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.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Tom Condit and Chandra Levy: mirror images in Egypt?
Could the following story happen in America? It could, but it hasn't.
By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI
AP
Sept. 2, 2008
CAIRO, Egypt
An Egyptian lawmaker and business tycoon was arrested Tuesday in the death of a Lebanese pop singer, Egypt's chief prosecutor said, accusing the man of paying a former police officer $2 million to kill her.
Hisham Talaat, a lawmaker from the ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak, is accused of ordering the death of 30-year-old Suzanne Tamim, who was found decapitated in her Dubai apartment in July, chief prosecutor Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud told The Associated Press...
By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI
AP
Sept. 2, 2008
CAIRO, Egypt
An Egyptian lawmaker and business tycoon was arrested Tuesday in the death of a Lebanese pop singer, Egypt's chief prosecutor said, accusing the man of paying a former police officer $2 million to kill her.
Hisham Talaat, a lawmaker from the ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak, is accused of ordering the death of 30-year-old Suzanne Tamim, who was found decapitated in her Dubai apartment in July, chief prosecutor Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud told The Associated Press...
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife Trinity Tomsic were victims of a mistaken police raid last week
My guess is that the police chief belonged to a different political party than Mayor Calvo. My opinion is, of course, influenced by watching San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and her henchman Patrick O'Toole conduct political prosecutions for the past couple of years.
Police chief expresses regret over drug raid
By Gus G. Sentementes
Baltimore Sun
August 9, 2008
Prince George's County police Chief Melvin C. High said yesterday that a suburban Washington mayor and his wife were "innocent victims of drug traffickers" and expressed regret for the loss of the couple's dogs during a raid on his home last week.
Meanwhile, the FBI has opened an investigation into the actions of the county police officers who burst into the house of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and shot the dogs. Calvo and his mother-in-law were handcuffed after the officers mistakenly suspected he was involved in shipping marijuana to his home.
Special Agent Richard Wolf, a spokesman for the FBI's Baltimore field office, said the agency has opened a civil rights investigation upon the request of Calvo...
The innocent bystander turned out to be the perpetrator
Bruce Ivins was able to shift suspicions to Steven Hatfill.
In Anthrax Case, Hindsight Shifts View of Ivins Actions to Aid Probe Appear Now As Cover-Up
By ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON and SIOBHAN GORMAN
August 9, 2008
Bruce Ivins...took an overdose of painkillers and died in an apparent suicide last week. The FBI said the government scientist was close to being charged in 2001's deadly anthrax attacks.
One night in autumn 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the worst act of bioterrorism in its history, Bruce Ivins was alone in his cluttered Fort Detrick, Md., office, scrubbing phones, walls and furniture.
For colleagues, this was proof of the anthrax scientist's attention to safety. From a distance of seven years, it might be evidence of his guilt.
Like the detective in Agatha Christie's play "Mousetrap" who turned out to be the murderer, Dr. Ivins played a haunting dual role in the anthrax mystery, federal law-enforcement agents say. He was part of the team that examined the poisoned letters. Investigators say he implicated other scientists and submitted incomplete samples to throw them off-track...
In Anthrax Case, Hindsight Shifts View of Ivins Actions to Aid Probe Appear Now As Cover-Up
By ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON and SIOBHAN GORMAN
August 9, 2008
Bruce Ivins...took an overdose of painkillers and died in an apparent suicide last week. The FBI said the government scientist was close to being charged in 2001's deadly anthrax attacks.
One night in autumn 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the worst act of bioterrorism in its history, Bruce Ivins was alone in his cluttered Fort Detrick, Md., office, scrubbing phones, walls and furniture.
For colleagues, this was proof of the anthrax scientist's attention to safety. From a distance of seven years, it might be evidence of his guilt.
Like the detective in Agatha Christie's play "Mousetrap" who turned out to be the murderer, Dr. Ivins played a haunting dual role in the anthrax mystery, federal law-enforcement agents say. He was part of the team that examined the poisoned letters. Investigators say he implicated other scientists and submitted incomplete samples to throw them off-track...
Thursday, August 07, 2008
20-year-old kills self after police say, "Are you a coward?"
video
Oceanside police accused of negligence after man's suicide
Oceanside police accused of negligence after man's suicide
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Personality of a killer: church-going, jolly family man
How can you tell who will become a killer?
The answer is surprising in the case of the man suspected of sending anthrax powder in the US mail in 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/us/02scientist.html?em#
New York Times
By SARAH ABRUZZESE and ERIC LIPTON
August 2, 2008
FREDERICK, Md. — Bruce E. Ivins arrived last month for a group counseling session at a psychiatric center here in his hometown with a startling announcement: Facing the prospect of murder charges, he had bought a bulletproof vest and a gun as he contemplated killing his co-workers at the nearby Army research laboratory...
To some of his longtime colleagues and neighbors, it was a startling and inexplicable turn of events for a churchgoing, family-oriented germ researcher known for his jolly disposition — the guy who did a juggling act at community events and composed satiric ballads he played on guitar or piano to departing co-workers.
“He did not seem to have any particular grudges or idiosyncrasies,” said Kenneth W. Hedlund, a retired physician who once worked alongside Dr. Ivins at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick. “He was the last person you would have suspected to be involved in something like this.”
The answer is surprising in the case of the man suspected of sending anthrax powder in the US mail in 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/us/02scientist.html?em#
New York Times
By SARAH ABRUZZESE and ERIC LIPTON
August 2, 2008
FREDERICK, Md. — Bruce E. Ivins arrived last month for a group counseling session at a psychiatric center here in his hometown with a startling announcement: Facing the prospect of murder charges, he had bought a bulletproof vest and a gun as he contemplated killing his co-workers at the nearby Army research laboratory...
To some of his longtime colleagues and neighbors, it was a startling and inexplicable turn of events for a churchgoing, family-oriented germ researcher known for his jolly disposition — the guy who did a juggling act at community events and composed satiric ballads he played on guitar or piano to departing co-workers.
“He did not seem to have any particular grudges or idiosyncrasies,” said Kenneth W. Hedlund, a retired physician who once worked alongside Dr. Ivins at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick. “He was the last person you would have suspected to be involved in something like this.”
Friday, August 01, 2008
Hatfill was innocent; suspected anthrax killer Ivins kills himself
Anthrax Suspect Commits Suicide
By MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN, AP
Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty against a top Army microbiologist in connection with anthrax mailings that killed five people...
The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins...killed himself this week.
...prosecutors were closing in on Ivins, 62. They were planning an indictment that would have sought the death penalty for the attacks, which killed five people, crippled the postal system and traumatized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks.
Authorities were investigating whether Ivins released the anthrax as a way to test his vaccine, officials said.
...Russell Byrne, a colleague who worked in the bacteriology division of the Fort Detrick research facility ...said Ivins was forcefully removed from his job by local police recently because of fears that he had become a danger to himself or others. The investigation led to Ivins being hospitalized for depression earlier this month, Byrne said.
...The Los Angeles Times, which first reported that Ivins was under suspicion, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.
...
In late June, the government exonerated a colleague of Ivins', Steven Hatfill...
By MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN, AP
Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty against a top Army microbiologist in connection with anthrax mailings that killed five people...
The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins...killed himself this week.
...prosecutors were closing in on Ivins, 62. They were planning an indictment that would have sought the death penalty for the attacks, which killed five people, crippled the postal system and traumatized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks.
Authorities were investigating whether Ivins released the anthrax as a way to test his vaccine, officials said.
...Russell Byrne, a colleague who worked in the bacteriology division of the Fort Detrick research facility ...said Ivins was forcefully removed from his job by local police recently because of fears that he had become a danger to himself or others. The investigation led to Ivins being hospitalized for depression earlier this month, Byrne said.
...The Los Angeles Times, which first reported that Ivins was under suspicion, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.
...
In late June, the government exonerated a colleague of Ivins', Steven Hatfill...
Monday, July 14, 2008
Los Angeles tried to create scapegoats in the Ramparts scandal
HARPER v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 06-55519
D.C. No. CV-03-00959-CJC
Filed July 14, 2008
Before: Jerome Farris and Richard A. Paez, Circuit Judges,
and Frederic Block,* District Judge.
Opinion by Judge Paez
COUNSEL
Edward J. Horowitz, Office of Edward J. Horowitz, Pacific
Palisades, California; Dale B. Goldfarb, Harrington, Foxx,
Dubrow & Canter, Los Angeles, California, for the
defendants-appellants.
Jeffrey Isaac Ehrlich, The Ehrlich Law Firm, Claremont, California;
Joseph Y. Avrahamy, Law Offices of Joseph Y.
Avrahamy, Encino, California; Etan Z. Lorant, Law Offices
of Etan Z. Lorant, Encino, California, for the plaintiffsappellees.
OPINION
PAEZ, Circuit Judge:
This case arises from the Los Angeles Police Department’s
(“LAPD”) investigation and prosecution of three former
police officers, Paul Harper, Brian Liddy, and Edward Ortiz.
These officers were implicated in wrongdoing by former
LAPD officer Rafael Perez in an event that came to be known
as the “Rampart Scandal”—an event that, based on Perez’s
own unlawful conduct and his allegations of corruption at the
Rampart Division, launched an internal investigation that ultimately
implicated scores of police officers, overturned dozens
of convictions, and generated intense media scrutiny. The
criminal charges against these officers resulted in acquittals.
Harper, Liddy, and Ortiz (the “Officers”) subsequently
brought suit against a number of actors, including Perez, the
district attorneys, the City of Los Angeles, and former Chief
of Police Bernard Parks for violations of their constitutional
civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, contending among other
claims that the defendants had conducted an improper and
negligent investigation, and that they had been arrested without
probable cause for falsifying a police report and conspiring
to file such a report.
The Officers’ claims against the County of Los Angles,
District Attorney Gil Garcetti, Rafael Perez, and Deputy District
Attorneys Laesecke and Ingalls were dismissed on Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) motions or motions for
summary judgment, and the case proceeded to trial against the
City of Los Angeles and Chief Parks (“the City”). After an
eleven-day trial, the jury returned a special verdict in favor of
the Officers, finding that the Officers’ constitutional rights
were violated by the City and by Chief Parks in his official
capacity.1 The jury awarded each officer compensatory damages
in the amount of $5,000,001. The City thereupon filed a
number of post-judgment motions, including a renewed
motion under Rule 50(b) for judgment as a matter of law. The
district court denied the motions, and the City appealed. We
affirm. “[W]e do not lightly cast aside the solemnity of the
jury’s verdict.” Graves v. City of Coeur D’Alene, 339 F.3d
828, 844 (9th Cir. 2003). Both the jury’s verdict and the jury’s
damages award are supported by substantial evidence. We
also affirm the district court’s challenged evidentiary rulings.
Because we affirm both the verdict and the district court’s
determination on the post-judgment motions, we also affirm
the district court’s award for attorney’s fees under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1988.2
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 06-55519
D.C. No. CV-03-00959-CJC
Filed July 14, 2008
Before: Jerome Farris and Richard A. Paez, Circuit Judges,
and Frederic Block,* District Judge.
Opinion by Judge Paez
COUNSEL
Edward J. Horowitz, Office of Edward J. Horowitz, Pacific
Palisades, California; Dale B. Goldfarb, Harrington, Foxx,
Dubrow & Canter, Los Angeles, California, for the
defendants-appellants.
Jeffrey Isaac Ehrlich, The Ehrlich Law Firm, Claremont, California;
Joseph Y. Avrahamy, Law Offices of Joseph Y.
Avrahamy, Encino, California; Etan Z. Lorant, Law Offices
of Etan Z. Lorant, Encino, California, for the plaintiffsappellees.
OPINION
PAEZ, Circuit Judge:
This case arises from the Los Angeles Police Department’s
(“LAPD”) investigation and prosecution of three former
police officers, Paul Harper, Brian Liddy, and Edward Ortiz.
These officers were implicated in wrongdoing by former
LAPD officer Rafael Perez in an event that came to be known
as the “Rampart Scandal”—an event that, based on Perez’s
own unlawful conduct and his allegations of corruption at the
Rampart Division, launched an internal investigation that ultimately
implicated scores of police officers, overturned dozens
of convictions, and generated intense media scrutiny. The
criminal charges against these officers resulted in acquittals.
Harper, Liddy, and Ortiz (the “Officers”) subsequently
brought suit against a number of actors, including Perez, the
district attorneys, the City of Los Angeles, and former Chief
of Police Bernard Parks for violations of their constitutional
civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, contending among other
claims that the defendants had conducted an improper and
negligent investigation, and that they had been arrested without
probable cause for falsifying a police report and conspiring
to file such a report.
The Officers’ claims against the County of Los Angles,
District Attorney Gil Garcetti, Rafael Perez, and Deputy District
Attorneys Laesecke and Ingalls were dismissed on Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) motions or motions for
summary judgment, and the case proceeded to trial against the
City of Los Angeles and Chief Parks (“the City”). After an
eleven-day trial, the jury returned a special verdict in favor of
the Officers, finding that the Officers’ constitutional rights
were violated by the City and by Chief Parks in his official
capacity.1 The jury awarded each officer compensatory damages
in the amount of $5,000,001. The City thereupon filed a
number of post-judgment motions, including a renewed
motion under Rule 50(b) for judgment as a matter of law. The
district court denied the motions, and the City appealed. We
affirm. “[W]e do not lightly cast aside the solemnity of the
jury’s verdict.” Graves v. City of Coeur D’Alene, 339 F.3d
828, 844 (9th Cir. 2003). Both the jury’s verdict and the jury’s
damages award are supported by substantial evidence. We
also affirm the district court’s challenged evidentiary rulings.
Because we affirm both the verdict and the district court’s
determination on the post-judgment motions, we also affirm
the district court’s award for attorney’s fees under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1988.2
Friday, July 11, 2008
Cops get hysterical, falsely claim cookies laced with drugs
An innocent 18-year-old spent a night in jail because police got the idea that the cookies he delivered were laced with drugs, then claimed that they had evidence to prove their hunch. It turned out that the deliveries were part of a court-ordered community service program.
Here is a story that was published BEFORE tests proved the cookies were clean.
July 10, 2008
By DAN X. McGRAW
The Dallas Morning News
dmcgraw@dallasnews.com
Police officers in Blue Mound didn't think much of the cookies dropped off at their station Monday night – until they got a whiff of them.
Overpowering the chocolate chips was the pungent smell of marijuana, police said. [Note: this turned out to be a figment of the police officers' imaginations.]
"It reeked of it," said Lt. Thomas Cain, a Blue Mound police spokesman. "It wasn't hard to tell. Anyone that's been around marijuana before would have known."
Christian Phillips Christian Phillips, 18, of Watauga was arrested Tuesday after authorities said he tried to deliver a batch of cookies that later tested positive for LSD to the nearby Lake Worth police station...
The cookies, which tested positive for marijuana [note: this report was later proved false], were not eaten by anyone in Blue Mound, he said...
Police arrested Mr. Phillips around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday when he attempted to drop off cookies in Lake Worth, officers said...
Here is a story that was published BEFORE tests proved the cookies were clean.
July 10, 2008
By DAN X. McGRAW
The Dallas Morning News
dmcgraw@dallasnews.com
Police officers in Blue Mound didn't think much of the cookies dropped off at their station Monday night – until they got a whiff of them.
Overpowering the chocolate chips was the pungent smell of marijuana, police said. [Note: this turned out to be a figment of the police officers' imaginations.]
"It reeked of it," said Lt. Thomas Cain, a Blue Mound police spokesman. "It wasn't hard to tell. Anyone that's been around marijuana before would have known."
Christian Phillips Christian Phillips, 18, of Watauga was arrested Tuesday after authorities said he tried to deliver a batch of cookies that later tested positive for LSD to the nearby Lake Worth police station...
The cookies, which tested positive for marijuana [note: this report was later proved false], were not eaten by anyone in Blue Mound, he said...
Police arrested Mr. Phillips around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday when he attempted to drop off cookies in Lake Worth, officers said...
