<keyword id="22076991" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="zero-FIR" source="keywords">Zero FIR</keyword>, registration of <keyword id="20092859" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="police-complaints" source="keywords">police complaints</keyword> online, summons through electronic modes and mandatory videography of crime scenes of all heinous crimes are the key highlights of the three new <keyword id="19911888" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="criminal-laws" source="keywords">criminal laws</keyword> that will come into effect from July 1. The <keyword id="19899463" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bharatiya-Nyaya-Sanhita" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita">Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita</keyword> 2023, <keyword id="19922249" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bharatiya-Nagarik-Suraksha-Sanhita" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita">Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita</keyword> 2023 and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 mark a significant step towards empowering Indian citizens and aim to create a more accessible, supportive and efficient <keyword id="20453941" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="justice-system" source="keywords">justice system</keyword> for everyone, official sources said. The new laws, enacted late last year, are set to replace the <keyword id="22189969" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="British-era-Indian-Penal-Code" source="keywords">British-era Indian Penal Code</keyword>, <keyword id="19898813" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Code-of-Criminal-Procedure" source="keywords">Code of Criminal Procedure</keyword> and the Indian Evidence Act respectively. Under the new laws, a person can now report incidents by electronic communication, without the need to physically visit a police station. This allows for easier and quicker reporting, facilitating prompt action by the police, the sources said. With the introduction of zero FIR, a person can file a First Information Report (FIR) at any police station, regardless of jurisdiction. This eliminates delays in initiating legal proceedings and ensures immediate reporting of the offence. Under the new laws, victims will receive a free copy of the FIR, ensuring their participation in the legal process. An interesting addition of the law is that in the event of an arrest, the individual has the right to inform a person of his choice about his or her situation. This will ensure immediate support and assistance to the arrested individual. Besides, arrest details will now be prominently displayed within police stations and district headquarters, allowing families and friends of the arrested person easy access to important information. To strengthen the case and investigations, it has become mandatory for forensic experts to visit crime scenes for serious offences and collect evidence. Additionally, the process of evidence collection at the crime scene will be mandatorily videographed to prevent tampering of evidence. This dual approach significantly enhances the quality and reliability of investigations and contributes to a fair administration of justice, the sources said. The new laws prioritised the investigations for offences against women and children, ensuring timely completion within two months of recording information. Under the new law, victims are entitled to regular updates on the progress of their case within 90 days. This provision keeps the victims informed and involved in the legal process, enhancing transparency and trust. The new laws guarantee free first-aid or medical treatment to victims of crimes against women and children at all hospitals. This provision ensures immediate access to essential medical care, prioritising the well-being and recovery of victims during challenging times. Summons can now be served electronically, expediting the legal processes, reducing paperwork and ensuring efficient communication between all parties involved. For certain offences against women, statements of the victim are to be recorded, as far as practicable, by a woman magistrate and in her absence, by a male magistrate in the presence of a woman to ensure sensitivity and fairness, creating a supportive environment for victims. Both the accused and the victim are entitled to receive copies of the FIR, police report, chargesheet, statements, confessions and other documents within 14 days. Courts grant a maximum of two adjournments to avoid unnecessary delays in case hearings, ensuring timely justice delivery. The new laws mandate all state governments to implement witness protection scheme to ensure the safety and cooperation of witnesses and enhancing the credibility and effectiveness of legal proceedings. The definition of "gender" now includes transgender individuals, promoting inclusivity and equality. By conducting all legal proceedings electronically, the new laws offer convenience to victims, witnesses and accused, thereby streamlining and expediting the entire legal process. In order to provide more protection to the victim and enforce transparency in investigation related to an offence of rape, the statement of the victim shall be recorded through audio video means by the police. Women, persons below 15 years, persons above 60 years and those with disabilities or acute illness are exempt from attending police stations and can receive police assistance at their place of residence. A new chapter has been added in BNS specifically to address offences against women and children, ensuring focused protection and justice. Various offences against women and children have been made gender-neutral in BNS, covering all victims and perpetrators regardless of gender. The new laws introduce community service for minor offences in order to promote personal growth and social responsibility of an individual. Under community service, the offenders get the chance to positively contribute to society, learn from their mistakes and build stronger community bonds. Under the new laws, the fines imposed for certain crimes have been aligned with the severity of the offences, ensuring fair and proportional punishment, deterring future offences and maintaining public trust in the legal system. The legal processes have been simplified to make them easier to understand and follow, ensuring fair and accessible justice. The new laws promise a faster and fair resolution of cases, instilling confidence in the legal system. The legislations were considered and passed by Parliament in its winter session in 2023. Total 37 members of Parliament from Lok Sabha and 40 from Rajya Sabha participated in the debate.

