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A man who stabbed his partner 57 times has been freed from prison after just one year.

In 2017, Dimitri Fricano, from Italy, brutally murdered his girlfriend, Erika Preti, following an alleged argument about his sloppy eating habits.

After being arrested, the 35-year-old was eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years behind bars.

At the time of his conviction, Fricano weighed 120 kgs (260 lbs).

However, just 12 months into his sentence, the killer tipped the scales at some 200 kgs (440 lbs).

As a result, he has been freed, instead serving the remainder of his term under house arrest in Biella, close to Milan.

According to prison officials, the diet at the prison is too high in fat and has put Fricano’s health at risk.

It’s been claimed that by the end of his stint behind bars he needed a wheelchair to get around.

At the time of the murder itself, he told the police that Erika had actually been murdered by robbers.

However, Fricano later admitted he killed her following a huge argument about him leaving crumbs when he ate.

He said she struck him with a paperweight, after which he grabbed a knife and stabbed her multiple times.

“She insulted me for the bread and then hit me in the head,” he said. “So I killed her.”

A year on from the decision to put him in prison, judges have now ruled that he should be released for his own safety.

“He needs assistance that cannot be provided in the institution,” they said.

Unsurprisingly, the decision has not gone down well with Erika’s family, who are devastated.

Her dad Fabrizio Preti says he’s been assured Fricano will be sent back to prison when his condition improves… though he is doubtful this will ever happen.

“The house arrest for Dimitri? It’s a shameful decision.

“No one will give me back my little girl. But for us, the pain is still too strong for him to be released so soon.

• Hundreds of convicted felons could walk free in Chicago alone after Democrat-appointed judge rules insists they are allowed guns
• Comes as gun control laws across the country topple in the face of last year’s Supreme Court ruling that they must have ‘historical analogues’
• Chicago Judge Robert Gettleman insists he could find no analogue for the law – despite a search stretching back to a New Netherland ruling of 1639  

A serial armed robber has escaped a mandatory 15-year prison sentence for illegally owning a gun after a Chicago judge said convicted felons are also protected by the Second Amendment.

Glen Prince, 37, already had three armed robberies and the aggravated battery of a police officer on his record when he was arrested for robbing three men on a CTA train in September 2021.

Police found cocaine, a stolen credit card, a cache of bullets and a fully loaded 9mm Smith and Wesson on him when they arrested him, despite the federal law banning felons from possessing handguns.

But Judge Robert Gettleman threw out the charge, citing statutes of the Revolutionary War and a momentous Supreme Court ruling last year that insists modern gun control laws must have ‘historical analogues’ to survive a legal challenge.

‘Although there are strong policy reasons for doing everything possible to keep guns off our streets and out of our communities, this court can find no such historical analog,’ he said in his judgement

Hundreds of convicted felons are due to face trial for illegally owning guns in Chicago alone.

But Gettleman claimed the ban on felons owning guns was a greater threat to liberty than the 1791 law which took guns from colonists who would not declare their loyalty to the new republic.

He said he had searched rulings dating back to Rhode Island in 1677 and New Netherland in 1639 without finding a satisfactory precedent for the ban.

And he said prosecutors had failed to prove that felons are excluded from ‘the people’ protected by the Second Amendment.

State gun control laws have started toppling across the country since the Supreme Court’s Bruen case last year which was brought by the New York Rifle and Pistol Association to challenge the state’s restrictive concealed carry law.

Despite New York’s law dating back to 1911, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas ruled that gun control laws must be ‘consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition’.

The decision was hailed as a ‘watershed win’ by the NRA, which insisted ‘the right to self-defense and to defend your family and loved ones should not end at your home.’

But it prompted outrage from gun control advocates including President Joe Biden who said he was ‘deeply disappointed’ in a ruling that ‘contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all’.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said it marked a ‘a dark day in America’, while New York Mayor Eric Adams said it ‘opened an additional river that is going to feed the sea of gun violence in our city and in our nation’.

‘We cannot allow New York to become the wild, wild West,’ he added.

But dozens of state laws have since been overturned including bans on people facing domestic violence restraining orders, limits on guns at summer camps and churches, and even a law requiring guns to have serial numbers.

