Not-so-nice IRS agent

Did This Guy Prepare YOUR Taxes?
Don Bauder
San Diego Reader
August 10, 2012

Steven Martinez of Ramona, a tax preparer and former agent with the Internal Revenue Service, pleaded guilty today (Aug. 10) in federal court to charges of murder-for-hire, witness tampering that involved attempted murder, mail fraud, filing false tax returns, Social Security fraud, identity theft and money laundering. According to the U.S. Attorney's office, in February Martinez solicited an individual to bump off four former clients, victims of his fraud, who were slated to testify against him in a criminal tax case. The individual went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and reported the murder-for-hire solicitation. Then a meeting between Martinez and the individual was recorded and videotaped. Martinez offered $100,000 if the individual knocked off women of Rancho Santa Fe and La Jolla.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Martinez even suggested how the murders should be pulled off -- with two different pistols with silencers. Martinez admitted that he filed false tax returns and defrauded his clients by stealing more than $11 million in tax payments. A sentencing hearing will be before U.S. District Judge William Q. Hayes Nov. 30.

Honors students guilty in murder to prevent witness from testifying

It seems that public entities, from schools to police forces, have a bad habit of firing employees who complain that murderers and child molesters are being protected or treated gingerly.

Here's a story of a school district that forced out a teacher who reported a child molester.

The final paragraph of the story below discusses an LAPD detective who was fired for revealing that a witness and her family had not been adequately protected.

After years of lying, ex-honors student admits her role in murder
Keeairra Dashiell is sentenced to life in prison for driving her then-boyfriend to the home of a crime witness, where he shot Pamela Lark, the witness' mother.
By Joel Rubin
Los Angeles Times
April 4, 2013

When Keeairra Dashiell graduated with honors from Crenshaw High School seven years ago, she seemed headed for success. Offered admission into several top colleges, she accepted a scholarship to UC San Diego, leaving behind the often rough, inner-city world of South Los Angeles.

But on Thursday, Dashiell's talent and promise were a distant, squandered memory as the 24-year-old sat handcuffed in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. After years of lying, she fully confessed to her role in a 2007 murder and, in a deal with prosecutors, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and attempted robbery. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor sentenced Dashiell to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 19 years.

After handing down the sentence, Pastor spoke to Dashiell at length as she sat quietly next to her attorney with her head bowed. "You made horrific decisions and caused incalculable pain and suffering to others," Pastor said in a somber tone. "You're not entitled to pity."

PHOTOS: Aftermath of a holdup

Dashiell confessed to having a hand in the Jan. 3, 2007, murder of Pamela Lark, who was shot to death by Dashiell's then-boyfriend, Tyquan Knox. Dashiell admitted to driving Knox to the Mid-City block where Lark lived with her teenage daughter Khristina Henry and, with several members of her family and Lark's listening in the courtroom, said she knew Knox was armed with a gun and that he planned to kill Henry. Dashiell waited for Knox and drove him away when he returned.

Months earlier, Knox, a one-time football star at Crenshaw High School, had robbed Henry and her boyfriend at gunpoint. Lark insisted that Henry report it to police, telling her that it was her duty to do so.

Over the next few months, Knox's mother and other acquaintances contacted Lark and Henry in an effort to dissuade the teenager from testifying at Knox's approaching trial. "You better watch your back," Henry remembered being told by a mutual acquaintance. "It's best that you guys not go to court."

Knox, who had ruined his best chance at earning a football scholarship when he was kicked off Crenshaw's team for hitting a girl, still harbored hopes of catching the eye of scouts. He feared that a conviction would ruin any chance of being recruited by a college, the prosecution contended at his murder trial.

Despite the threats against her, Henry still planned on taking the stand at Knox's preliminary hearing. Four days before the hearing, Knox strode up to Lark as she, a niece and two young grandchildren stood near her car. He demanded her purse and then opened fire without taking anything.

Dashiell said on Thursday that she and Knox went to the apartment before dawn with a plan to kill Henry, not Lark. The pair apparently did not see Henry when she emerged from the apartment in the morning and drove off to attend class at a nearby community college. It remains unknown why Knox targeted Lark. After two attempts at prosecuting Knox ended in mistrials when the juries could not reach verdicts, Knox was convicted of murder at a third trial in 2011 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In the first two trials, Danette Meyers, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the cases, struck a deal with Dashiell: In exchange for her testimony against Knox, Dashiell would serve only seven years in prison. Dashiell, however, proved to be a reluctant and unconvincing witness, often contradicting herself and getting caught in lies. Meyers rescinded the offer and, until Thursday's agreement, had vowed to prosecute Dashiell on murder charges.

