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Our boy Trump has spent a lot of time and money in and out of court. The following very long and ongoing list of court cases won and lost, is compliments of Wikipedia:Trump and his businesses have been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. federal courts and state court, an unprecedented number for a U.S. presidential candidate.[1]Of the 3,500 suits, Trump or one of his companies were plaintiffs in 1,900; defendants in 1,450; and bankruptcy, third party, or other in 150.[1]Trump was named in at least 169 suits in federal court.[2]Over 150 other cases were in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida (covering Broward County, Florida) since 1983.[3]In about 500 cases, judges dismissed plaintiffs' claims against Trump. In hundreds more, cases ended with the available public record unclear about the resolution.[1]Where there was a clear resolution, Trump won 451 times, and lost 38.[4]The topics of the legal cases include contract disputes, defamation claims, and allegations of sexual harassment. Trump's companies have been involved in more than 100 tax disputes, and on "at least three dozen" occasions the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has obtained tax liens against Trump properties for nonpayment of taxes.[1]On a number of occasions, Trump has threatened legal action but did not ultimately follow through.[5]Of Trump's involvement in the lawsuits, his lawyer Alan Garten said in 2015 that this was "a natural part of doing business in [the United States]",[5][6]and in the real estate industry, litigation to enforce contracts and resolve business disputes is indeed common.[5]Trump has, however, been involved in far more litigation than fellow real-estate magnates; the USA Today analysis in 2016 found that Trump had been involved in legal disputes more than Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., Donald Bren, Stephen M. Ross, Sam Zell, and Larry Silverstein combined.[1]The Trump lawsuits[5][6]have attracted criticism from Trump's opponents, who say that this is not a trait that conservatives should support.[5]James Copland, director of legal policy at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, states that "Trump clearly has an affinity for filing lawsuits, partly because he owns a lot of businesses" and has sometimes used litigation as a "bullying tactic".[5]Although Trump has said that he "never" settles legal claims, Trump and his businesses have settled with plaintiffs in at least 100 cases (mostly involving personal injury claims arising from injuries at Trump properties), with settlements ranging as high as hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars[1]and recently as high as tens of millions of dollars.[7]Among the most well-known Trump legal cases was the Trump University litigation. Three legal actions were brought alleging fraud, one by the New York State Attorney General and the others by class action plaintiffs.[8]In November 2016, Trump agreed to pay $25 million to settle the litigation.[7]In 1985, New York City brought a lawsuit against Trump for allegedly using tactics to force out tenants of 100 Central Park South,[17]which he intended to demolish together with the building next door. After ten years in court, the two sides negotiated a deal allowing the building to stand as condominiums.[18]In 1988, the Justice Department sued Trump for violating procedures related to public notifications when buying voting stock in a company related to his attempted takeovers of Holiday Corporation and Bally Manufacturing Corporation in 1986. On April 5, 1988, Trump agreed to pay $750,000 to settle the civil penalties of the antitrust lawsuit.[19]In late 1990, Trump was sued for $2 million by a business analyst for defamation, and Trump settled out of court.[20]Briefly before Trump's Taj Mahal opened in April 1990, the analyst had said that the project would fail by the end of that year. Trump threatened to sue the analyst's firm unless the analyst recanted or was fired. The analyst refused to retract the statements, and his firm fired him for ostensibly unrelated reasons.[21]Trump Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy in November 1990, the first of several such bankruptcies.[22]After, the NYSE ordered the firm to compensate the analyst $750,000; the analyst did not release the details of his settlement with Trump.[23]In 1991, Trump sued the manufacturers of a helicopter that crashed in 1989, killing three executives of his New Jersey hotel casino business.[24]The helicopter fell 2,800 feet after the main four-blade rotor and tail rotor broke off the craft, killing Jonathan Benanav, an executive of Trump Plaza, and two others: Mark Grossinger Etess, president of Trump Taj Mahal, and Stephen F. Hyde, chief executive of the Atlantic City casinos.[25][26][27]One of the defendants was owned by the Italian government, providing a basis for removing it to federal court, where the case was dismissed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the dismissal in 1992, and the Supreme Court denied Trump's petition to hear the case in the same year.[28]In 1991, Trump Plaza was fined $200,000 by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission for moving African American and female employees from craps tables in order to accommodate high roller Robert LiButti, a mob figure and alleged John Gotti associate, who was said to fly into fits of racist rage when he was on losing streaks.[29]There is no indication that Trump was ever questioned in that investigation, he was not held personally liable, and Trump denies even knowing what LiButti looked like.[29]In 1991, one of Trump's casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was found guilty of circumventing state regulations about casino financing when Donald Trump's father bought $3.5 million in chips that he had no plans to gamble. Trump Castle was forced to pay a $30,000 fine under the settlement, according to New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement Director Jack Sweeney. Trump was not disciplined for the illegal advance on his inheritance, which was not confiscated.[30]In 1993, Donald Trump sued Jay Pritzker, a Chicago financier and Trump's business partner since 1979 on the Grand Hyatt hotel. Trump alleged that Pritzker overstated earnings in order to collect excessive management fees.[31]In 1994, Pritzker sued Trump for violating their agreement by, among other ways, failing to remain solvent.[32]The two parties ended the feud in 1995 in a sealed settlement, in which Trump retained some control of the hotel and Pritzker would receive reduced management fees and pay Trump's legal expenses.[33]In 1993, Vera Coking sued Trump and his demolition contractor for damage to her home during construction of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.[34]In 1997, she dropped the suit against Trump and settled with his contractor for $90,000.[35]Coking had refused to sell her home to Trump and ultimately won a 1998 Supreme Court decision that prevented Atlantic City from using eminent domain to condemn her property.[36][37]In 1996, Trump was sued by more than 20 African-American residents of Indiana who charged that Trump reneged on promises to hire 70% of his work force from the minority community for his riverboat casino on Lake Michigan. The suit also charged that he hadn't honored his commitments to steer sufficient contracts to minority-owned businesses in Gary, Indiana. The suit was eventually dismissed due to procedural and jurisdiction issues.[38][39]In the late 1990s, Donald Trump and rival Atlantic City casino owner Stephen Wynn engaged in an extended legal conflict during the planning phase of new casinos Wynn had proposed to build. Both owners filed lawsuits against one another and other parties, including the State of New Jersey, beginning with Wynn's antitrust accusation against Trump.[40][41]After two years in court, Wynn's Mirage casino sued Trump in 1999 alleging that his company had engaged in a conspiracy to harm Mirage and steal proprietary information, primarily lists of wealthy Korean gamblers. In response, Trump's attorneys claimed that Trump's private investigator dishonored his contract by working as a "double agent" for the Mirage casino by secretly taping conversations with Trump. All the cases were settled at the same time on the planned day of an evidentiary hearing in court in February 2000, which was never held.[42]Personal and sexualIn 1992, Trump sued ex-wife Ivana Trump for not honoring a gag clause in their divorce agreement by disclosing facts about him in her best-selling book. Trump won the gag order.[43][44][45]The divorce was granted on grounds that Ivana claimed Donald Trump's treatment of her was "cruel and inhuman treatment".[46][47]Years later, Ivana said that she and Donald "are the best of friends".[48]A sexual assault claim from 1994 for child rape was filed against Trump on October 14, 2016,[49]a case that was dropped and refiled, remaining in suspension as of November 4, 2016.[50]In April 1997, Jill Harth Houraney filed a $125,000,000 lawsuit against Trump for sexual harassment in 1993, claiming he "'groped' her under her dress and told her he wanted to make her his 'sex slave'". Harth voluntarily withdrew the suit when her husband settled a parallel case. Trump has called the allegations "meritless".[51][52]Lawsuits 2000–2009[edit]In 2000, Donald Trump paid $250,000 to settle fines related to charges brought by New York State Lobbying Commission director David Grandeau. Trump was charged with circumventing state law to spend $150,000 lobbying against government approval of plans to construct an Indian-run casino in the Catskills, which would have diminished casino traffic to Trump's casinos in Atlantic City.[53][54]From 2000 on, Trump tried to partner with a German venture in building a "Trump Tower Europe" in Germany. The company founded for this, "TD Trump Deutschland AG" was dissolved in 2003, several lawsuits following in the years thereafter.[55]In 2001, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought a financial-reporting case against Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., alleging that the company had committed several "misleading statements in the company's third-quarter 1999 earnings release". Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. consented to the Commission's cease-and-desist order, said the culprit had been dismissed, and that Trump had personally been unaware of the matter.[56][57][58]Trump sued Leona Helmsley,[59]and Helmsley counter-sued Trump[60]due to contentions regarding ownership and operation of the Empire State Building. In 2002, Trump announced that he and his Japanese business partners, were selling the Empire State Building to partners of his rival Leona Helmsley.[61][62]In 2003, the city of Stuttgart denied TD Trump Deutschland AG, a Trump Organization subsidiary, the permission to build a planned tower due to questions over its financing. Trump Deutschland sued the city of Stuttgart, and lost. In 2004 Trump's German corporate partner brought suit against the Trump Organization for failure to pay back a EUR 200 million pre-payment as promised. In 2005, the German state attorney prosecuted Trump Deutschland and its partners for accounting fraud.[63][64][65]In 2004, Donald Trump sued Richard T. Fields in Broward County Circuit Court (in Florida); Fields was once Trump's business partner in the casino business, but had recently become a successful casino developer in Florida apart from Trump. Fields counter-sued Trump in Florida court. Trump alleged that Fields misled other parties into believing he still consulted for Trump, and Fields alleged improprieties in Trump's business.[66]The two businessmen agreed in 2008 to drop the lawsuits when Fields agreed to buy Trump Marina in Atlantic City, New Jersey, for $316 million,[67]but the deal was unsettled again in 2009 because Trump resigned his leadership of Trump Entertainment after Fields lowered his bid.[68]Fields never bought the company, which went into bankruptcy about the same time and was sold for $38 million.[69][70]Trump's lawsuit was dismissed after a hearing in 2010.[71]In 2004, the Trump Organization partnered with Bayrock Group on a $200 million hotel and condo project in Fort Lauderdale Beach, to be called Trump International Hotel & Tower. After proceeding for five years, real estate market devaluation stymied the project in 2009 and Trump dissolved his licensing deal, demanding that his name be removed from the building. Soon after this, the project defaulted on a $139 million loan in 2010.[72]Investors later sued the developers for fraud. Trump petitioned to have his name removed from the suit, saying he had only lent his name to the project. However his request was refused since he had participated in advertising for it.[73]The insolvent building project spawned over 10 lawsuits, some of which were still not settled in early 2016.[74]In 2006, the Town of Palm Beach began fining Trump $250 per day for ordinance violations related to his erection of an 80-foot-tall (24 m) flagpole flying a 15 by 25 feet (4.6 by 7.6 m) American flag on his property. Trump sued the town for $25 million, saying that they abridged his free speech, also disputing an ordinance that local businesses be "town-serving". The two parties settled as part of a court-ordered mediation, in which Trump was required to donate $100,000 to veterans' charities. At the same time, the town ordinance was modified allowing Trump to enroll out-of-town members in his Mar-a-Lago social club.[75]Trump International Hotel and Tower in ChicagoAfter the 2008 housing-market collapse, Deutsche Bank attempted to collect $40 million that Donald Trump personally guaranteed against their $640 million loan for Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. Rather than paying the debt, Trump sued Deutsche Bank for $3 billion for undermining the project and damage to his reputation.[76]Deutsche Bank then filed suit to obtain the $40 million. The two parties settled in 2010 with Deutsche Bank extending the loan term by five years.[77]In 2008, Trump filed a $100 million lawsuit for alleged fraud and civil rights violations[78]against the California city of Rancho Palos Verdes, over thwarted luxury home development and expansion plans upon part of a landslide-prone golf course in the area, which was purchased by Trump in 2002 for $27 million.