Arizona
AG sues Chinese online retailer Temu over claims of data theft
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Tuesday that Arizona is the latest state to sue Temu and its parent company PDD Holdings Inc. over allegations that the Chinese online retailer is stealing customers’ data.
Mayes said the app deceives customers about the quality of its low-cost products and collects what she described as a shocking amount of sensitive data without the consent of users, including GPS locations and a list of other apps on users’ phones.
According to the lawsuit, prosecutors are concerned about Temu being subject to laws in China that require Chinese companies to hand over data requested by the government, and that its code is designed to evade security reviews.
“So the scope of this invasion of privacy is enormous, and that’s why I consider it possibly the gravest violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act that we have ever seen in Arizona,” Mayes said during a news conference.
Arizona’s top prosecutor also said the state wants to protect businesses from being “ripped off” by the online retailer, alleging the company has copied the intellectual property of brands that include the Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State University.
Attorneys general in Kentucky, Nebraska and Arkansas have filed similar lawsuits in recent years.
There have been legislative efforts at the federal level to counter China’s influence, especially when it comes to technology and intellectual property. But Mayes suggested there should be greater intervention by the federal government to protect consumers.
Through a forensic review, investigators in Arizona found the app’s code has portions recognized by experts as malware or spyware and allows exfiltration of data from a user’s mobile device while concealing that the app is doing so. The review also found in the app “large swaths” of previously banned code from the platform’s precursor version.
Mayes urged Arizonans to delete their Temu accounts, uninstall the app and scan their devices for malware.
New York
DOJ seeks to dismiss Maurene Comey lawsuit
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is seeking dismissal of a lawsuit that fired former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey brought against it, saying she didn’t properly follow administrative complaint procedures before suing.
The argument was in court papers filed Monday prior to a Thursday hearing in Manhattan federal court.
In September, Comey sued the department, the Executive Office of the President, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, the Office of Personnel Management and the United States.
The lawsuit said her July firing was based on political reasons, including that her father is former FBI Director James Comey. President Donald Trump fired James Comey in 2017.
The Justice Department indicated its defense to the lawsuit in a joint letter submitted to Judge Jesse M. Furman by Maurene Comey’s lawyers and the chief of the civil division of the federal prosecutor’s office in Albany.
It said her lawsuit was not properly before the court because she did not fully comply with administrative procedures requiring the Merit Systems Protection Board to first consider her claim. It rejected her lawsuit’s claim that the notice of appeal she filed with the board was futile.
The board, the Justice Department maintained, was “the appropriate forum to determine whether, as Ms. Comey claims, her removal was a prohibited personnel action or an arbitrary and capricious agency action.”
Maurene Comey’s lawyers said in the filing that the board “lacks expertise to adjudicate this novel dispute” and was not an appropriate forum because “this case raises foundational constitutional questions with respect to the separation of powers.” They also argued that it was “no longer true” that the board functions independently of the president.
Last month, U.S. Attorney John Sarcone in Albany took the case after the recusal of prosecutors in New York, where Maurene Comey had secured guilty verdicts in several high-profile cases, including the sex trafficking conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell and the bribery convictions of former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife.
Two weeks before Maurene Comey was fired, a jury convicted music maven Sean Combs of prostitution-related charges, though it acquitted him of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. She led the prosecution team. Combs, 56, is scheduled for release from prison in June 2028.
Maxwell, 63, was convicted in December 2021 on sex trafficking charges after a jury found she aided the sex abuse of girls and women by financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was found dead in his federal jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited a sex trafficking charge. His death was ruled a suicide. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, where she was transferred last summer from a prison in Florida.
Robert Menendez, 71, is imprisoned in Pennsylvania. He is scheduled for release in September 2034.
Missouri
Ex-officer pleads guilty to searching women’s phones for sexual photos
A former suburban St. Louis police officer admitted that over several months last year, he pulled over 20 women’s vehicles and searched their phones for nude photos and videos.
In a deal with federal prosecutors entered Tuesday, former Florissant Officer Julian Alcala pleaded guilty to 20 counts of willfully depriving someone of their right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. In exchange, prosecutors dropped a felony obstruction count.
The count he pleaded guilty to is punishable by up to a year in prison. Alcala, 30, remains free on bond pending his March 11 sentencing.
According to the plea deal, Alcala pulled over a woman in February 2024 and took her cellphone to his vehicle, saying he needed to do so to confirm her insurance information. Instead he found a video of the woman engaged in sexual activity on her phone and texted it to his own phone. He also found a nude photo of the woman and used his phone to take a picture of the image.
Over the next three months, he took 19 other women’s phones back to his vehicle during traffic stops, purportedly to confirm their insurance or vehicle registration, the plea deal states. He then looked for nude images and took photos of ones he found.
He was caught after the first victim looked in her deleted texts and learned that the video of her engaged in sexual activity had been sent to an unknown number. She called the FBI, which traced the number to Alcala. The FBI then executed a search warrant and found the other nude photos, according to the plea agreement.