With more than six years having passed since the murder, Thursday's hearing brought an end to countless hours Lark's family has spent in courtrooms having to relive the horror of the killing. "I'm just happy it's finally over," Henry said after the hearing.

Lark's murder and its fallout was the subject of a two-part series in The Times.

In his comments, Pastor, a veteran judge who heard each of Knox's trials as well, said that of the thousands of cases he's handled as a judge and previously as a prosecutor, none "impacted me as much as this case." The strain was so great, Pastor said, it pushed him to request a transfer so he wouldn't have to hear such cases anymore.

"I couldn't handle it anymore because I saw the terrible pain this case has caused all of you," he said to the members of both Lark's and Dashiell's families. Pastor offered kind words to Dashiell's parents, saying they appeared to be good people. "Mrs. Dashiell asked where she went wrong. She didn't go wrong," he said. "Keeairra Dashiell did this herself."

After Dashiell had been led away, members of her family approached Henry and other relatives of Lark. Forming a line, they each tearfully embraced Henry and the others, whispering apologies.

Taking in the emotional scene was Michael Slider, Henry's uncle and a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department. Slider was fired by the department in 2010 for leaking confidential information about the case after he became convinced that his fellow LAPD detectives had not done enough to protect Henry and Lark from Knox. After an appeals court threw out one of the department's allegations against Slider and sent the case back to the LAPD for reconsideration, police officials relented and reinstated Slider.

72-year-old man convicted of 1957 killing

Has anybody checked to see if there were any missing girls in Washington where this man was a police officer? Did he receive complaints about brutality?

72-year-old man convicted of 1957 killing
Herald and News
September 15, 2012
(AP)

For most of five decades, it seemed no one would ever be held accountable for the murder of a 7-year-old Illinois girl snatched off a small-town street corner as she played.

Now, someone has.

Fifty-five years after Maria Ridulph vanished, her friends and family let out a deafening cheer in court Friday as a judge pronounced a former neighborhood teen — now a 72-year-old man — guilty of the kidnapping and murder. It was one of the oldest unsolved crimes in the U.S. to make it to trial.

The roar of approval soon gave way to loud sobs from those who knew the little girl whose body was found after a five-month search that drew national media attention and haunted people across the country. Jack McCullough, who was 17-year-old John Tessier at the time, showed no hint of emotion.

“A weight has been lifted off my shoulders,” said Kathy Chapman, 63, who was playing with Maria in the snow on the night of Dec. 3, 1957, before she vanished. “Maria finally has the justice she deserves.”

A brutal killing

McCullough approached the girls as they played and won Maria’s trust by talking about dolls and giving her piggyback rides. At some point after Chapman ran home to grab mittens, authorities say McCullough dragged Maria into an alley, choked her with a wire, then stabbed her in her throat and chest.

The motive? Prosecutors say McCullough was sexually attracted to the second-grader. Even in a police interview in 2011, he recalled seeing Maria around the neighborhood, saying she was as pretty as a “Barbie doll.” He wasn’t charged with molesting her, however.

McCullough was briefly a suspect, like more than 100 others, in the 1950s, but he had an alibi. He told investigators he had been traveling to Chicago to get a medical exam before joining the Air Force. He settled in Seattle, working as a Washington state police officer...

Bite mark, DNA tie LAPD detective to 1986 murder

The husband of the dead woman was strangely quiet about this case. Perhaps he felt guilt for being the cause of the killer's jealousy. May 26, 2012 Bite mark, DNA tie LAPD detective to 1986 murder
Produced by Ira Sutow, Taigi Smith, Greg Fisher, Avi Cohen and Linda Martin
[This story originally aired on May 22, 2010.]
(CBS)

The arrest of a cop was shocking news in the City of Angels.

It wasn't just any cop. Stephanie Lazarus was a well respected, highly decorated female detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. And it wasn't just a minor crime. She was charged with the murder of Sherri Rasmussen, a young nurse, 23 years after the killing.

