Free Republic

Trouble has followed Sara Catherine Jones since she married into the Biden family almost three decades ago. Not long after her 1995 wedding to Jim Biden, she took a job with one of his brother Joe’s Senate donors, who later accused her of “fraud” and “unjust enrichment,” according to court records reviewed by RealClearInvestigations. In the years since, she and her husband have been accused of reneging on debts and failing to pay their taxes, court and property records show. Like their nephew, first son Hunter Biden, they have reportedly sold the promise of access to their powerful relative to...

U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash dismissed a lawsuit claiming a man defrauded FedEx by accessing a corporate shipping account offering discounted rates, then charging third parties higher rates to ship items.A federal judge has dumped claims that FedEx Corp. was defrauded of more than $1.5 million by a man who “highjacked” a corporate account offering discounted shipping rates, then charged third parties inflated rates to pocket a profit. The ruling lets defendant Dimitar Petlechkov off the hook for FedEx’s claims for fraud, unjust enrichment and tortious interference with business relations, but he still faces criminal charges in Tennessee, where FedEx...

Failed hedge fund haunts celebrities Tuesday, August 22, 2006 By Ianthe Jeanne Dugan, The Wall Street Journal In the annals of hedge-fund collapses, Sylvester Stallone is among lucky investors who walked away unscathed -- or so it seemed. In 1997, the actor invested $2.5 million in a private investment partnership called Lipper Convertibles. Four years later, with his statements showing the investment had swelled to about $3.8 million, he cashed out. Fellow actor John Cusack also walked away with big gains, as did former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and a trust fund for the children of investor Henry...

Top executives and directors of the biggest US business collapses amassed billions in salary and share sales while the stock market was still booming, according to a Financial Times survey. In just three years, they grossed about $3.3bn before their companies went bust, having wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars of shareholder value and nearly 100,000 jobs. The survey backs the words of Alan Greenspan, US Federal Reserve chairman, who two weeks ago attacked the "infectious greed" that distorted American capitalism during the late 1990s - an era in which achieving long-term corporate success was not necessary for managers...