AG sues Chinese online retailer Temu over claims of data theft
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Tuesday that Arizona is the latest state to sue Temu and its parent company PDD Holdings Inc. over allegations that the Chinese online retailer is stealing customers’ data.
Mayes said the app deceives customers about the quality of its low-cost products and collects what she described as a shocking amount of sensitive data without the consent of users, including GPS locations and a list of other apps on users’ phones.
According to the lawsuit, prosecutors are concerned about Temu being subject to laws in China that require Chinese companies to hand over data requested by the government, and that its code is designed to evade security reviews.
“So the scope of this invasion of privacy is enormous, and that’s why I consider it possibly the gravest violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act that we have ever seen in Arizona,” Mayes said during a news conference.
Arizona’s top prosecutor also said the state wants to protect businesses from being “ripped off” by the online retailer, alleging the company has copied the intellectual property of brands that include the Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State University.
Attorneys general in Kentucky, Nebraska and Arkansas have filed similar lawsuits in recent years.
There have been legislative efforts at the federal level to counter China’s influence, especially when it comes to technology and intellectual property. But Mayes suggested there should be greater intervention by the federal government to protect consumers.
Through a forensic review, investigators in Arizona found the app’s code has portions recognized by experts as malware or spyware and allows exfiltration of data from a user’s mobile device while concealing that the app is doing so. The review also found in the app “large swaths” of previously banned code from the platform’s precursor version.
Mayes urged Arizonans to delete their Temu accounts, uninstall the app and scan their devices for malware.
New York
DOJ seeks to dismiss Maurene Comey lawsuit
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is seeking dismissal of a lawsuit that fired former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey brought against it, saying she didn’t properly follow administrative complaint procedures before suing.
The argument was in court papers filed Monday prior to a Thursday hearing in Manhattan federal court.
In September, Comey sued the department, the Executive Office of the President, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, the Office of Personnel Management and the United States.
The lawsuit said her July firing was based on political reasons, including that her father is former FBI Director James Comey. President Donald Trump fired James Comey in 2017.
The Justice Department indicated its defense to the lawsuit in a joint letter submitted to Judge Jesse M. Furman by Maurene Comey’s lawyers and the chief of the civil division of the federal prosecutor’s office in Albany.
It said her lawsuit was not properly before the court because she did not fully comply with administrative procedures requiring the Merit Systems Protection Board to first consider her claim. It rejected her lawsuit’s claim that the notice of appeal she filed with the board was futile.
The board, the Justice Department maintained, was “the appropriate forum to determine whether, as Ms. Comey claims, her removal was a prohibited personnel action or an arbitrary and capricious agency action.”
Maurene Comey’s lawyers said in the filing that the board “lacks expertise to adjudicate this novel dispute” and was not an appropriate forum because “this case raises foundational constitutional questions with respect to the separation of powers.” They also argued that it was “no longer true” that the board functions independently of the president.
Last month, U.S. Attorney John Sarcone in Albany took the case after the recusal of prosecutors in New York, where Maurene Comey had secured guilty verdicts in several high-profile cases, including the sex trafficking conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell and the bribery convictions of former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife.
Two weeks before Maurene Comey was fired, a jury convicted music maven Sean Combs of prostitution-related charges, though it acquitted him of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. She led the prosecution team. Combs, 56, is scheduled for release from prison in June 2028.
Maxwell, 63, was convicted in December 2021 on sex trafficking charges after a jury found she aided the sex abuse of girls and women by financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was found dead in his federal jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited a sex trafficking charge. His death was ruled a suicide. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, where she was transferred last summer from a prison in Florida.
Robert Menendez, 71, is imprisoned in Pennsylvania. He is scheduled for release in September 2034.
Missouri
Ex-officer pleads guilty to searching women’s phones for sexual photos
A former suburban St. Louis police officer admitted that over several months last year, he pulled over 20 women’s vehicles and searched their phones for nude photos and videos.
In a deal with federal prosecutors entered Tuesday, former Florissant Officer Julian Alcala pleaded guilty to 20 counts of willfully depriving someone of their right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. In exchange, prosecutors dropped a felony obstruction count.
The count he pleaded guilty to is punishable by up to a year in prison. Alcala, 30, remains free on bond pending his March 11 sentencing.
According to the plea deal, Alcala pulled over a woman in February 2024 and took her cellphone to his vehicle, saying he needed to do so to confirm her insurance information. Instead he found a video of the woman engaged in sexual activity on her phone and texted it to his own phone. He also found a nude photo of the woman and used his phone to take a picture of the image.
Over the next three months, he took 19 other women’s phones back to his vehicle during traffic stops, purportedly to confirm their insurance or vehicle registration, the plea deal states. He then looked for nude images and took photos of ones he found.
He was caught after the first victim looked in her deleted texts and learned that the video of her engaged in sexual activity had been sent to an unknown number. She called the FBI, which traced the number to Alcala. The FBI then executed a search warrant and found the other nude photos, according to the plea agreement.