The administration hit back last month demanding the Supreme Court overrule a Philadelphia Court decision that the ban could not apply to a man convicted of food-stamp fraud.

‘Many aspects of Second Amendment doctrine rest on the premise that the amendment protects only law-abiding citizens, not felons,’ Justice Department lawyers wrote.

Judge Gettleman admitted that his decision was finely balanced because ‘violence plagues our communities and that allowing those who potentially pose a threat to the orderly functioning of society to be armed is a dangerous precedent.’

And he admitted that guns have become more powerful, and violence more pervasive, since the 1790s, but he insisted it did not ‘justify a different result’.

‘This nation’s gun violence problem is devastating, but does not change this result under Bruen, which this court finds rests on the severity of (firearm law) rather than its categorical prohibition,’ he wrote.

The US Attorney General’s office immediately appealed the ruling, and Prince was immediately rearrested by Chicago Police on separate charges.

Kim Davis may not be a household name, but her actions in 2015 created a stir that did become a household story. For context as to why a $100,000 verdict is a headline, think back to long ago: 2015.

Not quite two weeks after the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision, on July 7, 2015, Kim Davis, who at the time was the Court Clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, began denying marriage licenses after marriage was recognized as a civil right and legalizing same-sex marriage. At least one of the couples who were denied marriage licenses recorded their interaction with Ms. Davis. This video was subsequently released online, sparking a controversy. Kim Davis had made a decision which would embroil her in lawsuits for years.

After Denying Marriage Licenses, Davis Sued Three Times

First, the denied couples teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and private counsel to sue the clerk. Kim Davis refused to cooperate and was jailed for five days during this process. After she was released back to work, she altered the Kentucky marriage licenses to remove her name. The couples questioned the legal validity of altered licenses, which spurred on a second round of litigation. While those proceedings were underway, the Governor of Kentucky at the time, Steve Beshear, intervened to confirm the validity of the licenses.

Ultimately, the Court found that Kim Davis had violated the same-sex couples’ rights, equating her actions to weaponizing her right to religious freedom, writing that she “[c]annot use her own constitutional rights as a shield to violate the constitutional rights of others while performing her duties as an elected official.”

Subsequent Civil Action

Federal juries finally heard evidence on damages for two of the couples who were denied marriage licenses in 2015. The results were mixed. David Ermold and David Moore sued Davis in Ernold vs. Davis. In a separate lawsuit, James Yates and Will Smith sued Davis in Yates vs. Davis. The Jury that heard Ernold vs. Davis awarded them each $50,000, the full amount requested. However, in a move that shows how unpredictable juries can be, the federal jury for Yates vs. Davis awarded no damages to the plaintiffs.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in both cases have spoken out about their disappointment that the Yates case returned no damages, despite the finding that their constitutional rights had been violated.

Her Side of the Story

Davis’ attorneys argue that Davis should not be liable for damages because she “was entitled to a religious accommodation from issuing marriage licenses under her name and authority that conflict with her religious beliefs.” Attorneys for Davis claim that they, “look forward to appealing this decision and taking this case to the U.S. Supreme Court” where, “Kim Davis will argue for religious freedom and also argue that Obergefell should be overturned. Three of the five justices in the Obergrefell majority are no longer on the Court.”

In 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear an appeal from Davis’ lawyer, so this may be the end of her legal road, but if her attorney’s press release is to be believed, she isn’t done looking for trouble.

At first glance, the premise seems reasonable: You post a photo of the man you are dating, with his first name, and other women can say if they are dating him, or if they’ve recently seen or chatted with him on a dating app. It’s a simple way for women to find out if they are being lied to or cheated on. But that’s not the only thing these groups are used for. Far from it!

For example, other uses include accusations of domestic violence and/or rape (whether supported by screenshots of court records or entirely unproven); making unproven accusations that people have sexually transmitted infections; asking if recently separated spouses are using dating apps; posting screenshots of private text conversations; posting photos of men and soliciting “tea” (gossip) or “red flags”; sharing catfish accounts; and discussing dating culture in general.

I fully support women who want to gather and share credible information that will keep them safe from any form of violence and disease—but it is vital that this information is indeed credible. 

