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Thread: Jury Awards Defendant $1 Billion

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    Default Jury Awards Defendant $1 Billion

    Georgia jurors award $1 billion to rape victim, leave jury box to hug her



    ATLANTA -- A Georgia jury has awarded an eye-popping $1 billion verdict against a security company after an apartment complex guard was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl. Hope Cheston was outside by some picnic tables with her boyfriend during a party in October 2012 when an armed security guard approached, attorney L. Chris Stewart told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The guard told the boyfriend not to move and raped Cheston, Stewart said.

    The guard, identified in the lawsuit as Brandon Lamar Zachary, was convicted of statutory rape and is serving a 20-year prison sentence, according to online prison records.

    Renatta Cheston-Thornton filed a lawsuit in March 2015 on behalf of her daughter, who was still a minor at the time. The jury on Tuesday handed down the verdict against Crime Prevention Agency, the security company that employed Zachary.

    Zachary, who was 22 at the time of the rape, should never have been hired because he wasn't licensed to be an armed guard, Stewart said.

    The judge had already determined the security company was liable, so the jury was only determining damages, Stewart said. After reading the verdict, Stewart said, jurors immediately left the jury box - without waiting for the judge's permission - to hug Cheston and her mother.

    Attempts by the AP to reach the company for comment were unsuccessful. Online corporate registration information for Crime Prevention Agency shows that it was dissolved in 2016. The phone at a number listed online for Mario Watts, who's named on the corporate registration as the CEO and identified in the lawsuit as the company's registered agent, rang unanswered Wednesday.

    The Associated Press does not generally identify victims of sexual assault, but Cheston, who's now 20, said she wanted her name used. A full-time college student who plans to spend her summer working with an organization in downtown Atlanta that helps homeless people, Cheston said she wants her story to provide strength for other sexual assault victims.

    A lot of women who suffer sexual assault don't pursue justice, choosing instead to put it behind them, she said in a phone interview Wednesday.

    "I feel like my case is just to show that you may not get it immediately, but you will get what you're worth," Cheston said. "This shows that people do care about the worth of a woman."

    Stewart, who has tried a lot of sexual assault cases, said he was shocked when he heard the verdict. He said he had asked jurors to really determine the value of the pain caused by the rape.

    "I was really proud of the jury because there is no basis in the legal world for how high a rape verdict can be," he said.

    Verdicts in the tens of millions of dollars, or even hundreds of millions, are not uncommon, Jeff Dion, director of the National Crime Victim Bar Association said in an email. But he's never heard of a $1 billion verdict in a case with a single victim.

    "This jury was clearly trying to send a message about bad conduct on the part of the company," Dion wrote.

    It is more than likely that the security company will appeal the verdict, said Georgia State University law professor Jessica Gabel Cino. An appeals court would consider the reasonableness of the verdict and would also compare it to those awarded in similar cases to see if it's proportional, and it will likely be lowered, she said.

    Cino agreed that this verdict was highly unusual but said the allegations in the case seemed especially egregious.

    "The facts are just so in the plaintiff's favor when you put all of this together," she said. "I mean, it's really kind of serving up the right case on a platter to the jury."
    The Elites don't fear the tall nails, government possesses both the will and the means to crush those folks. What the Elites do fear (or should fear) are the quiet men and women, with low profiles, hard hearts, long memories, and detailed target folders for action as they choose.

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    That should be Jury awards PLAINTIFF.
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    Purely symbolic. And now these poor people think they will be rich.

    Online corporate registration information for Crime Prevention Agency shows that it was dissolved in 2016.
    And even if the company was legit, lets be honest. No way the company should be held to this kind of standard unless there were some serious warning signs that they ignored. I don't know the details of the case, but the article mentioned that they shouldn't have hired him because he wasn't licensed. I'm gonna need more than that to put the blame of an individual on a company.

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    Quote Originally Posted by justpracticin View Post
    That should be Jury awards PLAINTIFF.
    OK, thanks. I ain't no lawyer.
    The Elites don't fear the tall nails, government possesses both the will and the means to crush those folks. What the Elites do fear (or should fear) are the quiet men and women, with low profiles, hard hearts, long memories, and detailed target folders for action as they choose.

    "I here repeat, & would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race."

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    Quote Originally Posted by uga_dawg View Post
    Purely symbolic. And now these poor people think they will be rich.


    Fact.

    This is basically a judgment on a company that is judgement proof (no assets).
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    In other news, insurance companies raise rates on security companies across the board. Security companies pass the increase on to their customers...

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    Last edited by Highstrung; 05-25-2018 at 01:20 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Highstrung View Post
    Stop using my image without my consent.
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