New criminals laws will allow citizens to lodge police complaints online, file FIR from any jurisdiction

In a move that will completely overhaul the criminal <keyword id="20453941" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="justice-system" source="keywords">justice system</keyword> in the country, three <keyword id="19911889" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="new" source="keywords">new</keyword> <keyword id="19911888" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="criminal-laws" source="keywords">criminal laws</keyword> will come into effect from today, July 1. The <keyword id="19899463" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bharatiya-Nyaya-Sanhita" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita">Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita</keyword> (BNS), the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA), passed in Parliament last December, will replace the <keyword id="19898811" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-Penal-Code" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Indian Penal Code" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Indian Penal Code">Indian Penal Code</keyword> (IPC), 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 1973, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 respectively. Several new provisions have been incorporated in the three new criminal laws to suit contemporary times and technologies in vogue. The three new laws received Parliament's nod on December 21, 2023. President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent on December 25, 2023, and was published in the official gazette on the same day. As per the notification, the three laws will focus on justice rather than punishment and are aimed at providing speedy justice, all the way, strengthening the judicial and court management system emphasising 'access to justice by all'. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita will have 358 sections (instead of 511 sections in the IPC). A total of 20 new crimes have been added to the bill, and the imprisonment sentence has been increased for 33 of them. The amount of the fine has been increased in 83 crimes and mandatory minimum punishment has been introduced in 23 crimes. The penalty of community service has been introduced for six crimes and 19 sections have been repealed or removed from the bill. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has introduced a new chapter titled 'Crimes against Women and Children' to deal with sexual crimes. Provisions related to the gang rape of a minor woman will become consistent with the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), and a provision has been made for life imprisonment or death penalty in the case of girls below 18 years of age. There is the provision of 20 years imprisonment or life imprisonment in all cases of gang rape and the new crime category of gang rape of a woman under 18 years of age in the Sanhita. The Sanhita provides targeted penalties for persons fraudulently engaging in sexual intercourse or promising to marry without true intention to marry. Terrorism has been defined for the first time in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and it has been made a punishable offence. The new provisions include armed rebellion, subversive activities, separatist activities or any act threatening the sovereignty or unity and integrity of India. Small organized crimes have also been criminalized, punishable with imprisonment of up to seven years. Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita will have 531 sections (in place of 484 sections of CrPC). A total of 177 provisions have been changed in the bill, and nine new sections as well as 39 new sub-sections have been added to it. The draft act has added 44 new provisions and clarifications. Timelines have been added to 35 sections and audio-video provision has been added at 35 places. A total of 14 sections have been repealed and removed in the Sanhita. The timeline has been added to 35 sections of Bharatiya Nagrik Sukraksha Sanhita, which will make the speedy delivery of justice possible. The Bill prescribes a time limit for initiation of criminal proceedings, arrest, investigation, charge sheet, proceedings before magistrate, cognizance, charges, plea bargaining, appointment of Assistant Public Prosecutor, trial, bail, judgment and punishment, and mercy petition. Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam will have 170 provisions (instead of the original 167 provisions, and a total of 24 provisions have been changed. Two new provisions and six sub-provisions have been added and six provisions have been repealed or deleted in the Adhiniyam. The complete implementation of new criminal laws will ensure an end to 'tareekh pe tareekh' era and justice will be given in three years as earlier informed in the Parliament by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. This process of reform in the three laws of the criminal justice system was started in 2019 and 3,200 suggestions in this regard were received from various stakeholders. Speaking on the three new laws on June 29, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the three laws of the British era that were governing the Indian Judicial system have been changed on the concept of delivering speedy justice. Several legal experts say there are big challenges ahead for law-enforcing agencies, judicial officers, and legal professionals as the new laws come into force. The passing of the three criminal law bills in Parliament last year sparked a series of debates regarding the need to take such steps towards evolution in the field of law with the introduction of new criminal laws. "The way the government rushed to bring these laws in Parliament and the way it implemented rushed to, is not desirable in a democracy. These laws were neither adequately discussed in the Parliament committee nor extensively discussed in the House, even no consultation held with the stakeholders," former Union Law Minister and Congress leader Ashwini Kumar told ANI. "Now, the opposition parties demanding a change in the legal architecture of criminal laws should be preceded by meaningful deliberations between all the stakeholders that appears not to have been done. It is the only grievance of the opposition parties that should be addressed by the ruling party," he added. "In the New Criminal Laws, law enforcement agencies have been given unfettered powers without checks and balances and safeguards and safety provisions have been ignored, which will be prone to misuse. Under the New Criminal Laws, there will be potential violations of civil liberties," Advocate Sumit Gehlot told ANI. He said that Sedition Law under Section 150 of BNS, the offence has been made Draconian adding that the insertion of the Sedition Law as a backdoor entry seems to be for political reasons. "Section 150 will surely be challenged, as will other provisions, which will result in being struck down by constitutional courts. Why is terrorism inserted as a general penal law offence when it is already punishable under special legislation? Why has police custody been extended from 15 days to 90 days?" he asked. "The three laws were passed in a hurry and at a time when 25% of the members of Lok Sabha were suspended and had no opportunity to participate in the debate. More consultation with various stakeholders would have allowed the Government to rectify some of the deficiencies, which are now becoming a cause of concern," Former Union Law Secretary PK Malhotra said. Senior Advocate, Supreme Court, NS Nappinai said that the new criminal laws are here to stay and the sooner we adapt to it, the better. "Resistance to change is natural but it can only be assuaged through transparency and effective implementation. For this reason, the shortening of the initial timeline proposed for implementation appears to be a bit of a hasty act. The changes to the procedural aspect in particular needed more time for effective adaptation. One can only hope that an escalated process has been adapted to bring the system to speed," she said. Taking a step ahead, the Delhi Police on January 17 this year, commenced a focused training program for its officers to adapt to the new criminal laws. "Delhi Police Academy being a training institute of Delhi Police which is an executing authority, has commenced a focused training program for its officers to adapt to the new criminal laws passed by the Parliament of India i.e. According to a notification by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the three laws will replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860; the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973; and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. Several new provisions have been incorporated in the three new criminal laws to suit contemporary times and technologies in vogue.2023, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023," an official statement said. The Delhi Police Academy, in collaboration with the National Law University, Dwarka, has meticulously designed its training modules to cover all its officers from Spl CsP to the Constables of Delhi Police in a phased manner. Experts from the National Law University conducted the sessions, ensuring that officers at all levels were proficient in the application of the new laws. 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New criminal laws will replace IPC, CrPC, Indian Evidence Act from today