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Did false accusations in anthrax case lead to failure to find perpetrator?
One of the problems with false accusations is that they tend to stop investigations from going in the right direction.
Washington Post
June 28, 2008
Doctor Who Was Target in U.S. Anthrax Probe, Wins Multimillion Dollar Settlement
The physician and bio-researcher who the U.S. Justice department identified as a "person of interest" in the bizarre series of anthrax incidents that killed 5 people beginning in 2001 has settled his lawsuit against the government.
TheNew York Timesreports that Dr. Steven Hatfill will receive almost $3 million in cash and an additional $150,000 annually for the next 20 years to settle a lawsuit he filed in 2003, charging the FBI and U.S. Justice Department with leaking information to the news media in order to link him to the mailing of letters that contained anthrax spores.
Hatfill has consistently denied having anything to do with the anthrax incidents, in which five people died after inhaling the spore particles and another 17 were hospitalized, in 2001 and 2002.
U.S. Justice Department officials have never explained why Hatfill was such a prominent figure in the investigation, and a government statement said only that the government admitted no liability but decided settlement was "in the best interest of the United States," the newspaper reported.
Washington Post
June 28, 2008
Doctor Who Was Target in U.S. Anthrax Probe, Wins Multimillion Dollar Settlement
The physician and bio-researcher who the U.S. Justice department identified as a "person of interest" in the bizarre series of anthrax incidents that killed 5 people beginning in 2001 has settled his lawsuit against the government.
TheNew York Timesreports that Dr. Steven Hatfill will receive almost $3 million in cash and an additional $150,000 annually for the next 20 years to settle a lawsuit he filed in 2003, charging the FBI and U.S. Justice Department with leaking information to the news media in order to link him to the mailing of letters that contained anthrax spores.
Hatfill has consistently denied having anything to do with the anthrax incidents, in which five people died after inhaling the spore particles and another 17 were hospitalized, in 2001 and 2002.
U.S. Justice Department officials have never explained why Hatfill was such a prominent figure in the investigation, and a government statement said only that the government admitted no liability but decided settlement was "in the best interest of the United States," the newspaper reported.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Border Patrol Corruption Increasing
What's the point in building a fence when our own agents allow illegal entry at the main gate?
Monday, April 28, 2008
Why didn't Biloxi jail fire violent guard Ryan Teale?
Why didn't Biloxi jail fire violent guard Ryan Teale? Because prison guards were taught to cover up wrongdoing.
CNN.com
Anderson Cooper
CNN.com
Anderson Cooper
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
"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
When the justice system befriends child molesters
CNN.com
Anderson Cooper
"...You're paying for the criminal justice system. We all are. And you're counting on it to keep you safe and uphold the principles you believe in. The truth is, though, it doesn't always work that way.
Money is wasted. Bad guys go free. Decent people get hurt, and government sometimes gets away with it.
This hour is about holding people accountable.
Tonight, we will look at how a man accused of raping a child could go free, perhaps never to be tried again, because the prosecution could not find him a qualified interpreter. It only took us a few hours on the phone to find one.
And it gets worse. He might not have even needed an interpreter at all. And the evidence of that was plain to see.
We begin tonight with a story that seemed utterly surreal to us when we first learned about it, an accused molester going free because the court couldn't find him a qualified interpreter.
And, the more we investigated, the stranger it got. And the more you hear tonight, the madder you will likely get. How could an accused molester go free?
...GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the man at the center of a legal storm, because of a bizarre technicality that is hard to believe, Mahamu Kanneh, charged with the horrifying crimes of raping and repeatedly molesting a 7-year-old girl and molesting a 1-and-a-half-year-old girl, both relatives of his.
But now the charges against the Liberian immigrant have disappeared.
JOHN MCCARTHY, MONTGOMERY COUNTY PROSECUTOR: We believe that that decision to dismiss these charges was improper.
TUCHMAN: Why were such serious charges dismissed? Because a court clerk was unable to find an interpreter fluent in the rare language known as Vai who could stay through the entire trial. A court-ordered psychiatrist told the judge an interpreter was necessary.
MCCARTHY: The bottom line is that any delays caused by an attempt to find an appropriate and qualified interpreter is not attributable to the prosecution and legally was the responsibility of the courts and should not serve as the basis for dismissing the charges against the defendant.
TUCHMAN: But Judge Katherine Savage disagreed, saying on the bench, "This is one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in a long time." She cleared the charges because she says the long delay violated Kanneh's constitutional right to a speedy trial.
"Keeping Them Honest," we investigated what went wrong. An estimated 100,000 people in the world speak the West African tribal language of Vai.
The court office in Rockville, Maryland, says it worked hard to find someone anywhere in the country who could be with the suspect during the trial. Over two-and-a-half years, it couldn't successfully do so...
TUCHMAN (on camera): This story strikes high on the outrage meter. But what may be more outrageous involves the question over whether Kanneh needed an interpreter to begin with, because CNN has learned that Kanneh graduated from this Maryland high school back in 2005, one of the best high schools in the state, where, most certainly, you need to know more than Vai to get by.
(voice-over): At Magruder High School, a student is not allowed to get a diploma without passing four years of English. A source in the school says Kanneh did not even find it necessary to take the English-as-a-second-language course that is offered. And there's more.
JEREMY BROWN, NEIGHBOR OF MAHAMU KANNEH: It's right there, number seven.
TUCHMAN: Jeremy Brown currently lives next door to Kanneh.
(on camera): And how long have you lived here?
BROWN: About a year.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): We wanted to talk to Kanneh about his case and his language skills, but nobody was home in apartment seven. So, we asked his neighbor this.
(on camera): Does he speak English?
BROWN: Yes.
...TUCHMAN: So, on a scale of one to 10 of English proficiency, what would you say he had?
BROWN: Probably a seven or eight.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): No one, from the judge, to the court clerk, to Kanneh's public defender, would speak to us about the case, because prosecutors have filed an appeal. An appellate court would have the authority to make the charges reappear. But, if the appeal fails, Mahamu Kanneh will not ever go to trial on these charges...
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/27/acd.01.html
Anderson Cooper
"...You're paying for the criminal justice system. We all are. And you're counting on it to keep you safe and uphold the principles you believe in. The truth is, though, it doesn't always work that way.
Money is wasted. Bad guys go free. Decent people get hurt, and government sometimes gets away with it.
This hour is about holding people accountable.
Tonight, we will look at how a man accused of raping a child could go free, perhaps never to be tried again, because the prosecution could not find him a qualified interpreter. It only took us a few hours on the phone to find one.
And it gets worse. He might not have even needed an interpreter at all. And the evidence of that was plain to see.
We begin tonight with a story that seemed utterly surreal to us when we first learned about it, an accused molester going free because the court couldn't find him a qualified interpreter.
And, the more we investigated, the stranger it got. And the more you hear tonight, the madder you will likely get. How could an accused molester go free?
...GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the man at the center of a legal storm, because of a bizarre technicality that is hard to believe, Mahamu Kanneh, charged with the horrifying crimes of raping and repeatedly molesting a 7-year-old girl and molesting a 1-and-a-half-year-old girl, both relatives of his.
But now the charges against the Liberian immigrant have disappeared.
JOHN MCCARTHY, MONTGOMERY COUNTY PROSECUTOR: We believe that that decision to dismiss these charges was improper.
TUCHMAN: Why were such serious charges dismissed? Because a court clerk was unable to find an interpreter fluent in the rare language known as Vai who could stay through the entire trial. A court-ordered psychiatrist told the judge an interpreter was necessary.
MCCARTHY: The bottom line is that any delays caused by an attempt to find an appropriate and qualified interpreter is not attributable to the prosecution and legally was the responsibility of the courts and should not serve as the basis for dismissing the charges against the defendant.
TUCHMAN: But Judge Katherine Savage disagreed, saying on the bench, "This is one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in a long time." She cleared the charges because she says the long delay violated Kanneh's constitutional right to a speedy trial.
"Keeping Them Honest," we investigated what went wrong. An estimated 100,000 people in the world speak the West African tribal language of Vai.
The court office in Rockville, Maryland, says it worked hard to find someone anywhere in the country who could be with the suspect during the trial. Over two-and-a-half years, it couldn't successfully do so...
TUCHMAN (on camera): This story strikes high on the outrage meter. But what may be more outrageous involves the question over whether Kanneh needed an interpreter to begin with, because CNN has learned that Kanneh graduated from this Maryland high school back in 2005, one of the best high schools in the state, where, most certainly, you need to know more than Vai to get by.
(voice-over): At Magruder High School, a student is not allowed to get a diploma without passing four years of English. A source in the school says Kanneh did not even find it necessary to take the English-as-a-second-language course that is offered. And there's more.
JEREMY BROWN, NEIGHBOR OF MAHAMU KANNEH: It's right there, number seven.
TUCHMAN: Jeremy Brown currently lives next door to Kanneh.
(on camera): And how long have you lived here?
BROWN: About a year.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): We wanted to talk to Kanneh about his case and his language skills, but nobody was home in apartment seven. So, we asked his neighbor this.
(on camera): Does he speak English?
BROWN: Yes.
...TUCHMAN: So, on a scale of one to 10 of English proficiency, what would you say he had?
BROWN: Probably a seven or eight.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): No one, from the judge, to the court clerk, to Kanneh's public defender, would speak to us about the case, because prosecutors have filed an appeal. An appellate court would have the authority to make the charges reappear. But, if the appeal fails, Mahamu Kanneh will not ever go to trial on these charges...
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/27/acd.01.html
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Jury finds Steve Castaneda not guilty; Patrick O'Toole promises to go after Cheryl Cox, Patrick Judd, Pamela Smith...
After the jury came back with a "not guilty" verdicts yesterday in the case of Chula Vista city councilman Steve Castaneda, Prosecutor Patrick O'Toole announced that
"the obligation to tell the truth under oath is one that we're going to fight for."
At last! I filed a complaint long ago about subornation of perjury by Chula Vista Elementary School District board members. It sounds like the D.A. is finally going to do something about it.
The D.A. clearly got sidetracked from this goal when it engaged in the bizarre prosecution of a Steve Castaneda, who was accused of hiding his "intent" to buy a condo while testifying during a grand jury investigation that found no wrongdoing.
Prosecutor Patrick O'Toole said, "It was a case from our end that we thought had to be brought..." It would seem that O'Toole felt obliged to go after the political opponents of the wife of O'Toole's boss, County Supervisor Greg Cox. The problem was that Cheryl Cox herself was actually guilty of perjury crimes, while Steve Castaneda was not.
I've been waiting for a long time to hear someone in Bonnie Dumanis' office say "the obligation to tell the truth under oath is one that we're going to fight for."
I'm pleased to hear that O'Toole is finally going to do something about Chula Vista Elementary School District trustees and administrators who obstructed justice and committed or suborned perjury. The District Attorney received my complaint in 2005.
Here is the story from Fox News:
Councilman Found Not Guilty of Perjury in Condo Charges
Last Update: 4/23/2008
A Chula Vista city councilman accused of lying to the county grand jury regarding his personal interest in an apartment complex that was being converted into condominiums was acquitted Wednesday of six of 10 perjury counts.
Prosecutors will decide later whether to retry Steve Castaneda on the remaining four counts on which jurors deadlocked.
"I'm very happy that I'm vindicated. I'm very happy about the fact that I can now go on with my life," Castaneda told reporters outside the courtroom.
Defense attorney Marc Carlos said jurors gave it their best shot -- deliberating for five days after a two-week trial -- before coming to a decision.
"They've had hundreds of exhibits and thousands of pages of grand jury testimony, and that's as good as they can do and there's nothing there," Carlos told reporters. "I think (District Attorney) Bonnie Dumanis should do the right thing and step up and dismiss the remaining counts. They've spent a lot of money on this case and it's gone nowhere."
Prosecutor Patrick O'Toole said: "It was a difficult case. Everybody knew that going in. It was a case from our end that we thought had to be brought -- that the obligation to tell the truth under oath is one that we're going to fight for."
http://www.fox6.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=3866874d-c8bd-43b4-a142-5eaa4837d9c4
"the obligation to tell the truth under oath is one that we're going to fight for."
At last! I filed a complaint long ago about subornation of perjury by Chula Vista Elementary School District board members. It sounds like the D.A. is finally going to do something about it.
The D.A. clearly got sidetracked from this goal when it engaged in the bizarre prosecution of a Steve Castaneda, who was accused of hiding his "intent" to buy a condo while testifying during a grand jury investigation that found no wrongdoing.
Prosecutor Patrick O'Toole said, "It was a case from our end that we thought had to be brought..." It would seem that O'Toole felt obliged to go after the political opponents of the wife of O'Toole's boss, County Supervisor Greg Cox. The problem was that Cheryl Cox herself was actually guilty of perjury crimes, while Steve Castaneda was not.
I've been waiting for a long time to hear someone in Bonnie Dumanis' office say "the obligation to tell the truth under oath is one that we're going to fight for."
I'm pleased to hear that O'Toole is finally going to do something about Chula Vista Elementary School District trustees and administrators who obstructed justice and committed or suborned perjury. The District Attorney received my complaint in 2005.
Here is the story from Fox News:
Councilman Found Not Guilty of Perjury in Condo Charges
Last Update: 4/23/2008
A Chula Vista city councilman accused of lying to the county grand jury regarding his personal interest in an apartment complex that was being converted into condominiums was acquitted Wednesday of six of 10 perjury counts.
Prosecutors will decide later whether to retry Steve Castaneda on the remaining four counts on which jurors deadlocked.
"I'm very happy that I'm vindicated. I'm very happy about the fact that I can now go on with my life," Castaneda told reporters outside the courtroom.
Defense attorney Marc Carlos said jurors gave it their best shot -- deliberating for five days after a two-week trial -- before coming to a decision.
"They've had hundreds of exhibits and thousands of pages of grand jury testimony, and that's as good as they can do and there's nothing there," Carlos told reporters. "I think (District Attorney) Bonnie Dumanis should do the right thing and step up and dismiss the remaining counts. They've spent a lot of money on this case and it's gone nowhere."
Prosecutor Patrick O'Toole said: "It was a difficult case. Everybody knew that going in. It was a case from our end that we thought had to be brought -- that the obligation to tell the truth under oath is one that we're going to fight for."
http://www.fox6.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=3866874d-c8bd-43b4-a142-5eaa4837d9c4
Thursday, February 28, 2008
More than 1 in 100 U.S. adults are in prison
Herald Tribune International
By Adam Liptak
February 29, 2008
Click here for original article.
For the first time in the nation's history, more than one in 100 American adults are behind bars, according to a new report.
Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million, after three decades of growth that has seen the prison population nearly triple. Another 723,000 people are in local jails.
The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.
Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 adult Hispanic men is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 adult black men is, too, as is one in nine black men ages 20 to 34.
The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that one in 355 white women ages 35 to 39 is behind bars, compared with one in 100 black women...
"We aren't really getting the return in public safety from this level of incarceration," said Susan Urahn, the center's managing director.
But Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge, said the Pew report considered only half of the cost-benefit equation and overlooked the "very tangible benefits: lower crime rates."
In the past 20 years, according the Federal Bureau of Investigation, rates of violent crimes fell by 25 percent, to 464 per 100,000 people in 2007 from 612.5 in 1987.
"While we certainly want to be smart about who we put into prisons," Professor Cassell said, "it would be a mistake to think that we can release any significant number of prisoners without increasing crime rates. One out of every 100 adults is behind bars because one out of every 100 adults has committed a serious criminal offense."
The United States imprisons more people than any other nation in the world. China is second, with 1.5 million people behind bars. The gap is even wider in percentage terms.
Germany imprisons 93 out of every 100,000 people, according to the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College in London. The comparable number for the United States is roughly eight times that, or 750 out of 100,000...
"We tend to be a country in which incarceration is an easy response to crime," she said. "Being tough on crime is an easy position to take, particularly if you have the money. And we did have the money in the '80s and '90s."
Now, with fewer resources available, the report said, "prison costs are blowing a hole in state budgets."
