Thursday, June 30, 2011

Killer who fled Conn. in 1989 returned from Mexico (AP)

HARTFORD, Conn. – A man who was on the run from a murder conviction for the past two decades before being caught in Mexico was set to appear Thursday in the same Connecticut courthouse where a jury found him guilty.

Adam Zachs, 48, was flown from Mexico City to New York City late Wednesday and driven to Hartford. After his court appearance, he will be sent to prison to begin serving his 60-year sentence.

Zachs was convicted and sentenced in 1988 for shooting 29-year-old Peter Carone to death the year before outside a West Hartford restaurant. He was allowed to post bail while he appealed and fled in 1989.

Authorities got a tip and arrested Zachs in February in Leon Guanajuato, about five hours northwest of Mexico City. Police say he was living under the alias Ruben Fridman, was married with two children and ran a computer repair business there.

Zachs and Carone, who both grew up in West Hartford but barely knew each other, were at the restaurant watching a college basketball game when Carone made a joke that involved spitting on the bar, which angered Zachs, police said. The two went outside, and Zachs shot Carone in the back, police said.

After a jury convicted Zachs, he posted a $250,000 appeal bond with the help of his aunt and fled with the help of his father, authorities said.

The 78-year-old father, Frederick Zachs, pleaded guilty in federal court recently to helping his son flee the country and sending him money over the years. Frederick Zachs is set to be sentenced to up to five years in prison in August for harboring a fugitive.

Frederick Zachs told authorities that he arranged for his son to be driven to New York to catch a flight to Mexico in June 1989. The elder Zachs admitted that he sent money to his son over the years through others and stayed in touch with him using an intermediary in Brooklyn, N.Y., to send and receive letters. He also said he used prepaid phone cards to call his son from pay phones in Arizona and New Jersey from 2002 to 2005.

Adam Zachs' case was featured several times on the Fox TV show "America's Most Wanted," which reported that police in the early 1990s learned that Zachs was living in New Mexico with a woman who worked for Frederick Zachs' company. The woman told police that she and Zachs had lived together for a year and a half when one day he gave her money for a plane ticket and disappeared.


View the original article here

California man pleads guilty to creating fake Army unit (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A California man who conned Chinese immigrants into joining his fake U.S. Army unit was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to counterfeiting and other charges.

Yupeng Deng gave himself the title "Supreme Commander" when he was running his fictitious unit, and he promised recruits their time in his squad was a path to U.S. citizenship.

A Chinese national from the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, Deng convinced over 200 Chinese nationals from around the United States to join, and charged them initiation fees ranging from $300 to $450.

He was arrested in April following an investigation by the FBI and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

Deng, 51, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges of theft by false pretenses, manufacturing deceptive government documents and counterfeit of an official government seal.

Investigators also found child pornography when they served a search warrant at his home, and as a result Deng also pleaded guilty to possessing the porn.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jack Hunt sentenced Deng to three years in prison.

Deng gave his recruits military uniforms, had them parade in a Los Angeles suburb, and took them to the decommissioned USS Midway aircraft carrier, which is a museum in San Diego, authorities said.

He called his bogus squad the U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve unit, or MSFR for short.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Peter Bohan)


View the original article here

Casey Anthony's father bought gun, considered suicide (Reuters)

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) – The father of accused child killer Casey Anthony sobbed on the witness stand on Wednesday as he testified that he bought a gun in 2008 and planned to force his daughter's friends to tell him what happened to his missing granddaughter.

George Anthony, called back to the witness stand by the defense, also said he tried to commit suicide in January 2009, a month after 2-year-old Caylee's skeletal remains were found.

"It just felt like the right time to go and be with Caylee," he told jurors in the sixth week of the highly publicized first-degree murder trial in Orlando.

Prosecutors say Casey, 25, smothered her young daughter with duct tape on June 16, 2008 so she could "live the good life" free of the demands of motherhood. They say Casey stored the child's body in her car trunk, then dumped it in woods near her home.

When Casey's mother reported the child missing a month later, Casey claimed Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny.

Prosecutor Jeff Ashton told Judge Belvin Perry that George's testimony rebutted the defense contention that George was somehow involved in Caylee's disappearance.

"This man had no idea who killed Caylee Marie Anthony," Ashton said.

Defense attorney Jose Baez said at the start of the trial that Caylee accidentally drowned in the Anthony family's backyard pool. He said George found her body, but the death went unreported.

Baez also claimed that George had sexually abused Casey starting at age 8. George has denied any sexual abuse or involvement in Caylee's death.

The defense is expected to wrap up its case on Thursday. Prosecutors then will have a chance to present witnesses to refute defense evidence.

Perry said he would leave it up to the jury to decide whether to work through Sunday and the Fourth of July.

NEVER USED GUN

As her father broke down on the stand, Casey continued to write in a legal pad and whispered to her lawyers.

George said he never used the gun he bought. At the time he purchased it in August, 2008, Casey was under house arrest after being charged with lying to detectives during their investigation into Caylee's disappearance.

Within hours of bringing the gun home, someone from the jail arrived to tell him the weapon violated the terms of Casey's house arrest and took the gun away, George said.

He said his intent was to force answers from Casey's friends and associates, whom he did not name.

"I wanted to get answers from people that I believed were involved with my granddaughter (being) missing," he said.

George testified he continued to believe Casey's account of a kidnapping even after Caylee's remains were found in woods near their home on December 11, 2008.

George said he checked into a motel in Daytona Beach on January 22, 2009 with prescription pills and beer. He found it hard to accept that Caylee was dead, he said.

He described calling some relatives one last time and writing a multiple-page suicide note for his wife, telling her, "how I didn't want to be in this world anymore."

George said he would have died if law enforcement had not found him and taken him to the hospital.

Ashton told Perry he intends to introduce George's suicide letter into evidence, but the judge said he had not yet decided whether to allow jurors to read it.

Baez tried to stop George's testimony about the gun and suicide letter from being heard by the jury. Perry acknowledged that the testimony and letter normally would not be allowed, but ruled that prosecutors could ask George about his state of mind because Baez had "opened the door."

Earlier, Baez brought up the suicide letter and asked George: "You expressed some guilt, did you not?"

Before George could answer, prosecutors objected and Baez withdrew the question.

Baez grilled George about whether he "threw (Casey) under the bus" or helped investigators make the case against his daughter.

The attorney asked George if he pulled lead detective Yuri Melich aside on July 16, 2008 -- during the initial investigation of Caylee's disappearance -- and privately told him that Casey's car smelled like death.

Baez also asked George whether he told Melich on July 24, 2008 that "something happened to Caylee and Casey is lying" and that "Casey lives on the edge."

George acknowledged that he made those statements. He testified that he was trying to help investigators find his granddaughter. George said he also visited Casey in jail "to keep her as happy and comfortable as possible."

"I didn't want to believe back then that my daughter was capable of taking the life of her daughter," he said.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Greg McCune)


View the original article here

Suspect in Seattle lesbian stabbing admits attack (AP)

SEATTLE – A man wearing a shock sleeve to control outbursts and hand mitts to prevent him from stuffing dangerous items into his mouth testified Wednesday that he committed the horrific rape and stabbing of a lesbian couple in Seattle two summers ago.

"I was there and I was told by my God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to attack my enemies, and I did so," Isaiah Kalebu said under questioning by one of his lawyers.

Closing arguments in the case were presented later in the day, and a jury began deliberations before adjourning until Thursday.

The trial started three weeks ago, but the testimony was the first time jurors had seen Kalebu, who was previously so disruptive in court that the judge barred him from attending.

He watched the trial via closed circuit television from another courtroom before indicating he wanted to exercise his constitutional right to testify in his own defense.

He was wheeled into court in restraints, wearing an electroshock sleeve, a yellow shirt and dark tie, and the oversized white mitts. He recently was hospitalized after swallowing a small pencil.

Prison guards stood by ready to activate the Taser-like sleeve in case Kalebu acted out, but he remained docile. The courtroom had been rearranged to prevent jurors from seeing his restraints.

Kalebu, 25, testified while sitting at the defense table, and even remained sitting while the jurors filed in — usually everyone in the courtroom must rise. He kept his hands by his lap as he was sworn in.

He answered only two questions on the stand: One about whether he knew about the events, and another about whether he'd been diagnosed with mental illnesses. He answered the latter affirmatively as prosecutors objected on hearsay grounds.

Kalebu is accused of slipping in an open window of the couple's home in Seattle's South Park neighborhood and repeatedly raping and stabbing them during a two-hour attack. One woman, Teresa Butz, died naked and blood-soaked in the street in front of her home as neighbors tried to help. Her partner survived and told the jury that Kalebu was the man who did it.

He's also suspected in an arson that killed his aunt and one of her tenants in Pierce County, south of Seattle, but has not been charged in that case due to a lack of forensic evidence.

Kalebu is not pursuing any type of mental-health defense. His lawyers, Michael Schwartz and Ramona Brandes, have argued that he didn't commit the crime — a contention prosecutors say is disproved by DNA evidence and witnesses.

Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty due to Kalebu's history of mental illness. Experts have found that although he might suffer from bipolar disorder, he has been faking or exaggerating the symptoms. In January, he was found competent to stand trial.

If he's convicted, he could face life in prison with no opportunity for release.


View the original article here

NY pharmacy shooting suspect to plead not guilty (AP)

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – A New York man accused of killing two pharmacy employees and two customers during a holdup for prescription painkillers is expected to plead not guilty Thursday to murder and other charges.

