Federico has since told the Daily News that the headline was an “honest mistake.”
“This had nothing to do with being cute or punny,” he said. “I’m so sorry that I offended people. I’m so sorry if I offended Jeremy.”

It’s hard to believe that Federico didn’t realize the implications of the headline. Even if we were to take him at his word, racist stereotypes were certainly at play. After all, Federico himself said he didn’t think much of the headline, since he had used the turn-of- phrase “at least 100 times” during his short-lived career.
To add injury to insult, it was the second time this week that someone associated with ESPN used the term “chink” in connection with Lin.
Also on Friday, after the Knicks’ winning streak took a hit, sports reporter Max Bretos asked, “If there is a chink in the armor, where can Lin improve his game?” (Bretos, who has been suspended for 30 days took to Twitter to apologize, saying he didn’t mean to refer to race. “My wife is Asian, would never intentionally say anything to disrespect her and that community,” he tweeted).
In addition to axing Federico, ESPN issued an apology in an attempt to appease fans, who are rightly outraged at the network’s racist coverage of Lin.
“We are conducting a complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures and are determining appropriate disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again. We regret and apologize for this mistake,” the statement said.

HISTORY OF SLURS

I’d like to think that ESPN has learned its lesson. But the truth is the network has a history of stereotyping players of ethnic descent.
Last year, the network had to eat crow after one of its anchors dubbed a loss by the Oklahoma Sooners a “trail of tears.” The term historically refers to the forced (and deadly) relocation of a group of Native American tribes.
And in 2009, an anchor asked if a Hispanic racecar driver was “out having a taco” when he didn’t make the list of top five NASCAR drivers
Meanwhile, Lin, in an interview before the uproar, told Reuters
that he wanted to shatter stereotypes about Asians-Americans’
ability to play pro basketball.

After the ESPN headline, Lin told reporters that he didn’t think Federico meant his headline to be offensive.

“There are definitely stereotypes, obviously,” Lin said. “The more we can do to break those down by the day, the better we’ll become. Hopefully in the near future we’ll see a lot more Asians and Asian-Americans playing basketball in the NBA.”

“Have to learn to forgive, and I don’t even think that was intentional,” he said, according to a piece in the Los Angeles Times. “Or hopefully not,” he added.

Lin handled this slur like he has handled his basketball opposition recently: with finesses and grace. The slur was clearly intentional and ESPN did the right thing by firing Federico.

Hart, a 41-year-old advertising executive at Young and Rubican, was headed to work on Dec. 14 when she stepped into an elevator at the firm’s headquarters at 285 Madison Avenue. Before she could get inside, the elevator suddenly shot upward, trapping Hart between the car and lobby wall.

Two passengers could only look on in horror as Hart was crushed to death.

It’s not clear what caused the accident.

But it wasn’t the first time there had been problems with the elevators at 285 Madison.

In fact, just hours before the accident, workers from maintenance company Transel Elevator had performed electrical work on the elevator which crushed Hart. And while the elevator in question was only cited for a technical violation, the New York Times reported that 14 outstanding violations had been written in connection with the building’s 13 elevators.

The New York Post went so far as to say that problems with the elevators at the building were “an epidemic.” Following the tragedy, inspectors wrote 11 new violations for elevators at the building, the Post reported.

And on Jan. 24, an city official said maintenance work in progress right before Hart’s death was “likely a contributing cause, or the cause, of the accident.”

According to the New York Post, Transel faces at least eight lawsuits, including a man who fell down an elevator shaft in 2007. Hart’s family hasn’t sued yet, but the accident highlights the uphill battle families face when trying to sue a wrongdoer for the death of a loved one.

In New York, individuals can sue to recover damages for the ‘wrongful death” of a family member.  When the state’s “wrongful death statute” was passed in 1847, it was the first of its kind in the U.S. But more than 150 years later, the once revolutionary law hasn’t caught up with the times.

Here’s why.

When a loved one brings a wrongful death case, recovery is limited to monetary loss  — for example, funeral expenses and the financial support the family member would have provided if he or she had lived.  This calculation might be relatively straightforward when a working parent dies. But when a young child dies, it’s tough, if not impossible, to figure out how much money he or she would have provided to a parent over a lifetime. New York law requires a family who just lost a child to do this though.

Cases involving the elderly, single adults without children, and the disabled are equally challenging. New York law says their value is only measured by what they contribute financially.