..."Getting tough on crime has gotten tough on taxpayers," said Adam Gelb, the director of the public safety performance project at the Pew center. "They don't want to spend $23,000 on a prison cell for a minor violation any more than they want a bridge to nowhere."
The cost of medical care is growing by 10 percent annually, the report said, and will accelerate as the prison population ages.
About one in nine state government employees works in corrections, and some states are finding it hard to fill those jobs. California spent more than $500 million on overtime alone in 2006...
Also see this analysis by Adam Liptak.
By Adam Liptak
February 29, 2008
Click here for original article.
For the first time in the nation's history, more than one in 100 American adults are behind bars, according to a new report.
Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million, after three decades of growth that has seen the prison population nearly triple. Another 723,000 people are in local jails.
The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.
Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 adult Hispanic men is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 adult black men is, too, as is one in nine black men ages 20 to 34.
The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that one in 355 white women ages 35 to 39 is behind bars, compared with one in 100 black women...
"We aren't really getting the return in public safety from this level of incarceration," said Susan Urahn, the center's managing director.
But Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a former federal judge, said the Pew report considered only half of the cost-benefit equation and overlooked the "very tangible benefits: lower crime rates."
In the past 20 years, according the Federal Bureau of Investigation, rates of violent crimes fell by 25 percent, to 464 per 100,000 people in 2007 from 612.5 in 1987.
"While we certainly want to be smart about who we put into prisons," Professor Cassell said, "it would be a mistake to think that we can release any significant number of prisoners without increasing crime rates. One out of every 100 adults is behind bars because one out of every 100 adults has committed a serious criminal offense."
The United States imprisons more people than any other nation in the world. China is second, with 1.5 million people behind bars. The gap is even wider in percentage terms.
Germany imprisons 93 out of every 100,000 people, according to the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College in London. The comparable number for the United States is roughly eight times that, or 750 out of 100,000...
"We tend to be a country in which incarceration is an easy response to crime," she said. "Being tough on crime is an easy position to take, particularly if you have the money. And we did have the money in the '80s and '90s."
Now, with fewer resources available, the report said, "prison costs are blowing a hole in state budgets."
..."Getting tough on crime has gotten tough on taxpayers," said Adam Gelb, the director of the public safety performance project at the Pew center. "They don't want to spend $23,000 on a prison cell for a minor violation any more than they want a bridge to nowhere."
The cost of medical care is growing by 10 percent annually, the report said, and will accelerate as the prison population ages.
About one in nine state government employees works in corrections, and some states are finding it hard to fill those jobs. California spent more than $500 million on overtime alone in 2006...
Also see this analysis by Adam Liptak.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Are Oakland police aiding the murderer of Chauncey Bailey?
Police arranged jail conversation, but didn't record it. They admit officer is a friend of Yusuf Bey IV.
The Murder Of Chauncey Bailey
Was A Newspaper Editor Murdered To Keep A Story Out Of Print?
60 Minutes(CBS)
Feb. 24, 2008
Shot-gunned to death in the course of reporting a story, police say newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey was probably killed to keep that story out of print.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper reports.
(CBS) This story begins with a journalist murdered this past summer in Oakland, Calif., presumably because of a story he was working on.
His name was Chauncey Bailey, and just this past week he was honored posthumously with the George Polk Award - one of journalism’s most prestigious honors - for the story that may have cost him his life.
The story Bailey was working on was about, of all things, a bakery. But not any ordinary bakery: it’s called "Your Black Muslim Bakery," and as CNN's Anderson Cooper reports, it was once a multi-million-dollar business as well as a major religious and political power in Oakland.
But the bakery's leaders were known for using tactics right out of "The Godfather." Bailey was investigating some of those tactics, which made some bakery leaders angry.
And angering the bakery was risky business, as Oakland police knew all too well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Rumors about them killing people or, forcing them to do stuff that they didn't want to do, was rampant throughout the community," Assistant Chief Howard Jordan remembers. "People were scared to talk. People were scared to call the police."
Jordan has been an Oakland cop for 19 years. He says Your Black Muslim Bakery was on police radar for a long time.
It looks harmless enough on the outside, but at its height, the bakery employed about 200 people, many of them ex-convicts, who converted to Islam. And some of them didn't seem to spend too much time in the kitchen.
Your Black Muslim Bakery opened its doors in Oakland more than 30 years ago, selling bean pies and fish sandwiches. It was started by a man who called himself Yusuf Bey, a black Muslim who preached a philosophy of self-reliance and self-esteem.
Over the years, the bakery provided jobs and hope to hundreds of African-Americans in Oakland's inner city. But the positive outward image of the bakery never told the whole story. Inside the building, there were some very sinister things going on.
"It doesn't seem like many folks at the bakery were baking too many pies. It seemed to have just become a criminal enterprise," Cooper remarks.
"That's a fairly accurate statement," Jordan agrees. "It went from a business that was conducting legitimate business to a business interested in doing fraud, real estate fraud, assaults, robberies, vandalism, to promote a criminal cause versus a religious cause."
But in 2002, bakery founder Yusuf Bey was arrested on 27 counts of abusing and raping 12 and 13-year-old girls taken in by the bakery. He was accused of fathering children by them, and of stealing their welfare payments.
According to many reports, Bey fathered more than 40 children by different women at the bakery. As the Bey family, and its business, grew, they opened a dozen stores and owned a security company, a dry cleaner, a school, and properties in the area. In the process, the bakery became something of a law unto itself.
"A lot of Oakland cops told me that they left certain neighborhoods to the Bey family," says reporter Chris Thompson.
"Let them take care of business however they wanted?" Cooper asks.
"Yeah," Thompson says.
Thompson revealed the bakery's secrets in the East Bay Express, a weekly paper. He exposed a trail of "violence, brutality and fraud that stretches back almost a decade." Members of the bakery were furious.
After the stories were published in the paper, Thompson says somebody smashed out all their windows.
Asked if he personally received threats, Thompson tells Cooper, "Somebody would call up and say 'Mr. Thompson, we just want you to know that your days are numbered. Your time is up. You screwed up for the last time.' The creepiest thing was when they started following me home."
That's when Thompson decided to get out of town for a few months. While he was gone, the bakery's charismatic leader, Yusuf Bey, died. His funeral was attended by a thousand mourners, from all parts of Oakland.
After Yusuf Bey Sr.'s death, Howard Jordan says there was a power struggle within the organization. "There was a power struggle between the younger and the older Bey family members," he explains.
This was not your typical boardroom power struggle. Two of Bey's successors were murdered, and a third was wounded in an ambush. The last man standing was Yusuf Bey IV, the 19-year-old son of founder Yusuf Bey, and one of five sons he named after himself.
That's where reporter Chauncey Bailey picked up the story. Bailey was a veteran of Oakland newspapers and television, who worked for a weekly African-American newspaper called The Oakland Post.
In July, Bailey was tipped off to serious financial problems inside the bakery by a man named Saleem Bey.
"The story you told Chauncey Bailey, did that lead to his murder?" Cooper asks Saleem Bey.
"I believe that it led directly to his murder," he replies.
Saleem Bey is not one of Yusuf Bey Sr.'s biological children. He's one of the dozens of people Bey "spiritually adopted" who took the family name. Saleem Bey was a leader of the bakery, until he was forced out in that power struggle.
"I told Chauncey Bailey that the bakery was about to be shut down in an illegal bankruptcy," Saleem Bey explains. "This was the culmination of three years of the bakery being embezzled, and fraud and forgery, and different things that led to it being this way."
"You asked Chauncey Bailey to keep your name out of it. Why?" Cooper asks.
"I knew that it would be inflammatory, and that the people who would take it that way were dangerous," Saleem Bey explains.
Over the years, the bakery had earned a reputation for intimidation.
One incident, which they called a "show of force," was taped by San Francisco's CBS station KPIX-TV. Members of the bakery could be seen outside an Oakland tow-yard, demanding that a car be released. This was a smaller version of the close-order military drills that up to 50 bakery members would put on to intimidate the community.
Another "show of force" was caught by a security camera. Yusuf Bey IV and some of his followers were charged with trashing a neighborhood liquor store. Bey, who has pleaded not guilty, said the action was taken because alcohol was against Islamic law.
After taking over the bakery, Yusuf Bey IV went on a crime spree; he was arrested in three Oakland-area counties on five different felony charges.
"We saw a huge criminal enterprise starting to develop with the change in leadership when Yusuf Bey took over," Jordan says.
At the time reporter Chauncey Bailey was killed, Yusuf Bey IV was free on bail on all charges.
Asked if he thought Chauncey Bailey understood the risk, Saleem Bey says, "I believe that he thought it was more of a risk to myself than to himself. I don't believe that he really felt that he was in danger."
The danger was very real. While working on the bakery story, Chauncey Bailey was ambushed as he walked to his office at the Post. Witnesses told police a young black man wearing a ski-mask, pointed a shotgun at Bailey, and calmly fired three times at point-blank range. The shooter got into a white van idling nearby and sped off.
A day later, more than 200 heavily armed police raided the bakery to arrest Yusuf Bey IV and others on kidnapping and torture charges that had nothing to do with the Bailey murder.
And they arrested another man, Devaughndre Broussard, for killing Bailey. Broussard was a 20-year-old janitor at the bakery, who had converted to Islam after serving time for assault in San Francisco.
When 60 Minutes met him in county jail, Broussard told Cooper what he first told police: he didn't do it.
"I never heard about Chauncey Bailey. I never met him. I never seen him. The first time I heard about Mr. Chauncey Bailey was that night I got arrested," Broussard says.
While under arrest, Broussard continued his denials. And that's when police took an unorthodox step: they put Broussard in an interrogation room alone with his boss and spiritual leader, Yusuf Bey IV.
"He was saying like, 'You gotta help us out. You gotta take this fall.' He was saying like 'As your commanding officer, you gotta follow my orders,'" Broussard claims.
To convince him to take the fall, Broussard says Yusuf Bey IV played on his Moslem beliefs. "He was telling me how I was being tested by God," he says.
"He said that God was testing you?" Cooper asks.
"Yes, he did," Broussard says. "He was saying that, 'You gotta prove your loyalty' and what not."
"By saying you killed Chauncey Bailey, that was proving yourself to God?" Cooper asks.
"He were saying that most times, people don't realize when they being tested by God. 'I’m helping you out. I'm telling you that you being tested by God,'" Broussard says.
"But, I mean, this is a guy you trusted," Cooper remarks.
"Like they say, the people you love is the one that's going to hurt you the fastest," Broussard says.
Immediately after that conversation, Broussard confessed, telling police he was a "good soldier" who killed reporter Chauncey Bailey to protect the bakery. Did Broussard change his story because of what Yusuf Bey IV said to him? Police don't know, because they didn't listen in to that conversation or even record it.
"Mr. Broussard is saying that Yusuf Bey the IV told him, you know, 'Be a good soldier, take the fall.' Do you buy that?" Cooper asks Howard Jordan.
"No. I don't know what was said, but I don't I don't think that it's really relevant as far as what was said in that room," Jordan says.
"You don't think what was said in that room really matters?" Cooper asks.
"No, and it doesn't matter to us in terms of the end-product," Jordan says.
"But shouldn't someone have tape recorded that, or at least listened in on what they were saying?" Cooper asks.
"In a perfect world, yes, that, that should have taken place, but it didn’t," Jordan replies.
The lead investigator in the case, Sgt. Derwin Longmire, was the officer who decided to put Broussard and Bey IV together. But, in another strange twist, it turns out that Sgt. Longmire had been close to Yusuf Bey IV and the bakery for years.
Broussard realized just how close when he heard them talking at the police station.
Here's his account of what went on: "They was getting along like they really knew each other. The detective, he was saying like, 'We can't let Yusuf Bey the IV go down. He doing good in the community. He helping out black people,'" Broussard claims.
"The police said that to you?" Cooper asks.
"Police officer said that to me," Broussard says.
Chief Jordan does confirm that police knew all about Sgt Longmire's long-time relationship with Bey IV and other bakery leaders. "I don't have any problems with Sgt. Longmire's relationship with members of the bakery. I trust his integrity. I trust his credibility," Jordan says.
"It's certainly something, though, that's gonna be brought up during the trial, the fact that the lead investigator on the case turns out to be friends with Yusuf Bey the IV. It’s unusual, to say the least," Cooper says.
"It's unusual, but not unethical," Jordan says.
Today, Broussard insists he's not guilty and claims he knows who the real killer is.
Asked if he knows who did it, Broussard tells Cooper, "I'm gonna give all that info up when I go to trial."
Yusuf Bey IV, who is in jail on multiple unrelated felony charges, declined 60 Minutes' request for an interview. But he has denied any part in the Bailey murder.
"If anyone had a reason to be concerned about Chauncey Bailey writing something negative about the bakery, they would seem to be the guy who was leading the bakery," Cooper remarks.
"Correct," Jordan agrees. "That is a motive that, you know, we need to explore."
Police say the case is still open. But more than six months after Chauncey Bailey’s murder, Broussard remains the only one charged in the crime.
"Does it make sense that a low-level employee at this bakery, Devaughndre Broussard, would come up with this plan and execute it all by himself?" Cooper asks.
"It doesn't seem right. It seems highly unusual. But I don't know this young man. I don't know what he believes in," Jordan says.
"So it's possible he was following orders from somebody else?" Cooper asks.
"Oh, that's very possible. Yes," Jordan replies.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/22/60minutes/main3861939.shtml
The Murder Of Chauncey Bailey
Was A Newspaper Editor Murdered To Keep A Story Out Of Print?
60 Minutes(CBS)
Feb. 24, 2008
Shot-gunned to death in the course of reporting a story, police say newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey was probably killed to keep that story out of print.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper reports.
(CBS) This story begins with a journalist murdered this past summer in Oakland, Calif., presumably because of a story he was working on.
His name was Chauncey Bailey, and just this past week he was honored posthumously with the George Polk Award - one of journalism’s most prestigious honors - for the story that may have cost him his life.
The story Bailey was working on was about, of all things, a bakery. But not any ordinary bakery: it’s called "Your Black Muslim Bakery," and as CNN's Anderson Cooper reports, it was once a multi-million-dollar business as well as a major religious and political power in Oakland.
But the bakery's leaders were known for using tactics right out of "The Godfather." Bailey was investigating some of those tactics, which made some bakery leaders angry.
And angering the bakery was risky business, as Oakland police knew all too well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Rumors about them killing people or, forcing them to do stuff that they didn't want to do, was rampant throughout the community," Assistant Chief Howard Jordan remembers. "People were scared to talk. People were scared to call the police."
Jordan has been an Oakland cop for 19 years. He says Your Black Muslim Bakery was on police radar for a long time.
It looks harmless enough on the outside, but at its height, the bakery employed about 200 people, many of them ex-convicts, who converted to Islam. And some of them didn't seem to spend too much time in the kitchen.
Your Black Muslim Bakery opened its doors in Oakland more than 30 years ago, selling bean pies and fish sandwiches. It was started by a man who called himself Yusuf Bey, a black Muslim who preached a philosophy of self-reliance and self-esteem.
Over the years, the bakery provided jobs and hope to hundreds of African-Americans in Oakland's inner city. But the positive outward image of the bakery never told the whole story. Inside the building, there were some very sinister things going on.
"It doesn't seem like many folks at the bakery were baking too many pies. It seemed to have just become a criminal enterprise," Cooper remarks.
"That's a fairly accurate statement," Jordan agrees. "It went from a business that was conducting legitimate business to a business interested in doing fraud, real estate fraud, assaults, robberies, vandalism, to promote a criminal cause versus a religious cause."
But in 2002, bakery founder Yusuf Bey was arrested on 27 counts of abusing and raping 12 and 13-year-old girls taken in by the bakery. He was accused of fathering children by them, and of stealing their welfare payments.
According to many reports, Bey fathered more than 40 children by different women at the bakery. As the Bey family, and its business, grew, they opened a dozen stores and owned a security company, a dry cleaner, a school, and properties in the area. In the process, the bakery became something of a law unto itself.