You may recall both the “Galloway Affair” and the “Shitty Media Men List”: two scandals that highlighted overreach in the #MeToo movement and provoked justifiable ire. The former involved women lying about sexual assault; the latter was a list of anonymous accusations of sexual misconduct. Both destroyed men’s careers and resulted in multiple defamation lawsuits.

So, for men and/or women (as there are men groups also) who are talked about in these groups there is no need to be upset, reach-out to the individual posting about you, or even try to extract revenge. Reason being, many of the posts that appear in these groups could open up posters and even group administrators, to legal action.

Furthermore, in 2023, individuals will go online and lash out without really thinking about what they’re saying. They’ll overexaggerate and sometimes they’ll leave out important information. Some may even think that by posting anonymous this will protect them from legal action; unfortunately for them, their identities can usually be revealed through a fairly simple court application to Facebook.

So, if you aware that you are being talked about in these groups do the following:

(1). Ensure that you get a copy of said posting (by having someone you know screenshot everything).

(2). DO NOT CONTACT and/or THREATEN INDIVIDUALS WHO POSTED ABOUT YOU!

(3). Organize all said posting under the name of the individual making said post.

(4). Lock down your social media profiles, and

(5). Work with an experienced internet defamation attorney and SUE THEM!!!

In the event, that said postings resulted in you being charged with crimes, upon conclusion of said criminal proceedings then address the above civil issue. Regardless of your financial situation, never allow anyone to spread falsehoods about you. SUE THEM!!!

New research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology sheds light on one of the underlying reasons behind anti-Black bias among White Americans. The research, conducted across five studies, reveals that this bias is in part driven by the perception of Black men as a threat. These findings supplement previous assumptions about racial bias and highlight the importance of understanding the nuances of how individuals unconsciously perceive different racial groups.

Recent events have underscored the devastating consequences of anti-Black bias, particularly in encounters with law enforcement. Studies have shown that police apply force against Black individuals at disproportionately higher rates than against other racial groups. In lab studies, when tasked with decisions like whether to “shoot,” White participants tend to make quicker decisions to shoot armed targets and slower decisions not to shoot unarmed targets when those targets are Black. This bias extends even to Black participants themselves. But is this bias solely due to a stronger dislike of Black individuals than other racial groups?

“As recent events have highlighted, the consequences of anti-Black bias can be deadly,” explained study author David S. March, an assistant professor of psychology at Florida State University. “The typical approach to prejudice as valenced (i.e., bad vs. good) evaluations implies that negative evaluations of Black Americans is the problem and redressing the unfavorable attitude is the solution. But I noticed that approach does not easily track field and laboratory data.”

“I suggested that many instances of anti-Black bias, like shooter bias, may be more strongly driven by a danger rather than negative association. That is, instead of dislike, the underlying problem might be threat. So, I wanted to test if White Americans implicitly process Black individuals as a survival threat and/or in terms of negativity. Showing a unique or stronger Black-threat association would grant credence to the idea that threat and not dislike drive much anti-Black bias.”

To investigate the underlying causes of anti-Black bias, the researchers conducted five separate studies. In the first two studies, a total of 213 White undergraduate students participated. They were tasked with evaluating various target images as good or bad when primed by Black or White male faces. The target images included threatening, negative, and positive stimuli. These studies aimed to distinguish between threat and negativity associations in the context of race. Across studies, participants were quicker to evaluate threatening targets as “bad” when primed with Black than White faces, but this did not apply to negative targets. Importantly, the effect was not limited to weapons but extended to other forms of threats.

In the third and fourth studies, 445 White undergraduates participated in experiments that involved categorizing emotive faces displayed by Black, White, and Asian males as dangerous, negative, or positive. Mouse-tracking technology and a novel metric designed by the authors was used to measure the time it took participants to make these categorizations, providing insights into the decision-making process. In these studies, mouse-tracking revealed that White participants began categorizing Black faces as dangerous earlier in the decision process, particularly when they displayed anger. This finding suggests a strong association between Black men and threat, which again was not observed for negativity.

The fifth and final study involved 206 White undergraduates who assessed threatening and negative target words as “dangerous” or “negative” when primed by Black or White names. This study aimed to determine whether the perception of threat outweighed negativity in association with Black individuals. This study reinforced the first 4 by showing that White participants were faster to evaluate threatening and negative words as “dangerous” when primed by Black names, further emphasizing the association of Black men with threat.

