BlueCross BlueShield Forced To Pay $700,000 To Fired Employee Over Vax Mandate
A former employee of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee was awarded a settlement after she was fired for refusing the Covid-19 jab.A former employee of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee was awarded a settlement after she was fired for refusing the Covid-19 jab.Disgraced Democratic mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried agrees to flip on Tom Brady and other celebrity FTX promoters
Middle-aged NFL legend Tom Brady recently hinted at the possibility that he might stage a Michael Jordan-style comeback. He just might have to in order to stay whole thanks to disgraced Democratic mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried's latest act of betrayal.
Bankman-Fried, the convicted fraudster whose mom figures is too autistic for prison, has apparently agreed to cooperate with the group of cryptocurrency users suing various FTX influencers, including Brady and his ex-wife.
Background
Blaze News previously reported that Tom Brady and his former spouse, Gisele Bündchen, were named in a class-action lawsuit filed in Miami's Southern District of Florida federal court in November 2022, along with former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, Golden State Warriors basketballer Stephen Curry, Los Angeles Angels baseballer Shohei Ohtani, "Shark Tank's" Kevin O'Leary, and "Seinfeld" cocreator Larry David.
The class-action complaint launched months after the collapse of the crypto exchange company FTX alleges that Brady and the other brand ambassadors were responsible for "misrepresentations and omissions" in the advertisements in which they told acquaintances to unwittingly throw their money away into "the FTX Ponzi scheme."
Brady and Bündchen each took an equity stake in FTX as part of a 2021 ambassadorial partnership. While Brady became a brand ambassador, Bündchen took on the role of FTX's environmental and social initiatives advisor. The former couple appeared in a series of FTX commercials.
Curry similarly got into bed with the ill-fated company, signing on to a "long-term partnership" with FTX in September 2021 in exchange for a now-worthless equity stake. In one advertisement, Curry said, "With FTX, I have everything I need to buy, sell, and trade crypto safely."
Larry David was featured in a Super Bowl commercial for FTX where he played a number of characters rejecting historically consequential ideas, such as the light bulb. The advertisement ultimately showed David reject FTX, then suggested, "Don't be like Larry."
This FTX Super Bowl ad with Larry David ran FTX $1.13B\n\nthe irony of it\u2026 an arrest scene, Larry David saying he doesn\u2019t believe in Crypto, a ton of foreshadowing as @SBF_FTX is on trial\u2026 \n\nThe \u201cdon\u2019t be be like Larry David\u201d line after FTX lost billions of customer funds lol— (@)
While O'Neal managed to avoid being served in the lawsuit for several months, last April he became the last of the celebrities to be served a legal notice.
No honor among FTX alumni
An April 19 court filing indicates the plaintiffs in the case have reached a settlement with Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison last month for his orchestration of multiple fraudulent schemes and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture, reported Cointelegraph.
The fraudster will cooperate with the investors, and, in exchange, they will drop their civil liabilities against him.
The filing states, "[Bankman-Fried] has knowledge and other information that Class Representatives and Class Counsel believe will be valuable to Class Representatives' cases against other defendants in the FTX MDL [multidistrict litigation], particularly relating to the underlying actions and their connection to Miami, Florida, where FTX's U.S. headquarters were based, as well as each MDL Defendants' knowledge of and assistance with the actions and connections to other states in which jurisdictions over those Defendants is asserted."
Should the court approve the deal, Bankman-Fried would fork over non-privileged documents concerning his assets and his investment in the AI start-up Anthropic, proof of a negative net worth, and documents about the FTX brand ambassadors, reported the Daily Mail.
The Democratic mega-donor also apparently agreed to surrender any information he has about venture capital firms that invested in FTX as well as any accountants or lawyers who worked with the defunct crypto exchange.
CoinDesk reported that the fraudster's former friends and codefendants Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang, have — along with FTX lawyer Dan Friedberg — made similar settlement agreements with the class-action plaintiff's attorneys.
A number of middling talents who promoted FTX, including Jaspreet Singh, Tom Nash, Jeremy Lefebvre, and Graham Stephan, have apparently also settled, as has Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence.
While flipping on his former celebrity boosters, Bankman-Fried appears to be trying to dodge accountability for his crimes. Earlier this month, the former multibillionaire appealed his fraud convictions and prison sentence.
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'He's a predator': 85 women file class action lawsuit against Boston doctor over allegations of 'deplorable' sexual assaults
More than 85 women have filed a class action lawsuit against a Boston doctor over allegations of repeated sexual assaults.
Dr. Derrick Todd faces three separate lawsuits – including a class action suit launched by over 85 women.
WBZ-4 reported, "The number of women joining the third lawsuit stands at more than 85 and is expected to rise further, the plaintiffs' attorney told CBS News on Thursday afternoon."
