Showing posts with label #lawsuit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #lawsuit. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Cruise Ship Employee Hid Cameras in Bathrooms to Spy

A Royal Caribbean cruise ship worker was arrested Sunday in Fort Lauderdale after admitting to planting hidden cameras in guest bathrooms to spy on unsuspecting women and children for months, federal officials say.

Arvin Joseph Mirasol is facing federal production and possession of child porn charges. The 34-year-old also has six counts of video voyeurism, all third-degree felonies, state court records show...Mirasol also admitted to entering rooms and hiding under the bed to record people naked...He remains in Broward jail as of Tuesday afternoon. more
You don't have to be a victim of spycamers. Learn how.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Career Diplomat Abruptly Admits to Spying for Cuba for Decades

A former career U.S. diplomat told a federal judge Thursday he will plead guilty to charges of working for decades as a secret agent for communist Cuba, an unexpectedly swift resolution to a case prosecutors called one of the most brazen betrayals in the history of the U.S. foreign service.


Manuel Rocha’s stunning fall from grace could culminate in a lengthy prison term after the 73-year-old said he would admit to federal counts of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government.

Prosecutors and Rocha’s attorney indicated the plea deal includes an agreed-upon sentence but they did not disclose details at a hearing Thursday. He is due back in court April 12, when he is scheduled to formalize his guilty plea and be sentenced. more

Friday, February 23, 2024

Nashville Funk: Eavesdropping Devices in District Attorney Offices?

...a NewsChannel 5 investigation that revealed the presence of equipment capable of monitoring conversations without the knowledge of employees and visitors to the DA's offices, located in downtown Nashville.

Documents that Nashville District Attorney General Glenn Funk fought to keep secret raise new questions about eavesdropping in and around the DA's offices — as the TBI continues its investigation into possible illegal wiretapping.

Those documents, recently produced as a result of a months-long legal battle waged by NewsChannel 5, reveal there were more microphones — and more concern about conversations being monitored — than the DA had admitted.

Among the newly obtained evidence: notes from a staff meeting indicating that an IT employee had "discovered wide range of audio throughout ofc." more

The $1.76m Eavesdropping Story

Mr Loudon, of Houston, Texas, and his wife worked in home offices within 20 feet of each other.

His wife - a mergers and acquisitions manager at BP - worked on the oil giant's takeover of TravelCenters.

"As a result, they frequently overheard and witnessed each other's work-related conversations and video conferences." ...Mr Loudon confessed to his wife about buying the TravelCenters shares after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority began asking questions about the BP deal and who was "in the know"...The US Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Tyler Loudon made $1.76m in illegal profits....His wife - who was "stunned by this revelation" - reported the trading to her supervisor at BP.

Mr Loudon's wife moved out of the house and ceased all contact with him. In June, she initiated divorce proceedings. more

Weird Wiretapping Headline: Turtle Boy Free Again

Turtleboy blogger freed from jail, pleads not guilty to new witness intimidation, wiretapping charges. 
Jailed for nearly two months, Turtleboy blogger Aidan Kearney is free once more after a judge on Friday ordered his release and declined to set additional bail conditions following his arraignment on new witness intimidation and wiretapping charges. The polarizing blogger exited Norfolk Superior Court to raucous cheers from a crowd of his supporters, taking selfies and doling out handshakes and fist bumps like a quarterback after the winning game. more

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Apple Self-Driving Industrial Espionage Case Ends in Sentencing

A former Apple engineer will spend four months in prison, bringing a lengthy and contentious case to a close six years after the U.S. government first charged the engineer, Xiaolang Zhang. 

9 to 5 Mac has been covering the case since shortly after it began, and their report on Zhang’s sentencing has a good overview of the issues to date.

The basics? Zhang worked for Apple in the U.S., where he worked on the company’s self-driving car project, Project Titan. He then left abruptly to work for another company, this one based in China, XMotors. When he did so, he brought several proprietary documents with him. Hence the charges against him, to which he eventually pleaded guilty. The Department of Justice also announced several charges in the case last year. more

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Crime: Cameras Hidden in a Church Bathroom

UPDATE: U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk on Thursday sentenced a man who hid a video camera in a bathroom to capture images of a young girl to 25 years in prison. more
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U.S. Attorney Trini E. Ross announced today that Stephen Nicot, 61, of Rochester, NY, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Frank P. Geraci, Jr. to receipt of child pornography...

