Tag: lawyer

Lawyer: Ex-Maryland political aide dead after manhunt

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William Brennan, an attorney for McGrath’s wife, Laura Bruner, also confirmed the death and said she was “absolutely distraught.”
According to an email earlier from FBI Supervisory Special Agent Shayne Buchwald in Maryland, McGrath was wounded during “an agent-involved shooting” around 6:30 p.m. in a commercial area on the southwestern outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee. Buchwald said McGrath was taken to a hospital.
Further details, including how McGrath was wounded and what led up to it, were not immediately released. The shooting was under investigation.
“The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously,” said Buchwald, who declined to confirm that McGrath had died.
McGrath, 53, served as chief of staff to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. He was declared a wanted fugitive after his disappearance, and the FBI has said he was considered an international flight risk.
In a statement, Hogan said he and his wife, Yumi, “are deeply saddened by this tragic situation. We are praying for Mr. McGrath’s family and loved ones.”
Murtha called the death “a tragic ending to the past three weeks of uncertainty” and said his client always maintained his innocence.
After McGrath failed to appear at Baltimore’s federal courthouse on March 13, Murtha said he believed McGrath, who had moved to Naples, Florida, was planning to fly to Maryland the night before. Instead of beginning jury selection, a judge issued an arrest warrant and dismissed prospective jurors.

McGrath was indicted in 2021 on accusations he fraudulently secured a $233,648 severance payment, equal to one year of salary as the head of Maryland Environmental Service, by falsely telling the agency’s board the governor had approved it. He was also accused of fraud and embezzlement connected to roughly $170,000 in expenses. McGrath pleaded not guilty.
McGrath resigned just 11 weeks into the job as Hogan’s chief of staff in 2020 after the payments became public.
If convicted of the federal charges, he would have faced a maximum sentence of 20 years for each of four counts of wire fraud, plus a maximum of 10 years for each of two counts of embezzling funds from an organization receiving more than $10,000 in federal benefits.
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#Lawyer #ExMaryland #political #aide #dead #manhunt
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 4, 2023
Lawyer says there is ‘substantial documentation’ to back up Cohen’s testimony

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“And so the answer is substantial documentation,” Davis said on “State of the Union.”
The indictment of Trump has been announced but not unsealed, so it is not known if the case against him goes beyond the Daniels accusations to ones involving McDougal — or anyone else for that matter.
Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, has claimed he made the payments to Daniels at Trump’s behest ahead of the 2016 election. But for those hoping for Trump’s conviction, there’s concern over Cohen’s credibility as a witness. The former president’s former lawyer pled guilty to lying to Congress during hearings in 2017, as well as tax evasion charges and campaign-finance violations.
Cohen’s lawyer said Sunday that Cohen’s testimony in this case is backed by documentation from both Cohen and others involved in the case.
Though Davis acknowledged that Cohen had previously lied publicly, “the credibility between him and the jury in that courtroom is going to be based on corroborating evidence,” he said.
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#Lawyer #substantial #documentation #Cohens #testimony
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 2, 2023
Trump’s lawyer expects to make motion to dismiss charges

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The move to dismiss the charges against Donald Trump (pictured) won’t come until after his arraignment Tuesday, Joe Tacopina said. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo
Joe Tacopina, one of former President Donald Trump’s lawyers, said Sunday that he eventually expects to move to dismiss the charges against the former president.
“I very much anticipate a motion to dismiss coming because there’s no law that fits this,” Tacopina told Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Trump was indicted Thursday by a Manhattan grand jury in a case related to hush money his lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The exact charges against the former president have yet to be unveiled.
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#Trumps #lawyer #expects #motion #dismiss #charges
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 2, 2023
Srinagar Lawyer Seeks Details Of Amount Spent On Conman’s Perks

