Turner apparently spent the money on such items as ski passes, a Mercedes-Benz, lingerie, cruises, trips to Las Vegas and show tickets.

Turner had forged the company president’s name on checks and used company credit cards. She would then intercept bank statements and bills to cover-up her theft.

According to her employer, because of Turners thefts, and Precision Phototonics’ resulting lack of operating funds, the company was forced to lay-off six of its 35 employees, including a Tibetan refugee, two Hmong refugees from Laos, and a grandmother with responsibility for taking care of her two grandchildren.

Turner was originally charged with 17 felony counts, including theft and forgery.

Related postings:

Federal Court Shuts Down Idaho Tax Preparer - Idaho Falls Woman Fraudulently Claimed Over $93 Million in Refunds for Customers

Colorado Man and Girlfriend Steal $11 Million from Revenue Department

Latham had purchased a health insurance policy from Assurant Health just five months before the 2005 accident. After she spent a month in the hospital and another month in rehabilitation at a cost of about $185,000, Assurant Health canceled her policy and refused to pay her medical bills, claiming that Latham had failed to disclose in her application an emergency room visit for shortness of breath and treatment for a uterine prolapse. Latham claimed her insurance company acted in bad faith. The jury agreed with Latham.

Assurant Health was one of the companies investigated by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for its policy cancellation practices.

It is not known if Assurant Health will appeal the verdict.

The man’s girlfriend, a supervisor at the department, took the money through various schemes, including creating false businesses and fake tax returns. The woman said she took the funds at her boyfriend’s urging because she loved him and wanted him to leave his wife.

The man said that he believed the woman was withdrawing the funds from her trust account, a claim that the jury found incredible. The man lost all of the money in 18 months on business ventures, land deals, jewelry, cars and trips. His girlfriend spent none of the money on herself.

The man’s sentence of 58 years in jail was imposed on September 24. His girlfriend pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. She must also pay $10.8 million in restitution to the state.

The moral of this story is that one should never take that which the tax man has first taken away.

The court found that Jones repeatedly prepared federal income tax returns claiming bogus refunds based on a tax fraud scheme known as the "redemption" scheme. The court held that Jones prepared and filed 333 income tax returns for customers in 2008 and 2009 claiming more than $93 million in fraudulent refunds. The court said that the redemption scheme is based on a frivolous theory that the federal government maintains secret accounts for its citizens, and that taxpayers can gain access to funds in those accounts by issuing IRS 1099-OID forms to their creditors.

The case against Jones is one of seven lawsuits the Justice Department filed across the nation in October 2009 that seek to shut down tax preparers who allegedly promote the redemption scheme. The defendants in those cases allegedly prepared tax returns fraudulently requesting a total of $562.4 million in refunds. Under the scheme, participants file a series of false IRS forms, including tax returns, amended returns, and Forms 1099 (including Form 1099-OID) or Forms W-2, to request fraudulent tax refunds based on phony claims of large income tax withholding.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) catches the vast majority of fraudulent redemption-scheme tax refund claims without issuing any refund. Taxpayers who submit the claims face substantial civil monetary penalties, and possible criminal prosecution.

In the past decade, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained more than 435 injunctions against dishonest tax-return preparers and tax-fraud promoters.

Numerous nations, led by the U.S., have begun delivering badly needed food, water, medical supplies and treatment, rescue workers, cleanup and demolition crews and security personnel. One major problem is that the Port Au Prince airport is so crowded that many planes with urgently needed supplies are unable to land and often are delayed for at least one day.

As I’ve written before, when donating to a charitable organization, you should select one or more whose contributions are reasonably sure to get to those in need and are not severely diluted by high administrative expenses, graft and pay-offs.

The internet website charitywatch.org (The American Institute of Philanthropy) has compiled a top-rated list of charities involved in the Haiti earthquake relief efforts. Each charity is given an “A” to “F” rating, based on the portion of their budget going to program services and their fundraising efficiency. You should carefully read the information on the charitywatch.org website in order to diminish the chance of having your credit card number stolen.

In these troubled economic times here in the U.S., many people are financially unable to donate at this time. But if you are able to donate, give an amount you are comfortable with, given your own financial situation. Remember, however, that the need is critical and will be for quit some time to come. I’m sure that all donations will be appreciated sincerely.