[78]Trump had previously sued a local school district over land leased from them in the re-branded Trump National Golf Club, and had further angered some local residents by renaming a thoroughfare after himself.[78]The $100 million suit was ultimately withdrawn in 2012 with Trump and the city agreeing to modified geological surveys and permit extensions for some 20 proposed luxury homes (in addition to 36 homes previously approved).[79][80]Trump ultimately opted for a permanent conservation easement instead of expanded housing development on the course's driving range.[81]In 2009, Donald Trump sued a law firm he had used, Morrison Cohen, for $5 million for mentioning his name and providing links to related news articles on its website. This lawsuit followed a lawsuit by Trump alleging overcharging by the law firm, and a countersuit by Morrison Cohen seeking unpaid legal fees.[82]The suit was dismissed in a 15-page ruling by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten, who ruled that the links to news articles concerned "matters of public interest."[83]In 2009, Trump was sued by investors who had made deposits for condos in the canceled Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico.[84]The investors said that Trump misrepresented his role in the project, stating after its failure that he had been little more than a spokesperson for the entire venture, disavowing any financial responsibility for the debacle.[85]Investors were informed that their investments would not be returned due to the cancellation of construction.[84]In 2013, Trump settled the lawsuit with more than one hundred prospective condo owners for an undisclosed amount.[86]Lawsuits 2010–presentConstruction and property law matters[edit]In 2011, Donald Trump sued Scotland, alleging that it built the Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm after assuring him it would not be built. He had recently built a golf course there and planned to build an adjacent hotel. Trump lost his suit, with the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom unanimously ruling in favor of the Scottish government in 2015.[87][88]In 2013, 87-year-old Jacqueline Goldberg alleged that Trump cheated her in a condominium sale by bait-and-switch when she was purchasing properties at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.[89]In 2015, Trump initiated a $100 million lawsuit against Palm Beach County claiming that officials, in a "deliberate and malicious" act, pressured the FAA to direct air traffic to the Palm Beach International Airport over his Mar-a-Lago estate, because he said the airplanes damaged the building and disrupted its ambiance.[90]Trump had previously sued the county twice over airport noise; the first lawsuit, in 1995, ended with an agreement between Trump and the county; Trump's second lawsuit, in 2010, was dismissed.[90]Trump is suing the town of Ossining, New York, over the property tax valuation on his 147-acre (59 ha) Trump National Golf Club Westchester, located in Briarcliff Manor's portion of the town, which Trump purchased for around $8 million at a foreclosure sale in the 1990s and to which he claimed, at the club's opening, to have added $45 million in facility improvements.[91]Although Trump stated in his 2015 FEC filing that the property was worth at least $50 million, his lawsuit seeks a $1.4 million valuation on the property, which includes a 75,000-square-foot clubhouse, five overnight suites, and permission to build 71 condominium units,[91]in an effort to shave $424,176 from his annual local property tax obligations.(91A) Trump had to pay nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees in Doral painter’s lawsuit related to unpaid bills brought by a local paint store against the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, ordered the billionaire politician’s company to pay the Doral-based mom-and-pop shop nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees. All because, according to the lawsuit, Trump allegedly tried to stiff The Paint Spot on its last payment of $34,863 on a $200,000 contract for paint used in the renovation of the home of golf’s famed Blue Monster two years prior.[92]Trump filed the action after separately being sued by Briarcliff Manor for "intentional and illegal modifications" to a drainage system that caused more than $238,000 in damage to the village's library, public pool, and park facilities during a 2011 storm.[92]In October 2016, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that Trump, together with two principals of a connected developer, could be sued for various claims, including oppression, collusion and breach of fiduciary duties, in relation to his role in the marketing of units in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto, Canada.[93]A subsequent application for leave to appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada in March 2017.[94]Also in October 2016, JCF Capital ULC (a private firm that had bought the construction loan on the building) announced that it was seeking court approval under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to have the building sold in order to recoup its debt, which then totaled $301 million.[95]The court allowed for its auction[96]which took place in March 2017, but no bidders, apart from one stalking horse offer, took part.[97]Defamation mattersAlso in 2011, an appellate court upheld a New Jersey Superior Court judge's decision dismissing Trump's $5 billion defamation lawsuit against author Timothy L. O'Brien, who had reported in his book, TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald (2005), that Trump's true net worth was really between $150 and $250 million. Trump had reportedly told O'Brien he was worth billions and, in 2005, had publicly stated such.[98]Trump said that the author's alleged underestimation of his net worth was motivated by malice and had cost him business deals and damage to his reputation.[99]The appellate court, however, ruled against Trump, citing the consistency of O'Brien's three confidential sources.[100]In 2014, the former Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin ultimately settled a $5 million arbitration judgment against her, having been sued by Trump after alleging that the Miss USA 2012 pageant results were rigged. Monnin wrote on her Facebook page that another contestant told her during a rehearsal that she had seen a list of the top five finalists, and when those names were called in their precise order, Monnin realized the pageant election process was suspect, compelling Monnin to resign her Miss Pennsylvania title. The Trump Organization's lawyer said that Monnin's allegations had cost the pageant a lucrative British Petroleum sponsorship deal and threatened to discourage women from entering Miss USA contests in the future.[101]According to Monnin, testimony from the Miss Universe Organization and Ernst & Young revealed that the top 15 finalists were selected by pageant directors regardless of preliminary judges' scores.[102]As part of the settlement, Monnin was not required to retract her original statements.[101]On January 17, 2017, Summer Zervos, represented by attorney Gloria Allred, filed a defamation suit against President-Elect Donald Trump for claiming that she had lied in her public sexual assault allegations against him.[103]Financial mattersIn July 2011, New York firm ALM Unlimited filed a lawsuit against Trump, who ended payments to the company in 2008 after nearly three years. ALM was hired in 2003 to seek offers from clothing companies for a Trump fashion line, and had arranged a meeting between Trump and PVH, which licensed the Trump name for dress shirts and neckwear. ALM, which had received over $300,000, alleged in the lawsuit that Trump's discontinuation of payments was against their initial agreement. In pre-trial depositions, Trump and two of his business officials – attorney George H. Ross and executive vice president of global licensing Cathy Glosser – gave contradictory statements regarding whether ALM was entitled to payments. Trump, who felt that ALM had only a limited role in the deal between him and PVH, said "I have thousands of checks that I sign a week, and I don't look at very many of the checks; and eventually I did look, and when I saw them (ALM) I stopped paying them because I knew it was a mistake or somebody made a mistake."[104]In January 2013, a judge ordered that the case go to trial, after Trump and ALM failed to settle the lawsuit.[105]During the trial in April 2013, Trump said that ALM's role in the PVH agreement was insubstantial, stating that Regis Philbin was the one who recommended PVH to him. Trump's attorney, Alan Garten, said ALM was not legally entitled to any money.[105][106][107]The judge ruled in favor of Trump later that month because a valid contract between him and ALM was never created.[107]Trump University litigationMain article: Trump University § Allegations of impropriety and lawsuitsIn 2013, in a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Trump was accused of defrauding more than 5,000 people of $40 million for the opportunity to learn Trump's real estate investment techniques in a for-profit training program, Trump University, which operated from 2005 to 2011.[108][109][110]Trump ultimately stopped using the term "University" following a 2010 order from New York regulators, who called Trump's use of the word "misleading and even illegal"; the state had previously warned Trump in 2005 to drop the term or not offer seminars in New York.[111][112][113]Although Trump has claimed a 98% approval rating on course evaluations, former students recounted high-pressure tactics from instructors seeking the highest possible ratings, including threats of withholding graduation certificates,[114]and more than 2,000 students had sought and received course refunds before the end of their paid seminars.[114]In a separate class action civil suit against Trump University in mid-February 2014, a San Diego federal judge allowed claimants in California, Florida, and New York to proceed;[115]a Trump counterclaim, alleging that the state Attorney General's investigation was accompanied by a campaign donation shakedown, was investigated by a New York ethics board and dismissed in August 2015.[116]Trump filed a $1 million defamation suit against former Trump University student Tarla Makaeff, who had spent about $37,000 on seminars, after she joined the class action lawsuit and publicized her classroom experiences on social media.[85]Trump University was later ordered by a U.S. District Judge in April 2015 to pay Makaeff and her lawyers $798,774.24 in legal fees and costs.[85][117]Breach of contract matters2013]In 2013 Trump sued comedian Bill Maher for $5 million for breach of contract.[118]Maher had appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and had offered to pay $5 million to a charity if Trump produced his birth certificate to prove that Trump's mother had not mated with an orangutan. This was said by Maher in response to Trump having previously challenged Obama to produce his birth certificate, and offering $5 million payable to a charity of Obama's choice, if Obama produced his college applications, transcripts, and passport records.[119][120]Trump produced his birth certificate and filed a lawsuit after Maher was not forthcoming, claiming that Maher's $5 million offer was legally binding. "I don't think he was joking," Trump said. "He said it with venom."[119]Trump withdrew his lawsuit against the comedian after eight weeks.[121]2014[edit]In 2014, model Alexia Palmer filed a civil suit against Trump Model Management for promising a $75,000 annual salary but paying only $3,380.75 for three years' work. Palmer, who came to the US at age 17 from Jamaica under the H-1B visa program in 2011,[122]claimed to be owed more than $200,000. Palmer contended that Trump Model Management charged, in addition to a management fee, "obscure expenses" from postage to limousine rides that consumed the remainder of her compensation. Palmer alleged that Trump Model Management promised to withhold only 20% of her net pay as agency expenses, but after charging her for those "obscure expenses", ended up taking 80%.[123]Trump attorney Alan Garten claimed the lawsuit is "bogus and completely frivolous".[124][125]Palmer filed a class-action lawsuit against the modeling agency with similar allegations.[126]The case was dismissed from U.S. federal court in March 2016, in part because Palmer's immigration status, via H1-B visa sponsored by Trump, required labor complaints to be filed through a separate process.[123][127]2015[edit]In 2015, Trump sued Univision, demanding $500 million for breach of contract and defamation when they dropped their planned broadcast of the Miss USA pageant. The network said that the decision was made because of Trump's "insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants".[128]Trump settled the lawsuit with Univision CEO Randy Falco out of court.[129]In July 2015, Trump filed a $10 million lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court for breach of contract against Spanish celebrity chef José Andrés, claiming that he backed out of a deal to open the flagship restaurant at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.[130][131]Andrés replied that Trump's lawsuit was "both unsurprising and without merit"[132]and filed an $8 million counterclaim against a Trump Organization subsidiary.[131][133]Also in July 2015, Chef Geoffrey Zakarian also withdrew from the Washington, D.C., project with Andrés in the wake of Trump's comments on Mexican illegal immigrants, and is expected to lose his own $500,000 restaurant lease deposit as a result.[132]Trump denounced and then sued Zakarian in August 2015 for a sum "in excess of $10 million" for lost rent and other damages.[134]Trump's lawsuit called Zakarian's offense at his remarks "curious in light of the fact that Mr. Trump's publicly shared views on immigration have remained consistent for many years, and Mr. Trump's willingness to frankly share his opinions is widely known".[134][135]Disputes with both chefs were eventually settled in April 2017.