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SRINAGAR: Aamir Masoodi, a lawyer from Srinagar, has submitted a request under the Right to Information Act (RTI) to the Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir. The application seeks disclosure of the total expenditure incurred on accommodation, transportation, and other expenses for the alleged fraudster from Gujarat, Kiran Patel.
Masoodi has also asked for information about the department responsible for covering the expenses during Patel Kiran Bhai’s previous two visits to the Kashmir valley before his arrest last month. The RTI application comes amid growing interest and speculation regarding the case, as authorities investigate the extent of Patel Kiran Bhai’s alleged fraudulent activities in the region.
In another development, a resident of Rambagh in Srinagar has filed a complaint with the court, seeking an FIR against Patel for allegedly defrauding him of Rs. 18 lakhs as share amount in a company. The complaint, filed through advocate Masoodi, states that Patel, who identified himself as Chetan Prakash from Begumpur in North West Delhi and the managing partner of a company dealing in areca nuts, convinced the complainant to invest in the said company. The resident of Rambagh alleged that he paid Rs. 18 lakhs in various installments after interacting with Patel at Pratap Park in Srinagar and at a restaurant in the city last year.
On last Wednesday, the government ordered an inquiry into the visits of “Kiran Patel,” who posed as a PMO official and enjoyed five-star treatment for a significant amount of time before being arrested for his fraudulent activities. The Divisional Commissioner of Srinagar is conducting the investigation and is required to submit a report within a week. It’s worth noting that Patel was on his third visit to the Kashmir Valley when he was caught by security officials at a five-star hotel in the Nishat area of Srinagar on March 2.
As per the police report, Patel has prima facie forged and manufactured some documents including some visiting cards on the basis of which he has defrauded not only a single or group of person but “extremely elevated class of the society including high officials of the civil administration and police authorities.” At the end of the day, the police said, Patel succeeded in getting Z Category Security, bullet proof vehicle and enjoyed five star protocol “brazenly” for a considerable period of time. (GNS)

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#Srinagar #Lawyer #Seeks #Details #Amount #Spent #Conmans #Perks
( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

April 1, 2023
Lawyer shot dead in Delhi’s Dwarka

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New Delhi: A 53-year-old lawyer was shot dead by two bike-borne assailants in Delhi’s Dwarka area on Saturday, an official said.
The official said that the deceased was identified as Virender Kumar, a resident of Sector-12, Dwarka and his security was withdrawn after following due procedure in 2021.
According to police, an information was received on Saturday around 4:20 p.m. regarding an incident of murder near Sector-1 in Dwarka following which a police team rushed to the spot.

“On spot, it was revealed that two bike-borne assailants shot Virender, an advocate by profession, in a Maruti Ertiga car,” said a senior police official.
“Prima facie, the angle of personal enmity is suspected to be the reason. However, multiple teams are working on the case from all angles,” said the official, adding that further investigation is going on.
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#Lawyer #shot #dead #Delhis #Dwarka

( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 1, 2023
Trump won’t be handcuffed when he surrenders: Lawyer

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New York: When former US President Donald surrenders to authorities in New York on April 4 he will not be handcuffed, according to his lawyer Joe Tacopina.
“The (former) resident will not be put in handcuffs,” he told ABC News on Friday.
He will be accompanied by Secret Service Agents who are required to protect him as a former President making the surrender complicated.
“I don’t think they’re going to allow this to become a circus, as much as humanly possible”, Tacopina said.
On a CBS TV programme he said that Trump is “not worried at all”, but added, “he’s upset, angry he is being persecuted politically”.
Trump will be produced in a New York State Supreme Court, which despite its name is the first-level judicial body in the state.
Acting State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who is expected to preside over the case, can either release him with or without bail, or order him held in custody.
Trump faces charges relating to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels who alleged he had an affair with him in 2006.

A grand jury indicted him in the case on Thursday, but the charges will be announced only when he surrenders and it is unsealed in court.
The $130,000 payment and the affair — which Trump has denied — are not illegal, but he faced allegations of bookkeeping irregularities in recording the payments and of violating election finance laws.
The payments were allegedly recorded as fees to his former lawyer Michael Cohen who had given Daniels the money.
Cohen was convicted in a federal court on charges of violating election laws by making the payments while Trump was running for president in 2016 and sentenced to three years in prison.
He is the prime witness in the case being pursued against Trump in local courts by Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg, who was elected to the post as a Democratic Party nominee.
“While our country was going to hell,” Trump posted on social media, “the radical left Democrats” have “gone too far indicting a totally innocent man in an act of obstruction and blatant election interference”.
President Joe Biden refused to be drawn into the indictment controversy as that would only back Republican assertions about a politically motivated case.
“I’m not going to talk about the Trump indictment”, he told reporters who asked him about it and stuck to “no comment” as they kept rephrasing the question.
Vice President Kamala Harris took the same line.
At a news conference in Zambia, where she was on a tour of Africa, Harris said: “I am not going to comment on an ongoing criminal case as it relates to the former president.”
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former president will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”
But Republicans rallied around Trump and even his rivals for the party’s presidential nomination came out with messages of support.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, considered Trump’s main rival in the 2024 polls, said: “The weaponisation of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been heavily criticised by Trump, called it an “outrage”.
Nikki Haley said on Fox TV: “This is more about revenge than it is about justice.”
Vivek Ramaswamy called it “un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals”.
When a person facing charges surrenders to a New York court, the person is fingerprinted, photographed and handcuffed.
Often the alleged “perpetrator” is also paraded in handcuffs before news cameras in a ritual known locally as “perp walk”.
Trump will likely be fingerprinted and photographed.
“As far as a mugshot’s concerned, perp walk, as I said, I’m sure they’ll try to make sure they get some joy out of this by parading him,” Tacopina said of the prosecutors.
“We’ll proceed to see a judge at some point, plead not guilty, start talking about filing motions, which we will do immediately and very aggressively regarding the legal viability of this case.”
Politico reported that according to Trump’s campaign, he will go to New York from Florida, where he lives at his Mara-a-Lago resort, on April 3night.
He will appear in court at 2.15 p.m. on April 4 and return to Florida the next day, with no public events scheduled in New York.
Trump attacked Merchan saying he “hates me” and claimed that Bragg had “handpicked” him for the “witch hunt case”.
A court official said that Merchan was randomly picked for the case.
Merchan presided over two tax cases involving two Trump Organization companies that ended in their conviction and in a case involving the former chief financial officer of a Trump company, Allen Weisselberg, admitting he was guilty of charges of tax fraud.
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#Trump #wont #handcuffed #surrenders #Lawyer
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 1, 2023
Is Zakir Naik likely to be deported from Oman? Know what his lawyer says