Todd is a prominent rheumatologist, who was previously employed at Boston's Brigham & Women's Hospital before the damning accusations.
The dozens of women accused Todd of repeated sexual assaults stemming from unnecessary exams that were "performed for his own sexual gratification," according to the class action lawsuit filed in Suffolk County Superior Court. The lawsuit notes that "these horrifying, traumatizing, and deplorable acts" took place "from at least as far back as 2011 and continuing through July 2023."
The alleged victims allege in the lawsuit that Dr. Todd performed "inappropriate pelvic examinations, breast examinations, and rectal examinations."
Mimi DiTrani – a former patient who filed a lawsuit against Todd – told CBS Boston that the rheumatologist opted for repeated gynecological exams and breast exams instead of conducting MRIs on her bones for her autoimmune rheumatological health issues.
"Her lawsuit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, alleges Todd asked her a series of 'inappropriate, invasive, and exploitative questions' about her appearance and sexual history," according to the Boston Globe. "Todd often examined DiTrani without a chaperone present, and frequently texted her at all hours of the day, according to the suit."
The suit states that during follow-up appointments Todd asked her "inappropriate sexual questions, made sexualized comments, performed sexualized breast examinations, and performed sexualized gynecological examinations that included digital penetration, all under the guise of medical treatment."
DiTraini accused hospitals for missing "warning signs" about Todd's alleged misconduct, and sued Brigham and Women’s, Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital, Mass General Brigham Community Physicians Inc., and Charles River Medical Associates.
The lawsuit accuses the hospital systems of allowing Todd's alleged sexual abuse to occur while failing their duty to "hire, supervise, manage, oversee, and retain competent medical providers who refrained from assault and inappropriate examinations of patients."
After learning of the sexual assault accusations, Brigham & Women's Hospital placed Todd on administrative leave while the hospital investigated the allegations. Todd left the hospital on July 31. The hospital notified his former patients, the Department of Public Health, and the Board of Registration in Medicine.
Lubin & Meyer attorney Robert Higgins told CBS Boston, "This is criminal. He's a predator. It's no different than somebody sexually assaulting someone after a bar."
Todd's attorney, Ingrid S. Martin, said the doctor has been "fully cooperative" with all investigations and that "these allegations will be proven to be without merit."
The case files have been sealed pending a hearing on Oct. 17.
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Class-action lawsuit filed against Dr. Derrick Todd for alleged sex assaults www.youtube.com
Tesla workers violated drivers' privacy, shared embarrassing car camera footage, lawsuit alleges
A California man is suing Tesla over privacy concerns, saying the company's employees shared "embarrassing" footage captured on drivers' car cameras, Reuters reported Wednesday.
"I’m bothered by it because the people who buy the car, I don't think they know that their privacy is, like, not respected … We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids," one ex-employee said, as cited in the suit.
"We could see inside people's garages and their private properties. Let's say a Tesla customer had something in their garage that was distinctive, you know, people would post those kinds of things," said another.
"Any normal human being would be appalled by this," David Choffnes, director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University in Boston said of Tesla's alleged sharing of sensitive footage.
The class-action lawsuit filed Friday targets footage taken between 2019 and 2022 via Tesla vehicles' integral Autopilot system. Tesla's eight-camera system captures 360 degrees around the vehicle, and some models also feature a driver-facing device.
Rather than using the footage for work purposes, to improve the car, for example, the lawsuit says workers were able to access footage "for the tasteless and tortious entertainment of Tesla employees, and perhaps those outside the company, and the humiliation of those surreptitiously recorded."
Some examples of circulated recordings in "private and embarrassing situations and without their consent" cited in the lawsuit included a completely naked man approaching a Tesla, road-rage incidents, a child being hit by a Tesla driving at a high rate of speed and flying off his or her bike, and pictures of family pets made into memes.
The lawsuit also alleges, that despite Tesla's assurances to the contrary, the data were not truly anonymized. It was possible for anyone viewing the images to connect the footage to owners and locations.
The alleged footage sharing occurred despite the company's privacy policy assuring customers vehicles are "designed from the ground up up to protect your privacy" and "camera recordings remain anonymous," the lawsuit notes.
Tesla is not alone in featuring camera systems on its cars. In fact, backup cameras have been required in new cars in the U.S. since 2018. Whether the data gathered by backup and other car camera systems is sent to the manufacturer, stored, or sold to others varies widely, as Vox reported Thursday.
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$27 billion Uvalde class-action lawsuit likely to target law enforcement, gun manufacturer for 'deliberate, conscious disregard' for human life
A class-action lawsuit on behalf of the victims and survivors of the Uvalde school shooting that occurred three months ago will soon be filed, and it is likely to name as defendants several law enforcement agencies and at least two firearms businesses.
