Houston: Texas man charged in $7 million fraud case

A Texas man is accused of mounting a stock fraud and money-laundering scheme that prosecutors allege cost some of the nation’s largest brokerage firms nearly $7 million.

Federal prosecutors contend Harris “Butch” Ballow, 59, of Tiki Island formed sham domestic and offshore corporations and, through others, conned brokerage firms into financing purchases of the corporations’ stock. He was arrested Wednesday.

Ballow’s attorneys say he denies any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors allege Ballow caused losses of nearly $800,000 for Salomon Smith Barney and $1.9 million for Midwest Discount Brokers, among other firms.

They said Phoenix-based Paradise Valley Securities and Baltimore-based clearing broker BT Alex Brown suffered $2.3 million in losses through Ballow.

A detention hearing was scheduled today.

Michigan: Judge says school violated student’s rights

A federal judge has ruled that a school district violated a student’s rights to free speech and due process when it suspended him for posting “intimidation and threats” on the Internet.

The Waterford School District should not have suspended the student in August 2001 for contributing to “Satan’s Web page,” U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan ruled this week.

School officials were concerned by content that included a passage labeled “Satan’s mission for you this week.” It read: “Stab someone for no reason then set them on fire throw them off of a cliff, watch them suffer and with their last breath, just before everything goes black, spit on their face.”

The student, who was not identified, was suspended after a hearing in which he wasn’t allowed to cross-examine witnesses and could not be represented by an attorney, said his lawyer, Richard Landau.

Seattle: Suit seeks to bar deportations to Somalia

A lawsuit filed by immigrant advocates asks a federal court to stop all U.S. deportations of Somalis because the East African nation has no functioning government that could agree to accept deportees.

The lawsuit, filed this week in Seattle, claims the deportation of Somalis also violates international law and treaties including the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service contends the deportations are legal because the deportees are not rejected when they enter Somalia.

On Nov. 13 in Seattle, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order barring the INS from deporting five Somali men, three of whom had been convicted of drug, drunken driving or assault charges.

The other two had been denied asylum; one was granted an asylum appeal and released from detention this week.