Appeals Making Headlines: Who Are the Real Animals?

Friday, December 4th, 2009

Polar bears lose the fight against big oil, and a ponzi schemer plans to leave retirees and non-profits holding a $3.65 billion heavy bag. On the one hand, we have man vs. nature - on the other, man vs. man. However, in the opinion of more than a few, both appeals come down to the same basic motivator; greed. Although judges are impartial of such things, the law seems all too often blind to it as well.

Polar Bears vs. Big Oil

Two environment groups argue just because a polar bear has not died due to “industrial activity” since 1993, that doesn’t mean the new regulations will continue to prevent any lethal or otherwise harmful threat to the already threatened polar bear. The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment were recently rejected by the 9th US District Court of Appeals, upholding the lesser court ruling against the two environmental groups.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment appeal that the US Fish and Wildlife Service may have accidentally placed the polar bear in danger when they recently passed new regulations for the oil industry. The appeals court rejected the appeal because “past interaction between the polar bears and the oil industry has been minimal.”

I suppose even when you draw out the big guns, greed still wins. What hope is left for our natural habitats when even large environmental groups - the individual environmentalist’s “big guys in their corner” - are not allowed to speak on their behalf?

Petters and Attorneys Plan to Appeal $3.65 Billion Ponzi Conviction

Even with all of Tom Petters’s assets seized - and almost all liquidated - except “the three suits he wore during the trial”, only 1/15th of the $3.65 billion he schemed out of businessmen and consumers has been recovered. Some of these assets include a Florida beach home, a condo in Colorado, and a Minnesota lake home on sale at a steal of a price - just $6.25 million.

Where did he get all the money to buy so many multi-million dollar homes? Well, the Zimmerman Reed law firm is representing “several dozen” individuals, and two businesses went belly up after they lost a few million as well.

Petters claims he was duped by a co-conspirator - Larry Reynolds, a former Boston felon who was placed in witness protection for cooperating in a 1980’s mob case - to find investors who would fund loans on non-existent merchandise. Investors believed the scheme for some time since early investors were paid with the later investors’ funds.

Tags: appeals, appeals attorneys, Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Environment, ponzi, Tom Petters
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