[136]In 2015, restaurant workers at Trump SoHo filed a lawsuit that from 2009 to at least the time of the filing, gratuities added to customers' checks were illegally withheld from employees. The Trump Organization has responded that the dispute is between the employees and their employer, a third-party contractor. Donald Trump has been scheduled to testify in court on September 1, 2016.[137][138]2018[edit]In 2018, Noel Cintron, the personal driver for Donald Trump before he became the President of the United States, filed a lawsuit Cintron v Trump Organization LLC with the Supreme Court of the State of New York (Manhattan). The lawsuit claims that during his 25-year employment by Trump, he was not compensated for overtime and the second time his salary was raised he was induced to surrender his health insurance, an action which saved Trump approximately $17,866 per year.[139]The lawsuit seeks $178,200 of overtime back pay, plus $5,000 in penalties that are seen under the New York State Labor Law.[140]Assault claims[edit]In September 2015, five men who had demonstrated outside of a Trump presidential campaign event at Trump Tower in New York City sued Donald Trump, alleging that Trump's security staff punched one of them. They also allege that Trump's security guards had been advised by city police that they were permitted to protest there. Several people videotaped the incident.[141][142]In June 2015, the Culinary Workers Union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging that the owners of Trump Hotel Las Vegas "violated the federally protected rights of workers to participate in union activities" and engaged in "incidents of alleged physical assault, verbal abuse, intimidation, and threats by management".[143]In October 2015, the Trump Ruffin Commercial and Trump Ruffin Tower I, the owners of Trump Hotel Las Vegas, sued the Culinary Workers Union and another union, alleging that they had knowingly distributed flyers that falsely stated that Donald Trump had stayed at a rival unionized hotel, rather than his own non-unionized hotel, during a trip to Las Vegas.[5][143]Poll watching controversy[edit]On October 31, 2016, a New Jersey federal judge, John Michael Vazquez, ordered the Republican National Committee (RNC) to hand over all communications with the Trump campaign related to poll watching and voter fraud. He asked for testimony and documents relating to Kellyanne Conway, RNC officials Ronna Romney McDaniel of Michigan, and Rob Gleason from Pennsylvania.[144]It is claimed Gleason, McDaniel, and Roger Stone recruited poll watchers to check for voter fraud. The state Democratic parties of Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Ohio filed lawsuits against Trump for encouraging illegal voter intimidation. The states' Democratic parties are also suing their respective Republican party counterparts, along with Roger Stone, who is allegedly recruiting poll watchers and organizing ballot security efforts in a number of states. Stone runs the group "Stop the Steal." It claims Trump supporters yelled at voters outside Las Vegas area polling places when they said they weren't voting for the Republican nominee, and that Stone is asking supporters to conduct an illegitimate "exit polling" initiative aimed at intimidating voters of color.Pat McDonald, the director of Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Ohio, reported that "Trump supporters have already visited the county elections board identifying themselves as poll observers, even though they did not appear to be credentialed as poll observers as required under Ohio law." Election officials have expressed concern about "instability on Election Day," one lawsuit claims, and discussed the possibility of bringing police to polling sites to address conflicts. In Clark County of Nevada, a lawsuit claims: "A Trump supporter harassed and intimidated multiple voters outside of the Albertson's supermarket early voting location on Lake Mead Boulevard, repeatedly asking voters for whom they were voting, and then yelling at them belligerently and attempting to keep them from entering the voting location when they stated they were not voting for Donald Trump." When poll staffers told the Trump supporters to stop harassing voters, "the Trump supporter told poll workers that he had 'a right to say anything he wanted to the voters.'" Poll staffers called police, and the Trump supporter left. The lawsuit also claims similar incidents took place in neighboring Nye County as well. In Pennsylvania, Murrysville City Councilman Josh Lorenz supposedly posted instructions for the way Clinton supporters could vote online, even though there is no online voting in Pennsylvania. Eight registered electors, mostly from the Philadelphia area, challenged the portion of the state Election Code that prevents poll watchers from observing elections outside of the counties where they live.[145][146][147]In Pompano Beach, Florida, police asked two poll watchers to leave a polling site. Two precinct clerks were also fired for not adhering to policy and training. No arrests were made. No other incidents were reported in South Florida.[148][149]Nevada early voting Latino turnout controversy[edit]On November 8, 2016, Trump filed a lawsuit claiming early voting polling places in Clark County, Nevada, were kept open too late. These precincts had high turnout of Latino voters. Nevada state law explicitly states that polls are to stay open to accommodate eligible voters in line at closing time. Hillary Clinton campaign advisor Neera Tanden says the Trump campaign is trying to suppress Latino voter turnout. A political analyst from Nevada, Jon Ralston tweeted that the Trump lawsuit is "insane" in a state that clearly allows the polls to remains open until everyone in line has voted. Former Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, posted the statute that states "voting must continue until those voters have voted". Miller said: "If there are people in line waiting to vote at 7 pm, voting must continue until everyone votes.... We still live in America, right?"[150]A Nevada judge denied Trump's request to separate early voting ballots. Judge Gloria Sturman, of the District Court for Clark County Nevada, ruled that County Registrar of Voters Joe P. Gloria was already obligated by state law to maintain the records that the Trump campaign is seeking. Sturman said: "That is offensive to me because it seems to go against the very principle that a vote is secret."[151][152]Diana Orrock, the Republican National Committeewoman for Nevada and a vocal Trump ally, said she was unaware of the lawsuit before Politico contacted her. "I know that the [Clark County] registrar was on TV this morning saying that anybody who's in line was allowed to participate in the voting process until all of them came through," she said. "If that's what they did, I don't have a problem with that ... I don't know that filing a suit's going to accomplish anything." Orrock doubts the lawsuit will have any impact.[153]Lawsuit for inciting violence at March 2016 campaign rally[edit]During a campaign rally on March 1, 2016 in Louisville, Kentucky, Trump repeatedly said "get 'em out of here" while pointing at anti-Trump protesters as they were forcibly escorted out by his supporters. Three protesters say they were repeatedly shoved and punched while Trump pointed at them from the podium, citing widely shared video evidence of the events. They also cited previous statements by Trump about paying the legal bills of supporters who got violent, or suggesting a demonstrator deserved to be "roughed up."[154][155][156][157]The lawsuit accuses Donald Trump of inciting violence against protesters in Louisville, Kentucky. The plaintiffs are Kashiya Nwanguma (21), Molly Shah (36) and Henry Brousseau (17). The suit is against Trump, his campaign, and three Trump supporters (Matthew Heimbach, Alvin Bamberger and an unnamed defendant). One defendant, Bamburger, who was wearing a Veteran's uniform in the video, apologized to the Korean War Veterans Association immediately after the event, writing that he "physically pushed a young woman down the aisle toward the exit" after "Trump kept saying 'get them out, get them out."[154]Trump's attorneys requested to get the case dismissed, arguing he was protected by free speech laws, and wasn't trying to get his supporters to resort to violence.[156][158]They also stated that Trump had no duty to the protesters, and they had assumed the personal risk of injury by deciding to protest at the rally.[154]On Friday, April 1, 2017, Judge David J. Hale in Louisville ruled against the dismissal of a lawsuit, stating there was ample evidence to support that the injuries of the protesters were a "direct and proximate result" of Trump's words and actions. Hale wrote, "It is plausible that Trump's direction to 'get 'em out of here' advocated the use of force," and, "It was an order, an instruction, a command." Hale wrote that the Supreme Court has ruled out some protections for free speech when used to incite violence.[159]Defendant Heimbach requested to dismiss the discussion in the lawsuit about his association with a white nationalist group, and also requested to dismiss discussion of statements he made about how a President Trump would advance the interests of the group. The request was declined, with the judge saying the information could be important for determining punitive damages because they add context.[154]Hale also declined to remove the allegation that Plaintiff Nwanguma, who is African-American, was victim to ethnic, racial and sexist slurs at the rally from the crowd. The judge stated that this context may support claims by the plaintiffs' of incitement and negligence by Trump and the Trump campaign. The judge wrote, "While the words themselves are repulsive, they are relevant to show the atmosphere in which the alleged events occurred."[154]The judge stated that all people have a duty to use care to prevent foreseeable injury. "In sum, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have adequately alleged that their harm was foreseeable and that the Trump Defendants had a duty to prevent it." The case was referred a federal magistrate, Judge H. Brent Brennenstuhl, who will handle preliminary litigation, discovery and settlement efforts.[160]Heimbach filed a separate counterclaim in April 2017, arguing that Trump was "responsible for any injuries" he [Heimbach] "might have inflicted because Mr. Trump directed him and others to take action". Heimbach, "a self-employed landscaper", and a member of the Traditionalist Youth Network, "which advocates separate American 'ethno states', "spends much of his time" online writing "against Jews, gays and immigrants and urging whites to stand up for their race." He wrote his own lawsuit which requested that Trump pay Heimbach's "legal fees, citing a promise Mr. Trump made at an earlier rally to pay legal costs of anyone who removed protesters."[161]Heimbach's "counterclaim" against Trump has "probed the limits of free speech and public protest while confronting the courts with a unique legal argument".[161]On May 5, Trump's lawyers submitted legal filings that argue that Heimbach's "indemnity claim should be dismissed on the same grounds". According to a University of Virginia law professor, Leslie Kendrick, this indemnity or "impleader" case is "highly unusual."[161]New York University's Samuel Issacharoff, a professor of constitutional law, argued that care must be taken to not allow speech, in the "context of a political rally" to be "turned into something that is legally sanctionable."[161]Payments related to alleged affairs[edit]See also: Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal and Karen McDougal § Alleged affair with Donald TrumpAdult film actress Stormy Daniels has alleged that she and Trump had an extramarital affair in 2006, months after the birth of his youngest child.[162]Just before the 2016 presidential election Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 by Trump's attorney Michael Cohen as part of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), through an LLC set up by Cohen; he says he used his own money for the payment.[163]In February 2018, Daniels filed suit against the LLC asking to be released from the agreement so that she can tell her story. Cohen filed a private arbitration proceeding and obtained a restraining order to keep her from discussing the case.[164]According to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump has denied the allegations.[165]On March 6, 2018, Daniels sued Trump in California Superior Court, claiming among other things that the NDA never came into effect because Trump did not sign it personally.[166]On March 16 Cohen, with Trump's approval, asked for Daniels' suit to be moved from state to federal court, based on the criteria that the parties live in different places and the amount at stake is more than $75,000; Cohen asserted that Daniels could owe $20 million in liquidated damages for breaching the agreement.[167]The filing marked the first time that Trump himself, through his personal attorney, had taken part in the Daniels litigation.[168]In early April 2018, Trump said that he did not know about Cohen paying Daniels, why Cohen had made the payment or where Cohen got the money from.[169]On April 30, Daniels further sued Trump for defamation.[170]In May 2018, Trump's annual financial disclosure revealed that he reimbursed Cohen in 2017 for expenditures related to the Daniels case.[171]In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, admitting paying hush money of $130,000 and $150,000 "at the direction of a candidate for federal office", to two women who alleged affairs with that candidate, "with the purpose of influencing the election". The figures match sums of payments made to Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.[172][173]American Media, Inc. had reportedly in 2016 bought for $150,000 the rights to a story by McDougal alleging an affair with a married Trump from 2006 which lasted between nine months to a year.[174][175][176]David Pecker (AMI CEO/Chairman and friend of Trump), Dylan Howard (AMI chief content officer) and Allen Weisselberg (chief financial officer of The Trump Organization) were reportedly granted witness immunity in exchange for their testimony regarding the illegal payments.