False Claims

After years of battling false claims and viral emails alleging that he is a Muslim, President Obama hasn't gotten far among Republican voters in Alabama and Mississippi - about half still believe he is Muslim and about 1 in 4 believes his parents' interracial marriage should have been illegal, a new poll shows. The automated survey by Public Policy Polling, conducted over the weekend in advance of Tuesday's GOP primaries in both states, showed Republicans Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich locked in a three-way battle for votes.

Re "Outside groups lead the charge," May 3 Wouldn't democracy be better served if there was a nonpartisan filter through which both sides would be threaded? All the "outside groups" should have the information in their ads would be fact-checked before release. The system followed now permits false claims, downright lies or, at best, shades of the truth with important omissions. This is no way to run an honorable political campaign. Anita C. Singer Laguna Woods ALSO: Letters: Ban the boarders Letters: Funding L.A.'s parks Letters: Adult education is worth saving

Its chief executive prominently displays his Social Security number in ads for his identity-theft protection company. But LifeLock Inc. couldn't protect customers from the company's own misleading advertising, according to state and federal authorities. In a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from California and 34 other states, LifeLock agreed Tuesday to tone down claims about the effectiveness of its service and to pay $11 million to customers and $1 million for the costs of the investigation.

After years of battling false claims and viral emails alleging that he is a Muslim, President Obama hasn't gotten far among Republican voters in Alabama and Mississippi - about half still believe he is Muslim and about 1 in 4 believes his parents' interracial marriage should have been illegal, a new poll shows. The automated survey by Public Policy Polling, conducted over the weekend in advance of Tuesday's GOP primaries in both states, showed Republicans Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich locked in a three-way battle for votes.

The Federal Trade Commission has sued longtime bulb manufacturer Lights of America Inc., charging that some of the company's energy-saving LED bulbs don't burn nearly as brightly or as long as advertised. Light emitting diode bulbs made by the Walnut company are sold at major national retailers, such as Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Costco. The suit alleges that Lights of America made false claims about the performance of some bulbs on its packaging and marketing materials beginning in 2008.

Rep. Wes Cooley, a GOP freshman who dropped his reelection bid earlier this year after being accused of lying about his background, was indicted on charges he falsely claimed in official state voter guides that he had served in Korea. The 64-year-old Oregon congressman could get up to 10 years in prison and $200,000 in fines if convicted of twice making false statements.

Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) pleaded innocent Thursday to charges of falsifying his Senate expense account to collect $3,825. Durenberger has denied any criminal wrongdoing and said in a statement Thursday: "I am absolutely confident that I will be exonerated in a trial and I look forward to vindication." His lawyer asked U.S. District Judge Stanley S. Harris to transfer the case to a federal court in Minnesota. There was no immediate ruling on that request.

A federal jury awarded Allstate Insurance Co. $3 million in damages against a building contractor and others for filing false claims after the Northridge earthquake, attorneys said Monday. Allstate lawyers charged that the contractor, an engineering company and an insurance adjuster submitted inflated invoices for work that was unnecessary or never performed at properties in Malibu and across the San Fernando Valley.

Three government agencies, including the California attorney general, filed suit Wednesday against Herbalife International, claiming that the fast-growing Los Angeles-based marketer of nutrition and weight-loss products made false health claims about its products and employed an illegal "endless chain" scheme to market them.

A Garden Grove nutrition company accused of making false claims about its diet products and operating an illegal pyramid scheme has settled a consumer protection lawsuit, the state attorney general's office said Wednesday.

Soon after he was elected to the board of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Claremont, Xavier Alvarez introduced himself at a public meeting with a lie. "I'm a retired Marine of 25 years," he said. "Back in 1987, I was awarded the congressional Medal of Honor. " That was not Alvarez's first falsehood about himself. He'd also claimed to have played professional hockey and to have played a key role in the Iranian hostage crisis. But it was the Medal of Honor lie that put Alvarez in violation of the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, a law passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush that prohibits anyone from falsely claiming "to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the armed forces of the United States.

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether freedom of speech included a right to lie about military honors. In an important 1st Amendment case from Southern California, the justices voted to hear the government's defense of the Stolen Valor Act, a 5-year-old law that makes it a crime to falsely claim to have earned medals for service in the armed forces. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last year struck down the law, saying the government cannot act as the "truth police" to punish lies that cause no direct harm.

Reebok International Ltd. has agreed to pay $25 million in refunds to consumers to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that the company falsely claimed that its toning shoes and other products strengthened muscles. "Consumers expected to get a workout, not to get worked over," David Vladeck, director of the agency's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in announcing the settlement Wednesday. Reebok is one of several companies that have marketed special fitness shoes designed to tone muscles.

Quest Diagnostics Inc., the biggest provider of medical lab services in California, has agreed to pay $241 million to settle a whistle-blower's lawsuit that accused it of overcharging the state Medi-Cal program. The lawsuit also alleged that the Madison, N.J., company paid illegal kickbacks to doctors, hospitals and clinics that sent patients their way. The settlement was the largest in the history of California's False Claims Act, which allows private citizens to sue on behalf of the state if they have evidence that a government contractor has defrauded a state agency.

"Saints may always tell the truth, but for mortals living means lying. " Those were the words of Chief Judge Alex Kozinski in Monday's decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the Stolen Valor Act is an unconstitutional restraint on free speech and a threat to every citizen who fibs to embellish his or her image, avoid embarrassment or perpetuate a child's belief in Santa Claus. The court struck down both the 2005 act of Congress and the fines and sentence meted out to a Pomona man convicted on criminal charges for falsely claiming to have been awarded the congressional Medal of Honor.

The federal investigator took the witness stand and described the crime scene: a sprawling field clogged with boulders, native grasses and knee-high sagebrush. The defendant, a California farmer, had said the site was a 200-acre wheat field. But the investigator found no tilled soil, no tractors, no plows. In fact, she testified, she found no wheat. The field was just a field ? and a prime example, federal prosecutors allege, of a wave of agricultural insurance scams sprouting across the nation.

A former Vista Municipal Court clerk who filed a false expense claim with the county was sentenced Thursday to perform 300 hours of volunteer work and pay the county $677.20. Jo Allen, 45, of Oceanside, was placed on three years' probation by San Diego Superior Court Judge Barbara Gamer, who also fined Allen $200. Allen was fired recently. She had worked for William Hartford, 40, of Fallbrook, who resigned in January as administrator for the Vista Municipal Court.

The former head of a Ventura drug and alcohol treatment program has been indicted on four counts of submitting false claims to obtain county money. Thomas E. Chaloupka, 48, was arrested Sunday as a result of the indictment, returned Friday by the Ventura County Grand Jury. He was released Monday after posting $5,000 bail. Chaloupka is the former manager of Khepera House Inc., which operates a residential rehabilitation program and a halfway house on West Harrison Avenue.

With concerns about cheating at farmers markets on the rise, the California Department of Food and Agriculture has scheduled four listening sessions around the state, including in Santa Monica on Monday, Nov. 1, to ask for public comment about its Certified Farmers Market Program, and especially to address concern about its integrity. This step was prompted by two recent reports on NBC News that exposed several alleged market cheaters, peddlers who represented commercially bought produce as their own, or farmers who claimed that their produce had not been sprayed with pesticides, despite laboratory evidence to the contrary.