A court-appointed attorney for 33-year-old David Laffer, of Medford, is to enter the pleas to upgraded charges in a Long Island courtroom when a grand jury indictment is unsealed.

Laffer and his wife, 29-year-old Melinda Brady, were arrested June 22 in their suburban home a mile and a half from Haven Drugs, where authorities say he opened fire on the victims before jamming a backpack full of prescription painkillers.

Prosecutors have called the killings, which were captured on a drugstore surveillance camera, "the most cold-blooded robbery-homicide in Suffolk County history."

The four deaths were the worst mass killing on Long Island since a gunman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road train in 1993, killing six commuters.

Laffer, who was originally charged with one count of first-degree murder and resisting arrest, is being held without bail in protective custody in the county jail. His wife is being held on $750,000 bail on allegations of driving the getaway car.

She has cooperated with investigators, police have said, but prosecutors say she also faces the likelihood of upgraded charges from a grand jury in coming days.

Authorities have not said whether the painkillers were recovered after the holdup, but Police Commissioner Richard Dormer noted both were high on drugs when they were arrested.

The victims included the 45-year-old pharmacist who was working so a colleague could enjoy Father's Day and a 17-year-old clerk who was days away from her high school graduation.

A 71-year-old man picking up medication for his ailing wife and a 33-year-old mother of two who was planning to be married this year were shot in the back of the head when they unwittingly walked in on the carnage, police said.

Prosecutors say Laffer left with painkillers "of the hydrocodone family." His fingerprints were found on a piece of paper left on the store's countertop, according to a prosecutor. But defense attorney Mary Beth Abbate has suggested Laffer was a frequent customer and could have left his fingerprints there some other time.

More troublesome for the defense is the surveillance video that captured the massacre, although the suspect in the shooting wore a beard, hat and mask. Laffer was clean-shaven when he was arrested.

Brady blamed her husband when she was led from police headquarters to a nearby precinct holding cell following her arrest last week. "He was doing it because he lost his job and I was sick," Brady said. "He did it. He did all of this," she told reporters.

She had previously posted messages on a website discussing her difficulty with painkillers.

Laffer served in the Army from 1994 until 2002 and attained the rank of private first class, said Mark Edwards, a spokesman for the Army Human Resources Command in Fort Knox. While in the service, he worked as an intelligence analyst.

Media reports have said he lost his job at a Long Island warehouse several weeks ago.


View the original article here

"Whitey" Bulger heads back to court on attorney issue (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) – James "Whitey" Bulger is expected to learn the fate of his request for a public defender on Thursday, when the former mob boss returns to federal court in Boston for two separate hearings.

Back-to-back court appearances, the first scheduled for 1 p.m. ET, should resolve the lingering issue of who will represent the aging gangster against charges that include racketeering and murder.

Bulger, 81, who had been on the FBI's Most Wanted List, and his longtime companion Catherine Greig, 60, were arrested in Santa Monica, California, on June 22 after being on the run together since 1995.

The arrests came after a tip from a member of the public, days after the FBI launched a new media campaign.

Bulger is the former leader of the notorious Winter Hill Gang, a mostly Irish-American organized crime operation based in Boston.

He had been sought by the authorities for 19 counts of murder committed in the 1970s and 1980s, many of them brutal slayings, and charges of drug dealing, extortion, money laundering and conspiracy.

Bulger and Greig had some $820,000 stashed in a wall in their California hide-out and according to prosecutors were able to finance a comfortable lifestyle replete with Las Vegas gambling trips and jaunts to Mexico to buy medications.

Bulger requested a court-appointed attorney on June 24 during his initial appearance in federal court in Boston, but prosecutors have been adamant his defense should not be at public expense.

Bulger's provisional attorney and prosecutors have also wrangled this week over the government's dismissal of a 1994 racketeering-focused indictment to concentrate resources on the stronger 1999 case that includes the multiple murder charges.

The defense moved instead to consolidate the two indictments, saying they are related and in some cases identical.

Both sides lobbed accusations of forum shopping -- an attempt to manipulate the random assignment of judges to the Bulger case or cases. A judge is expected to rule on this matter in a separate hearing.

(Reporting by Lauren Keiper; editing by Ros Krasny)


View the original article here

Attorney, prosecutors wrangle in Bulger case (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) – Former mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger's provisional attorney asked the court on Wednesday to consolidate charges against his client, which include 19 murder accusations, from two indictments into one.

But the government, which wants to drop racketeering charges to focus on the murder case, said the bid lacked merit, and both sides accused each other of trying to manipulate how the charges will be tried and by whom.

"These two cases are simply not subject to consolidation," government attorneys said in a late-day filing in response to Bulger's request.

A conviction on just one count of murder in Massachusetts could send Bulger to prison for life, and authorities have said that focusing on the murder cases could bring quicker justice to the families of Bulger's alleged victims.

Bulger, who had been on the FBI's Most Wanted List, and his longtime companion Catherine Greig, 60, were arrested at their rent-controlled apartment in Santa Monica, California, on June 22 after being on the run together since 1995.

Bulger and Greig had some $820,000 stashed in a wall in their hideout, mostly in bundles of $100 bills.

Defense attorney Peter Krupp said allegations from the two indictments against Bulger were related, overlapping and in some cases identical. He described the move to dismiss a 1994 racketeering-focused indictment as "forum shopping" and a manipulation of the random case assignment process for judges.

The government said it planned to focus on the 19 murder charges contained in a separate indictment. The indictments were to be heard before different judges.

Prosecutors denied they were forum shopping and turned the same accusation back onto Bulger.

The "counter-intuitive strategy" of requesting that he be prosecuted for even more crimes suggests that Bulger, not the government, is forum shopping, they said.

Bulger, transported in a cordon of black SUVs, made a surprise four-hour trip to the courthouse on Wednesday from his cell at the Plymouth County jail south of Boston. The visit was reportedly for a meeting with his lawyer.

The aging gangster is expected back in court for two separate hearings on Thursday. In one, a judge could assign two prominent lawyers to take on what is expected to be a highly complex case.

Bulger, 81, requested a public defender at his initial Boston court appearance on Friday, saying he could not afford an attorney. Published reports suggest Howard Cooper and Max Stern could be named to the Bulger case if a judge allows court-appointed counsel over prosecutors' objections.

The pair were in court for another Bulger hearing on Tuesday. Neither returned calls seeking comment.

Stern was named one of Boston's best criminal defense lawyers in 2010 by "Law and Politics" magazine, while "Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly" named Cooper to its list of the state's most influential attorneys in 2009.

(Reporting by Lauren Keiper; Editing by Ros Krasny, Jerry Norton and Cynthia Johnston)


View the original article here

Judge orders ex-ESPN commentator to stand trial (AP)

LOS ANGELES – Former ESPN commentator Jay Mariotti must stand trial on charges he stalked, injured and assaulted his ex-girlfriend, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Windham found there to be sufficient evidence for Mariotti to stand to trial on one felony count each of stalking, corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant and assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury. He also faces two misdemeanor counts of disobeying a domestic court order.

Prosecutors say Mariotti confronted the woman at a restaurant Sept. 30, the same day he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery count stemming from an August incident with her.

In that plea, he was sentenced to 36 months of probation, community service and a domestic violence course.

Mariotti, a former Chicago Sun-Times columnist, is also accused of grabbing his former girlfriend outside a Venice restaurant on April 15. He allegedly pulled a chunk of her hair out and took her cell phone from her while shouting at her.

Mariotti's lawyer, Shawn Holley, called the allegations meritless.

"We look forward to trial when we will have the opportunity to present a strong and vigorous defense," Holley said in a statement.


View the original article here

Convicted killer on run since '89 returns to Conn. (AP)

HARTFORD, Conn. – A convicted killer who fled Connecticut and set up a new life in Mexico is returning to his home state for the first time in two decades to finally begin serving a 60-year prison sentence.

West Hartford Police Chief James Strillacci says town detectives and U.S. marshals are bringing Adam Zachs back to the state Wednesday. Zachs is expected to appear Thursday in Hartford Superior Court.

Zachs was convicted of the 1987 murder of Peter Carone outside a West Hartford restaurant, during an argument over a joke made at the bar. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison but posted a $250,000 bond to be released during his appeal and disappeared in 1989.

Zachs was caught in Leon Guanajuato (gwahn-uh-HAH'-toh), Mexico, in February after authorities received a tip.


View the original article here

Casey Anthony trial: Should investigators have found Caylee four months sooner? (The Christian Science Monitor)

The man who discovered the skeletal remains of two-year-old Caylee Anthony testified Tuesday in the murder trial of her mother that he tried three times in August 2008 to get the sheriffa€™s department to investigate what appeared to be a childa€™s skull in a wooded area not far from Cayleea€™s home.

Roy Kronk, a county meter reader, said he called the Orange County Sheriff’s Office on three consecutive days, but no one from law enforcement went into the swampy woods to investigate.

One deputy, after a cursory look around, even berated him for wasting the department’s time with a frivolous report.

Four months later on Dec. 11, 2008, Mr. Kronk said he returned to the same place in the woods near a distinctive log.

IN PICTURES: Key players in the Casey Anthony trial

He told the jury that he saw a plastic bag. “I held the bag up,” Mr. Kronk said. “The contents of the bag shifted and that’s when I discovered the skull. It was at my feet.”

Kronk’s testimony has been highly anticipated among those closely following the Casey Anthony murder trial. In most cases, Kronk would be hailed a hero for helping to bring closure to the grim vigil for the missing toddler. But defense attorneys are hoping to use the unusual circumstances surrounding the discovery of Caylee’s remains as a way to suggest reasonable doubt to the jury.

