Probation Department is still out of compliance on improvements for youth offenders

Despite federal mandates, health and safety problems remain widespread, L.A. County officials acknowledge.

By Garrett Therolf, Times Staff Writer

May 12, 2010

Despite a decade of scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, Los Angeles County's Probation Department remains profoundly out of compliance with orders to improve health and safety for youth offenders.

The problems are so widespread that county officials in recent days privately acknowledged that there is little or no hope that they will meet the federal government's deadline this year for complying with the mandates, forcing the county to plead for an extension from impatient regulators or face formal court action.

Probation Chief Deputy Cal Remington, who took over the department's No. 2 job this year, called the continued need for federal oversight "disturbing."

"But if we do, we do," he said, "and now we just need to listen to what DOJ has to say and do it."

If the Department of Justice asks a judge to intervene, the county could lose the ability to make managerial and budget decisions over the department under a consent decree.

The investigation by the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division initially grew out of a 2000 report by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury that uncovered substandard conditions and overmedicated youths . The federal oversight focused first on the department's juvenile halls before moving on to the system's rural camps.

The Department of Justice's most recent report, dated last month, found that the more than 2,000 youth offenders in 19 detention camps are imperiled by broken systems for mental health services, use of force, internal affairs, suicide prevention and transition services upon release.

Among the report's findings:

"We're still not there. There is still a lot of progress to be made," Remington said. "We are focused on those things that DOJ uncovers."

Remington and his boss, Chief Probation Officer Don Blevins, are both new to their jobs this year and have been widely credited by county officials and outside watchdogs for breathing life into the necessary reform efforts.

Still, serious questions remain about the department's inability to make key changes to the department's culture. This year The Times reported that 170 probation employees had been found to commit misconduct — including cases of excessive force and abuse — but they had so far escaped punishment because of insufficient staff to process their cases.

Remington said he believed staffing remains one of the department's most intractable issues because of the high cost. Despite budget cutting across the county, Probation's funding has increased significantly in recent years, partly in an effort to meet federal mandates.

Still, Justice Department monitors said significant investments in mental health services must be made so that youths are properly assessed and treated. So far, there is no money for such improvements.

"We submitted a preliminary budget that is not going to meet our needs," Remington said, adding that they are in the process of finding ways to save in other areas so they can dedicate more money to mental health.

Among the ideas proposed to free up funds is increased use of home detention with electronic monitoring for youths awaiting trial. The county currently has 800 youths under home monitoring and would like to increase the number to 1,000, Remington said.

In addition to working on the reforms required by the Justice Department, Remington and Blevins are negotiating with the American Civil Liberties Union in an effort to settle a case alleging abysmal education standards in the camps, including the deprivation of competent instruction and the awarding of high school diplomas to illiterate youths.

Remington said of those talks: "We are communicating well with the ACLU, but I can't say we are close to a settlement yet."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0512-probation-20100512,0,6862975,print.story

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Volunteers fan out to survey Hollywood's homeless

Cataloging them and their needs helps speed social services to those most at risk, officials say. Similar efforts in New York, Santa Monica and Long Beach have helped hundreds into permanent housing.

By Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times

May 12, 2010

Before dawn one recent morning, volunteers clutching clipboards and flashlights spotted a pile of blankets on an otherwise deserted stretch of Hollywood pavement.

Jake Puffer, who works at a movie advertising agency, approached and knelt down.

"Good morning," he said.

It took a bit of prodding, but the blankets eventually stirred and a sleepy face peered out. In exchange for a $5 Subway gift card, Ruben Montoya spent the next 20 minutes answering questions about his health and housing situation.

A recovering methamphetamine addict, he told Puffer he had been living on the streets with his girlfriend since completing parole at a sober living home about a month ago. He suffers from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and diabetes. And it is the third time he has been homeless.

"When it rains, that's the worst time to be out here," said Montoya, 49.

Advocates for the homeless say the combination of substance abuse and mental and physical illness is frequently deadly on the streets.

So last month, more than 80 volunteers from local businesses, nonprofits, churches and government agencies fanned out over three nights in Hollywood to find people like Montoya before it's too late. The next step is to get them into permanent housing with the support services they need.

The volunteers are part of a pioneering effort that government and social service officials say is changing the way that chronic homelessness is addressed in Los Angeles County — estimated to have more than 40,000 residents without homes — and other urban areas across the country.

Rather than waiting for the homeless to show up at shelters and soup kitchens, "we are being proactive and going on the streets, finding the people that need help, knowing exactly what kind of help they need . . . and actually tailoring our programs around that," said Joel Roberts, chief executive of Path Partners, a network of social services and housing agencies.

The Hollywood survey was based on a model developed by Common Ground, a New York nonprofit that substantially reduced homelessness in Times Square. Similar initiatives in downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Venice, West Hollywood, Long Beach and Van Nuys have helped secure housing and treatment for more than 200 of the 806 homeless people found to be at risk of premature death.

