Guilty Verdict Returned In Holy Land Foundation Case
November 25, 2008
After a mistrial was declared in the first prosecution of the case, guilty verdicts were handed down by a jury in Dallas Monday afternoon.
The Holy Land Foundation and five of its former organizers were found guilty on 108 charges related to funneling more than $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas since it was designated a terrorist organization in 1995. The government shut down the Holy Land Foundation in 2001.
Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land’s former chairman, and Shukri Abu-Baker, the chief executive, were convicted on a combined 69 counts, including supporting a specially designated terrorist, money laundering and tax fraud.
Convicted on three conspiracy counts were Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh. A fifth defendant, Mohammed El-Mezain, was convicted of 1 count of conspiracy to support a terrorist organization.
The foundation was convicted on all of the 32 charges it faced.
No sentencing date has been set, but the punishments could be severe. Supporting a terrorist organization carries a maximum 15-year sentence on each count; money laundering carries a maximum 20 years on each conviction.
Circuit City Files Bankruptcy
November 10, 2008
Just a week after announcing that it would close 155 locations nationwide that it would seek protections from its creditors through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
The Richmond, Virginia based retailer said in court filings that it has over $1 billion in assets and over $1 billion in debt. The company will operate normally while it restructures its operations and debt in an effort to return to profitability.
The electronics firm boasted more than 700 stores before announcing that it would close 20 percent of them, including 9 in Texas, 2 of which are in Tarrant County, and thousands of jobs. Some 7,300 workers could be affected.
The decision to file bankruptcy came as vendors pressuring the company threatened to withhold products during the upcoming holiday season, according to the company.
Informal Bankruptcy
November 6, 2008
Lately there has been some information floating around about informal bankruptcy. It was even mentioned in Parade Magazine in the Sunday papers. While the outcome might seem the same as a legal bankruptcy filing, it is not a good solution to financial problems.
In an informal bankruptcy, a debtor essentially just stops making payments on their outstanding debt that they no longer want to pay. In most cases this is their credit-card debt. The feeling is that the strikes against their credit for non-payment will disappear in 7 years, while bankruptcy will appear for up to 10 years.
The problem with informal bankruptcy is that you are offered no legal protection from debt collectors. The debt never goes away, it is just not collected. The creditor can take you to court and get a judgment against you that allows them to place a lien on your home and in some cases attach your assets.
While Texas has some automatic protection for homesteads, vehicles and personal property, the protections will disappear upon your death leaving your loved ones to deal with the consequences of the debts.
Filing for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy protections in a bankruptcy court will allow you to legally clear your debt. The creditor will have no legal claim to your assets or income once the court issues the discharge. These legal protections may cost you more up front, but save you countless hours of stress and lots of money in the long run.
Many people end up getting in over their head with debt. There were over 900,000 bankruptcy filings in the 12-month period ending in June 2008, according to statistics released by the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts. There is no shame in admitting that your debt more than you can afford to pay.
Handling the way you clear your debt in a legal and responsible manner is the best way to move forward. Contact a bankruptcy attorney today to find out about your options.
Privacy Policy
November 3, 2008
HigginsAndAssociates.com is committed to safeguarding the privacy of everyone who uses this website. Accordingly, we have developed this privacy policy to explain to you what information we collect about you, the steps we take to keep this information private and secure, and what we do with this information. This privacy statement is part of our Terms and Conditions, which can be viewed in full by clicking here. By visiting this website, you agree to be bound by the terms of this policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this policy, please do not use this website.
PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY BEFORE USING ANY OF HIGGINSANDASSOCIATES.COM SERVICES. BY USING ANY SUCH SERVICES YOU ARE ACKNOWLEDGING THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THIS POLICY AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ITS TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY, SIMPLY EXIT THIS PAGE WITHOUT ACCESSING OR USING OUR WEB SITE OR ANY OF OUR SERVICES.
A Special Note About Children.
Children are not eligible to use our service and we ask that minors (under the age of 13) do not submit any personal information to us or use the service. HigginsAndAssociates.com does not collect or maintain information from those actually known to be under the age of 13, and no part of the Web site is structured to attract anyone under the age of 13.
What types of information about you do we collect through this website?
We collect personal information about you (and certain of your family members) in three principal ways: (1) information you provide us through this website; (2) information that is automatically generated when you use our website; and (3) information we obtain from third parties.
With respect to information you provide us on this website, we collect the following information from you:
- Your name, residence and email addresses, and telephone numbers
- Similar information for your spouse and/or dependents
- Information regarding your assets, debts, income, and expenses
We also collect certain information about you automatically when you visit our website. Through our use of “cookies” (cookies are electronic identifiers that are transferred automatically to your computer through your browser and they allow our computers to save certain information you provide us and store information about you so we can recognize you when you visit our website in the future). Other types of information we collect automatically include your Internet Protocol (IP) address (which allows us to understand how you use our site and to enable us to make changes to our site in order to improve your user experience); information regarding your computer and your connection to our site (such as your browser type, operating system, and platform); and your user history to, through, and away from our site, including your session information, page loading times, page errors and broken links, the length of your visits to specific pages within our site, and other information related to your experience on our site.
From time to time, we collect information about you from third parties, such as updated contact information, and search term and search result information from your web searches.
How do you use my personal information?
All of the information we obtain about you is stored securely on our website, and we use it only to evaluate your situation, to allow unaffiliated sponsoring lawyers or law firms to evaluate your case and provide legal services to you, and to provide ongoing communications to you in furtherance of these legal services. We, or various sponsoring and/or non-sponsoring lawyers and law firms, may also contact you from time to time regarding services which we believe may be of interest to you. You are always free to opt out of these additional communications by sending an e-mail to info@higginsandassociates.com. We do not sell or share your personal information with anyone other than our own internal personnel and the unaffiliated sponsoring and non-sponsoring lawyers and law firms, and certain authorized third parties (such as expert witnesses) who may be retained to assist in your bankruptcy case. As part of this process, those third parties agree to keep your information confidential and agree not to share it with any third party without your express permission.
We only disclose any personally identifiable information about individual users in accordance with this Privacy Policy and our Terms and Conditions, or when we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with applicable laws, valid legal process, a court order, a current judicial proceeding, or to protect our rights or property.
We disclose personally identifiable individual information and the other information you provide us to unaffiliated sponsoring and non-sponsoring lawyers or law firms in order for them to contact you and to determine whether to handle your case. As part of this process, those lawyers or law firm agrees to keep your information confidential and agree not to share it with any third party without your express permission.
We may also provide aggregate statistical information (such as the city or state you live in) to third parties to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers, and other third parties, and for other lawful purposes. We will not, however, disclose any personally identifiable information about to these parties.
How do you protect my personal information?
Please understand that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online (such as through an email message or through filling out an online form), this information cannot be made 100 percent secure and, in some cases, that information can be intercepted, collected and used by others. However, we work hard to protect your information at all times, and we protect you information in several ways. We store your information on a secure server that only HigginsAndAssociates.com and its authorized personnel can access through a password. Additionally, we encrypt your information to prevent third parties without authorization from intercepting your information when it is in transit to us.
Questions about our Privacy Policy?
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this policy, you should contact us at:
Higgins and Associates
112 Goliad street
Fort Worth , TX 76126
info@higginsandassociates.com
You can also review and update the personal information we have about you in order to ensure its accuracy. To do so, please contact us at the above address.
Updates to Privacy Statement
From time to time, we may decided to change the provisions of this privacy policy, and we reserve the right to do so, without notice. However, we will attempt to inform you of any changes to this policy, whether by email alerts, changes to our website and/or through personal communications with you.
Links
This website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website.