NYC Mom who slammed into BLM protesters after they terrorized her accepts plea deal and is sentenced to five hours of community service

A New York City mother-of-three who plowed her BMW into a group of Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020 walked free from court on Monday having been sentenced to just five hours of community service as part of a plea agreement with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

Kathleen Casillo, 53, was facing the possibility of up to seven years in prison if convicted in the December 2020 incident that left six people injured.

Under the deal, Casillo pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, she will have the charge reduced to a disorderly conduct violation if she fulfills her sentence and stays out of trouble for six months, prosecutors and her lawyer said.

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GOLDSTEIN: Our soft-on-crime philosophy began 50 years ago

Federal Justice Minister David Lametti is right when he says passing federal legislation to toughen bail conditions for repeat violent offenders — which he says he will introduce during the current session of Parliament — won’t in and of itself address legitimate concerns about public safety.

He’s also right, as he told the CBC’s The House on Saturday, that Ottawa alone can’t address the problem of violence — that provinces and municipalities have a responsibility as well.

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Sam Brinton Avoids Jail Time For Stealing Women’s Luggage While Meme Creator Faces 10 Years Behind Bars

Nearly 80 percent of Americans believe there is a two-tiered justice system. This week’s courtroom episodes only validate the public’s perception.

On Friday, President Joe Biden’s allegedly “non-binary” nuclear waste expert, Sam Brinton, was sentenced in a grand larceny case over stealing women’s luggage from U.S. airports. Police say Brinton stole a bag from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas with an estimated worth of around $3,670. Authorities also charged Brinton with stealing luggage at a second airport in Minnesota.

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Inconvenient Victims In Philadelphia, some tragedies are more politically exploitable than others

Two weeks ago, Philadelphia agreed to pay $9.25 million in a settlement to hundreds of protesters claiming to be victims of police brutality during the 2020 George Floyd protests. In a class-action lawsuit consolidating four federal cases, the plaintiffs allege that police “[chased] residents into their homes and indiscriminately fire[d] canisters of tear gas at them,” causing them to sustain immense “physical and emotional injuries.”

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What a man freed from a 241-year prison sentence finds strangest of all

When Bobby Bostic was released from prison in November, 27 years into a 241-year sentence, lots of things seemed strange.

From wireless earphones (“Why are dudes talking to themselves?”), to people talking to their speaker (“I’m like, what is Alexis?”), to self-service drink machines (“You wave your hand and the water comes out?”), the world is much changed, compared to December 1995.

But strangest of all were the people.

“It’s how friendly they are, compared to prison,” the 44-year-old says. “You go into a grocery store, and it’s ‘Sir, can I help you?’ In prison, you got nothing but mean mugs [faces] and harassment…”

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Of course they’ll appeal …

Ontario Court of Appeal denies lesser sentences for Indigenous men in meth dealing case

The Ontario Court of Appeal has rejected a father-son meth dealing team’s request for a sentencing reduction based on their Indigenous background, ruling that deterrence comes before consideration of historical oppression for those convicted of serious drug crimes.

The ruling – upholding seven-year jail sentences for both the father and son – is the latest to consider how the particular circumstances of Indigenous offenders should affect everything from sentences to bail to what a jury is permitted to hear about the accused during a trial.

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Ken Clark has successfully fined thousands of Canadians for streaming pirated movies. Is he a troll — or a hero?

Clark and his law firm send out more than 100,000 warnings every year and he’s sued thousands. Some say he’s harassing regular people for profit — but to others, he’s Canada’s copyright cop

It’s an email no one wants to get, but thousands of Canadians get one every month: “Important notice regarding your internet activity,” the subject line says. It looks like spam, but you click through just in case.

At the top of the message is a note from your internet service provider explaining that the law requires it to forward you the email below — and that’s when you get nervous.

The message, from an American movie studio, says your computer’s IP address was used to illegally distribute one of their movies. The email instructs you to remove the file and stop downloading or uploading copyright-protected content without permission.

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No EI benefits for man fired over COVID-19 vaccine, test refusal: Federal Court

If you were fired from your job for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine and test, there is a good chance you won’t be eligible for any unemployment benefits in Canada, legal experts say.

A federal court decision last week stated that a man in Ontario was not entitled to receive Employment Insurance (EI) benefits after he was terminated from his health-care job because he failed to comply with the employer’s policy regarding COVID-19 vaccination and testing.

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Why Canada has the most activist Supreme Court in the world — and how it’s changed the country

Often, if there’s a massive political controversy gripping the country, there’s a good chance that the Supreme Court of Canada had something to do with it.

Ontario was recently driven into a miniature constitutional crisis due to a Supreme Court decision declaring that striking is a Constitutional right. A series of recent Supreme Court decisions kneecapping bail and sentencing provisions has helped fuel a crisis of “catch and release” justice. And, of course, Canada is now experiencing regular incidents of contentious assisted suicide cases — a regime whose existence is due entirely to Supreme Court order.

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HUNTER: Sordid world of accused cop killers McKenzie and Sperry

On Tuesday, a nobody named Randall McKenzie became somebody in the chilling fashion that seems bountiful in the third decade of the century.

The 25-year-old, of Hamilton, Kingston, Six Nations and points in between, stands charged with first-degree murder in connection with the “ambush” slaying of OPP Const. Grzegorz “Greg” Pierzchala, 28.


Justice…

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3rd murder trial of Peter Khill in shooting death of Jon Styres began Monday in Hamilton

When Peter Khill awoke to the sound of banging outside his home at about 3 a.m. on Feb. 4, 2016, Crown prosecutor Sean Doherty said on Monday, “He went and got his shotgun, not his phone to call 911.”

The third trial of Peter Khill began Monday in Hamilton. He’s accused of murder in the 2016 shooting death of Jon Styres, a 29-year-old man from Six Nations of the Grand River. Khill was found not guilty of second-degree murder following a 12-day trial in June 2018. After an appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada, last October, ordered a new trial. That second trial began last Tuesday, but ended in a mistrial a day later after a juror was dismissed over a conflict of interest and another left for a family emergency.

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America on the Verge

One day, when sufficient distance has been gained from the Current Year to permit sober reflection on our own era, the recent past will no doubt be seen as a watershed in American political history. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 gave politics a religious sheen for Millennials just coming of age, and for Boomers hoping to avoid confronting the wreckage left in the wake of their rule. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 gave the new religion its devil. From Russia collusion to #MeToo, from Covington Catholic to Judge Kavanaugh, American culture and politics in the years since has been an unbroken series of witch crazes, lynch mobs, and human sacrifices (some successfully carried out, others not). The Democratic Party, the corporate press, and progressive activists openly embraced political violence as a means to achieve policy goals, block political appointments, and now, to attempt to affect court decisions.

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Supreme Court orders new trial for Ontario man in fatal shooting of First Nations member Jon Styres

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Peter Khill, a Hamilton-area man who was initially acquitted in the 2016 shooting death of Jon Styres, must face a new trial.

The trial judge failed to give instructions to jurors on the way in which Khill’s role in the shooting should be used to assess the reasonableness of his conduct, Justice Sheilah L. Martin, in writing for the majority, said in the decision released Thursday.

“Mr. Khill’s role in the incident should have been expressly drawn to the attention of the jury,” Martin wrote. “The absence of any explanation concerning the legal significance of Mr. Khill’s role in the incident was a serious error.”

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