"A Los Angeles police officer arrested for murder is just - it's a bombshell! I mean, you just don't get those kinda cases," Andrew Blankstein said. "People were really stunned by this."

Blankstein and Joel Rubin cover the police beat for the Los Angeles Times and are consultants to "48 Hours Mystery".

"Nobody saw this coming. Nobody says she was a cop that they saw on the edge," Rubin explained. "As far as we can tell, people in the department saw her as, you know, a cop's cop, a good cop."

"She's been a longtime patrol detective," Blankstein added. "She was with the art theft detail in commercial crimes...which is theft of high-end art in L.A .And in doing those kind of investigations... it gets a lot of press, a lot of attention... If the police and prosecutors are going to be believed, she's harboring a secret about murder for 23 years!"

At first glance, Stephanie Lazarus has no obvious connection to the victim in this murder case - Sherri Rasmussen, a highly regarded nursing administrator.

Sherri came from a very close-knit family. Her parents, Nels and Loretta Rasmussen, adored their three daughters and their growing family.

"Sherri was the glue that held the family together all the time... and made everything that much better," Sherri's younger sister, Teresa, told "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Maureen Maher.

But in February 1986, Sherri would be attacked, beaten and shot to death in her Los Angeles home.

"We were an ordinary family, you know... You never think something like this is gonna happen to you," said Teresa. She says she never could have anticipated that only just now - more than 20 years after her sister's murder - there's been arrest.

"It doesn't make the pain any less," she said. "You start the grieving process all over again, one more time."

The pain is most obvious when the family visits Sherri's grave.

"I don't believe that you can understand the grief ... a part of your life has just been taken away forever," Nels Rasmussen told Maher in an exclusive interview.

Her parents say Sherri excelled at everything she did. She became a nurse when she was only 20. At age 27, she was named director of critical care nursing at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, where she sometimes lectured.

"She liked taking care of people and making sure things were done right, that people were cared for properly," said Loretta Rasmussen.

"She said, 'I'm gonna elevate the stature of nursing in the nation,'" Nels recalled. "And she was on her way."

On top of a successful career, in early 1986, Sherri was extraordinarily happy, having just married the man she loved. Her new husband was John Ruetten, a young engineer she'd met in 1984.

As it would turn out, Ruetten was the single link to the woman accused of murdering his new bride.

That is because Stephanie Lazarus was Ruetten's ex-girlfriend. And according to Sherri's friends and family, Lazarus was not willing to give up the man she'd first met in college several years before the murder.

"Sherri was competition," Teresa said. "If she could get Sherri outta the way, then possibly John would be free to be with her again."

Ruetten is the one who discovered his wife's body.

"He was in a daze," Teresa explained. "He was sort of the deer in the headlights look, you know?"

John Ruetten had little to say publicly after his wife's murder in 1986.

He briefly addressed mourners at a hospital memorial service for Sherri, telling them, "I just want to thank you all for coming and I want you to know that Sherri was the best professional in the world - she was the best wife that anybody could ever have."

"To me, he's kind of a central character that we really know the least about," said Blankstein.

"There's a lot of questions left unanswered," added Rubin.

Questions like: what did John Ruetten know? Or suspect? He says that early on, he told detectives to talk to his ex-girlfriend - an LAPD cop.

"John is really the only person that has this connection to both women that can tell us what was going on to some extent?" Maher asked Rubin.

"You would think, yeah," he replies.

But police were off chasing other leads, and Sherri's friend, Jayne Goldberg, says that Ruetten just quietly faded out of sight, leaving her quite angry.

"I would have expected that John would have been much more involved in the investigation...and demand answers," she said.

Especially, as months - and then years - went by with no resolution to the case.

"He should have been her advocate. She would have been his," Goldberg said. "Why wasn't he camped outside the police station? I don't understand it!"...

Convictions linked to FBI lab’s flawed forensics

"Tribble would become the 290th person cleared by post-conviction DNA testing in the United States if a D.C. Superior Court judge grants his motion under the D.C. Innocence Protection Act."

Prosecutors agree: Murder conviction of D.C. man should be overturned
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post
April 27, 2012

Video: Santae Tribble was convicted of murdering cab driver John McCormick in 1978. In 2012, DNA retesting of the evidence that was key in his conviction—hair from a stocking mask found near the scene of the murder—has proved that none of the 13 hairs recovered could have come from Tribble. D.C. public defense lawyer Sandra Levick has filed a motion seeking Tribble's exoneration.

