The Justice Department is preparing to bring charges against a man identified as an al Qaida operative who is currently being held on American soil. Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, whom the Bush administration had intended to hold indefinitely without charges, will be tried in a civilian court, officials said yesterday. The Justice Department had faced a March 23 deadline to explain to the Supreme Court whether or not it would uphold the Bush administration’s policy. The decision to try al-Marri in a civilian court allows the new administration more time to review detention policies. (New York Times)
Lawsuits filed against large financial companies, including Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, contend that female employees are bearing the brunt of recent downsizing. Plaintiffs note that female employees made up 64 percent of Wall Street employees before the crash, and yet 72 percent of the last 260,000 jobs cut were held by women. The firms dispute the allegations, saying it is hard to show that there is no evidence gender is playing a role in firing decisions. (Forbes)
The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against drug maker Forest Laboratories for defrauding the government of millions of dollars by marketing two antidepressants for use in children and young adults. The complaint says that Forest Laboratories concealed a study that showed the drugs were not effective in children and could cause patients to become suicidal. The lawsuit also charges that the company gave kickbacks — in the form of baseball tickets, gift certificates to expensive restaurants, and paid vacations — to doctors who prescribed its drugs. (New York Times)
The Republican mayor of a small California town who sent an email depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons will resign. Los Alamitos mayor Dean Grose apologized Thursday while announcing his resignation. Grose admitted that the email, sent to a “small group of friends,” was in poor taste, but claimed he was unaware of the racial stereotype linking black people with watermelons. (Associated Press)
In a new report, the Government Accountability Office finds that the U.S. government awarded contracts to contractors that had previously been placed on an exclusion list. Investigators found staggering offenses committed by companies awarded new contracts, including use of fictitious Social Security numbers, massive tax fraud, use of insider information to bid on federal contracts, false filings with the SEC, and delivery of faulty parts to the military. The president of one German company had even tried to sell nuclear bomb parts to North Korea. While most contracts were awarded by mistake due to a faulty search engine used by contracting offices, the report finds that the Army deliberately renewed contracts with one dubious company. (Associated Press)
A former banker with Bear, Stearns & Co. pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of aiding and abetting a scheme to defraud Illinois’ health facilities planning board. Nicholas Hurtgen was exposed and charged as part of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s probe of Chicago corruption, which ultimately netted then-governor Rod Blagojevich. Hurtgen admitted to pressuring hospital officials to use a specific construction company to carry out an expansion, and to have Bear Stearns finance the project, under threat of not having their project approved by the state board. Hurtgen is likely to receive a two-year prison sentence. (Reuters)
