Court Digest

New York
Ex-FBI official pleads guilty to conspiracy charge for helping Russian oligarch
NEW YORK (AP) — A former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence official pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to violate sanctions on Russia by going to work, after he retired, for an oligarch he once investigated.

Appearing before a federal judge in New York City, Charles McGonigal, 55, said he was “deeply remorseful” for work he did in 2021 for the billionaire industrialist Oleg Deripaska.

McGonigal told the judge he accepted over $17,000 to help Deripaska collect derogatory information about another Russian oligarch who was a business competitor. Deripaska has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018 for reasons related to Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

McGonigal was also trying to help Deripaska get off the sanctions list, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Dell said, and was in negotiations along with co-conspirators to receive a fee of $650,000 to $3 million to hunt for electronic files revealing hidden assets of $500 million belonging to the oligarch’s business rival.

McGonigal pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiring to launder money and violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. He could face up to five years in prison. Judge Jennifer H. Rearden scheduled his sentencing for Dec. 14.

McGonigal, who lives in New York, is separately charged in federal court in Washington, D.C. with concealing at least $225,000 in cash he allegedly received from a former Albanian intelligence official while working for the FBI.

McGonigal was special agent in charge of the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York from 2016 to 2018. He supervised investigations of Russian oligarchs, including Deripaska.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia later affirmed the sanctions against Deripaska, finding there was evidence he had acted as an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

McGonigal, who became choked up at one point as he described his crime, said Deripaska funneled the $17,500 payment he received through a bank in Cypress and a corporation in New Jersey before it was transferred into his bank account.

“This, as you can imagine, has been a painful process not only for me, but for my friends, family and loved ones,” McGonigal said. “I take full responsibility as my actions were never intended to hurt the United States, the FBI and my family and friends.”

In a release, Matthew G. Olsen, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said, “McGonigal, by his own admission, betrayed his oath and actively concealed his illicit work at the bidding of a sanctioned Russian oligarch.”

“Today’s plea shows the Department of Justice’s resolve to pursue and dismantle the illegal networks that Russian oligarchs use to try to escape the reach of our sanctions and evade our laws,” he added.


Alabama
Company asks judge to block issuing medical marijuana licenses
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A company that failed to win a potentially lucrative medical marijuana license in Alabama asked a judge Tuesday to block the state from issuing the licenses to anyone, arguing a state commission improperly deliberated in private before selecting the winners.

The filing is the latest legal skirmish in the battle over who will get licenses to grow and distribute cannabis for the state’s developing medical marijuana program.

The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission on Thursday nominated and approved companies after meeting in private for several hours. Alabama Always, a company that was not among the winners, said the commission violated the Open Meetings Act, and is seeking a temporary restraining order to block the licenses from being issued.

The filing said commissioners “retreated into executive session, only to emerge three and a half hours later and ratify a slate of applicants that it had voted on during executive session.”

“It is painfully clear now that the Commission continues to believe that it can conduct its business in private and observe the (Open Meetings Act) only by violating it,” the filing stated.

William Webster, attorney for the commission, said last week that commissioners met in private to receive information about the license applicants but did not deliberate in private, al.com reported. After emerging from the private meeting, commissioners nominated companies to receive the licenses and voted on them during the public portion of the meeting.

Commissioners voted on the licenses after voiding their original selections made in June because of what was described as human errors in the scoring of applications. The commission selected 24 companies to receive licenses, many of which were among the original winners.

Alabama lawmakers in 2021 ended years of resistance and approved the creation of a program to allow marijuana to be used for certain medical conditions. However, it is not available yet to patients because the state has to develop rules and award grower and distributor licenses.

Missouri
2 moms charged  for children’s absences lose their court battle
LEBANON, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a state law criminalizing parents whose children miss school, ruling against two mothers charged in their young children’s tardiness.

Prosecutors charged two moms from Lebanon, Missouri, with misdemeanors and the mothers then went to the state Supreme Court to challenge the law’s constitutionality.