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/49061149.cms" />Don’t ever think of doing this daredevil act! An <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Indian-origin+Briton+">Indian-origin Briton</a> was found walking across the track during the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Formula+One+Singapore+grand+prix+">Formula One Singapore grand prix</a> on Sunday. What happened next? 
 
He was charged in a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Singapore+">Singapore</a> court on Tuesday for committing a "rash act", endangering his own life along with the lives of drivers. 
 Police arrested <keyword id="3068448" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="Yogvitam-Pravin-Dhokia">Yogvitam Pravin Dhokia</keyword>, 27, for this rash act after he found his way onto the track in the Marina Bay Street Circuit. 
 
According to the charge sheet, Dhokia's rash act "endangered personal safety of the drivers". 
 
He was charged under Section 336(a) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224. Bail was set at 15,000 dollars and his passport was impounded. 
 When told of the bail amount, Dhokia told District Judge <keyword id="3067456" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ronald-Gwee">Ronald Gwee</keyword>: "15,000 dollars bail is too high for me. I'm not working currently. I spent all my savings on tickets. I don't really have that kind of money." 
 
The judge acceded to his request to make a phone call to an unknown party. 
 
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=CCTV+footage+">CCTV footage</a> released hours after the race showed him entering via a gap in the fence. 
 
Clad in a T-shirt and shorts, Dhokia then crossed the track and walked against the flow of traffic before climbing back over the barrier. 
 His actions caused the safety car to be deployed and at least one driver, <keyword id="197001" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="runner-up">runner-up</keyword> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Daniel+Ricciardo+of+Red+Bull">Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull</a>, said the man's intrusion affected the outcome of the race. 
 Ferrari's <keyword id="58857" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Sebastian-Vettel">Sebastian Vettel</keyword> won the race. 
 Race organisers Singapore Grand Prix are expected to submit a full report of the incident to the Federation Internationale De L'Automobile (<keyword id="43642" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="FIA">FIA</keyword>), motorsport's world governing body. 
 
