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Media Coverage
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01.17.18
Two Fordham Law alumni are key members on a pro bono team representing the City of New York and other cities suing the Pentagon for its two-decades-long failure to report information about members of the military services previously convicted of crimes that disqualify them from firearms possession.
Matthew F. Putorti ’11 and Nicholas M. Buell ’13, attorneys at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in New York, drafted motions and preliminary injunction papers in the suit pitting New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco against the Department of Defense, Air Force, Army, and Navy. Pillsbury teamed on the suit with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a national public interest law center dedicated to reducing gun violence.
The suit, filed in federal court on December 26, came about less than two months after a former Air Force airman shot and killed 26 churchgoers and wounded 20 more in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The gunman had been convicted of assaulting his wife and stepson in 2012 while serving in the Air Force, and was subsequently given a bad conduct discharge. He should have been blocked from purchasing a gun, as a result of his military record, but due to the Air Force’s failure to comply with a law requiring it to provide such information to the FBI, he was able to purchase an assault-style rifle, the suit alleges.