Police are investigating how a  man handcuffed in a police car for alleged marijuana possession wound up with a fatal bullet wound to the head.

Chavis Carter, 21 of Southaven, Miss., was being held in the back of police car Saturday night after police said they found marijuana and several plastic baggies on him during a traffic stop, ABC affiliate KAIT8 reported earlier this week.

Police reported hearing an unidentified noise from the back of the car. When they went to investigate police said they found Carter bloody with a gun lying nearby, ABC 24 reported Tuesday.

Police, who swear they searched Carter twice before restraining him in the back of the car, are claiming Carter committed suicide.

Officers say Carter was handcuffed behind his back.

But his family doesn't buy it.

"I don't believe this was an accident. I know my son. He's not suicidal. He wouldn't have taken his own life," Carter's dad Charles Douglas told ABC 24. "Under the circumstances they say this happened it's impossible."

The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave while the incident is investigated.

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In a victory for consumers, the Missouri Supreme Court this week threw out a state law capping non-economic losses for victims of medical malpractice. The 2005 tort reform law that limited jury awards for pain and suffering to $350,000 was found to be in violation of Missouri residents’ constitutional right to a jury trial.

“This is a good day for all people in Missouri and elsewhere who believe in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights,” says Tim Dollar, an attorney in Kansas City and the president of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys.

The ruling came about from a tragic 2006 birth in which a child suffered brain damage due to a delayed C-section. The mother sued, and was awarded $5 million, $1.45 million of that in non-economic “pain and suffering” damages. The child, now five years old, cannot walk or feed himself, but nevertheless according to Missouri law the non-economic portion of the award was reduced to $350,000.

Thanks to the court decision, the family will receive the whole $5 million. Overturning a previous state Supreme Court ruling, the judges said in a 4-3 decision that the damage cap was an infringement on patients’ rights to have their day in court.

“The Supreme Court examined the issue in light of the Missouri Constitution that guarantees the right to jury trial,” Dollar explains. “They ruled that this statute is unconstitutional because in requiring the reductions, it eliminates an individual like this child’s right to a full jury trial.”

Particularly hurt by the now-defunct law were children, the elderly and the disabled, who were severely limited in the amounts of compensation they could receive because they don’t generally work, and therefore don’t cause themselves or their families “economic harm” by being crippled or killed, beyond the medical bills themselves. In effect the Missouri legislature was saying that the lives of the unemployed, even children, are worth only $350,000.

The court ruling includes only living plaintiffs and does not extend to lawsuits brought when patients die as a result of medical malpractice.

Attack on Enumerated Rights

Tort reform is a measure pushed in states across the nation as well as in the federal government by anti-consumer interests in an effort to limit the money that plaintiffs can collect from doctors that kill and injure their patients. Although limits to pain and suffering awards are presented as a way to keep malpractice premiums lower and therefore bring down the cost of health care overall, a recent study showed that tort reform does not actually reduce medical costs. What it does do is limit victims’ access to the  courts and ability to be compensated for the harm that has been done to them.

“That harm is irreplaceable,” says Dollar. “It would be as though some doctor committed a mistake that left someone in a wheelchair for the rest of their life, and the legislature is saying, ‘Here, we’re going to pay you for the cost of the wheelchair, and good luck with that.’”

But the consequences of so-called tort reform extend beyond the individual. For one thing, damage caps remove a financial disincentive for doctors to make mistakes. No ethical doctor would purposely kill a patient, of course, but the threat of a multimillion dollar lawsuit is a great reminder to take all proper precautions and not let inattention or oversight lead to disastrous results.

What’s more, the right to a jury trial is enshrined in the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, right up there with all the other freedoms that American citizens are guaranteed. “If we permit the legislature to encroach upon something so fundamental, something that has been in our federal Constitution since the beginning, then we expose all of us to the ease with which a legislature can impose upon our other cherished rights,” Dollar says. “That’s an enumerated right and it has the same force as the other rights, including speech, religion and right to bear arms.”

Visit Lawyers.com to learn more about medical malpractice lawsuits and locate an attorney in your area who can answer your questions.

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Apple Inc. asked a U.S. judge on Thursday to punish Samsung Electronics Co Ltd for a Samsung attorney's conduct by ordering that the South Korean company has infringed Apple's phone design patents, according to a court filing.