How do you put a price on the financial contribution a single woman like Hart would have made to her family?

Conversely,  wrongful death actions don’t allow family members to recover for their grief. Grief is a family’s most significant loss but is specifically excluded as an element of recovery.  This results in families, after suffering the loss of a beloved family member, being subject to the second indignity of learning that their loved ones may be worthless in the eyes of the law.

The wrongful death statute might have been ahead of its time more than a hundred years ago. But New York is long overdue for a law that recognizes the value of all members of our society.

If you agree, speak up. Get in touch with your local lawmakers. Contact the Governor. http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact/GovernorContactForm.php.

And tell him enough is enough. It’s time we had a law that not only compensates families for the pain and suffering they endure after the tragic loss of a loved one, but treats members of our society equally, regardless of their earning power.

Last year, I told the tale of an immigration attorney who was suspended after shutting down his New York office and moving to Beijing without telling clients.

Well, every profession has its bad apples.

But when it comes to immigration lawyers, we’re talking about more than the occasional rotten apple.

According to a recent report published in the Cardozo Law Review, New York immigration judges said that one-third of the attorneys who represented immigrants facing removal from this country were inadequate. Fourteen percent were ranked as “grossly inadequate” by the judges.

It wasn’t just that attorneys were poorly prepared. Nearly half had inadequate or grossly inadequate knowledge of the law or facts of the case.

You can find the report Here

And hiring a private lawyer was far from a guarantee of adequate representation. In fact, the private bar got way lower marks than providers who offered free (pro bono) representation, law schools clinics and nonprofits.

“These findings are particularly alarming because minimally adequate representation is essential to the fundamental fairness of removal proceedings, particularly since it affects a class of people that is likely to be unfamiliar with the law, the procedures, and the evidentiary rules,” says the December 2010 report.

And the report notes that the consequences of poor lawyering in removal cases can be “devastating.” Even “irreversible.

Why?

Because inadequate representation in the initial stages of a removal case can lead to a range of bad outcomes, including triggering time bars creating incomplete records for appeal and in some cases even losing the right to appeal.

Robert Katzmann, a federal judge in Manhattan and a leading advocate of immigration reform, told the New York Times, which first reported the study, that part of the problem is that immigrants — who often face language barriers and don’t understand the court system — are “easy prey for ambulance-chasing-style lawyers who do not adhere to the highest standards of responsibility.” Check out the full NYT article Here

Unfortunately, the study also found that a large number of immigrants in civil proceedings simply lack representation. The Times reported that between October 2005 and July 2010, 27 percent of immigrants who appeared in immigration court didn’t have a lawyer. That number rose to 67 percent for detained immigrants.

So what can you do to protect yourself?

If you’re looking for a lawyer and don’t know where to turn, there are groups out there that can help.

Here’s a list of some places to call:

The New York City Bar Justice Center’s Legal Hotline at 212-626-7383;

The Legal Aid Society’s Immigration Law Hotline at 212-577-3456;

The Catholic Charities Community Immigration Services Department at 212-419-3700; and

Human Rights First, 212-845-5200

And remember, when you find an attorney, you are the client and have certain basic rights.

As I mentioned in my November 2010 blog post “Buyer Beware,” you are entitled to a lawyer who keeps your confidences, updates you on the status of your case, treats you with respect, includes you in the decision-making process, and charges you a reasonable fee.

If you are not comfortable with your lawyer, you have the right to walk away (you might have to pay for the work the attorney has done up to that point, but don’t let that stop you from speaking up).

And remember, if you think a lawyer has acted unethically, you can report them to an attorney disciplinary committee (for more information, see my April, 12, 2011 post, “Into Thin Air-When an attorney disappears”). If you think you’ve been the victim of a scam or fraud, you can contact the Manhattan District Attorney’s Immigrant Affairs Program Complaint Hotline at 212- 335-3600.

The bottom line is that just because you are new to this country or don’t understand the language or the court system doesn’t mean that you should have to settle for less than adequate representation.

There’s just one problem. The same devices that can help doctors also distract them from where their focus should be — on the patient.  To make matters worse, doctors and nurses are making personal calls or surfing their web during critical procedures.

Data suggests the problem is widespread. A recent survey of 439 medical technicians showed that more than half had used their cellphones while monitoring bypass machines during heart surgery. And if that’s not terrifying enough, half admitted to texting while in surgery.