[177][178]In response, Trump said that he only knew about the payments "later on"; Trump also said regarding the payments: "They didn't come out of the campaign, they came from me."[179]The Wall Street Journal reported on November 9, 2018 that federal prosecutors have evidence of Trump’s "central role" in payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal that violated campaign-finance laws.[180][181]Special Counsel investigation[edit]Main article: Special Counsel investigation (2017–present)The Special Counsel investigation is a United States law enforcement investigation of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and any Russian (or other foreign) interference in the election, including exploring any possible links or coordination between Trump's campaign and the Russian government, "and any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."[182]Since May 2017, the investigation has been led by a United States Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, a former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI). Mueller's investigation took over several FBI investigations including those involving former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.It has been noted that Trump has experienced a high turnover with respect to the attorneys handling this matter, as well as a large number of prominent lawyers and law firms publicly declining offers to join Trump's legal team.[183][184]Attorneys known to have been approached include Robert S. Bennett of Hogan Lovells,[185]Paul Clement and Mark Filip, both with Kirkland & Ellis,[186][186]Robert Giuffra Jr. of Sullivan & Cromwell,[185]Theodore B. Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher,[187]and Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. of Williams & Connolly.[186]Other firms with attorneys who have decided not to represent Trump include Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan,[188]Steptoe & Johnson,[188]and Winston & Strawn.[citation needed]Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing were briefly slated to join Trump's legal team, but withdrew their services from Trump in March 2018, citing conflicts of interest.[189]In an article describing the "unique circumstance" of Rudy Giuliani's unpaid leave of absence from Greenberg Traurig while representing Trump, possibly because of "potential conflicts", Christine Simmons said some other law firms may have turned down representing Trump in the Russia case due to "public relations headaches or business and recruitment concerns".[190]Trump has called such views a "Fake News narrative".[191][192]In a National Law Journal article, Ryan Lovelace described how white-collar lawyers must weigh the "risks" and "stigma" of joining the Trump team. He quoted a prominent defense attorney's concerns about "the constant shuffle of attorneys in and out of the president's legal team", and the possibility that an attorney could invest resources and reputation in such representation "only to find yourself on the sidelines a short time later because the president saw someone he liked better on Fox News".[192]The quoted attorney also noted "a stigma to being linked to this president" that might impact business with other clients.[192]A list of other reasons for not wanting to represent Trump is provided by Jill Abramson for The Guardian:The problem for the white-collar defense bar's crème de la crème is that Donald Trump is so blatantly the client from hell. He won't listen. He won't obey instructions. He is headstrong. He is a bully. Sometimes, he doesn't pay his bills. Most of all, it's possible that he isn't capable of discerning fact from fiction. This last foible could get any lawyer who represents him into very deep legal hot water. No one wants to get disbarred for the fame and fortune of representing President Trump. Then there's the justifiable concern over all the unforced legal errors that the defense side, led by Trump himself, has already committed.[193]An Above the Law article states that some law firms have refused to represent the President of the United States because "Donald Trump has somehow turned POTUS into a dog of a client self-respecting lawyers do not want to touch", expressing concern that "[i]f all the good attorneys — the ones with reputations to preserve and ethics to uphold — refuse to represent the president, what's left are the 'bad' attorneys. The ones who don't have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is".[194]Allegations of business links to organized crime[edit]Journalists David Cay Johnston and Wayne Barrett, the latter of whom wrote an unauthorized 1992 Trump biography, have claimed that Trump and his companies did business with New York and Philadelphia families linked to the Italian-American Mafia.[195][196]A reporter for The Washington Post writes, "he was never accused of illegality, and observers of the time say that working with the mob-related figures and politicos came with the territory."[197]Trump helped a financier for the Scarfo family get a casino license, and constructed a casino using firms controlled by Nicodemo Scarfo.[198]Trump also bought real estate from Philadelphia crime family member Salvatore Testa, and bought concrete from companies associated with the Genovese crime family and the Gambino crime family.[195][196][197]Trump Plaza paid a $450,000 fine leveled by the Casino Gaming Commission for giving $1.6 million in rare automobiles to Robert LiButti, the acquaintance of John Gotti already mentioned.[29]Starting in 2003, the Trump Organization worked with Felix Sater, who had a 1998 racketeering conviction for a $40 million Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme, and who had then become an informant against the mafia.[199]Trump's attorney has said that Sater worked with Trump scouting real estate opportunities, but was never formally employed.[200]Use of bankruptcy laws[edit]Trump has never filed for personal bankruptcy, but hotel and casino businesses of his have been declared bankrupt four times between 1991 and 2009 to re-negotiate debt with banks and owners of stock and bonds.[201][202]Because the businesses used Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they were allowed to operate while negotiations proceeded. Trump was quoted by Newsweek in 2011 saying, "I do play with the bankruptcy laws – they're very good for me" as a tool for trimming debt.[82][203]According to a report by Forbes in 2011, the four bankruptcies were the result of over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City: Trump's Taj Mahal (1991), Trump Plaza Hotel (1992), Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts (2004), and Trump Entertainment Resorts (2009).[204][205]Trump said "I've used the laws of this country to pare debt.... We'll have the company. We'll throw it into a chapter. We'll negotiate with the banks. We'll make a fantastic deal. You know, it's like on The Apprentice. It's not personal. It's just business."[206]He indicated that many "great entrepreneurs" do the same.[204]1991[edit]In 1991, Trump Taj Mahal was unable to service its debt and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[206]Forbes indicated that this first bankruptcy was the only one where Trump's personal financial resources were involved. Time, however, maintains that $72 million of his personal money was also involved in a later 2004 bankruptcy.[207]1992[edit]On November 2, 1992, the Trump Plaza Hotel filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Trump lost his 49 percent stake in the luxury hotel to Citibank and five other lenders.[208]In return Trump received more favorable terms on the remaining $550+ million owed to the lenders, and retain his position as chief executive, though he would not be paid and would not have a role in day-to-day operations.[209]1994[edit]Trump Plaza Hotel and Casinoclosed in 2014By 1994, Trump had eliminated a large portion of his $900 million personal debt through sales of his Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Plazaassets,[210]and significantly reduced his nearly $3.5 billion in business debt. Although he lost the Trump Princess yacht and the Trump Shuttle (which he had bought in 1989), he did retain Trump Tower in New York City and control of three casinos in Atlantic City, including Trump's Castle. Trump sold his ownership of West Side Yards (now Riverside South, Manhattan) to Chinese developers including Hong Kong's New World Development, receiving a premium price in exchange for the use and display of the name "Trump" on the buildings.[211]2004[edit]Donald Trump's third corporate bankruptcy was on October 21, 2004, involving Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, the publicly-traded holding company for his three Atlantic City casinos and some others.[212]Trump lost over half of his 56% ownership and gave bondholders stock in exchange for surrendering part of the debt. No longer CEO, Trump retained a role as chairman of the board. In May 2005[213]the company emerged from bankruptcy as Trump Entertainment Resorts Holdings.[214]In his 2007 book, Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life, Trump wrote: "I figured it was the bank's problem, not mine. What the hell did I care? I actually told one bank, 'I told you you shouldn't have loaned me that money. I told you the goddamn deal was no good.'"[215]2009[edit]Trump's fourth corporate bankruptcy occurred in 2009, when Trump and his daughter Ivanka resigned from the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts; four days later the company, which owed investors $1.74 billion against its $2.06 billion of assets, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At that time, Trump Entertainment Resorts had three properties in Atlantic City: Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino (closed in 2014), and Trump Marina (formerly Trump's Castle, sold in 2011). Trump and some investors bought the company back that same year for $225 million. As part of the agreement, Trump withdrew a $100 million lawsuit he had filed against the casino's owners alleging damage to the Trump brand. Trump re-negotiated the debt, reducing by over $1 billion the repayments required to bondholders.[216][217]In 2014, Trump sued his former company to remove his name from the buildings since he no longer ran the company, having no more than a 10% stake; he lost the suit.[218]Trump Entertainment Resorts filed again for bankruptcy in 2014[219]and was purchased by billionaire philanthropist Carl Icahn in 2016, who acquired Trump Taj Mahal in the deal.[220]Campaign contributions[edit]According to a New York state report, Trump circumvented corporate and personal campaign donation limits in the 1980s – although he did not break any laws – by donating money to candidates from 18 different business subsidiaries, rather than giving primarily in his own name.[197][221]Trump told investigators he did so on the advice of his lawyers. He also said the contributions were not to curry favor with business-friendly candidates, but simply to satisfy requests from friends.[197][222]Donald J. Trump Foundation[edit]During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, media began reporting in detail on how the Donald J. Trump Foundation was funded and how Donald Trump used its funds. The Washington Post in particular reported several cases of possible mis-use, self-dealing and possible tax evasion.[18] [19] [20]Regarding the various irregularities in the Trump Foundation, former head of the Internal Revenue Service's Office of Exempt Organizations Division Marc Owens told The Washington Post: "This is so bizarre, this laundry list of issues.... It's the first time I've ever seen this, and I've been doing this for 25 years in the IRS, and 40 years total.[21]When interviewed for the Post's article, Trump spokesperson Boris Epshtein said that Trump did not knowingly violate any tax laws.[18]The office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman investigated the foundation "to make sure it's complying with the laws governing charities in New York."[22]Controversy over tax returns[edit]In October 2016, The New York Times published some tax documents from 1995. These documents indicate that Trump might have evaded paying taxes on as much as 916 million dollars in income at one time. Trump likely gave some of his creditors shares of his failing businesses to avoid taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars he was given in debt relief, which is illegal. Legal scholar Edward Kleinbard of the University of Southern California believes Trump forged tax documents. Trump claimed on his tax returns that he lost money, but did not recognize it in the form of canceled debts. He likely avoided paying 425 million dollars in taxes, says Steven M. Rosenthal, an attorney at the Tax Policy Center. Rosenthal claims he "borrowed other people's money and spent it in spectacular fashion." Trump might have performed a stock-for-debt swap. This would have allowed Trump to avoid paying income taxes for at least 18 years. An audit of Trump's tax returns for 2002 through 2008 was "closed administratively by agreement with the I.R.S. without assessment or payment, on a net basis, of any deficiency." Tax attorneys believe the government may have reduced what Trump was able to claim as a loss without requiring him to pay any additional taxes.[223][224]It is unknown whether the I.R.S. challenged Trump's use of the swaps because he has not released his tax returns. Trump's lawyers advised against Trump using the equity for debt swap, as they believed it to be potentially illegal.[225]Marc Kasowitz, name partner of the Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman firm, wrote a letter threatening The New York Times over publication of the 1995 documents. Kasowitz's action drew attention to the fact that the biglaw firm had done extensive legal work for Donald Trump and his businesses since at least 2001 including also bankrupt casino restructuring.[226]In early 2017, firm member and former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman introduced Pres.-elect Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee.[227]Destruction of documents[edit]In June 2016, a USA Today article reported that Donald Trump and his companies have been deleting emails and other documents on a large scale,[228]including evidence in lawsuits, sometimes in defiance of court orders and under subpoena since as early as 1973.