Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts tagged as “Bowl of Dicks”

Insurance company sues university lawyers over botched legal defense

No, this isn’t about HLGR’s Andrea Coit and her failed attempt to warn federal Judge David Carter about the Bowl of Dicks jury’s potential involvement in a Masonic blood-oath conspiracy. The Cook County Record has the latest on former Chicago State University President Wayne Watson and the $3M his retaliation against a whistleblower cost the now bankrupt CSU, here:…

Three finalists for UOPD police chief, starting tomorrow July 12

Follow links for application materials. For more info see the UO Police Department website: Tuesday, July 12 — James Miyashiro, Senior Director of Safety Operations, University of LaVerne (LaVerne, Calif.): Public forums include a student session from 11-11:50 a.m., a public presentation and Q & A from 2:30-3:30 p.m. open to all,…

HLGR’s Bill Gary loses Bowl of Dicks plea, nets Kafoury another $50K

Posted 3/30/2016, updated 4/14/2016 with UO’s new $50K payment to Cleavenger’s lawyers. In  February 2014 UO’s lawyers from Harrang, Long, Gary and Rudnick lost the arbitration case against former UOPD officer James Cleavenger. UO had to pay Cleavenger $30K in back wages, $6K for arbitration costs, and an unknown amount to HLGR,…

UO cops busted in KWAX door, looking for Bowl List’s Justin Bieber

3/23/2016: While the FBI quits after the Ten Most Wanted, the UOPD’s Bowl List is more comprehensive, as Betsy Hammond explained in the Oregonian. Page 3 of 11, here:

Screen Shot 2016-03-23 at 12.33.03 PM

Diane Dietz has the latest KWAX story online. Here’s an amuse-bouche, as Debussy would have called it:

… the University of Oregon Police Department broke into the station’s locked door to perform a “welfare check” last Jan. 29 or Feb. 1, records show. Soon after, General Manager Paul Bjornstad got word that he was forbidden entry and, instead, had to play the recorded music by remote.

While UO Strategic Communicator Tobin Klinger can neither confirm nor deny that Bieber has been kept in a Matt Court holding cell, VP Kyle Henley is “thrilled” that normal KWAX operations can resume. [Redacted] has left the building, any damage that may or may not have resulted has been cleaned up, and live broadcasts resume Thursday with renowned classical DJ Peter van de Graaf in charge:

“I’m thrilled that we will be able to get back to normal operations,” Henley wrote, “and on behalf of KWAX and the University of Oregon, I’d like to thank listeners for their patience over the last two months and apologize for any inconvenience caused by the disruption in the station’s normal broadcasting schedule.” KWAX listeners say they’re excited about the arrival of van de Graaff, who is the popular host of the “Through The Night” overnight show. He’s also program director of the internationally syndicated Beethoven Satellite Network.

The BSN is Beethoven’s syndicate, not Bieber’s? I want to bieleb Henley.

3/11/2016:  UO secrecy about KWAX classical music about Justin Bieber – or Putin?

Petition to AG on PURMIT, after Ducks demand $267 for dick docs

3/22/2016: Sorry, long story.

After HLGR lost the Bowl of Dicks case, a UO communications person told a student reporter that UO was fully insured for the ~$1.5M Bowl of Dicks damages and legal fees to HLGR and the plaintiff’s attorneys and that no university funds would be used.

I was skeptical of this, given that UO was covered by PURMIT, which is a risk sharing pool with the other Oregon public universities with some re-insurance for large claims. That would typically mean that at least some and probably most of the ~$1.5M costs are paid by UO and the other Oregon publics in proportion to their contributions to the pool.

UO’s Public Records Office wanted $267 to release the documents that would show this. So I made the request to PURMIT. They eventually posted the past year of meeting material on their website at no charge, but with all the good stuff redacted. Their lawyer argued this was justified by the “trade secrets” exemption:

If PURMIT’s competitors are able to see how PURMIT sets it rates, projects its losses, and structures its excess insurance (including price and coverage specifics), it puts PURMIT at a competitive disadvantage to its competition which has no such obligation.

Wow, what a thing to admit. I’m petitioning Attorney General Rosenblum to order PURMIT to post unredacted documents, arguing that:

In a nutshell, PURMIT’s attorney is arguing that PURMIT, an agent of the state, should be allowed to use a “trade secrets” exemption so that it can restrict competition and charge public universities more for insurance than private competitors would. Allowing this exemption for this purpose is not in the public interest, to put it mildly.

