Tag: rejects
Judge rejects Elizabeth Holmes’ bid for freedom while awaiting appeal
A federal judge denied Holmes’s motion for release on Monday as she appealed her conviction on four counts of fraud and conspiracy, as reported by The Guardian. As a result, the Theranos founder is scheduled to report to prison on April 27th.
Holmes has appealed her conviction to the federal ninth circuit court of appeals based on questions about the “accuracy and reliability” of evidentiary and procedural issues in the trial. However, US district court judge Edward Davila ruled Monday that the appeals didn’t meet the burden of a “substantial” questioning of facts or law. According to the judge, the request didn’t address the conviction’s underlying wire-fraud issues against investors. Therefore, it wouldn’t warrant a reversal or new trial (the legal standard for remaining free pending appeal) even if the appeals court agreed with her assertions.
However, the judge ruled against prosecutors hoping to brand Holmes as a flight risk after learning that her partner bought her a one-way ticket for a flight to Mexico. Although the judge described the ticket purchase (and failure to cancel it post-conviction) as a “bold move” and “perilously careless oversight,” he gave her the benefit of the doubt, ruling she was “not likely to flee or pose a danger” to the public.
Last November, the Theranos founder was sentenced to over 11 years in prison for defrauding investors after a jury found her guilty last January. Founded in 2003, Theranos claimed to produce a long list of revealing health results using only a single drop of a patient’s blood. The company raised hundreds of millions of dollars from high-profile investors before internal whistleblowers sourced a 2015 Wall Street Journal story revealing that the startup’s underlying technology was bogus. The story has since become a cautionary tale, with podcasts, books and a recent Hulu miniseries cashing in on the one-time Silicon Valley golden child’s downfall.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/judge-rejects-elizabeth-holmes-bid-for-freedom-while-awaiting-appeal-191042016.html?src=rss
Fourth teaching union NASUWT rejects pay offer
Amazon Rejects Petition from 30,000 Workers Opposing Return-to-Office Mandate
Disgruntled Amazon corporate employees are reportedly devastated after a top human resources executive shot down an internal petition that asked the tech giant’s leaders to nix its return-to-office plan. Approximately 30,000 workers had signed a petition begging CEO Andy Jassy to cancel his directive that most employees work on site at least three days per week. The return-to-office plan is slated to take effect on May 1.
Beth Galetti, Amazon’s HR chief, shot down the petition in a message to organizers obtained by Insider and signaled that the return-to-office plan will move forward as scheduled. “Given the large size of our workforce and our wide range of businesses and customers, we recognize this transition may take time, but we are confident it will result in long-term benefits to increasing our ability to deliver for our customers, bolstering our culture, and growing and developing employees,” Galetti said in the memo….
In the petition, which first surfaced last month, Amazon workers argued they are more productive and enjoy a better work-life balance in a remote work environment. The workers also asserted that the three-day-per-week requirement runs contrary to Amazon’s stances on issues such as affordable housing, diversity and climate change…. Meanwhile, Jassy has argued that working more days on site will help build effective collaboration and “deliver for customers and the business.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ofsted boss rejects calls to pause school inspections
Andrew Tate: Romanian court rejects bail application
Supreme Court Rejects Ohio Man’s Bid To Sue Police Over Arrest of Facebook Parody
In March 2016, Novak set up a Facebook page that purported to be that of the Parma Police Department. He published six satirical posts in 12 hours, one of which claimed there was a job opening to which minorities were encouraged not to apply and another that warned people not to give food, money or shelter to homeless people. The police department, claiming the posts had disrupted its operations, launched an investigation and ultimately searched Novak’s apartment, arrested him and jailed him for four days. Novak was charged under a state law that criminalizes disruption of police operations but acquitted at trial.
The police officers, Kevin Riley and Thomas Connor, say they had probable cause to arrest Novak because they genuinely believed his conduct was disrupting their operations. Novak sued the officers and the police department, saying they had violated his free speech rights, as well as his right to be free of unlawful searches and seizures under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. After lengthy litigation, a federal judge dismissed Novak’s claims. The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a ruling in April that “the officers reasonably believed they were acting within the law” even if his Facebook page was obviously a parody. That’s because there was no court precedent saying it’s a violation of the Constitution to be arrested in retaliation for satirical remarks when the officers have probable cause, the court said. Novak’s appeal was backed by satirical news sites The Babylon Bee and The Onion, which filed a lighthearted brief saying its writers “have a self-serving interest in preventing political authorities from imprisoning humorists.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.