In his fiery opening statement, defense attorney Jose Baez accused Kronk of moving and hiding Caylee’s remains.

a€?We are not saying he had anything to do with her death, but he is a morally bankrupt individual who took her body and hid her,a€

It is unclear why Kronk – or anyone else – would risk the legal consequences of tampering with evidence. Defense lawyers have suggested that he needed money and was hoping to receive a $255,000 reward offered in the nation-wide search for Caylee. But hiding the remains would not boost the reward.

Rather than implicating Kronk in some ill-defined conspiracy, his testimony on Tuesday raises serious questions about the basic competence of investigators with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

Had law enforcement responded to Kronk’s first phone call to police on Aug. 11, forensic experts would have had a significantly better chance to lift fingerprints, DNA, or other direct physical evidence from the deteriorating duct tape found near Caylee’s skull.

The defense suggests that police conducted thorough searches in the wooded area and were unable to locate Caylee’s decomposing body because it had been moved and hidden for a period of time.

Prosecutors maintain it was not detected because the area was underwater for much of the summer due to a tropical storm and heavy rains.

The truth may never be known. Kronk testified that the first time he entered the wooded area on Aug. 11 a€“ less than two months after Caylee is thought to have died a€“ he saw a gray vinyl bag and what looked like it might be a small human skull. He said there was no peculiar odor in the area.

Later that night he called the sheriff’s department. “I don’t know what it is,” he told the dispatcher. “I’m not saying it is Caylee or anything. This could be nothing.”

Kronk was asked by Defense Attorney Cheney Mason whether he saw the same grey vinyl bag when he returned to the scene four months later on Dec. 11.

“No,” he said.

Kronk said he wasn’t sure the skull was real, or even a skull. He said he prodded the object with his meter-reader stick “and tipped it up. I apologize for doing so, but I didn’t know what it was.”

He added: “I gently pivoted it up.”

“It wasn’t stuck in the mud, was it?”

“No,” Kronk said.

Kronk’s testimony was different than the first written statement he gave to police in early 2009. In that statement he said that the bag opened and a small human skull with duct tape and hair dropped out.

“That was my original statement,” he acknowledged. He said he “made a mistake” in the statement.

“Did the skull come out in any way,” Mr. Mason asked.

“No sir.”

“You recognize that you said that under oath before, but now you are saying something else,” Mason said.

“That whole period for me is a little fuzzy,” Kronk said. “After finding what I found, it kind of unnerved me.”

Kronk’s testimony came on Day 30 of the first-degree murder trial of Casey Anthony, the Florida mother accused of using chloroform and duct tape to kill her toddler daughter. Prosecutors say she kept the child’s body in the trunk of her car for several days before dumping it in the wooded area around the corner from the family home.

Defense lawyers maintain that Caylee accidentally drowned and that her mother, Casey, panicked. Rather than call police, she hid the body with the help of her father.

George Anthony denies any involvement.

In other testimony on Tuesday, the defense team called Mr. Anthony to the stand and confronted him with accusations that he had an extra-marital affair with Krystal Halloway, a former volunteer in the Caylee search effort.

“Did you have a romantic relationship with her,” Baez asked.

“No sir,” he said. “To me that is very funny.”

Baez wasn’t done. “Were you ever intimate with her,” he asked.

“No sir. That also is very funny.”

Mr. Anthony acknowledged going “a few times” to Ms. Halloway’s home, but he said his actions were noble. She had told him she was dying of a brain tumor and he said he went to comfort her.

The defense attorney also asked whether Mr. Anthony had ever told Ms. Halloway that Caylee’s death was “an accident that snowballed out of control.”

“That conversation was never there. I never confided in any volunteers,” Mr. Anthony said.

“You never told Krystal Halloway while the two of you were being romantic that this was an accident that snowballed out of control,” Baez asked.

“I never did.”

On cross-examination, Assistant State Attorney Jeffrey Ashton threw in a zinger question of his own.

“Did you ever tell [Halloway] that while your daughter was home on bond that you grabbed her by the throat, threw her up against a wall, and said ‘I know you did something to Caylee, where’s Caylee,’ ” Mr. Ashton asked.

Mr. Anthony responded: “No sir. I’d never do something like that.”

The trial is set to resume Wednesday morning.

IN PICTURES: Key players in the Casey Anthony trial


View the original article here

Tattoo parlor owner linked with Ohio State scandal pleads guilty (Reuters)

COLUMBUS (Reuters) – A tattoo parlor owner whose arrest on marijuana trafficking charges helped lead to the downfall of a top U.S. college football coach pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a federal court in Columbus, attorneys said.

During a search of the suburban Columbus home of the defendant, Edward Rife, local and federal agents discovered Ohio State University football memorabilia. While that memorabilia did not involve the drug charges, it did lead to an NCAA investigation.

Five players on OSU Coach Jim Tressel's 2010 team traded memorabilia, including championship rings and uniforms, for cash in violation of strict rules governing college sports.

Tressel, who was informed of the violations months before the case became publicly known and did not tell university officials, was given a five-game suspension, to match the punishment of the players. He quit last month.

Tuesday, Rife pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute more than 200 pounds of marijuana, as part of a plea bargain.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Kelley said there was no evidence any Ohio State players were involved in the marijuana operation. Rife's attorney, Stephen Palmer, said the memorabilia was the only link between Rife and OSU.

(Reporting by Jim Leckrone; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Jerry Norton)


View the original article here

Hearing set on Bulger's bid for public defender (AP)

BOSTON – A provisional lawyer for James "Whitey" Bulger has accused federal prosecutors in Boston of manipulating the judicial process.

The government is attempting to dismiss one of the indictments against reputed mob boss so they can focus on a later indictment that includes charges that he participated in 19 murders.

Attorney Peter Krupp asks in a motion filed Wednesday that both indictments against Bulger be consolidated.

The former leader of the notorious Winter Hill Gang was captured in Santa Monica, Calif., last week after 16 years on the run.

Prosecutors want to dismiss a 1994 racketeering indictment and focus solely on the 1999 charges.

Krupp said in court documents that the government is attempting "forum shopping" to manipulate the usual process of randomly assigning judges to cases.


View the original article here

Suspect in DC building shootings out of Marines (AP)

WASHINGTON – The Marines Corps says it has dismissed a reservist charged in a series of pre-dawn shootings at the Pentagon and other military buildings.

The Marines on Tuesday completed the process of separating 22-year-old Yonathan Melaku, a lance corporal, from the Corps. The Corps says Melaku did not contest the proceeding.

The Marines began the process this month after Melaku was charged with grand larceny in an unrelated case.

Melaku was arrested after he was caught trespassing inside Arlington National Cemetery after dark. Police say he had with him bomb-making materials.

The Marines say the shooting charges and Melaku's arrest at the cemetery had no bearing on their decision to kick him out.


View the original article here

Records: Pregnant woman recants ID of rape suspect (AP)

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. – A pregnant woman who police say was raped after three men kicked in her door and while her 9-year-old was nearby has recanted her story about the only suspect arrested in the case, according to court records.

The records indicate there was an "identification issue" pertaining to the 22-year-old man charged in the case.

Police say three armed men kicked in the door of the women's third-floor Central Falls apartment on Saturday while the 27-year-old woman was asleep with her son. The woman, who is seven months pregnant, was threatened at gunpoint, and one of the men raped her in a bathroom, police Capt. James Mendonca said.

The boy was in the bedroom during the rape and "might have overheard something," he said. The alleged victim told WLNE-TV that her son saw "everything."

The men also took a game system and television set from the apartment, but the woman refused to tell police whether any firearms or drugs were stolen, Mendonca said. He said the stolen items have not been recovered.

The woman reported the attack to authorities at 3:10 a.m. Saturday, according to Mendonca. She suffered minor scrapes and abrasions and was taken to a hospital, where a rape kit was used to gather evidence.

No one came to the door at the victim's Central Falls apartment on Tuesday afternoon.

Central Falls police Col. Joseph Moran declined to comment on the court papers.

The man who was arrested is facing charges of felony sexual assault, felony assault with a dangerous weapon, using a dangerous weapon during commission of a violent crime, breaking and entering and possession of a firearm without a license. He was released on bail after appearing in Providence District Court on Monday and agreed to DNA testing.

He was on probation from a misdemeanor charge of receiving stolen property under $500. He pleaded no contest to that offense in July 2010.

He is due back in Providence District Court on July 11 for a probation violation hearing. He has a pre-arraignment conference on the sexual assault case on August 29. No attorney had filed an appearance for him as of Tuesday.

A telephone number listed for him has been disconnected, and no one answered the door at his apartment on Tuesday.


View the original article here

Judge blocks testimony from Casey Anthony fianc� (Reuters)

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) – The former fiancA© of accused child killer Casey Anthony testified on Tuesday that she claimed she once woke up to find her older brother standing over her, staring at her while she slept.

Judge Belvin Perry called Jesse Grund's testimony impermissible hearsay evidence, and said he won't allow the jury to hear it unless defense lawyers persuade him otherwise with sufficient legal arguments.

Grund said Casey told him about her experience with her brother after Grund asked her why she didn't want her daughter Caylee to be around Lee Anthony.

Prosecutors say Casey, 25, smothered 2-year-old Caylee on June 16, 2008 so that she could "live the good life" free of the demands of motherhood. They say Casey stored the child's body in her car trunk, then dumped it in woods near her home.

