A New Orleans lawyer paid $1,000 per passenger for car crashes into 18-wheelers, staged on purpose.

On October 15, a federal judge gave 57-year-old Daniel Keating 32 months, according to NOLA.com. He must also pay about $657,000 in restitution.

He admitted paying a man named Damian Labeaud for 31 staged tractor-trailer crashes, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Labeaud was a “slammer.” He drove cars into big rigs on purpose. Keating then represented 77 passengers from those crashes. Prosecutors say his lawsuits lied about who was driving, who was at fault, and who was hurt.

The settlements totalled about $1.5 million. Keating kept about $358,000 in fees.

The crashes targeted 18-wheelers for their million-dollar insurance policies. They targeted New Orleans for its generous juries.

Keating cooperated early. Prosecutors credited his help with dozens of convictions.

He implicated attorney Jason Giles. Giles and attorney Vanessa Motta were convicted in March. Neither has been sentenced.

The sentencing guidelines called for 57 to 60 months. Prosecutors asked for two years. Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown called that request “a bit generous.”

Sixty-three people have been charged in the investigation, known as Operation Sideswipe.

Keating must report to prison by Jan. 11, 2027.

A 76-year-old North Carolina man was convicted of punching a woman six times through her car window. Now prosecutors say they had the wrong man.

According to The Mountaineer, District Attorney Ashley Welch’s office has dropped the case against Tom Lasley (not pictured) of Haywood County.

The attack happened last November on Qualla Road, in the Jonathan Creek community.

A woman told deputies a motorcyclist got off his bike, walked up to her car and hit her through the open window. Then he rode away.

The woman went to Lasley’s own church.

Two neighbors named Lasley. They told the detective they’d found his name and address through the Nextdoor app.

The rider always wore a helmet. Lasley does not own a motorcycle. The investigation report shows the detective never spoke to him.

The key identification came from a neighbor who is a Waynesville police officer, Tyler Howell. He told the detective “without hesitation” that the rider was Lasley.

Lasley told The Mountaineer he learned of the warrant from his church’s rector. He went to the police station to check, and was taken to jail.

Because he has a pacemaker and couldn’t be X-rayed, he was strip-searched.

His congregation split over the case, and he left the church.

At an April bench trial, no witness could positively identify Lasley. He testified he hadn’t ridden a motorcycle in 20 years because of neuropathy in his feet. Lasley says three witnesses testified he was out of the county when the attack happened. The judge convicted him anyway.

He says the appeal cost him an extra $4,000.

In August, Howell spotted the motorcycle again and ran the plate. It came back to another man nearby, who had owned the bike since 2016.

The Mountaineer reports both men have grey handlebar moustaches and similar builds, and live off the same road.

Howell, now a candidate for sheriff, recanted his testimony in September.

Lasley had appealed, and a new trial was set for late November. Instead, the district attorney dismissed the charges.

A Philadelphia judge is accused of trying to sway the sentence in a case that wasn’t his.

Pennsylvania’s Judicial Conduct Board says Common Pleas Judge Scott DiClaudio pressured a fellow judge four days before that judge was to sentence a friend of rapper Meek Mill.

Now the board wants DiClaudio removed from the bench for good.

The board says it happened on June 12, 2025, in DiClaudio’s robing room.

Judge Zachary Shaffer had come by to buy T-shirts from DiClaudio’s wife’s cheesesteak shop.

DiClaudio sent Shaffer’s clerk out of the room.

Shaffer testified that DiClaudio then pulled out a paper reading “Dwayne Jones, courtroom 905,” and that Monday’s date.

Shaffer says DiClaudio asked, “OK?”, then ripped up the paper and threw it away.

Shaffer said he took it as pressure toward a favorable sentence and reported it the next morning before stepping off the case.

Jones, 46, had pleaded guilty to illegal gun possession and was due to be sentenced the following Monday.

The board says Jones and DiClaudio are both personal friends of rapper Meek Mill. It charges DiClaudio let relationships influence his conduct and made statements to affect the outcome of the case.

DiClaudio says it was Jones’s business card, not a note. He says he’d met Jones at a concert and only told him Shaffer was a good judge.

“I wish I never said it,” DiClaudio testified. He denied summoning Shaffer. Courtroom audio captured him asking someone to check whether Shaffer was still on the bench.

He has been suspended without pay since November 2025.

At an Oct. 1 hearing, the board asked for permanent removal.

DiClaudio, 63, told the panel that if reinstated, he’d work only long enough to secure his pension and lifetime health insurance.

One panel judge replied, “That may be an explanation, but, frankly, I’m not sure that’s a defense.”

A decision could take months.

A Michigan judge has agreed to retire after years of misconduct, from going behind his ex-wife’s back in his own divorce to hiding relationships with lawyers who appeared before him.

Those are just some of the findings behind the retirement of Jackson County Circuit Judge Thomas D. Wilson.

