JMF Law Chicago Personal Injury Attorney
Law Office of Jeffrey Friedman, P.C.

Laura Stonebreaker’s stomach still lurches when she thinks about that split second of awareness before her crash two years ago. “You know that sick feeling you get in your gut?” Stonebreaker said. “I knew she didn’t see me. I knew she was going to hit me.” Stonebreaker lost her leg in the crash and has endured six operations, months of rehabilitation and nearly $300,000 in medical costs. But what causes her the most pain, she said, is the feeling that she has been forgotten by everyone and left to fend for herself.   Stonebreaker was riding her 2000 Harley-Davidson motorcycle near her home in rural Corunna, traveling south on C.R. 13 on May 22, 2006, when a blue Toyota turned left into a driveway — directly in her path. According to police report, the other driver said she did not see Stonebreaker approaching.

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The uncle of Maria Isabel Jimenez stood on the Merced County Courthouse steps holding the teenager’s picture just moments after attorneys filed a lawsuit claiming her death could have been avoided. Marcos Camacho/Attorney: “It’s pretty simple prevention that had been followed would have prevented this death we believe.” Attorneys say the pregnant 17 year old collapsed on May 14th after working in a vineyard near Farmington in 100 degree heat for more than nine hours. She died two days later. An autopsy report released Wednesday morning lists the cause of death as heat stroke. Attorneys say Maria’s employers did not follow laws designed to protect her and other farm workers.

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On September 27, 2002, 18-year-old Michael Mairs was driving in New Jersey on the Garden State Parkway with two 18-year-old passengers in the car. Mairs was intoxicated, and his car collided into the back of a motorcycle driven by 40-year-old Antonios Podias, who was thrown from the bike one hundred feet. Mairs’ vehicle left the southbound lanes, crashed through a guardrail, and finally came to a stop in one of the express lanes of the Parkway. Two passengers in Mairs’ car fled the scene of the accident and left Podias there on the ground; Mairs did not flee and he called his girlfriend on his cell phone and waited for her to come to him.  Tragically, after the accident, while Podias was still lying on the roadway helpless and alone, another car ran over him and killed him. The impact crushed his chest, punctured his heart, and he bled to death.

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The family of a Raleigh police officer who died in a 2002 motorcycle wreck while chasing a speeder settled a lawsuit with Harley-Davidson Motor Co. and the Raleigh store that leased the vehicle to the police department. Charles Radford Paul III, 30, was chasing a speeding car on the I-440 Beltline on Sept. 10, 2002, when he tried to overtake a tractor-trailer. A draft from the truck appeared to have caused the motorcycle to wobble. He veered into the highway’s shoulder and was eventually thrown off the 2002 Electra Glide motorcycle. A seven-year employee of the force, Paul left behind his wife, Tiffany, and daughter, Charli, who was a year old when her father died.

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What happened when a Web publisher created an online legal directory for consumers that ranks lawyers on scale of 1 (extreme caution) to 10 (superb)? You already know the answer. Shortly after Seattle-based Avvo Inc. Launched its Web site last year, two prominent lawyers in Seattle, upset with their ratings, accused the company of trying to harm their reputations. Controversy has followed Avvo to Illinois, where the company has an online directory, which it says is incomplete. Avvo asked the Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission, which regulates lawyers, for the so-called master roll of the state’s more than 85,000 licensed attorneys but was denied because of legal restrictions. The commission’s Web site lets consumers search for lawyers, but there’s a limitation: You have to know the lawyer’s last name.

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In the realm of personal choice, what individuals can and can’t do is often determined by the state — too often, many citizens contend. The fact that the rationale the state uses to regulate behavior is inconsistent doesn’t help to reconcile the infringed-upon to their fates. Every smoker knows by now that Gov. Ed Rendell last week signed into law a bill to ban smoking in many public places and in all public buildings. It goes into effect 90 days from the signing. The bill is so riddled with exceptions that the American Lung Association refused to endorse it. Nonetheless, the state has taken another leap down the road of regulating personal freedoms.This is the same state Legislature, give or take a few dozen members, that in 2003 decided Pennsylvania motorcycle riders no longer had to wear helmets.
In reversing the state’s total ban on helmetless riding, this bill also had its exceptions: Riders must be at least 21 and they must have been licensed to ride for two years or take a state-approved safety course before they can exercise their right to choose.

Motorcycle laws

I received a letter in the mail from our “great state” of Illinois that they failed to protect the personal information I’m required to provide to be licensed to do business. I followed their advice and put a fraud alert on my credit report then went to follow their suggestion that we monitor our own credit multiple times throughout this year. Each credit agency (Experian/Equifax/TransUnion)offered monitoring services for a monthly fee. They ranged from $9.95 to $14.95. Another added expense! While they notify you of any problems it doesn’t appear to have any service available to help restore credit and correct the problem. Kinda like a doctor who diagnoses your illness but offers no cure. I’m not paying monthly for that!