Overall, the five studies consistently revealed that White Americans automatically associate Black men with physical threat. This association was found to be unique to Black men and did not extend to Asian men. The studies also indicated that this association with threat was stronger than the association with negative valence when these two concepts were paired in competition.

“So what we have is a clear pattern showing that White Americans automatically associate Black men with threat,” March told PsyPost. “And in no study did I find an automatic association linking Black men to negativity. So, when parsing out threat from negativity and isolating the effects of negativity, there did not appear to be an automatic Black-negative link.”

“So, the idea that prejudice is driven by dislike or disdain may be incorrect. Instead, the Black-threat association was consistent. Indeed, I even found that same effect in a follow-up series of studies where data was collected from Black participants, implying that the stereotype is so pervasive in the US culture that it is even internalized by the ingroup.”

“Given that it appears a Black-threat association is quite prevalent, prejudices driven by threat are going to have unique and powerful impacts on behavior,” March  explained. “This work implies that Black Americans may disproportionately suffer from the pervasiveness of a socially reinforced Black-dangerous stereotype. Consider police use-of-force, which may be heightened in the presence of someone perceived as more dangerous than someone perceived as less dangerous.”

While these studies provide valuable insights into the automatic anti-Black bias rooted in perceived threat, there are some limitations to consider. For instance, the participants in these studies were predominantly White undergraduates, which may not fully represent the diversity of the population. Although March recently replicated these findings among Black Americans, future research in this area should explore the generalizability of these findings to more diverse populations and investigate the long-term implications of these automatic associations. Understanding the mechanisms behind racial bias is crucial for addressing and combating it effectively.

“As I detailed in the manuscript, ‘Individuals raised in the same society likely integrate some of the same associations, regardless of whether the stereotype regards their in-group,’” March said. “By distinguishing the unique presence of a widely-held Black-threat association, the underlying source of the harmful outcomes of such bias can be seen as the result of a systemic societal problem and can then begin to be addressed at that level.”

An Atlanta-based bank will enter a $9 million agreement to settle allegations of redlining predominately Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Jacksonville, Florida, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.

Driving the news: U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the DOJ has filed a consent decree in federal court involving Ameris Bank following an investigation into its lending practices.

• Ameris has nearly $25 billion in assets with operations in nine states across the southeast and mid-Atlantic, per the DOJ.
• Garland said the Justice Department currently has over two dozen active investigations into redlining nationwide.
• The discriminatory practice entails lenders denying or avoiding providing mortgages or other credit services to neighborhoods based on the race or national origin of the residents of those neighborhoods.

Details: According to the DOJ, Ameris Bank avoided providing mortgage services to majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Jacksonville from 2016 through 2021.

• The department also alleged the bank discouraged people seeking credit in those communities from obtaining home loans.

Ameris’ home mortgage lending was focused disproportionately on white areas of Jacksonville, while other lenders generated applications in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods at three times the rate.

• Although Ameris operates 18 branches in Jacksonville, the bank “has never operated a branch in a majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhood in the city,” the DOJ said.

Zoom in: Under the agreement that a court must approve, Ameris Bank “will invest $9 million to increase credit opportunities for communities of color in Jacksonville.” It will be allocated as such:

• $7.5 million toward a loan subsidy fund for residents of majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods and credit seekers in those communities.
• $900,000 toward advertising and outreach targeted toward those residents.
• $600,000 toward devising community partnerships “to provide services that increase access to residential mortgage credit.”

The bank will additionally open a new branch in a majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhood in Jacksonville.

What they’re saying: “Our complaint alleges that Ameris violated the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, two federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in lending,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said.

The other side: “We strongly disagree with any suggestion that we have engaged in discriminatory conduct and are confident in our efforts to provide equal access to affordable mortgage products in the Jacksonville community,” Ameris CEO Palmer Proctor said in a statement.

• “We cooperated fully with the department’s inquiry and have entered into this settlement to avoid the distraction of litigation and because we share the department’s goal of expanding access to homeownership in underserved areas.”

