QUOTE OF THE DAY “It wasn’t a hard decision to make.We just completed the ugly job that the bomb did.”Dr. George Velmahos, chief of trauma surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, on four leg amputations that had to be performed after Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon Article, 1A
Kennedy cousin’s appeal trial begins
VERNON, Conn. - The trial attorney for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel said Tuesday he was reluctant to call experts at times during Skakel’s murder trial because he worried about a “rich man’s justice perception and we could just buy experts.”
Skakel’s latest appeal trial began Tuesday, with his former lawyer defending an accusation that he failed to competently defend Skakel when he was convicted of murder in 2002.
Skakel, the 52-year-old nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel, is serving 20 years to life in prison for the 1975 golf club bludgeoning of Greenwich neighbor Martha Moxley when both of them were 15 years old.
Skakel argues that during the 2002 trial, attorney Michael Sherman failed to challenge the state’s star witness and obtain evidence pointing to other suspects, did a poor job with jury selection and closing arguments and didn’t hire enough investigators and expert consultants.
Art dealer charged in gambling ring case
NEW YORK - A scion of one of the world’s most influential and wealthiest art-dealing families was charged Tuesday with playing a leading role in a sprawling gambling and money-laundering scheme that was carried out under the direction of a Russian organized crime group and included high-stakes poker games involving Wall Street financiers, Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes, according to an indictment unsealed in the case.
The investigation, which led to charges against more than 30 people, including a Russian man who was previously wanted in connection with his role in a bid to rig Winter Olympic skating competitions, found ties that stretched from a Bronx plumbing business and a Brooklyn, N.Y., car-repair shop to Cypriot and Russian oligarchs.
During an early morning raid Tuesday, agents executed a search warrant at the Helly Nahmad gallery, which is inside the Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue in New York. The owner of the gallery, Hillel Nahmad, known as Helly, was one of those charged.
The Nahmad family members, Lebanese art dealers with galleries in New York and London, are well-known and powerful players in the art world. In recent years, they have been among some of the most prolific buyers at high-end auctions around the globe, buying and selling millions of dollars of art.
Disbarred attorney to return to prison
JACKSON, Miss. - After losing a key appeal, disbarred Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs asked to return to federal prison to resume serving out a seven-year prison sentence for trying to illegally influence a judge.
Scruggs, 66, was freed on $2 million bond in December while he appealed a conviction for improperly influencing then-Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter. The judge was presiding over a lawsuit between Scruggs and another lawyer, who were fighting over money.
Prosecutors say Scruggs told DeLaughter he would recommend him to Scruggs’ brother-in-law, then-Sen.
Trent Lott of Mississippi, for an appointment to the federal bench. Lott, who has since retired and was not charged with wrongdoing, said he made a courtesy call to DeLaughter but recommended someone else.
Scruggs, an architect of the multibillion-dollar tobacco lawsuits of the 1990s, has asked to report to a prison in Montgomery, Ala., by April 29.
Religious orders’ abuse records sought
LOS ANGELES - Less than three months after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles released the files of priests accused of sex abuse, attorneys for victims were back in court seeking similar records kept by more than a dozen religious orders.
A hearing Tuesday began the process of determining whether - and how - the records kept by religious orders such as the Jesuits, Vincentians, Salesians and Dominicans, among others, would be made public.
Attorneys for several orders said they weren’t ready to release any files. They questioned whether they were even obligated to do so under a $660 million settlement signed in 2007 with more than 500 purported victims of priest molestation.
A judge wants all the orders to submit their positions in advance of a May 28 hearing.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 04/17/2013