Dhokia is currently in remand. The case is adjourned for two weeks and the next hearing will be on October 6. 
 
(Image: Indiatimes)

What was this guy smoking! Indian-origin Brit saunters on F1 track in the middle of the Singapore Grand Prix

Someone picturing their local government might imagine a Norman Rockwell-esque portrait of a small-town mayor and a collection of other humble public servants. Or they might see a corrupt political machine governed by men in smoke-filled rooms. But no matter the form these local institutions take in one's mind, in most cases, people take "local government" to mean a public entity — whether it actually serves the public or not.But not all local governments are public entities. Millions of Americans live in neighborhoods with their own forms of local representation, taxation, and public service provision. These private quasi-governments are called homeowner associations, or HOAs.An HOA-governed residential area may comprise just a few homes, or it may be a sprawling empire of thousands of households. Either way, anyone who buys property in HOA territory becomes a member of the association, with all the rights and responsibilities that implies. The benefits of HOA membership may include access to shared goods like trash collection, well-paved private roads, and landscaped common areas. Members may pay dues or be subject to strict regulations that limit their property rights. Even if the costs outweigh the benefits, HOA members tend to be stuck with them — unless they move away.Nowhere are these miniature states more prevalent than <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-condo-owners-prices-drop-insurance-hoa-taxes-increase-2023-3">in Florida</a>. While California has the most HOAs of any state (50,000), Florida has far more HOA residents as a percentage of its population. A little over a third of Californians reside in an HOA-governed community; close to 45% of Floridians live under one of the state's estimated 49,420 HOAs.A new state law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last month, is a long-overdue effort to protect individual property owners from the most power-mad of these quasi-governments. The law limits the extent to which HOAs can regulate and penalize decisions by individual households; as The Guardian put it, the law is about "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/10/florida-homeowners-association-rule-changes">curbing the Karens</a>." HOAs will no longer be able to set draconian rules about parking, leaving garbage cans at the curb, or growing a vegetable garden, and the rules they do set will have to be more transparent. In addition, HOA board members will receive mandatory training.The bill's introduction was likely prompted by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/current-former-members-of-hammocks-hoa-accused-in-2-million-theft-fraud/">a prominent embezzlement case</a> involving the board of one Florida HOA, but owners have long been frustrated with HOA rules.The law's provisions are sensible reforms that more parts of the US should adopt. But they do little more than smooth out the rough edges in the HOA model, when the larger problem is the model itself. Widespread HOA governance reinforces segregation, inflates housing costs, and depletes the commons.If we want to rein in these private governments, end the housing crisis, and finish the job of racial integration, it will take more than some modest adjustments to HOA governance. We may need to break the system of privatized governance entirely.<hr />HOAs sprang from the suburban boom of the late 1950s — the first association on record was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26326906">formed in 1959</a> in Rossmoor, California. The model spread rapidly. By 1970 there were 10,000 HOAs nationwide. By 2023 there were some 365,000, with more than 75 million Americans residing within their territory.To understand why the HOA-ification of America is so pernicious, we must first understand what made HOAs so appealing in the first place. In his book "Crack-Up Capitalism," the historian Quinn Slobodian writes that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silverleaf-village-scottsdale-arizona-expensive-neighborhood-photos-2024-5">gated communities</a> — which are invariably managed by HOAs — represent a form of "soft secession," an effort to create "alternative political arrangements at a small scale." <blockquote class="pullquote-wrapper pullquote-right"> <q class="pullquote-quotation">More than a few prominent market fundamentalists have been drawn to the notion of a private-sector substitute for local government</q> </blockquote> This form of "soft secession" has proved appealing to some prominent libertarian intellectuals. You might find it counterintuitive that minimal-government types would embrace a type of government that allows busybodies to regulate the color of their next-door neighbors' homes. But as Slobodian shows, more than a few prominent market fundamentalists have been drawn to the notion of a private-sector substitute for local government.Consider one of the characters in Slobodian's book: Gordon Tullock, an economist and public-choice theorist who spent much of his career at George Mason University. Tullock devoted an entire chapter of his book "The New Federalist" to describing the HOA of Arizona's Sunshine Mountain Ridge, a community of 250 houses he then called home. In Tullock's telling, in exchange for an annual fee and residents' adherence to community rules, the HOA paid for road maintenance, private fire protection, landscaping, trash collection, and private security to supplement the protection offered by the Pima County sheriff. The association also provided its residents with "the usual privileges of a citizen in any free state," Tullock