L.A Clippers owner Donald Sterling will settle a racial discrimination lawsuit with the U.S Department of Justice by paying a $2.725 million fine.

From LosAngelesBizJournals.com

The lawsuit, originally filed in August 2006, alleged that Sterling discriminated against African-Americans, Hispanics and families with children at apartment buildings he controls in the Koreatown section of Los Angeles.

Sterling’s wife, Rochelle, and the Sterling Family Trust were also named as defendants in the suit. Sterling owns and manages 119 apartment buildings comprising over 5,000 apartments in Los Angeles County.

According to a statement from the Justice Department, the payment is “largest monetary payment ever obtained by the department in the settlement of a case alleging housing discrimination in the rental of apartments.”

The $2.725 million penalty breaks down to a $100,000 civil fine and the other $2.625 million will be paid to a fund that will pay monetary damages to those “who were harmed by the defendants’ discriminatory practices.”

His lawyers have quit on him, but the man whose wife died in a freeway crash after singer Brandy rear-ended a vehicle wants big money. Even though Brandy wasn’t charged with any wrongdoing in the Los Angeles-area accident, she was reportedly willing to pay $200,000 of a $1.2 million settlement offer made by her insurance company. Marouane Hdidou apparently hopes to get more from the platinum-selling artist and former “Moesha” star: When he rejected the offer, his attorneys withdrew from the case. Hdidou’s wife was found to have been driving with marijuana in her system, authorities say. Investigators decided that Brandy wasn’t at fault in the 2007 accident after a year of examining evidence.

T.I.’s Journey to Jail is Documented
Rapper T.I. will be going to jail in a couple months, and MTV is documenting his voyage. The series, “T.I.’s Road to Redemption: 45 Days to Go” – the title will count down each day as he nears his incarceration date – provides a close-up look at T.I.’s lifestyle and family. “No amount of jail time is gonna teach me the lesson I learned at that moment,” T.I. says of the November night he got arrested in 2007. He said that as police raided his home, he thought to himself, “Oh sh**, you done f***ed up.” He was looking at a possible 30 years in prison for purchasing illegal weapons, but he’s likely to get a seriously reduced sentence because of a plea deal.  In “Road to Redemption,” T.I. also offers positive advice for seven at-risk teens across the country, urging them to change their lives. “We’re gonna shake his world up, and then we’re gonna help him whether he wants our help or not,” T.I. says of one of the troubled teens.

Naomi Campbell’s agreement was not made public.
Supermodel Settles with Maid Naomi Campbell has settled out of court with her ex-maid, who said the 38-year-old, hot-tempered supermodel hit her and called her names. The terms of the settlement were not released. Gaby Wilson, who worked for Campbell in 2005 and 2006, said in her lawsuit that Campbell also threatened to charge her with theft after she couldn’t find a pair of designer jeans.

Mortgage Brokers Jerked Minority Borrowers Two major mortgage brokerage companies, which consistently zapped Black and Hispanic borrowers with substantially higher interest rates than Whites, must pay $665,000 in restitution. Under the terms of the agreement between HCI Mortgage, Consumer One Mortgage and the New York Attorney General’s Office, the companies must compensate 445 minority clients. New York filed suit following an investigation of GreenPoint Mortgage Funding, a division of Capital One Financial, found discriminatory lending practices.  HCI, Consumer One and U.S. Capital Funding did “substantial business” with GreenPoint, said Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. In March 2007, Capital One agreed to pay $1 million in compensation. The U.S. Capital Funding suit has yet to be resolved. The settlements will “ensure mortgage brokers comply with the law and offer fair and legitimate rates to all New Yorkers,” Cuomo said. The Black and Hispanic borrowers who used HCI Mortgage paid about 50 percent, or about $2,500, more than White clients.
Car-jacking Suspects Arrested in Atlanta. Police arrested two men Tuesday who allegedly jacked a Jaguar in downtown Atlanta after their car slammed into other vehicles, injuring two other people, including a 12-year-old boy. Both suspects were also injured and taken to Grady Memorial Hospital.

Latinos, Blacks squeezed hard in tight job market.

As the nation’s job market grows tighter, Latinos and Black workers are suffering disproportionately, according to employment specialists and figures from the Department of Labor. While employment shrank by 51,000 jobs in July and nationwide joblessness rose to a four-year high of 5.7 percent, Latino unemployment was 7.4 percent last month, according to the Labor Department. Black joblessness was 9.7 percent in July. It was 9.2 percent in June. The overall teen jobless rate was 20.3 percent in July. It was 27.3 percent for Latino teens and 32 percent for Black teens. Analysts attribute much of the Latino job loss to ongoing contraction in the construction industry. A Labor Department report said the construction industry “has shed 557,000 jobs since its September 2006 employment peak, with nearly three-quarters of the decline occurring since October 2007.” A Pew report and other studies have found that for Black workers and their families, the picture is especially bleak. An Aug. 1 report by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress said that one in four Blacks lived in poverty in 2006. Black lost 55,000 jobs since December and wage growth continued its stall. “During the 2000s’ economic recovery, African American workers’ inflation-adjusted wages grew at an annual rate of only 0.2 percent, after having grown four times as much (0.8 percent) per year during the 1990s recovery,” the congressional committee reported. Between 2000 and 2006, median Black family income fell by 2.9 percent to $39,367, according to federal statistics.

Widow of slain Atlanta judge gets $5 million settlement. The widow of the Atlanta judge who was allegedly shot to death by a defendant during a daring escape from a courtroom three years ago will be paid more than $5.2 million by Fulton County. Under a settlement made public Thursday, Claudia Barnes, the wife of slain judge Rowland Barnes, the county will $5 million to settle lawsuits against itself and Sheriff Myron Freeman. The county will also pay a one-time annuity of $246,000 in a separate benefits case filed by Barnes, a former Fulton County employee. “I miss my husband every day, and this won’t take that away,” Barnes said Thursday. “I’ve had so many irons in the fire. This just closes another chapter of things I have to do.” Rowland Barnes was shot in March 2005 as he presided over a hearing involving convicted rapist Brian Nichols. The defendant allegedly wrested a sidearm from a deputy and shot to death the judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s sergeant and, later, a federal agent. Nichols’ capital trial for the three deaths has been delayed several times. “Now I can focus all my attention on the criminal trial,” Barnes said.

Even the Klan ads didn’t help the Black challenger win. A nasty Democratic primary came to a close in Tennessee Thursday as the White incumbent congressman had a runaway win against his African-American challenger in a majority-Black district. Rep. Steve Cohen took an astounding 79 percent of the vote, compared with 19 percent for Nikki Turner, a Black lawyer, who throughout the campaign tried to convince voters that they should stick with their own race. In a particularly controversial campaign moment, Tinker ran an ad linking Cohen, a Jew, to the Ku Klux Klan. Sen. Barack Obama even entered the mix on that one, condemning the ad, which juxtaposed Cohen’s picture with that of a hooded Klansman. Cohen has long civil rights record. Just last month, he introduced a resolution to get Congress to issue an apology to African Americans for this nation’s imposition of slavery and Jim Crow.