Defense attorney Jose Baez told jurors in his opening statement that Caylee accidentally drowned in the Florida family's backyard pool, and the death went unreported.

Baez said Casey was sexually abused, and that explained why she partied and seemed inappropriately carefree after her daughter's death.

But Baez has yet to produce evidence of the alleged abuse during Casey's murder trial, now in its sixth week.

Casey's father, George Anthony, has denied molesting her. Earlier this month, Perry scolded Baez when he asked a witness whether Lee could be Caylee's father.

Much of the testimony on Tuesday came from Roy Kronk, the water department meter reader who discovered Caylee's remains in a swampy part of a wooded area near the Anthony home in the Orlando area.

Kronk said he called the sheriff's department three times in August 2008 to report he found what looked like a small skull.

At the time, a nationwide search was underway to find Caylee, who Casey claimed was kidnapped by a nanny. Special phone lines were created to handle the thousands of tips and leads sent to authorities.

But detectives were zeroing in on Casey, who they knew had lied extensively about Caylee's disappearance.

Kronk said no one took him seriously until December 11, 2008, when he stopped at the location again and verified the object was in fact a skull. His supervisor alerted authorities, who arrived at the site and found Caylee's remains.

MAJOR DISCOVERY

Kronk is a key witness for the defense. Baez has insinuated that Kronk played some sort of role in the disposal of Caylee's body. The lawyer told jurors Kronk had sole "control" of Caylee's remains during the intervening four months and claimed he was motivated by a $225,000 reward.

However, the reward money was offered to anyone who found Caylee alive.

"I just simply tried to do the right thing," said Kronk, who noted he received $5,000 from the crime tip line.

Kronk testified he first spotted what looked like a skull on August 11, 2008 while taking a break with two co-workers, and called a crime tip line later that night to report the object.

Kronk said he called the Orange County Sheriff's Office again on the evening of August 12 and the morning of August 13 before finally getting deputies to meet him at the location.

Two deputies came but neither went into the woods nor asked him to show them the skull-like object, Kronk said.

One deputy walked as far as a flooded area, quickly looked from side to side, slipped on mud on his way back to the roadside, and then berated Kronk for 30 minutes for wasting his time, the meter reader testified.

Kronk's co-worker, David Dean, confirmed Kronk's account of discovering the skull. Within a few weeks, Dean testified, a tropical storm deluged the area with rain.

Prosecutors have suggested one reason no one saw the remains during subsequent searches in the area was because it was under water.

George Anthony took the stand briefly again on Tuesday, denying assertions by Baez that he had an affair with search volunteer Krystal Holloway. George testified he only went to Holloway's condominium to comfort her after learning she had cancer.

"I never had a romantic affair," George said.

He denied ever telling Holloway that "Caylee's death was an accident that snowballed out of control." He also said he never told her that he grabbed Casey by the throat, threw her against a wall and demanded Casey tell him where Caylee was.

"She (Holloway) is not a good person," George testified.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jerry Norton)


View the original article here

Parents back on the stand in Casey Anthony trial (AP)

ORLANDO, Fla. – Casey Anthony's father has broken down crying while describing his emotions when he learned that granddaughter Caylee's remains had been found in a wooded area near his Orlando home.

George Anthony testified again Wednesday in the murder trial of his daughter. Court was adjourned so the former police officer could compose himself.

His wife also returned to the witness stand earlier Wednesday.

The defense attorneys have continued their strategy of painting the Anthony family as dysfunctional.

Casey Anthony has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Caylee's death and could face the death penalty if convicted of that charge.

The prosecution contends she used duct tape to suffocate the toddler. The defense says the girl drowned in her grandparents' swimming pool.


View the original article here

4 enter pleas in Oklahoma tattoo assault case (AP)

OKLAHOMA CITY – Four people charged with kidnapping a man, tattooing "RAPEST" on his forehead and shocking his genitals with a stun gun before beating him unconscious with a baseball bat pleaded guilty Tuesday to kidnapping and maiming charges.

Three of the defendants also pleaded guilty to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in a plea agreement with prosecutors while the fourth pleaded no contest to the charge during a hearing in Oklahoma County District Court. A no contest plea has the same effect as a guilty plea but is not an admission of guilt.

Richard Dellert, Zachary Provence, Kimberly Kirchler Vergara and Lorena Hodges were accused of attacking 18-year-old Stetson Johnson on April 17. Del City police have said they were punishing Johnson after one of the women accused him of trying to have sex with her.

Johnson denied the allegation, saying he is acquainted with all four suspects but has never tried to hurt any of them. Investigators have said there was no evidence to support the others' claim.

Special Judge Stephen Alcorn sentenced Dellert, 25, and Provence, 21, to a total of 10 years in prison followed by 10 years of probation. Vergara, 24, who clutched a Bible during the hearing, and Hodges, 33, were each sentenced to five years in prison and five years of probation in the attack a prosecutor characterized as "a brutal case of bullying."

"I think a mob mentality took over," First Assistant District Attorney Scott Rowland said.

Johnson told authorities he was restrained with duct tape while "RAPEST," apparently a misspelling of "rapist," was tattooed across his forehead and a phrase that resembles "I like little boys" was tattooed on his chest. The forehead tattoo has since been covered with another tattoo that looks like a bar code, and members of his family said he is working to have it removed.

Johnson said the attack began when he was thrown to the ground and kicked in the face "dozens of times" by two men while two women took turns using a stun gun on his genitals. He said the attackers yelled obscenities at him and later put him in a car and transported him to Eagle Lake in Del City, where he was beaten in the arms and head with a baseball bat and left unconscious.

Johnson said when he awoke, he walked to a nearby mobile home park where a resident called police.

He spent a week in the hospital, including three days in the intensive care unit, for treatment of a fractured skull, broken nose and other wounds sustained in the beating.

"There was a time when we thought his life was in danger because of his injuries," Rowland said, adding that Johnson and his family agreed with the sentences. Rowland called the punishments "a fair and just result."

Each of the defendants faced up to 20 years in prison for kidnapping, 10 years on the assault and battery charge and seven years for maiming.

All four have been held in the Oklahoma County Jail since shortly after the attack. Provence also pleaded guilty to burglary and concealing stolen property charges in connection with a December 2010 car burglary and was sentenced concurrently with the other charges.

Contacted after the hearing, Johnson's mother, Lucy Ford, said the sentences were fair and noted that pursuing lengthier prison terms would have required her son to testify against the defendants in court.

"That is something he did not want to do," she said.

Neither Johnson nor other members of his family attended Tuesday's hearing. Ford said her son has recovered from his injuries and is working with a private clinic to have the tattoo removed from his forehead free of charge.

Rowland said the men received lengthier sentences than the women because they were more culpable.

During the court hearing, Provence admitted to beating Johnson while Dellert, who entered the no contest plea to the assault and battery charge, admitted to tattooing him.

Dellert, who had a large tattoo on his left wrist, gave reporters a thumbs-up sign as he was led into the courtroom in handcuffs and leg shackles prior to the hearing.

Observers in the courtroom said they later saw him extend his middle finger toward members of the media before the hearing began. Alcorn told Dellert he would have sentenced him to an additional six months in prison if he had witnessed the obscene gesture.


View the original article here

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Death sentence for killer of 3 Pittsburgh police officers (Reuters)

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – A Pennsylvania man was sentenced to death on Tuesday for killing three Pittsburgh police officers who responded to a domestic dispute at his mother's house in 2009.

Richard Poplawski, 24, was found guilty over the weekend of murder and other charges for fatally shooting officers Eric Kelly, Stephen Mayhle and Paul Sciullo on April 4, 2009, at the house in the city's Stanton Heights neighborhood.

Poplawski's mother had called 911 to report a domestic dispute. He was arrested after being wounded during a three-hour standoff with police.

His mother said she had argued with her son that morning after discovering his dog had urinated inside the house, according to a criminal complaint filed by police.

She said Poplawski had been discharged from the Marine Corps for assaulting his drill sergeant and had been stockpiling guns and ammunition because he believed police were no longer able to protect society due to the economic collapse, according to court documents.

On Tuesday evening, a jury of seven men and five women reached a verdict of three death sentences, said Mike Manko, a spokesman for the Allegheny County district attorney's office.

The decision came after family members testified during the penalty phase of the trial, which began on Monday.

The jury had been transported across the state from Dauphin County to avoid the influence of pretrial publicity.

(Reporting by Daniel Lovering, Edited by Peter Bohan)


View the original article here

Mother sues for $25 million after son's hazing death (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The mother of a Cornell University student is suing a fraternity for $25 million after her son was allegedly kidnapped, bound and forced to drink large amounts of alcohol that led to his February death.

George Desdunes, a sophomore at the prestigious Ivy League school, called the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house in the early morning hours of February 25 to ask for a ride back to his room, but a hazing ritual ensued instead, according to the lawsuit filed by his mother Marie Lourdes Andre.

Freshman pledges kidnapped Desdunes in what is part of a "long-standing ritual that was authorized and encouraged by SAE chapter offices and members," said the lawsuit filed in New York's Kings Country Supreme Court.

The 19-year-old human ecology student was bound by his wrists and ankles with zip ties and duct tape, quizzed on SAE history and forced to drink high amounts of alcohol.

After he lost consciousness, the pledges left him to die on a couch at the fraternity house -- his wrists and ankles still bound, according to court documents.

Desdunes was unresponsive in the morning when Cornell personnel found him. His blood alcohol level was .409 percent hours after the hazing activities, more than five times the legal limit for driving in New York state.

He died in hospital later that day.