According to the ABA Journal, the Michigan Supreme Court’s Oct. 9 order adopts findings Wilson agreed to.

Under the settlement, he retired Feb. 28 and can never again run for or be appointed judge.

In March 2019, Wilson learned that a defendant in a domestic-violence case before him was about to be arrested for violating a no-contact order.

He called police dispatch and identified himself as “Judge Wilson.”

He said he’d told the man to go to the victim’s house to pick up medicine. He said there was no need for an arrest, and that he had it “all taken care of.”

The court found that he broke another judge’s no-contact order and went beyond his authority.

The order also finds Wilson abused alcohol for years, ending around 2021. At times, he showed up at the courthouse after drinking.

Under oath, the commission says, he admitted he would leave the courthouse, drink at home and come back.

On Election Day 2016, the commission says, he walked into a county office smelling of alcohol. He invited staff to take a shot of Fireball whiskey with him.

He also went around the rules in his own divorce.

As the case was being moved to another county, the paperwork showed he owed $2,030 in child support. Wilson privately brought the judge a copy with the amount crossed out and “$0” written in by hand.

When she said she’d stepped off his case, he said he had “stopped” her disqualification.

The judge refused to sign without the other side. They called Wilson’s ex-wife, who agreed to it.

When prosecutors refused to drop case against a relative, he sent word that “what goes around comes around” and said he’d remember it. The court calls that a threat of retaliation.

He also never disclosed that lawyers appearing before him were his tenants, business partners or personal attorneys. The court found no evidence it affected his rulings.

For 18 years, he had told staff not to log cases he was holding, so his late rulings wouldn’t show up in state reports.

He testified the goal was to have “time to get the stuff done without it showing up as being late.” One elderly couple waited more than a year for him to decide their divorce.

A paramedic's filthy subscriber stunt: A suspended paramedic was accused of filming himself contaminating workplace food, drinks, and shared items with bodily fluids, including urine mixed into an ice machine, then posting the videos online. Prosecutors said the motive was to earn money and attract paying subscribers, leading to a 23-count indictment and denial of bail.

A Disturbing Cat Killing Allegation: A young woman is accused of killing a cat, blending and drinking its organs, and preserving its head in alcohol; investigators say she allegedly admitted the animal's suffering was sexually arousing to her.

A Fugitive as a Dead Twin: A fugitive allegedly faked his death and lived for 19 years under a dead twin brother's identity. He did so to evade arrest for a kidnapping and robbery case, before the deception was uncovered by the twin's former girlfriend.

A Driver and Two DWIs: A driver was arrested twice for alleged drunk driving in the same night, with police saying he got back behind the wheel just hours after being released following an earlier DWI crash.

A Firefighter and a Cardboard Box: A firefighter was accused of defecating in a cardboard box inside an airport storage area while on duty, an incident captured on surveillance footage. No motive was reported, and the worker later lost employment with the city.

A Police Officer and Homeless People: In Quebec, Canada, a police officer was suspended after allegations that he filmed himself humiliating homeless people and urinating on them while they slept, with investigators also examining videos allegedly shared online.

A Deputy Director and Three Crashes: A deputy director responsible for enforcing ethics rules was accused of driving drunk, causing three collisions, and becoming physically combative with a bystander. Investigators also alleged the official repeatedly lied to officers after the crashes.

A Lieutenant and an Affair: A police lieutenant was convicted after allegedly using confidential law-enforcement databases and altering a subordinate’s report to manage the fallout from an affair that led to a confrontation with a spouse.

A judge and a fugitive: A suspended judge was denied back pay and pension benefits after being accused of hiding a fugitive partner from authorities, allegedly to help him evade capture.

A bus monitor and a porn allegation: A former school bus monitor was arrested after investigators alleged he showed pornographic material to children under 16 while working for a school district. Authorities say the explicit content was displayed to minors; no motive was reported.

A cop and a setup scheme: A former police officer allegedly offered to make a drug case disappear if a defendant would “set someone up,” then gave her cash and later dropped the charges by falsely claiming she was a confidential informant. Prosecutors said he acted for his own personal benefit.

A judge and a vanished docket: A federal judge had every civil and criminal case removed from her docket amid misconduct allegations that she effectively abandoned her judicial duties and stopped handling cases. Investigators also cited concerns that a possible mental condition was interfering with her ability to do the job, a claim she disputes.

A deputy and a surveillance abuse: A sheriff’s deputy was arrested and fired after investigators said he used a license plate reader system to run searches for personal reasons instead of legitimate police work. Authorities said the searches were unrelated to any investigation, call for service, or law enforcement purpose.

A pastor and a fatal red-light crash: A pastor preached about heaven hours before he was killed in a crash with an off-duty officer.

A father and a cover-up: A father allegedly injured his 14-month-old child, then he and the child's mother falsely claimed a stranger attacked the toddler in a stroller. Investigators said the story was fabricated to conceal how the child was actually hurt.