Lawyer

The family of a 5-year-old girl who was abducted from a West Philadelphia classroom and sexually assaulted at a nearby house plans to sue the Philadelphia School District, a lawyer for the family said Tuesday. "We have a precious, innocent 5-year-old, now 6 years old, who was brutally assaulted and terribly injured," said Thomas R. Kline, the lawyer representing the girl's mother. "She deserves to be compensated. " The girl was abducted from Bryant School on Jan. 14 and sexually assaulted in a house in the Cobbs Creek section.

The online dating world is full of wishful thinking, baggage-hiding, and artfully chosen photos that defy reality and gravity. All laptop romantics fib a little, hoping the truth won't matter once they've made an electronic love connection with another lonely liar. But even by today's standards, the Match.com post by an infamous former Main Liner is a stretch. The half-dozen pictures show a balding gent resembling Mr. Burns from The Simpsons , but the profile lists his age at an inconceivable 54. He's a Gemini who digs dogs and devours the Economist, a lawyer who earns $150,000 a year.

It's a lot of mozzarella. More than 600 tons, in fact, worth more than $1.5 million wholesale, say its producers. It was delivered from California in a series of shipments in May and June to a local distributor based in Marlton. But that is about all that Valley Gold, the manufacturer, and Joseph Profaci, the recipient, agree on. Lawyers for both sides spent more than two hours in U.S. District Court in Camden yesterday churning the issues in a breach-of-contract/fraud case based on a civil complaint filed last month by Valley Gold.

How do you blame a city for lying to taxpayers and bond buyers about its sad financial shape - without also blaming its mayor, or its finance officers, or any of the paid lawyers, bankers, and advisers who helped tell the lies? That's what the Securities and Exchange Commission did last week when it busted Pennsylvania's capital city, Harrisburg, for lying about its financial condition from 2008 to 2012, after it borrowed too much and started going broke. The SEC settled the case.

These days, Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille says he feels betrayed by his onetime lawyer in the Family Court project. "If I was in the Marine Corps, the guy would be stripped of his rank. He'd be drummed out," Castille said of Jeffrey B. Rotwitt, who was getting paid on both sides of the $200 million deal to build a courthouse at 15th and Arch Streets. But that wasn't the case in April. When Castille was first asked about Rotwitt's codeveloper role, he didn't seem upset with Rotwitt at all. Instead, he was angry at being questioned about it. With an Inquirer writer pushing court officials for an explanation, Rotwitt met with Castille, then e-mailed him a suggested "clear statement of the facts": Yes, Rotwitt and Donald Pulver were codevelopers, the statement said, without suggesting it was any sort of problem.

BELLEFONTE - Former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's lawyer said after a short pretrial hearing Thursday that he expected the presiding judge to soon dismiss defense motions to have the child sexual abuse charges thrown out, but he hoped he would allow them to be refiled after more evidence is disclosed by prosecutors. During a 20-minute hearing attended by the retired defensive coordinator and his wife, Sandusky defense attorney Joe Amendola withdrew his attempt to prevent the Attorney General's Office from using at trial secretly recorded conversations between Sandusky and two of the 10 boys he is accused of sexually abusing.

Leonard J. Schwartz, 92, an attorney for 70 years with the law firm of Fox, Rothschild, O'Brien & Frankel, died Friday at his Rittenhouse Square home. Mr. Schwartz was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States at age 7. He went on to help develop the state's worker-compensation law. He attended South Philadelphia High School and was elected president of the Class of 1919. He enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania with the intention of becoming an engineer. While in school, his interests shifted toward law and he transferred to Temple University, where he earned his law degree.

Herman J. Obert, an attorney for nearly 50 years, died Monday. He was 75 and lived in Bryn Mawr. A Philadelphia lawyer who specialized in probate, charitable trusts and construction, he was a member of the firm of Monteverde, Hemphill, Maschmeyer & Obert. He previously had been a member in the firm of Gibbons, Eustace & Obert. He was active in the Catholic Charities organization and represented a number of orders and societies. The son of a Roxborough brewer, Obert was educated at Georgetown Preparatory School and was a graduate of Georgetown University and Temple University Law School.

A Philadelphia lawyer yesterday was charged with assaulting a narcotics police officer after he threw punches at him in a City Hall courtroom and had to be subdued by other officers, police said. The lawyer, Darryl Irwin, 39, was representing a man charged with drug violations and was awaiting a court hearing shortly before noon when the incident occurred. Police said the officer, Jorge Cruz, was standing in a hallway outside the second-floor courtroom, reviewing his file on Irwin's client when the lawyer told him, "There's no need to read that stuff.

Paul Maloney, 93, of Bryn Mawr, a retired Center City fiduciary lawyer and former president of the Citizens Crime Commission of Philadelphia, died at his home Monday of complications from diabetes. Mr. Maloney practiced for more than 40 years, specializing in administering estates and trusts. He started in 1936 with the Center City law firm of Evans, Bayard & Frick and remained there until the start of World War II, when he entered the Navy. He was assigned to the Navy's Office of the General Counsel in Washington.

