National Roundup

Washington
Man gets 23 years in jail for sex trafficking
SEATTLE (AP) — A Seattle man has been sentenced to 23 years in prison and 15 years of supervised release for crimes including sex trafficking of a minor.

U.S. Attorney Brian Moran says 32-year-old Aubrey Taylor was sentenced Tuesday after he was convicted in March of forcing his victims to work as prostitutes and then give the money they earned to him.

Several people testified that Taylor used threats, violence, drugs, sexual assault and manipulation to force them to engage in commercial sex acts in Washington state, Idaho and Nevada.

According to court records and trial testimony Taylor took one 17-year-old to Wenatchee, Washington, in October 2014, sexually assaulted her and forced her into prostitution.

Three other victims testified that Taylor controlled them with abuse, promises of love and a better life and that he directed some victims to get tattoos of his name.

California
Judge rules company violated antitrust law
Qualcomm’s stock tumbled before the opening bell Wednesday after a federal judge ruled that the company unlawfully stifled cellphone chip market competition and charged excessive licensing fees.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California found Tuesday that Qualcomm violated antitrust law, charging high royalties and squeezing out rivals, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Koh ordered Qualcomm to negotiate or renegotiate licensing deals with customers. The San Diego company must also license its patents to rival chip makers at fair prices and can’t sign exclusive supply agreements with smartphone makers like Apple that block competitors from access to that market.

Qualcomm Inc. must submit to monitoring for the next seven years to make sure it follows the order.

Qualcomm said in a statement Wednesday that it will seek an immediate stay and appeal of the ruling.

“We strongly disagree with the judge’s conclusions, her interpretation of the facts and her application of the law,” Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm, said in a statement.

Last month Apple and Qualcomm settled a bitter financial dispute centered on some of the technology that enables iPhones to connect to the internet. The deal requires Apple to pay Qualcomm an undisclosed amount. It also includes a six-year licensing agreement that likely involves recurring payments to the mobile chip maker.

Apple had already lost an earlier battle with Qualcomm in March when a federal court jury in San Diego decided the iPhone maker owed Qualcomm $31 million for infringing on three of its patents.

Vermont
Man pleads guilty in overdose death
BARRE, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont man has been sentenced to at least six years in prison after pleading guilty to his role in the drug overdose death of a woman in 2018.

Shawn Fordham pleaded guilty Tuesday in Washington District Court to selling or dispensing a regulated drug with death resulting.

Police said the charge stemmed from an incident were Fordham supplied heroin laced with fentanyl to Kristina Gauthier, of Barre, resulting in her death.

Indiana
Murder conviction vacated in slaying
LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — A federal judge has agreed with an Indiana woman who argued that she had ineffective legal counsel at her murder trial for the 2001 slaying of her boyfriend.

The Journal & Courier reports U.S. District Court Judge William T. Lawrence last week ordered Anastazia Schmid’s murder conviction vacated. He wrote in his ruling that testimony that she was “psychotic” and “heavily medicated” raised questions about her competence, but her lawyer didn’t seek a competency hearing.

Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Patrick Harrington says the Indiana Attorney General’s office will review the order and discuss next steps with the prosecutor’s office. Harrington says he supports an appeal.

Jurors convicted Schmid in 2002 of killing her boyfriend and business partner, Tony Heathcote, on March 4, 2001 in Lafayette. She’s serving a 50-year prison sentence.

Idaho
Judge lowers $1.8M award to former employee
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A federal judge has reduced a $1.8 million award given to a former Idaho Department of Correction employee who sued over a hostile work environment because it exceeds the maximum amount allowed under federal law.

U.S. District Judge David Nye made the ruling Tuesday, dropping the award amount granted to former probation and parole employee Cynthia Fuller to $300,000.

Fuller sued the state in 2013, saying Idaho Department of Correction administrators created a hostile work environment and caused her emotional distress after she reported that a co-worker with whom she had recently tried to end a relationship had raped her three times over a two-week period.

Fuller reported the rapes to law enforcement and obtained a restraining order against the co-worker in addition to reporting the assaults to prison officials. Fuller said in the lawsuit department officials offered words of support to her attacker and gave him paid administrative leave — the leave because he was already under investigation for the sexual assault of another woman. She said she was never given that support, however, neither was she offered paid leave.

In her lawsuit, Fuller said she was treated differently because of her gender, and a jury agreed. They awarded her $1.8 million in emotional distress damages after a nine-day trial in March.

Idaho Department of Correction officials asked a judge a few days later to reduce the amount of the award, contending that it was excessive and that federal law caps the amount of emotional distress damages to no more than $300,000.

Fuller’s attorney said the amount awarded for emotional damages was reasonable, but acknowledged the federal cap.

The lawsuit was filed under the 1991 Civil Rights Act, which added some amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The amendments give employees the option to seek a trial by jury in discrimination cases and also allow them to collect emotional distress damages.

Those damages were capped at amounts ranging from $50,000 to $300,000, however, depending on the size of the employer. At the time, the caps were seen as a compromise made so the bill would pass, but the maximum limit has never been increased despite occasional attempts in Congress.

Nye has yet to rule on Fuller’s request for reimbursement of more than $1 million in attorney fees and other court-related costs.