{"id":506,"date":"2014-05-15T18:44:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T18:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/?p=506"},"modified":"2014-05-15T19:57:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T19:57:46","slug":"hsus-coughs-up-15-75-million-settles-racketeering-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/animal-rights\/hsus-coughs-up-15-75-million-settles-racketeering-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"HSUS Coughs Up $15.75 Million, Settles Racketeering Suit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Great news today: <a title=\"HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES AND CO-DEFENDANTS PAY  $15.75 MILLION SETTLEMENT TO FELD ENTERTAINMENT ENDING  14 YEARS OF LITIGATION\" href=\"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/uploads\/Main_Upload_Directory\/hsusSettlement5-15-2014.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">HSUS and several co-defendants have paid Feld Entertainment $15.75 million<\/a>\u00a0for their involvement in a\u00a0&#8220;frivolous,&#8221; &#8220;vexatious,&#8221; &#8220;groundless and unreasonable&#8221; case brought against Feld Entertainment and\u00a0to settle\u00a0the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case brought against them. (Couldn&#8217;t have happened to a nicer group of conflict fundraising organizations!)<\/p>\n<p>This is the second settlement Feld Entertainment has\u00a0received from the same case; in\u00a02012,\u00a0<a title=\"ASPCA to pay $9.3 million to Ringling Bros. circus over claims about elephants\" href=\"http:\/\/usnews.nbcnews.com\/_news\/2012\/12\/28\/16221308-aspca-to-pay-93-million-to-ringling-bros-circus-over-claims-about-elephants\" target=\"_blank\">Feld received $9.3 million from the ASPCA<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The case in question claimed that Feld was abusing elephants in violation of the Endangered Species Act, and was accompanied by numerous fundraising campaigns viciously maligning the circus. &#8220;Claimed&#8221; being the all-important word here; while the case created great publicity for the animal rights organizations involved, <a title=\"American Soc. for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v. Feld Entertainment, Inc.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.animallaw.info\/cases\/causfd2009wl5159752.htm\" target=\"_blank\">it all fell apart when the star witness turned out to be an\u00a0&#8220;essentially paid plaintiff&#8221; who had received $190,000 from animal rights organizations<\/a>. Oops!<\/p>\n<p>This is what happens when conflict fundraisers play\u00a0their unethical, ends-justify-the-means games against somebody who can and will fight back, rather than\u00a0roll over, pay them off, and pray they go away. Let&#8217;s hope this\u00a0becomes a larger trend. Congratulations to Feld Entertainment for having the guts to see this through to the end, and winning a battle for everybody who works with animals!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/uploads\/Main_Upload_Directory\/GreatestShow.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-192\" title=\"NAIA Logo\" src=\"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/uploads\/Main_Upload_Directory\/GreatestShow.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"277\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is what happens when conflict fundraising organizations play their unethical, ends-justify-the-means games against somebody who can and will fight back, rather than roll over, pay them off, and pray they go away.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,5],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}