Courts Stories | Community Development Digest

Developer Sentenced to Prison for Falsifying Bankruptcy Record

An Arizona real estate developer is going to prison for two years after pleading guilty to submitting false statements in his bankruptcy petition with the intent to conceal assets and property transfers from the bankruptcy trustee.

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Guilty: Former Construction Firm Owner Defrauds SBA Program

Court documents state that the company violated the provisions of the SBA 8(a) program. The SBA 8(a) development program is designed to award contracts to businesses that are owned by “one or more socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.”

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Georgia Real Estate Investor Guilty in Bid-Rigging Scheme

What was Otto Gogolin, a Georgia real estate investor, thinking when he agreed not to bid against other real estate investors at some public real estate foreclosure auctions in Forsyth County, GA?

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Volkswagen Pays $14.7 Billion to Settle Emissions Cheating Claims

In two related settlements, one with the United States and the state of California, and one with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), German automaker Volkswagen AG and related entities have agreed to spend up to $14.7 billion to settle allegations of cheating emissions tests and deceiving customers....

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Nation’s Oldest Brewery Settles Allegations of Clean Water Violations

The oldest brewery in America, D. G. Yuengling and Son Inc., has settled Clean Water Act violations involving its two large-scale breweries near Pottsville, PA.

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SCOTUS Asked to Invalidate Local Conservation Ordinance

Forcing shoreline property owners to dedicate a significant portion of their land for conservation without any compensation is a direct violation of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment Takings Clause, says the National Federation of Independent Business in a brief filed before the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Condo Appeal Fails; HUD Disability Rule Upheld

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has won an important Fair Housing Act victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The decision upholds a Final Order of the Secretary of HUD following a trial before an administrative law judge that a condominium association discriminated against a resident with disabilities by refusing to allow him to keep an emotional support animal.

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Two Communities Found Guilty of Fair Housing Violations

If you’re a developer or a landlord in a community where just about everything is owned and operated by members of one specific religion, you still can’t bar individuals from other religions from living there. And that’s exactly what officials in the towns in Colorado City, AZ, and Hildale, UT, found out this week. And the lesson only cost them $1.6 million.

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Roberts Denies Effort to Block Controversial Air Pollution Rule

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts this past week denied an attempt to block, or “stay,” a contentious air pollution rule for power plants. Roberts rejected the plea of 20 states to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) controversial Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule while the agency works to comply with a previous ruling.

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Armed Rebellion over Land Use Ends with 19 in Jail

Remember Cliven Bundy? He’s the Nevada cattleman who became the eye of the storm in what has since been described as modern day armed rebellion against the U.S. government over grazing rights to federally-owned land. Well, if you thought that sorry episode ended two years ago when a local sheriff and a Bureau of Land Management official negotiated an end to the armed confrontation near Bunkerville, NV, think again.

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