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Mo. court denies tax break for convenience stores
Court Line News |
2012/03/07 09:34
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Missouri's highest court says convenience stores cannot claim a tax break on the electricity used to prepare food.
The Supreme Court's decision Tuesday hinged on whether the act of warming or cooking food qualified as "processing" a product. If so, then the electricity used for food preparation could qualify for a state sales tax exemption.
In a 5-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that food preparation was not "processing" and the tax break could not be claimed.
Casey's General Stores had sought the tax break for one month of electricity used at stores in Grain Valley and Greenwood.
The Missouri Department of Revenue said it did not have a specific figure for what might have been owed to Casey's, or to other companies that might have made similar claims.
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Attorney: Accused NYC madam unfair target of case
Court Line News |
2012/03/06 09:35
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Prosecutors and defense attorneys have presented contrasting views of a New York woman jailed on a seven-figure bail on a single charge of promoting prostitution.
Anna Gristina's lawyers have portrayed her as a dedicated suburban mom, animal rescuer and former real estate broker who was working on building an online dating service. They said she's a target of an unfairly sensationalized case.
But prosecutors contend she's an arrogant, multimillion-dollar madam who boasted of ties to law enforcement and stashed cash to flee if authorities tried to close in on her.
"A caring mother of four has been slapped with a $2 million bond," one of her lawyers, Peter J. Gleason, said after a judge refused Tuesday to lower the bail.
In an interview Wednesday on "Good Day New York," Gleason said the prosecution has not shared with the defense team information about its allegations that the Monroe, N.Y., woman peddled underage girls and had police protection.
He said the underage allegation was "a ploy that the police will sometimes use if they have a hostile client that they want to break," he said.
He also said he never asked his client about reports of a "black book" containing names of influential clients.
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British arms-to-Iran suspect faces Texas court
Court Line News |
2012/02/27 10:25
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A retired British businessman is to appear in a federal court in El Paso after being extradited last week on charges that he tried to sell missile batteries to Iran in 2006.
Christopher Tappin turned himself in Friday after fighting extradition from the United Kingdom for two years. Two other men were sentenced in 2007 to 20 and 24 months in federal prison for their roles in the scheme.
The 65-year-old Tappin was denied a final appeal of his extradition last month and delivered to El Paso by federal marshals. His deportation sparked a debate in the U.K. over whether British and American citizens are treated equally under the two countries' extradition treaty.
Don Cogdell, Tappin's attorney in Texas, said he plans to aggressively push to have Tappin granted bail. |
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Court says police cannot be sued over warrant
Court Line News |
2012/02/22 09:56
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The Supreme Court said Wednesday that California police officers cannot be sued because they used a warrant that may have been defective to search a woman's house.
The high court threw out the lawsuit against Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Curt Messerschmidt and other police officials, who were being sued personally by Augusta Millender for the search on her house and confiscation of her shotgun.
Police were looking for her foster son, Jerry Ray Bowen, who had recently shot at his ex-girlfriend with a black sawed-off shotgun. She told police that he may be at his foster mother's house, so Messerschmidt got a warrant to look for any weapons on the property and gang-related material, since Bowen was supposed to be a member of the Mona Park Crips and the Dodge Park Crips. The detective had his supervisors approve the warrant before submitting to the district attorney and a judge, who also approved the warrant. |
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BofA investor lawsuit wins class-action status
Court Line News |
2012/02/08 09:43
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Investors suing Bank of America Corp won class-action status for their lawsuit accusing the bank of fraudulently misleading them about the 2008 takeover of Merrill Lynch amp; Co and the size of Merrill's losses and bonus payouts.
U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in Manhattan on Monday rejected the second-largest U.S. bank's argument that the investors could not prove they suffered losses by relying on materially misleading statements or omissions.
Among the other defendants who were also sued and opposed class certification were former Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis, former Merrill Chief Executive John Thain, former Bank of America Chief Financial Officer Joe Price, and Bank of America's board of directors.
Lewis had won initial praise for saving Merrill from possible collapse when he agreed to buy it on September 15, 2008, the day Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc went bankrupt.
But investors later faulted the bank for not disclosing the scope of Merrill's soaring losses, which reached $15.84 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, before December 2008 shareholder votes on the merger. They also objected to Merrill's having paid $3.6 billion of bonuses despite the losses. |
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Attorney: Texas redistricting talks have stalled
Court Line News |
2012/01/31 10:17
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Negotiations between minority groups and Texas officials in a lengthy clash over new political districts appeared stalled Monday as both sides prepared to argue in Washington over whether the Republican-drawn maps violate the federal Voting Rights Act.
An attorney for the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of nine groups suing to block the maps, said negotiations to create temporary maps so Texas could salvage an April 3 primary date hit an impasse over the weekend. Both sides have another week to work out a deal, but Luis Vera, LULAC's general counsel, said he was not optimistic.
It just doesn't seem feasible, he said.
A federal court in San Antonio last week gave the sides until Feb. 6 to draw up the temporary maps that would remain in place through November's election. If they don't, Texas' primaries will be pushed back for a second time. They were originally scheduled for March.
Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general's office, said her office was not commenting on the negotiations.
Vera said a major obstacle is that the state isn't involving all parties in the negotiations. Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP that is among the nine plaintiffs, said the state was mainly negotiating with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. |
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