"With the death of my son, I find some comfort in knowing that this lawsuit may bring about changes in fraternities that will prevent other families from suffering as I have," Andre said in a statement.


View the original article here

New hearing set on Whitey Bulger attorney request (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) – Former mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger is expected back in court in Boston on Thursday, where a judge could assign two prominent lawyers to take on the case of the aging gangster, the Justice Department said.

Bulger, 81, requested a public defender at his initial Boston court appearance on Friday, saying he could not afford an attorney. He has been provisionally represented by attorney Peter Krupp.

Published reports suggest Howard Cooper and Max Stern could be named to the Bulger case if a judge allows court-appointed counsel over prosecutors' objections.

The pair were in court for a another Bulger hearing on Tuesday. Neither returned calls seeking comment.

Stern was named one of Boston's best criminal defense lawyers in 2010 by "Law and Politics" magazine, while "Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly" named Cooper to its list of the state's most influential attorneys in 2009.

Bulger, who had been on the FBI's Most Wanted List, and his longtime companion Catherine Greig, 60, were arrested at their rent-controlled apartment in Santa Monica, California, on June 22 after being on the run together since 1995. The pair had some $820,000 on hand, mostly in bundles of $100 bills.

On Tuesday, prosecutors moved to drop a 1994 indictment against Bulger and focus on the 19 murder charges in a later case. A conviction on just one count could send Bulger to prison for life.

(Reporting by Lauren Keiper; Editing by Ros Krasny and Jerry Norton)


View the original article here

1 acquitted in fatal ground zero fire (AP)

NEW YORK – An asbestos-cleanup foreman who said he was a scapegoat for inspectors' failures was acquitted Tuesday of manslaughter and all other charges stemming from a 2007 blaze that killed two firefighters at a ground zero bank tower. Two other construction-company supervisors were still awaiting verdicts in the sole criminal trial stemming from the blaze at the toxic, condemned building.

"I haven't slept in four years," Salvatore DePaola said, his eyes moist, as he left the courtroom after a nearly three-month trial stemming from the August 2007 fire at the former Deutsche Bank building.

After seven days of deliberations, jurors were still debating manslaughter and other charges against co-defendant Jeffrey Melofchik. A judge is weighing the charges against a third defendant, Mitchel Alvo, and the John Galt Co., which employed him and DePaola. The company and Alvo chose to forego the jury.

Sparked by a worker's careless smoking, the blaze revealed a slate of regulatory failures at the building, which was being taken down after being damaged and contaminated with toxic debris in the Sept. 11 attacks. Government agencies and a different company admitted mistakes, but no others were criminally charged.

"There are people who didn't do their jobs, and they should have been up here," said DePaola, pointing a finger at high-ranking Fire Department officials. The department was supposed to inspect the former bank building every 15 days but hadn't done so for more than a year before the blaze ripped through nine stories.

Firefighters Robert Beddia, 53, and Joseph P. Graffagnino, 33, died after being trapped in black, choking smoke and running out of air in their oxygen tanks.

Prosecutors said the break in the firefighting pipe, called a standpipe, was the crucial factor in their deaths. With the standpipe useless, it took firefighters about an hour to get water on the flames, letting the blaze build into a lethal inferno, prosecutors said.

They said Alvo, DePaola and Melofchik knew the pipe had broken about eight months before, when workers took down some braces that were holding it to the basement ceiling. Melofchik, 49, was the project's site safety supervisor. Alvo, 59, was a toxin-cleanup director.

The supports were proving stubbornly hard to scrub of asbestos, and the bosses were under pressure to speed the cleanup to keep it from going over budget, prosecutors said.

So after the break, the men had a 42-foot section of standpipe cut up and carted away and did nothing to repair or flag it, though Melofchik continued to sign daily reports saying the building's fire-suppression system was working, prosecutors said.

"They did the thing that killed those firefighters," Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann told jurors in a closing argument. "The evidence ... woven together, paints a mosaic of overwhelming guilt — that but for these wholly reckless acts, these firefighters would be alive today."

But defense lawyers said the men didn't recognize the pipe's importance. DePaola, who didn't testify, said Tuesday he had "no idea" it was a standpipe, as it looked like many other pipes in the basement.

"My job was to make sure everything in the area was clean," he said. "I had no jurisdiction over cutting pipes."

The fire was a product of a web of shortsighted regulating and hazards beyond the defendants' control, their lawyers said.

"It's a tragedy — two great firefighters died, but as we saw, and as jurors clearly saw, Sal wasn't responsible for that," said his lawyer, Rick J. Pasacreta.

While the Fire Department missed inspections, building, environmental and labor inspectors hadn't realized that some measures meant to contain toxins could thwart firefighting. Plywood stairwell barriers slowed firefighters' progress, and a fan system kept smoke in and pulled it down, instead of letting it rise and escape.

The city and Melofchik's employer, general contractor Bovis Lend Lease, acknowledged errors. In response, the Fire Department created dozens of inspection and auditing jobs, and Bovis agreed to finance a $10 million memorial fund for slain firefighters' families, among other responses.

Then-DA Robert Morgenthau said it would have been fruitless to try to prosecute the city because of a legal doctrine that generally makes governments immune from criminal prosecution, though individual officials and employees sometimes are charged with crimes.

To Graffagnino's father, the trial has fallen short from the start. Joseph A. Graffagnino considers the defendants small players in a series of fateful mistakes at the building and thinks government officials and Bovis should also have been prosecuted.

"Having this guy (DePaola) declared not guilty, it doesn't do anything for us. It doesn't do anything against us," said Graffagnino, whose family has not attended the trial. "We feel that it's a much bigger case."

A lawyer for Beddia's family didn't immediately return a call Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the building lingered for almost a decade as a grim reminder of the attacks. The last of it was finally removed in February.

If convicted, Alvo and Melofchik could face up to 15 years in prison, and the Galt company could face a $10,000 fine.

DePaola, 56, said he had been unable to work while the case played out; he, too, had faced the possibility of up to 15 years in prison. He said he now might open a deli, like the one he ran before getting into the asbestos-cleanup business.

"I think I'm going to get away from construction," he said, "because a lot of bad things can happen in construction."

___

Jennifer Peltz can be reached at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz


View the original article here

Ex-NYC officers want misconduct conviction tossed (AP)

NEW YORK – Two former police officers acquitted of rape asked a judge Tuesday to throw out their misconduct convictions and indicated they'd try to keep their accuser from speaking at their sentencing if the convictions stand.

Kenneth Moreno, 43, and Franklin Mata, 29, who were fired from the police department within hours of the verdict in May, were to be sentenced Tuesday. Their convictions stem from their repeated returns to the accuser's apartment without telling dispatchers and supervisors where they were. They could get up to two years in jail.

But the sentencing was reset for Aug. 8 so a judge can weigh the ex-officers' bid to get their conviction tossed. Their effort also may draw on raw footage from a recent documentary about Manhattan sex crimes prosecutors, defense lawyers said.

The accuser, a 29-year-old fashion product developer who now lives in California, may speak at the planned sentencing, prosecutors said. Defense lawyers objected.

"She's had her day in court," Moreno's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, said. "The jury has spoken."

New York law allows victims to speak at sentencings in felony cases but says nothing about whether they can do the same in misdemeanor cases. Tacopina said the New York Police Department — not the woman — would legally be considered the victim of the misconduct.

The woman's lawyers didn't immediately respond to email messages.

Meanwhile, scores of women's-rights advocates rallied down the street from the courthouse, chanting "listen to the facts — these cops deserve the max" and other slogans, and carrying signs that such messages as "NYPD — stop the violence and abuse!"

Moreno and Mata were initially summoned to help a drunken woman get out of a taxi in December 2008; they said she asked them to come back to check on her.

The woman told jurors she passed out and awoke to being raped in her bed. Moreno testified that he cuddled with her in her bed, but they didn't have sex. Mata told jurors he was napping on her sofa. In a secretly recorded conversation with the woman days later, Moreno repeatedly denied they had sex but also said "yes" twice when she asked whether he'd used a condom. Moreno told jurors he was trying to appease her.

Jurors acquitted them of all charges except the misconduct misdemeanors.

Their lawyers filed a request that a judge toss those convictions out for technical reasons. The relevant law requires that offenders derive a benefit from the misconduct or deprive someone else of a benefit, and prosecutors didn't establish that the ex-officers had done that, defense lawyers said, echoing an argument they made during the trial.

They said they may raise more questions after assessing unaired footage prosecutors gave them Monday from "Sex Crimes Unit," a documentary that debuted June 20 on HBO. Shot by independent filmmaker Lisa Jackson, it goes behind the scenes at the Manhattan district attorney's office to film prosecutors preparing for cases. The case against Mata and Moreno was included, but those scenes were cut because the case was still open when the film was being finalized, Jackson has said.

The footage includes prosecutors discussing "investigative steps and trial strategies," mentioning the usefulness of recordings like the one in the ex-officers' case, and talking about hair and DNA test results and the potential usefulness of cell phone records, according to a summary prosecutors gave defense lawyers Monday.

After reviewing it, "we may look to supplement" the ex-officers' challenge to their convictions, said Mata's lawyer, Edward Mandery.

State law requires prosecutors to turn over before trial any statements by a witness who will testify. Also, under evidence rules, documents or other recordings of authorities' preparation of a case can fall within what prosecutors are required to give defense lawyers.

The clips, together about an hour long, include some remarks about it by a DA's office investigator who testified at the former officers' trial, Tacopina said.

