Trump Hush Money Judge Warned For Biden Donation

By Frank G. Runyeon

The judge presiding over Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial was quietly cautioned after making a political campaign contribution to President Joe Biden and a Democratic group, disposing of an ethics investigation into the donation, it was confirmed Friday.

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Feds Say Crypto Scammer Gave Nod To 'Seinfeld' Gag

By Aislinn Keely

The lie that the character George Costanza told on "Seinfeld" appears to have inspired a New York City fraudster, as federal prosecutors announced Friday that a Brooklyn man admitted to running a million-dollar crypto and real estate scam in part through a phony company called Vandelay Contracting Corp.

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Menendez Bribery Trial: 5 Things To Know About Week 1

By Carla Baranauckas

Explosive opening statements, closed-door jury questioning and an FBI agent's recount of the moment he found a treasure trove of gold bars and cash highlighted the first week of trial in the government's second corruption case against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

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Royalty Suit Aims To Make Spotify Nix 'Bundled' Subscription

By Andrew Karpan

In a lawsuit against Spotify, the nonprofit the U.S. Copyright Offices uses to distribute royalties alleged Thursday that the audio streaming service's new premium subscription package could cause illegal underreporting of royalties and cost songwriters and music publishers "hundreds of millions of dollars."

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Dolce & Gabbana Sued Over 'Worthless' Digital Outfit NFTs

By Katryna Perera

Luxury fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana has been hit with a shareholder class action in New York federal court, alleging it sold consumers "essentially worthless" non-fungible tokens that it misrepresented as high-value and abandoned the project while retaining over $25 million that was used to fund it.

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NY Discovery Reform Feud Simmers Between DAs, Defenders

By Rachel Rippetoe

Four years after New York imposed new requirements on prosecutors to more promptly hand over evidence to defendants in criminal cases, data suggests that district attorneys’ offices are still struggling to comply. In the meantime, experts and advocates say many are quietly working to tweak the reforms or potentially scale them back.

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Fla. Appeals Court Nixes Condo Tax Sale After Address Mix-Up

By Parker Quinlan

A Florida state appeals panel authored a split decision ordering a lower district court to reverse a tax deed sale after a property owner in Miami-Dade claimed the county's clerk of court failed to provide notice that his condo was being put up for sale due to a delinquent tax bill.

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Roundup

Real Estate Authority: Loan Doctors, CFIUS, Mixed-Use Boom

By Real Estate Authority Staff

Catch up on the week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including potential conflicts of interest in special servicing, a data center buy stymied by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and one hospitality pro's prediction for more mixed-use residential and hotel demand.

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$5M Candy Recall Coverage Dispute Moved To Texas Court

By Jennifer Mandato

An insurer's lawsuit disclaiming coverage for a candy manufacturer over a near $5 million recall over metal fragments found in certain gummy candies belongs in Texas, a New York federal judge has ruled, finding that the action was "filed preemptively to deprive the natural plaintiff of its choice of forum."

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Scammer Cops To SIM Scheme Including $400M Crypto Theft

By Lauren Berg

A Colorado woman on Thursday pled guilty in D.C. federal court for her part in a SIM swapping scheme that appears to encompass more than $400 million stolen from the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

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Calif. Man Who Cooperated In $5M Insider Case Avoids Prison

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge on Friday allowed a California information technology pro to avoid prison for his role in a $5 million insider-trading ring involving laser company Lumentum Holdings Inc.'s secret merger plans, citing his extensive cooperation with prosecutors.

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Peloton Says Investors Are 'Manufacturing' Bike Recall Suit

By Katryna Perera

Fitness equipment company Peloton urged a New York federal judge on Friday to toss a suit alleging it overstated the safety of its bikes before the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled roughly 2.2 million Peloton products over a bike seat defect, saying the investors are trying to "manufacture" a case from a voluntary recall.

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Tilray To Raise Money For Deals Amid US Pot Policy Change

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Cannabis lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company Tilray Brands Inc. on Friday said it plans to raise money to fund future acquisitions and expansion, in an announcement that comes just one day after President Joe Biden revealed that his administration is formally relaxing restrictions on marijuana.

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Paul Hastings Team Seeks $2.6M In New Kwok Ch. 11 Fees

By Ben Zigterman

With senior attorneys and Chapter 11 trustee Luc A. Despins billing close to $2,000 an hour, Paul Hastings LLP has filed two motions seeking court approval to be paid an additional $2.6 million in fees for work performed on Chinese exile Ho Wan Kwok's bankruptcy in January and February.

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Blackstone Leads $7.5B Financing For AI-Focused CoreWeave

By Al Barbarino

Artificial intelligence-focused infrastructure provider CoreWeave said Friday it had secured an agreement for a $7.5 billion debt financing facility provided by Blackstone with strategic participation from hedge fund Magnetar Capital, the co-lead investor, and tech investor Coatue.