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Recently, reports started surfacing that Islamic preacher Zakir Naik is likely to be deported from the Sultanate of Oman to India. Many media outlets claimed that Indian Intelligence Agencies were in conversation with the authorities in Oman to detain Zakir Naik during his visit to the country. Naik has been invited to deliver two religious lectures in Muscat on March 23 and 25.
However, Naik’s lawyer Mubin Solkar has refuted these reports, calling them fake, The Quint reported.
Who is Zakir Naik?
Zakir Naik is an Islamic preacher who has been in the news for various reasons over the years. He fled India in 2016 amid charges of spreading hatred and money laundering.
Naik was born in Mumbai and completed his MBBS degree in the city. He also founded the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), which is currently banned in India.
He landed in a major controversy after it was revealed that one of the accused in the 2016 Dhaka cafe attack was inspired by his speeches.
In the same year, IRF was banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967.
He received asylum in Malaysia
In 2017, Naik received asylum in Malaysia and became a permanent resident. Though, he was banned from speaking in public in Malaysia, and the country has refused to extradite him.
Recently, Zakir Naik was in the headlines when reports claimed that Qatar had extended an invitation to him to attend the FIFA World Cup. Later, the country denied the claims.

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#Zakir #Naik #deported #Oman #lawyer
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 23, 2023
Kerala’s first transgender lawyer wants to be voice of the poor, marginalised

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Kochi: A physics graduate, an insurance agent-cum-law student and finally a full fledged lawyer, this is the journey of Kerala’s first transgender advocate who now aims to use her legal acumen to ensure justice for the poor and marginalised.
The journey was not easy and there were obstacles, but her positive attitude and disregard for negativity propelled her forward to achieve the goal of becoming a lawyer — a noble profession according to Padma Lakshmi, Kerala’s first transgender advocate.
“I ignore all forms of negativity, be it people or their comments. I focus on the positive. I believe that is one of my advantages.
“If I focus on the negativity, I will have time only for that and will never move forward in life,” she told PTI.
She also worked as an insurance agent for a private insurance company and LIC to meet her medical and education costs, which included the voluminous legal textbooks.
However, she is also more than happy and eager to share these books and her knowledge with anyone who wants them.
She slowly stopped working as an insurance agent after joining as a trainee with her senior — advocate K V Bhadrakumari — so that she could focus better on her legal career, Lakshmi said.
Lakshmi, who was interning with advocate Bhadrakumari since last November, said that her senior helped create a space for her among the big-wigs of the legal profession in the Kerala High Court.
“I am very grateful to her for that,” she said and added that her senior always tells her that the Constitution is our biggest weapon.
Of the over 1,500 law graduates who got enrolled on Sunday, March 19, Lakshmi was the first one to get her enrollment certificate.
“It was made possible by the members of the Kerala Bar Council. I am happy to be enrolled here as many big-wigs of the legal profession are part of this council and now so am I,” she said.

