“If evidence could be uncovered to convince The Times the charges should not be published, I did not believe, and do not believe, that that would be adverse to The Times’s interests.”
.. But as The Times’s leadership pointed out in its own statement, it never contemplated that the firm would contract with investigators to do opposition research on its own reporters. Unsurprisingly, The Times considered this conduct to be a “grave betrayal of trust,” and grounds to terminate the firm. It is hard to imagine how a lawyer of Mr. Boies’s caliber would not have anticipated this reaction.
It gets worse. Bar ethical rules prohibit lawyers not only from engaging in fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, but also from inducing others to do so. They also specifically forbid lawyers from directing non-lawyers to engage in prohibited conduct. Black Cube employees were in fact involved in such deceit; investigators misrepresented their identities in order to gain confidences from women whom Mr. Weinstein had harassed or assaulted.
Although Mr. Boies now claims that he had no knowledge of such practices, he surely was in a position to have such knowledge and had reason to suspect them. He had hired an organization known for hardball tactics and reportedly received reports of their findings.
.. Mr. Boies stated: “Mr. Weinstein has himself recognized that his contact with women was indefensible and incredible hurtful. In retrospect, I knew enough in 2015 that I believe I should have been on notice of a problem and done something about it.”
.. When leaders with such high visibility cut ethical corners, it sends a powerful and corrosive message.
Prosecutors Seek Plea Deal With Manafort’s Former Son-in Law
Jeffrey Yohai, who worked with his father-in-law on real-estate deals, hasn’t been charged with any crime
.. Mr. Manafort’s daughter, Jessica, filed for divorce from Mr. Yohai earlier this year. Records show a divorce judgment was issued in August.
.. Mr. Manafort, his wife and daughter put at least $4.2 million into house-flipping projects, federal bankruptcy-court records show. Mr. Yohai put the four properties into corporate bankruptcy in December 2016, as the lender, Genesis, was moving toward foreclosure, records show.
.. In September, Mr. Yohai said in a federal court filing in Santa Ana, Calif. that Mr. Manafort and associates had “conspired to mislead” the judge about purchase offers that had materialized for the properties.
.. Mr. Manafort told his tax preparer that the construction loan would allow him to fully pay off the mortgage on another apartment.
.. After Genesis went to court to foreclose on the Brooklyn property, Mr. Manafort obtained loans from another bank based in Chicago, run by a Trump campaign adviser
.. Mr. Mueller accused Mr. Manafort of subsequently defrauding a bank when applying for a mortgage on the property. Although the property was used to generate rental income, Mr. Manafort told the bank that it was a second home for his daughter and Mr. Yohai, so he could get a greater loan amount, for $3.185 million, than he could have otherwise, the indictment says.
.. The indictment says that on Jan. 26, 2016, Mr. Manafort wrote to his then son-in-law about a visit from an appraiser to the condominium, saying, “[r]emember, he believes that you and” Jessica Manafort “are living there.”
Father’s History Could Offer Insight Into Mind of Las Vegas Gunman
one of the most telling documents might be a yellowed, four-page psychiatric evaluation from 1960 that details the father who raised Stephen Paddock until he was 7 and who loomed over the family even after he disappeared.
.. “I get the impression he enjoys being an interesting subject of examination,” the doctor wrote. He concluded that Mr. Paddock was bright, with no history of “mental defect,” and was able to stand trial. But, the doctor added, Mr. Paddock had a “sociopathic personality.”
.. Benjamin Paddock had boasted during his psychological evaluation that his run-ins with authority started early and rarely stopped. He was an only child, pampered by his mother and not disciplined by his father. “I got away with an awful lot,” he told his evaluator. “I went where I felt like it, disrupting everybody’s schedule.” By 12 he was driving his own car.
Equifax manages 1,200 times more data than the Library of Congress. That’s why people are so worried.
“Look at them as sleeping giants. They make the financial industry tick,” said Keith Snyder, an industry analyst at CFRA Research. “They’re the rails that the financial train runs on. Without them, everything would grind to a halt.”
.. the scrutiny comes at a time when credit-rating companies had hoped the Trump administration would roll back regulations, including limiting the powers one of its major watchdogs, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Instead, the industry is facing its biggest challenge in decades.
.. Equifax traces its roots to 1899, when two Atlanta grocery store owners, Cator and Guy Woolford, started what was then known as Retail Credit Co. by going door-to-door to collect information about people in their community. Their $25 book, “The Merchant’s Guide,” noted who in the neighborhood typically paid promptly or who shouldn’t be trusted with credit.
.. The guide served as a key reference to local businesses that were grappling with rapid urbanization, said Josh Lauer, associate professor of media studies at the University of New Hampshire. Traditionally, local owners knew their customers, but as people flooded into the city, that had become more difficult, he said. “They were providing a service, trying to make lending safer,” he said.
.. But it also set up an adversarial relationship with consumers that survives today. “Their whole history is about skepticism toward consumers, believing that consumers are trying to get over on the local businesses,” said Lauer
.. Over time, credit bureaus, such as Retail Credit, would often align themselves with law enforcement, Lauer said. Some had desks set aside in their offices for the Internal Revenue Service or Federal Bureau of Investigation, he said. “There was no firewall, no protection for consumers at all.”
.. Retail Credit drew particular scrutiny because of its history of working with health and life insurance companies. When building reports about whether someone should be extended policies, the company would collect information from neighbors and family members about that person’s health, reputation, and sometimes note if they were homosexual, Lauer said.
“Credit worthiness was tied to character,” he said.
.. In 1974, four former employees of the company told a Senate subcommittee that they were forced to falsify credit reports and meet unrealistic goals to keep their jobs, including ensuring there was adverse information about 6 percent to 10 percent of consumers to prove to their business customers that they were being thorough.
.. Instead of simply selling credit reports to the business community, it has branched into new markets, using artificial intelligence, machine learning and other tactics to unearth information, even sweeping up Facebook and Twitter data on consumers to help companies decide whom to lend money to.
.. “You think about the largest library in the world . . . the Library of Congress, we manage almost 1,200 times that amount of content every day, around the world.”
.. Instead of focusing solely on the United States, Smith has pushed Equifax into 24 countries.
.. Early in his tenure, Smith made a risky bet to jump into a new market, buying Talx, which housed the world’s largest repository of employment data.
“Every time an employee was paid, it creates 50 data attributes,” including how much a person earns and how much was comprised of a bonus, Smith said in an August talk. The company could combine that information with data it already had on customers to create new products, he said.
.. It initially required companies to agree not to join a class-action lawsuit to get some forms of help.
“Their game plan is fairly aggressive, so obviously this might put a damper on their aspirations,” Snyder said
.. Smith is facing potentially the biggest challenge of his career when he testifies before a House committee next week. Lawmakers have criticized the company for waiting six weeks after learning of the breach to tell the public