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Analysis

Trump's Potential Witness Could Be Defense 'Dynamite'

By Phillip Bantz

As Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan nears its end, experts say criminal defense attorney Robert Costello, who once advised the former president's ex-fixer and key prosecution witness Michael Cohen, has surfaced as a potentially bombshell witness for the defense.

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Analysis

Alito Flag Report Fuels Ethics Debate, But Likely No Recusal

By Katie Buehler

Responses to a report that an upside-down American flag flew outside U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's home following the 2020 presidential election broke along partisan lines Friday, with conservatives decrying it as a smear campaign and liberals calling for his recusal from pending election-related cases and for general court ethics reform.

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Solicitor General Says No High Court Case Is 'Hopeless'

By Thy Vo

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told lawyers Saturday that despite the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority, she has never thought a case she's overseen for the Biden administration was "entirely hopeless," and that there's always room to shape the court's opinion.

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Analysis

How A $3K Pro Se Claim Led To A 9-0 High Court Decision

By Daniel Wilson

A milestone victory at the U.S. Supreme Court for $3,000 in wages started with a Pentagon worker’s principled commitment to his employer — a dedication that ironically led to a decadelong fight against his own bosses. Stuart R. Harrow and his attorneys speak to Law360 about how a seemingly low-stakes conflict turned into a high-profile case with reverberations for hundreds of federal employees.

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Calif.'s Top Judge Launches Task Force To Probe AI Uses

By Lauren Berg

California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero has created a new task force to look into how generative artificial intelligence could benefit the court system and its users, while also evaluating its potential risks, the court announced Friday.

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Ga. Judge In 2020 Election Cases To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia, who has presided over high-profile cases involving the 2020 election, voting rights and abortion, will take senior status on Jan. 1, 2025, according to an update Friday.

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AG Garland Held In Contempt By House Committees

By Courtney Bublé

Two House committees voted late Thursday to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for not turning over audio recordings of the president and his ghostwriter speaking with special counsel Robert Hur for his investigation into President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.

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Dozens Of Pro Bono Attys Back 3rd Circ. Nominee Mangi

By Courtney Bublé

Forty-nine pro bono partners, counsel and chairs from major law firms and organizations wrote to Senate leadership on Friday with concerns that the staunch opposition against Third Circuit nominee Adeel Mangi over his pro bono work will have a chilling effect on future attorneys seeking judgeships, according to a letter shared with Law360.

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Man Admits To Threatening Judge Over 'Don't Say Gay' Ruling

By Christine DeRosa

A retired teacher from Pensacola, Florida, has pled guilty to threatening to harm a federal judge in five voicemails he left after the jurist ruled against a challenge to Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, federal prosecutors announced.

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Jenner & Block Sued For Firing Worker Over Vax Refusal

By Henrik Nilsson

A former Jenner & Block LLP employee filed a discrimination suit against the law firm Friday, claiming she was fired after the firm refused to provide a religious exemption from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate despite her belief that taking the vaccine would make her complicit in abortion.

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Ex-Baltimore State's Atty Says 20-Month Sentence Too Harsh

By Emily Sawicki

Former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby has asked a federal judge to cut down prosecutors' requested 20-month prison sentence after she was convicted of abusing a COVID-19-era program to obtain money from a retirement fund and conning a lender to obtain a vacation home, arguing the proposal "stray[s] from the reality of this case."

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'We Feel It': NJ Ranks 2nd In Ch. 11 Cases, Chief Judge Says

By George Woolston

New Jersey federal courts saw the second most Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in the nation over the last year, Chief U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb of the District of New Jersey said on Friday.

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NJ Courts Chief Warns Plan To Pick Appeals Bench A 'Mistake'

By George Woolston

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner of the New Jersey Supreme Court on Friday defended how the state judiciary assigns appeals court judges, criticizing a proposal to move the power to appoint appellate judges from the chief justice to the state Senate and the governor's office.

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1st Circ. Rejects Ex-Immigration Judges' Bid For Asylum Redo

By Elliot Weld

The First Circuit's full bench refused to reopen a Salvadoran woman's case seeking asylum, despite former immigration judges weighing in to say that the judge who denied her asylum didn't follow a legal requirement to ensure her record was complete.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Haynes and Boone LLP and Lubin & Enoch PC lead this week's edition of Law360's Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously determined that federal courts do not have discretion to toss a case once it's decided that the claims belong in arbitration.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The SEC adopted cybersecurity rules to require investment advisers and broker-dealers to put procedures in place for detecting data breaches and for notifying customers when their personal information may have been compromised, and lawyers said SPACs won't get sought-after relief from a new 1% tax on stock buybacks under a recent Treasury Department proposal. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen a wave of claims filed against Verity Trustees Ltd., Harley-Davidson hit retailer Next with an intellectual property claim, Turkish e-commerce entrepreneur Demet Mutlu sue her ex-husband and Trendyol co-founder Evren Üçok and the Solicitors Regulation Authority file a claim against the former boss of collapsed law firm Axiom. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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