One mother was sentenced to a week in county jail for her first-grade daughter’s nine unexcused absences in the 2021 school year. Another was sentenced to two years of probation for her kindergartener’s seven unexcused absences that year.

Missouri law requires K-12 students to attend school “on a regular basis.” A public defender for the mothers argued the law is unconstitutionally vague.

Supreme Court judges disagreed, ruling that regular attendance means going to school when it is in session.

Judges wrote that school officials can excuse an absence for mental or physical illness and opt not to report parents to prosecutors. Prosecutors, judges wrote, can choose not to charge parents in cases of “minor noncompliance.”

The mothers’ public defender did not immediately return an Associated Press phone call Tuesday.

Florida
DeSantis’ appointees ask judge to rule against Disney without a trial
A Florida judge should rule without trial against Disney as the company fights Gov. Ron DeSantis’ takeover of a board that oversees Walt Disney World, the Republican governor’s appointees said in a Tuesday court filing.

Members of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District asked the state judge in Orlando for a summary judgment that would rule in their favor on five of the nine counts in their case.

The case is one of two lawsuits stemming from the takeover, which was retaliation for Disney’s public opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation championed by DeSantis and Republican lawmakers. In the other lawsuit, in federal court in Tallahassee, Disney says DeSantis violated the company’s free speech rights.

DeSantis isn’t a party in the state court case in which his appointees accuse Disney of wrongly stripping them of powers over design and construction at Disney World when the company made agreements with Disney-friendly predecessors. The DeSantis appointees argued that the board of Disney supporters didn’t give proper notice, lacked authority and unlawfully delegated government authority to a private entity.

The judge in the state case last month refused Disney’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.

The fight between DeSantis and Disney began last year after the company, facing significant pressure internally and externally, publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, a policy critics call “Don’t Say Gay.”

As punishment, DeSantis took over the district through legislation passed by Florida lawmakers and appointed a new board of supervisors to oversee municipal services for the sprawling theme parks and hotels. But the new supervisors’ authority was limited by the company’s agreements with predecessors.

In response, DeSantis and Florida lawmakers passed legislation that repealed those agreements.

The governor has touted his yearlong feud with Disney in his run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, often accusing the entertainment giant of being too “woke.” Disney has accused the governor of violating its First Amendment rights.
In an interview with CNBC on Monday, DeSantis urged Disney to drop the company’s lawsuit, saying that he and his allies have moved on from the feud with the company.

“They’re suing the state of Florida. They’re going to lose that lawsuit,” DeSantis said on CNBC’s “Last Call.”

Florida
Students and professors sue to stop new law they say is censorship
College students and professors in Florida are suing education officials over a new law spurred by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ war on “woke,” saying it violates their constitutional rights by censoring academic freedom.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court Monday by students and professors at New College, a progressive school with a prominent LGBTQ+ community that was taken over earlier this year by DeSantis and his allies, who claimed it was indoctrinating students with leftist ideology.

Florida now leads the United States “in efforts to censor academic freedom and instruction in its college classrooms,” according to the lawsuit, which is seeking a court order to block the law from being enforced.

The measure, passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature this year, outlaws spending on diversity programs, curbs professors’ tenure security and prohibits the teaching of “identity politics” in Florida public schools.

The new law also directs university leaders to monitor against programs that are based on theories “that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”

The suit alleges that the law is unconstitutional because it is overly broad and chills free speech. Specifically, it says the law jeopardizes courses at the honors college on gender studies, queer studies, race, sociology, feminist philosophy and other subjects that affect the school’s curriculum, textbooks, classroom teachings, research and students’ educational experiences.

“In dictating to faculty and students what ideas are true and false, Florida runs headlong into the Bill of Rights,” the complaint states.

The suit names as defendants Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz; the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s universities; and the trustees at New College, which is located in Sarasota. The Associated Press sent an email seeking comment to the education commissioner’s office and the Board of Governors’ office.

When DeSantis, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, and his allies took over the school earlier this year, they placed conservative trustees on its board and appointed an interim president who was a former Republican speaker of the Florida State House and DeSantis’ first commissioner of education.