Federal prosecutors on Friday acknowledged errors in the scientific evidence that helped send a Washington man to prison for 28 years for murder and took the extraordinary step of agreeing to have his conviction overturned.

U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. cited DNA evidence in also agreeing to drop the murder charge against Santae A. Tribble and never try him again. But even as the prosecutor said the evidence that convicted Tribble was flawed, Machen stopped short of declaring him innocent.

Investigating flaws in forensics: A Washington Post investigation reveals that Justice Department officials have known for years that flaws in forensic techniques and weak laboratory standards may have led to the convictions of innocent people across the country, raising the question: How many more are out there? Read related story.

Tribble, 51, was found guilty of murdering a District taxi driver in an early morning robbery on July 26, 1978. His case was featured in articles last week in which The Washington Post reported that Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to convictions of potentially innocent people.

In Tribble’s case, prosecutors and the FBI laboratory were incorrect in linking a hair found near the murder scene to Tribble, according to recent DNA test results.

As the U.S. attorney’s office filed court papers late Friday, three former senior FBI lab experts and a national civil liberties group joined calls for the bureau and the Justice Department to review testimony in all convictions nationwide that depended on FBI hair evidence before 1996. Such a review would determine whether the evidence should be retested using DNA.

The Post reported last week that the Justice Department never reviewed thousands of cases that relied on potentially flawed hair comparisons, resulting in men like Tribble staying in prison. In many of the cases that the agency did review and found to have problems, prosecutors never notified defendants or their lawyers of the issues uncovered.

Machen has agreed to review all District convictions obtained with hair evidence and will ask the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project to assess whether any old evidence should be retested with modern DNA techniques. Justice Department and FBI officials said they still were considering a similar review nationwide.

Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) this week urged the Justice Department to review its handling of about 250 questionable convictions identified by The Post, most of which relied on hair comparisons...

Washington State officials hid evidence that might have saved Joash Powell's sons

Powell had 'incestuous' images on his computer, police say
February 10, 2012
Associated Press

Before Josh Powell was going to try to win back custody of his children last week, Washington state authorities received materials from Utah police that had been discovered on a computer in Powell's home two years ago. Authorities say the images depicted "incestuous" sex and were disconcerting enough that they prompted a psychologist to recommend that Powell undergo an intensive psychosexual evaluation.

But a lawyer for Powell's in-laws, who had custody of the boys, wasn't invited to see the materials before the custody hearing - even though a Utah judge had specified in a sealed court order that he was one of the few people allowed to see them.

Had he seen the images, attorney Steve Downing said, he might have asked the court to change the terms of Powell's supervised visitation with the boys, such as by asking for the visits to be in a public place. Instead, Downing said he didn't learn until Thursday morning - four days after Powell killed himself and the boys in a house fire - that he was allowed to see them.

"That would have absolutely given me the opportunity to submit a declaration about our deep concern. I was approved ... to view those pictures and I was never notified," Downing said. "I could have gone into all the reasons why the visitation could have or should have been restricted."

Pierce County Sheriff's Detective Ed Troyer told The Associated Press on Thursday night that the images collected by investigators from Powell's home computer in Utah two years ago were realistic computer-generated depictions of "incestuous" parent-child relations.

"It's family-oriented in nature," Troyer said. "It is incestuous."

Troyer said the images couldn't be legally defined as pornography because they don't involve real people. Troyer said the judge in last week's custody hearing was apprised of the images at the proceeding.

Powell was the only person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, Susan Powell, from their home in West Valley City, Utah, in 2009. He was never arrested or charged in the case, and a month after she vanished, he moved with his boys back to his father Steve's home in Puyallup, Wash., south of Seattle.

Last year, authorities searched Steve Powell's home, computer and cars for evidence in Susan Powell's disappearance - and instead said they found thousands of voyeuristic pictures and videos, including child pornography recorded by Steve Powell. The state took custody of the boys and turned them over to Susan's parents, Chuck and Judy Cox.

Josh Powell repeatedly tried to regain custody of the boys. At one point late last year, he underwent a court-ordered psychological evaluation. The psychologist held off on finalizing his report for some time, anticipating that he would be able to review materials that West Valley City police had discovered on Josh Powell's computer, said Washington state assistant attorney general John Long, who represented the state in the custody case.