On her plans for the future, she said that she neither intends to pursue masters in law nor try for the judicial service presently.
“Taking up cases where there has been violation of fundamental rights and fighting to ensure justice for the marginalised, that is my plan and that is my desire right now,” she said.
There are many like Vishwanathan from Wayanad or Madhu from Palakkad and I would like to fight for them, she said.
Vishwanathan (46), a tribal, allegedly hung himself outside the Kozhikode medical college hospital, on February 11, where his wife was admitted for delivery.
He took the extreme step after he was accused of theft and roughed up by some persons, his relatives alleged in their complaint to police.
Similar was the case of Madhu, another tribal man, who was beaten to death in 2018 by some persons for allegedly stealing food articles.
Moreover, as a budding lawyer there is a lot for her to learn about court proceedings and she intends to imbibe all that knowledge, work hard and thereafter, fight to ensure justice for those who are poor and voiceless, she said.
“I have a lot to learn about managing clients and about the law. I have a lot of responsibilities. Also, I need to prove myself through my actions. For that hardwork and honesty are the tools that I need to hone.”
Her family — a mother who is an advocate’s clerk and a father who used to work at Cochin Shipyard Ltd — has been a great source of support in her journey.
“They always encouraged me to pursue my dreams with courage. So why should I fear anything?” she asked.
Meanwhile, state Law Minister P Rajeev and Higher Education Minister R Bindu congratulated Lakshmi on social media for her achievement.
“Congratulations to Padma Lakshmi who overcame all the difficulties in her life and enrolled as the first transgender lawyer in Kerala. May advocate Padma Lakshmi’s life inspire more people from the transgender community to enter the legal profession,” Rajeev said in a Facebook post.
Bindu took to Twitter to convey her best wishes to the budding lawyer.
“It is a matter of immense pride that Padma Lakshmi’s name will now be etched into the history of Kerala, as the state’s first transgender lawyer.
“No doubt she has faced obstacles galore in this journey. But she persevered, never letting any naysayer deter or weigh her down,” she tweeted.
She too expressed hope that Padma Lakshmi’s success would inspire many more trans persons in the state to enter the legal profession.
While Padma Lakshmi is the first transgender lawyer from Kerala, the first trans advocate in the country was Satyashri Sharmila from Tamil Nadu who got enrolled in 2018.
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#Keralas #transgender #lawyer #voice #poor #marginalised
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 21, 2023
Z security was not for my client, but for his two associates, claims alleged Gujarat ‘conman’s’ lawyer

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Srinagar, Mar 19: Alleged conman from Gujarat Kiran Bhai Patel has claimed that police didn’t provide him Z security but that was meant for two other persons, both hailing from Gujarat, who were accompanying him.
The Counsel for the accused, Advocate Rehan Gowhar told the news agency Kashmir News Trust that all the allegations leveled against his client are baseless and untrue. Quoting his client, Advocate Rehan Gowhar said that police set both the accomplices of his client free and the Z security was actually for them.
Kiran Bhai Patel, an alleged conman from Gujarat has been arrested by Jammu Kashmir Police for posing as Additional Director of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
The accused is in judicial custody for 15 days and the matter is before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Srinagar Raja Tasleem Arif.
The Counsel for the accused said that they will apply for bail on the next hearing.
“Granting bail is the discretionary power of the court but we are claiming bail as a matter of right,” he said adding that the offenses for which his client has been arrested are not serious and grave in nature. [KNT]
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#security #client #associates #claims #alleged #Gujarat #conmans #lawyer

( With inputs from : roshankashmir.net )

March 19, 2023
Lawyer daughter appears as counsel for mother, gets parole for father to attend her wedding

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Kochi: The Kerala High Court, after giving compassionate hearing to a petition, filed by the wife of one of Kerala’s dreaded criminals ‘Ripper’ Jayanandan and argued by his lawyer daughter, granted permission to him to attend her wedding.
Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas gave the orders after hearing the petition of Indira whose counsel was her daughter Keerthi Jayanandan.
Though the petitioner sought 15 days parole, the court ruled out that but took a compassionate approach when counsel said she is not asking this as a lawyer but as a daughter seeking the presence of her father for her wedding.
Going through the points of fundamental rights and previous rulings, the judge said even though Jayanandan’s previous record is not good as he tries to escape at every given chance, taking into account the basic rights, he can attend the wedding of his daughter.
The court then said the convict can reach his house in Thrissur on March 21 and can be there from 9 a.m till 5 p.m, after which he will have to return to the prison.
On the day of the wedding at Thrissur, on March 22, he can be present there from 9 a.m to 5 p.m , after which he will return to the prison.
The court also ruled that the accompanying police and security personnel should be in plain clothes and shall not interfere with the functions related to the wedding unless circumstances warrant.
It also asked the petitioner and one of her daughters to file an affidavit before the Thrissur Sessions Court that they undertake to ensure his return to the jail as directed.

Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas is the son of former Supreme Court judge K.T.Thomas.
‘Ripper’ Jayanandan, 56, who was accused in seven murder cases, was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in one case, while in another murder case, he was given a death sentence, but the High Court commuted it to life imprisonment on his appeal.
He fled once from the Trivandrum Central Jail in June 2013, but in September 2013 he was caught and before that also, he was caught after escaping from the Kannur Jail.
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#Lawyer #daughter #appears #counsel #mother #parole #father #attend #wedding
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 18, 2023