Assistant U.S. Attorney Meghan K. McGuire, who is handling the case, stated that between 2012 and 2014, Nicot hid a camera in the bathroom of a church located in the Western District of New York. 

Nicot positioned the camera so that it would capture video and images of naked individuals using the shower in the church bathroom. He did this knowing some of the individuals would be under the age of 18 and he planned to display the video of the minors. 

...law enforcement executed a warrant at the Nicot’s residence and recovered a memory card and USB drive, which contained videos and images of at least five minor victims using the church bathroom and shower. Two cell phones were also seized, which contained naked images of a minor victim that were recorded by a camera hidden in a bathroom of Nicot’s residence. more
Don't let you or your children become victims. 
Know how to spot hidden spy cameras. 

Friday, January 19, 2024

A Corporate Espionage Gamble

Ivans Ivanovs, a former employee at OnAir Entertainment, has claimed that the company illegally accessed Playtech’s internal systems for two years.
The illegal access is said to have continued even after Igor Veliks, who was instrumental in the scandal, left his job with Playtech Live Latvia. Ivanovs asserts that Veliks, together with accomplices, made use of unauthorized access to clandestine monitor Playtech’s future games and features...

The impending release of OnAir Entertainment’s ‘Diamond Rush Roulette’, overseen by Veliks, is now under scrutiny amidst these industrial espionage claims. As the legal proceedings progress, Ivanovs pledges to divulge more details concerning the purportedly unethical operations at OnAir Entertainment. more

Sunday, January 14, 2024

Grandmother’s Abusers Caught by Hidden Camera

Two sisters caught four care workers abusing their 89-year-old grandmother after hiding a camera in her bedroom...
they put a photo frame with a hidden camera in her room at a care home... 

It caught the workers shouting in dementia sufferer Mrs Wall's face, making fun of her, holding her legs in the air and hitting her in the face with a pillow... "Without the footage we wouldn't have known it was going on let alone prove it happened," she said. more

Friday, January 5, 2024

UnitedHealth Group Sues Ex-Executives Over Alleged Corporate Espionage

In a twist of corporate intrigue,
health care entrepreneurs from Minnesota, Ken Ehlert and Mark Pollman, find themselves locked in a legal duel with their former employer, UnitedHealth Group... 

The lawsuit alleges that Pollman managed to secure a hard drive crammed with sensitive files during an informal lunch rendezvous with a former subordinate... 

The lawsuit states that the former executives amassed 500,000 emails and files, brimming with confidential information and trade secrets, and leveraged them to conceive a suite of corporate entitiesmore

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Harry Hacking: Payout in Phone-Hacking Case Against Mirror Publisher

Prince Harry has won 15 claims in his case accusing Mirror Group Newspapers
of unlawfully gathering information for stories published about him. A judge has ruled in his favour on almost half of the sample of 33 stories used in his claims of phone hacking and other methods.

High Court ruling found evidence of "widespread and habitual" use of phone hacking at the Mirror newspapers... He was awarded £140,600 in damages... more

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Fast-growing Firm Accused of Corporate Espionage in $250M Lawsuit

In the $250 million lawsuit, the California company alleges AscellaHealth used connections inside Nymox in an attempt "to take control of the company's assets by a kick-back scheme."...

Nymox is alleging that AscellaHealth—which Nymox refers to as “a would-be ‘black knight’ competitor”—resorted to “illegal and unlawful corporate espionage” because it couldn’t gain enough support from Nymox shareholders by “legitimate means.”

Nymox is accusing Ascella of using its ties to the ex-Nymox leaders to pass off an investment proposal as a way to learn confidential company information and take control of the company's assets via a kick-back scheme, according to the biotech’s Nov. 9 release. more

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Philadelphia Lawyer Advice: Fighting Accusations of Corporate Espionage

Summary of the Spodek Law Group blog post...
Getting accused of corporate espionage can be scary.
It can feel like your career or even freedom is on the line. But with the right legal help, you can get through this. In this article, we’ll break down what corporate espionage is, what the consequences can be, and most importantly—your defense options...

What Should You Do if Accused?
First, don’t panic. Just because you’re accused doesn’t mean you’ll be convicted. About half of economic espionage cases end in plea bargains or dismissals. With an experienced legal team, you can avoid the worst outcomes...
  • Don’t try to handle this alone. 
  • Remain silent. 
  • Act quickly.
  • Do comply with orders. 
  • Watch what you say. 
  • Begin gathering evidence.
  • Consider independent analysis. 
  • Look closely at the motives. 
  • Highlight your character. If you have a long career with no prior offenses, that works in your favor. Judges go easier on first-time offenders. more

The Too-Weird-to-Be-Fiction Spy Story

It feels like a script you’d find on the over-piled desk of some harried Hollywood agent:
MAGA-style Republican, while toiling for years as a U.S. diplomat and ambassador, secretly leads a double life, allegedly spying for the Cuban government for more than four decades — completely undetected.