"A lot of Oakland cops told me that they left certain neighborhoods to the Bey family," says reporter Chris Thompson.
"Let them take care of business however they wanted?" Cooper asks.
"Yeah," Thompson says.
Thompson revealed the bakery's secrets in the East Bay Express, a weekly paper. He exposed a trail of "violence, brutality and fraud that stretches back almost a decade." Members of the bakery were furious.
After the stories were published in the paper, Thompson says somebody smashed out all their windows.
Asked if he personally received threats, Thompson tells Cooper, "Somebody would call up and say 'Mr. Thompson, we just want you to know that your days are numbered. Your time is up. You screwed up for the last time.' The creepiest thing was when they started following me home."
That's when Thompson decided to get out of town for a few months. While he was gone, the bakery's charismatic leader, Yusuf Bey, died. His funeral was attended by a thousand mourners, from all parts of Oakland.
After Yusuf Bey Sr.'s death, Howard Jordan says there was a power struggle within the organization. "There was a power struggle between the younger and the older Bey family members," he explains.
This was not your typical boardroom power struggle. Two of Bey's successors were murdered, and a third was wounded in an ambush. The last man standing was Yusuf Bey IV, the 19-year-old son of founder Yusuf Bey, and one of five sons he named after himself.
That's where reporter Chauncey Bailey picked up the story. Bailey was a veteran of Oakland newspapers and television, who worked for a weekly African-American newspaper called The Oakland Post.
In July, Bailey was tipped off to serious financial problems inside the bakery by a man named Saleem Bey.
"The story you told Chauncey Bailey, did that lead to his murder?" Cooper asks Saleem Bey.
"I believe that it led directly to his murder," he replies.
Saleem Bey is not one of Yusuf Bey Sr.'s biological children. He's one of the dozens of people Bey "spiritually adopted" who took the family name. Saleem Bey was a leader of the bakery, until he was forced out in that power struggle.
"I told Chauncey Bailey that the bakery was about to be shut down in an illegal bankruptcy," Saleem Bey explains. "This was the culmination of three years of the bakery being embezzled, and fraud and forgery, and different things that led to it being this way."
"You asked Chauncey Bailey to keep your name out of it. Why?" Cooper asks.
"I knew that it would be inflammatory, and that the people who would take it that way were dangerous," Saleem Bey explains.
Over the years, the bakery had earned a reputation for intimidation.
One incident, which they called a "show of force," was taped by San Francisco's CBS station KPIX-TV. Members of the bakery could be seen outside an Oakland tow-yard, demanding that a car be released. This was a smaller version of the close-order military drills that up to 50 bakery members would put on to intimidate the community.
Another "show of force" was caught by a security camera. Yusuf Bey IV and some of his followers were charged with trashing a neighborhood liquor store. Bey, who has pleaded not guilty, said the action was taken because alcohol was against Islamic law.
After taking over the bakery, Yusuf Bey IV went on a crime spree; he was arrested in three Oakland-area counties on five different felony charges.
"We saw a huge criminal enterprise starting to develop with the change in leadership when Yusuf Bey took over," Jordan says.
At the time reporter Chauncey Bailey was killed, Yusuf Bey IV was free on bail on all charges.
Asked if he thought Chauncey Bailey understood the risk, Saleem Bey says, "I believe that he thought it was more of a risk to myself than to himself. I don't believe that he really felt that he was in danger."
The danger was very real. While working on the bakery story, Chauncey Bailey was ambushed as he walked to his office at the Post. Witnesses told police a young black man wearing a ski-mask, pointed a shotgun at Bailey, and calmly fired three times at point-blank range. The shooter got into a white van idling nearby and sped off.
A day later, more than 200 heavily armed police raided the bakery to arrest Yusuf Bey IV and others on kidnapping and torture charges that had nothing to do with the Bailey murder.
And they arrested another man, Devaughndre Broussard, for killing Bailey. Broussard was a 20-year-old janitor at the bakery, who had converted to Islam after serving time for assault in San Francisco.
When 60 Minutes met him in county jail, Broussard told Cooper what he first told police: he didn't do it.
"I never heard about Chauncey Bailey. I never met him. I never seen him. The first time I heard about Mr. Chauncey Bailey was that night I got arrested," Broussard says.
While under arrest, Broussard continued his denials. And that's when police took an unorthodox step: they put Broussard in an interrogation room alone with his boss and spiritual leader, Yusuf Bey IV.
"He was saying like, 'You gotta help us out. You gotta take this fall.' He was saying like 'As your commanding officer, you gotta follow my orders,'" Broussard claims.
To convince him to take the fall, Broussard says Yusuf Bey IV played on his Moslem beliefs. "He was telling me how I was being tested by God," he says.
"He said that God was testing you?" Cooper asks.
"Yes, he did," Broussard says. "He was saying that, 'You gotta prove your loyalty' and what not."
"By saying you killed Chauncey Bailey, that was proving yourself to God?" Cooper asks.
"He were saying that most times, people don't realize when they being tested by God. 'I’m helping you out. I'm telling you that you being tested by God,'" Broussard says.
"But, I mean, this is a guy you trusted," Cooper remarks.
"Like they say, the people you love is the one that's going to hurt you the fastest," Broussard says.
Immediately after that conversation, Broussard confessed, telling police he was a "good soldier" who killed reporter Chauncey Bailey to protect the bakery. Did Broussard change his story because of what Yusuf Bey IV said to him? Police don't know, because they didn't listen in to that conversation or even record it.
"Mr. Broussard is saying that Yusuf Bey the IV told him, you know, 'Be a good soldier, take the fall.' Do you buy that?" Cooper asks Howard Jordan.
"No. I don't know what was said, but I don't I don't think that it's really relevant as far as what was said in that room," Jordan says.
"You don't think what was said in that room really matters?" Cooper asks.
"No, and it doesn't matter to us in terms of the end-product," Jordan says.
"But shouldn't someone have tape recorded that, or at least listened in on what they were saying?" Cooper asks.
"In a perfect world, yes, that, that should have taken place, but it didn’t," Jordan replies.
The lead investigator in the case, Sgt. Derwin Longmire, was the officer who decided to put Broussard and Bey IV together. But, in another strange twist, it turns out that Sgt. Longmire had been close to Yusuf Bey IV and the bakery for years.
Broussard realized just how close when he heard them talking at the police station.
Here's his account of what went on: "They was getting along like they really knew each other. The detective, he was saying like, 'We can't let Yusuf Bey the IV go down. He doing good in the community. He helping out black people,'" Broussard claims.
"The police said that to you?" Cooper asks.
"Police officer said that to me," Broussard says.
Chief Jordan does confirm that police knew all about Sgt Longmire's long-time relationship with Bey IV and other bakery leaders. "I don't have any problems with Sgt. Longmire's relationship with members of the bakery. I trust his integrity. I trust his credibility," Jordan says.
"It's certainly something, though, that's gonna be brought up during the trial, the fact that the lead investigator on the case turns out to be friends with Yusuf Bey the IV. It’s unusual, to say the least," Cooper says.
"It's unusual, but not unethical," Jordan says.
Today, Broussard insists he's not guilty and claims he knows who the real killer is.
Asked if he knows who did it, Broussard tells Cooper, "I'm gonna give all that info up when I go to trial."
Yusuf Bey IV, who is in jail on multiple unrelated felony charges, declined 60 Minutes' request for an interview. But he has denied any part in the Bailey murder.
"If anyone had a reason to be concerned about Chauncey Bailey writing something negative about the bakery, they would seem to be the guy who was leading the bakery," Cooper remarks.
"Correct," Jordan agrees. "That is a motive that, you know, we need to explore."
Police say the case is still open. But more than six months after Chauncey Bailey’s murder, Broussard remains the only one charged in the crime.
"Does it make sense that a low-level employee at this bakery, Devaughndre Broussard, would come up with this plan and execute it all by himself?" Cooper asks.
"It doesn't seem right. It seems highly unusual. But I don't know this young man. I don't know what he believes in," Jordan says.
"So it's possible he was following orders from somebody else?" Cooper asks.
"Oh, that's very possible. Yes," Jordan replies.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/22/60minutes/main3861939.shtml
Saturday, February 23, 2008
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
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
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Deputy abused disabled man
Associated Press
Feb. 16, 20008
TAMPA, Fla. - A Florida sheriff's deputy who was videotaped dumping a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair onto a jailhouse floor has turned herself in.
Jail records show Charlette Marshall-Jones was booked into the Orient Road Jail early this morning.
It is the same jail where Marshall-Jones worked. She is accused of tipping 32-year-old Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair and searching him on the floor. He had been brought in on a charge of fleeing and attempting to elude a police officer after a traffic violation.
The Hillsborough County deputy has been charged with one count of felony abuse of a disabled person. She was released after posting $3,500 bail. An attorney for Marshall-Jones listed in jail records did not immediately return a phone message.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23197160/
Feb. 16, 20008
TAMPA, Fla. - A Florida sheriff's deputy who was videotaped dumping a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair onto a jailhouse floor has turned herself in.
Jail records show Charlette Marshall-Jones was booked into the Orient Road Jail early this morning.
It is the same jail where Marshall-Jones worked. She is accused of tipping 32-year-old Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair and searching him on the floor. He had been brought in on a charge of fleeing and attempting to elude a police officer after a traffic violation.
The Hillsborough County deputy has been charged with one count of felony abuse of a disabled person. She was released after posting $3,500 bail. An attorney for Marshall-Jones listed in jail records did not immediately return a phone message.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23197160/
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Guards punished other guards who threatened to report them.
Ex-Florida prison boss: Drunken orgies tainted system
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN)
Softball, drunken orgies and a prison system run like the mafia. That's what Florida's former prison secretary says he inherited when he took over one of the nation's largest prison systems two years ago.
McDonough revealed a startling list of alleged abuses and crimes going on inside Florida's prisons:
• Top prison officials admitting to kickbacks;
• Guards importing and selling steroids in an effort to give them an edge on the softball field;
• Taxpayer funds to pay for booze and women;
• Guards who punished other guards who threatened to report them.
"Corruption had gone to an extreme," McDonough said, saying it all began at the top. "They seemed to be drunk half the time and had orgies the other half, when they weren't taking money and beating each other up." Watch a corrupted prison system »
McDonough described a bizarre prison culture among those that ran the system -- one that he says seemed obsessed with inter-department softball games and the orgies after games.
"I cannot explain how big an obsession softball had become," he said. "People were promoted on the spot after a softball game at the drunken party to high positions in the department because they were able to hit a softball out of the park a couple times."
A Brooklyn, New York, native, McDonough says he witnessed the way the mafia worked in his youth and it provided him a keen insight into how his prison predecessor, James Crosby, operated.
"It reminded me of the petty mafia I saw on the streets of Brooklyn when I was growing up in the late 1950s, early 1960s -- petty, small-minded, thugish, violent, dangerous, outside the law, and completely intolerable for a society such as ours in the United States of America," he said...
And getting rid of this "cancer" is exactly what McDonough says he did. McDonough fired 90 top prison officials -- wardens, supervisors, colonels and majors -- claiming they were corrupt or, at the very least, not to be trusted. He demoted 280 others...
Among those arrested were seven officers accused of beating inmates, including five accused of forcing a prisoner to drink toilet water. All have pleaded not guilty.
Tina Hayes...said employees who didn't attend softball games or play on the teams were "isolated" and "pushed aside."
McDonough says the majority of the prison system's 28,000 employees were honest, hard-working people who weren't corrupt at all. But he says many of the top prison officials weren't and he believes he has weeded out "an organized vein of corruption."
"They were like frat boys out of control."
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN)
Softball, drunken orgies and a prison system run like the mafia. That's what Florida's former prison secretary says he inherited when he took over one of the nation's largest prison systems two years ago.
McDonough revealed a startling list of alleged abuses and crimes going on inside Florida's prisons:
• Top prison officials admitting to kickbacks;
• Guards importing and selling steroids in an effort to give them an edge on the softball field;
• Taxpayer funds to pay for booze and women;
• Guards who punished other guards who threatened to report them.
"Corruption had gone to an extreme," McDonough said, saying it all began at the top. "They seemed to be drunk half the time and had orgies the other half, when they weren't taking money and beating each other up." Watch a corrupted prison system »
McDonough described a bizarre prison culture among those that ran the system -- one that he says seemed obsessed with inter-department softball games and the orgies after games.
"I cannot explain how big an obsession softball had become," he said. "People were promoted on the spot after a softball game at the drunken party to high positions in the department because they were able to hit a softball out of the park a couple times."
A Brooklyn, New York, native, McDonough says he witnessed the way the mafia worked in his youth and it provided him a keen insight into how his prison predecessor, James Crosby, operated.
"It reminded me of the petty mafia I saw on the streets of Brooklyn when I was growing up in the late 1950s, early 1960s -- petty, small-minded, thugish, violent, dangerous, outside the law, and completely intolerable for a society such as ours in the United States of America," he said...
And getting rid of this "cancer" is exactly what McDonough says he did. McDonough fired 90 top prison officials -- wardens, supervisors, colonels and majors -- claiming they were corrupt or, at the very least, not to be trusted. He demoted 280 others...
Among those arrested were seven officers accused of beating inmates, including five accused of forcing a prisoner to drink toilet water. All have pleaded not guilty.
Tina Hayes...said employees who didn't attend softball games or play on the teams were "isolated" and "pushed aside."
McDonough says the majority of the prison system's 28,000 employees were honest, hard-working people who weren't corrupt at all. But he says many of the top prison officials weren't and he believes he has weeded out "an organized vein of corruption."
"They were like frat boys out of control."
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Family men steal drugs--sounds like the mafia
Judge says "if the men were one-tenth as concerned about the children living in the poor neighborhoods they patrolled as their own children, they never would have resold the drugs."
http://www.suntimes.com/news/727182,CST-NWS-cop05.article
Judge astounded by good cops, bad cops
'SCHIZOPHRENIC'
January 5, 2008
BY STEVE WARMBIR
A federal judge Friday had sentenced a crooked Chicago cop to nearly 10 years in prison, and the hearing was over, but the judge wasn't finished.
In an unusual move, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Guzman commented on what he saw over the last two days after he sentenced a parade of rogue officers who robbed drug dealers for cash and cocaine.
What he saw was "almost schizophrenic," Guzman said. The cops were good family men, according to court testimony. Pastors sang their praises. They gave back to the community. One was a Desert Storm veteran. Another made more than 1,000 arrests. And they were part of a ring that sold stolen drugs to return them to the street.
The judge said he had never seen anything like it. "Good guy on one side," Guzman said. "Bad guy on the other side." Guzman sentenced former Chicago Police Officer Corey Flagg to 9½ years in prison, a significant break because of his extensive cooperation against his former fellow officers.
Three of them were sentenced Thursday, with prison terms ranging from 19 years to 40 years.
Guzman appeared exasperated at times as he sentenced the former cops, noting that if the men were one-tenth as concerned about the children living in the poor neighborhoods they patrolled as their own children, they never would have resold the drugs.
Flagg, 37, was the right-hand man of the dirty cop running the drug ring, Broderick Jones. But Flagg was also the first officer charged in the case to cooperate and for that he got a break...
http://www.suntimes.com/news/727182,CST-NWS-cop05.article
Judge astounded by good cops, bad cops
'SCHIZOPHRENIC'
January 5, 2008
BY STEVE WARMBIR
A federal judge Friday had sentenced a crooked Chicago cop to nearly 10 years in prison, and the hearing was over, but the judge wasn't finished.
In an unusual move, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Guzman commented on what he saw over the last two days after he sentenced a parade of rogue officers who robbed drug dealers for cash and cocaine.
What he saw was "almost schizophrenic," Guzman said. The cops were good family men, according to court testimony. Pastors sang their praises. They gave back to the community. One was a Desert Storm veteran. Another made more than 1,000 arrests. And they were part of a ring that sold stolen drugs to return them to the street.
The judge said he had never seen anything like it. "Good guy on one side," Guzman said. "Bad guy on the other side." Guzman sentenced former Chicago Police Officer Corey Flagg to 9½ years in prison, a significant break because of his extensive cooperation against his former fellow officers.
