Bishop Eddie Long Sued By Two Men For Sexual Coercion

(CNN) -- Two Georgia men have filed a lawsuit claiming that prominent Atlanta, Georgia, pastor Eddie Long coerced them into sex.

The suits, filed Tuesday in DeKalb County, Georgia, allege that Long used his position as a spiritual authority and bishop to coerce young male members and employees of his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church into sex.

"Defendant Long has a pattern and practice of singling out a select group of young male church members and using his authority as Bishop over them to ultimately bring them to a point of engaging in a sexual relationship," the suits allege.

Long is considered one of the nation's top black preachers. His church has more 25,000 members, according to the suit, and was the site of Coretta Scott King's 2006 funeral, attended by then-President George W. Bush and three previous presidents. King was the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The pastor took one plaintiff, Anthony Flagg, 21, on overnight trips to a half-dozen American cities in recent years, Flagg's suit alleges.

CONTINUE....

Court: Texas company unfair to black workers

By DANNY ROBBINS (AP)

LUFKIN, Texas — State historical markers outside the headquarters of Lufkin Industries Inc. tell how the company started repairing sawmill equipment at the turn of the 20th century and grew to make many of the pumps dotting the world's oil fields.

But a different history has been written in a class-action lawsuit winding to a close. That story describes how the 107-year-old company for years discriminated against its black employees, assigning them to the worst jobs and repeatedly denying them promotions.

More than a thousand of the company's current and former black employees stand to divvy up $5.5 million in back pay and interest as compensation for what a federal judge in June called the company's unlawful discrimination in awarding promotions.

While each worker will get a relatively modest sum, those who brought the lawsuit see the award as validation of their struggle for equality in a region often associated with racial turmoil — most famously the 1998 dragging death of a black man, James Byrd Jr., by three white men in nearby Jasper.

"It's not about the money," said Sylvester McClain, 62, the former employee who initiated the suit. "It's about equal pay, equal treatment, equal justice."

Court: Texas company unfair to black workers....

RIAA WINS AGAIN

RIAA Wins Court Case Against College Student

The RIAA has won its second court battle in a row, this time in the hotly contested battleground of college campuses.

In AUGUST, a UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE student (legal ID: "DOE. No. 28") tried to quash a RIAA subpoena because the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) bars the release of his name, addresses, and phone numbers without consent to outside parties. However, U.S. Magistrate Judge H. BRUCE GUYTON denied the motion.

According to the ARS TECHNICA website report, counsel for DOE 28 argued that the RIAA's request was "unreasonable on its face" and since he didn't waive his right to privacy under FERPA, the RIAA subpoena should be squashed. While the privacy law bars the release of educational records without the consent of the students or parents, "directory information," such as the student's name, address, phone number, and e-mail address, can be released without permission. Because of that, the Judge ruled in favor of the RIAA.

If that wasn't bad enough for the implicated student, the Judge also ordered that the University must provide the RIAA with the student's MAC address because it doesn't qualify as an "educational record" under FERPA. A computer MAC address was instrumental in the RIAA's victorious case against JAMMIE THOMAS.

DOE No. 28 is the only one of DOES 1-33 to publicly contest the RIAA threat. According to KNOXNEWS.COM, all but one of the other 32 defendants have been dropped from the case, which usually means that the others have already settled with the RIAA ... and are a few thousand dollars poorer.

THE RIAA IS COMING FOR YOU

Inside The RIAA's College Piracy Invasion

The techie and P2P-sympathetic websites are ablaze with details on the RIAA's recharged campaign against illegal downloading on college campuses. According to several sources, the label lobby's ninth round of pre-litigation settlement letters were sent to 411 students at 19 different universities.

The reason for the RIAA's focus on college campuses? An NPD study conducted last year claims that over 1.3 billion unauthorized songs were downloaded on college campuses and that over half of all students continue to illegally download music.

