that Trump's team hand over specific information regarding whether files were declassified or not. In a September 19 filing, Trump's team appealed Dearie's request in order to avoid revealing details about the top-secret materials. Dearie has until November 30 to finish reviewing the documents seized by the FBI. He was appointed, upon Trump's request, as a third-party neutral investigator in Trump's legal tussle with the FBI over documents seized in the agency's raid of Mar-a-Lago.

☆ Trumpworld theorizes that Mar-a-Lago special master's involvement in previously botched FBI case makes him the best bet to help out the embattled former president
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Trumpworld suspects Raymond Dearie may be skeptical of FBI operations after experiencing a bad one. Dearie was one of the judges who signed off on surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Dearie's role as special master in the Mar-a-Lago case doesn't involve reviewing the FBI's conduct. Sign up for our newsletter to receive our top stories based on your reading preferences — delivered daily to your inbox. Trump and his allies will soon learn whether Dearie is on the same page as they are.

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