wrote.A Sunshine Mountain Ridge resident "can complain to the board, either by going to the regular meetings of the citizens of this little community or circulating petitions, run for office, or organize other people to run for office as a sort of party," Tullock wrote.Tullock praised the resulting quality of life: Sunshine Mountain Ridge, he wrote, is beautiful, provides high-quality services to its residents, and wields outsize political power in the county government. He also celebrated the neighborhood's homogeneity: "It seems that people, on the whole, like living with other people who are similar to them."If Sunshine Mountain Ridge was mostly home to people like Tullock, that was "emphatically not true" of surrounding areas "where almost 1/3 of the population is Mexican," he wrote. Given that part of the HOA model's appeal is its success in maintaining residential segregation, it's not entirely surprising that the HOA boom took off in the years following the fall of Jim Crow.That explosive growth was driven at least in part by market demand <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scottsdale-vs-paradise-valley-phoenix-suburbs-compared-2024-7">for the sort of exclusivity</a> Tullock lauded. A 2019 study by the economists Wyatt Clarke and Matthew Freedman found that HOA home prices were, on average, higher than non-HOA home prices in the surrounding area — and that this "HOA premium" was strongly correlated with the size of an area's Black population as of 1960. The more Black residents a region had in the last decade of legalized, explicit racial segregation, the larger the gap between non-HOA home prices and HOA home prices. One can surmise that HOAs in these areas tend to be more exclusive in part because they were designed to exclude. Readers will not be shocked to learn that Clarke and Freedman also found that HOA residents were more likely to be white or Asian than non-HOA residents.<hr />The "secession of the successful" into HOAs, as the former US labor secretary Robert Reich once put it, has consequences for everyone else. The legal scholar Sheryll Cashin has argued that HOAs erode the social contract and encourage residents to think of themselves as property owners first and citizens second."As more and more citizens separate themselves into homogeneous private communities, their ties to the larger polity will become attenuated and they will increasingly resist governmental efforts to address problems that they do not perceive as 'theirs'," Cashin wrote in 2001.For example, as Cashin noted, HOA members may be particularly hostile to public taxation, especially local property taxes. After all, they already pay HOA dues that fund private infrastructure in their communities; why pay again to subsidize public infrastructure outside the neighborhood? (Cashin observed that several states, including New Jersey and Texas, had laws allowing HOA residents to subtract the cost of privately provided infrastructure from their taxes.) <blockquote class="pullquote-wrapper pullquote-breakout"> <q class="pullquote-quotation">By acting as a bulwark against new housing supply, NIMBY HOAs contribute to the housing crisis and make inequality worse.</q> </blockquote> Similarly, HOAs can and do use their political influence and land-use bylaws to prevent the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-housing-affordability-home-shortage-market-construction-population-cities-zillow-2024-6">construction of multifamily</a> and low-cost housing in the territories they govern and the periphery. America <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/homes-real-estate-how-to-fix-housing-crisis-factors-construction-2024-3">needs millions of homes</a> to meet demand and ease the upward pressure on housing costs, but many HOAs have rules to prevent building even small additions, such as accessory dwelling units — much less large developments like apartments. It's difficult to estimate just how much homebuilding HOAs have thwarted in supply-constrained areas. But one thing is certain: By acting as a bulwark against new housing supply, NIMBY HOAs contribute to the housing crisis and make inequality worse.Even for the HOA members, the supposed upsides of these associations can become a burden. Many Americans who live in HOAs <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/31/what-the-rise-of-homeowners-associations-means-for-americans.html">face steep fines</a> for trivial <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/homeowner-facing-more-than-12000-fines-lien-sues-hoa-has-been-winning/YPU2JSGJWJBXDCQZIDFMZPDPVY/">infractions</a>, and some have even faced eviction for seemingly minor violations of neighborhood codes. For instance, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cypress-texas-hoa-sues-homeowners-for-feeding-ducks-2022-7">a couple in Texas was sued</a> in 2022 by their HOA for $250,000 — for the crime of feeding ducks near their home. These are the kinds of abuses that Florida's new law is intended to halt.But Florida's reforms will do little to address the structural problems with the HOA model. Little wonder, since Florida's far-right state government is an indirect beneficiary of those harms; the state's evolution into an HOA republic has likely been a factor in its transformation from a swing state into a laboratory for reaction.The growth of these little private governments has helped entrench segregation along racial and class lines, fueled the atomization of American public life, and worsened the material quality of life for millions of Americans. That's a far more pressing issue than HOA standards around lawn care.<hr /><a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/ned-resnikoff">Ned Resnikoff</a> is the policy director of California YIMBY and co-leader of the Metropolitan Abundance Project.