The family of a 5-year-old girl who was abducted from a West Philadelphia classroom and sexually assaulted at a nearby house plans to sue the Philadelphia School District, a lawyer for the family said Tuesday. "We have a precious, innocent 5-year-old, now 6 years old, who was brutally assaulted and terribly injured," said Thomas R. Kline, the lawyer representing the girl's mother. "She deserves to be compensated. " The girl was abducted from Bryant School on Jan. 14 and sexually assaulted in a house in the Cobbs Creek section.

HARRISBURG - A federal judge said Monday that she would decide in a few weeks whether to dismiss a lawsuit by Gov. Corbett against the NCAA over sanctions against Pennsylvania State University stemming from the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal. During a two-hour hearing before U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane, a lawyer for the NCAA said the suit had failed to prove there was an antitrust case and contended that the governor lacked standing to bring the suit. Lawyers for the state argued that "crippling" sanctions against Penn State had created an economic hardship that constituted a breach of antitrust law and that Corbett had standing because only he could bring such a suit on behalf of the citizens of Pennsylvania.

BALTIMORE - Benjamin Lipsitz, a lawyer who defended the man who tried to kill George Wallace, died May 10. He was 94. Lipsitz was chosen to defend Arthur Bremer, accused of shooting Wallace, a Democratic presidential candidate, and three others, including a Secret Service agent, at a Laurel, Md., shopping center on May 15, 1972. Bremer called his lawyer "my only friend. " With his daughter, Eleanor J. Lipsitz, as co-counsel, he conducted a strong defense in Prince George's Circuit Court.

Arthur Henshey Moss, 82, of Wayne, who practiced law in Philadelphia for 40 years, died Thursday, May 9, of complications from pneumonia at his home. Before retiring in 2000, Mr. Moss spent four decades with the firm of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads. He started as an associate and became a partner. Mr. Moss was a corporate and securities lawyer whose specialty was municipal finance. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Association of Bond Lawyers. The firm's chairman, Richard L. Scheff, said Mr. Moss would be remembered as a quiet man who knew how to "brighten your day" as well as for his legal acumen.

LAS VEGAS - The lawyer who defended O.J. Simpson on armed robbery charges delivered a potentially heavy blow to the former football star's bid for a new trial Friday, testifying that Simpson knew his buddies had guns when they went to a hotel room together to reclaim some sports memorabilia. Miami lawyer Yale Galanter took the stand at an often combative hearing on Simpson's claim that he was so badly represented by his attorney that his conviction should be thrown out. Point by point, Galanter contradicted much of his former client's testimony and strongly defended himself.

How do you blame a city for lying to taxpayers and bond buyers about its sad financial shape - without also blaming its mayor, or its finance officers, or any of the paid lawyers, bankers, and advisers who helped tell the lies? That's what the Securities and Exchange Commission did last week when it busted Pennsylvania's capital city, Harrisburg, for lying about its financial condition from 2008 to 2012, after it borrowed too much and started going broke. The SEC settled the case.

  A federal investigation of a Kensington charter school has not made headlines since a TV station showed video of agents carting off boxes of documents in 2009, but the probe is very much alive. Attorneys for Community Academy of Philadelphia Charter School in a whistle-blower's lawsuit stemming from the raid have urged a Common Pleas Court judge to keep the suit on hold because "it is beyond refute that the federal criminal investigation" of the charter is active. As evidence, Community submitted an affidavit from an administrator's defense attorney that said the assistant U.S. attorney overseeing the probe told him in mid-March "the investigation is ongoing.

BOSTON - Lawyers for a man charged with lying to investigators after the Boston Marathon bombings are asking a federal judge to release him from jail, saying he had nothing to do with the deadly bombings and isn't a flight risk. Robel Phillipos, 19, of Cambridge, faces a detention hearing Monday in U.S. District Court. Defense attorneys said in court documents filed Saturday that authorities' claim that Phillipos gave them conflicting accounts is "refutable. " "This case is about a frightened and confused 19-year-old who was subjected to intense questioning and interrogation, without the benefit of counsel, and in the context of one of the worst attacks against the nation," lawyers Derege Demissie and Susan Church wrote.

As it hits the half-century mark, the historic 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that every criminal defendant has a right to a lawyer casts a harsh spotlight on Philadelphia's thrift-shop system of paying counsel appointed to represent defendants facing the death penalty. City courts - with backing by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court - dramatically boosted fees for lawyers in capital cases a year ago, but Philadelphia remains far behind other major cities in providing adequate resources to assure these defendants' rights.

The woman accused of abducting a 5-year-old girl from a West Philadelphia public school and sexually assaulting her has been indicted by a Philadelphia County grand jury on involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and aggravated assault charges. Christina Regusters, 20, was also charged with several more offenses related to the assault in an indictment announced during a status hearing in Common Pleas Court Monday afternoon before Judge Charles A. Ehrlich. "These charges are very serious and very meaningful," said Thomas R. Kline, the lawyer representing the girl's mother.