Also on today’s menu:
Judge Rules That Murder Case Can Proceed
Settlement Reached In Health Data Security Breach
ACI Agrees To $10 Million Settlement For ‘Testing Error’
School Administrative Unit 2 Superintendent Mary Moriarty has named former principal of Inter-Lakes Elementary School Steven Kelley and current Sandwich Central School Principal Jeremy Hillger, a former ILES teacher, to share duties as interim principals at the school while Principal Michael Bryant and Assistant Principal Stephanie Howard are on leave. They were placed on leave while Municipal Resources, Inc., investigates the September 21 assault of a teacher by student, and the administration’s supervision and building procedures. Kathleen Hill, a former principal at Sandwich Central School and curriculum coordinator who has been serving as interim ILES principal, will continue as assistant principal.
In her letter, Moriarty promised Sandwich families that Hillger would reach out and “reassure the SCS community that the needs of all will continue to be met” while he shares duties with Kelley at ILES.
Judge Rules That Murder Case Can Proceed
Caroline Smith, the defense attorney representing Logan Clegg, asked for a directed motion to end the trial of the man accused of killing Stephen and Wendy Reid in Concord last year. Smith argued that the prosecution did not present any evidence of a reason for the killing, or any evidence directly linking him to the crime.
Judge John Kissinger ruled that there was enough evidence to continue the trial, saying the fact that Clegg had burned his tent site was significant. The burned tent was discovered on April 20, 2022, when the Reids’ bodies were discovered, and Clegg’s 9 mm pistol was the same caliber of gun used for the murders. Clegg maintains that he burned the tent site and fled the state because he was afraid of being arrested for a Utah probation violation.
Stephen and Wendy Reid of Concord had hiked the Marsh Loop Trail several times a week, but they never returned from their April 18, 2022 hike. Their bodies were found in a wooded area off the trail on April 20, and Clegg had been living in a tent in the woods off the trail, though not at the site where the bodies were found.
Jill Therriault, a state witness who had examined the pistol shell casings and the bullets recovered from the bodies, conceded that she could not determine if Clegg’s Glock 17 was the gun that killed the Reids. “My results of that comparison were inconclusive,” Therriault said, testifying that they had the same class characteristics, but there were no individual characteristics allowing her “to make any kind of a concrete determination.”
Settlement Reached In Health Data Security Breach
New Hampshire will receive $15,137 as part of a $1.5 million settlement between 33 state attorneys-general and the health care clearinghouse Inmediata after the company’s coding process exposed the protected health information of 1.5 million consumers for almost three years.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services notified Inmediata on January 15, 2019, that sensitive patient information that the company maintained was available online and had been indexed by search engines, potentially allowing it to be downloaded by anyone with access to an internet search engine. Inmediata delayed notifying consumers for more than three months and some notifications were misaddressed. The notices also lacked sufficient details or context, which may have led recipients to dismiss the notices as illegitimate.
Under the settlement, Inmediata also agreed to overhaul its data security and breach notification practices.
ACI Agrees To $10 Million Settlement For ‘Testing Error’
In addition to the Inmediata settlement, New Hampshire Attorney-General John M. Formella announced that New Hampshire is part of a coalition of attorneys-general that succeeded in obtaining a $10 million settlement with payment processor ACI Worldwide over a 2021 testing error that led to the attempted unauthorized withdrawal of $2.3 billion from the accounts of mortgage-holders. New Hampshire will receive $42,788 from the settlement.
Formella said, “ACI’s unlawful data handling practices negatively impacted real people, including 2,534 Granite Staters. ACI illegally processed mortgage payments that homeowners did not authorize and these unauthorized transactions cost families. In many cases, ACI opened homeowners up to overdraft or insufficient funds fees from their financial institutions. ACI’s illegal activity ultimately created headaches for hundreds of thousands of borrowers. This settlement will require ACI to take steps to prevent this type of harm from occurring in the future.”
While the majority of withdrawals did not ultimately go through or were reversed, 1.4 million transactions totaling $2.3 billion were processed, impacting 477,000 customers. Granite Staters affected by ACI’s testing error may submit claim forms in connection with the class action settlement by November 13, 2023. More information on the class action settlement is available at https://achloanpaymentlitigation.com.
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