[229][230][231]In October 2016, Kurt Eichenwald published new research findings in Newsweek. The findings were first published by Paul Singer[232]on June 13, 2016[233]and gained larger attention[234][235]after a new report in Newsweek on October 31, 2016. According to Newsweek, Trump and his companies "hid or destroyed thousands of documents" involving several court cases from as early as 1973."Over the course of decades, Donald Trump's companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders.... In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records."— Kurt Eichenwald, Donald Trump's Companies Destroyed Emails in Defiance of Court Orders Newsweek, October 31, 2016In 1973 Trump, his father and their company were in court for civil charges for refusing to rent apartments to African Americans. After their lawyers had delayed court requests for documents for several months, Trump, then being under subpoena, said his company had destroyed corporate records of the past six months "for saving space". In a court case beginning in 2005 against Power Plant Entertainment, LLC, an affiliate of real estate developer Cordish Cos., it was revealed that Trump's companies had deleted the data requested by court.[236]Cordish Cos. had built two American Indian[237]casinos in Florida under the Hard Rock brand and Donald Trump accused them of cheating him out of that deal. Nonetheless, Trump's lawyers had refused to instruct workers to keep all records related to the case during litigation.[229]Trump had established a procedure to delete all data from their employees' computers every year at least since 2003,[234]despite knowing at least since 2001 that he might want to file a lawsuit. Even after the lawsuit was filed, Trump Hotelsdisposed of a computer of a key witness without having made a backup of the data. A former general counsel of the Trump casino unit confirmed that all data were deleted from nearly all companies' computers annually. Trump and his lawyers claimed they were not keeping records and digital data although it was revealed that Trump had launched his own high-speed internet provider in 1998 and an IBM Domino server had been installed for emails and digital files in 1999.[229][235]

Here's how officers will typically respond to and investigate given call types, and what you need to know about them:Assault CasesCommon Assault. This is what you likely think of when you hear the word ‘assault’ – offensive action taken by one person against another. In most cases this will be a misdemeanor unless there are aggravating circumstances (weapon used, serious injury, etc.). What you may not realize is that this goes beyond hitting and kicking; depending on the ordinance language in your jurisdiction, it may include things like being spit on or even being put in apprehension of imminent harm by something a person says. Common assaults can typically be cleared with a citation unless there is a threat of continued violence, in which the aggressor may be taken to jail (note that this is probably a book and release charge, however).Affray. This is essentially a physical fight in which each (or all) of the participants are more or less equally culpable. The most common way this played out was two guys getting into a fistfight, each getting some blows in, and a bystander (usually) calling 911. I would arrive and hear, “I want to press charges on him for assault!!” The other would then say, “No, I want to press charges on him for assault!!” I guess the assumption was that I would stand out there and have street court about who started it and who got the worst of it, but that’s not my job. Here’s my old affray speech:“Well, if you were both into it and you both want to press charges, you can both go to jail for affray tonight, and you’ll both get tickets for court dates which will each be set for mid-morning on a weekday. The judge will have discretion in how the cases are handled, but given that you each have opposing stories with no impartial third parties, you’ll both probably be found guilty, which will cost each of you I don’t know how much in fines and court costs. Or, you could both just get the hell away from each other and we can all call it a night. Ya’lls call.”As you might surmise, I never wrote an affray ticket. Both guys would usually say something along the lines of, “Forget it, you’re not worth it” while their girlfriend nursed their bruised ego and then walk away.Domestic Disturbance/AssaultThere’s no way I’m going to do this subject any justice in the space I’m working in; the Domestic Violence handbook I got during my police academy was literally a ream thick. Hopefully I can elaborate on some points that bred a bit of confusion about this area:Domestics are probably broader than you think. The classic paradigm is the beer-gutted husband in a stained undershirt smacking his perpetual victim of a wife around the house; while that definitely happens, many more relationships fall under the scope of “domestic violence.” In Missouri, the Adult Abuse Act covers spouses, former spouses, adults related by blood or marriage, adults who have co-habitated at any time (that means present and former roommates, no matter the gender), adults in a “continuing intimate relationship,” adults with a child in common, and adults involved in stalking cases.Having a verbal argument is not a crime. Just because you are having a verbal disagreement with someone, even a heated one, does not necessarily mean you need to involve law enforcement. Now, if the situation seems to be on the cusp of deteriorating into physical violence, then by all means you can involve law enforcement to defuse the situation – however, this should be a last resort and not a default knee-jerk reaction. I worked scads of “domestics” in which I fielded complaints like, “He had my keys and wouldn’t give them back,” or “My roommate wouldn’t turn the TV down while I was trying to sleep,” or any number of other petty disagreements that I would expect anyone over the age of seven to be able to adjudicate amongst themselves. Calls like that were a massive waste of time and resources.If your arguments in a relationship are turning physical, see your way out. Abusers don't typically have life-changing epiphanies about what they're doing and turn into caring, giving partners. You cannot “win them over” by attempting to love or respect them into a healthy relationship, and the level of abuse typically only gets worse as time goes on. The behavior of an abuser, despite their excuses, is not impulsive or a product of their “just losing it” or “getting their buttons pushed.” They may say that they “just lost control,” but they're controlling themselves very well – toward you. Are they hitting their friends or boss? No? Then what they're doing is systematic. Now, I know as well as anyone that the dynamics here are complicated, and extremely so if combined finances or children are in the mix. But I also know that upwards of three women are killed by their partners every day, just in the United States – and I guarantee the vast majority of those killings began with an act that the eventual victim wrote off as minor or a one-time mistake.If police are called to a conflict between two related parties, a report and/or arrest may be mandatory. In Missouri (where I worked), state statute required that all “domestic incidents” be “documented.” The command staff of my department at the time interpreted that to mean that a formal police needed to be filed for anything classified as a “domestic” in the reporting system. If this is the case in your jurisdiction, you cannot decline a report once officers respond to the scene. Also, if there is a sign that violence was involved, officers may be mandated by department policy or (more likely) state law to arrest the 'primary physical aggressor.' Officers have discretion in some enforcement, but they typically don't here.Isolating your partner could meet the elements for domestic assault. Some domestic statutes trigger if you prohibit them from meeting with other people, or deny them access to a phone or a vehicle. That means if you get into an argument with your partner and smash their cell phone in anger, you could potentially technically go to jail for domestic assault. The purpose of this is to prevent abusers from locking victims away from the assistance of friends, family and police.Aggravating factors can quickly change a domestic assault from a misdemeanor to a felony. For instance, choking was one of the elements of felony domestic assault. Many prosecutors are very keen on this, and will charge for Second Degree Domestic Assault at the slightest whisper of a hint that an attempt to choke or throttle was made. Also, any use of a weapon during the altercation will likely bring felony charges into the mix.Demonstrated domestic assault is typically a mandatory arrest. If there was a physical altercation, someone is, with very few exceptions, going to jail. Officers are trained to arrest the “primary” or “most significant” physical aggressor. Not the one who supposedly started it or most “deserved” it, but the one who inflicted the most significant harm upon the other. In Missouri, a domestic assault arrest results in a mandatory five hour hold; you cannot bail or bond out of this hold. In the case of felony assault, holds are typically 24 hours or until conference with a judge, depending on the circumstances.Sexual AssaultLike other areas, sexual assault is probably broader than you think. One’s mind typically jumps to situations involving forcible rape, which isn’t incorrect, but sexual assault encompasses much more than that. A good rule of thumb is that intentionally initiating unwanted contact with an area typically covered by someone’s underwear could be considered sexual assault or sexual misconduct. That means tweaking that woman’s butt on her way out of the elevator or forcing someone into a situation in which she’s forced to graze you with her breasts could be a sexual offense.Being married is not an affirmative defense to rape or sexual assault. There is no longer a spousal exception in cases of rape; husbands and wives have the same right of refusal to sexual contact as anybody else. (Shockingly to me, this actually wasn’t the case in Missouri until 1990, and the last state to remove the spousal exception did so in 1993.)Either party in a sexual encounter can retract consent at any time. It doesn’t matter where you are in the process – if your partner withdraws consent at any time, you cannot legally continue. Withdrawal of consent needn’t be explicitly verbal, either – if your partner is struggling against you, you can bet that a court is going to consider that a clear refusal (unless, of course, it’s part of a roleplaying scenario you’ve each agreed upon in advance). Also, you’re treading on thin ice if your partner is saying something like, “I don’t know if we should be doing this,” or, “Maybe we should stop.” There is no objective threshold for how resolute or unequivocal a refusal has to be, and your continuing after something like this has been said puts you in a decidedly gray legal area should accusations arise later.A person who is not lucid and alert cannot consent to sex. It doesn’t matter if that person consented to sex before losing consciousness, passing out, or becoming highly intoxicated – they can no longer consent after that point, and sexual contact should not be initiated or continued.A man can, in fact, be raped by a woman. The male physiological response cannot alone be construed as consent. Courts recognize the fact that a man can have an erection without being sexually aroused.If you’re the parent of a teen, ensure they’re cognizant of laws regarding sexual activity. Age of consent and other related laws vary (sometimes wildly) by state, and some states don’t even allow defenses as to honest mistakes regarding a victim’s age. In Florida, it’s apparently legal for a seventeen year old to have vaginal sex with a twelve year old; in Georgia, on the other hand, a seventeen year old got sentenced to ten years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a fifteen year old. On a related note, while many teens seem to think oral sex isn’t really even sex at all, legal systems often view it more harshly than vaginal sex; oral and anal sex are often referred to in legal statutes as “deviant sexual intercourse,” and penalties can be harsher as a result.Finally, standing pornography statutes seldom take current technology into account, which means if your teenager gets a sexually suggestive text from a boyfriend or girlfriend, they could suddenly be in possession of child pornography depending on the circumstances. Don’t assume they know better or think that discussing this topic is tantamount to sanctioning such behavior – it’d be a shame for someone with great potential to enter adulthood on a sex offender registry or in prison just because the dangers weren’t addressed.Noise Complaints and Party CallsIf officers are called to a noise or party call but nobody answers the door at the target address, there really isn’t a whole lot that can be done. Officers cannot enter a residence without a warrant or exigent circumstances, and this doesn’t count.Noise ordinances usually trigger any time noise can be heard past your property line – and remember, if you live in an apartment, your apartment walls constitute your property line.Officers will not tell you who called if you’re the target of a complaint – don’t even bother asking.If you’re making a noise complaint against someone, you’ll likely be asked if you want to “sign a summons.” What dispatch or the officer wants to know is whether you’re willing to file a criminal complaint against the person producing the noise, in which case you’ll need to be willing to appear in court and testify as a witness for the prosecution. If you’re not willing to appear as a witness, do not sign the summons. When you do so, you’re agreeing to press charges, the officer has to issue the citation you signed and then write a report, the citation must be transferred to the prosecutor’s office which then issues subpoenas for court appearances, and the case gets put on a judge’s docket. Please don’t make a string of people process all of this paperwork if you were never going to show anyway. Officers can still