Tag Archives: Attorney General Eric Holder

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz faces a formal congressional investigation and calls for her resignation over the prosecution of Aaron Swartz, an Internet pioneer and activist who committed suicide earlier this month. Ortiz’s critics accuse her of prosecutorial overreach for heaping multiple felony charges on Swartz, who was accused of downloading millions of academic articles with the intent to distribute them online at no cost. The charges against Swartz carried a maximum sentence of more than 50 years in prison and …

Oil giant BP pled guilty last week to manslaughter and a slew of other criminal charges connected to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers and released nearly five million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In total, BP will pay more than $4.5 billion in fines and penalties in the settlement, including the single largest criminal fine in U.S. history. “I hope that this sends a clear message to those who would …