Three of them were sentenced Thursday, with prison terms ranging from 19 years to 40 years.
Guzman appeared exasperated at times as he sentenced the former cops, noting that if the men were one-tenth as concerned about the children living in the poor neighborhoods they patrolled as their own children, they never would have resold the drugs.
Flagg, 37, was the right-hand man of the dirty cop running the drug ring, Broderick Jones. But Flagg was also the first officer charged in the case to cooperate and for that he got a break...
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Mentally unstable law enforcement officers should be steered to other employment
San Diego Union Tribune
Letters, January 2, 2008
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/letters/20080102-9999-lz1e2letters.html
Screen officers better, and make the pay better
Regarding “Lenient sentence is sought for deputy” (Our Region, Dec. 27):
Am I the only one who found it disturbing that a sheriff's deputy who was responsible for enforcing the laws and the safety of the citizens of our county now claims he was not able to handle stressful situations because of an abusive upbringing? I wonder if he provided the Sheriff's Department with this information on his job application?
I don't want a person who has trouble handling stress armed and in a position of authority. I have great respect for our law enforcement officers and the great job they do to protect us. I have long been of the opinion that these officers should be paid more than they currently receive to assure we get the best available.
At the same time we need to screen them on a regular basis to determine if they are being negatively affected by the stress and trauma of their jobs. Let's face it, how many people would want a job that starts at less than $50,000 a year knowing at any time you could have to face someone who is shooting at you with live ammunition? Better salaries, better officers.
ROBERT RICHARDSON
Pacific Beach
Letters, January 2, 2008
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/letters/20080102-9999-lz1e2letters.html
Screen officers better, and make the pay better
Regarding “Lenient sentence is sought for deputy” (Our Region, Dec. 27):
Am I the only one who found it disturbing that a sheriff's deputy who was responsible for enforcing the laws and the safety of the citizens of our county now claims he was not able to handle stressful situations because of an abusive upbringing? I wonder if he provided the Sheriff's Department with this information on his job application?
I don't want a person who has trouble handling stress armed and in a position of authority. I have great respect for our law enforcement officers and the great job they do to protect us. I have long been of the opinion that these officers should be paid more than they currently receive to assure we get the best available.
At the same time we need to screen them on a regular basis to determine if they are being negatively affected by the stress and trauma of their jobs. Let's face it, how many people would want a job that starts at less than $50,000 a year knowing at any time you could have to face someone who is shooting at you with live ammunition? Better salaries, better officers.
ROBERT RICHARDSON
Pacific Beach
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Fair Use Notice
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of education issues vital to a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of education issues vital to a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Mass arrests were not necessary to protect the United States
Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950
New York Times
By TIM WEINER
December 23, 2007
A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.
Neal N. Boenzi/The New York Times
J. Edgar Hoover was F.B.I. director from 1924 to 1972.
Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.
Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The F.B.I would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau.
The names were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. “The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven per cent are citizens of the United States,” he wrote.
“In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus,” it said.
Habeas corpus, the right to seek relief from illegal detention, has been a fundamental principle of law for seven centuries. The Bush administration’s decision to hold suspects for years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has made habeas corpus a contentious issue for Congress and the Supreme Court today.
The Constitution says habeas corpus shall not be suspended “unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.” The plan proposed by Hoover, the head of the F.B.I. from 1924 to 1972, stretched that clause to include “threatened invasion” or “attack upon United States troops in legally occupied territory.”
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush issued an order that effectively allowed the United States to hold suspects indefinitely without a hearing, a lawyer, or formal charges. In September 2006, Congress passed a law suspending habeas corpus for anyone deemed an “unlawful enemy combatant.”
But the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the right of American citizens to seek a writ of habeas corpus. This month the court heard arguments on whether about 300 foreigners held at Guantánamo Bay had the same rights. It is expected to rule by next summer.
Hoover’s plan was declassified Friday as part of a collection of cold-war documents concerning intelligence issues from 1950 to 1955. The collection makes up a new volume of “The Foreign Relations of the United States,” a series that by law has been published continuously by the State Department since the Civil War.
Hoover’s plan called for “the permanent detention” of the roughly 12,000 suspects at military bases as well as in federal prisons. The F.B.I., he said, had found that the arrests it proposed in New York and California would cause the prisons there to overflow.
So the bureau had arranged for “detention in military facilities of the individuals apprehended” in those states, he wrote.
The prisoners eventually would have had a right to a hearing under the Hoover plan. The hearing board would have been a panel made up of one judge and two citizens. But the hearings “will not be bound by the rules of evidence,” his letter noted.
The only modern precedent for Hoover’s plan was the Palmer Raids of 1920, named after the attorney general at the time. The raids, executed in large part by Hoover’s intelligence division, swept up thousands of people suspected of being communists and radicals.
Previously declassified documents show that the F.B.I.’s “security index” of suspect Americans predated the cold war. In March 1946, Hoover sought the authority to detain Americans “who might be dangerous” if the United States went to war. In August 1948, Attorney General Tom Clark gave the F.B.I. the power to make a master list of such people.
Hoover’s July 1950 letter was addressed to Sidney W. Souers, who had served as the first director of central intelligence and was then a special national-security assistant to Truman. The plan also was sent to the executive secretary of the National Security Council, whose members were the president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state and the military chiefs.
In September 1950, Congress passed and the president signed a law authorizing the detention of “dangerous radicals” if the president declared a national emergency. Truman did declare such an emergency in December 1950, after China entered the Korean War. But no known evidence suggests he or any other president approved any part of Hoover’s proposal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/washington/23habeas.html?em&ex=1198558800&en=4eae300b9fba9c53&ei=5087%0A
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Does law enforcement support Lowell Bruce?
Does law enforcement support its members when they kill their wives?
San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis seems to think so.
Why else would she be intervening on behalf of a sheriff's deputy, asking that a judge not be allowed to sentence the man for killing his wife?
You might think that law enforcement would think of Bruce as a criminal. But apparently "law enforcement" is a loose term; it refers to a group of people, but not a group of people who always want the law enforced.
San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis seems to think so.
Why else would she be intervening on behalf of a sheriff's deputy, asking that a judge not be allowed to sentence the man for killing his wife?
You might think that law enforcement would think of Bruce as a criminal. But apparently "law enforcement" is a loose term; it refers to a group of people, but not a group of people who always want the law enforced.
Monday, December 17, 2007
A lot depends on who the duty sergeant is
ABC News report on Stacy Peterson's predecessor:
Nov. 15, 2007
"Kathleen Savio's Sister Said Drew Peterson Allegedly Threatened Woman at Knifepoint
Kathleen Savio, who was found dead in her bathtub in 2004, was the third wife of Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson. State's Attorney James Glasgow has said evidence suggests that someone killed Savio and tried to make it look like an accident. Peterson is a suspect in his fourth wife's disappearance...
"A coroner initially ruled Savio's death an accidental drowning despite the fact there was no water in the bathtub and her hair was soaked from an apparent head wound. Authorities theorized that the water had drained from the tub after her death. Drew was the duty sergeant working the night that her body was discovered..."
Nov. 15, 2007
"Kathleen Savio's Sister Said Drew Peterson Allegedly Threatened Woman at Knifepoint
Kathleen Savio, who was found dead in her bathtub in 2004, was the third wife of Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson. State's Attorney James Glasgow has said evidence suggests that someone killed Savio and tried to make it look like an accident. Peterson is a suspect in his fourth wife's disappearance...
"A coroner initially ruled Savio's death an accidental drowning despite the fact there was no water in the bathtub and her hair was soaked from an apparent head wound. Authorities theorized that the water had drained from the tub after her death. Drew was the duty sergeant working the night that her body was discovered..."
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
John Jersome White clearned of rape after 27 years: 7th Georgia convict cleared after DNA test
DNA Clears Man of Rape After 27 Years
By DORIE TURNER
AOL News
2007-12-12
John Jerome White left prison Monday after DNA tests cleared him of raping a 74-year-old woman in 1979. Another man was arrested in the case.
ATLANTA (Dec. 11) - A man enjoyed freedom Tuesday after a DNA test proved he did not commit a 1979 rape.
John Jerome White, 48, left Macon State Prison on Monday evening.
"I'm just thankful that this is behind me," White said at a news conference Tuesday morning with the Georgia Innocence Project, which had worked to free him.
"When I first started out, I wondered why this happened to me," he said, breaking into tears. "I just saw it as something that had to happen because I wasn't living a moral life."
The investigation led to the arrest Tuesday of James Edward Parham, 54, of Manchester, who was on the state's Sex Offender Registry for a 1985 rape conviction, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said. He was being held in the Meriwether County jail on charges of rape, aggravated assault, burglary and robbery.
A sheriff's office employee declined to say whether Parham had an attorney, and there was no immediate response from the public defender's office. There was no answer on a telephone listed at the address given for Parham in a GBI news release.
White is the seventh Georgia convict to be cleared by DNA evidence, said Aimee Maxwell, director of the Atlanta-based Georgia Innocence Project. In every case, the men were wrongly convicted on eyewitness accounts.
"This case does point out the fallibility of eyewitness identification," Maxwell said.
White was convicted in 1980 of breaking into a 74-year-old woman's home and raping and robbing her. The woman has since died.
He was sentenced to life in prison, then was paroled in 1990. White was sent back to prison for 2 1/2 years on a drug violation in 1993. A 1997 robbery charge led to a conviction, a seven-year sentence and a requirement that he return to serving his life sentence for the rape conviction.
At the urging of the Georgia Innocence Project, authorities tested DNA from hairs found at the scene of the 1979 rape, using tests that weren't available at the time.
District Attorney Peter Skandalakis of the Coweta Judicial District said authorities found that the DNA matched DNA on file in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation database, leading to an investigation of a new suspect. No arrests have been made yet, the GBI says.
Maxwell said her organization is working with state lawmakers and authorities to require all law enforcement agencies to develop and follow clearly written procedures for doing an eyewitness identification with a victim, Maxwell said. The organization says 82 percent of the 355 Georgia law enforcement agencies surveyed do not have any type of written eyewitness standards.
White was joined at the news conference by his wife, three sisters and his mother, Florence White.
"When they called to tell me that he was getting out, I didn't know whether to shout, cry or holler," said his mother, who lives in Meriwether County. "I'm so glad to have him back home one more time before I leave this world."
In North Carolina, meanwhile, charges were dropped Tuesday against a Charlotte man who spent seven years on death row in the killing of a jeweler.
Jonathan Hoffman had been convicted of killing 35-year-old Danny Cook at Cook's Marshville store in 1995, but he won a new trial in 2004.
Union County District Attorney John Snyder said he dismissed charges because two witnesses have died and the prosecution's star witness, Hoffman's cousin, eventually recanted his testimony.
"What you had at the first trial is just not there," Snyder said.
Defense attorney Joseph Cheshire said it wasn't clear when Hoffman would be released.
Hoffman was in disbelief when told about the dropped charges, Cheshire said.
"He just couldn't believe it," Cheshire said. "He was surprised something so dramatic in his life could happen in such a low-key way."
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/dna-clears-man-of-rape-after-27-years/20071212090909990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
By DORIE TURNER
AOL News
2007-12-12
John Jerome White left prison Monday after DNA tests cleared him of raping a 74-year-old woman in 1979. Another man was arrested in the case.
ATLANTA (Dec. 11) - A man enjoyed freedom Tuesday after a DNA test proved he did not commit a 1979 rape.
John Jerome White, 48, left Macon State Prison on Monday evening.
"I'm just thankful that this is behind me," White said at a news conference Tuesday morning with the Georgia Innocence Project, which had worked to free him.
"When I first started out, I wondered why this happened to me," he said, breaking into tears. "I just saw it as something that had to happen because I wasn't living a moral life."
The investigation led to the arrest Tuesday of James Edward Parham, 54, of Manchester, who was on the state's Sex Offender Registry for a 1985 rape conviction, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said. He was being held in the Meriwether County jail on charges of rape, aggravated assault, burglary and robbery.
A sheriff's office employee declined to say whether Parham had an attorney, and there was no immediate response from the public defender's office. There was no answer on a telephone listed at the address given for Parham in a GBI news release.
White is the seventh Georgia convict to be cleared by DNA evidence, said Aimee Maxwell, director of the Atlanta-based Georgia Innocence Project. In every case, the men were wrongly convicted on eyewitness accounts.
"This case does point out the fallibility of eyewitness identification," Maxwell said.
White was convicted in 1980 of breaking into a 74-year-old woman's home and raping and robbing her. The woman has since died.
He was sentenced to life in prison, then was paroled in 1990. White was sent back to prison for 2 1/2 years on a drug violation in 1993. A 1997 robbery charge led to a conviction, a seven-year sentence and a requirement that he return to serving his life sentence for the rape conviction.
At the urging of the Georgia Innocence Project, authorities tested DNA from hairs found at the scene of the 1979 rape, using tests that weren't available at the time.
District Attorney Peter Skandalakis of the Coweta Judicial District said authorities found that the DNA matched DNA on file in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation database, leading to an investigation of a new suspect. No arrests have been made yet, the GBI says.
Maxwell said her organization is working with state lawmakers and authorities to require all law enforcement agencies to develop and follow clearly written procedures for doing an eyewitness identification with a victim, Maxwell said. The organization says 82 percent of the 355 Georgia law enforcement agencies surveyed do not have any type of written eyewitness standards.
White was joined at the news conference by his wife, three sisters and his mother, Florence White.
"When they called to tell me that he was getting out, I didn't know whether to shout, cry or holler," said his mother, who lives in Meriwether County. "I'm so glad to have him back home one more time before I leave this world."
In North Carolina, meanwhile, charges were dropped Tuesday against a Charlotte man who spent seven years on death row in the killing of a jeweler.
Jonathan Hoffman had been convicted of killing 35-year-old Danny Cook at Cook's Marshville store in 1995, but he won a new trial in 2004.
Union County District Attorney John Snyder said he dismissed charges because two witnesses have died and the prosecution's star witness, Hoffman's cousin, eventually recanted his testimony.
"What you had at the first trial is just not there," Snyder said.
Defense attorney Joseph Cheshire said it wasn't clear when Hoffman would be released.
Hoffman was in disbelief when told about the dropped charges, Cheshire said.
"He just couldn't believe it," Cheshire said. "He was surprised something so dramatic in his life could happen in such a low-key way."
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/dna-clears-man-of-rape-after-27-years/20071212090909990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Law agencies ignore the law
Audit: Access Often Denied by Law Enforcement
By WILL CARLESS Voice Staff Writer
Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007
The vast majority of San Diego’s law enforcement agencies are still not meeting the basic requirements of California public records law, according to an audit organized by Californians Aware, an open government advocacy group.
The audit, carried out in San Diego by local journalists, found that local law enforcement agencies had reasonable or good customer-service levels, but that most of them still do not provide citizens with basic information about crimes.
The California Public Records Act requires that such information, including traffic accident reports, crime logs and an agency’s financial records be made available to the public. In theory, any citizen should be able to walk into their local police station and pick up a report on a crime that has been committed in their neighborhood...
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Good cops are going after a bad cop
SADLY, IT APPEARS THAT NEW INFORMATION MAKES IT NECESSARY FOR ME TO CHANGE THE TITLE OF THIS POST
This post was about bad cop Drew Peterson, who is suspected in the death of his 23-year-old wife, Stacy Peterson.
NEW TITLE:
COPS ARE GOING AFTER A BAD COP TOO LATE; THEY FAILED TO CHARGE HIM AFTER ANY OF THE EIGHTEEN CALLS TO HIS HOUSE REGARDING DOMESTIC ABUSE
I found this Associated Press story today:
Did Cops Protect Fellow Officer Peterson?
By DON BABWIN,AP
2007-11-30
BOLINGBROOK, Ill. (Nov. 29) -- Eighteen times in two years, Bolingbrook police were called to fellow officer Drew Peterson's home because of trouble between husband and wife. But Peterson's wife could never get authorities to arrest him. In fact, she was the only one ever charged.