attempt contact and make this request of the person in question absent a citation being issued.Municipalities may or may not have “noise ordinance hours” – where I worked, these hours were between 2300 hours and 0700 hours. During that time, if I as an officer observed loud noise coming from a residence, I could unilaterally issue a citation on behalf of the city (not myself – legally speaking, police officers’ peace cannot be disturbed).Some cities have ordinances limiting the distance from which a car’s stereo can legally be heard. Contrary to a clever retort I once heard through a car window, enforcement of this is not “a violation of freedom of expression.”Motor Vehicle AccidentsIf you’re involved in a motor vehicle accident, please try to move to a safe location off of the roadway, unless a vehicle is immobilized, someone is injured, or you are otherwise unable to safely do so. Officers will still be able to put the facts together based on vehicle damage, driver accounts and witness accounts – moving vehicles isn’t “destroying evidence” and won’t affect the report.You typically aren’t legally obligated to make a police report if you have a minor accident (less than a few hundred dollars of total damage, nobody injured, both vehicles mobile) – if none of the involved parties wish to do so, everyone can write it off and leave without involving police. However, it usually behooves someone involved to do so with regard to civil liability.If there is no discernible damage to any vehicle involved in an incident, it is not a motor vehicle accident. That means a bumper tap with no structural or paint damage cannot be reported as such. It also means that if someone bumps your vehicle as they’re leaving a parking lot and leave without having caused any damage, it is not “leaving the scene of an accident,” because legally there was no accident. You can file an informational report at some point if you absolutely insist on documentation here for some reason, but an officer cannot fill out a standardized accident form because it does not meet the elements of a motor vehicle accident.Officers on scene do not determine who is “at fault” in an MVA. This is a hallmark of civil liability as it relates to insurance coverage, and is not a criminal designation. The insurance companies involved make that determination, and can even assign “percentages of fault” to the involved drivers based on the facts at hand. The officer’s job is to dispassionately report on his or her observations at the scene. One or more drivers may be issued citations in response to the accident; this simply means that the officer has probable cause to believe the driver(s) committed a traffic violation prior to the accident, and does not automatically infer that the cited drivers are at fault.The responding officer will want driver’s licenses and insurance information for all drivers involved, and identifying information for all passengers, including children; having this ready upon their arrival will expedite the process. Once on scene, the officer will ask if there are any injuries and whether the occupant(s) in your vehicle were wearing safety belts or were in car seats – please answer all of this truthfully. Don’t claim a non-existent injury thinking you might be able to leverage it down the road, because you’re filing an official police report, and falsifying information on it to any degree is a crime.The officer will ask you for a statement about what happened. Make it concise – start your account immediately before the accident and note your actions and observations. Don’t presume anything about the other driver unless you directly observed it. Again, you’re making a legal attestation as to the facts of the incident, and it’s disingenuous of you to say something like “I think they might have been on their cell phone” unless you’re willing to say it later under oath in a courtroom – because it may come to that.The officer will typically not be at liberty to disclose whether other drivers were issued citations.You shouldn’t need to worry about harvesting a bunch of information at the scene; if a police report is filed, your insurance agent should be able to access it. It will contain everything that the agent needs to process the claim; the officer should provide the report number to you, but if not, just ask for it before you leave the scene.If your vehicle is immobilized and is on a public roadway, it will have to be towed as soon as possible. Officers will not be able to recommend a towing company, and can’t “just call whoever everybody else uses,” because that would constitute an endorsement of a particular company by that officer’s agency. If you have no idea, different agencies have different policies; mine had a rotating tow list that companies could sign up to be on, and if a driver had no idea or no preference, the officer would have dispatch call the next company on the list to respond. If you do that you’re at the mercy of a random tow company, so you might do a little research in advance in your neck of the woods to know which company you’d want.Unless there are serious injuries involved, the responding officer typically will not be taking pictures to attach to the report. As long as you're not impeding the officer's investigation, he or she should be fine with your taking your own pictures on scene.If you suspect another driver is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, don't confront them about it on scene – all you're doing is inviting them to fight you or flee the scene. If you find this out before you call for police, mention this to the call taker; if you find out after you've called, once an officer arrives, find a discreet way of alerting them to this fact.If another driver pleads with you to not call police or offers you cash to keep you from doing so, there is a significant likelihood that they have a warrant for their arrest or have other compelling reasons for not wanting contact with police – call anyway. You can always lie and say it's a company car or that you don't own it if you're worried about their reaction; you never know who you're letting go.If another driver leaves the scene of an accident, be observant. The single best piece of information you can get is accurate license plate information; after that, an accurate description of the car (color, make, model, and a good guess at the year) and its direction of travel. Do not attempt to follow or chase the individual. There may be reasons for their flight beyond their simply having been in an accident, and you're putting yourself in considerable risk by trying to corner them. By giving the 911 call taker the direction of travel, officers can go to that area in an attempt to intercept the driver, and as long as the right plate is on the right car, officers can pull up the owner's address with the plate information in seconds.Officers typically cannot investigate MVAs which occurred on private property, unless 1) one or more drivers are under the influence, 2) an involved driver left the scene of the accident, and/or 3) there are injuries involved to a party in one of the vehicles.Civil DisputesMany to most officers will be unable to resolve civil disputes on scene. Police officers generally enforce criminal law, and have no authority in civil matters (which includes any dispute over the ownership of property, residency disagreements, or custody matters involving children, among other things). If you get into it with your roommate and she tries to leave with your property or property you have in common, officers on scene are unlikely to be able to prevent this – that’s a pure judgment call if ownership is in dispute, and we’re not paid enough to be judges. This is exactly what arbitration and small claims court is for. Same dynamic with disagreements about lease terms in a shared residence. With custody issues, in the absence of signs that the child would be unsafe or a crystal clear, signed court order to the contrary, officers are not going to take a child out of the arms of one parent and put them in the arms of the other. Again, that’s a call for a judge to make with all the facts on the bench, not for officers to make snap decisions about on scene.Be extremely cautious about who you allow to linger at your residence. This point is likely to vary from place to place, but in Missouri the tenancy laws made it extremely easy to establish legal residency: If a person had been living somewhere for more than a handful of days, and had objective signs of established habitation (clothes in a closet, toiletries in the bathroom, and so on), they were for all intents and purposes legal residents of that address. How does that affect you? Police officers cannot compel someone to leave their own residence absent probable cause they’d committed a crime, which can make for some ugly headaches.Case in point: One night I was dispatched to a call logged as trespassing. I responded to a mobile home park and met a trailer owner in his front yard who said, “There’s a guy in my house, and I want you to make him leave.” After playing twenty questions with him (I’ll spare you the transcript), I finally found out that the male in question was homeless, and that the owner had either been playing Good Samaritan (his version) or leveraging the situation for sex (my suspicion) for two weeks. Everything the homeless male owned was in the house. In that situation, he had established legal residency – it was, from a legal standpoint, his home.Upon making contact with the male, I asked him what his name was. The response? “I am the incarnation of Jesus Christ sent to a broken and dying world!” I’ll grant that he had the hair for it, but other than that everything he said made it fairly clear he was reality challenged. One of the few coherent things he said was a refusal to leave, which I had to honor. I had sympathy for the homeowner – really, I did – but at that point he had to go through the process of evicting his newfound companion, which had to be done through the sheriff’s office and took a minimum of thirty days. My hands were completely tied.The takeaway here is that, if you decide to do someone a solid and let them crash on your couch or whatever the case may be, ensure that you’ve got an exit plan in place lest you get into a similar situation. Once residency becomes established, officers can attempt to persuade someone to leave, but they cannot compel them to do so; it matters not whether they’re on the lease or whether they pay rent if the parameters for residency in your jurisdiction have otherwise been met. It also doesn't matter what their state of mind is if they're not an imminent danger to themselves or others; having schizophrenia, reality issues, or other psychological conditions is not a crime, and officers cannot whisk people suffering from them out of your life just because they're bothersome to you, because they have the same rights you do.Missing Person CasesAs a general rule, report people as missing as soon as their whereabouts cannot be determined. The time frame this occurs within will obviously fluctuate based on who we're talking about – you obviously don't need to call the police if you can't raise your spouse after two tries to their cell phone. However, if someone is actually missing, your reporting it to police puts the person's name in law enforcement computer systems, meaning that if someone stumbles upon them and runs their name, there will be a 'hit' that alerts dispatch or the officer that they have been reported missing.This is especially important for children, those with special needs, and the elderly. I once stumbled upon an 86 year old man in the middle of a multiple lane highway who was out of gas and confused; to make a very long story short, he had gotten disoriented while driving and drove aimlessly for hours across the state until he ran out of gas, thankfully right in front of me (as opposed to in a ditch down a country road). His family couldn't find him, and just looked around their city for him all day long; if they'd reported him missing instead, I'd have been alerted as soon as I pulled his information up. As it stood, I had to do over an hour of research to figure out who he was and how to get him home.Keep accurate and current information about your children on hand. This includes a recent photograph of them, and preferably a hard copy. Keep tabs on their height and weight as best you can – accurate information is invaluable on missing person reports, and all of this gets plugged into the computer system that can be searched in the event they are contacted after having gone missing.If you have a volatile relationship with a teenager, try to establish a safe place for them to retreat to. I realize this is not ideal, but if they're prone to leaving the house out of anger and they're mobile, try to negotiate a place they can go in advance, whether that's with a relative or a friend's house whose parents you know. I worked several repeat 'missing person' cases in which the teen in question left any time she got in a fight with her mother, who called police the minute she got out of sight. I'd come and take the time-consuming report, only to get called back a few hours later after she cooled off and returned home. If mom had just known where her daughter was going, there would have been no need to involve me at all, and no need to make a computer operator at headquarters enter worthless information in the state system that just had to be redacted later.Someone's failure to return a child from visitation on time is not a “parental abduction.” Someone not abiding by the terms of a custody agreement is a civil issue, not a criminal one, and needs to be taken up with your attorney. Reporting this as a parental abduction (perhaps in hopes of using officers to harass your ex by proxy) is a needless waste of resources.Traffic Stops, Vehicle Searches, and DUI/DWIIf a police vehicle activates red and blue lights behind your vehicle, the officer has developed probable cause that you have committed a traffic violation and is initiating a vehicle stop on your vehicle. By law, you must pull your vehicle off of the roadway as soon as it is practical to do so; that means you should neither panic and jerk your car onto the shoulder nor cruise along until you get to wherever you were going.At night, the officer will illuminate