Free Republic

A New York judge earlier this month recommended a landlord pay $17,000 in fines for threatening to call immigration authorities on an undocumented tenant. This is the first case related to housing where threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to harass or intimidate a tenant has been found to be a violation of law, according to a spokesperson for the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Holly Ondaan, the tenant and an undocumented immigrant at the time the case was filed, testified in court that she became "an emotional wreck" when her former landlord, Dianna Lysius, threatened...

CHELSEA — A taxi driver must pay a lesbian couple $10,000 for telling them to either stop smooching in the backseat of his cab or kiss their ride goodbye, a city administrative judge ruled last month. Yellow cab hack Mohammed Dahbi was accused of discriminating against the couple over their sexual orientation by ordering them to "keep that [behavior] for the bedroom or get out of the cab." Dahbi also gave the passengers, Christy Spitzer and Kassie Thornton, some lip, calling them "b-----s," "c---s" and "whores" when they got out of the cab without paying, according to Judge John Spooner's...

The twice-delayed trial of 76-year-old John H. Spooner, accused of fatally shooting his 13-year-old neighbor, got off to a slow start Monday, as cases backlogged because of last week's courthouse fire took up most of the morning. Jury selection is now expected to get underway at 1 p.m. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner requested a pool of 50 potential jurors, a larger-than-usual number due to the publicity Spooner's case has gained in the past year. Spooner faces a charge of first-degree intentional homicide after allegedly killing Darius Simmons in front of his mother. Spooner suspected Simmons of stealing guns...