Background: In October 2021, Garland and Clarke announced the “Combating Redlining Initiative” launch to tackle redlining. 

• Since the program’s launch, the DOJ said it has secured over $107 million in relief for communities of color that have experienced lending discrimination by banks or other mortgage lending businesses.
• The DOJ has entered into 10 settlement agreements with banks and mortgage lending institutions to provide credit opportunities to communities of color in Houston, Memphis, Philadelphia, Camden, Wilmington, Newark, Los Angeles, Columbus, Tulsa, and Rhode Island.

Between the lines: In the 1930s, the U.S. government partnered with the private sector to prevent Black Americans and immigrants from owning homes, or redlining. 

• While explicit rules regulating where people of color live were outlawed in 1968, the legacy of racial segregation in undervalued neighborhoods still reverberates throughout the country.

Don’t forget: Today’s school boundaries in many cities are still linked to a history of housing segregation that goes back to the 1930s.

• These boundaries largely determine which schools students will attend, and in many parts of the country, they’re reinforcing segregation and inequality, despite years of strides.

The U.S. government has agreed to compensate thousands of migrant families who were forced apart at the southern border in 2017 and 2018 as part of the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy.

The class-action settlement with the ACLU was filed Monday in federal court in San Diego. It’s a milestone in the years-long battle over family separations.

More than 5,000 families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border were separated. Children were taken to juvenile centers while parents were prosecuted and often deported. Images of children alone in detention facilities generated outrage; the youngest child separated from their family was only 6 months old at the time. The Trump administration was essentially forced to halt the policy.

What’s in the settlement?

The deal, which needs to be approved by U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw, bars immigration officials from imposing a blanket policy of family separation for the next eight years. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas signaled that the current White House has no plans to split apart families. “It is vital that we adhere to our country’s fundamental values, and we will not deviate from that,” he told NPR.

However former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has refused to rule out reinstituting the family separation policy if he’s re-elected. “If a family hears that they’re going to be separated, they love their family, they dont come,” Trump said during a town hall in May. “I know it sounds harsh.”

The settlement also specifies that families who were separated will get an interview with an asylum officer briefed on their experience. They’ll also get work authorization and housing benefits.

Mayorkas said families will be given access to mental health resources. “I have met with reunited families,” he said. “The trauma does not end with reunification. There is a great deal of healing needed. And we are committed to doing that which is to necessary to restoring these individuals, their health and well-being.”

What about families that haven’t been reunited yet?

While most of the separated families have since been reunited, up to 1,000 children are still not with their parents, according to the ACLU. More than five years after the policy ended, these children remain scattered across the U.S., living with extended relatives, family friends or under state supervision.

Lee Gelernt, the ACLU’s lead counsel in this case, blamed the Trump administration’s record keeping.

“The court said it appears that the Trump administration tracked property more diligently than they tracked the whereabouts of little children,” he said. “We have been searching for years for these families.”

Monday’s settlement stipulates that the U.S. government will continue to pay to help reunify families who are still separated. This includes finding parents and guardians who were deported and bringing them back to the U.S.

Will any of these families get financial compensation?

This settlement does not give monetary compensation. Officials ended those negotiations back in 2021, after Republican lawmakers expressed outrage, saying the amounts under consideration were too high.

A Black riverboat co-captain at the center of an Alabama riverfront brawl that drew national attention has been accused of misdemeanor assault in the melee by one of the white boaters charged in the fight.

Court records show one of the white men accused of assaulting the co-captain during the August brawl filed a complaint last month saying the co-captain hit him first during the chaotic melee. The co-captain faces a charge of misdemeanor assault, according to court records.

“I was not trying to fight,” the man wrote in a statement. The complaint was filed Oct. 26 ahead of the man’s Nov. 16 trial on a misdemeanor assault charge of hitting and kicking the riverboat co-captain.

The August riverfront melee in Montgomery drew national attention after bystanders filmed white boaters hitting a Black riverboat co-captain and others rushing to his defense. Video of the fight was shared widely online, sparking countless memes and parodies.

Montgomery police said the brawl began when the white boaters refused to move their pontoon boat so the city-owned Harriott II riverboat could dock in its designated space. The boat’s co-captain said he was attacked after moving the pontoon boat a few feet to make way for the riverboat.