Photo Gallery: Where Is Stacy Peterson?
Family of Stacy Peterson / AP Drew and Stacy Peterson appear together in an undated family photo. The probe into her disappearance has raised questions about whether he received preferential treatment from police because he was on the force in Bolingbrook, Ill.
1 of 7
Now residents of this Chicago suburb are wondering whether police were protecting one of their own — and whether they bear some responsibility for what happened next.
Peterson's wife at the time of the domestic disturbance calls, Kathleen Savio, was found dead in 2004 under mysterious circumstances. And now his current wife, Stacy, is missing and feared slain.
The way police dealt with Peterson "makes it kind of hard to trust cops," said Pablo Delira, a 59-year-old construction worker. He said he has no doubt he would have been led away in handcuffs if police had been called to his house 18 times.
Kim Camplin, who works in the clothing business, said Bolingbrook police should have taken the domestic disturbance calls more seriously.
"It doesn't matter if it's a fireman, a policeman or a clergyman — all it should take is one call and it should be taken seriously," she said. "What faith can we have in the system?"
Peterson, 53, was a police sergeant and 29-year veteran of the force, resigning earlier this month after he came under suspicion in his current wife's disappearance in October.
In a roughly two-year period beginning in 2002, police responded to 18 domestic disturbance calls at Peterson's house. Savio accused Peterson of beating her and threatening to kill her, but no charges were ever brought against him.
Instead, Peterson twice persuaded prosecutors to charge Savio with domestic battery. She was acquitted both times.
Police Lt. Ken Teppel said that in all 18 instances, police conducted a thorough investigation. He said a department inquiry found no indication officers did anything wrong or violated procedure.
But Teppel acknowledged the case has damaged the department's reputation.
"There is a distrust ... that this is going to be covered up," he said. "It's so hard to get over that."
Savio was found dead in her bathtub in 2004, and a coroner's jury ruled it an accidental drowning. But since Stacy Peterson's disappearance, investigators have re-examined Savio's death and exhumed her body, and said they now believe it was a homicide made to look like an accident.
Peterson has not been named a suspect in Savio's death. But authorities said he is suspected in Stacy Peterson's disappearance. Peterson has denied any wrongdoing in either case and said he believes his current wife left him for another man and is still alive.
The Bolingbrook department has handed the investigation over to the Illinois State Police — standard practice in criminal cases involving a member of the force.
Not everyone in the community of about 70,000 blames the department.
"I haven't lost one iota of trust in the police department," said Stephen DeFreeuw, a 16-year resident. "One rogue cop."
Teppel said street cops in the 122-member department are being reminded about the proper way to handle domestic calls and are being told they are expected to adhere to the rules, no matter who answers when they knock on the door.
Teppel said Police Chief Ray McGrury has made it clear: "There are no favorites."
Savio and Stacy Peterson were Peterson's third and fourth wives. He and wives No. 1 and 2 divorced.
Vicki Connolly, Peterson's second wife, has said that during their marriage, an increasingly controlling Peterson hit her and told her he could kill her and make it look like an accident.
Connolly said police sometimes came to the house when the couple were having problems, but she said the officers were friends of theirs and no reports ever were filed.
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/did-cops-protect-fellow-officer-peterson/20071130073109990001
HERE IS MY ORIGINAL POST
WBBM News Radio
09 November 2007 4:37PM
Cop Named A Suspect In Wife's Disappearance, 3rd Wife's Death Possibly Staged
BOLINGBROOK, Ill. (WBBM/AP/CBS 2) - Sgt. Drew Peterson's was named a suspect in the disappearance of his wife Stacy Friday -- Authorities also said that a review of the evidence in the death of his 3rd wife Kathleen Savio is consistent with the ``staging'' of an accident to conceal a homicide.
An Illinois State police captain said that the Stacy Peterson case had gone "from a missing persons case to a potential homicide case," and that her husband, Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson, had "gone from being a person of interest to clearly being a suspect."
Peterson was also relived from duty by Bolingbrook Police Department hours after he was labled by investigators as "clearly a suspect"
"Effective immediately Sergeant Drew Peterson has been relieved of duty and placed on suspension without pay pending the completion of an internal affairs investigation and a hearing before the Bolingbrook Fire & Police Commission," according to a press release issued by Bolingbrook police.
Stacy Peterson has been missing since Oct. 28, and at the time of her disappearance, Drew Peterson said she had been voluntarily left.
But after Stacy's family filed a missing persons report, police conducted two separate searches at the Peterson home, on the house, the vehicles, and a trailer, Illinois State Police Capt. Carl Dobrich said at a news conference Friday.
"Subsequent to that search warrant, we went back several days later on another search warrant based on information was learned after the first search warrant," Dobrich said.
Based upon the information learned since then, police have concluded that the case had gone "from a missing persons case to a potential homicide case," Dobrich said.
"Early on, we looked at this as a missing persons case, but also believed strongly that based on the (Kathleen) Savio investigation (into the death of Drew Peterson's third wife) and the information that we were gleaning within the first 24 hours of the missing persons case with Stacy, was starting to strongly point to Drew Peterson being a person of interest," Dobrich said. "I would say that right now, Drew Peterson has gone from being a person of interest to clearly being a suspect."
A coroner's jury ruled Savio's death in 2004 was an accident, even though there was no water in the bathtub where the 40-year-old's body was found face-down, her hair soaked in blood from a head wound. Investigators theorized the water had drained.
In a petition filed Friday the Will County state's attorney lists reasons authorities want to exhume Savio's body, prosecutors and said a review of evidence in the case ``is consistent with the 'staging' of an accident to conceal a homicide.''
The chief criminal judge in Will County has approved the petition, State's Attorney James Glasgow said at a news conference Friday.
Glasgow said the possibility of a homicide is suspected.
Prosecutors said they reviewed photographs of the crime scene and autopsy, the autopsy protocol, and police reports.
``... The one-inch gash in the back of Kathleen Savio's head did not render her unconscious, which would have been necessary for her to accidentally drown in the bathtub,'' the petition stated.
Will County Circuit Court Judge Daniel J. Rozak signed the petition granting the exhumation Friday. It was not immediately clear when the body would be exhumed.
http://www.wbbm780.com/Cop-Relieved-From-Duty--Now-A-Suspect-Wife-s-Disap/1193902
This post was about bad cop Drew Peterson, who is suspected in the death of his 23-year-old wife, Stacy Peterson.
NEW TITLE:
COPS ARE GOING AFTER A BAD COP TOO LATE; THEY FAILED TO CHARGE HIM AFTER ANY OF THE EIGHTEEN CALLS TO HIS HOUSE REGARDING DOMESTIC ABUSE
I found this Associated Press story today:
Did Cops Protect Fellow Officer Peterson?
By DON BABWIN,AP
2007-11-30
BOLINGBROOK, Ill. (Nov. 29) -- Eighteen times in two years, Bolingbrook police were called to fellow officer Drew Peterson's home because of trouble between husband and wife. But Peterson's wife could never get authorities to arrest him. In fact, she was the only one ever charged.
Photo Gallery: Where Is Stacy Peterson?
Family of Stacy Peterson / AP Drew and Stacy Peterson appear together in an undated family photo. The probe into her disappearance has raised questions about whether he received preferential treatment from police because he was on the force in Bolingbrook, Ill.
1 of 7
Now residents of this Chicago suburb are wondering whether police were protecting one of their own — and whether they bear some responsibility for what happened next.
Peterson's wife at the time of the domestic disturbance calls, Kathleen Savio, was found dead in 2004 under mysterious circumstances. And now his current wife, Stacy, is missing and feared slain.
The way police dealt with Peterson "makes it kind of hard to trust cops," said Pablo Delira, a 59-year-old construction worker. He said he has no doubt he would have been led away in handcuffs if police had been called to his house 18 times.
Kim Camplin, who works in the clothing business, said Bolingbrook police should have taken the domestic disturbance calls more seriously.
"It doesn't matter if it's a fireman, a policeman or a clergyman — all it should take is one call and it should be taken seriously," she said. "What faith can we have in the system?"
Peterson, 53, was a police sergeant and 29-year veteran of the force, resigning earlier this month after he came under suspicion in his current wife's disappearance in October.
In a roughly two-year period beginning in 2002, police responded to 18 domestic disturbance calls at Peterson's house. Savio accused Peterson of beating her and threatening to kill her, but no charges were ever brought against him.
Instead, Peterson twice persuaded prosecutors to charge Savio with domestic battery. She was acquitted both times.
Police Lt. Ken Teppel said that in all 18 instances, police conducted a thorough investigation. He said a department inquiry found no indication officers did anything wrong or violated procedure.
But Teppel acknowledged the case has damaged the department's reputation.
"There is a distrust ... that this is going to be covered up," he said. "It's so hard to get over that."
Savio was found dead in her bathtub in 2004, and a coroner's jury ruled it an accidental drowning. But since Stacy Peterson's disappearance, investigators have re-examined Savio's death and exhumed her body, and said they now believe it was a homicide made to look like an accident.
Peterson has not been named a suspect in Savio's death. But authorities said he is suspected in Stacy Peterson's disappearance. Peterson has denied any wrongdoing in either case and said he believes his current wife left him for another man and is still alive.
The Bolingbrook department has handed the investigation over to the Illinois State Police — standard practice in criminal cases involving a member of the force.
Not everyone in the community of about 70,000 blames the department.
"I haven't lost one iota of trust in the police department," said Stephen DeFreeuw, a 16-year resident. "One rogue cop."
Teppel said street cops in the 122-member department are being reminded about the proper way to handle domestic calls and are being told they are expected to adhere to the rules, no matter who answers when they knock on the door.
Teppel said Police Chief Ray McGrury has made it clear: "There are no favorites."
Savio and Stacy Peterson were Peterson's third and fourth wives. He and wives No. 1 and 2 divorced.
Vicki Connolly, Peterson's second wife, has said that during their marriage, an increasingly controlling Peterson hit her and told her he could kill her and make it look like an accident.
Connolly said police sometimes came to the house when the couple were having problems, but she said the officers were friends of theirs and no reports ever were filed.
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/did-cops-protect-fellow-officer-peterson/20071130073109990001
HERE IS MY ORIGINAL POST
WBBM News Radio
09 November 2007 4:37PM
Cop Named A Suspect In Wife's Disappearance, 3rd Wife's Death Possibly Staged
BOLINGBROOK, Ill. (WBBM/AP/CBS 2) - Sgt. Drew Peterson's was named a suspect in the disappearance of his wife Stacy Friday -- Authorities also said that a review of the evidence in the death of his 3rd wife Kathleen Savio is consistent with the ``staging'' of an accident to conceal a homicide.
An Illinois State police captain said that the Stacy Peterson case had gone "from a missing persons case to a potential homicide case," and that her husband, Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson, had "gone from being a person of interest to clearly being a suspect."
Peterson was also relived from duty by Bolingbrook Police Department hours after he was labled by investigators as "clearly a suspect"
"Effective immediately Sergeant Drew Peterson has been relieved of duty and placed on suspension without pay pending the completion of an internal affairs investigation and a hearing before the Bolingbrook Fire & Police Commission," according to a press release issued by Bolingbrook police.
Stacy Peterson has been missing since Oct. 28, and at the time of her disappearance, Drew Peterson said she had been voluntarily left.
But after Stacy's family filed a missing persons report, police conducted two separate searches at the Peterson home, on the house, the vehicles, and a trailer, Illinois State Police Capt. Carl Dobrich said at a news conference Friday.
"Subsequent to that search warrant, we went back several days later on another search warrant based on information was learned after the first search warrant," Dobrich said.
Based upon the information learned since then, police have concluded that the case had gone "from a missing persons case to a potential homicide case," Dobrich said.
"Early on, we looked at this as a missing persons case, but also believed strongly that based on the (Kathleen) Savio investigation (into the death of Drew Peterson's third wife) and the information that we were gleaning within the first 24 hours of the missing persons case with Stacy, was starting to strongly point to Drew Peterson being a person of interest," Dobrich said. "I would say that right now, Drew Peterson has gone from being a person of interest to clearly being a suspect."
A coroner's jury ruled Savio's death in 2004 was an accident, even though there was no water in the bathtub where the 40-year-old's body was found face-down, her hair soaked in blood from a head wound. Investigators theorized the water had drained.
In a petition filed Friday the Will County state's attorney lists reasons authorities want to exhume Savio's body, prosecutors and said a review of evidence in the case ``is consistent with the 'staging' of an accident to conceal a homicide.''
The chief criminal judge in Will County has approved the petition, State's Attorney James Glasgow said at a news conference Friday.
Glasgow said the possibility of a homicide is suspected.
Prosecutors said they reviewed photographs of the crime scene and autopsy, the autopsy protocol, and police reports.
``... The one-inch gash in the back of Kathleen Savio's head did not render her unconscious, which would have been necessary for her to accidentally drown in the bathtub,'' the petition stated.
Will County Circuit Court Judge Daniel J. Rozak signed the petition granting the exhumation Friday. It was not immediately clear when the body would be exhumed.
http://www.wbbm780.com/Cop-Relieved-From-Duty--Now-A-Suspect-Wife-s-Disap/1193902
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
I'm sure Cheryl Cox would plead guilty to a misdemeanor if she were investigated
Tanya Mannes of the San Diego Union Tribune wrote on June 20, 2007:
"Patrick O'Toole, a Public Integrity Unit prosecutor, spent months investigating Jason Moore, who had been an aide to former [Chula Vista] Mayor Steve Padilla... He concluded that Moore ultimately took the two hours off. But he believed Moore lied about the timing of when he turned in a request for personal leave... Yesterday, Moore, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of contempt of court, a misdemeanor."
“People can't come into the grand jury, swear to tell the truth, and then lie,” O'Toole said.
Well, yes. And they can't obstruct justice, suborn perjury, falsify court documents, or violate the Labor Code. But that is exactly what current Chula Vista mayor Cheryl Cox has done.
Which makes it all the stranger that Bonnie Dumanis has refused to investigate Richard Werlin and other Chula Vista Elementary School District figures who have sworn to tell the truth, and then lied--about more important issues than two hours off work.
Ironically, Moore was accused of taking two hours off work to spy on Cheryl Cox and David Malcolm at a Cox fundraiser. The irony is particularly heavy in this case because Cheryl Cox herself pressured a whole slew of public employees at Chula Vista Elementary School District to commit perjury. Much of the perjury was done to cover up falsification of documents, which Cheryl Cox, Patrick Judd, Larry Cunningham, Pamela Smith and Bertha Lopez made necessary when they voted to cover up crimes by dismissing a teacher. The dismissal was itself a violation of Labor Code section 1102.5
The Chula Vista Elementary School District board chose lawyers, Parham & Rajcic, and Stutz, Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, who could be depended upon to use illegal tactics to cover up the board's wrondoing. Obstruction of justice is all in a day's work for these law firms.
The fact that Cheryl Cox has more power now than when she was a CVESD board member makes it all the more important that she be answerable for her crimes.
"Patrick O'Toole, a Public Integrity Unit prosecutor, spent months investigating Jason Moore, who had been an aide to former [Chula Vista] Mayor Steve Padilla... He concluded that Moore ultimately took the two hours off. But he believed Moore lied about the timing of when he turned in a request for personal leave... Yesterday, Moore, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of contempt of court, a misdemeanor."
“People can't come into the grand jury, swear to tell the truth, and then lie,” O'Toole said.
Well, yes. And they can't obstruct justice, suborn perjury, falsify court documents, or violate the Labor Code. But that is exactly what current Chula Vista mayor Cheryl Cox has done.
Which makes it all the stranger that Bonnie Dumanis has refused to investigate Richard Werlin and other Chula Vista Elementary School District figures who have sworn to tell the truth, and then lied--about more important issues than two hours off work.