Except that if true, the allegations against Victor Manuel Rocha, a career foreign service officer accused of serving as an agent of the Cuban regime since 1981, have real-life — and dangerous — implications. After Rocha was indicted on Monday on espionage charges, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “This action exposes one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.” ...

What surprised you the most about this arrest?

It’s really an amplification of what I thought: the Cubans are really good at espionage. Their intelligence agency, which goes by the acronym DGI, is incredibly effective. And they take the long game. more

Saturday, November 25, 2023

Weirdest Spy Story of 2023?

NY Attorney Accuses Ben Affleck & Matt Damon of Stalking and Bugging Her Home

A New York attorney is suing actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, accusing the besties of stalking her and bugging her home to use private details of her life in their movies.


The attorney is hiding her identity as she moves forward with the bizarre case. The Daily Mail got a hold of court documents that claim the actors also hacked her devices and left the attorney in fear of being kidnapped and raped... She found a bug, saw an owl-shaped camera pointed at her home, woke to find a man in her bedroom and saw a man pointing a telescope at her after an alert that her emails had been hacked, according to the suit.

Also named in the suit are Affleck’s brother, Casey Affleck, his wife, singer/actress Jennifer Lopez, actor Kevin Smith, and disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. The suit is also targeting Dimension Films, Disney, Lionsgate, Warner Bros., and Paramount Pictures, who she is accusing of negligence for allowing harassment and plagiarism to take place. more

Court Clerk's Son Charged with Wiretapping

SC - The son of the Colleton County court clerk involved in the Alex Murdaugh case has been charged with wiretapping, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) announced this week. Former Colleton County information technology director Jeffrey Colton Hill, 34, was charged Tuesday and then booked at the detention center, SLED officials said... Hill is the son of Colleton County Court Clerk Rebecca Hill, who was recently accused of jury tampering by convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh’s lawyers. Murdaugh officially filed a motion for a new trial in the murders of his wife and son last month. more

Saturday, November 18, 2023

Update: Court Grants Exec Bail in Industrial Espionage Case

A South Korean court has granted bail to a former executive of Samsung Electronics accused of stealing sensitive information developed by the technology giant, court records showed on Tuesday.

In a case that underscores the country's efforts to crack down on industrial espionage, prosecutors have alleged that the former executive Choi Jinseog, a South Korean chip expert, stole information formulated by the world's top memory chipmaker to help his client set up a chip factory in China. more

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Court: Automakers Can Record & Intercept Owner Text Messages

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to bring back a class action lawsuit alleging four auto manufacturers had violated Washington state’s privacy laws by using vehicles’ on-board infotainment systems to record and intercept customers’ private text messages and mobile phone call logs.

The Seattle-based appellate judge ruled that the practice does not meet the threshold for an illegal privacy violation under state law, handing a big win to automakers Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors, which are defendants in five related class action suits focused on the issue. One of those cases, against Ford, had been dismissed on appeal previously. more

NJ Jury Finds Attorney Illegally Recorded Ex-Son-In-Law

A New Jersey jury on Tuesday found that a law professor illegally wiretapped her ex-son-in-law
and invaded his privacy, awarding him $361,000 in damages, but also found that he painted her in a false light in social media posts alleging she framed him for a crime. more

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Utah Lawyer Charged with Voyeurism...

...after employees find video of bathroom camera...

A lawyer in Vernal has been charged with stalking and voyeurism after
claims he installed a camera in a bathroom in his law office
... Investigators in Uintah County first responded to a report from Judd’s employees who said they discovered printed pornography photos and a memory cards in a folder in office personnel files, according to court documents. Documents state an employee viewed the files on one of the SD cards and found a video of Judd placing a camera inside an employee bathroom ceiling vent.


There were also recordings of women employed by Judd using the bathroom. When the recordings were recovered, employees examined the vent in the video but found the camera had been removed, according to documents...

The same employee said that one duty she performed at work was to order items for Judd on an Amazon account they both had access to. “The account history showed that several small spy cameras had been ordered beginning February 2021, and continuing through that year,” documents state. more