your cabin with a powerful spotlight on their car. This is standard practice and is done on every car stop conducted at night – don’t let this alarm you. Officers need to be able to see you and the interior of your vehicle for their safety.Most officers will wait to initiate a car stop until you’re around safe areas to pull over or exit the roadway. However, if he or she initiates the car stop where it’s difficult or impossible to pull over for some reason, activate your turn signal or hazard lights to give the officer assurance that you’re in the process of complying with the stop – if you just keep driving without such acknowledgment, at some point the officer may treat the situation as a low speed pursuit.The vast, vast majority of vehicle stops you’re likely to be subject to will be initiated by a marked patrol unit (that is, a police vehicle that is marked as such, often with a lightbar on top). If this is the case, you shouldn’t have many concerns about legitimacy – no vinyl company would outfit a private vehicle to look like a police cruiser. However, in certain instances you may be stopped by an unmarked unit.If something about the circumstances of the stop makes you question its legitimacy, activate your hazard lights (‘flashers’) and call 911 or your local emergency number. Tell the call taker, “I have a vehicle attempting to make a car stop on me [your direction of travel] on [street name] at [nearest intersecting street]; can you confirm this is legitimate?” If the unit behind you has “called in” the car stop over the radio, the call taker will immediately be able to see the log on the officer status screen and will ask you to comply with the stop.If it hasn’t been called in yet, the call taker will have dispatch poll officers in the field to inquire: “Dispatch to any [agency] unit attempting a car stop at [intersection], your radio number?” Sometimes a unit is delayed in calling a stop in for any number of reasons – this gives them an opening on the radio to do so. Once they confirm, dispatch will inform the call taker, who will have you stop. In this instance, officers will know that you were checking the legitimacy of the stop and that this is why you were delayed in stopping.If dispatch polls officers and there is no response, you will probably be instructed to either stay your present course or to drive toward a police station; an officer will likely be dispatched to intercept you and investigate. It’s possible in this case that the unit didn’t hear their radio or is having radio trouble; if so, the intercepting unit will inform dispatch and attempt contact with the unit stopping you. However, if the officer finds it’s a fraudulent stop, officers will conduct a “felony car stop” on the fake unit, which is a bit complicated to explain at length here, but involves ordering occupants out one at a time at gunpoint (you have to assume someone pretending to be a police officer is armed). Dispatch will be giving you instructions as all of this happens – follow all of their directions.Officers will always prefer you exit the roadway during a car stop if possible (for instance, into a parking lot); every year, officers are injured or killed by vehicles hitting them and/or their patrol vehicle at the side of the road. Sometimes you don’t have an opportunity to do so – in that case, just pull as far off the road as you safely can given the circumstances.There may be a delay between the time you get stopped and when the officer exits his vehicle to approach you. There are several things that the officer could be doing – running your license plate information, waiting for another unit, and so on – so don’t read too much into it. In the meantime, you can get your driver’s license and insurance information out, because the officer will want this information every time. However, if this documentation isn’t easily accessible, don’t dig around for it, because the officer may interpret this movement as your trying to hide something or access a weapon.Car stops are a vital component of law enforcement – they go way beyond traffic enforcement, because police have found rapists, murderers, and even terrorists by conducting car stops (Timothy McVeigh was caught during a car stop for a license plate infraction). However, they are a very high risk proposition for officers, since they have no idea who they just stopped (as opposed to 911 call response, in which they have at least some idea of what they’re getting into). Every officer has seen training videos of vehicle stops during which the driver exited with a weapon or armed themselves as the officer approached. There are several things that you can do to put the officer at ease:Activate the dome light in your cabin if it’s after dark.Keep your hands in plain view, whether in your lap or on the steering wheel.Do not under any circumstances exit your vehicle at any point unless explicitly instructed to do so. If you exit without clearance to do so, you’re likely to be ordered back into your vehicle or to the ground for handcuffing (depending on the agency’s training and policies), potentially at gunpoint. If you have a compelling reason to exit the vehicle while the officer is in his or her vehicle, get their attention by summoning them with an empty hand out the window.Don’t make any sudden movements, whether before or during contact with the officer.Most ordinances and/or statutes dictate that a stopped driver must obey any “lawful and reasonable request” made by a police officer during a traffic stop. This does not mean that you have to let an officer search, because absent probable cause or a warrant such a search would not be lawful. However, if an officer asks you to exit your vehicle, you must do so; if you refuse, you will likely be forcibly removed and charged with obstructing or resisting an officer.If you are driving a vehicle, you are in legal control of it. That means if you get pulled over and the officer asks for consent to search the vehicle, you can consent or refuse no matter whether or not you own the vehicle. Conversely, if you allow someone to drive your vehicle, they can grant full consent to search it – so make sure you're loaning it to someone you're on the same page with here.Officers typically will not allow you to use your cell phone during a traffic stop – there should be no need for it, given most stops take on the order of a few minutes to complete.Some advice on the Internet says that upon police contact, you should ask something along the lines of “Am I under arrest, or am I free to leave?” This for the most part does not have bearing on a traffic stop, because legally speaking a traffic stop is a “detention” during which you are neither free to leave nor under arrest. Now, courts have asserted that traffic stops lasting beyond a reasonable amount of time can turn the situation into what is called a “de facto arrest;” however, a car stop would need to stretch to between thirty minutes and an hour, depending on the circumstances, for this to even be in the conversation. This applies to everyone in the vehicle, not just the driver. This means passengers cannot ask this “magic question” and claim to have been arrested if they’re not allowed to leave.Passengers may or may not be asked to identify themselves during a stop; I cannot give an all-encompassing answer as to whether they are compelled by law to do so. Technically, in most places witnesses to a crime are required to identify themselves to law enforcement officers, and since passengers witnessed the infraction, the officer may have some legal standing to request identification – but that depends on case law where you live. If you are adamant about not identifying yourself as the passenger of a vehicle, you need to research your locally applicable laws to ascertain whether you can legally refuse to do so.The officer will check the information from your driver’s license either on his in-car computer or over the radio with dispatch. He or she will be able to see the status of your driver’s license (valid, suspended, revoked, expired, or no driving privilege); if you’re suspended, revoked, or no privilege you’re almost certainly getting a citation. You could get a citation if you’re expired – it typically depends on the officer and on how far expired your license is. In some places, officers can seize suspended or revoked licenses. Also, if your license is not valid, the officer may or may not let you drive away from the scene; that’s up to their discretion. If not, you’ll have to arrange for transportation from the scene.Despite apparently widespread belief to the contrary, officers cannot look up your insurance information if you don’t have proof of insurance in your vehicle; it is not paired with your driving record, and officers do not have access to insurance company databases. [Edit: Christopher Hawk has alerted me to the fact that some states are beginning to pair insurance information with vehicle registrations; however, this is not a widespread practice, and information systems can fail - I'm of the opinion that you should still keep a hard copy of proof of your being insured.] Always keep this information at hand, preferably with information both in your wallet and in the vehicle. If you don’t have proof of insurance, the officer will probably write a citation (which is permissible even if you’re actually insured, since most ordinances are for “failure to show proof” as opposed to “failure to have”). If so, judges will typically dismiss these tickets if you can prove you were covered when the citation was issued – but you must still appear at your court date unless cleared by the court or the prosecutor’s office.Officers have wide latitude in what citations they issue during a traffic stop. Based on their discretion, they can choose to write for every observed violation, selected violations, or none at all and instead issue a warning. That said, most officers will typically write the most serious violation if there is more than one (or perhaps two if there are several). This was my personal policy, unless it was a DWI, in which case I wrote every defensible citation applicable; I typically wrote over five citations to DWI drivers (in addition to arrest, of course).There is no hard and fast number of miles per hour over the limit at which officers start writing tickets. Legally, they can start at one over, but in practice the minimum is usually five (though again, an officer has every right to write for a 56 in a 55 – it’s a bright line threshold). Speeding tickets under five miles per hour over the limit are unlikely to add any points to your license.Officers do not have a “quota” for tickets during a particular time frame, because quotas are illegal. Whether a particular supervisor encourages a given general level of ticketing or for particular types of tickets to be written is another thing, but they cannot legally compel officers to write a particular number of tickets. Certain types of tickets, however, may be mandatory; I believe citations for failure to show proof of insurance were in this category for me based on statute language at the time I was an officer. Every officer has their own philosophy for different types of tickets – where I usually gave a month or two of leeway on license plate expirations, some officers started writing tickets the minute they expired, and so on.Officers cannot search a vehicle simply because they want to or they’re curious – they have to pass legal thresholds to be able to do so. Some of these thresholds (but not all – this topic is constantly changing due to judicial rulings and case law):“Plain sight” and/or “plain smell.” In simple terms, this means if an officer plainly sees or smells contraband (most typically drugs or drug paraphernalia) in your vehicle, he or she can seize it (or, in the case of plain smell, search and seize it) without consent and without a warrant. In this situation, the officer will likely have clearance to search the rest of the cabin of the vehicle, but probably not the trunk (research the term “Chimel circle” if you want the legal backstory as to why).Probable Cause. If you admit to a crime that would involve an item in the vehicle (or officers otherwise develop probable cause that you committed a crime), officers can detain you and search your vehicle’s interior for the item in question.Consent. If an officer asks for consent to search the vehicle and you grant it, the search is legal.http://...Exigent Circumstances. This is rare, but there may be a circumstance in which life or limb is in jeopardy and officers are compelled to search without consent or a warrant. In this situation, the need to protect life will have trumped any desire to bring charges, because a search like this will likely be in danger of being thrown out of judicial proceedings.If the officer suspects you are intoxicated, he or she will ask you to exit your vehicle, tell you of their suspicions, and likely ask you to perform Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFSTs). This is the stuff you’ve probably seen on TV – looking at your eyes, walking heel to toe, and standing on one leg. It’s likely you can legally refuse to submit to these tests; however, be aware that officers will take such refusal into account as they’re developing probable cause. Given there was suspicion already, there’s a high probability that you’ll be arrested for DWI/DUI upon refusing to submit to SFSTs. The officer may also ask you to submit a breath sample to a small handheld unit called a Portable Breath Tester (PBT). Again, it’s likely that you’re not legally required to do so but, again, refusals play into the metrics of whether the officer has probable cause to arrest. In practice, officers tend to use these devices if your test results are ambiguous and they’re trying to develop a better picture of your impairment level. In Missouri as of my tenure in law enforcement, PBT results are not admissible in court unless you provide a breath sample to a PBT and later refuse to submit a breath sample to the testing equipment at the police station or jail. However, this will be dynamic based on your location.Every state in the union has some form of what are called “implied consent” laws. This means your acceptance of a driver’s license automatically implies you will consent to testing connected to a DUI/DWI arrest. As a