Krahl notified employees on January 8 that the company would be shutting down
the project. Neither the FBI nor Krahl disclosed why the raid took place, but an FBI
official said the search was part of an ongoing investigation and that the FBI was
"looking for evidence of a crime." No arrests were reported.

Krahl has been paid $430,000 for work already completed, but has been paid
nothing for unfinished work. New bids can be solicited after 10 days according to city
rules.

The company has an "A+" rating from the Chicago Better Business Bureau, and
reportedly does around $100 million a year in commercial construction work. It was
recently working as general contractor on an $81 million project at Riverside Medical
Center in Kankakee, IL, but hospital officials immediately hired another company to
finish the project.

Mr. Kumar admitted that from 2003 to 2009 he received $2.6 million from Galleon hedge fund founder and billionaire Raj Rajaratnam in exchange for confidential information about clients he was working with to make illegal stock trades.

In order to hide the cash payments, Mr. Kumar admitted that Mr. Rajaratnam opened a Swiss bank account for him under a different name and then funneled the payments to the account, and eventually into Galleon’s hedge funds. Mr. Rajaratnam praised Mr. Kumar for the information he provided, at one point telling him he was, “a hero,” according to prosecutors.

As a result of his guilt plea, Kumar could face up to 25 years in prison. Charges against Mr. Rajaratnam, who earlier plead not guilty, are also pending.

These men and women unselfishly uprooted themselves from their homes, families and friends to volunteer in the military, not knowing whether they would be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan as front-line troops. And we should not forget those who serve as support personnel-- who ensure that those in the battle zones are properly supplied with intelligence information, weapons, food, clothing, medical care and treatment and other vital support.

This resilient country of ours has survived major world wars and many other military actions that became known as “conflicts” or “police actions” or similar euphemisms. Those who died or were wounded and possibly disfigured, who lost their eyesight or hearing, or who returned home with severe mental trauma from the horrors of battle, were no less brave simply because they were not involved in what we call “war.”

During this holiday season, therefore, let us all take time to remember these courageous troops and the sacrifices they and their families have made and are making. For as the author José Narosky said, “In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.”

The employee applied for unemployment benefits. The employer, who had no written policy on theft, said that the coreless toilet paper rolls were purchased so they could be used almost to the end. The hearing officer found that the claimant had believed that the remnants she had taken were trash, but that the remnants nevertheless belonged to the employer, and taking them without the employer’s authorization constituted theft and disqualified the employee from benefits. The Industrial Claim Appeals Office upheld the hearing officer’s decision.

On appeal to the Colorado Court of Appeals, the court reviewed numerous Colorado and other states’ decisions on similar issues and decided after extensive analysis that the case must bee remanded to the hearing officer for a finding of whether or not the employee acted “intentionally” and “knowingly” (legal words of art) without a belief that the remnants she took were trash.

Frankly, I am astounded that the state would expend the time and money on a case like this, especially given the end use of the toilet paper (no pun intended). If further developments in the Industrial Claim Appeals Office are publicly reported, I will write further on the final decision.

The district court held that Arch Wireless did not violate the SCA and that it had the right to release the message transcripts to the city. It further held that the plaintiffs had an expectation of privacy in their private communications, but that because of the Lieutenant’s informal policy on not auditing messages if the user paid for overcharges for texting, it was a jury question as to whether the Lieutenant’s audit of the transcripts was with the intent of determining the efficacy of the 25,000 character limit, or with the intent of investigating misconduct, since some of the messages were sexual in nature and also could be considered a waste of the city’s time. If the Lieutenant’s intent was the former, then the “search” was reasonable, but if the intent was the latter, the search was unreasonable as a matter of law. The jury agreed that the intent was to determine efficacy of the character limit, thus absolving all of the defendant’s of any liability.

On appeal, the court of appeals held that the employees did have an expectation of privacy concerning their private text messages; that Arch Wireless had no authority to turn over the transcripts to the city, and that the search of plaintiffs’ messages constituted a violation of the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and California privacy rights. The court therefore reversed and remanded to the U.S. District Court for a determination of plaintiffs’ claims against Arch Wireless and the city defendants.

On December 9, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari (agreed to hear an appeal) of the case. I will continue to follow the case and report the final decision.