But as the Feb. 1 custody hearing neared, the materials hadn't arrived from Utah, Long said. It wasn't until after the psychologist finalized the report that the materials arrived at the Pierce County Sheriff's Department. When the psychologist saw them, he added an addendum to his report recommending the psychosexual evaluation of Josh Powell - an exam that can include a polygraph as well as more intrusive measures to determine the body's response to child pornography or other stimuli.

On Jan. 30, the sheriff's office arranged a viewing of the materials, said Sherry Hill, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social and Health Services.

Among the attendees were Long and a Child Protective Services social worker. Downing said he wasn't notified of the viewing. Long confirmed Downing had been listed as one of those allowed to see the images. However, Downing was not technically a party to the Feb. 1 hearing, which was between Powell and the state, so there was no rush to make sure Downing saw the materials beforehand.

Josh Powell's attorney, Jeffrey Bassett, also did not attend. He said in an email Thursday that there had been some "miscommunication," and he didn't learn about the viewing until after the fact. He wasn't able to immediately schedule another viewing.

Two days later, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Kathryn Nelson heard arguments from Josh Powell seeking to regain custody of his children. Long opposed that, noting only that "concerning" images from his computer had been provided by the police in Utah.

After considering Long's arguments and the recommendation for the psychosexual evaluation, Nelson denied Powell's request. She said she wouldn't consider granting Powell custody unless he underwent the exam. She didn't make any changes in the visitation schedule, which allowed Powell to see his boys, 5 and 7, at his house twice a week while supervised by a social worker.

On Sunday, the social worker brought the boys to see their dad at his rental home outside Puyallup. After the boys rushed inside, he slammed the door in her face, locking her out. He attacked the boys with a hatchet, then torched the home in a gas-fueled inferno.

Chuck Cox, Susan Powell's father, said the images were just another indicator of problems with Josh Powell. Cox said he did not know the details of the images. He believed the kids should have been fully taken away from Powell long ago and that they raised concerns about allowing him continued contact.

"How much does it take for them to figure out that he should not have the children?" he said. "It's just wrong. They needed to be taken out of that environment."

SD City College’s Suspected Killer Remains A Fugitive Six Months Later

SD City College’s Suspected Killer Remains A Fugitive Six Months Later
By Amita Sharma
March 23, 2011
KPBS

It has been more than six months since San Diego City College student Diana Gonzalez was found murdered inside a campus bathroom but investigators are no closer to catching her suspected killer.

Police believe Armando Gabriel Perez fled to Mexico shortly after he murdered Gonzalez. Despite help from Mexican authorities, Perez has remained elusive. There are published reports in Mexico that Perez is working as an assassin for the Sinaloa drug cartel. San Diego City College Professor Larissa Dorman, who has acted as an advocate for Gonzalez’s family, said the news – if true – is alarming.

“It makes it even more scary for the family, who are devastated not only for the loss of their daughter but for the loss of their lives and the likelihood of them having any kind of closure now seems like a farther-away possibility," Dorman said.

A spokesman for District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis says catching Perez is a high priority for the office. Gonzalez was killed days after the D.A.’s office declined to prosecute Perez for allegedly kidnapping and choking her.

Five federal judges say California may be about to execute an innocent man

Framed for Murder?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
New York Times
December 8, 2010

“California may be about to execute an innocent man.”

That’s the view of five federal judges in a case involving Kevin Cooper, a black man in California who faces lethal injection next year for supposedly murdering a white family. The judges argue compellingly that he was framed by police.

Mr. Cooper’s impending execution is so outrageous that it has produced a mutiny among these federal circuit court judges, distinguished jurists just one notch below the United States Supreme Court. But the judicial process has run out for Mr. Cooper. Now it’s up to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to decide whether to commute Mr. Cooper’s sentence before leaving office.

This case, an illuminating window into the pitfalls of capital punishment, dates to a horrific quadruple-murder in June 1983. Doug and Peggy Ryen were stabbed to death in their house, along with their 10-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old houseguest. The Ryens’ 8-year-old son, Josh, was left for dead but survived. They were all white.