“My gut feeling is lives are in danger,” Peter J. Papadakos, director of critical care at the University of Rochester Medical Center  and author of an article called “electronic distraction,” told the Times.  “We’re not educating people about the problem, and it’s getting worse.”

The full impact of this disturbing trend is tough to gauge, but at least one patient suffered the consequences of the phenomena the Times dubs “distracted doctoring.”

Medical malpractice attorney Scott Eldredge told the Times that he represented a patient who became partially paralyzed after undergoing surgery by a neurosurgeon who was making personal calls on his cellphone during the procedure.  The identity of the patient and other details remain under wraps because of a confidential settlement the lawyer struck with the hospital.

Stephen Luczycki, an anesthesiologist at Yale-New Haven Hospital, told the Times that it’s par for the course to see hospital personnel texting in the O.R. or using the computer in the operating room to surf the web and check personal e-mail,

“Amazon, Gmail, I’ve seen all sorts of shopping, I’ve seen eBay,” he said. “You name it, I’ve seen it.”  Luczycki said

‘QUIET ZONES’

So what can hospitals do to put the brakes on this risky practice?

One doctor took action after witnessing doctors and nurses on a team intubating patients, putting in place a “quiet zone” policy in operating rooms.
This isn’t to say that technology is inherently evil. When used correctly, it can help prevent mistakes by affording medical professionals up-to-the minute access to patient data and prescriptions.

“In the interest of preventing medical error, it’s a good friend,” Abraham Verghese, a professor at the Stanford University Medical Center who wrote the best-selling novel “Cutting for Stone,” told the Times.

But Verghese said the danger is that that doctors can pay too much attention to the trove of data on the screen — what he calls the “iPatient” – and not enough to the person in front of them.

“The iPatient is getting wonderful care across America,” Dr. Verghese said. “The real patient wonders, ‘Where is everybody?’.”

On Nov. 14, Sandusky told sportscaster Bob Costas during a phone interview that he had horsed around, hugged and showered with young boys. He denied however, any sexual contact. This excuse recently morphed into Sandusky claiming he was teaching personal hygiene to the boys. All in all, this is a tragic situation playing out in the public domain.

Recently, a 29-year-old man, identified as “John Doe A,” sued Sandusky in Pennsylvania, saying the disgraced football coach had abused him more than 100 times over a 4-year-period.

According to Reuters, John Doe A, who says he met Sandusky through The Second Mile, a charity the coach created to assist at-risk kids, claims he was abused “in the facilities of Penn State, particularly, in the football coach’s locker room, at times within Philadelphia County, at facilities out of state connected with a Penn State bowl game and at the Sandusky home.”

“I never told anybody what he did to me over 100 times at all kinds of places until the newspapers reported that he had abused other kids and the people at Penn State and Second Mile didn’t do the things they should have to protect me and the other kids,” John Doe A says in the suit.

Second Mile told Reuters that it was reviewing the suit, and Penn State declined comment. A lawyer for Sandusky wasn’t available for comment.

Personal injury lawsuits by sexual abuse victims are nothing new.  According to the New York Times, the Catholic Church, which has been plagued by accusations of sexual abuse, has paid approximately $2 billion to settle civil actions. As recently as Dec. 1, Reuters reported that three Catholic Church institutions ponied up $7 million to settle a sex abuse suit brought by 14 Delaware men.

So suing the predator and the institution he hides behind can result in a substantial financial recovery.

 But does a personal injury suit help victims recover more than money? Yes.

According to a rape crisis program in Butler County, Ohio, civil lawsuits allow abuse victims to recover the costs of medical care, psychological counseling, lost wages, and pain and suffering.

Think about that. No one would deny that victims of child abuse may require extensive counseling, medication and still may suffer their entire lives because of the damage inflicted upon them.  All this care and treatment cost money. With a civil suit, the wrongdoer is required to pay for these damages – not the victim and not society.

The suits also give victims the chance to put the accused on the stand — something that is unlikely to happen in a criminal case, where the defendant can invoke his right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

How important do you think this is to the victim? Very.

And unlike a criminal case, where the state brings proceedings and must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, a plaintiff in a civil action need only show that it’s more likely than not that the abuse took place.

MAKING SURE ABUSE DOESN’T HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE

But while civil suits can help sex abuse victims gain a sense of much-needed closure, I think we all would agree that our focus should be on making sure abuse doesn’t happen in the first place.