ZEROPAID offered the following list of colleges impacted, with the number of students in parenthesis:

DREXEL UNIVERSITY (17)
INDIANA UNIVERSITY (23)
NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY (25)
OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE (19)
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT MORRISVILLE (18)
TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY (20),
TUFTS UNIVERSITY (15)
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA (14)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY (19)
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE (18)
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA (13)
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA (18)
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN - ANN ARBOR (20)
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN (13)
UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE (30)
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO (17)
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA (43)
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (37)
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY (32)

TMC.COM found a copy of a pre-litigation letter posted on the website of technology-in-education advocacy site EDUCAUSE.COM. It gave the targeted student 20 days to contact the RIAA and settle for an amount significantly less than they would have to pay otherwise. For "convenience," settlements can be made on a RIAA website.

Apparently they're not kidding, as one student -- interviewed on another website -- claimed that when she passed the deadline, the RIAA increased the settlement figure.

THIS HAS GOT TO BE A RECORD

2nd Suit In A Week For Diddy

A hip-hop promoter has filed a $5 million lawsuit against SEAN "DIDDY" COMBS, claiming the rap mogul unleashed three violent bodyguards on him in a NEW YORK CITY nightclub. The lawsuit claimes JAMES WALDON, 27, spoke to COMBS in THE BOX and then one bodyguard punched him in the mouth, knocking him backward onto a table, and two others began hitting and kicking him continuously.

WALDON rolled off the table and was chased around the club by the bodyguards before escaping. The beating left WALDON with numerous injuries, including mouth and teeth problems, according to court papers.

COMBS' lawyer, JONATHAN D. DAVIS, said he was aware of the lawsuit, but had not seen the papers and could not comment.

WALDON's lawsuit also names three "JOHN DOES" (the three bodyguards) and the nightclub in the suit. WALDON's lawsuit was at least the second against COMBS in less than a week. A former consultant for COMBS' BAD BOY ENTERTAINMENT sued the entrepreneur for $19 million last week in MIAMI, claiming COMBS owed him for the use of audio and video music footage by the late NOTORIOUS B.I.G.

PAY UP

Juror: Piracy Verdict Quick, Defendant A 'Liar'

One of the jurors who ruled against JAMMIE THOMAS in the CAPITOL RECORDS V. THOMAS trial told WIRED.COM that it took the panel only five minutes to determine that she was guilty. According to 38-year-old DULUTH steelworker MICHAEL HEGG, the remaining five hours of deliberation was spent in a heated debate on the financial penalty. At least two jurors demanding that she be hit with the full $150,0000 per track fine, while other wanted the minimum $750 fine. The settled on a $9,250 per song fine to reach the final $222,000 figure.

"That is a compromise, yes," HEGG said. "We wanted to send a message that you don't do this, that you have been warned ... She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars."

The jury, became convinced that THOMAS was a pirate after hearing evidence that the user name she used on the KAZAA account was the same she used for other Web accounts. Sealing the deal was expert testimony from an RIAA witness who showed that a wireless router was not used, which blew a hole in her defense that a hacker outside her apartment window with a laptop was spoofing her account to download music. "Spoofing? We're thinking, 'Oh my God, you got to be kidding.'... She's a liar," HEGG said.

Adding to THOMAS' liability, according to the jurors, was when she turned over to RIAA investigators a different hard drive than the one used to share music. "She lied," he said. "There was no defense. Her defense sucked ... I think she thought a jury from DULUTH would be naive. We're not that stupid up here ... I don't know what the f**k she was thinking, to tell you the truth."

While her appeal will focus on the jury instruction that made her liable for copyright infringement simply for having a KAZAA file "regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown," HEGG believed that his jury would have found her liable even if the plaintiffs had been required to establish that KAZAA users had actually downloaded the music.

"It would have been a lot harder to make the decision," he said. "Yes, we would have reached the same result."

Read the entire story here.

TWO MORE BLACK WOMEN SUE MSG

In the wake of Anucha Browne Sanders' successful sexual harassment lawsuit against New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas and Madison Square Garden, two more black women have filed suit against MSG alleging discrimination.

Diane Henson and a second, unnamed woman, claim they were denied advancement while young white interns who slept with managers were promoted, reports the New York Post.

“It’s definitely a boys club there,” Henson told the newspaper.

Regarding the interns, who were in their 20s, she said they had "open affairs with managers" and were quickly promoted.

Henson, who worked at MSG for 11 years, told the Post she was forced to resign this summer after voicing complaints about the unfair treatment of blacks and women. They point the blame at MSG boss James Dolan.

