The National Football Leagues five-month-long labor lockout continued Friday, with player representatives telling the rank and file to “stay put” this weekend while the latest ownership proposal is evaluated.
What those bargaining on behalf of the leagues 1,900 plawyers–who decertified their union earlier this year to pursue an antitrust case against the league–are weighing is a 10-year labor and revenue-sharing agreement approved by a 31-0 owners vote on Thursday.
Though player representatives had been expected to vote via conference call on the owners plan, multiple media reports suggested that some on the players side were hesistant to do so because they suspected management of trying to slip through certain contentious contract provisions unilaterally.
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A former jeweler to the stars was sentenced Friday to six years in federal prison for a $48 million fraud scheme.
Ralph Esmerian, 72, previoulsy pleaded guilty to ripping off creditors, hiding money and lying to a bankruptcy judge in order to save his business.
“I violated a code of ethics,” Esmerian told a Manhattan Federal judge, referring to “this very private hell I’ve been living with every day.”
“Words cannot convey to you how very remorseful I am.”
Esmerian once owned the jewelry store Fred Leighton, which reportedly sold or loaned baubles to the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Tina Fey, Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker and Meryl Streep.
After living a life of wealth and privilege, the tall, gray-haired jeweler’s fall began after his jewelry store was robbed of more than $30 million in 2005, his lawyer said.
Esmerian was desperate “to hold on to the business that had been in his family for four generations,” Patricia Pileggi said.
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A California lawyer was charged Wednesday with stealing more than $300,000 in guns, jewelry and art from a friend who died of cancer in 2010.
Leslie Scott McAfee pleaded not guilty to charges of grand theft, perjury and forgery that stemmed from a felony complaint in connection with property and cash missing from the estate of William Sherinyan, the Los Angeles Times’ L.A. Now blog reported. The complaint also alleges McAfee unlawfully claimed to be executor of Sherinyans estate.
Prosecutors were notified after a beneficiary named in Sherinyans will contacted police upon receiving nothing from the estate, according to the blog.
Dallas-based AMR Corporation, owner of American Airlines, has made the largest aircraft order in history by agreeing to acquire a total of 460 planes from Airbus and Boeing in a transaction worth more than $38 billion. Five Am Law 200 firms have landed key roles on the record-setting deal.
As the fourth-largest U.S. airline, American is also the only major carrier in the country that has never filed for bankruptcy. Americans fleet, however, is among the industrys oldest–something that will change dramatically under the deal that will see the airline provided with new planes through 2025.
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The sassy ex-beauty queen who was a major target of the government’s giant Wall Street corruption investigation choked up Wednesday as she was sentenced to 30 months by a scolding judge.
But Danielle Chiesi bounced back soon after, schmoozing with prosecutors and joking with the FBI agent who first arrested her at 6 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2009.
“Next time you come knocking on my door, do it in the afternoon,” she said.
Chiesi, 45, is the first major defendant to be sentenced in the sprawling corruption probe centered on billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon hedge fund.
Chiesi had pleaded guilty to passing along inside information to several billion dollar hedge funds, saying she got a sexual thrill from trading secret information – and making what prosecutors said was $1.7 million from the schemes.
“I know that there’s a punishment for people who do wrong,” Danielle Chiesi told Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Holwell, her voice breaking.
“But it won’t happen again.”
Holwell said Chiesi’s “moral compass” had fallen by the wayside and called what she did “deplorable.
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