Prosecutors said in their letter that they were turning over the material only "out of an abundance of caution." Any witness statements reflected in the documentary footage were disclosed earlier in other formats, and the officers weren't harmed by not having the film clips, assistant district attorneys Coleen Balbert and Randolph Clarke Jr. wrote.

They said they had intended to provide the footage earlier but didn't "due to an oversight."

Prosecutors have two weeks to respond in court to the former officers' arguments for throwing out their conviction. Prosecutors declined to comment Tuesday.

Jackson's voice mail said she was out of the country. She did not immediately respond to an email message Tuesday.

___

Jennifer Peltz can be reached at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz


View the original article here

Defense presses ex-officer on bridge shootings (AP)

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Michael Kunzelman And Mary Foster, Associated Press – Wed Jun 29, 8:10 am ET

NEW ORLEANS – A former New Orleans police officer spent a grueling day first walking the prosecution through his versions of the events on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina that left two citizens shot dead and four wounded, and then sparring with defense attorneys over his testimony.

Then-Lt. Michael Lohman, the ranking officer on Sept. 4, 2005, when police killed 40-year-old Ronald Madison, a mentally disabled man, and 17-year-old James Brissette, defended his assertion that officers overreacted and then worked to cover up the shooting of unarmed people on the bridge as one defense attorney after another questioned his motives and his memory.

Lohman, who retired last year, is one of five former officers who have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up. Now he is a key government witness in the case against Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen, Officer Anthony Villavaso, former officer Robert Faulcon and Sgt. Arthur Kaufman.

Remorse and the realization that the government had the truth about what happened on the bridge and the following cover-up prompted him to accept a deal to testify for the prosecution, Lohman testified.

The defense questioned that motivation.

Lohman faces a maximum of five years in prison when he is sentenced, a fact defense attorneys seized on during his cross-examination. Steve London, Kaufman's lawyer, pointed out that Lohman was "looking at 25 to 30 years" before making his deal.

London also questioned Lohman on why he added Kaufman's name to a false report, asking if he intended to make it look as if Kaufman had written it.

"I wasn't trying to make it look like Kaufman wrote that," Lohman said. "We were working on it together. I didn't go off by myself and write this."

Lohman said he went along with the cover up because he did not want anyone to get into trouble, but London implied a different reason Kaufman's name was on the documents.

"You actually hate Sgt. Kaufman, don't you?" London asked.

"No," Lohman responded. "We had disagreements, but I would not say it was a hate relationship."

For the most part, Lohman remained poised during the long day of testimony, answering calmly, frequently addressing the jury directly. An exception was during cross examination by Paul Fleming who represents Faulcon. When asked what he evidently considered a repetitive question, Lohman snapped, "Pay attention, yes," which earned him a dressing down from the judge.

Lohman said the gunfire had stopped by the time he arrived at the bridge. He testified that Bowen told him residents had fired at officers before they shot.

Bowen also allegedly told Lohman that Madison was seen reaching into his waistband before he was shot. No guns were recovered from Madison or Brissette, however.

Lohman said he assigned Kaufman to investigate the shootings but knew the goal of the probe would be to justify the officers' actions, despite his misgivings.

"I felt things had gone wrong on the bridge that day and inappropriate actions had been taken," Lohman said.

Lohman said he and Kaufman discussed a plan to plant a gun. Kaufman allegedly assured him the planted gun couldn't be traced back to police or a crime scene. Prosecutors say Kaufman took a gun from his garage and turned it into the evidence room, trying to pass it off as a gun found at the scene.

Lohman said his commander, Capt. Robert Bardy, asked him general questions about the shootings, but did not press for details and Lohman said he never provided any.

"I guess you could say I was untruthful with him," he said.


View the original article here

Tenant: Stench arrived after alleged serial killer (AP)

By THOMAS J. SHEERAN, Associated Press Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press – 48 mins ago

CLEVELAND – A Cleveland tenant says mice and a terrible stench arrived after an alleged serial killer moved into a house where the remains of 11 women were later found.

Brandon Pompey was the first witness Wednesday, the third day of testimony in the trial of 51-year-old Anthony Sowell (SOH'-wehl). Sowell has pleaded not guilty to killing the women and dumping their bodies around his home.

Pompey says Sowell moved into the house's third floor in 2005 and mice and a stench like dead animals appeared shortly after.

Pompey moved out of the home in 2006, leaving behind some furniture because of the odor and rodent issues. The women began disappearing in 2007.

The mother of one of them also testified Wednesday about her daughter's disappearance.


View the original article here

Calif. town blasted after planning marijuana farm (AP)

ISLETON, Calif. – Officials in this cash-strapped Northern California city are defending their decision to approve a giant medical marijuana farm on the outskirts of town after a grand jury blasted them as having been lured by easy money.

The report says potential legal problems weren't adequately addressed before leaders moved to support a project that would total about 15,000 square feet on the edge of Isleton — a town of 800 about 40 miles south of Sacramento.

"The city allowed the community to be pushed into a project that is perched on the blurry edge of marijuana law without properly questioning the situation," a cover letter to the report from grand jury foreman Donald Prange Jr. reads. "It did so, not because of any desire to test the limits of the law, but because of the promise of money and jobs."

The medical marijuana collective Delta Allied Growers promised the city up to $600,000 in the first year of the farm's operation and officials blindly jumped at the opportunity, according to the grand jury report released Monday.

Isleton City Manager Bruce Pope, who was named in the report along with City Attorney David Larsen and Police Chief Rick Sullivan, said the city was unfairly targeted by District Attorney Jan Scully.

"We did our jobs the way we were supposed to," Pope told the Sacramento Bee. "The fact that a criminal prosecutor didn't like the way we did our jobs is beside the point."

No criminal charges have been filed in connection with the grand jury's probe. The city has until Sept. 21 to respond.

The report accused Larsen of an "improper financial interest" in the project for taking $100 an hour above his city-paid rate — money that came from the marijuana collective — to expedite the application for the farm.

Larsen told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the financial arrangement is common practice in other cities.

"These guys indicated they knew what they were doing. They were well-funded," he said of Delta. "It seemed to me this was a good use of a development agreement."

Sullivan's department was promised a security system for the town by the growers, according to the report. He did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Delta Allied officials also did not respond to a request for comment.

The project was scrapped in May, a little less than a year after Delta approached Isleton officials about it, after federal prosecutors sent a letter warning that it was illegal.

Delta had already brought in more than 1,000 marijuana plants to the site by then, according to the grand jury report.

The city of Oakland last summer approved a similar plan to license four industrial-scale pot-growing operations. That effort was placed on hold after warnings from prosecutors that city officials could face criminal charges and federal officials could crack down on growers.

___

Information from: The Sacramento Bee, http://www.sacbee.com


View the original article here

Men convicted in plot to bomb New York synagogue face sentencing (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Three men convicted of planting what they thought were bombs outside New York City synagogues in 2009 face possible penalties of life imprisonment when they are sentenced on Wednesday by a federal judge.

James Cromitie, 45, David Williams, 30, and Onta Williams, 35, were convicted by a federal jury in October of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles.

The charges against each man carry the possibility of a life sentence.

Controversy has surrounded the case in which the presiding judge in Manhattan federal court repeatedly criticized the government's handling of the investigation.

The men were arrested in an FBI sting operation in May 2009 amid great media fanfare after they planted what they thought were explosives in two cars parked outside synagogues in New York City's Bronx borough.

In addition to planting the explosives, the men intended to shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, with Stinger surface-to-air missiles, U.S. prosecutors argued at trial.

At a hearing in March, defense attorneys asked the judge to overturn the convictions, arguing the men were lured into placing the fake bombs by FBI promises of money and martyrdom.

"It is the most elaborate sting operation, or manufacture of a phony plot, that certainly I've ever seen," Cromitie's defense attorney, Vincent Briccetti, told the judge.

In a scathing ruling, the judge found that legally, the convictions could not be tossed out, but he heaped criticism on the FBI and its confidential informant.

"The government indisputably 'manufactured' the crimes of which the defendants stand convicted," the judge wrote, adding some of its actions were "decidedly troubling."

A fourth man, Laguerre Payen, 29, was also convicted at trial. He is undergoing psychiatric evaluation pending sentencing at a later date.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Jerry Norton)


View the original article here

1983 Okla. murder suspect captured at Wash. border (AP)

SEATTLE – A suspect in a 1983 killing in Oklahoma was arrested when he showed up at the U.S. border in northwestern Washington and tried to enroll in a "trusted traveler" program for frequent border crossers, authorities said Monday.

Suhail Shanti of Burnaby, British Columbia, was wanted on a first-degree murder warrant issued in LeFlore County, Okla. He was arrested Friday when agents at the Pacific Highway Port of Entry in Blaine took his fingerprints as part of the interview process for the border crossing program and checked them against a nationwide database.

Agents confirmed the warrant with officials in Oklahoma, arrested the 48-year-old and turned him over to the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office pending his extradition.

"It's like, `You're kidding me — you're under arrest,'" said U.S. Customs and Border Protection Chief Thomas Schreiber. "For them to walk in like this is just unbelievable."

Few details of the killing were immediately available. Marion Fry, LeFlore County's first assistant district attorney, told The Associated Press that his office was digging the case file out of storage, but that it involved a homicide in the city of Poteau. The defendant failed to appear for trial and the warrant was issued in April 1984, he said.

At the time, Shanti and the victim were both international students at a junior college now known as Carl Albert State College, Fry said. He believed they were both originally from Morocco.

