We previously discussed the bizarre scandal unfolding in the New Orleans U.S. Attorney’s Office. Fred Heebe, a Louisiana landfill owner, has filed an interesting defamation lawsuit against a federal prosecutor who he claims has used anonymous identities to trash him on the Internet. Using a former FBI forensic linguist expert, Heebe has shown remarkable similarities between language used in filings by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sal Perricone and statements written by someone on media websites under the name “Henry L. Mencken1951.” With the finding that the language overlap “strongly indicates” Perricone, Heebe has filed suit and issued subpoenas. The federal case involves alleged bribes (including an almost $500,000 bribe to a state official) to close a rival landfill in Gretna, Louisiana. Heebe however was never charged with a crime. Perricone, 61, has since resigned after 21 years as a prosecutor but an investigation continued at the Justice Department as well as the civil lawsuit. He recently admitted to posting hundreds of comments. Now the scandal has caused U.S. Attorney Jim Letten to demote his second-in-command, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Mann.
Category: Criminal law
Word on “the street” is not good for Kevin Clash, the voice of Elmo. Clash was arrested is facing charges for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy. Clash insists that the accused, now 23, was 18 when they started having an intimate relationship. Truth be known, I always thought it would be tightly wound Bert who ended up in the slammer. Notably, it was the Show that appears to have reported Clash.[UPDATE: The accuser, who remains nameless, has recanted his allegations].
We have another outrage involving cultural and religious prejudices against rape victims. In Indonesia, a 14-year-old girl was expelled as “tarnished” after she was raped.
Continue reading “Rape Victim in Indonesia Expelled For “Tarnishing” School Image”
Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Michael Jaccarino, 30, was arrested this weekend after he allegedly attacked a female EMT worker who was responding to a call of an intoxicated man on the Brooklyn Bridge around 1 a.m. He’s charged with assault, criminal obstruction of breathing, menacing and harassment
Continue reading “Brooklyn Prosecutor Charged With Attacking and Choking EMT Worker In Drunken Rage”
Last week, New Jersey charged eight businesses with gouging customers with exorbitant prices after Hurricane Sandy — seven gas stations and a hotel. What struck me as curious was the relatively low increases that were the basis for the change, including an eleven percent increase.
Continue reading “New Jersey Charges Seven Gas Stations and a Hotel With Gouging”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
I was struck by a news story earlier this week, not only because of its importance, but because of how little air time it received in the mass media. Earlier this week, the victims of the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona had a chance to speak to the man responsible for those hideous acts. One statement was especially powerful and it was from the husband of Gabby Giffords, now a former Congresswoman from Arizona. I apologize for the length of the following quotations, but I think it is important to read most of what Gabby’s husband said to Mr. Jared Loughner, who perpetrated the crime. Continue reading “Guns and the Collateral Damage That They Do”
In past columns, I have lamented how our government has not only stripped away core civil liberties from citizens, but that citizens have become increasing passive and accepting of the loss of such freedoms. A new poll conducted by Harris Interactive offers a particularly chilling measure of just how passive and accepting citizens have become to the new realities of our internal security system. The poll found almost one third of American adults would accept a “TSA body cavity search” in order to fly. Moreover a majority believes that it is reasonable to criminalize the act of disobeying any TSA agent.
Continue reading “Poll: One-Third of Americans Would Accept Cavity Searches By TSA”
Mark Basseley Youssef (aka Nakoula Basseley Nakoula), the filmmaker connected to the controversial film “The Innocence of Muslims,” has been sentenced to a year in prison for violations of his probation for his 2010 bank fraud conviction. The arrest of Youssef raised immediate objections that, while the Obama Administration insisted that it would not punish such acts of free speech, it set out to arrest him on any possible grounds to satisfy the “Arab Street.”
Brian Banks successfully campaigned on a catchy slogan this election: “You Can Bank On Banks!” That may be true unless you are an actual bank. Banks has been convicted eight times for felonies involving bad checks and credit card fraud. In some states, he would have faced a lengthy or even lifetime in prison as a habitual offender. However, in Detroit, Banks is the newest member of the state House of Representatives. What is interesting is that he was not the most unconventional candidate on the ballot in Michigan.
Continue reading “Banking On Banks: Detroit Elects An Eight-Time Convicted Felon”
I have previously written about the rise of shaming punishments in the United States in both blogs (here and here and here and here) and columns (here and here). We can now add Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey S. Carr to the ignoble line of judge meting out their own forms of justice through humiliating acts. In this case, as shown in the video below, Shena Hardin, 32, is requiring to wear a sign calling herself an “idiot” in public for repeatedly driving around a school bus on the sidewalk while children were boarding.
We have yet another horrific rape case in India. In this case, a 13-year-old girl who is part of low Dalit caste was abducted and gang raped by men from the higher Jats caste. They took pictures of the rape and threatened to release them if she told anyone. Eventually her mother discovered the truth and told her father, a gardener. The father’s shame under the cultural and religious norms of the area was so great that he drank pesticide and killed himself. In response to the outrage, local leader, Jitender Chhatar blamed fast foods for the rape while the state’s former chief minister, Om Prakash Chautala, called for the lowering of the age of consent to marriage to 15 to combat rapes in the country.
Cook County Judge Susan McDunn has had a controversial career with allegations from anti-gay bias to sheer incompetence. She is now adding suggestions of paranoia after appearing in federal court demanding to know what secret and sealed cases have been brought against her — despite the fact that no one has any evidence of such cases existing. Yet, McDunn insists “I’m not paranoid.” She could add that “even if I am paranoid it doesn’t mean my spiritual adviser is not after me.”
Pastor John D. White of Broomfield Township, Michigan is under arrest in a bizarre murder of the daughter of his fiancé in fulfillment of a sexual fantasy. The 14 members of Christ Community Fellowship Church knew that White was an ex-con but believed that he had changed in finding God.
There is a disturbing account of a death of a young man who participated in the annual Halloween celebrations in New Orleans. Clayton Otwell, 21, went to New Orleans with a friend to go to the Voodoo Festival in the City Park. After helping a stranger, he was offered the chance to try a new type of drug called 25-I. It took just one drop up the nose to kill him. The drug is called “N-Bomb” for its chemical composition 25I-NBOMe and is an extremely potent synthetic substance analogous to LSD.
Continue reading “N-Bomb: Man Dies At Voodoo Festival In New Orleans From New Lethal Drug”
We have another controversy (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here) over the shooting of a dog by a police officer and the allegation that the officer lied about the dog threatening him before the shooting. In Omaha, Chris Schulte was walking his dog near his home when officers told him to stop because they had cut off the street in search of a criminal suspect. Schulte unwisely and inexplicably refused and continued to walk. That resulted in his arrest. Nothing particularly noteworthy there. However, witnesses later heard a shot and an officer reported that Schulte’s dog, Teela, had threatened — an account later contradicted according to the family by a security camera. Teela is a Labrador/golden retriever mix and has never had a reported incident of biting or threatening anyone.