Josh initially told investigators that the crime had been committed by three people, all white, although by the trial he suggested that he had seen just one person with an Afro. The first version made sense because the weapons included a hatchet, an ice pick and one or two knives. Could one intruder juggling several weapons overpower five victims, including a 200-pound former Marine like Doug Ryen, who also had a loaded rifle nearby?

But the police learned that Mr. Cooper had walked away from the minimum security prison where he was serving a burglary sentence and had hidden in an empty home 125 yards away from the crime scene. The police decided that he had committed the crime alone.

William A. Fletcher, a federal circuit judge, explained his view of what happens in such cases in a law school lecture at Gonzaga University, in which he added that Mr. Cooper is “probably” innocent: “The police are under heavy pressure to solve a high-profile crime. They know, or think they know, who did the crime. And they plant evidence to help their case along.”

Judge Fletcher wrote an extraordinary judicial opinion — more than 100 pages when it was released — dissenting from the refusal of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to rehear the case...

Former FBI agent on trial for murder

Trial begins for ex-FBI agent accused of killing son’s girlfriend with hammer
By Dave Toplikar
Las Vegas Sun
Dec. 7, 2010

The issue is was it self defense or murder?

"This is not a who-done-it ," Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancario Pesci told a Clark County District Court jury late Tuesday afternoon in opening arguments for the murder trial of Edward A. Preciado-Nuno, a retired San Diego FBI special agent.

The 63-year-old former Marine and 25-year FBI agent has freely admitted he repeatedly struck his son's girlfriend, Kimberly Long, with a hammer in the head in a bloody fight two years ago in a Las Vegas home, Pesci told the Clark County District Court jury.

Pesci showed the jury a gruesome autopsy photo of Long's head. It showed 13 places where Preciado-Nuno had hit her with a claw hammer...

Deputy who killed wife finally gets his plea deal: 15 years

By Ray Huard
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
September 11, 2008

SAN DIEGO COURTS – A former sheriff's deputy who shot and killed his wife during a fight in their Alpine home with their 4-year-old son in the room was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday...

Lowell Bruce was given the maximum sentence allowed by law after pleading guilty in August 2007 to voluntary manslaughter for the December 2006 death of Kristin Maxwell-Bruce, San Diego Superior Court Judge Michael D. Wellington said.

It took more than a year and three judges to finally impose the sentence.

Bruce, a deputy since 1998, initially was charged with murder. But in July 2007 prosecutors and defense lawyers proposed a deal under which he would plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter and get a 15-year prison sentence.

El Cajon Superior Court Judge Herbert J. Exarhos rejected the deal, saying it raised questions about whether Bruce was getting special treatment because of his job in law enforcement.

A second judge, Allan J. Preckel, later agreed to it but then changed his mind, saying he wanted the discretion to sentence Bruce to a longer or shorter term. In June, Preckel was removed from the case for what an Orange County judge said was an appearance of bias against Bruce, and the case was assigned to Wellington.

Justice system in New Orleans: What's wrong with this system?

Anderson Cooper reports on CNN regarding the soaring murder rate in New Orleans:

"Witnesses are either missing or unwilling to cooperate. Last year, nearly half the murder suspects walked free because by law, prosecutors have just 60 days to make their case before a judge. Time is simply running out.

(on camera) What's actively being done at this point to try and repair the justice system so the killing will stop?

NAGIN: Everything. Everything is being done, from more resources, more dollars, more manpower, more police officers. We've got the federal government involved.

KAYE: why then is the number of homicides going up instead of down? Who should be held accountable? Everyone is pointing fingers.

Police blame the district attorney for not prosecuting cases quickly enough. The district attorney blames police for holding onto case files and letting witnesses slip away. And the mayor, he accuses the district attorney of encouraging lawlessness and dropping charges against dangerous criminals.

(voice-over) Like this guy, Michael Anderson, who says he's innocent. District attorney Eddie Jordan just last week dropped five counts of first degree murder against him for the deaths of five teenagers. Jordan's office claimed it couldn't find a key witness. So how did police manage to the next day?

(on camera) Certainly a lot of people are pointing fingers at your office. Who do you think is at fault here?