Horrifying as the Sandusky scandal is, it serves as a reminder that we should be wary of placing too much trust in authority figures, like coaches and teachers.  As parents, we have a responsibility to teach our children about sexual abuse and to talk openly with our kids about the subject.

Here are some tips to help put an end to child sexual abuse:

Don’t be intimidated by coaches and other authority figures. You are the parent and have a right to monitor any situation involving your child;

Make sure a coach is certified, and know his/her qualifications. Insist that the coach undergo a background check;

Teach your children about abusive behaviors. Make sure they know they have a right to say no to unwanted or inappropriate touching, even if the person doing the touching is a trusted adult;

Teach children they never should have to keep secrets about sexual abuse.  Keep the lines of communication open and let them know that they can always come to you with concerns;

Make sure children know sexual abuse is never their fault;

Keep an eye out for adults who ignore a child’s personal space;

Watch out for adults who engage in secret interactions with kids (sharing drugs or sexual material) or spend an inappropriate amount of time emailing, texting or talking on the phone with children;

Be on the lookout for adults who tell dirty jokes or engage in talk about sex with children present;

Stay involved. Get to know your child’s coach. This doesn’t mean you have to hover; it simply means monitoring the situation;

Do not place your child in a situation where a coach is spending too much time alone with them. Expect that two adults be present;

And lastly, if your child comes to you about sexual abuse, and that could be simply asking about sex abuse, speak with your child and if confirmed, contact the authorities.

But the media frenzy overlooked one crucial fact — FedEx is a board member of the Institute for Legal Reform, an arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce comprised of big businesses that do everything they can to stop hardworking individuals from exercising their right to sue. In a new report entitled “Do As I Say, Not As I Sue,” the American Association for Justice shines a light on the hypocrisy of corporations like FedEx that lobby to curb access to the justice system, while simultaneously using the courtroom to build their brands and push their own corporate agendas. Among the top ten hypocrites are General Motors, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson, Prudential and Honeywell International. Like FedEx, all of these companies are board members of the Institute for Legal Reform. On its Website, the institute describes itself as a “national campaign, representing the nation’s business community, with the critical mission of making America’s legal system simpler, fairer and faster for everyone.” Among its goals are to “neutralize plaintiff trial lawyers’ excessive influence over the legal and political systems” and “eliminate frivolous lawsuits.”

According to AAJ’s report, the institute’s members fight hard to keep consumers from having their day in court. For example, Honeywell has aggressively lobbied for legislation that would shield it from lawsuits related to its manufacturing of a defective bulletproof vest made of Zylon, a material known to degrade over time. And Abbott Laboratories, facing suits over harmful side effects related to Humira , a prescription medicine used to treat Crohn’s disease, has pushed hard for laws that would give prescription drug manufacturers total immunity from all drug side effects. Thus far, they have not been successful.  But these very same companies don’t think twice about bringing their own lawsuits, so long as the litigation advances their own goals.

Take the legal showdown between Disney and Caterpillar over Disney’s animated film, George of the Jungle 2. Before the film’s release in 2003, Caterpillar sued Disney for trademark infringement. The suit centered on a scene in which George and his friends take on Caterpillar bulldozers driven by a bunch of animated evil industrialists. Another example cited by the report is Johnson & Johnson’s failed bid to block American Red Cross from licensing the iconic red cross symbol for use on first aid kits and other products (even though the two organizations had been sharing the symbol for more than 100 years). “However silly these lawsuits may sound, they share one common theme: the company filing the lawsuit had the Constitutional right to do so,” the AAJ report says. “What makes their actions shameful and hypocritical is that these companies are members of ILR’s board for the sole purpose of denying Americans this same right, especially when severely harmed or killed by the companies’ products and services.” It’s up to us to fight against this double standard. As the AAJ report points out, “these corporations must recognize that this right to justice belongs not just to big business, but to all Americans.”

According to a recent study, it still is. Especially among Asian-Americans. That’s right. Recently-released data indicates that more than half of Asian American teenagers reported being targeted by bullies in the classroom. Fifty-four percent to be exact. That’s compared to 31.3 percent of white children who said they were taunted.

The numbers were 38.4 for black children and just over 34 percent for Hispanics, according to a researcher who spoke to Agence France-Presse, which obtained given a copy of the report ahead of time.

And if it’s that not bad enough, Asian American kids reported putting up with far more cyber bullying than other ethnic groups (at least in my day, bullying stayed in the playground). Sixty-two percent of Asian Americans reported being harassed online once or twice a month. Only 18 percent of whites said they experienced similar harassment.

