On the Radar | Ticket Scammer Takedown
A New York man pled guilty last month to a federal charge of wire fraud after being arrested for scamming sports fans in Wisconsin and other states out of $100,000.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Nikhil S. Mahtani, age 28, placed more than 1,000 ads on Craigslist between 2019 and 2022. The ads offered nonexistent tickets and luxury box reservations for NFL and NBA games and other sporting events.
Among Mahtani’s victims was a large group that paid him and went to Fiserv Forum for game six of the NBA Finals between the Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns, only to learn their tickets were worthless.
Mahtani is facing up to 20 years’ imprisonment and $250,000 in fines.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Did You Know? | Start ‘em Early
State Bar of Wisconsin member Lee Greenwood tagged the State Bar on Facebook last month in a post that included a photo of his daughter perusing the February issue of Wisconsin Lawyer.
“I find her reading by herself most mornings during breakfast,” Greenwood wrote. “Today it’s the Wisconsin Lawyer from the State Bar of Wisconsin.”
Quotable | “People move to town knowing the Little League fields were there and then complain when they hear a ball hitting a bat.” – Bernards Township Attorney John Beldaro
Eight homeowners in New Jersey have dropped a lawsuit filed against a New Jersey township over a sport complex with four baseball fields.
The lawsuit claimed that light and noise from the fields, as well as traffic to and from games played on the fields, constituted a public nuisance.
The fields were built between 1972 and 1992.
John Beldaro, attorney for Bernards Township, said that two of the homeowners who filed the lawsuit bought their houses in the 2000s, while another two don’t even live near the complex yet because their houses are under construction.
“It’s a tempest in a teapot,” Beldaro said.
Source: Patch.com
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Good Idea? | Court Nixes Safe Deposit Box Seizures
A search in which FBI agents confiscated millions of dollars in cash and jewelry from hundreds of safe deposit boxes has been ruled illegal.
FBI agents raided U.S. Private Vaults in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2021.
In addition to the cash and jewelry, the agents seized personal effects and wills, prenuptial agreements, and other documents.
A federal district court upheld the seizures. But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the agents went beyond the limits of a warrant the FBI obtained before the raid because the warrant did not authorize any seizures.
Source: The Intercept
Did You Know? | Marquette Poll Ranked Third
FiveThirtyEight.com, a political polling website, has ranked the Marquette University Law School poll third in the nation.
The website graded 500 pollsters on historical accuracy and methodological transparency. The Marquette Law School Poll received a 2.9 score (out of 3.0).
That score was good for third place behind the New York Times/Siena College and ABC News/Washington Post polls, respectively. Last year, FiveThirtyEight.com ranked the Marquette Law School Poll fifth.
“The Marquette University Law School poll is also America’s most transparent, owing to the abundance of information it shares about how it conducts its polls,” FiveThirtyEight said.
Source: Marquette Today, Fivethirtyeight.com
» Cite this article: 97 Wis. Law. 9 (March 2024).
