Hundreds of people in the small town of Libby, Montana have died over many years by what seems to be asbestos poisoning. The asbestos exposure came from living beside an old mining operation.
Chemical company, W.R. Grace and five of its former executives are being charged with a bunch of felonies in the case. The government says that they knowingly poisoned Libby with byproducts from mining a mineral called vermiculite and then conspired to cover up their wrongdoing. People died from it and many were sickened.Lawyers for the company Grace asked the judge, Donald W. Molloy, to dismiss the case because of a pattern of “repeated and intentional” misconduct by prosecutors that, the defense says, includes allowing perjured testimony.The company lawyer said, “We now know that the government deliberately solicited testimony from key witnesses that its own agents have conceded to be false.”
Judge Molloy does not seem to believe the prosecutors and he voices those opinions in front of the jury. He has said that Robert Locke, a star witness for the government, is probably “a liar.” It is Mr. Locke whose testimony is at issue in the defense’s accusation of suborning perjury…..Not good. He doesn’t think enough evidence for a conspiracy charge has been presented. He has also thrown out a many of the governments submitted exhibits, he said he didn’t trust the prosecution to do the right thing. He has also not allowed lawyers on both side to speak to reporters.
The government is supposed to rest its case next week but before that it must go through a hearing on Monday about the misconduct of the prosecution. Andrew King-Ries, an assistant law professor at the University of Montana said that the Judge’s stated skepticism and the defense team’s assault on the prosecution team’s ethics has made it hard figure out an outcome for the case. Grace agreed last year in a civil settlement to pay $250 million for environmental cleanup in the town. It had to pay $3 billion to asbestos victims. The five former Grace executives, all now retired, face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges. The company would face fines and other penalties totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
What I Think:
:/ I think Grace needs to pay the people for their problems and get the correct punishment for the people who have died and who are still sick because of them.
<linK>
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This is a tragedy. I totally agree with you that the people of Libby should be compensated. This story makes it quite obvious, as do many others like it, that ordinary citizens are not considered when it comes to making a profit in the business world.That way of doing business needs to change once and for all.
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