According to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, online bullying can take a number of forms – from inundating the victim with hundreds of costly text messages to distributing video or pics of victims in embarrassing situations to bashing someone on an online message board.

Based on a 2009 survey conducted by the U.S. Justice and Education departments, the figures were obtained by interviewing 6,500 students, ranging from ages 12-18.

At a forum at the Center for American Progress, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the data was “unacceptable,” according to AFP.

“Our children have to be able to go to school free of fear,” she said.

So, what’s a parent or kid to do?

In September, a New York lawmaker proposed “cyber bullying” legislation that would update the crime of stalking in the third-degree to cover instances in which children are harassed using electronic communication. But until this much-needed law is passed, there are a number of anti-bullying strategies parents and kids can take.

Here are some tips from the division of criminal justice services to combat cyberbullying (many of them also apply to old-fashioned bullying).

• Don’t respond to the bully or cyberbully;
• Try to out an anonymous cyberbully by tracking down his/her identity through an Internet Service Provider;
• Think about filing a complaint with an Internet Service Provider. In some case, the messages may violate their terms of use;
• Use a block function to keep the bully from sending text messages or e-mail;
• Contact school officials (if cyberbullying is taking place through a school district system, officials must intervene);
• Talk to the bully’s parents;
• Contact an attorney to see if there are any civil remedies you can pursue;
• Contact the police if the bullying involves threats of violence, extortion, harassment, stalking, hate crimes or child pornography.

Finally, New York City students who are victims of bullies and in need of moral support can call a new hotline staffed by mental health professionals. The number, which is open M-F from 2:30 to 9:30, is 212-709-3222.

But now caps are back in the news thanks in part to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a leading Republican presidential candidate and vocal supporter of so-called “tort reform.” Perry was instrumental in pushing through a 2003 Texas law that capped malpractice pain and suffering awards at $250,000. While on the campaign trail this summer, Perry credited tort reform with leading to an increase in the number of doctors in Texas. “This last year, 21,000 more physicians are practicing medicine in Texas because they know they can do what they love and not be sued,” Perry said.

Fact check. A new study by Public Citizen titled, “A Failed Experiment: Health Care in Texas Has Worsened in Key Respects Since State Instituted Liability Caps in 2003,” shows that tort reform has made health care pricier and less available to citizens of the Lone Star state. (Check out www.citizen.org/documents/a-failed-experiment-report.pdf).

Here’s the low down. Since Texas imposed caps in 2003, health insurance premiums have risen faster than the national average. A whopping 24.6 percent of Texans lack health insurance and doctors face less liability.

And while malpractice litigation has significantly declined, Medicare spending has risen dramatically. In 2003, Texas ranked seventh highest in per-enrollee spending for Medicare’s programs. In 2009, the state ranked second. Since the liability limits were put into place, Medicare spending for outpatient services and Medicare diagnostic expenditures have outpaced the national average.

The report also contradicts the myth that doctors have flocked to Texas because of tort reform. Citing PolitiFact.com (an award-winning service that checks the accuracy of politicians’ statements), the report points out that since the 2003 reforms, the increase in doctors in Texas has been 13,000, not 21,000 as Perry claims.

That number may sound impressive. But according to PolitiFact, population growth, not caps, has been the primary driver behind the increase in MDs. “From 2002 to 2010, the population of Texas grew by 20 percent…the number of doctors went up 24 percent,” PolitiFact reported. And nine years before tort reform, the number of MDs grew at twice the rate of Texas’ population, according to PolitiFact. In actuality, the per capita number of doctors in Texas has dropped since the caps were imposed.

One thing is for sure, according to the report. Texas doctors face far less accountability as a result of tort reform. When adjusted for inflation, payments by doctors to compensate victims of malpractice have dropped by 75 percent on a per capita basis.

In a statement, Taylor Lincoln, who authored the report, said, “Despite the sales campaign to promote Texas as an exhibit of the merits of limiting doctors’ liability for mistakes, the real world data tells the opposite story.”

So next time you hear politicians applauding tort reform and crediting it for controlling health care costs, think twice. Check their facts. Because chances are they don’t have them straight.

The culprit that almost caused her to bleed to death –a lethal chemical used to kill rats called brodifacoum.

Recently, prosecutors found that a product called “the Cat be Unemployed,” a pesticide sold over the counter in Chinatown, contained dangerous concentrations of brodifacuom (more than 60 times the legal limit).