America's plague of tyrannical homeowners

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Trump Org must pay $1.6 million, the maximum fine allowed by law, a Manhattan judge ordered Friday.</li><li>The fine is Trump Org's penalty for a decade-long tax-fraud scheme it was convicted of last month.</li></ul>Donald Trump's real-estate and golf-resort empire, the Trump Organization, was hit with a $1.6 million fine in state court in Manhattan on Friday, during the company's sentencing for it's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-organization-found-criminally-liable-in-manhattan-tax-fraud-trial-2022-12">December conviction on payroll-tax fraud</a>.The fine is the maximum allowed under New York State law, and came with harsh words from a Manhattan prosecutor.The company "cultivated a pervasive culture of fraud," Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass, one of two lead prosecutors in the case, told the judge in asking successfully for the maximum fine. As high as it is, the fine is still far less than what the company made in the scheme, according to the prosecution's evidence.That means that Trump — the company's sole owner and beneficiary — still comes out ahead."I want to be very clear, we don't think that is enough," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said of New York's top fraud fines, which limits criminal tax counts to a maximum of $250,o00 per count, and crimes under the state penal-code counts to only $10,000 per count."Our laws in this state need to change in order to capture this type of decade-plus, systemic, egregious fraud," he told reporters.Trump saved millions in payroll costs over the course of the decade-long scheme, Manhattan prosecutors have repeatedly argued.He did so by paying a half-dozen favored C-suite executives significant chunks of their salaries in such off-the-books perks as luxury cars and apartments.Between 2006 and 2017, the company saved a total of $1.76 million by paying perks instead of salary to one executive alone, ex-CFO Allen Weisselberg, Steinglass reminded the judge during Friday's sentencing."Because that compensation was unreported" to tax authorities, "Allen Weisselberg kept every dollar," the prosecutor said."It would have cost them roughly double to get that same amount of money into Allen Weisselberg's pocket" after taxes, he said.Steinglass called the scheme "corrupt" and "egregious," and "explicitly sanctioned from the top down," despite defense claims that the Trump family members at the top of the company were in the dark about the scheme.Speaking at the sentencing, defense lawyer Susan Necheles repeated that the scheme was limited to Weisselberg and other second-tier executives, and said that company will be appealing the conviction.New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who had presided over the company's 7-week payroll tax-fraud trial, said little in rendering sentence."There's no need to rehash what the prosecution has already stated," he said. But like the prosecution, he expressed skepticism of defense lawyers' continued insistance that the Trump family was not involved in a scheme masterminded by its own C-suite."I do think it's interesting that the Trump Organization once again distances itself from the acts of other individuals," Merchan said."That's simply not what the evidence showed and not simply not what the jury found." Weisselberg, the prosecution's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/allen-weisselberg-worst-trump-organization-prosecution-witness-2022-11">less-than-ideal star witness</a> at trial, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/allen-weisselberg-sentenced-jail-trump-organization-tax-crimes-2023-1">was sentenced on Tuesday</a> to five months at Rikers Island, where he is being held <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cfo-allen-weisselberg-quickly-snags-coveted-safe-rikers-cell-2023-1">in a relatively safe section</a> of the notorious city jail complex that's reserved for short-term convicts. Even Weisselberg took a harder financial hit than Trump, paying up some $2 million in taxes and penalties as part of Tuesday's sentencing.Despite the limited fine, the sentencing was "historic," Bragg told reporters, and "should serve as a reminder to all in New York — both companies in their corporate form and their executives — that this type of conduct in New York will not be tolerated, and you will be held accountable."He added that the Trump Organiztion and Weisselberg sentencings "closes this important chapter of our ongoing investigation into the president's businesss."

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