It was not clear if Shanti had obtained a lawyer or how long he had lived in Canada. A voice mail message left on a phone number listed for a Suhail Shanti in Burnaby was not immediately returned.

The program he was applying for is called NEXUS, a joint U.S.-Canadian effort to speed border crossings for frequent travelers who pass a background check. Participants are given a photo identification card for use at the border.

Schreiber said it's not the first time that participants or aspiring participants have been arrested. He recalled the 2008 case of Charles Green, a Blaine resident whose approved status was revoked after he was charged with failing to appear in court on a larceny charge. Green showed up in the NEXUS office to appeal the decision and was promptly arrested.

"I like to put people in handcuffs," Schreiber said. "It usually means there's been an injustice somewhere and we're helping to right it."

___

Associated Press writer Rochelle Hines contributed from Oklahoma City.

___

Johnson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/GeneAPseattle


View the original article here

Ohio woman guilty of charges tied to deputy death (AP)

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio – A woman has pleaded guilty to charges related to a New Year's Day trailer park gunfight that left dead a western Ohio sheriff's deputy and the man who shot her.

Clark County prosecutor Andy Wilson says Maria Blessing pleaded guilty Monday in Springfield to obstruction of justice and a weapons-related complicity charge and could get up to five years in prison.

Authorities had accused Blessing of helping Michael Ferryman get the gun they say he used to kill Deputy Suzanne Hopper and injure another officer at a trailer park near Springfield, 50 miles west of Columbus.

The deputy was married and had two children. Ferryman was killed in the shootout.

Blessing turned herself in to authorities in Ravenna in northeast Ohio when she was indicted in April. Her attorney hasn't returned calls seeking comment.


View the original article here

1978 NJ killings defendant ruled fit for trial (AP)

NEWARK, N.J. – A judge has ruled a man charged with killing five teenagers in Newark, N.J., in 1978 is competent to stand trial.

Superior Court Judge Patricia Costello ruled Monday defendant Lee Evans is capable of understanding the case against him.

The judge denied a motion by the Essex County prosecutor's office that would've required Evans to undergo a psychological examination.

Assistant prosecutor Peter Guarino tells Newark's The Star-Ledger newspaper he filed the request to try to head off the possibility Evans would argue on appeal that he was incompetent.

Evans and a cousin are charged with luring the teens to an abandoned building, tying them up and setting the building on fire in a dispute over stolen drugs. The bodies were never recovered.

Evans and his cousin have pleaded not guilty.

___

Information from: The Star-Ledger, http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_us/storytext/us5_missing_teens/42026359/SIG=10uea1937/*http://www.nj.com/starledger


View the original article here

Why Blagojevich Didn't Beat the Charges This Time (Time.com)

Two weeks ago, as the prosecution made its final points in his corruption trial, a pale Rod Blagojevich listened nervously as his wife, Patti looked on, sullen and indignant, from the bench, the arms of her brother around her. It was as if they could feel what was coming.

On Monday, June 27, the jury returned from 10 days of deliberation and everyone gathered to hear its decision. Blagojevich blew an air kiss to his weeping wife and then clasped his hands as courtroom deputy Donald Walker began reading the verdict. The first finding of guilt led Blagojevich to purse his lips. Patti pushed back into her brother's arms. With each new pronouncement of guilt, the ex-governor grew more stonefaced even as his wife wept beneath closed eyes. When Walker was done reading, Blagojevich had been found guilty on 17 of the 20 counts against him, including 12 of the most explosive ones, among them wire fraud and conspiracy and attempted extortion stemming from when he tried to sell the Senate seat of then President-elect Barack Obama (As governor, it was Blagojevich's prerogative to name a candidate to complete Obama's uncompleted term). Later, as he held his wife's hand, Blagojevich told the press, "Obviously I was really disappointed with the outcome, I was frankly stunned and there isn't much else to say." On most counts, he faces a maximum of 20-years each and $250,000 in fines. Judges are unlikely to impose maximum sentences, however. It is also not known if the prison terms will be served concurrently. The parties return to court on Aug. 1 to determine sentencing. (The remarkable world of Rod Blagojevich.)

The members of the jury, 11 women and one man, spoke to the media afterward but did not provide their names. They indicated that Blagojevich's infamous quote - taped by the FBI - about the Senate seat being "F-in' golden" made it easier for them to decide, after some initial debate, on his guilt. "The Senate Seat was most clear, we felt he made a trade for the senate seat," said Juror 140, a Hispanic woman who teaches third and fourth grade.The forewoman, a retired Director of Music and Liturgy at a Naperville church, said they were sending a message that the American people should be proud of a process that works even when you throw 12 people in the room who had no knowledge of the legal system. But she said the experience did not make her feel any better about Illinois politics. "I told my husband if he was running for politics he'd have to find a new wife."

This was the second trial Blagojevich faced on most of the same charges. His defense had dramatic success the first time around with the successful deployment of the element of surprise. In a stunning move last summer, Blagojevich's attorneys rested their case instead of presenting a single shred of evidence, despite their original promise that the defendant himself would take the stand. That left the jury drowning in the government's complex evidence of intent that nevertheless had no fully completed act of bribe-taking. Irredeemably hung, the jurors were unable to convict Blagojevich or his brother Robert except on one count (lying) out of the original 24 charges.

But you can't surprise all the people all the time. For the second trial, the trio of U.S. assistant attorneys who made up the prosecution took to straightforward, focused outrage more than anything else. First they decided to drop charges against Robert Blagojevich. And then they streamlined the charges down to 20 and made it clearer that just asking for a bribe was just as bad as getting the bribe itself. In the government's final statement, U.S. assistant Carrie Hamilton, a thin petite woman with blond hair tucked back in a pony tail, asked the jury to remember how Blagojevich swore under oath in 2003 and again in 2006 to uphold the state constitution, pledging to use his powers for the people of Illinois. "You have learned that the defendant violated that oath," she said staring down her audience. "He used his power to get things for himself and tried to trade the signing of a bill, state funding for grant, roads, appointment of senate seat to try and get things for himself. This was not only a profound violation of his oath, but a violation of the law." (The Blagojevich Trial and the Tale of the FBI Tapes.)

For the second trial, the defense had a trio as well, made up of Blagojevich's long time friend Sheldon Sorosky, a short balding man, who wore loud, dangling ties, and a pair of 30-something attorneys, Aaron Goldstein and Lauren Kaeseberg. Over the objections of the prosecutors and even Judge James Zagel, the defense tried to give the appearance that missing facts, not allowed into trial, would help tell all, hinting that all Blagojevich was doing was business as usual in the state of Illinois. This time around, though, they also had Blagojevich testify on his own behalf. The results were riotous.

At one point, during a particularly voluble exchange with the prosecution, Blagojevich in the witness stand ignored calls from his own lawyers to keep quiet and blasted out retorts to the government's questions. Goldstein later joked that he may be one of the few attorneys in history to have a client talk over him. Still, the Blagojevich team may have thought that the exchange might have helped to prove not only that the ex-governor liked to be heard but that he was mostly talk and little action. The defense was all about crafting an image that would nullify the prosecution's arguments of a guileful, corrupt public official. They wanted to have the jury believe that the defendant was a buffoon who couldn't really do anything criminal because he wasn't competent enough to see it through.

That kind of lawyerly sleight of hand didn't work this time. The jurors later said that Blagojevich's droning seven-day testimony helped them decide that he was not guilty of the charge that he attempted to extort a road builder. However, they said the same long-winded performce made it clear that Blagojevich was being manipulative.

That played into the prosecution's simpler strategy. In her final argument, like a college professor, Hamilton took the jury through conviction school, talking them through a three-hour PowerPoint presentation of the 20 counts, summarizing the most important evidence, explaining what constitutes soliciting a bribe, extortion and wire fraud. "He repeatedly broke the law," Hamilton told the jury. "It's about the destruction of the faith and trust he destroyed." The case, Hamilton says, comes down to one question: "Did the defendant try to get a benefit for himself in exchange for an official act?"

Over three hours, split between two days, Hamilton walked through five major acts, that consistent soliciting a bribe, extortion and wire fraud. "The defendant intended to defraud, it was not a mistake or accident He does not need to know he was breaking the law," Hamilton reminded the jury. And then she played the FBI tape where Blagojevich talks about how he isn't giving Obama's Senate seat up for "F-in' nothing." "Listen to his voice," she told the jury. "You can hear him smiling. He's giddy."

"Among the many lessons I've learned through this whole experience is to speak a little less," Blagojevich said after the verdict was read. Perhaps knowing their client and knowing the odds, his original defense team of Sam Adam Jr. and Sam Adam Sr. opted out of the rematch with the government. You can only use the element of surprise once.

Download TIME's iPhone, BlackBerry and Android applications.

See TIME's Pictures of the Week.

View this article on Time.com

Most Popular on Time.com:


View the original article here

Jury tours house of alleged US serial killer (AFP)

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AFP) – Jurors toured a house where an accused Ohio serial killer allegedly stored the decomposing bodies of 11 women for more than two years, blaming the stench on a nearby sausage factory.

Once the horror house tour was completed, they returned to court for opening statements in the gruesome case that broke on October 29, 2009 -- and had officials scrambling to explain why the crimes weren't discovered sooner.

"You are about to begin a disturbing journey," assistant county prosecutor Richard Bombick warned the jury, describing how many of the victims were found partially naked, their bodies bound with plastic bags and electrical cords.

"You will be convinced beyond any doubt, shadow of a doubt, all imaginary doubt that the person who is responsible for those atrocities sits in this courtroom," he said, referring to accused killer, 51-year-old Anthony Sowell.