Trial began this week in high stakes litigation between the two companies. Apple sued Samsung last year in San Jose, California federal court, accusing Samsung of copying the iPhone and iPad. Samsung has countersued.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday had barred Samsung's attorneys from presenting some evidence during opening statements. Later that afternoon, Samsung emailed reporters links to that material, along with a statement that "fundamental fairness requires that the jury decide the case based on all the evidence."

Samsung attorney John Quinn, of the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, acknowledged in a court filing on Wednesday that he authorized the press statement but said it was not designed to influence the jury.

"The members of the jury had already been selected at the time of the statement and the transmission of these public exhibits, and had been specifically instructed not to read any form of media relating to this case," Quinn wrote.

Apple called his conduct "egregious, because it impugned the integrity of the court," according to its legal brief on Thursday.

Samsung spokesman Adam Yates said the company will be submitting a response. "Apple's filing is baseless," Yates said.

A typical sanction for attorney misbehavior is a monetary fine, but Apple is asking Koh to rule that Apple's phone design patents in the case are valid, and that Samsung has infringed them. Those are issues that the jury has been empanelled to decide.

The trial is set to resume on Friday.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, No. 11-1846.

(Reporting By Dan Levine; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Brian and Dawn Peterson have sued legendary rocker Bob Dylan (aka Robert Zimmerman) and Ashes & Sand over a 40-year old guitar allegedly used by the musician, according to a civil action suit in Morris County Court of of New Jersey. 

The guitar and sheet music came into Dawn's possession by way of her father, Victor Quinto, a pilot "often used by folk musicians for charter flights" in the mid-60s. 

After one particular flight, Mr. Quinto realized Dylan left behind his guitar and sheet music. Taking it home, he then tried to contact Mr. Dylan's camp in order to return the missing items.

The suit claims, "despite the request, neither Zimmerman nor anyone on his behalf ever made any attempt to obtain the equipment or music."

Over the years Mr. Quinto gave away the sheet music to friends and family as gifts, while keeping the guitar for himself. 

Unfortunately, Mr. Quinto died in 1977 of a brain aneurysm, where upon his passing, the guitar was handed down to his daughter, Dawn Peterson.

The Peterson's claim that in 2005, they attempted to contact the Zimmerman camp to explain the curious case of Mr. Dylan's guitar. This time they received a response, stating "the described guitar, case and lyrics, 'if genuine,' were the 'sole property' of Zimmerman and 'were stolen' from Zimmerman."

Now the Peterson's have brought the case to trial, seeking legal declaration that they are indeed the rightful owners of the guitar, guitar case, and sheet music.

You can read the court case HERE.

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A Roman Catholic priest admitted Thursday that he exploited children to produce his own pornography and committed some of his crimes in a church choir loft.

Shawn Ratigan, 46, who lives in Independence, Mo., pled guilty to violating five young victims to make "sexually explicit" pictures of them, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday afternoon.

"When a sexual predator wears a collar, his crimes impact the entire community," Acting U.S. Attorney David Ketchmark said in a statement.

Ratigan – who previously served as a parish pastor at St. Patrick's Church in Kansas City – exploited victims ranging in age from 2 to 12 years old, the DOJ said.

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Slate editor David Plotz revives interest Thursday in a great piece of Abraham Lincoln writing.

According to Plotz's post, Lincoln reviewed death sentences by court martial during the Civil War, and in the case of Michael Delaney, a condemned soldier who deserted his Colorado regiment but was found while fighting for another regiment, Lincoln proved himself concise, rational, and probably pressed for time.

His note, scratched on the bottom of some yellowing legal paper, reads:

Let him fight instead of being shot. A Lincoln

Plotz got to see Lincoln's writing on the document during a recent tour of the National Archives vaults (hence the post.) As Plotz writes:

I guess it's not surprising that the author of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address could manage to convey humanity, common sense, and a flash of dark wit in just seven words.

At 46 characters, let's just assume that this quote would have dominated the Twittersphere of 1863. This isn't a brand new finding, it's been noted in modern Lincoln biographies. (Unsurprising, given the estimated 65,000 books written on the Civil War and the 15,000 about Lincoln, some of which are stacked to the ceiling at the Ford's Theatre Center for Education and Leadership.) But it's new to us and a refreshing reminder of Lincoln's sober humanity as he's lately been recast as a Vampire Hunter.