The case was initially filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by some members of the Ontario, California Police Department and one employee’s wife against Arch Wireless Operating Co., Inc. (Arch Wireless), a wireless service provider, the city, the chief of police and an internal affairs officer under the Stored Communications Act (SCA) and as a §1983 Fourth Amendment illegal search and seizure.

Arch Wireless contracted with the city to provide wireless text-messaging service. Of the alphanumeric pagers furnished to the city, some were distributed to police sergeants Quon and Trujillo. The city had no official policy concerning the use of the pagers, but a police lieutenant had an informal policy providing that anyone who went over the allotted number of text messages would have to pay for the overage, in which event no audit would be made of the messages sent and received.. The informal policy also provided that text messages were considered the same as e-mail messages and fell under the provisions of the city official policy on e-mails. That policy, known as the “Computer Usage, Internet and E-mail Policy,” applied to all employees and provided, among other things, that access to the internet and e-mails was for official business only and that such communications would periodically be reviewed by the city, and that employees using these resources would have no expectation of privacy or confidentiality.

At some point the chief of police ordered that the messages, including sergeant Quon’s, would be retrieved from Arch Wireless and would be audited to determine how many message were business-related and how many were private. After obtaining the messages, the city gave them to the police department. The chief, the lieutenant and Quon’s supervisor all read the transcripts of the messages.

In my next post, Part II, I will discuss the district court outcome of this case and the current status of the court of appeals case.

Before I make a contribution to any charity, I first check the IRS website to determine whether or not the charitable organization is approved by the I.R.S. as a tax-exempt charity. After all, especially in this economy, tax deductibility may be one of the motivating factors for making a contribution. I also want to know what percentage of my donation goes to the paid fundraiser and what remaining percentage goes to charitable purpose. . The website www.charitynavigator.org will give you this information for a number of states, including Colorado. In addition, the American Institute of Philanthropy has a grading system of top-rated charities that spend 75% or more of their budgets on programs and $25 or less to raise $100 in public support. The organization has certain other relevant and important guidelines. This information is available at www.charitywatch.org.

The principals of some businesses, including ours, regularly make charitable contributions to the charity of choice of each of the other principals, in lieu of exchanging gifts at Christmas. In addition, each principal makes contributions to his or her own charity of choice. This tradition seems to work well and helps our firm fulfill what we consider as our civic and social obligation to give where it helps the most.

The case was formerly a part of a class action. A trial was held on the class action, but a 2006 decision by the Florida Supreme Court decertified the class, allowing each member of the class to file his or her own lawsuit. In those individual cases the court held that the finding of liability by the jury in the class action would also establish liability in the individual cases. Each plaintiff, however, still had to prove that the addiction to smoking caused the disease. Defense attorneys claim that it was the smoker’s voluntary decision to smoke that caused the disease. They further claim that it is unfair to allow the jury’s finding of liability in the class action trial to be used by the individual plaintiffs.

In February, a jury ordered Philip Morris to pay $8million in damages. In August, R.J. Reynolds lost a $30 million verdict. The attorney for Cindy Naugle put on evidence to show the actual worth of Philip Morris far exceeded the amount claimed by it. He attributes the large verdict to the fact that, while Phillip Morris claimed it was worth $1.7 billion, Ms. Naugle’s attorney proved that in the first three quarters of 2009, Philip Morris paid $3.1 billion in dividends to Altria, its parent company,

It is expected that the Naugle verdict will be appealed, a process that will probably take years.

It is unknown how many Colorado residents, if any, have suits pending against a tobacco company.

The E-verify system requires that employers run new hires, and existing employees hired after November 6, 1986, through the E-Verify system to determine the person’s eligibility to work in the U.S. E-Verify compares the information on the employees name, Social Security Number, date of birth, citizenship status, and any other non-citizen information provided.

As of October 12, 2009 there has already been close to 400,000 quires run through the system. E-Verify is an essential tool for employers committed to maintaining a legal workforce, and the number of registered employers is growing by over 1,200 per week.

We would like, therefore, to give our recognition to the fighting men and women of our military for their superb efforts in keeping us safe and free. They did not ask when they volunteered about the politics of entering or continuing the wars. And they are not defending one political party over the others. They courageously defend the freedom of all of us. We give our sincere thanks to each and every one of them.