Joan Humphrey Lefkow
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Joan Lefkow is an Article III Federal Judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Early Life and Education
An native of Kansas, Lefkow graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton with her Bachelor's degree in 1965 and later obtained her law degree from Northwestern University in Evanston in 1971.
Legal Career
Lefkow was a law clerk for former Federal Appeals Judge Thomas Fairchild in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1971 to 1972. Lefkow was a Staff Attorney for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, an organization that provides legal services to low-income and elderly people in Cook County from 1972 to 1975. Lefkow was an Administrative Law Judge for the Illinois Fair Employment Practices Commission presiding over employment discrimination cases from 1975 to 1979. Lefkow served as an Instructor at the Miami University of Ohio from 1980 to 1981 and returned to the Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation to become its Executive Director from 1981 to 1982[1].
Federal Judicial Career
Lefkow was a Federal Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois until 1997. Lefkow served as U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Northern District of Illinois until 2000. In 2000, on recommendation of Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, Lefkow was nominated to the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois by President Bill Clinton on May 11, 2000 to a seat vacated by Ann Williams as Williams was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. Lefkow was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 30, 2000, and received commission on July 11, 2000[2].
Notable Decisions
Governor George Ryan Case
Lefkow was the presiding judge involving the case of embattled Illinois Republican Governor George Ryan and several of his associates involving fraud and improperly obtaning contracts for state business in the State of Illinois. Lefkow sentenced the former Governor to 78 months, or 6 1/2 years, in prison on charges of corruption when he was secretary of state.
Ryan and co-defendant Larry Warner were convicted of racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, tax fraud and lying to FBI agents. In addition to his prison sentence, Ryan was ordered to pay $603,048 in restitution. Warner was sentenced to 41 months, or just over three years, in prison at a sentencing hearing held shortly after the former governor's.
Ryan was convicted in April of 2006 of a racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, tax fraud and lying to FBI agents. Ryan said during his sentencing, "A long sentence today for a man of my age and my health is tantamount to a death sentence."[3].
Ryan later appealed his sentence, and was out until later in 2007, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his conviction[4].
Beanie Babies Trademark Law Case
In 2000, Ty Inc. the maker of Beanie Babies sued Softbelly in a Federal Lawsuit because Ty claimed that Softbelly’s line of animal-shaped computer screen cleaners marketed under the name Screenie Beanies was treading on Ty’s trademark.
The trademark lawsuit had a protracted life after Softbelly claimed that Ty Warner, the sole owner of Ty Inc., tampered with one of its witnesses in which the case Lefkow preceeded had a jury rule in favor of Ty an award of $700,000 that was later yanked due to the Softbelly appeal in which tied the cased up.
The decision, handed down February 22, 2008 in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that Beanie Babies manufacturer Ty Inc. won its long-standing trademark infringement case against Softbelly Inc. The court decision also allows WestmontTy to collect $713,000 worth of damages and possibly another $300,000 in interest[5].
Matthew Hale Case
Hale, the 33-year-old founder of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator, was arrested in January 2003 and charged with soliciting Lefkow's murder a month after she held him in contempt for continuing to call his church by that name after an appellate court ruled such a use was a trademark infringement.
Based largely on testimony from Hale's "security chief"--an FBI informant--a jury convicted Hale of soliciting the judge's murder last April. U.S. District Judge James Moody is scheduled to sentence Hale on April 6.
Within the last two weeks, federal agents in Chicago received a bulletin saying the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood was possibly planning to harm "law enforcement and their families," according to a source. Information on what security measures might have been put in place in the wake of that alert was not immediately available.
Hale first came to prominence in 1999 as a white supremacist and head of the World Church of the Creator. Over the Independence Day weekend that year, former church member Benjamin Smith went on a shooting spree directed at racial minorities, killing two and wounding nine. The FBI investigated Hale's role but he was never charged.
In 2000, the Oregon-based group TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation, more commonly called Church of the Creator, sued Hale for trademark infringement. Lefkow ruled in Hale's favor, but United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2002 ruled that Hale's group had violated the Oregon church's trademark. In October 2003, Lefkow imposed sanctions of $200,000 against Hale when he continued to use the name despite the appellate court ruling. Federal prosecutors alleged that dispute led him to seek to have her killed.
Evidence presented at Hale's trial included an e-mail he sent his security chief, Tony Evola, asking for Lefkow's home address. A message, posted on the "White Aryan Resistance" Web site, gave the address and made derogatory comments about the Lefkows, presuming they were Jewish[6].
In 2004, a federal jury of six whites, five blacks and one Hispanic convicted Hale soliciting his security chief to murder Lefkow. Hale was sentenced to 40 years in federal prision in 2005[7].
References
- ↑ http://www.fjc.gov/public/home.nsf/hisj
- ↑ http://www.fjc.gov/public/home.nsf/hisj
- ↑ http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/George.Ryan.Larry.2.331904.html
- ↑ http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/politics&id=5589294
- ↑ http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=28504
- ↑ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0503010123mar01,0,4913954.story
- ↑ http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?site_area=1&aid=102
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