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Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has caused a stir by his refusal to release to the public any of his tax returns prior to 2010.

While it’s tradition for candidates running for the nation’s highest office to disclose their personal finances to voters, there’s nothing in the law that compels Romney or any other would-be public official to turn their returns over for media scrutiny.

In what situations could private consumers be forced to share their tax documents with a third party?

Almost none. “There are strict laws that tax returns and the information therein is kept confidential by the government,” says David Hryck, a tax attorney with New York City-based firm SNR Denton. “Generally the only cases are where there’s an audit or an administrative proceeding or tax court proceeding, or a matrimonial case where it’s relevant.”

Obviously if the IRS is auditing you, they already have a copy of your returns. These could be brought into court as evidence if criminal charges for tax evasion or fraud are filed.

Divorce, alimony and child support hearings are the only places outside of tax crimes where your returns could be obtained and scrutinized without your consent. “It could be relevant in the proceedings,” Hryck says. “One spouse may ask to see a copy of the other’s return. It may be relevant to the children.” Courts can use the returns to figure out exactly what obligations a divorced spouse or non-custodial parent should have to his or her ex and/or children. (Incidentally, your tax return could also be seized to to make up for non-payment of alimony or child support.)

The bottom line is that outside of certain circumstances, no one, be it your employer, nosy neighbor or a pesky reporter who files a Freedom of Information Act request will be able to get their hands on your personal tax information without your permission.

Voluntary Disclosure

Almost everybody in American has to file a tax return, as long as their income is above a certain threshold that depends on age and filing status — $9,500 for single people under 65 who don’t have any self-employment income. The return should list all types of income from salary, interest, investments and other sources, as well as a myriad of possible deductions and credits. Depending on how much tax your employer withholds from your paycheck, you might owe the IRS money, or have overpaid over the year and get some money back. The return functions as a comprehensive snapshot of your finances over the course of any given year.

Presidential candidates usually show Americans their returns as a gesture to show that they have nothing to hide, a tradition started by Romney’s father George Romney in 1968. Presidents and other executives can also request to view the returns of a person who is to be appointed to a high-profile position as part of a vetting process to suss out any lurking scandals or skeletons in the closet.

However, the disclosures are voluntary, not compulsory. In the same vein, when trying to rent an apartment or apply for a mortgage, landlords or banks might ask to see your tax returns as proof of income. “That’s voluntary,” Hryck points out. “You don’t have to rent that apartment.” Verification from an employer or an attorney can often stand as proof of income in lieu of handing out the original document.

Most Americans don’t need to worry about the general public caring about their income, nor whether their Swiss bank accounts are in tax compliance. Rest assured, consumers can sleep soundly in their beds knowing that the clamoring public can’t get access to their returns, even if they wanted to.

Learn more about tax law and locate an attorney in your area who can answer your questions at Lawyers.com.

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It's been a tough summer for Cook County, Ill. sheriff's officers.

They've had to deal with an unprecedented spike in crime in the Chicagoland area.

But one officer appears to have taking "blowing off stress" a bit too far.

"A 6-foot-5, 325-pound Cook County correctional officer allegedly punched an inmate in the face and then told the inmate that if he didn’t tell others he swung first, the officer would tell superiors that the man tried to escape," the Chicago Sun-Times Rummana Hussain reports.

Surveillance video of the incident has now been released. Check it out:

Read Hussain's full report about the incident at Chicago Sun-Times.com

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Vladimir Putin has called for a Russian court to show leniency toward feminist punk band Pussy Riot, calling into question the independence of Russia's notoriously politicised court system.

Putin criticised the women's February act in Moscow's Christ the Saviour cathedral, where they performed an anti-Putin "punk prayer" designed to highlight the Orthodox Church's support for the powerful presidency.

"There is nothing good in this," Putin told journalists at the end of a one day trip to London. "I wouldn't really like to comment, but I think if the girls were, let's say, in Israel, and insulted something in Israel … it wouldn't be so easy for them to leave." If they "desecrated some Muslim holy site, we wouldn't even have had time to detain them", he added.

