TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalNew Flint water prosecutors face a skeptical hometown crowd
FLINT — Redacted evidence. Millions of documents ignored. Statutes of limitations bearing down on them.
At an emotional community gathering Friday evening, Flint water prosecutors Fadwa Hammoud and Kym Worthy described finding high-profile criminal cases in shambles following their appointment this year to take over the prosecutions.
“I had never seen anything like it.” Worthy told the gathering. She said she told the prosecution team: “We’re going to have to start from the beginning.”
Which is how the veteran prosecutors, appointed by new Attorney General Dana Nessel, found themselves in a packed union hall Friday explaining to an exasperated crowd of Flint residents why they recently dropped criminal charges against eight remaining city and state officials charged in a crisis that resulted in high levels of lead entering the city’s drinking water.
Read more: https://www.bridgemi.com/public-sector/new-flint-water-prosecutors-face-skeptical-hometown-crowd
Clash of the Texans: Julian Castro's breakout leaves Beto O'Rourke to do some homework
MIAMI -- Can Beto O’Rourke regain his footing after being knifed in the first presidential debate? Can Julián Castro capitalize on his breakout moment?
The clash of the Texans upended the narrative for both candidates, though both remain second-tier in a huge and fluid pack, scrambling for attention and cash and facing a long summer.
“Castro had a very good night,” said Joel Benenson, President Barack Obama’s pollster and now an adviser to another candidate who fared well in the debates, Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind. “The key here is to keep going.”
“One of the first lessons I got in politics is that in every campaign, three things are going to happen that you couldn't have predicted,” he said. “How people deal with those things is going to determine who wins and loses.”
Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2019/06/29/clash-texans-julian-castros-breakout-leaves-beto-orourke-homework
Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader indicted on 16 charges, including felony theft in office
Charles Reader was indicted Friday on more than a dozen charges stemming from allegations that the Pike County sheriff stole cash seized from cases handled by his office.
Reader faces eight felonies and eight misdemeanors.
Reader was accused in November of stealing cash seized from drug cases handled by the sheriff's office to fund a gambling problem. An anonymous source made the allegation in a complaint that was forwarded to the Ohio Auditor’s Office.
Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk requested a special prosecutor in Reader's case, which was investigated by the Ohio Auditor of State’s Special Investigations Unit, Junk said last month amid a dispute with Reader on Facebook.
Read more: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/06/28/pike-county-sheriff-charles-reader-indicted/3720910002/
Bernie Sanders, in Cincinnati, Ohio, makes appeal to black Americans; calls out Trump
A day after the Democratic debates, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders made an appeal to black Americans in his bid for the Democratic presidential nod.
Sanders flew into Cincinnati Friday evening and found a receptive audience when he addressed the National Newspaper Publisher's Association's (NNPA) convention at the Westin Hotel.
NNPA represents more than 200 black-owned newspapers across the country.
Sanders scheduled the appearance in Ohio as his first public appearance after the debate before he headed off to New Hampshire on Saturday.
Read more: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/28/bernie-sanders-makes-appeal-cincinnati-black-americans-we-have-president-who-is-fact-racist-bigo/1558377001/
Woman who tripped on collapsed 'wet floor' sign at Jack Casino awarded $3 million by jury
A woman who fell by a collapsed "wet floor" sign at Jack Casino was awarded $3 million this past week by a Hamilton County jury.
Lynda Sadowski walked toward the sign, which lay flat on the floor, in September 2016. Customers had knocked it over, and a Jack employee walked around it but failed to pick it up moments before Sadowski tripped over it, according to her attorney Matt Nakajima.
Sadowski suffered a broken knee cap and metal hardware was placed in her knee. Her mobility has since worsened and she has arthritis at the fracture site, Nakajima said by email. A second surgery may be necessary.
"The casino had no safety policies in place for floor inspection or fall prevention and had no criticism of the employee’s failure to pick up the trip hazard even though its own internal documents found her at fault," Nakajima wrote. "The Casino’s callous disregard for their customers’ safety was on full display throughout the trial."
Read more: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/06/29/casino-wet-floor-sign-lawsuit-ohio-woman-who-tripped-wins-suit/1605065001/
Michigan Attorney General Files Lawsuit to Shut Down Great Lakes Oil Pipeline
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel today filed a lawsuit asking a court to shut down an aging oil pipeline that partly runs through the Great Lakes.
At the same time, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration directed the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to issue an opinion on whether the pipeline's owner, Canadian oil giant Enbridge, is in compliance with a 1953 easement that allows it to operate the line.