Five other people were previously charged in the brawl. Two white boaters previously pleaded guilty to charges of misdemeanor assault or harassment. Three other people, including a Black man who was filmed swinging a folding chair, have upcoming court dates.

Donald Trump’s latest attack on the judge overseeing his high-profile civil fraud case in New York took a bizarre turn, with the former president sharing what appeared to be topless photos of 74-year-old Arthur Engoron on social media.

In a now-deleted post on his platform Truth Social, Mr Trump shared a link to an article from The Gateway Pundit which showed two pictures, one of Mr Engoron in the gym, and another photo showing the nude torso of a man.

The headline of the article shared by Mr Trump, echoed some of the former president’s own courtroom rhetoric, alleging the “unhinged” judge was “under scrutiny for allegedly posting half-naked photos of himself to high school alumni newsletter he controls.”

It comes as Mr Engoron continues to clash with Mr Trump and his lawyers in court, as proceedings in New York rumble on. The former president is accused of vastly inflating the value of some of the properties in his business empire.

During his own testimony on Monday, Mr Trump fired multiple digs at Mr Engoron, accusing him of calling him a “fraud”.

Though not looking at the judge he said: “You ruled against me and you said I was a fraud. He called me a fraud, and he didn’t know anything about me.

“He’s the one who didn’t value the property correctly. How do you call a man a fraud who has a property that’s 50 to 100 times more … It’s a terrible thing you’ve done.”

Mr Engoron had earlier warned Mr Trump’s attorney’s to “control your client”, stating: “These people are not here to hear what he has to say. He is here to answer questions.”

The former president has previously been fined $15,000 for breaching a gag order put in place by Judge Engoron.

In the last five years, injured workers reported that Seattle-based psychiatrist Dr. Douglas Robinson asked about the dates and frequency of sexual relations.

One of the most often hired psychiatrists by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) in workplace injury cases received more than a dozen complaintsabout “inappropriate,” “unprofessional” and “sexually intrusive” lines of questioning during state-paid exams.

In the last five years, injured workers reported that Seattle-based psychiatrist Dr. Douglas Robinson asked about the dates and frequency of sexual relations and favorite sexual positions, none of which had anything to do with their injuries, yet L&I failed to take disciplinary action against him, records show.

Injured workers and their attorneys said psychological exams with the independent medical examiner (IME) “traumatized” and “frightened” them. IMEs are hired by L&I to conduct medical-legal exams to help ascertain if worker compensation claims should be accepted.

“I realized he sexually harassed me,” said 70-year-old Cheryl Riley of Inchelium, Washington.

Riley was injured in a 2018 on-the-job accident at Washington State University (WSU). Her injury occurred when a 25-pound window shade fell and struck her in the head in a WSU classroom. Her doctors diagnosed her with a severe concussion that caused “chronic neck pain, migraines and depression.”

Riley received approximately $870 per month from L&I in worker compensation benefits. In 2021, the state sent her to Robinson to assess whether the injury caused post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Riley said the doctor didn’t ask her about the accident or her anxiety, but he did ask about her sex life.

“He asked me, ‘When was the last time you had sexual relations?” Riley said. “I said, ‘Well, it’s been a long time. I’ve been divorced for a lot of years.’ And then he got angry. He looked at me really hard and said, ‘When was the last time you had sexual relations with someone?’ And I got scared. I got really scared of him.”

Riley said the experience haunts her still.

“What he did to me still lingers today,” Riley said. “I have to mentally work to not think about him and his eyes and what he said. Depression will just wash over me. I think, in some part, because I felt so helpless and vulnerable just from my head injury, and he took advantage of my pain and incapacity.”

Riley issued a complaint to L&I. State investigators said they “could not substantiate the allegations” and closed the case. None of the complaints over the years against Robinson were upheld by the state.

“We want [workers] to know that we really do care about their concerns,” said Brenda Heilman, deputy assistant director of insurance services for L&I. “We take complaints very seriously. It’s important to us that workers are treated with respect and feel safe at these appointments.”

