By Jeff Gerth, ProPublica

In 1994, a scientist studying her company's new medical imaging dye reached troubling findings. Her boss, she recalls, told her to "burn the data."

That alleged request surfaced this week in a groundbreaking trial over the dye, which is injected into patients to sharpen MRI scans and has been owned since 2004 by GE Healthcare. At issue is whether GE did enough to protect patients from a rare but devastating side effect of the dye: a disease that causes large areas of the skin to become thick and hard. ProPublica investigated the dye in 2009 and 2010, revealing that GE ignored the advice of its own safety experts to "proactively" restrict its use.

GE's lawyer, John Fitzpatrick, didn't dispute the request to burn the data in his opening statement to the jury on Tuesday. But after this story was published, the company told ProPublica that the scientist's boss denies having told her to destroy data. Fitzgerald also confirmed that an outside researcher will testify that he would not have published a study stating the dye was safe if he had been shown certain internal company research.

But Fitzpatrick insisted that GE's accusers were twisting such evidence to falsely impugn the company and wrongly suggest that it had endangered patients. He insisted GE had always acted ethically with regard to the dye, known as Omniscan.

After settling several hundred other cases out of court over the last several years, GE went to trial this week in federal court in Cleveland — the first opportunity for the drug's history to be fully aired. The plaintiff, Paul Decker, 61, contends that he contracted the skin ailment, known as nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, because of an injection of Omniscan in 2005. He was diagnosed in 2010.

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An indictment filed on Thursday in federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina charged the former head of Bank of America’s municipal derivatives desk, Phillip Murphy, with conspiracy to defraud the U.S, wire fraud, and conspiracy to make false entries in bank records.

Bloomberg:

Bank of America, which self-reported the illegal activity, has been cooperating for more than four years with Justice Department prosecutors who say that bankers paid kickbacks to CDR Financial Products to rig bids on investment contracts sold to local governments. Municipalities bought the contracts with money raised through bond sales, which allowed them to earn a return until the funds were needed for schools, roads, and other public works.

Hopefully, this is just the beginning.

Bank of America's top executives neglected to tell their shareholders about the losses at Merrill Lynch before completing the $50 billion purchase of the company in 2008. Shareholders were instead told of projections showing the deal would make money, when in fact it resulted in losses that prompted the $20 billion taxpayer bailout.

The information was revealed through documents filed on Sunday night for a Bank of America shareholder lawsuit, which includes testimony from then-Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis, admitting that the documents filed with regulators and shareholders before the acquisition vote didn't include the loss estimates he had previously received. At the bank board's next meeting just days after the decision, they were given news that there had been a $14 billion before tax loss in the fourth quarter. The lawsuit will be heard in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

NYT:

Two business days after Bank of America shareholders approved the deal, the bank’s board met and received details of the $14 billion pretax fourth-quarter loss. The board also learned that the deal would be far more damaging to the bank’s earnings than had been publicly disclosed.

One bank executive attending that meeting was Timothy Mayopoulos, then Bank of America’s general counsel. In testimony noted in the court filing, Mr. Mayopoulos expressed surprise at the size of the loss, which he said he had not been told about. He testified that he tried to speak with Mr. Price about possibly disclosing the losses but that Mr. Price was not available.

The next day, the filing noted, Mr. Mayopoulos was “fired without explanation and immediately escorted from
the premises, without being given the opportunity to collect his personal belongings.”

And just a reminder...

A Phoenix, Arizona woman is taking on two mortgage giants, Bank of America and Fannie Mae, and the case is making its way through federal court. Lilly Washington is representing herself, and seeking ownership of her home and compensation for belongings that were thrown out when her home was wrongfully foreclosed.

Washington was in the middle of a loan modification with Bank of America when her son who is in the military was wounded and sent to a hospital in Germany. She informed the bank that she needed to go be with her son, and BoA assured her in a letter that they were aware of her trip and: "will await your return so that we can finish the loan modification process." She thought everything would be fine until her return.

But just days after leaving, the bank foreclosed, and Fannie Mae took ownership of her home:

Via:

"Everything was empty. Everything. Upstairs, downstairs everything was empty," says Lilly Washington.

Washington was stunned when she returned home and found a "for sale" sign in her yard. She managed to get back into the home and immediately started making calls.

"I said 'where did you put my stuff from the house. Which storage.' They said, 'we don't put in storage, it is at the city dump.'"

Washington had just returned from visiting her wounded son in Germany. She was gone for a month and half. Her son's Purple Heart was thrown away too.

"I said, my gosh how can you take that. He is fighting for this country. And you steal from his home, everything," says Washington.

Washington's church helped her refurnish the home as she wasn't able to recover any of her belongings, and she has been fighting for two years now to regain ownership.

Update after the jump...

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A breaking news story from Cleveland, Ohio today. Occupy Cleveland's May Day festivities have been cancelled today after an announcement from the FBI that 5 members of Occupy Cleveland had been arrested after an attempt to blow up an area bridge, as well as targets at other locations.

From Cleveland's News channel 5:

The Cleveland office of the FBI announced Tuesday the arrests of five people who allegedly tried to blow up a bridge in northeast Ohio.

The FBI displayed a photo of the Route 82 bridge in Brecksville, just east of Riverview Road and referred to it as the "Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge" during a 10 a.m. news conference, and confirmed that was the target. The bridge crosses the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and connects Brecksville to Sagamore Hills.

According to a news release from the US Attorney’s Office, these five were arrested Monday evening and charged with conspiracy and attempted use of explosive material to damage physical property affecting interstate commerce:

- Douglas Wright, 26
- Brandon Baxter, 20
- Anthony Hayne, 35
- Connor Stevens, 20
- Joshua Stafford, 23

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Bank of America agreed Monday evening to pay $315 million to settle claims from investors that they were um, "misled" about mortgage-backed investments sold by its Merrill Lynch unit.

The settlement was disclosed in court papers filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and requires the approval of a judge, and not just any judge, it has to be approved by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff.

Rakoff has a bit of a penchant for transparency, justice and morality. He also seems to think criminals should actually admit their guilt.

Still, no arrests, no criminal charges.