Last month, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office seized 6,000 packages of illegal pesticides and arrested 12 people in connection with their sale in Chinatown. The bust capped a five-month investigation by state and federal prosecutors, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department of Environmental Conservation.

According to the Times, a regional administration for the Environmental Protection Agency said that sellers of the pesticides, which frequently are sold in colorful packaging and could be mistaken for toys or candy, “are playing Russian roulette with people’s health.”

In addition to Cat Be Unemployed, the investigation uncovered sales of  a roach bait made by Fuzhol Contro Termite Company and a  roach bait called MieZhangQing, both of which Vance’s office said in a press release look like a “crumbled, sweet cookie.”

And Vance said residents of Chinatown were especially at risk.

“In the cases charged by our Office, that threat was particularly imminent in the Chinatown neighborhood.” said District Attorney Vance. “Some of these illegal products look and smell like cookie crumbs, making them dangerously tempting to children.

Vance said that other products were “so toxic that one small vial can kill an adult male.”

In a follow-up article, the Times reported that cultural familiarity with these products, as well as their low price tag, plays a role in the illegal market for pesticides.

According to the Times, Vance said legislation that gave prosecutors the authority to seek stiffer penalties in crimes involving the illegal sale of pesticides could help the problem.

But that could be a long day in coming. And even a legislative fix will not stop greedy merchants and wholesalers from preying upon immigrants.

Until then, here are some steps that you can take to protect yourself and your family from dangerous pesticides.

• Think about putting in place measures to combat pesticides that don’t rely on chemicals (traps, rodent-proofing your house, buying a cat, making sure to store food in pest-proof containers, putting pet food away immediately after your pet has eaten, keeping fruits and vegetables in the fridge, keeping garbage in containers with tight-fitting lids and disposing of regularly);
• Only purchase pesticides that have English labels;
• Always follow a product’s instructions when using, storing and throwing out pesticides;
• Keep pesticides out of the reach of children and pets;
• Think about hiring a professional exterminator (the extra cost could be well worth it); and
• If someone accidentally ingests a pesticide, immediately contact the Poison Control Center or call 911. Take the label with you to show doctors and other medical personnel.

But what seemed like a plot ripped from the headlines of a John Grisham novel was the real-life script of a lawsuit filed last month in Illinois by Fred Thompson, a former U.S. Senator who once played a prosecutor in NBC’s long-running series, Law and Order.

On Sept. 15, BND.com reported that Thompson joined a group of attorneys in petitioning the Illinois Supreme Court to reconsider the voiding of a $1 billion judgment against State Farm, a ruling that allegedly was secured through lies, manipulation, and judicial corruption.

Based on an investigation by an ex-FBI agent, the petition claims the insurance behemoth gave up to $4 million to Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier during his 2004 election bid against Democratic opponent, Gordon Maag, and then kept secret its contributions so that Karmeier could rule in the insurance giant’s favor in the billion-dollar case.

The underlying class-action suit accused State Farm of breaching a contract with policyholders by using inferior parts to repair cars damaged in crashes. The suit led to a $1 billion judgment against the company that a mid-level Illinois appeals court affirmed in 2001.

It wasn’t until after the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in May 2003 that Karmeier announced his candidacy. That’s when State Farm began pouring millions of dollars into his campaign (between $2.5 and $4 million, according to the recently-filed petition).

Karmeier was elected to the court in November 2004. Just nine months later, he joined a four-judge majority that voided the whopping $1 billion judgment against State Farm (the U.S. Supreme Court later declined to take the case).

Lawyers opposing State Farm had requested that Karmeier refrain from ruling in the class-action because of a conflict-of-interest. But the insurance company downplayed its financial support of the Republican judge, telling the court it only had donated $350,000 to his campaign.

In other words, State Farm purposely misled the court, according to the former FBI investigator.

State Farm lied to the Illinois Supreme Court and covered up its “extraordinary support of Justice (Lloyd) Karmeier’s campaign…to thwart Justice Karmeier’s disqualification,” the petition filed by Thompson says.

“The bottom line of my investigation is that State Farm used the Illinois Civil Justice League to elect Judge Karmeier and Judge Karmeier knew it,” the ex-FBI agent wrote in court papers backing up the petition.

These are only allegations.

But if they prove true, they just show how far an insurance company will go to manipulate the justice system and cheat the average accident victim out of what is rightfully his.