The full letter from PURMIT’s lawyer and my petition to AG Rosenblum are below. The law gives her office a week to rule on the petition.

Harrang, Long, Gary and Rudnick earn $215K in legal fees for $215K police settlement

No, I’m not talking about the UOPD and the Bowl of Dicks retaliation case. I think HLGR has billed UO ~$500K on that, so far, to top off the $755K settlement and $450K or so to Cleavenger’s excellent lawyers. (For First Amendment cases the losers pay the damages and also the winning attorneys,…

Bowl of Dicks: The Jury didn’t believe Andrea Coit’s arguments, and the Judge doesn’t believe Bill Gary’s. Cleavenger’s $755K award stands.

The Honorable Judge David Carter’s final order on the attempt by UO’s HLGR law firm to have him set aside the jury’s $755K award to former UOPD Officer James Cleavenger is here. Denied: The transcript for the remittitur plea arguments are here. The question of how much UO will pay Harrang,…

Was the Bowl of Dicks jury tainted by a secret Masonic blood oath?

You be the judge. For background on the Bowl and the verdict read this. The arguments on UO’s plea for remittitur will be in Portland on Friday. Here’s Andrea Coit, the $290 an hour HLGR lawyer whom Randy Geller put in charge of defending UO against former UOPD officer James Cleavenger’s “Bowl of Dicks” lawsuit, on…

U of Cincinnati to pay $4.85M for alleged murder by armed campus cop

1/19/2016: The NY Times has the report here:

The University of Cincinnati has agreed to pay $4.85 million to the family of an unarmed black man who was shot to death in July by one of its police officers, a settlement that also requires the college to provide an undergraduate education to his 12 children, create a memorial to him on campus and include his family in discussions on police reform.

… Mr. DuBose, 43, was shot and killed on July 19 by Officer Ray Tensing, who pulled him over in a Cincinnati neighborhood adjacent to the campus because his car lacked a front license plate. The shooting was captured on a body camera, and Officer Tensing, who was fired from the department, faces trial on a charge of murder.

Here at UO, there’s still no formal announcement of when UOPD Chief McDermed will be replaced by new Assistant Chief of Police Chou Her. Presumably UO is delaying the announcement so as not to damage its efforts to convince the judge in the Bowl of Dicks trial to cancel the jury’s $755K award to former UOPD officer James Cleavenger. That hearing is Feb 12th.

The federal jury agreed that McDermed and other UOPD officers had violated the First Amendment by retaliating against Cleavenger for his opposition to arming the UOPD with Tazers. On which note the NYT adds:

Mr. DuBose is not the first black man to die as a result of an encounter with the University of Cincinnati police, and he will not be the first to have a memorial on campus. Kelly Brinson, 45, a psychiatric patient, and Everette Howard, 18, a student, died in 2010 and 2011 after campus officers fired stun guns at them, according to lawsuits filed by their families.

Of course campus police can be victims of shootings as well as perpetrators. It’s not clear if armed police are safer, even for themselves. One particularly sad story comes from the University of Central Florida, where a university cop was shot and killed by another officer, who was trying to control drinking at football game tailgate parties.

The green-shirted man with the gun is an undercover UCF police officer, pointing his pistol at a drunk UCF student. The student apparently grabbed the gun, it went off, and a uniformed police officer who hadn’t been told of the operation then shot and killed the undercover officer.

What happened to Richard Turkiewicz, the UCF police chief who set up this botched operation? Frances Dyke, former UO VPFA, hired him as UO’s interim Director of Public Safety. No kidding. Dyke then went on to persuade the Oregon legislature to allow UO to set up its own armed police force.

What sort of oversight does UO have for its police?

7/29/2015: Prosecutor and Trustee says university police force should be disbanded

Update: UO pays Bill Gary $315/hour to argue Bowl of Dicks lawyers are overpaid

Update: This post originally said “~$450/hour” for HLGR’s Bill Gary. I’ve now been told by the GC’s office that they negotiated him down to $315. The first time I asked for the billable rates for UO, the Public Records Office redacted them as trade secrets. I’d forgot about this, but they neglected to redact them from…

Live-blog: The Bowl of Dicks comes back to Eugene – is UO insured?

9/21/2015 live-blog: Getting into the courthouse is like getting onto an airplane. Long line, and they confiscate my needle-nose pliers. Unlike TSA though, they promise to give them back. Here are the docs that I’ve got so far: Cleavenger’s complaint, here. UO’s motion to dismiss, here. Cleavenger’ response, here. More response, here. Sitting in the court-room…