Celiac.com 05/17/2021 - A gourmet gluten-free foodie was duped into using her business skills to support a "staggeringly sophisticated" multimillion-dollar tax scam to pay for a friend's luxury mansion. Melinda Jane Trembath, 45, founder of Melinda's Gluten Free Goodies, has been found guilty on four counts, including forging documents and attempting to influence a Commonwealth public official, but she escaped jail in a $3.6 million bid to defraud the Australian Taxation Office, after a Brisbane District Court judge found she was 'betrayed' by her friend.
Trembath, who is the creator of food company Melinda's Gluten Free Goodies, apparently believed she was helping a longtime family friend to support cancer research. Instead, the mother of three became what the court called "a vital...

Celiac.com 07/13/2022 - A Russian artist jailed in April for replacing price tags in supermarkets with anti-war messages has provided details of abusive conditions within a Russian prison in letters to her girlfriend.
Since the start of its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Russia has attempted to crack down on anti-war protests, partly by passing a law that criminalizes the distribution of "fake news" about the Russian military or the war. Russian opposition to the war has mounted since February, and in March, Russia arrested over 13,000 protestors over the course of several weeks as anti-war rallies were held in 65 cities.
The Russian artist, Alexandra Skochilenko, who also goes by the name Sasha, was arrested under that law, on April 11, for replacing supermarket price...

Celiac.com 04/24/2023 - In 2016 New Mexico prison inmate Jennifer Harris Hopkins died while in state custody at the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility in Grants, New Mexico, allegedly after being denied proper medical care for her celiac disease condition, an autoimmune disorder that requires a lifelong gluten-free diet. Staff at the prison allegedly ignored or disregarded her pleas for help, where Ms. Hopkins was serving a four-year prison sentence for motor vehicle theft.
Wrongful Death Lawsuit - "A Number of Concerning Symptoms"
According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by her estate, Ms. Hopkins exhibited "a number of concerning symptoms" shortly after being taken into custody, and was even taken to Cibola General Hospital for emergency medical treatment, but w...

Celiac.com 04/30/2024 - Inmate Daniel Phoenix filed a lawsuit against Virginia prison officials, including Dr. Paul Ohai and Dr. Mark Amonette, alleging deliberate indifference to his celiac disease. Initially, the district court denied summary judgment to Ohai and Amonette on Phoenix's Eighth Amendment claim. Around the same time that the case was set for mediation, it was transferred to a different district court judge. After mediation failed, the new judge set a date for a jury trial.
Before trial, however, the district court excluded Phoenix’s experts because Phoenix did not timely submit expert reports. It then granted summary judgment to Ohai, concluding Phoenix could not prove his claim without an expert to testify about the “threshold standard of care or on the presence of ...