Misconduct Cases for TSA at Airports - 9600 Cases in Just 2 Years

Newsflash from your Hollywood Attorney:

Transportation Security Administration officers were cited in more than 9,600 cases of misconduct from 2010 to 2013, and complaints against the agency rose by 26 percent in the last three years.

A new government report reinforces TSA’s reputation of misbehavior that air passengers have long complained about. The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday released its findings, which highlight cases in which TSA officers have stolen money from luggage, accepted bribes from drug dealers, and slept on the job.

The report cites a 26 percent increase in misconduct among TSA employees since 2010, and references the nature of the grievances against them.

Between 2010 and 2012, there were 2,000 reported cases of TSA employees who were sleeping on the job, not following procedures or allowing family members to bypass security checkpoints. There were 3,000 cases of TSA agents showing up late, not showing up at all, or leaving the job without approval.

The report references a specific case in which a TSA employee left an assigned checkpoint to help a relative carry her bag past the screening area. The agency later discovered that the bag contained “numerous prohibited items.”

There were 56 cases of reported theft during the three-year span, involving both cash and electronics. In one case, two former TSA employees admitted to stealing $40,000 from a bag at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Using an x-ray machine, the screeners discovered a wad of cash totaling $170,000, and removed some of the money. They were later arrested.

“[Stealing] was so easy,” Pythias Brown, a former TSA officer who stole more than $800,000 worth of goods, told ABC News last year, describing the agency’s culture of theft. “I walked right out of the checkpoint with a Nintendo Wii in my hand. Nobody said a word.”

Two subcommittees of the House Homeland Security Committee held a hearing on Wednesday to question TSA officials about the agency’s response to misbehavior. TSA Deputy Administrator John W. Halinski told the joint committees that employees are punished for their delinquencies.

“If they’re stealing, they’re doing drugs or breaching the security system intentionally and I can prove it, they’re out,” he said. But the GAO findings show that this is rarely the case.

The report notes that very few cases of misconduct were punished, and only 50 percent of the workers accused of sleeping on the job were reprimanded. Out of the total number of cases that resulted in penalties, 47 percent resulted in a letter of reprimand, 31 percent resulted in suspensions, and only 17 percent resulted in the employee’s termination from the agency. The agency’s lack of response to misbehavior is a cause for concern, but Halinski claims that letters of reprimand are more serious than they might appear. He said the letters can prevent employees from receiving bonuses or promotions, and haunt them throughout their careers.

“It’s a serious thing,” he said. But aviation security expert Jeff Price told ABC News that he is not convinced that any of the TSA’s penalties are helping to stop employees from misbehaving. In 2010, there were 2,691 reported cases of misconduct. In 2010, there were 3,408 – a 26 percent increase.

Read More...   http://rt.com/usa/tsa-misconduct-increase-three-years-866/

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Court to Releases $1.9 Million in Stolen Money to Horror Filmmaker

Newsflash from your Hollywood Attorney:

Matthew Arnold, the writer-director of Shadow People and the showrunner behind NBC's new supernatural drama Siberia, has gotten a California appeals court to affirm the release of nearly $2 million of raised money that landed in the bank accounts of one of his former students.

Shadow People, based on a true story about a small-town radio personality who unravels a conspiracy, was picked up at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 by Anchor Bay. Before that, it was titled The Door, and in 2007, while Arnold was teaching at the New York Film Academy, he met Sun Jee Yoo, a student who expressed interest in raising money for his film project.

Together, they came to an agreement, put in writing, where Yoo was to use her best efforts to raise $4.5 million. She leveraged her connections back home in Korea and was able to raise the funds.

But then a dispute broke out over control.

Yoo's first efforts resulted in approximately $3.7 million raised for The Door, according to the court documents. Later, she raised an additional $1 million, but that money was said to have been put into her personal bank account and not transferred to Arnold's film company called Dark Hall Productions.

In 2007, Yoo's attorney arranged a meeting with Arnold and his own attorney and told the writer-director that he had three choices: "(1) He could continue to control the making of his movie, in which case Yoo’s father would sue him; (2) he could turn over all the investor funds to Yoo; or (3) he could give Yoo some control over the funding of 'The Door.' "

A week later, Arnold was told that he could go ahead with the film on a reduced budget but that the investors wanted $1.7 million of their money back. Arnold and Yoo drove to the bank and issued two checks out of Dark Hall's account -- $1.7 million for the investors and $1,945,000 to be deposited into a joint bank account controlled by both of them.

Instead of returning the money, Yoo is said to have put the $1.7 million into her own Dragon Noon company and later withdrew the other amount to be put into that account as well.

Dark Hall sued, and the case went to trial in 2009, where a jury awarded $3.7 million in damages against Yoo, including $1,945,000 on the film company's claim for conversion. Dark Hall filed an ex parte application seeking release of the funds, and the trial court granted it, but then Yoo informed the judge that her attorney had been disbarred.

Eventually, though, Dark Hall got its judgment confirmed, and Yoo made an appeal that there was insufficient evidence that she breached any contract or made any misrepresentation and that the judge had committed a reversible error by not instructing the jury on the law of agency.

On Wednesday, a California appeals court rejected Yoo's arguments, finding there was evidence that she agreed to raise the money but then appropriated it for her own use and that she breached subsequent oral agreements about how the funds were to be used. The appeals court also found evidence of the misrepresentations, found the jury instructions sufficient and agreed that the remedy of ordering a constructive trust imposed on the funds to be proper.

According to the decision, "That the judgment was entered only against Yoo, and not Dragon Noon, does not alter the result. It was Yoo's wrongdoing that gave rise to the constructive trust imposed on the misappropriated funds. When Yoo transferred the misappropriated funds to Dragon Noon, it became an involuntary trustee of those funds for Dark Hall's benefit."

Read Full Reading here.... http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/B223362.PDF

Source.... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/horror-filmmaker-gets-court-release-589255

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Law Offices of Jonathan Franklin
Open Evenings and Weekends this Summer
Call Us Now (310) 273-9600   
 http://www.jonathanfranklinlaw.com