result, if you’re arrested for DUI/DWI and an officer asks you to submit a sample of your breath or blood, you must do so – refusing to will result in your license being seized and immediately revoked for an extended period of time (in Missouri, for a year).It is illegal to drive while impaired by anything, not just alcohol. You can be arrested, charged, and convicted of DUI for driving while under the influence of marijuana (even if it is legal in your jurisdiction), illicit drugs, over the counter medication, or medication that is legally prescribed to you. You will not duck the charge just because you blow a .000 reading on the breath testing machine at the station or jail; if you exhibit impairment without an alcohol reading registering, the arresting officer will page a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) – an officer with special training in recognizing impairment by drugs other than alcohol. He or she will likely subject you to a battery of tests to either ascertain or confirm your method of impairment; these tests are likely covered by implied consent.Property CrimesThe terms for property crimes are often interchanged erroneously:A robbery is the forcible taking of property from someone’s person, whether by physical force or by coercion. The term “mugging” is just slang for a street robbery. Residences cannot be “robbed,” and you cannot be “robbed” if you’re not present.A burglary is the taking of property by unlawfully entering or remaining in a building.Embezzlement is the misappropriation of assets by means of conversion (typically corporate to private).Stealing/Theft/Larceny are somewhat interchangeable, and involve willfully depriving another of their property by means other than those listed above. Intangible things can also be stolen; if you stiff a cab driver on fare or throw your garbage in someone else’s dumpster, you’re committing what we refer to as “theft of service.”Here’s the number one piece of advice I can give you to reduce your chance of being a victim of property crime: Lock the things that hold your stuff. Lock those things every time you are not entering or exiting those things. Thieves typically look for low-hanging fruit when they’re looking to steal something.For example, stealing from a vehicle: A thief would much rather wander through a lot surreptitiously checking door handles than he would to break a car window. Breaking a window carries a risk of injury, risk of tripping an alarm, and a risk that a passerby will be alerted to his presence. If you see someone bash a window in, you’ll immediately be suspicious; if you see someone nonchalantly open the driver’s side door of a vehicle, though, you won’t give it a second thought. That’s what the thief is counting on. You can greatly increase the likelihood your vehicle will be passed over simply by locking your doors. It’s not hard – it involves pushing a button. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who just don’t, though. We worked so many thefts from vehicles involving entry through unlocked doors that our police department started taking out PSAs in local media just to beg people to start locking their doors.Same holds for your residence – keep your doors locked. For sure keep them locked when it is unoccupied, but I keep my doors perpetually locked if I’m not in the process of walking through them. A family in a neighboring community recently had an incident during which the mother woke up to a sound in the hallway and found an unknown male standing at her daughter’s bedroom door. The male was drunk and had wandered into their unlocked house by mistake; he fled after being assaulted by the woman’s husband and was later arrested. One twist of a deadbolt would have prevented all of this. Thankfully, the man apparently had no malicious intent – but it could have turned out much, much differently if he had.I don’t know why some people have such an aversion to locking the doors to their homes and vehicles. It can’t be the effort involved. Perhaps people want to delude themselves into thinking that they live in their own personal Mayberry; maybe they have convinced themselves that the thieves win if you lock your doors, or that securing your property is tantamount to “living in fear.” Or maybe they think that their city/neighborhood/street/apartment complex is “safe” and immune from those with ill intent (unless where you live is surrounded by a laser-mounted shark-filled moat with razor wire walls impregnated with anti-aircraft batteries, this just isn’t true, and maybe not even then). Whatever the justification, it’s baseless. Your risk of becoming a victim of a property crime plummets just by locking up your things.Close behind locking up your things is not advertising the fact that you have things.Don’t leave valuables in your car. Now, with that ideal laid out there, I realize there sometimes isn’t any way around it; in those cases, ensure that you conceal those items completely, whether in the trunk, under a seat, or in the glove compartment. Don’t forget to conceal your charger, too; the presence of a 12V electronics charger suggests that a device may be present in the car. A valuable item in your seat or on the dash tells would-be thieves that a couple of millimeters of glass are all that separate them from possessing it.If you get a new appliance or gadget, don’t set the box out on the curb for pickup. It’s an open advertisement to anyone passing by that whatever is featured on the box is currently inside your house. Chop your product boxes up into pieces if you’re going to throw them away, and separate the pieces into separate bags or cans.Mind your privacy settings on social media if you want to brag about your new gizmos and doodads – again, if your privacy settings are set to ‘Public,’ you might as well have taken an ad out in the local paper about your new stuff, and probably (with a little digging) where you live and what your work schedule is. This holds for trips and vacations, too – if you advertise a timeframe during which your residence will be unoccupied, would-be burglars know exactly how long they have to work without worrying about whether someone is going to return home. Thieves are only getting more savvy – keep a lid on your business.If you have valuable items that have serial numbers, write them down. Often pawn shops and other similar businesses are required to check new inventory against a registry of stolen items; if you include an item with a serial number on a report and someone later tries to unload it at a pawn shop, it will be flagged and police will have an instant lead on your case. If you don’t have a serial number, there’s nothing to say that what they’re trying to sell isn’t another of the tens to hundreds of thousands of the items with the same model number that exist on Earth. If a valuable item doesn’t have a serial number, you can engrave or affix an alphanumeric sequence of your own on it (preferably somewhere that’s difficult to find without looking for it). These are referred to a “personal identifying marks” and can be entered into a report just like a manufacturer’s serial number.If someone tries to give or sell you something that has the VIN or serial number defaced or scratched off, refuse it. There is a high probability that the item is stolen and, depending on the circumstance, this is likely something you want to alert police to – in many to most cases, the mere possession of such an item is a crime in and of itself, especially if it’s a vehicle.If you’re on the verge of getting a deal on something you’re buying from a private party (for instance, during a Craigslist transaction) that’s too good to be true, start asking questions. If they’re selling something for a hundred dollars that’s worth a thousand, it might be because it’s stolen and they’re trying to turn it into a quick buck – I once dealt with a situation in which a guy sold a $3,000 Vespa off of a tailgate for $30 just to unload it as fast as he possibly could. Ask them where they got it, how long they’ve had it, why they’re selling it and, for an item of value, for a receipt or other proof of their purchase. You can also tell them you’ll need a receipt for the private sale if you purchase it, with their identifying and contact information on it. If the item is stolen, the person selling it will give you vague, hesitant or conflicting answers, and will balk at giving you any personal information. If things don’t add up after asking for this information, walk away. You’re not sacrificing a deal – you’re refusing to reward someone for their stealing it (or profiting from someone who did), and the mere possession of stolen property is likely a crime in and of itself.If you’re in a public place, don’t leave your things unattended – even for a miniscule length of time. People are especially terrible about this in libraries, and especially on college campuses; they’ll get a study session going and spread their textbooks, cell phone, music player, laptop, and whatever else out on the table, and then get up and leave it to go to the bathroom, go outside and smoke, or even to go eat. Then they come back and are shocked, shocked to find it all gone. I’ve watched this happen on surveillance footage – it takes less than ten seconds to clear a table of valuables, and in the instance I watched there were people all around who had no idea a felony stealing was happening two tables over.

Stamp duty is a form of tax levied on certain documents that have a financial obligation or transaction associated with it. Stamp duty is paid to the respective Central Government and Odisha State Government and then the Stamp is printed on stamp paper (for affidavits, deeds, bonds, etc.). Different stamp papers have different stamp values and each document has to be executed on a stamp paper of the mandated value (based on the type of document or value of the transaction/property) to make the said document legally valid and enforceable.Odisha Stamp Act, 1889Stamp duty and rules relating to stamp duty in Orissa are governed by the Indian Stamp Act, 1889. The Act was amended by The Orissa Stamp Rules, 1952 followed by the Orissa Additional Stamp Duty Act, 1970. The latter Act was repealed by the Indian Stamp (Orissa Ordinance) Act, 1985. Other notable amendments to the Odisha Stamp Act were made in 2001, 2008, 2013, 2014. The most recent amendment being the Indian Stamp (Amendment) Bill, 2014 which included the payment for stamp duty through franking machines, impression or electronic print, etc. to the existing modes of payment of stamp duty and registration (DD, non-judicial stamp paper, etc.)The Odisha Stamp (Amendment) Rules, 2013, included the facility of payment of stamp duty and registration charges through e-Stamping (through an authorized vendor, Public agency or Nationalized bank) or through dematerialization of stamping.In 2014, the Orissa Government had announced a lower stamp duty for the purchase or registration of a house or property or gift deed for women. The rate of stamp duty payable on registration is 5% for all citizens of the State and 4% for all women citizens of Odisha.The purpose of collecting Stamp duty in Odisha by the respective State Government is to authenticate the registration of immovable property and other instruments (whose value is more than INR 100) during transfer/ sale under Section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908. In a move to empower the citizens of the State, the State Government of Orissa has permitted the use of self-attestation for certain documents in place of attestation by a Gazetted Officer or Notary Officer. Here’s a list of documents that permits self-attestation of affidavits for the State of Orissa.GRAS And RDMDe-Challane-Challan is a receipt generated by an online revenue system or GRAS (Government Receipts Accounts System) dedicated to generating revenue online from the various departments of the Government. e-Challan is used for compulsorily registrable documents in Orissa and can be paid by logging into the Directorate of Treasuries and Inspection portal. Other challans (such as VAT, CST, RTI, etc.) can be generated and paid for through this portal as well.Revenue and Disaster Management Department (RDMD)To register land or property, an individual can approach the Revenue and Disaster Management Department, Government of Orissa for the same.Stamp Duty Charges In OdishaNo.Nature of DeedRegistration FeeStamp Duty1Sale Deed2% of the Consideration money5% of the Consideration money2Agreement2% of the agreement value10/-3Adoption300/-250/4Affidavit50/-10/-5Bond2% of the bond value2% of the value6Cancellation200/-150/-7Lease for up to five years2% of the consideration money2% of the consideration money8Lease for more than 5 years2% of the consideration5% of the consideration9Partnership2% of capital value200/-10Power of attorney250/-100/-11Mortgage2% of the loan2% of the loan12Re-conveyance of mortgage2% of loan value 0.5% of the loan value in case of an agricultural loan50/-13Will300/-Nil14Trust500/-100/-Note: To know how to draft a gift deed and how much stamp duty is applicable for the same, check out our article on How To Draft A Gift Deed In Orissa.Modes Of Payment Of Stamp DutySr. NoModeAvailabilityValue1Traditional Stamp PaperYesLess than Rs 10002e-Stamp PaperYesRs 1000 and above3FrankingYes4Adhesive StampsYes5GRASYes6Notary StampYes7Revenue StampsYes8Agreement StampsYes9Non-JudicialYesDocuments Required For Registration Of A Deed In OdishaThe document with the requisite stamp duty affixed.All documents relating to the ownership of the transacted property.Valid photo identity-proof card of all the executants and claimants.Three passport size colored photographs of all the executants and claimants.A copy of PAN Card of the executants and claimants if the document is valued more than five lakhs.A copy of Income Tax return of the executants and claimants if the document is valued more than thirty lakhs.In case of the document is registered by an Attorney Holder: Registered Power of AttorneyPhoto identity-proof card of the Attorney HolderPermission from the Revenue Officer when the property is transferred by an SC/ST person to a non-SC/ST person.Deposit of the registration fee.Permission or a Non-Objection Certificate issued by the Competent Authority of Endowments for the transfer of property belonging to a deity.