Defense attorney John Parker in turn argued that the state had no DNA or forensic evidence to link Sowell to the crimes and said the crime scene was not properly handled by police.

"Please be patient... Please don't make any conclusions until you have heard all of the evidence," he said, adding that the victims were troubled women whose lives ended sadly but insisting they were not kidnapped.

The city's police department is also on trial.

The women allegedly killed by Sowell were poor, black and hampered by lifestyles that took them on and off the streets. That meant they weren't always immediately reported as missing.

Nor did police pay much attention to cries for help that could have saved the lives of six of the victims.

One bloodied woman flagged down police in December 2008, telling them of her desperate escape from the registered sex offender's house.

But police felt she wasn't a "credible" witness and declined to press charges even though they found blood and signs of a struggle in Sowell's home.

A second woman was also ignored after she told police in April 2009 that Sowell had raped her repeatedly over a three-day period at his home after telling her she needed to be "trained like an animal."

In September 2009 a third woman went to police and told them Sowell lured her to his house, raped and strangled her with a cord, then let her go when she regained consciousness.

It wasn't until police knocked on the door of the yellow house a month later with an arrest warrant that the bodies were discovered.

The officers went inside when Sowell didn't answer their knock and followed the stench to two rotting corpses on a bed on the third floor.

A weeks-long search of the house and yard found eight more bodies and a human skull in a bucket.

Sowell was arrested as he walked down the street two days after the first bodies were found.

He faces the death penalty if convicted of nearly 100 charges, including kidnapping, rape, molesting a human corpse, robbery and attempted murder.

The first victim -- 36-year-old Crystal Dozier, whose remains were found buried near the backyard fence -- had not been seen since May 2007.

Then came Tishana Culver, 29, who had been missing since June 2008, and Leshanda Long, 25, who disappeared in August 2008.

Michelle Mason, 44, and Tonia Carmichael, 53, vanished in October 2008.

Several of the remaining victims could have lived if their killer had been jailed after the December 2008 attack or April 2009 rape.

Kim Smith, 43, vanished in January 2009. Nancy Cobbs, 44, was last seen in April 2009. Amy Hunter, 47, disappeared some time in the spring of 2009.

Janice Webb, 48, and Telacia Fortson, 31, were last seen in June 2009, and Diane Turner, 38, disappeared in September 2009.

Some of their relatives watched the trial in a private room in the courthouse through a live feed.

Donnita Carmichael, daughter of victim Tonia Carmichael, and her grandmother Barbara were not allowed to watch opening statements because they have been subpoenaed to testify.

"I'm just sick of everything and I want for this to end," Carmichael told AFP.

Yvonne Williams, mother of victim Tishana Culver, lives a few houses down from the crime scene and saw the jury and the media arrive at the house.

"The jury is going to get a gruesome look at how he kept that house and what he did to my daughter and those women," she said.

"I really want him to be in jail for the rest of his life so he can suffer."


View the original article here

Small Calif. town planned giant medical pot farm (AP)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A grand jury says the lure of easy money led a cash-strapped California town to approve a giant medical marijuana farm.

A Sacramento County grand jury report on Monday condemned leaders of Isleton for ignoring federal law and approving plans to build six pot-growing greenhouses on the outskirts of the town of 800.

The Delta Allied Growers medical marijuana collective approached Isleton a year ago with plans for the pot farm.

According to the grand jury report, the city was promised up to $600,000 the first year of the farm's operation.

The report questioned the actions of City Manager Bruce Pope and other officials. Pope told the Sacramento Bee officials did nothing wrong.

The project was scrapped after local and federal prosecutors sent a letter warning that it was illegal.

___

Information from: The Sacramento Bee, http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_us/storytext/us_small_town_pot_plan/42032503/SIG=10nq7lhog/*http://www.sacbee.com


View the original article here

Convicted Blagojevich faces prospect of prison (AP)

By MICHAEL TARM and KAREN HAWKINS, Associated Press Michael Tarm And Karen Hawkins, Associated Press – Tue Jun 28, 6:39 am ET

CHICAGO – Stunned and nearly speechless after hearing the verdicts against him, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will wake up Tuesday to the stark reality that he is likely headed to federal prison within months, leaving behind his wife, two young daughters and comfortable home in a leafy Chicago neighborhood.

A jury convicted him Monday on 17 charges, including trying to sell or trade President Barack Obama's old Senate seat and attempting to shake down executives for campaign cash. The convictions carry a combined maximum prison sentence of around 300 years, but legal experts say a federal judge is likely to send him away for around a decade, give or take a few years.

An irrepressible Blagojevich had said before the retrial began that he refused to even contemplate the prospect of prison. But red-eyed, his face drawn and frowning, he hurried out of the courthouse after the verdict was read.

The broke and impeached ex-governor told reporters that he and his wife, Patti, "have to get home to our little girls and talk to them and explain things to them and then try to sort things out." His two daughters are 8 and 14.

Uncharacteristically, the 54-year-old Democrat had little more to say, adding only that he was stunned by the verdict.

"Well, among the many lessons I've learned from this whole experience is to try to speak a little bit less, so I'm going to keep my remarks kind of short," Blagojevich said.

He is almost certain to appeal the convictions, and his defense attorneys filed a number of motions to lay the groundwork for that.

If he does end up in prison, Blagojevich would follow a path well-trodden by Illinois governors, including Blagojevich's predecessor, former Republican Gov. George Ryan — now serving 6 1/2 years in a federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.

In Illinois's book of political infamy, though, Blagojevich's chapter may go down as the most ignominious because of the allegations he effectively tried to hock an appointment to Obama's Senate seat for campaign cash or a job.

Blagojevich will probably receive around 10 years in prison, with little chance he would get more than 15, said former Chicago-based federal prosecutor Jeff Cramer said. Another former prosecutor, Phil Turner, said Judge James Zagel might look to Ryan's sentence and mete out a similar one for Blagojevich.

Zagel did not set a sentencing date, but Gal Pissetzky, a Chicago attorney who defends clients in federal court, said it's likely Blagojevich would be sentenced late this year. When he is, Pissetzky said there is a chance he could end up serving in the same prison as George Ryan.

The verdict, coming after his first trial ended last year with the jury deadlocked on most charges, was a bitter defeat for Blagojevich, who spent 2 1/2 years professing his innocence on reality TV shows and later on the witness stand. His defense team insisted that hours of FBI wiretap recordings were just the ramblings of a politician who liked to think out loud.

After hearing the verdict, Blagojevich turned to defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky and asked "What happened?" His wife, Patti, slumped against her brother, then rushed into her husband's arms.

Before the decision was read, the couple looked flushed, and the former governor blew his wife a kiss across the courtroom, then stood expressionless, with his hands clasped tightly.

The verdict capped a long-running spectacle in which Blagojevich became famous for blurting on a recorded phone call that his ability to appoint Obama's successor to the Senate was "f---ing golden" and that he wouldn't let it go "for f---ing nothing."

The case exploded into scandal when Blagojevich was awakened by federal agents on Dec. 9, 2008, at his Chicago home and was led away in handcuffs. Federal prosecutors had been investigating his administration for years, and some of his closest cronies had already been convicted.

Blagojevich was swiftly impeached and removed from office.

The verdict provided affirmation to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, one of the nation's most prominent prosecutors, who, after the governor's arrest, had condemned Blagojevich's dealings as a "political corruption crime spree."

The key question for the jury was whether to accept the defense suggestion that Blagojevich's activities amounted to "the kind of political wheeling and dealing that is common in Illinois and around the country."

"That," said Fitzgerald, his voice rising, "couldn't be any further from the truth. ... Selling a Senate seat, shaking down a children's hospital and squeezing a person to give money before you sign a bill that benefits them is not a gray area. It's a crime."

Fitzgerald pledged to retry the governor after the first jury failed to reach a decision on all but the least serious of 24 charges against him.

The jury voted to convict on 17 of 20 counts after deliberating nine days heading into Monday. Blagojevich also faces up to five additional years in prison for his previous conviction of lying to the FBI; Pissetzky said Zagel would almost certainly sentence Zagel for all the convictions at once.

Judges have enormous discretion in sentencing and can factor in a host of variables, including whether a defendant took the stand and lied. Prosecutors have said that Blagojevich did just that.

Blagojevich was acquitted of soliciting bribes in the alleged shakedown of a road-building executive. The jury deadlocked on two charges of attempted extortion related to that executive and funding for a school.

Zagel has barred Blagojevich from traveling outside the area without permission. A status hearing to discuss sentencing was set for Aug. 1.

All 12 jurors — 11 women and one man — spoke to reporters after the verdict, identifying themselves only by juror numbers. Their full names were to be released Tuesday.

Jurors said the evidence that Blagojevich tried to secure a high-paying, high-powered position in exchange for the appointment of Obama's successor in the Senate was the clearest in the case.

"There was so much more evidence to go on," said Juror No. 140. Jury members said they listened and re-listened to recordings of Blagojevich's phone conversations with aides. They also acknowledged finding the former governor likable.

"He was personable," Juror No. 103 said. "It made it hard to separate what we actively had to do as jurors."

Richard Kling, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law who watched much of the trial, said the defense had no choice but to put Blagojevich on the stand, even though doing so was risky.

"The problem was with some of his explanations," Kling said. "It reminded me of a little kid who gets his hand caught in a cookie jar. He says, `Mommy I wasn't taking the cookies. I was just trying to protect them and to count them.'"

___

Associated Press Writer Don Babwin contributed to this report.


View the original article here