"Nonetheless, I don't think they should be judged too severely for this," Putin said. "But the final decision rests with the courts – I hope the court will deliver a correct, well-founded ruling."

Three members of Pussy Riot – Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich – face up to seven years in prison if found guilty on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. They have argued that they were carrying out a political protest against the church's support of Putin ahead of contentious elections that saw Putin return to the presidency for the third time amid unprecedented protests.

"On the one hand, Putin's statement is without doubt a manoeuvre for the international community, because he is clearly worried and traumatised by the international reaction, as it is out of his control," said Mark Feygin, a lawyer for Pussy Riot. "On the other hand, he is frantically trying to find an exit, so as not to take responsibility.»

Defence lawyers have likened the case against Pussy Riot, which continued to be heard on Friday, to a show trial. "Every day, the level of absurdity grows and grows," said Nikolai Polozov, another lawyer for Pussy Riot.

The prosecution has concluded questioning their witnesses, mainly those who were inside the cathedral during the performance. The judge has yet to rule on whether the defence will be allowed to call witnesses. Among those the defence hopes to call is opposition activist Alexei Navalny, currently facing his own charges of fraud as Russia's crackdown on dissent grows.

Lawyers initially said they expected a verdict early next week, but said Putin's public statements on the trial also called that into question.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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In China the extremely wealthy can avoid prison terms by hiring body doubles.

A new report from Slate's Geoffrey Sant points to an incident when a wealthy Chinese youth who killed a 25-year old engineer while speeding, hired a body double to appear as him in court and serve out his three-year prison sentence.

What's more this isn't an isolated incident. Sant points to various other instances from Chinese media reports that show wealthy Chinese make employees falsely confess to crimes or hire "substitute criminals" to stand-in for them and serve out their prison sentences. From Sant:

"A police officer in central China agreed to discuss the phenomenon of “replacement convicts” with me so long as I didn’t refer to him by name. “America has the rule of law, but China has the rule of people,” the police officer told me. “If somebody is powerful, there’s a good chance they can make this happen. Spend some money and remain free.” According to the police officer, hired stand-ins are “not common but not rare either.” As examples, the officer listed several high-ranking mafia figures whose underlings serve time in their stead. The mafia cares for the substitute’s family and pays a bonus for the time served.

Sometimes, family members cover for each other. This is especially true in cases of traffic accidents, where the police may be able to identify the vehicle involved in the crime but not the driver. In one case, as seen in this highly graphic television segment showing a drunk driver plowing through an old man, the driver’s son admits he falsely “confessed” to the crime to prevent police from testing his father’s blood-alcohol level.

...Some imperial Chinese officials who admitted to the use of substitute criminals justified its effectiveness. After all, the real criminal was punished by paying out the market value of his crime, while the stand-in’s punishment intimidated other criminals, keeping the overall crime rate low. In other words, a “cap-and-trade” policy for crime."

And this isn't a new practice either, Sant points to historical precedents dating back to 1834 when western travelers wrote about criminal substitutes serving prison sentences and even being executed.

Read the entire piece at Slate >

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The tragedy of 24-year-old PhD student James Holmes has raised new questions about a university's responsibility to alert police of students' troubling behavior, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

We reported Thursday that the psychiatrist treating Holmes raised alarms at the University of Colorado, Denver about Holmes' concerning behavior six weeks before his alleged massacre.

However, the university reportedly decided Holmes wasn't its problem because he was in the process of dropping out.

Victims of the Aurora, Colo. tragedy are likely to sue the school for failing to stop a crime, legal experts told the Christian Science Monitor Thursday.

But one expert doubted such a suit could be successful.

“Do they have a responsibility for every student after they have left the campus?” defense lawyer Barry Pollack told the Christian Science Monitor.

The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

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A California mother and her two daughters have been convicted of a $16 million mortgage fraud, reports Vik Jolly with the Orange County Register.

Suniti Shah, 51, Supriti Soni, 52, conspired with their mother Sushama Devi Lohia, 74, and one of their husbands to rack up 15 fraudulent mortgages between 2006 and 2009, according to prosecutors.

They will serve up to 10 years.

To pull off the scam, prosecutors say the family asked people with good credit––called "straw buyers"––to take out  mortgage loans. To make the straw buyer's credit more attractive, they falsified income and employer records on their loan applications. 