Ironically, Moore was accused of taking two hours off work to spy on Cheryl Cox and David Malcolm at a Cox fundraiser. The irony is particularly heavy in this case because Cheryl Cox herself pressured a whole slew of public employees at Chula Vista Elementary School District to commit perjury. Much of the perjury was done to cover up falsification of documents, which Cheryl Cox, Patrick Judd, Larry Cunningham, Pamela Smith and Bertha Lopez made necessary when they voted to cover up crimes by dismissing a teacher. The dismissal was itself a violation of Labor Code section 1102.5
The Chula Vista Elementary School District board chose lawyers, Parham & Rajcic, and Stutz, Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, who could be depended upon to use illegal tactics to cover up the board's wrondoing. Obstruction of justice is all in a day's work for these law firms.
The fact that Cheryl Cox has more power now than when she was a CVESD board member makes it all the more important that she be answerable for her crimes.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Cheney isn't part of the executive branch
Vice President Dick Cheney claims he is not part of the executive branch, and therefore does not have to turn over documents to the agency in charge of executive branch documents.
Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel wants to take the Cheney at his word. Cheney says his office is "not an entity within the executive branch," so Emanuel wants to take away the tens of millions of dollars that are allocated to the White House to maintain it.
Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel wants to take the Cheney at his word. Cheney says his office is "not an entity within the executive branch," so Emanuel wants to take away the tens of millions of dollars that are allocated to the White House to maintain it.
Tennessee tries to repair past injustices
The state of Tennessee paid for a DNA test that proved that Clark McMillan, who spent 22 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, was innocent.
Early in the process, McMillan told authorities who the real rapist was, but they weren't interested. Finally, McMillan was proved right. A DNA test proved David Boyd was the rapist.
Early in the process, McMillan told authorities who the real rapist was, but they weren't interested. Finally, McMillan was proved right. A DNA test proved David Boyd was the rapist.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
This school's lawyers were able to admit wrongdoing
(CNN) -- Duke University has reached an undisclosed settlement with three former lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape, the school announced Monday.
"This past year has been hard for many people who care about Duke -- for students, faculty, staff, alumni, families and friends -- and for the three students and their families most of all," the Duke board of trustees said in a written statement.
The three students posted a statement on Duke's Web site saying, "We hope that today's resolution will begin to bring the Duke family back together again, and we look forward to working with the university to develop and implement initiatives that will prevent similar injustices and ensure that the lessons of last year are never forgotten."
David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were accused of sexually assaulting an escort-service dancer at a party in March 2006.
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper reviewed the case and exonerated the three men in April 2007, saying the charges never should have been brought against them.
The prosecutor who brought those charges, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, was disbarred Saturday by a disciplinary panel that said he violated the majority of at least 19 ethics offenses in prosecuting the case.
"This past year has been hard for many people who care about Duke -- for students, faculty, staff, alumni, families and friends -- and for the three students and their families most of all," the Duke board of trustees said in a written statement.
The three students posted a statement on Duke's Web site saying, "We hope that today's resolution will begin to bring the Duke family back together again, and we look forward to working with the university to develop and implement initiatives that will prevent similar injustices and ensure that the lessons of last year are never forgotten."
David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were accused of sexually assaulting an escort-service dancer at a party in March 2006.
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper reviewed the case and exonerated the three men in April 2007, saying the charges never should have been brought against them.
The prosecutor who brought those charges, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, was disbarred Saturday by a disciplinary panel that said he violated the majority of at least 19 ethics offenses in prosecuting the case.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Shoud San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne Be Fired?
From Voice of San Diego
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
"For several years, members of the San Diego City Council have complained that they were misled if not outright lied to by the city's employees. Several of them have blamed staff members for getting them into so much trouble with agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of them, in fact, Councilman Brian Maienschein, regularly has avoided closed-session meetings of the council because, he says, he simply can't trust what he is told in them.
"Yet only Councilwoman Donna Frye has complained after revelations recently that Police Chief William Lansdowne has regularly made materially misleading statements about crime rates in the city of San Diego. Sometimes to the City Council itself, other times in public forums, the police chief has touted the city's crime environment with statistics and conclusions that were simply untrue. In a 2006 presentation to the City Council committee that oversees public safety efforts, Lansdowne claimed that the crime rate had gone down but that "it would be a struggle for us to do it again next year." The crime rate, in fact, had gone up.
"In the same forum the next year, the chief would claim that the city's crime rate was the lowest it had been since 1976. It wasn't.
"At that same presentation, he said that overall crime had been coming down each of the previous three years. It hadn't.
"Lansdowne said on public television that his officers were responding to the most serious of calls from residents in trouble "within the six minutes that we should." That was not true. Responses to emergency calls were taking an average of seven minutes and were getting slightly worse.
"The list goes on..."
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
"For several years, members of the San Diego City Council have complained that they were misled if not outright lied to by the city's employees. Several of them have blamed staff members for getting them into so much trouble with agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of them, in fact, Councilman Brian Maienschein, regularly has avoided closed-session meetings of the council because, he says, he simply can't trust what he is told in them.
"Yet only Councilwoman Donna Frye has complained after revelations recently that Police Chief William Lansdowne has regularly made materially misleading statements about crime rates in the city of San Diego. Sometimes to the City Council itself, other times in public forums, the police chief has touted the city's crime environment with statistics and conclusions that were simply untrue. In a 2006 presentation to the City Council committee that oversees public safety efforts, Lansdowne claimed that the crime rate had gone down but that "it would be a struggle for us to do it again next year." The crime rate, in fact, had gone up.
"In the same forum the next year, the chief would claim that the city's crime rate was the lowest it had been since 1976. It wasn't.
"At that same presentation, he said that overall crime had been coming down each of the previous three years. It hadn't.
"Lansdowne said on public television that his officers were responding to the most serious of calls from residents in trouble "within the six minutes that we should." That was not true. Responses to emergency calls were taking an average of seven minutes and were getting slightly worse.
"The list goes on..."
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
San Diego Mayor Says You Should Know Better than to Believe the Chief of Police
The editors of Voice of San Diego told their readers today:
"The mayor's explanation for his police chief's misstatements is simple: Residents just can't trust what the police chief says out loud and they should know better than to think they could."
Here are the first two paragraphs of the editorial:
"For several years, members of the San Diego City Council have complained that they were misled if not outright lied to by the city's employees. Several of them have blamed staff members for getting them into so much trouble with agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of them, in fact, Councilman Brian Maienschein, regularly has avoided closed-session meetings of the council because, he says, he simply can't trust what he is told in them.
"Yet only Councilwoman Donna Frye has complained after revelations recently that Police Chief William Lansdowne has regularly made materially misleading statements about crime rates in the city of San Diego. Sometimes to the City Council itself, other times in public forums, the police chief has touted the city's crime environment with statistics and conclusions that were simply untrue. In a 2006 presentation to the City Council committee that oversees public safety efforts, Lansdowne claimed that the crime rate had gone down but that "it would be a struggle for us to do it again next year." The crime rate, in fact, had gone up."
http://voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/05/30/opinion/01editorial053007.txt
"The mayor's explanation for his police chief's misstatements is simple: Residents just can't trust what the police chief says out loud and they should know better than to think they could."
Here are the first two paragraphs of the editorial:
"For several years, members of the San Diego City Council have complained that they were misled if not outright lied to by the city's employees. Several of them have blamed staff members for getting them into so much trouble with agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of them, in fact, Councilman Brian Maienschein, regularly has avoided closed-session meetings of the council because, he says, he simply can't trust what he is told in them.
"Yet only Councilwoman Donna Frye has complained after revelations recently that Police Chief William Lansdowne has regularly made materially misleading statements about crime rates in the city of San Diego. Sometimes to the City Council itself, other times in public forums, the police chief has touted the city's crime environment with statistics and conclusions that were simply untrue. In a 2006 presentation to the City Council committee that oversees public safety efforts, Lansdowne claimed that the crime rate had gone down but that "it would be a struggle for us to do it again next year." The crime rate, in fact, had gone up."
http://voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/05/30/opinion/01editorial053007.txt
Monday, May 21, 2007
Perjury should be prosecuted in criminal courts, as Bonnie Dumanis well knows
Dear Bonnie Dumanis:
If you are not going to prosecute perjury by officials with real power, but use the law only to prosecute workers who did not properly fill out their leave slips, you are not assuring public integrity. You are promoting lack of integrity and abuse of office. I couldn't help noticing that San Diego County's District Attorney indicted only workers and union leaders in the San Diego City pension fraud case. Not one official.
Your office's recent letter to me notes that I am pursuing my perjury claims in civil court. You know very well that my civil suit will lose because EVERY COURT IN CALIFORNIA WILL RULE that "public policy," meaning protection for lawyers, trumps the California law that allows citizens to sue for perjuy in furtherance of an act of destruction of documents. The California law that is universally ignored in California Courts is Civil Code 47 Section (b)(2).
You know that "public policy" relies on district attorneys to prosecute perjury in criminal courts, not citizens to prosecute it in civil courts.
Despite your oft-quoted claims that you will begin to prosecute perjury, you are letting all the big guys off scot-free. Cheryl Cox spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to hide crimes, and to pay lawyers to commit crimes. She knew the truth. I reported to her on December 4, 2001 that Richard Werlin was obstructing justice. Five months later, she voted to keep funding that obstruction of justice. She voted to intimdate teachers and administrators into committing perjury. Sometimes they got mixed up, and let out small bits of the truth in their depositions. Then the lawyers would step in. Kelly Angell (AKA Minnehan) of Stuz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz got Robin Donlan to reverse her testimony--right in front of the video camera that was recording the deposition!
If you are not going to prosecute perjury by officials with real power, but use the law only to prosecute workers who did not properly fill out their leave slips, you are not assuring public integrity. You are promoting lack of integrity and abuse of office. I couldn't help noticing that San Diego County's District Attorney indicted only workers and union leaders in the San Diego City pension fraud case. Not one official.
Your office's recent letter to me notes that I am pursuing my perjury claims in civil court. You know very well that my civil suit will lose because EVERY COURT IN CALIFORNIA WILL RULE that "public policy," meaning protection for lawyers, trumps the California law that allows citizens to sue for perjuy in furtherance of an act of destruction of documents. The California law that is universally ignored in California Courts is Civil Code 47 Section (b)(2).
You know that "public policy" relies on district attorneys to prosecute perjury in criminal courts, not citizens to prosecute it in civil courts.
Despite your oft-quoted claims that you will begin to prosecute perjury, you are letting all the big guys off scot-free. Cheryl Cox spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to hide crimes, and to pay lawyers to commit crimes. She knew the truth. I reported to her on December 4, 2001 that Richard Werlin was obstructing justice. Five months later, she voted to keep funding that obstruction of justice. She voted to intimdate teachers and administrators into committing perjury. Sometimes they got mixed up, and let out small bits of the truth in their depositions. Then the lawyers would step in. Kelly Angell (AKA Minnehan) of Stuz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz got Robin Donlan to reverse her testimony--right in front of the video camera that was recording the deposition!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Does Bonnie Dumanis now have her very own Dale Akiki?
Tanya Mannes writes about Bonnie Dumanis' mysterious "Public Integrity Unit" in this morning's San Diego Union-Tribune:
"In existence about 14 months, it has filed charges against one person: Jason Moore, a former Chula Vista mayoral aide." Jason Moore worked for Steve Padilla, a Democrat who was in a run-off election against Republican Cheryl Cox.
The investigation of Moore, for taking two hours off work to take pictures of Cheryl Cox with David Malcolm at a Cox fundraiser, began in August 2005, well before the November election. Oddly, Bonnie Dumanis says, that in the future, in most cases, "we will not investigate a complaint until after an election."
Bonnie says her office is determined to be nonpolitical. When will that start, Bonnie? Specifically, when will you investigate complaints against Cheryl Cox and her associates?
Dumanis did not even announce the existence of her "Public Integrity Unit" until March 1, 2007. Jason Moore was indicted on March 27, 2007.
O'Toole and Dumanis have each claimed to be personally interested in prosecuting perjury. But Dumanis' office recently refused to investigate proven perjury by Cheryl Cox's co-conspirators in crimes committed when Cox was a trustee of Chula Vista Elementary School District.
"In existence about 14 months, it has filed charges against one person: Jason Moore, a former Chula Vista mayoral aide." Jason Moore worked for Steve Padilla, a Democrat who was in a run-off election against Republican Cheryl Cox.
The investigation of Moore, for taking two hours off work to take pictures of Cheryl Cox with David Malcolm at a Cox fundraiser, began in August 2005, well before the November election. Oddly, Bonnie Dumanis says, that in the future, in most cases, "we will not investigate a complaint until after an election."
Bonnie says her office is determined to be nonpolitical. When will that start, Bonnie? Specifically, when will you investigate complaints against Cheryl Cox and her associates?
Dumanis did not even announce the existence of her "Public Integrity Unit" until March 1, 2007. Jason Moore was indicted on March 27, 2007.
O'Toole and Dumanis have each claimed to be personally interested in prosecuting perjury. But Dumanis' office recently refused to investigate proven perjury by Cheryl Cox's co-conspirators in crimes committed when Cox was a trustee of Chula Vista Elementary School District.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
L.A. Chief William Bratton Shows Leadership
Kudos to Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton for demoting the top law officer at the immigration rally on May 1, 2007.
A small group of at the fringes of the crowd began throwing plastic bottles and trash at the Metro Squad, but instead of arresting one or more of the violent individuals, the Metro Squad attacked, and the police violently ended the entire demonstration. Journalists were manhandled. It would seem that the police joined the hooligans, rather than stopping them.
Bratton also took the step of transferring the person who was second in command at the time.
Some have suggested that when the Metro Squad is dealing with events that involve ordinary citizens, it should be outfitted with uniforms and gear that make its members look like regular cops. At the immigration rally, the Metro Squad looked like an army of Darth Vaders, which apparently some young men found to be provocative.
A small group of at the fringes of the crowd began throwing plastic bottles and trash at the Metro Squad, but instead of arresting one or more of the violent individuals, the Metro Squad attacked, and the police violently ended the entire demonstration. Journalists were manhandled. It would seem that the police joined the hooligans, rather than stopping them.
Bratton also took the step of transferring the person who was second in command at the time.
Some have suggested that when the Metro Squad is dealing with events that involve ordinary citizens, it should be outfitted with uniforms and gear that make its members look like regular cops. At the immigration rally, the Metro Squad looked like an army of Darth Vaders, which apparently some young men found to be provocative.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Who's guilty of the largest fraud on the California justice system?
Move over, Santa Barbara Sheriff and friends. You filed false documents and committed perjury, but Kathleen Culhane has one-upped you.
She forged statements from jurors in death row cases, creating the impression that the jurors did not want Michael Morales and others to be executed.
Sam Gross, Mike Carlson and Deborah Garvin got clean away with their frauds on the court regarding the antics at the Santa Barbara Sheriff's department, but it looks like Kathleen Culhane will spend years in jail.
Readers may remember that Ken Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor who charged Bill Clinton with lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, filed Kathleen Culhane's forged documents in California court. It would appear that Ken Starr is neither as honest nor as good an investigator as he would have us believe. He never bothered to talk to the jurors, just forged on, full steam ahead, trying to prevent the execution of a man who murdered a teenager. Is Ken Starr soft on the death penalty? What exactly does he believe in? Perhaps in lieu of principles, he just has personal desires and emotions.
We'd all be better off if only people who actually believed in the rule of law were allowed to practice law and enforce it.
She forged statements from jurors in death row cases, creating the impression that the jurors did not want Michael Morales and others to be executed.
Sam Gross, Mike Carlson and Deborah Garvin got clean away with their frauds on the court regarding the antics at the Santa Barbara Sheriff's department, but it looks like Kathleen Culhane will spend years in jail.
Readers may remember that Ken Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor who charged Bill Clinton with lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, filed Kathleen Culhane's forged documents in California court. It would appear that Ken Starr is neither as honest nor as good an investigator as he would have us believe. He never bothered to talk to the jurors, just forged on, full steam ahead, trying to prevent the execution of a man who murdered a teenager. Is Ken Starr soft on the death penalty? What exactly does he believe in? Perhaps in lieu of principles, he just has personal desires and emotions.