"We were told, 'Don't look at him. You'll get fired,'" Henson told the Post.

Meanwhile, another ex-MSG employee, Ranger City Skaters captain Courtney Prince, is also moving forward with a sexual-harassment suit against the Garden. Henson told the Post that she received regular raises during her first nine years there, but things changed when new vice president of event operations, Kirk Randazzo, took over in 2005.

"I didn't seem to get the same opportunities everyone else got," Henson told the Post.

"It's because we're women and we're black," said the second woman, who is in her 50s and who worked at the Garden for five years.

WOMAN TO APPEAL RIAA $222,000 VERDICT

Tech website ARS TECHNICA reports that JAMMIE THOMAS has decided to appeal last week's $222,000 willful copyright infringement verdict. Speaking with her attorney BRIAN TODER on CNN, she said they plan on arguing against jury instruction no. 15, where the judge told the jurors that they could find Thomas liable for copyright infringement solely by making the recordings available over a file-sharing network, "regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown."

Even though two sides can point to previous cases that "prove" their side on this issue, this could be nothing more than a move to renegotiate the size of the judgement. Previously, THOMAS told CNET.COM that U.S. copyright laws are unjust and that the cost of proving her innocence was nearly impossible for someone in her financial situation, "It says in the Constitution that there should be no undue fines," THOMAS said in an interview with CNET NEWS.COM. "I was just fined (9,000% more) than the value of these songs."

Apparently, THOMAS is a variety of reasons for her defense. On top of daulty jury instruction argument of her appeal and her complaint that the judgement was too big, WIRED.COM column reports of another interview where she said, "I want people to know that they are being sued based on hacked, spoofed computers. They should still fight back in these cases ... I have to pay for somebody else's actions."

"I was basically forced into a situation where I had to prove a negative," THOMAS told CNET NEWS, "How do you prove that your IP address was spoofed or hacked. If I could afford an FBI analyst I'm sure it could have been proven. But I don't have the money."

Even if the verdict is overturned on appeal, both sides would have to make decide whether it's worth more cost to continue.The RIAA, of course, has much deeper pockets and seems to have no objection to continuing its admittedly money-losing campaign. For her part, THOMAS has piled up $60,000 in attorney's fees -- even if new attorneys are willing to take on the appeal pro bono.

On her MYSPACE blog, THOMAS said she was reluctant to accept the many offers of financial help she had received to pay off what she called "this ridiculous bill. I have not held my hand out," THOMAS said in her interview. "At best I've asked for information or advice. I have asked attorneys who are willing to help pro bono but it didn't feel right to me to ask (people) to donate to my cause."

Still, in her MYSPACE note, THOMAS listed her attorney's MINNEAPOLIS address for anyone who insists on helping.

In a CNET.COM blog, DECLAN MCCULLAGH speculated that "if the RIAA's smart, its lawyers will offer her some kind of not-entirely-punishing settlement that's one-tenth of today's damage award and strongly encourage her to take it. That would avoid the worst of the negative publicity, but still let the record labels wave around a pretty big club."

WILL THOMAS TRIAL VERDICT STOP ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING?

The jury's guilty verdict this week in a file-sharing trial could deter others from pushing back against the recording industry's copyright claims. However, it is unlikely that it will completely stop music files from being swapped on the Internet, according to a music attorney specializing in online sales and copyright, reports INFORMATIONWEEK.COM.

The RIAA won its first trial this week when a jury ordered JAMMIE THOMAS of DULUTH, MN to pay $220,000 to six separate record companies -- SONY BMG, ARISTA RECORDS, INTERSCOPE RECORDS, UMG RECORDINGS, CAPITOL RECORDS and WARNER BROS. RECORDS. The amount covers 24 copyrighted songs illegally downloaded on her computer.

"The fact that this case went to trial and there was a verdict -- whatever the outcome -- was a good thing, because there's some kind of sense that these cases don't have merit," said CHRISTIAN CASTLE, a LOS ANGELES lawyer.

As for THOMAS, she got off easy, according to CASTLE, who said she could have been fined $150,000 per copy rather than $10,000.

"I think the jury was telling her 'We don't buy your story. You're guilty of doing this intentionally. We're going to give you a verdict that will sting but is not the gross national product of a small country," he said.