This is all part of a so-called "straw buyer" scheme, which is one of the most common mortgage scams and also pretty complicated. With help from the FBI, here's the gist of it: 

-Once the loan is secured, the straw buyer recruits a victim (usually seniors) to "purchase" the property. 
-Once the victims have lived there for more than 60 days, the real estate agent and straw buyer work together to apply for a reverse mortgage on the victim's behalf. 
-Then the victims are pressured to take out lump sump disbursements from the equity. 
-That cash never makes it to the victim's hands and instead is divvied up between the straw buyer and real estate agent (or a settlement attorney in some cases).

Lohia pleaded guilty in December to almost 70 felony counts and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Shah and Soni were both sentenced this week to eight and ten years in prison, respectively.

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A federal appeals court on Thursday reversed the conviction of ex-brokers accused of illicitly tipping off day traders after finding prosecutors had neglected to turn over key evidence.

The former brokers at Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and Lehman Brothers Holdings – and day-trading executives they allegedly tipped off – were convicted in a second trial after the first trial ended with a hung jury, Bloomberg Businessweek reported Thursday.

On Thursday, the federal appeals court in Manhattan reversed convictions of both the day traders and the ex-brokers.

The appeals court lambasted federal prosecutors for failing to hand over evidence that would have been favorable to the former brokers and day traders, Bloomberg reported.

In light of prosecutors' missteps the court wondered "whether the government will choose to subject the defendants to yet a third trial."

A lawyer for one of the day traders told Bloomberg the ordeal "broke" the defendants.

“These guys are broke -- this broke them all,” the attorney, Susan Kellman, told Bloomberg. “Thank God these guys had bail pending appeal.”

The brokers were accused of giving day traders access to the so-called "sqwak boxes" they used to discuss upcoming trades.

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A jury in the UK found parents guilty on Friday of killing their 17-year-old daughter after she began rebelling against them.

The guilty verdict against Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed came after the dead girl's sister testified in gruesome detail about how her parents suffocated 17-year-old Shafilea, the AP reported Friday.

After a number of arguments over the girl's clothing and her dating, the parents beat Shafilea, put a plastic bag in her mouth, and placed their hands over her nose and mouth until she "was gone," the girl's sister reportedly testified.

British authorities have been probing so-called honor killings in the Muslim community.

The killings are often sparked by parents' beliefs that daughters have shamed their families by becoming too westernized or refusing to marry, according to the AP.

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Whatever happened to the Good Samaritan?

A teen saw a dying hit-and-run victim lying in a bus lane in Scotland, and instead of calling the cops he took a picture and posted it on Twitter, the Daily Record reported Monday.

Ikram Choudhury, 19, reportedly tweeted "Eeeehm wtf? Some guy just casually lying outside Ocean Terminal," and told his followers that the guy was drunk.

When the followers asked Choudhury why he wasn't helping the man, he joked that he was scared of sexual assault, according to the Record.

Some Twitter users reportedly scorned Choudhury for not helping the victim out, and one of them, Keanne Brown, even called him "sick."

The victim, who was hit by a car that didn't stop after impact, reportedly lay without help for 15 minutes before police arrived and took him to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

He died at the hospital due to head and internal injuries, according to the Record.

Choudhury might be prosecuted for not helping the victim, but is not a suspect in the actual hit-and-run, according to the Record. The teen's Twitter page has apparently been taken down.

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A Long Island country club hired strippers and prostitutes to entertain clients on the premises, according to a complaint by a disgrunted former employee. 

Bartender Justin Williams, 33, was fired in May after two years with the $15,500-a-year Tam O'Shanter.

The lurid details:

• On special occasions, the country club reserved private rooms and hired prostitutes for clients, according to the complaint.
• Up to 150 people attended an August "Men's Only" day. “The members would play a round of golf, and while they were out there, they would have strippers on the course, and drinks,” Williams told the New York Post.
• The strippers returned to the club for cocktail hour, but then they left and "the actual prostitutes would come in," he told the Post. "At that point, whoever wanted to solicit would just walk up to the hooker, and things were negotiated during cocktails.”
  