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Attorneys in Peoria say a former Illinois Eye Center receptionist accused of using confidential patient information for identity theft has been in jail in Las Vegas for nearly three weeks. Attorneys said this week that Andrea Jordan was arrested in Las Vegas on April 28 as she was going to the grocery store. Since then, she has waived her right to an extradition hearing and awaits return to Peoria.

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Are you among the millions of Americans still waiting for the economic stimulus checks sent out by the government along with this year’s tax refunds? If so, there’s a new phone and email scam, which targets seniors in particular, that you should be aware of. Illinois Department on Aging (IDA) Director Charles D. Johnson is warning seniors about apparent attempts to confuse and con elderly individuals who are still waiting for their economic stimulus checks. The scam is aimed at ‘tricking’ people into revealing their personal and financial information, including Social Security, bank account or credit card numbers, which the scammers can use to commit identity theft. The IDA is acting to alert Illinois seniors after learning that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is alerting consumers of bogus phone calls and spam email claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding economic stimulus checks.

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A Peoria County judge sided Friday with defense attorneys and admitted a $1 million bond was probably too high for a former Illinois Eye Center receptionist accused of using confidential patient information for identity theft. But Circuit Judge James Shadid wouldn’t give Andrea L. Jordan the personal recognizance bond her attorneys asked for, noting her six prior felony convictions for either theft or forgery. It was a missed court date in 1998, however, that was the deal-breaker.

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With federal authorities on his tail for a $3.8 million mortgage fraud in Chicago, Luis Uribe took his show on the road. He joined another — even bigger — mortgage fraud operation in the Tampa area in 2006, tricking lenders into funding more than 32 fraudulently obtained loans for more than $6 million. After he was caught the second time, he started talking. He pleaded guilty to federal charges in both states and began helping investigators, giving information about his co-defendants and the schemes. This morning, a federal judge here sentenced the 28-year-old Apollo Beach man to 8 1/2 years in federal prison and five years of probation for wire fraud and identity theft. That is on top of a 34-month sentence he received in Chicago.

Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias’ office wants to teach Grayslake-area seniors how to prevent identity theft and return lost, forgotten and abandoned funds. An identity theft presentation and Cash Dash searches will be held 10 to 11 a.m. Thursday at State Bank of the Lakes, 50 Commerce Drive. The presentation, taught by a financial education coordinator from the state treasurer’s office, includes information about the most common types of fraud and contact information for credit reporting bureaus. The Cash Dash program reunites Illinois residents with hidden wealth legally known as “unclaimed property.” This wealth can be anything from long-lost bank accounts to entire estates that never made it to a rightful owner.

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Attorneys in Peoria say a former Illinois Eye Center receptionist has spent the last three weeks in a Las Vegas jail cell. Andrea Jordan is accused of using confidential patient information to steal their identities. Attorneys tell the Associated Press, Jordan was arrested in Las Vegas on April 28 while she was going to a grocery store. Since then, the 37-year-old woman has waived her right to an extradition hearing and awaits return to Peoria. Last month, a Peoria County grand jury returned a seven-count bill of indictment alleging Jordan committed identity theft.

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People should never let their guard down when it comes to identity theft. As fast as one scam comes to the public’s attention, it seems that law enforcement uncovers another. But there’s one method that never fails to thwart identity thieves — paper shredding. Dumpster diving, when thieves steal victims’ trash in search of documents containing personal information, has become a common form of identity theft. Illinois credit unions have declared June 2008 as “Shred Month.” They are shredding the public’s unwanted documents for free. The Danville Area Chapter of Credit Unions will hold a community shred day on June 21. The event will take place in the parking lot of 1st Illinois Credit Union.

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Federal law entitles everyone to a free copy of his or her credit report once a year from each of the three major credit-reporting companies, but it doesn’t provide access to credit scores. The case being settled stems from a business operated by TransUnion that sliced and diced data from the Chicago-based company’s massive credit files to generate customized lists of consumers. Retailers, lenders and other businesses would buy the lists to use in their marketing.

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The famously discreet Citadel Investment Group draws many of the shrewdest minds from Wall Street to Chicago. Shanghai too. Unknown people in that Chinese city cloned Citadel’s Web site, set up a link for investor passwords and exposed the $17 billion hedge fund to a “grave risk of theft of confidential information,” according to a federal lawsuit that shut down the fake site. These kinds of nefarious schemes have become shockingly routine for financial institutions, security experts say, and exhibit an increasing level of brashness by people using search engines and customer identities to hijack sensitive data.

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