We'd all be better off if only people who actually believed in the rule of law were allowed to practice law and enforce it.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Chula Vista Police Department 2005-06 hoax on behalf of Cheryl Cox and the Santa Barbara Sheriff
Chula Vista is not the place to go if you are looking for equal protection of the law. It makes a big difference to the CVPD if you're a Republican or Democrat. Republicans like Cheryl Cox get help from the CVPD in covering up crimes and other wrongdoing.
On the other hand, a Democratic employee of the City of Chula Vista who took two hours off work to spy on a Cheryl Cox fundraiser has been charged by Bonnie Dumanis with perjury for not admitting he was doing political work on the job.
There's a lot of political work being done on the job in Chula Vista, but you don't hear much about the work done by Republicans in the police department.
The Chula Vista Police Department is a friend of Cheryl Cox, who was a Chula Vista Elementary school board member before she was elected mayor. The CVPD failed for over a year to investigate a financial crime at Castle Park Elementary School reported in 2005. Why? The CVPD has a knee-jerk policy of covering up wrongdoing by Cheryl Cox and Chula Vista Elementary School District.
In 2006 I pursued a public records request for months before the CVPD admitted that it had a record of a police visit to Castle Park Elementary on April 21, 2001. When they decided I wasn't likely to go away, I finally received a copy of the Castle Park Elementary School "call" report.*
But the Chula Vista Police Department was doing a lot more than illegally hiding public records in its efforts to support Cheryl Cox's campaign for mayor of Chula Vista in 2006.
Between 2000 and 2006 a long string of crimes had been committed at Castle Park Elementary which resulted from criminal actions by a Santa Barbara Sheriff's deputy and his sister, a teacher in Chula Vista. Cheryl Cox and CVESD committed bigger and bigger crimes to prevent the exposure of earlier, smaller crimes and violations of law committed at Castle Park Elementary in 2000 and 2001.
See "Castle Park Elementary," "Teacher Reports," and "Law Enforcement" at MAURALARKINS.COM (link available on this blog's link list).
In 2005-2006, the most newsworthy crime being covered up by the CVPD and the media to protect Cheryl Cox and the CVESD school board was the embezzlement of about $20,000 from the Castle Park Elementary PTA.
Apparently fearing that this crime would eventually become public knowlege, perhaps because it was being reported by this blog and the San Diego Education Report website, the Chula Vista Police Department seems to have developed a plan in November 2006 to create the appearance that it was no longer covering up the embezzlement. Of course, by November 7, 2006, the election was over. The cover-up was successful. Larry Cunningham crowed that voters had seen throught the lies of his opponents. The truth is that the voters saw almost nothing because Larry and Cheryl had spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to cover up crimes and other violations of law at CVESD.
The police asked former Castle Park PTA president Kim Simmons to come in the CVPD office, where she was interviewed and arrested. Was Simmons arrested after a careful investigation? No, the CVPD does not carefully investigate incidents that might embarrass Cheryl Cox and the school board. CVPD arrested Kim Simmons simply to create the impression that they weren't covering up Castle Park crimes, and passed on their humble efforts to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.
What did Bonnie Dumanis do? Prosecute the crime? Not likely. Just as she had refused to prosecute CVESD Assistant Superintedent Richard Werlin for obstruction of justice, she also refused to prosecute Kim Simmons.
Why? Maybe because Kim Simmons knew too much about crimes at Castle Park Elementary.
Did I mention that Kim Simmons was a close friend of transferred teacher Robin Donlan, a member of a powerful teacher clique at Castle Park Elementary that received a great deal of support form local papers when she and several other teachers were transferred out of the school?
Robin Donlan and her friends created a bizarre brouhaha, in which they and the media attacked the principal of Castle Park Elementary without ever mentioning the crimes of which Donlan had been accused. The truth was that the principal was attacked for daring to challenge the authority of the "family" that had created a crime wave at the school.
In October 2004, Kim Simmons entered a Castle Park Elementary classroom, and asked to use the school phone during class time so she could call up Robin Donlan and ask for instructions on how to proceed with her attacks on the principal of the school. The teacher gave permission, and took the opportunity to explain to her students that she was "mad at the principal." (There has been a dearth of professionalism at Castle Park Elementary since this "Castle Park Family" teacher group took over.)
Kim Simmons, along with Gina Boyd, the president of the teacher union, and school site council President Felicia Starr were working with transferred teacher Robin Donlan to get rid of the first principal who had had the nerve to stand up to the arbitrary power of the group of teachers who ruled the school.
What was Cheryl Cox's role in all this? She and all the other board members authorized the payment of hundreds of thousands of public dollars to Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz law firm to represent Robin Donlan and cover up the crimes initiated by her and Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin and several other CVESD officers and employees in 2000 and 2001. After fostering perjury and other crimes, and using huge sums of public money to keep bad teachers in power, Cheryl Cox ran for mayor on a platform of "charater" and "fiscal responsibility."
The San Diego Union Tribune has maintained to this day a complete black-out regarding crimes committed by Robin Donlan, Richard Werlin, Cheryl Cox and others at CVESD. On November 17, 2006 the SDUT published a small article about the arrest of former PTA Kim Simmons. The story immediately went into "partially hidden" status in the Union-Tribunes archives. (If someone does a signonsandiego search for "castle park PTA Simmons," he'll get a message back saying "No articles found.) The article can only be found by leaving "simmons" out of the search. If you already know about Kimberlee Simmons, the San Diego Union Tribune doesn't want you to know more.
Of course, there has been no follow-up to the SDUT story. But there should be--because the story created the false impression that the police were actually intending to do something about crime at Castle Park Elementary. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The police waited until Cox was elected, and then they did their hoax arrest, but Kim Simmons was never charged with anything.
When wil the SD Union Tribune publish the full story, revealing Kim Simmons' close association to Robin Donlan and the "Castle Park Five"? When will the San Diego Union Tribune apologize for so maliciously attacking the honorable and decent principal of Castle Park Elementary on behalf of Robin Donlan, Kim Simmons, and the rest of their clique, after the group was found to be responsible for yet another crime after the SDUT had written so much on its behalf? How about it, Don Sevrens?
The SDUT November 2006 story about Simmons arrest was published to create the impression that Bonnie Dumanis and the Chula Vista Police Department are not covering up crimes involving Cheryl Cox and Castle Park Elementary School. It appears that Simmons wasn't really the fall guy; she was actually the pretend fall guy.
Bonnie Dumanis, why don't you investigate the use of public resources for political purposes at CVPD? Why don't you investigate crimes at Chula Vista Elementary School District, including perjury by Cheryl Cox and Robin Donlan? Or do you only use the public resources under your control to investigate Democrats?
*The police "call' report that was hidden for months by the CVPD revealed Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin's attempt to silence a teacher who had suggested that the media might investigate what was happening at the school in 2001. The teacher clearly knew nothing about the media in San Diego. The San Diego Union Tribune, the Chula Vista Star-News and La Prensa still have not reported those crimes, although all three newspapers have long known about them. These three publications exposed their lack of journalistic ethics when they published a deluge of letters, articles and editorials defending the teacher, Robin Colls/Donlan who initiated the crime wave! All three papers were incensed when Robin Colls was transferred from Castle Park Elementary. Richard Werlin, who called the police when the teacher mentioned the media, didn't correctly estimate the power of his Chula Vista Elementary School Board bosses, including Cheryl Cox, to silence the media. Werlin did go on to achieve a certain amount of notoriety for his use of the police to silence teachers. He had second-grade teacher Jenny Mo arrested in front of her students at his new school district in Richmond, California this year when the teacher went to the media with a story about bullying at her school. Of course, Werlin didn't step up and take the credit/blame for the arrest. He let the principal sit in the hot seat. He took indefinite sick leave from his position.
On the other hand, a Democratic employee of the City of Chula Vista who took two hours off work to spy on a Cheryl Cox fundraiser has been charged by Bonnie Dumanis with perjury for not admitting he was doing political work on the job.
There's a lot of political work being done on the job in Chula Vista, but you don't hear much about the work done by Republicans in the police department.
The Chula Vista Police Department is a friend of Cheryl Cox, who was a Chula Vista Elementary school board member before she was elected mayor. The CVPD failed for over a year to investigate a financial crime at Castle Park Elementary School reported in 2005. Why? The CVPD has a knee-jerk policy of covering up wrongdoing by Cheryl Cox and Chula Vista Elementary School District.
In 2006 I pursued a public records request for months before the CVPD admitted that it had a record of a police visit to Castle Park Elementary on April 21, 2001. When they decided I wasn't likely to go away, I finally received a copy of the Castle Park Elementary School "call" report.*
But the Chula Vista Police Department was doing a lot more than illegally hiding public records in its efforts to support Cheryl Cox's campaign for mayor of Chula Vista in 2006.
Between 2000 and 2006 a long string of crimes had been committed at Castle Park Elementary which resulted from criminal actions by a Santa Barbara Sheriff's deputy and his sister, a teacher in Chula Vista. Cheryl Cox and CVESD committed bigger and bigger crimes to prevent the exposure of earlier, smaller crimes and violations of law committed at Castle Park Elementary in 2000 and 2001.
See "Castle Park Elementary," "Teacher Reports," and "Law Enforcement" at MAURALARKINS.COM (link available on this blog's link list).
In 2005-2006, the most newsworthy crime being covered up by the CVPD and the media to protect Cheryl Cox and the CVESD school board was the embezzlement of about $20,000 from the Castle Park Elementary PTA.
Apparently fearing that this crime would eventually become public knowlege, perhaps because it was being reported by this blog and the San Diego Education Report website, the Chula Vista Police Department seems to have developed a plan in November 2006 to create the appearance that it was no longer covering up the embezzlement. Of course, by November 7, 2006, the election was over. The cover-up was successful. Larry Cunningham crowed that voters had seen throught the lies of his opponents. The truth is that the voters saw almost nothing because Larry and Cheryl had spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to cover up crimes and other violations of law at CVESD.
The police asked former Castle Park PTA president Kim Simmons to come in the CVPD office, where she was interviewed and arrested. Was Simmons arrested after a careful investigation? No, the CVPD does not carefully investigate incidents that might embarrass Cheryl Cox and the school board. CVPD arrested Kim Simmons simply to create the impression that they weren't covering up Castle Park crimes, and passed on their humble efforts to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.
What did Bonnie Dumanis do? Prosecute the crime? Not likely. Just as she had refused to prosecute CVESD Assistant Superintedent Richard Werlin for obstruction of justice, she also refused to prosecute Kim Simmons.
Why? Maybe because Kim Simmons knew too much about crimes at Castle Park Elementary.
Did I mention that Kim Simmons was a close friend of transferred teacher Robin Donlan, a member of a powerful teacher clique at Castle Park Elementary that received a great deal of support form local papers when she and several other teachers were transferred out of the school?
Robin Donlan and her friends created a bizarre brouhaha, in which they and the media attacked the principal of Castle Park Elementary without ever mentioning the crimes of which Donlan had been accused. The truth was that the principal was attacked for daring to challenge the authority of the "family" that had created a crime wave at the school.
In October 2004, Kim Simmons entered a Castle Park Elementary classroom, and asked to use the school phone during class time so she could call up Robin Donlan and ask for instructions on how to proceed with her attacks on the principal of the school. The teacher gave permission, and took the opportunity to explain to her students that she was "mad at the principal." (There has been a dearth of professionalism at Castle Park Elementary since this "Castle Park Family" teacher group took over.)
Kim Simmons, along with Gina Boyd, the president of the teacher union, and school site council President Felicia Starr were working with transferred teacher Robin Donlan to get rid of the first principal who had had the nerve to stand up to the arbitrary power of the group of teachers who ruled the school.
What was Cheryl Cox's role in all this? She and all the other board members authorized the payment of hundreds of thousands of public dollars to Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz law firm to represent Robin Donlan and cover up the crimes initiated by her and Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin and several other CVESD officers and employees in 2000 and 2001. After fostering perjury and other crimes, and using huge sums of public money to keep bad teachers in power, Cheryl Cox ran for mayor on a platform of "charater" and "fiscal responsibility."
The San Diego Union Tribune has maintained to this day a complete black-out regarding crimes committed by Robin Donlan, Richard Werlin, Cheryl Cox and others at CVESD. On November 17, 2006 the SDUT published a small article about the arrest of former PTA Kim Simmons. The story immediately went into "partially hidden" status in the Union-Tribunes archives. (If someone does a signonsandiego search for "castle park PTA Simmons," he'll get a message back saying "No articles found.) The article can only be found by leaving "simmons" out of the search. If you already know about Kimberlee Simmons, the San Diego Union Tribune doesn't want you to know more.
Of course, there has been no follow-up to the SDUT story. But there should be--because the story created the false impression that the police were actually intending to do something about crime at Castle Park Elementary. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The police waited until Cox was elected, and then they did their hoax arrest, but Kim Simmons was never charged with anything.
When wil the SD Union Tribune publish the full story, revealing Kim Simmons' close association to Robin Donlan and the "Castle Park Five"? When will the San Diego Union Tribune apologize for so maliciously attacking the honorable and decent principal of Castle Park Elementary on behalf of Robin Donlan, Kim Simmons, and the rest of their clique, after the group was found to be responsible for yet another crime after the SDUT had written so much on its behalf? How about it, Don Sevrens?
The SDUT November 2006 story about Simmons arrest was published to create the impression that Bonnie Dumanis and the Chula Vista Police Department are not covering up crimes involving Cheryl Cox and Castle Park Elementary School. It appears that Simmons wasn't really the fall guy; she was actually the pretend fall guy.
Bonnie Dumanis, why don't you investigate the use of public resources for political purposes at CVPD? Why don't you investigate crimes at Chula Vista Elementary School District, including perjury by Cheryl Cox and Robin Donlan? Or do you only use the public resources under your control to investigate Democrats?
*The police "call' report that was hidden for months by the CVPD revealed Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin's attempt to silence a teacher who had suggested that the media might investigate what was happening at the school in 2001. The teacher clearly knew nothing about the media in San Diego. The San Diego Union Tribune, the Chula Vista Star-News and La Prensa still have not reported those crimes, although all three newspapers have long known about them. These three publications exposed their lack of journalistic ethics when they published a deluge of letters, articles and editorials defending the teacher, Robin Colls/Donlan who initiated the crime wave! All three papers were incensed when Robin Colls was transferred from Castle Park Elementary. Richard Werlin, who called the police when the teacher mentioned the media, didn't correctly estimate the power of his Chula Vista Elementary School Board bosses, including Cheryl Cox, to silence the media. Werlin did go on to achieve a certain amount of notoriety for his use of the police to silence teachers. He had second-grade teacher Jenny Mo arrested in front of her students at his new school district in Richmond, California this year when the teacher went to the media with a story about bullying at her school. Of course, Werlin didn't step up and take the credit/blame for the arrest. He let the principal sit in the hot seat. He took indefinite sick leave from his position.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox caused big problems for the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department
San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has charged former Chula Vista employee Jason Moore with multiple perjury counts. With all the perjury that goes on without any consequences, this certainly seems political, doesn’t it? Maybe Bonnie wants to be appointed US Attorney by George Bush. If I were he, I’d appoint her. Of course I’m not he, so I am disgusted with her actions.
She ignored my complaint about Rick Werlin’s obstruction of justice, and then went on to charge Moore. Bizarre.
This new case was triggered by the camp of Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox, so it made me think about all the perjury and other wrongdoing that resulted from Cheryl’s decision to commit and/or cover-up many violations of law at Chula Vista Elementary School District. Santa Barbara Sheriff Commander Sam Gross would never have been pressured to commit perjury if Cheryl Cox hadn’t voted to disobey the law.
She ignored my complaint about Rick Werlin’s obstruction of justice, and then went on to charge Moore. Bizarre.
This new case was triggered by the camp of Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox, so it made me think about all the perjury and other wrongdoing that resulted from Cheryl’s decision to commit and/or cover-up many violations of law at Chula Vista Elementary School District. Santa Barbara Sheriff Commander Sam Gross would never have been pressured to commit perjury if Cheryl Cox hadn’t voted to disobey the law.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)