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Goldman agrees to settle mortgage debt class action
Legal Information |
2012/07/18 16:13
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit with investors who claimed losses on $698 million of securities backed by risky mortgage loans issued by defunct subprime lender New Century Financial Corp.
Lawyers for the investors said in a letter filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday that a proposed settlement had been reached. Terms were not immediately disclosed, though they are expected to be included in court papers filed by July 31.
Goldman is one of many banks accused by U.S. legislators and regulators of fueling the nation's housing and financial crisis by misleading investors about the quality of mortgage debt they sold.
A federal judge in February ordered Goldman to face the class-action lawsuit that accuses it of defrauding investors in GSAMP Trust 2006-S2, a $698 million offering of certificates backed by second-lien home loans.
The loans were made by New Century, a subprime mortgage specialist that went bankrupt in 2007.
The investors, led by the Public Employees' Retirement System of Mississippi, contend the offering documents contained materially untrue statements about the underwriting and appraisal standards used by California-based New Century, the mortgage originator. Goldman securitized and issued the certificates. |
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High court sides with state in DNA case
Legal Information |
2012/06/18 13:02
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The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a rape conviction over objections that the defendant did not have the chance to question the reliability of the DNA evidence that helped convict him.
The court's 5-4 ruling went against a run of high court decisions that bolstered the right of criminal defendants to confront witnesses against them.
Justice Clarence Thomas provided the margin of difference in the case to uphold the conviction of Sandy Williams, even though Thomas has more often sided with defendants on the issue of cross-examination of witnesses.
The case grew out of a DNA expert's testimony that helped convict Williams of rape. The expert testified that Williams' DNA matched a sample taken from the victim, but the expert played no role in the tests that extracted genetic evidence from the victim's sample.
And no one from the company that performed the analysis showed up at the trial to defend it.
The court has previously ruled that defendants have the right to cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepare laboratory reports used at trial. |
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2 plead not guilty in Mass. extortion attempt case
Legal Information |
2012/06/11 10:59
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Howie Winter, the 83-year-old former head of a Boston-area gang that was later run by James Whitey Bulger, pleaded not guilty Friday to attempted extortion and conspiracy charges.
Winter and co-defendant James Melvin, 70, were arrested Thursday after authorities said they tried over several months to extort $35,000 from each of two men who had arranged a $100,000 loan for a third man.
Winter, who headed the Winter Hill Gang in the 1960s and '70s, wore large black sunglasses during his arraignment in Somerville District Court. He and Melvin stood silently as a prosecutor described a series of meetings and phone calls in which the two men allegedly threatened the men and repeatedly referred to the North End neighborhood of Boston in an apparent attempt to intimidate the men through a thinly veiled reference to organized crime.
Assistant District Attorney Stephen Gilpatric said some of the meetings were secretly recorded. In the recordings, Winter and Melvin can be heard threatening the men if they don't pay the money, Gilpatric said. |
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Ex-DC Council chairman pleads guilty to 2 charges
Legal Information |
2012/06/08 10:58
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The former chairman of the District of Columbia Council pleaded guilty Friday to lying about his income on bank loan applications, the latest blow to a city government rocked by scandal.
Kwame Brown also admitted to a misdemeanor campaign finance violation, capping a tumultuous week in which he forfeited his position as one of the city's most influential powerbrokers. His departure creates more turnover on the city's governing body and follows the resignation of another councilmember who admitted to stealing public funds earmarked for youth sports programs.
Their departures this year — coupled with a federal probe of Mayor Vincent Gray's 2010 campaign that has already produced guilty pleas from two campaign aides — have sent the district government into a tailspin. And the scandals likely aren't helping efforts to gain greater budget autonomy, much less win more voting power for the district's delegate to Congress or to secure the long-sought goal of statehood. |
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