Other LanguagesOLYMPIA — Today the Sexual Assault Forensic Examination (SAFE) Advisory Group convened by Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office released a report recommending reforms that will improve the state’s response to sexual assault. The recommendations include:
Addressing the shortage of sexual assault trauma nurses to ensure sufficient and appropriate care for survivors;
Increasing victim-centered, trauma-informed training for prosecutors to improve interactions with survivors of sexual assault who are asked to testify; and
Establishing consistent statewide process for collecting DNA from offenders who will not serve a term of confinement. Earlier this year the Attorney General’s Office identified hundreds of registered sex offenders from whom a DNA sample was never collected.
OLYMPIA — Washington State Solicitor General Noah Purcell will be in federal court in New York City today, fighting the flawed Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan that grants the company’s owners, the Sackler family, a lifetime shield from civil lawsuits. Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the appeal in September, asserting that the plan is inadequate, and does not provide sufficient accountability.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today Seattle-based online retailer Amazon will pay $2.5 million for selling highly regulated pesticides on its online platform without a license and without collecting information about their use as required by law.
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today that, because the $89 million in congressionally approved military construction funding meant for Naval Base Kitsap has been preserved, his lawsuit challenging Trump Administration-efforts to “reprogram” the funds for a wall along the U.S. southern border was no longer needed.
The trial of Washington state’s lawsuit against McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp., the three largest distributors of prescription opioids in Washington state, will begin today in King County Superior Court in Seattle.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson is speaking today to the Bellingham Rotary, the 190th Rotary he has visited since taking office. Ferguson has now visited every Rotary club in the state.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson released his sixth annual Data Breach Report today. In the last year, breached businesses and agencies sent 6.3 million notices to Washingtonians — by far the largest number of notifications sent to Washingtonians since the Attorney General’s Office began tracking this number. 2018 set the previous record of 3.5 million breach notices sent to Washingtonians.
OLYMPIA — Today U.S. District Court Judge Robert Bryan ordered The GEO Group Inc. (GEO), the for-profit operator of the Northwest ICE Processing Center, to pay $5.9 million, the amount GEO unlawfully gained through the use of $1-per-day labor since 2005. The workers performed essential tasks while detained at the Center such as doing the laundry, preparing and serving food and cleaning the facility. This work included cooking and serving three meals a day, scrubbing showers and toilets, cleaning the walk-in oven, and buffing and waxing the floors in the middle of the night.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that the Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIW/P) Task Force will hold its first meeting, co-hosted with the Yakama Nation, on Dec. 2 and 3, 2021.
OLYMPIA — In a victory for Washington, a federal jury determined that The GEO Group Inc. (GEO), the for-profit operator of the Northwest ICE Processing Center, violates Washington’s minimum wage laws by paying detainee workers only $1 per day. The verdict concludes the first phase of a retrial in Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s lawsuit against GEO.