EDDIE JORDAN, ORLEANS PARISH DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Well, let me say, first of all, that I am not going to take the blame for all the sins of the criminal justice system. Certainly, we have our shortcomings. But we're working on our shortcomings.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/27/acd.01.html

Man killed wife, then demanded law and order

LAPD make arrest in notorious '80s death

By THOMAS WATKINS
Associated Press
Feb. 23, 2008


LOS ANGELES - A Japanese businessman has been arrested on suspicion of murder more than a quarter-century after an infamous downtown shooting that left his wife dead and caused an international furor, police said.


Kazuyoshi Miura, 60, had already been convicted in Japan in 1994 of the murder of his wife, Kazumi Miura, but that verdict was overturned by the country's high courts 10 years ago.

Miura was arrested Friday while visiting Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth territory in the Pacific, after cold-case detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department worked with authorities there and in Guam, police said in a statement.

"A murder suspect who has been eluding (the) dragnet has been finally captured," the LAPD said. "Miura's extradition is pending."

Officer April Harding, a department spokeswoman, said no other details were available.

Miura's attorney, Junichiro Hironaka, told Japan's Fuji TV late Saturday that the arrest "astonished" him.

"My understanding was that the case was already closed both in Japan and the U.S., especially after their joint investigation," Hironaka said. "It's quite a surprise."

Miura and his wife were visiting Los Angeles on Nov. 18, 1981, when they were shot in a parking lot. Miura was hit in the right leg, while his 28-year-old wife was shot in the head.

His wife remained in a coma and was taken in an Air Force hospital jet to Japan, where she eventually died. Miura blamed street robbers on the attack and railed from his hospital bed against what he called a violent city.

The incident reinforced Japanese stereotypes of violence in the U.S. at a time when Los Angeles was preparing for the 1984 Olympics and was particularly sensitive about its overseas image. The LAPD vowed to find the killers.

Daryl Gates, who was police chief at the time of the killing, said Saturday that Miura was a key suspect even then.

"I remember the case well. I think he killed his wife," said Gates, who had not heard about Miura's arrest before he spoke Saturday afternoon. "We had Japanese police come over; they believed he was guilty, we believed he was guilty, but we couldn't prove it."

Miura, a clothing importer who traveled regularly to the U.S., had said he would write then-President Reagan and then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. and urge them to make the city safer.

"Many young Japanese will be coming to the U.S. with their dreams in their hearts," Miura said at the time, according to the Los Angeles Times. "I strongly hope this accident will never occur again."

In 1984, however, Miura's image as a grieving husband was tarnished by a series of news articles in Japan.

Miura reportedly collected about $1.4 million at today's exchange rate on life insurance policies he had taken out on his wife. In addition, an actress who claimed to be Miura's lover told a newspaper that Miura had hired her to kill his wife in their hotel room on a trip to L.A. three months before the shootings.

Miura was arrested in Japan in 1985 on suspicion of assaulting his wife with intent to kill her for insurance money in the hotel incident. He was convicted of attempted murder and while serving a six-year sentence was charged under Japanese law in 1988 with his wife's murder.

Miura was convicted of that charge in 1994 and sentenced to life in prison. Four years later, however, a Japanese high court overturned the sentence, throwing out a lower court's determination that Miura conspired with a friend in Los Angeles to kill his wife.

Kenji Yazawa, a Japanese consul in Saipan, said his office was informed of Miura's detention Friday but is waiting for permission from local authorities before meeting with him.

"It's been two days since he was detained, and we believe he has been given an explanation of his situation by now," Yazawa said. "I think we should probably discuss his situation now and what may come next."

Yazawa said Miura is believed to have visited Saipan previously and that he was "puzzled" by the unexpected development.

A duty official at Japan's National Police Agency said there was no notice from U.S. authorities before the arrest and that the news surprised him. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of internal policy.

News of Miura's arrest made front-page headlines in Japan.

"Why now?" asked the Mainichi newspaper.

Hideo Arai, president of Alpha Japan Promotion, an entertainment management company Miura is associated with, wrote on his blog that the arrest was "outrageous" because of the previous acquittal.

"Japan's Foreign Ministry should lodge a strong protest," Arai wrote.

After his acquittal in 2003, Miura often spoke publicly about false accusation and hounding media coverage.

He has been arrested at least twice since 2003, most recently on suspicion of stealing health supplements at a drugstore near Tokyo last year. Miura denied the charges and is free on bail. His trial is pending.

___

Associated Press Writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080224/ap_on_re_us/businessman_s_wife