Back on May 24, a shooter shut himself inside two adjoining classrooms in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and terrorized children and teachers for over an hour before law enforcement breached the door and killed him. In all, 19 students and two teachers were murdered in the attack, and several others were wounded.
Last week, Charles Bonner of the Law Offices of Bonner & Bonner — located in the Bay Area — announced that he would soon file a $27 billion lawsuit on behalf of the Uvalde victims. He has been meeting with survivors and family members at a local church to discuss a possible lawsuit which will hold law enforcement accountable for their actions that day.
"Up to right now, there's been no accountability, there's no justice for those 19 children and the two teachers," said Daniel Myers, the pastor of Tabernacle of Worship church where Bonner and the victims have met.
Defendants in the lawsuit will likely include: Uvalde city police, Uvalde police chief Pedro "Pete" Arredondo, sheriffs, Texas Rangers, Border Patrol, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. The lawsuit will also likely target Daniel Defense, which manufactured the gun used by the shooter, and Oasis Outback, which sold it to him. Members of the Uvalde school board and city council may also be named.
Bonner claims that by their actions — and in many cases, their inactions — these individuals, businesses, and law enforcement agencies violated the victims' constitutional rights.
"People have a right to life under the 14th Amendment, and what we’ve seen here is that the law enforcement agencies have shown a deliberate, conscious disregard of the life," said Bonner, who is also representing victims of the recent mass shooting in Buffalo, New York.
The civil rights lawsuit will be "one-of-a-kind in the whole world," Bonner continued.
The lawsuit is expected to be filed soon.
"Now it's time for all of us to stand up and demand change and protection," a statement on the Bonner & Bonner website says.
Other attorneys from a separate California law firm are preparing to file a federal lawsuit regarding the shooting on behalf of three individual families. Though it will not be a class-action suit, it will likely include many or all of the same defendants as the class-action suit filed by Bonner.
Class action lawsuit filed against Robinhood after GameStop trade freeze
A federal class action lawsuit was filed Thursday against the stock trading company Robinhood after it restricted its customers from buying shares of GameStop and other stocks popularized on the Reddit forum WallStreetBets.
BREAKING: Class action complaint against @RobinhoodApp filed in the southern district of NYhttps://t.co/DuGP3LIQDQ https://t.co/mw82RRoA2L— Lydia Moynihan (@Lydia Moynihan)1611853246.0
Attorney Alex Cabeceiras filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on behalf of plaintiff Brendon Nelson, a Massachusetts resident. On Thursday, Nelson said he logged into his Robinhood account and discovered that GameStop's stock had disappeared from the app. Robinhood also prevented users from buying more shares of it.
The complaint filed by Cabeceiras argues "Robinhood purposefully, willfully, and knowingly removing the stock 'GME' from its trading platform in the midst of an unprecedented stock rise thereby deprived retail investors of the ability to invest in the open-market and manipulating the open-market."
This morning I filed a class action lawsuit against Robinhood for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, among ot… https://t.co/Fp5pbNLvYO— Alex Cabeceiras (@Alex Cabeceiras)1611851641.0
The lawsuit demands that the court immediately issues an injunction forcing Robinhood to reinstate GameStop's stock on its platform. Additionally, it seeks a class action fee for all Robinhood users prevented from trading GameStop, an award for attorney's fees, and punitive damages.
The Daily Beast reported that another law firm, ChapmanAlbin, announced in a statement Thursday that it was "investigating claims on behalf of Robinhood users that were affected and suffered losses as a result of investing in Gamestop or AMC."
"Robinhood appears to be up to the same old tricks, recruiting social media influencers to encourage individuals to sign up and fund a Robinhood account and beginning purchasing shares of securities such as GameStop and AMC, with no consideration as to the suitability of the purchases," ChapmanAlbin attorney Philip Vujanov said.
Robinhood and other stock brokers' decision to ban trading of GameStop comes after retail investors on the popular forum WallStreetBets began a campaign to buy the stock amidst news that several hedge fund investors were attempting to short it for a profit. WallStreetBets boasts over two million users on its discussion board. The organic campaign to create artificial demand for GameStop stock successfully caused its price to rise more than 1,000% over one week, forcing short sellers to buy back into the stock to cover their potential losses.
This process, known as a short-squeeze, caused short sellers to lose an estimated $70.87 billion while the retail traders who bought into GameStop have seen the value of their shares increase dramatically.
The decision to ban trading of GameStop and other shorted stocks by Robinhood, WeBull, Interactive Brokers, and other stock trading companies was received by their customers as a statement that these services will prioritize the interests of Wall Street hedge funds over decentralized, individual traders. Lawmakers in both parties have now called for congressional investigations on the trade freeze, probing whether Robinhood and others acted unfairly by shutting retail traders out of the market while permitting credentialed Wall Street investors to trade as they please.
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