Federal prosecutors have been turning up the heat on a Florida woman accused of arranging the 2009 killings of her millionaire husband and mother-in-law.

Narcy Novack of Fort Lauderdale and her brother, Cristobal Veliz of Brooklyn, N.Y., are due in court Friday morning for a status conference.

Novack and Veliz are accused of hiring others to kill Ben Novack in his New York hotel room and Bernice Novack in her Florida home.

Last month, the government added the mother-in-law's killing to the charges against Novack and Veliz. And a prosecutor said another charge — which carries the possibility of the death penalty — may be in store.

Defense attorneys suggested the prosecution was trying to force a guilty plea.

Ben Novack's father built the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach, Fla.

The city attorney sued Deutsche Bank on Wednesday, claiming the giant international lender illegally evicted tenants from foreclosed properties and left dozens of homes and apartments to rot, many in low-income neighborhoods.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accuses the bank of violating federal, state and city laws and seeks potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursements to the city and to evicted tenants.

The bank's subsidiaries, Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. and Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, are the city's largest slumlords, according to the lawsuit.

The city attorney's office contends the bank failed to act properly as trustee to more than 160 homes and other residences with owners who couldn't meet their loan obligations during and after the 2008 international financial meltdown.

"It's time to recognize that the fraud committed on Wall Street turns into blight on Main Street," City Attorney Carmen A. Trutanich said at a news conference.

He said the bank's subsidiaries acted as trustees for trusts composed of mortgage-backed securities involving at least 2,000 properties across the country.

The complaint focuses mainly on properties in low-income areas of the city, specifically South Los Angeles and the northeastern San Fernando Valley, but Trutanich said it could be amended to include more homes if further problems are found.

More than two dozen states challenging the health care overhaul urged a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday to strike down the Obama administration's landmark law, arguing it far exceeds the federal government's powers.

The motion, filed on behalf of 26 states, urges the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to uphold a Florida federal judge's ruling that the overhaul's core requirement is unconstitutional. The judge, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, said Congress cannot require nearly all Americans to carry health insurance.

Allowing the law to go forward, the states argued in the 69-page filing, would set a troubling precedent that "would imperil individual liberty, render Congress's other enumerated powers superfluous, and allow Congress to usurp the general police power reserved to the states."

So far, three federal judges, all Democratic appointees, have upheld the law. Vinson and the Virginia judge, both Republicans appointees, ruled against it. It seems certain that the broad health care challenge will be resolved only by the nation's top court, and Vinson suggested in a March ruling that the "Supreme Court may eventually be split on this issue as well."

The filing comes about a month after the Justice Department formally appealed Vinson's ruling, arguing that Congress had the power to require most people to buy health insurance or face tax penalties because Congress has the authority to regulate interstate business.

The legal wrangling started when the states filed a lawsuit last year. Vinson agreed in a Jan. 31 ruling that said the entire health care overhaul passed by the then-Democratic-controlled Congress and signed by President Barack Obama is unconstitutional. It is considered the most sweeping ruling against the health care law.

Today, Brad gave a presentation at the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association's 23rd Annual Lifetime Achievement Seminar, entitled "Working in the Cloud: Using Online Resources to Help Your Practice." We have links to downloadable copies of Brad's PowerPoint presentation (To view as a PowerPoint, right click on the hyperlink and select "Save Target as...."

To access the hyperlinks contained within the PowerPoint, right click on each logo button as select "Open hyperlink"), which contains links to websites mentioned in the presentation, and handout.  Brad has also prepared bundles of blogs he follows, including legal blogs and technology blogs aimed at lawyers.

http://www.indianalawupdate.com/entry/Welcome-to-all-Indiana-Trial-Lawyers-Association-Members

A Georgia insurance company that paid a wrongful death claim on behalf of a former Utah State University fraternity has settled the lawsuit it brought against four of the fraternity's members.

The Herald Journal of Logan reports that attorneys for RSUI Inc. told a 1st District Court judge the company had resolved a dispute with the four men. Court records show attorneys met with the judge April 20 — one day before a planned hearing.

RSUI sought $50,000 each from Sigma Nu pledge Chad Burton and chapter officers Cody Littlewood, Colton Hansen and Mitchell Alm as compensation for a settlement payment to the parents of Michael Starks.

Starks died Nov. 21, 2008, from alcohol poisoning after a fraternity event.

At the time, RSUI was the insurer for the fraternity and its members, including pledges. RSUI attorneys have acknowledged that both the company and the four defendants would have been jointly liable to Starks' parents, George and Jane Starks of Salt Lake City. The company claims it paid the full amount of a settlement with the Starks, although those terms have not been made public.

An internal tug-of-war over control of jailed polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs' southern Utah-based church may force Utah courts to walk a constitutional tightrope that experts say could tread a little too close to separation of church and state.

The presidency of the 10,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been in question since March 28, when church bishop William E. Jessop filed papers with the Utah Department of Commerce seeking to unseat Jeffs as president of the church corporation. Under state law, the move automatically put Jessop in power.

That set into motion a flurry of filings from Jeffs loyalists removing Jessop and claiming that some 4,000 church members have pledged their loyalty to their incarcerated leader.

Monday marks the deadline set by commerce officials for both parties to resolve the dispute or a legal showdown might be set in motion since, if no agreement is reached, the state says power will revert back to Jeffs.