Doctor denies all allegations

“I strive to be as polite as I can. What [Ms. Riley] is saying is very different from what happened. That did not happen,” Robinson said. “I have a strict policy that anything pertaining to sex is [off limits]. I stay away [from that topic] like the plague. I have never asked anyone intrusive sexual questions.”

Robinson said injured workers and their attorneys are most likely motivated to submit false accusations because they have an incentive to discredit him. As a state-hired medical examiner, he said, workers often don’t like his opinions because they can affect their benefits.

“When some workers read my opinion, they’re angry. [Then] they allege comments about sexual matters,” Robinson said.

2022 complaints prompt temporary action

The most recent complaints to the state were submitted this year.

In January, an attorney reported Robinson made a “sexist” and “crude” comment during a legal proceeding on a conference call.

Seattle-based attorney Katherine Mason reported that before the deposition began, she commented that she preferred Zoom-type proceedings. She said Robinson responded in an “unbelievable” fashion.

“He said, ‘Well, I like doing these things by telephone because I’m not wearing any pants,’” Mason said. “I could not believe it.”

Robinson said the attorney is wrong.

“What she alleged is untrue,” Robinson said. “I like to study human nature, and I mentioned that an unexpected result of the pandemic is some men say they don’t wear pants on [Zoom] calls. I was musing on that phenomenon.”

Four months later, in March, an injured firefighter issued another complaint. His attorney alerted L&I that a state-ordered examination via telemedicine with Robinson began with a “jaw-dropping” photo: the doctor on the screen without clothes on from the waist up.

“He had his shirt off and my client looked at that and said, ‘What are you doing?’” said David Harkness, a Lakewood-based attorney representing the firefighter.

“It was outrageous. It was unfathomable, really,” Harkness said. “And my client is a 40-year firefighter. He’s seen everything under the sun, and it was enough for him to be very upset.”

After the two complaints in 2022, L&I’s Provider Quality and Compliance division put Robinson on a “temporarily unavailable” status, which means he was unable to perform any medical exams for the state while they investigated.

In a March 31 letter to Robinson, an L&I official said they’d received “information that appears to substantiate a pattern of unprofessional and concerning behavior that…lacks respect and dignity for our injured workers.”

Robinson told the state and KING 5 he was “fully dressed” during the appointment but unbeknownst to him, the telehealth program took the shirtless photo of him when he logged in “four hours earlier.”

In a letter to the state to defend himself, Robinson wrote, “These incidents have alarmed and embarrassed me, and I am committed to being more conscientious in the future. I take pride in the diligence and honesty with which I approach my responsibilities, as well as the empathy with which I regard injured workers. I would be dismayed if it were to end under this cloud of unfortunate incidents.”

Robinson’s business relationship with L&I didn’t end. Three weeks later, the state changed his status back to “active” after they were unable to corroborate the allegations.

L&I changes complaint process

Heilman, of L&I, said this case led them to revamp the complaint process. She said they were using a system of reviewing files instead of interviewing all parties and looking at the history of complaints.

“Under the old process [the pattern of complaints] wasn’t considered. I’m sorry to say that,” Heilman said. “That’s the message I really want people to know is that we’re making changes. We want to make sure people are contacted when they have a complaint; that they have a chance to tell their whole story about what happened.”

On Sept. 26, Robinson advised L&I that he was retiring. He is no longer listed as an approved medical exam provider on the state’s list.

“The outcome we wanted was that Dr. Robinson not be conducting IMEs anymore. We got to that place,” Heilman said.

Advocates and injured workers said the state should have taken action and put injured workers first years ago. Between 2015 and 2020, L&I paid Robinson $1.44 million for examining injured workers, according to state financial records. Of 40 psychiatrists hired to conduct IMEs in that time period, only four others were hired more often than Robinson.

“It was just easier all these years to look the other way. And I think his reports have been useful to [L&I] to avoid paying benefits to injured workers,” said Mason, the Seattle attorney.

Four months after the medical exam with Robinson, Riley, the worker injured at WSU, got a letter from the state alerting her that her benefits were being cut off. Part of the decision was based on the psychiatrist’s opinion that she did not have PTSD.

“When you tell them, they don’t do anything. It’s like you don’t matter,” Riley said. “How dare they let him do this to people? And what did they do? They threw me away.”