• When the club hired prostitutes, employees weren't allowed to have their cell phones to communicate with the outside world, according to the complaint.
• The bartender was told to lie to wives inquiring about the husband's behavior at the club, according to the complaint.
• Williams was made to pour cheap liquor into expensive bottles and charge clients premium prices, according to the complaint.

Tam O'Shanter has not responded to inquiries from Business Insider and New York Post.

The bartender filed a complaint for sexual discrimination and wrongful termination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

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A lawyer who won a landmark Supreme Court case says dealing with the justices was "not a pleasant experience."

In Lafler v. Cooper, the high Court ruled that criminal defendants have a right to effective lawyers during the plea-bargaining stage of the case.

Valerie Newman, who won that case, spoke about her terrifying experience at a Webinar that the American Constitution Society blogged about on Thursday.

"I tell people the experience felt to me like there were nine lions, even though Justice [Clarence] Thomas never talked," she said, "and I was the piece of meat that was thrown into the ring and they were just all scratching at me to see who could get the biggest piece.”

Justice Antonin Scalia seemed like he wanted to reach over the bench to strangle her at one point, she reportedly said. Even the justices she thought were on her side seemed hostile.

"[L]ike Justice Breyer," she said. "Justice Breyer yelled at me at one point.”

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Veteran police officer and counter terrorism strategist Marc Goodman discussed the future of crime and terrorism in a recent Ted Talk.

Goodman warns that "the flip side of the technologies we marvel at" provides criminals and terrorists with unprecedented abilities.

"Frankly, I'm afraid by what I see," he says.

Goodman's talk was brought to our attention by BI contributor Bob Adams, who has written a series of posts on future threats.

Criminals already have a tech advantage. During the 2008 Mumbai terrorists attacks, terrorists used mobile phones, blackberries, satellite imagery, satellite phones and night vision goggles.

The terrorists even built their own operation center in Pakistan to monitor international news outlets, the internet and social media in real time to give them "unparalleled situational awareness and tactical advantage over police and government."

Mexican cartels have deployed cell phone towers in all 31 states in Mexico that support a national encrypted radio communication system.

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Ten Brooklyn tenants are so fed up with their horrible living conditions that they're displaying photos of their damaged apartments in a local art show this weekend, reports Mark Morales with the New York Daily News.

“Not even animals live like this. We live worse than pigs,” one resident, Sara Lopez, told Morales.

Lopez and her neighbors live in three separate buildings in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and claim their landlord, Orazio Petito, has been ignoring a court order for much-needed repairs.

In what has become known as Occupy Sunset Park, the tenants used disposable cameras to photographed cracked walls and windows, piles of garbage outside the buildings, mold growing on walls and some shoddy electrical wiring throughout their buildings.

This isn't their first stab at protesting. Last month, the same buildings held a rent strike, refusing to pay rent for as many as seven months to protest the conditions, ABC reported.

During the strike, tenant Marco Lopez told ABC his electricity goes out nearly 40 times a day and Petito ran extension cords between buildings just to try and keep the hall lights on.

Renters rights vary by state.  According to the New York City Tenant's Rights Guide, landlords are required to keep apartments and public area's of the building in "good repair." This includes removing all garbage, vermin, mold, or any other offensive substance. They are also required to maintain the plumbing and electricity.

A judge ordered Petito to repair the buildings after the rent strike, the tenants say he never lifted a finger.

Beginning Aug. 4, the pictures will be on display for two weeks at La Casita Comunal de Sunset Park 414 45th st. 

Petito has not returned our call for comment.

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A man convicted in April for selling porn involving human waste and bestiality could face four-to-seven years in prison.

Federal prosecutors are looking to can Ira Isaacs after two previous trials went awry, Politico reported Friday.

The sentence may reportedly be from four years, nine months to seven years, three months depending on whether Isaacs gave drugs to one of the women in his videos.

The April conviction came after Isaacs' first trial was derailed when it was discovered that the presiding judge had sexual content on a computer server.

The second trial failed because the jury couldn't come to a decision, according to Politico.

The case is the last involving the Bush administration's Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, which Attorney General Eric Holder disbanded in 2011.

The small unit was reportedly made in response to claims at the time that obscenity laws were being neglected.

The Task Force focused on obscene stuff produced by unconventional producers rather than mainstream porn companies, according to Politico.

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