Lawyer says British phone hacking scandal could spread to U.S.

April 12, 2012 |  8:07 am

LONDON -- The British phone hacking scandal that resulted in scores of arrests and the July closing of the popular tabloid News of the World could spread to the United States, a media lawyer who represents several victims said Thursday.

Attorney Mark Lewis said inquiries by British police into illegal phone interceptions by the tabloid were widening and he would be seeking documentation in the U.S. on behalf of three of his clients, who he said were victims of illegal phone interceptions.

The tabloid is owned by News International, the British branch of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
“The cases I am pursuing were by the News of the World against people who were in the U.S. at the time they were hacked or were U.S. citizens,” he said in a email to The Times sent while he was en route to the airport.

“The scandal is not just confined to the United Kingdom or U.K. companies,” he told the BBC, “but this goes to the heartland of News Corp. and we will be looking at the involvement of the parent company and in terms of claims there and that is something that I think will be taken more seriously by investors and shareholders in News Corp.”

He also said that of his three clients, whom he declined to identify, one had connections to Hollywood, another to the late Princess Diana and the third to English national soccer.  READ MORE

Eight arrests as Murdoch 'throws staff to the wolves'

Rupert Murdock

Five senior 'Sun' journalists, two MoD staff and a police officer taken in dawn swoop as new front opens in bribery scandal

Sunday 12 February 2012 

Rupert Murdoch was last night preparing to fly to Britain to join frantic efforts to secure the future of The Sun after the arrests of five senior journalists by police investigating allegations of bribery and phone hacking.


Police swooped on eight individuals between 6am and 8am yesterday, arresting the five Sun journalists, two Ministry of Defence staff and a police officer. The arrests came hard on the heels of five related arrests two weeks ago when four senior Sun journalists and a police officer were questioned in connection with bribery allegations. All eight were released on bail last night.

The latest astonishing development, which came two days after the Leveson inquiry into press standards finished its first session, prompted fury among the newspaper's staff, amid allegations that those arrested had been "thrown to the wolves" in an effort to bolster the embattled News Corp empire, and, particularly, to rekindle its hopes of taking over BSkyB. The police were acting on information provided by News International, owner of The Sun and Times newspapers, through its Management and Standards Committee (MSC).

Amid fury among the paper's editorial staff, Mr Murdoch was forced to issue a pledge last night that he was not preparing to sell the newspaper, via his chief executive, Tom Mockridge. Senior staff were told that Mr Murdoch planned to fly to London to calm the situation. Journalists including the paper's deputy editor were bailed after being questioned in connection with allegations of making illegal payments to police officers and other officials.   READ MORE

 

UK police arrest Murdoch tabloid staff

Policeman also implicated in investigation into suspected payments by journalists to officers 

By Tim Castle and Georgina Prodhan

updated 1/28/2012 4:14:39 PM ET

LONDON — British police arrested four current and former staff of Rupert Murdoch's best-selling Sun tabloid plus a policeman on Saturday as part of an investigation into suspected payments by journalists to officers, police and the newspaper's publisher said. 


Police also searched the paper's London offices at publisher News International, News Corp.'s British arm, in a corruption probe linked to a continuing investigation into phone hacking at its now closed News of the World weekly tabloid.

News Corp.'s Management and Standards Committee, set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, said Saturday's operation was the result of information it had passed to police.

"News Corporation made a commitment last summer that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be repeated," the committee said in a statement confirming the arrests of four "current and former employees" of the Sun. READ MORE

News Corp May Face Legal Action In The U.S.

Jillian Rayfield | September 23, 2011, 11:14AM

A British attorney, who represented the family of a murder victim whose phone was hacked by News Of The World journalists, says he is teaming up with a lawyer in the U.S. to begin legal proceedings against the Murdochs and News Corporation. Mark Lewis announced Friday that he is coordinating with Norman Siegel, an attorney in New York who represents 9/11 families, to help him determine whether he can initiate a class action suit against News Corp under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). FCPA prevents bribery of foreign officials, and may have been violated by News Corp, which is based in the U.S., if reporters for its British News Of The World tabloid bribed members of Scotland Yard.
READ MORE

How Bad Is News Corp.? Michael Wolff on the state of the Murdoch empire and its Mob-like structure

n my biography of Rupert Murdoch, I referred to News Corporation as Mafia-like, provoking the annoyance of my publisher’s libel lawyers. I explained to them that I did not mean to suggest this was an organized crime family, but instead was using “mafia” as a metaphor to imply that News Corp. saw itself as a state within a state, and that the company was built on a basic notion of extended family bonds and loyalty.

But just because it’s a metaphor doesn’t mean it isn’t the real thing, too.

Well-sourced information coming out of the Department of Justice and the FBI suggests a debate is going on that could result in the recently launched investigations of News Corp. falling under the RICO statutes.

RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, establishes a way to prosecute the leaders of organizations—and strike at the organizations themselves—for crimes company leaders may not have directly committed, but which were otherwise countenanced by the organization. Any two of a series of crimes that can be proven to have occurred within a 10-year period by members of the organization can establish a pattern of racketeering and result in draconian remedies. In 1990, following the indictment of Michael Milken for insider trading, Drexel Burnham Lambert, the firm that employed him, collapsed in the face of a RICO investigation.
Among the areas that the FBI is said to be looking at in its investigation of News Corp. are charges that one of its subsidiaries, News America Marketing, illegally hacked the computer system of a competitor, Floorgraphics, and then, using the information it had gleaned, tried to extort it into selling out to News Corp.; allegations that relationships the New York Post has maintained with New York City police officers may have involved exchanges of favors and possibly money for information; and accusations that Fox chief Roger Ailes sought to have an executive in the company, the book publisher Judith Regan, lie to investigators about details of her relationship with New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik in order to protect the political interests of Rudy Giuliani, then a presidential prospect.

READ MORE

News of the World newspaper shuts down! (attackers of disabled in UK)

the UK tabloids have for past 2+ years been viciously attacking the disabled and those claiming welfare, in a manner so extreme, so constant that it is not hyperbole to equate it with the "Jew baiting" of the monstrous newspapers of Nazi Germany.

But now, they have come undone.

* They hacked it is alleged, the phones of abducted, raped and murdered schoolgirls (interfering with ongoing criminal investigations at the time)
* the phones of family of service personnel who died in Afghanistan
* the phones of Cabinet Ministers (which is espionage and treason by UK law)
* Bribed directly London police for salacious, private details of people and crimes etc (which breaks several laws, and the Metropolitan Police have been mired in abuse, corruption and scandal for 40 odd years. Force should be broken up and cleaned root and branch)
* Also another very nasty issue is the Tommy Shreridan case, I may not like Sherdian, but if they did interfere with the 2nd court case...getting a politician jailed in revenge for him beating them at the 1st libel case and to "flex their muscles as warning to other politicians"....that is a threat ot democracy itself.

And the Conservative party leader, the now Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, hired the guy who is, allegedly, behind much of this to be his PR Guru!

Haha, it's good to see such momumental shitheads fall!!
Next: Rupert Murdoch!!

Oh, and no one EVER DARE tell me conspiracies do not go on! this is yet again proof that they are common as muck, we just do not see them is all.