That opinion could ultimately strengthen Nessel's case. The governor and attorney general's steps are the latest in what's shaping up to be a multifront effort to shut down the current pipeline, called Line 5, and derail Enbridge's plans for a replacement line.
The 66-year-old natural gas and oil pipeline runs through a 4.4-mile section of the Straits of Mackinac between the Upper and Lower peninsulas. Stretches of the line, which pumps oil from Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario, have already spilled 1.1 million gallons of oil, though none of that in the lakes. Environmentalists point out that about 90 percent of the oil pumped through the line lands in Ontario, though Michigan assumes all the environmental risk.
Read more: https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2019/06/27/michigan-attorney-general-files-lawsuit-to-shut-down-great-lakes-oil-pipeline
Ohio nuclear bailout bill needs work - and more scrutiny: editorial
Slow it down.
The proposed Ohio nuclear bailout bill -- which also seeks to monkey with other aspects of Ohio’s energy future -- is too consequential to rush into passage this week.
Many Ohio lawmakers are trying to wrap up work on House Bill 6 on FirstEnergy’s schedule -- by Sunday.
They need to take the extra time to understand extensive recent changes to the bill and also its full cost implications. The last thing Ohioans want is to be stung with a noncompetitive energy bill that will cost all of us dearly in the future, in lost jobs and lost energy opportunities and higher-than-anticipated ratepayer costs.
Akron’s FirstEnergy Solutions, the FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary likely to become independent once it clears bankruptcy proceedings, has said its two Ohio nuclear plants -- Davis-Besse east of Toledo and Perry east of Cleveland -- will shut without a ratepayer bailout.
Read more: https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2019/06/ohio-nuclear-bailout-bill-needs-work-and-more-scrutiny-editorial.html
Senate Strips PTSD, Immigration Provisions From Bureau of Workers' Compensation Budget
The Senate has passed a $645 million budget for the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, after stripping out sections added by the House on first responders and immigration.
The Senate cut a House provision that would allow first responders to file claims for post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD without having to show physical injuries.
Senate President Larry Obhof (R-Medina) said with both the BWC budget and the two-year operating budget needing to be signed by Sunday, Senators went back to Gov. Mike DeWine’s original BWC proposal.
“With as many different moving parts on policy as there were on this bill, we decided as a chamber that it just made more sense to take that out and do the budget portion of it," Obhof said.
Read more: https://www.statenews.org/post/senate-strips-ptsd-immigration-provisions-bwc-budget
$70.5M verdict in wrongful death case
ELYRIA — A $70.5 million wrongful death and negligence judgment has been rendered against a Lorain woman currently serving a 22-year prison sentence for killing a toddler in 2015.
A one-day trial on claims of negligence and wrongful death ended with an eight-person jury unanimously finding in favor of the estate of 17-month-old Nadia Gibbons and for her mother, also named Nadia Gibbons, against Summer Shalodi.
The jury awarded the dead child’s estate $5 million on a claim of negligence, $30,250,000 for wrongful death and an additional $35,250,000 in punitive damages, according to Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Christopher Cook’s office.
Shalodi’s attorneys withdrew from defending her prior to the trial. She also appeared in court Monday but did not participate in a brief trial that took place Tuesday, court officials and attorneys said.
Read more: http://www.chroniclet.com/Local-News/2019/06/29/70-5M-verdict-in-wrongful-death-case.html
(Elyria Chronicle-Telegram)
Judge reduces Gibson's Bakery award to $25 million against Oberlin College
ELYRIA — A Lorain County judge has reduced the total amount of damages won by the Gibson family and Gibson’s Bakery in Oberlin in their recent lawsuit to just more than $25 million against Oberlin College.
In a three-page judgment entry handed down Thursday, Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi reduced by almost half the jury’s $44 million award, which had consisted of more than $11 million in compensatory damages and $33 million in punitive damages.
Those damages were awarded to the plaintiffs following a six-week trial in which jurors found Oberlin College and its vice president and dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, damaged the century-old business relationship the college and bakery shared, as well as libeled the Gibson family.
The reduction in damages was not unexpected, several legal experts who have been following the case told The Chronicle-Telegram.
Read more: http://www.chroniclet.com/cops-and-courts/2019/06/28/Judge-reduces-Gibson-39-s-Bakery-award-to-25-million.html
(Elyria Chronicle-Telegram)
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Gender: MaleHometown: South Texas. most of my life I lived in Austin and Dallas
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Current location: Bryan, Texas
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