Crime

MANDEL: Billion-dollar class action wins go-ahead against alleged nationwide bread price-fixing

Millions of Canadian sandwich makers could soon be sharing in a huge pile of dough.

An Ontario judge has given the green light to a class-action lawsuit against the major players in the $40-billion packaged bread market — including Loblaw, Sobeys and Metro — for an alleged 20-year price-fixing scheme. The cartel of manufacturers and grocery chains are accused of colluding to inflate the price of “soft top” sandwich loaves like Wonder Bread and pocketing about $5 billion in ill-gotten gains.

Why is no one in jail for this? 

Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction on five of six charges of recruiting and grooming teenage girls for sexual encounters with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is not and should not be the end of the story.

While Maxwell has been held accountable for her actions, the men who engaged in these encounters with underage girls have not, at least not yet. There is speculation Maxwell could strike a bargain with the court for a reduced sentence if she releases the names and possible videos that Epstein shot of some of the men who traveled to his Caribbean island and New York home.

In September 2020, the Toronto Police Department investigating the murders of the two billionaires used terms such as “walking man” and “killer” in their investigation notes, describing the belief that an unknown “man” with an unusual gait was their prime suspect.

As described in the search warrant and production order requests that police made to obtain cell phone tracking data, detectives now had a “working theory.”

“The theory is that investigators believe that both Bernard and Honey Sherman were murdered and that the perpetrator, presumably a man, is referred to as the ‘walking man’ that can be seen on video surveillance” was their prime suspect, one detective wrote in a request to the court for permission to conduct additional analyzes of mobile communications data.

Holmes was unanimously found guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was found not guilty of four more charges and the jury could not reach a decision on three additional fraud charges.

She faces up to 20 years in prison for each charge, though it’s likely they would be served concurrently. A sentencing date hasn’t been given and it’s not clear if she will be placed into custody immediately in the meantime. Court watchers have said it’s likely Holmes will appeal.

The jury weighing fraud charges against Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes told the court it is unable to reach a unanimous verdict on three of the 11 criminal counts she faces, according to a note from the panel read aloud in court on Monday morning.

Jurors in the high-profile Silicon Valley trial had been deliberating for seven days after a trial that chronicled the missteps of the now-defunct blood testing startup. Over the course of 15 weeks, federal prosecutors called 29 witnesses, outlining missteps and alleged fraud Holmes committed during her 15-year reign as CEO.

In response to the note, US district judge Edward Davila gave the jury what is called an Allen charge, encouraging them to deliberate further.

What does crime cost?

Big question, I know. But as we have just finished up one of the worst years for crime in American history, in terms of unexpected and painful growth of various types of crime, it is worth considering the human cost of this epidemic.

We can quote statistics until the cows come home, but eyes glaze over, and the impact may be lost. Numbers and percentages are just figures on spreadsheets and graphs, impersonal and unrelatable.

Naples authorities refuse a public send-off for the convicted murderer known as Lady Camorra

No crowds attended the cortege for Assunta Maresca, better known as Pupetta Maresca, who died at home this week in Castellammare di Stabia aged 86. Maresca, a convicted murderer and mafia boss also known as Lady Camorra, had been the centre of such frenzied media attention in her life that Naples authorities declared she would not have a public send-off.

“We are seeing on social media a glorification of this woman who is a symbol of the Camorra in our neighbourhood,” Francesco Emilio Borrelli, a regional councillor for the Europa Verde party, said in a letter to the Naples police. “The mythologising of bosses is to be avoided at all costs.”

Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of recruiting and trafficking young girls to be sexually abused by the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein.

A US jury convicted her of five out of six charges, but the legal process is not over for Maxwell, 60, who is yet to be sentenced and faces a separate trial for perjury.

So what happens next?

Charges against two New York prison guards have been dropped by prosecutors. The pair had admitted to falsifying records about their movements on the night financier Jeffrey Epstein hung himself in his cell.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors signed a ‘nolle prosequi’ dropping charges against two former New York prison warders, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, who were on duty the night Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in August 2019.

Prince Andrew has been asked to provide documentary evidence of “his alleged inability to sweat” and the names of anyone he met at a Pizza Express in Woking by lawyers for Virginia Giuffre, who accuses him of sexual assault in a lawsuit filed in New York.

The lawyers have also demanded any documents related to his “travel to or from . . . the Tramp nightclub” in London and any gifts he received from Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, “including but not limited to puppets”.

Of the many mysteries that still surround the life and crimes of the notorious financier, the source of his wealth, and thus his power, might be the greatest. His long-standing business ties with his most prominent client, billionaire retail magnate Leslie Wexner, hold the key.

In the fall of 1982, a money manager named Harold Levin got a phone call that would change his life. A lawyer representing Leslie H. Wexner, the founder and CEO of the women’s apparel retailer The Limited, said Wexner was looking for a financial adviser. Would Levin be interested? Levin most certainly was. In Columbus, Ohio, where Levin lived, Wexner was a legend. Wexner grew The Limited from a single Columbus store into a global retail empire that included mall fixtures Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, and Bath & Body Works.

Now that the British former socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been convicted in her sex-trafficking trial, speculation is growing that she may try to cut a deal and become a government witness in any broader investigation into the elite social circle of her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell would be aiming for a reduced sentence by naming powerful names when it comes to others who may be involved in Epstein’s crimes.

A Beverly Hills gun store owner says he’s seeing a massive business boom from affluent clients as a crime surge in Los Angeles scares residents.

The city’s only gun store, Beverly Hills Guns, opened in July 2020 and has serviced wealthy clients from Santa Monica to Hollywood Hills following the rise in smash-and-grab robberies and home invasions, LA Mag reported. Heightened fears over being the victim of a crime has sent actors, real estate moguls and film executives to the store for safety, some purchasing a firearm for the first time, owner Russell Stuart told the outlet.

The BBC was forced to apologize Thursday for bringing on attorney Alan Dershowitz to discuss Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction — even though he faces allegations of sex abuse by a Jeffrey Epstein accuser.

Dershowitz, who previously represented Epstein in his controversial wrist-slap 2008 plea deal, used his airtime Wednesday night to blast his accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, as not credible.

How would he be privy to the prosecution’s strategy?

Epstein settlement with Giuffre to be made public, affects Prince Andrew case

NEW YORK, Dec 29 (Reuters) – A 2009 settlement agreement between the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre, which bears directly on Giuffre’s civil lawsuit accusing Britain’s Prince Andrew of sexual abuse, will be made public early next week.

In a joint order on Wednesday, U.S. District Judges Lewis Kaplan and Loretta Preska in Manhattan ordered the agreement’s release on or about Jan. 3, 2022, finding no reason to keep it under seal.

… Preska oversees Giuffre’s lawsuit accusing Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz of defaming her when he denied her claim that he was among the men Epstein compelled her to have sex with.