Justice Served Up March 14, 2012
Insider Trading Tips from Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting - AA meetings are meant to start off with, "Hello, my name is XXXX and I'm an alcoholic." These meetings put good people, who are trying to recover from abuse, in a vulnerable position....so it is not uncommon for people to unload on people at the meeting about many things going on in their life, including business. So when confidential information about an acquisition led to a huge gain by fellow AA members, it was not only insider trading, but a breach of confidentiality at AA. The SEC is pressing charges on such disclosure.
U.K.'s Chris Tappin Update - Tappin was extradited from the U.K. and today sits in a federal prison in New Mexico as he appeals his bond hearing, at which bail was denied. But was Tappin also an informant for the FBI in the Sky Capital securities fraud case at the same time that he was allegedly moving military-grade batteries to Iran? An interesting development for both Tappin and Sky Capital cases. This was a breaking and exclusive story that I wrote about on Forbes.com.
Prison Industry Impact on Jobs - Jobs are difficult to come by these days and the matter is made worse when law abiding citizens' jobs are at risk of being taken by prison inmates. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) got involved when he heard jobs at a local small business would be lost if Federal Prison Industries (FPI) bid on a government contract for T-shirts. FPI backed down, but what are the implications for putting over 200,000 inmates to work?
Guilty Until Proven Innocent - Controversial Arizona (Maricopa County) sheriff, Joe Arpaio, allowed the reality show Steven Seagal" Lawman, to participate in a raid of an alleged rooster fighter. The compound, house, was raided with aggressive tactics including tanks, bomb robots and automatic weapons. Should reality TV be a part of our justice system....a lawsuit may answer this question.