Tim Dillenbeck, known as the Bubbleman for the whimsical displays he creates with a homemade bubble machine on the Santa Monica Pier, had spent 12 years living out of a van when he was jolted awake one rainy night in January 2008. A man with a clipboard was tapping on the window.

When social workers at St. Joseph Center saw the results of that survey, they were concerned about Dillenbeck's recent hospital visits, including one for double bypass surgery. Using a housing voucher from the city of Santa Monica, they found him a one-bedroom apartment in a quiet building off Wilshire Boulevard and a doctor to help manage his heart condition.

Dillenbeck, 62, got the keys in August and said he uses his federal cash assistance to pay $369 a month toward his rent.

"It seemed too good to be true," he said. "I went through life always thinking there was someone who needed [a home] more than I did."

Programs like the one in Santa Monica dispel "the myth that homeless people do not want to get off the streets," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

Yaroslavsky has been a key advocate of the county's $3.6-million pilot program, known as Project 50 because it initially targeted the 50 most vulnerable homeless people on skid row. Since the program began in late 2007, nearly 80% of the 66 participants so far have stayed in housing, according to figures provided by Yaroslavsky's office. Six of them died, four were jailed and four quit. The more recent programs report even higher retention rates.

When the Board of Supervisors last year balked at the potential cost of Yaroslavsky's proposal to expand the program to 500 people, a number of communities pressed on with their own versions. Supporters of the approach argue that the costs are offset by savings because those who obtain permanent housing are less likely to use hospitals, jails and other costly county services.

Although the newer programs lack some of the resources devoted to Project 50, organizers say conducting detailed surveys has helped them better understand their homeless populations and coordinate services for them. In Santa Monica, city officials used their survey to prioritize people for housing vouchers and to help create a strategy they hope will end homelessness, said Maggie Willis, a senior administrative analyst for the city. Santa Monica housed 85 of its most vulnerable homeless people, most of whom remain in the program.

In Long Beach, a survey in July allowed outreach workers to identify elderly and disabled people who qualified for federal cash assistance, said Roberts of Path Partners. Others surveyed turned out to be eligible for housing vouchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs. So far, 52 people have been placed in housing, with local churches donating furniture and government agencies and nonprofits managing their cases and treatment.

The programs are aimed at people who have lived on the streets for at least six months, many of whom suffer from mental and physical issues, including alcohol and drug abuse.

Previously, homeless people were usually required to get sober before they would be offered permanent housing. But experts on the homeless are finding that it is easier to resolve addictions and other issues that land people on the streets when they have a stable place to sleep and keep their medication.

On the streets of Hollywood last month, volunteers counted 323 homeless people and 257 of them agreed to be interviewed. The results were released at a community meeting April 30. More than 40% reported health conditions associated with a high mortality risk, such as HIV or cirrhosis of the liver. The oldest was 80, the youngest 15.

As photographs of the most at-risk were displayed on a screen, representatives of government and private agencies said they could provide subsidized housing for 100 to 120 of them. Others in the room, including local business owners, stood up to pledge money toward relocating them. A total of $62,000 was raised.

Kerry Morrison, who manages two Hollywood business-improvement districts and was the driving force behind the survey, said at least three homeless people have died on neighborhood streets in the last two years.

"When you begin to hear people's stories, learn their names, find out where they're from and what led them into this situation, it's really hard to not get involved in helping," she said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hollywood-homeless-20100512,0,2144509,print.story

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Arizona bill targeting ethnic studies signed into law

Gov. Jan Brewer signs the bill that bans schools from teaching classes designed for students of a particular ethnic group. School districts may appeal the law, which becomes effective Dec. 31.

By Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times

May 12, 2010

A bill that aims to ban ethnic studies in Arizona schools was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Jan Brewer, cheering critics who called such classes divisive and alarming others who said it's yet another law targeting Latinos in the state.

The move comes less than 20 days after Brewer signed a controversial immigration bill that has caused widespread protests against the state. The governor's press office did not return requests for comment Tuesday evening.

HB 2281 bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

The bill was written to target the Chicano, or Mexican American, studies program in the Tucson school system, said state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Horne.

School districts that don't comply with the new law could have as much as 10% of their state funds withheld each month. Districts have the right to appeal the mandate, which goes into effect Dec. 31.

Tucson Unified School District officials say the Chicano studies classes benefit students and promote critical thinking. "We don't teach all those ugly things they think we're teaching," said Judy Burns, the president of the district's governing board.

She has no intention of ending the program, which offers courses from elementary school through high school in topics such as literature, history and social justice, with an emphasis on Latino authors and history. About 3% of the district's 55,000 students are enrolled in such classes.

Horne has been trying to end the program for years, saying it divides students by race and promotes resentment. He singled out one history book used in some classes, "Occupied America: A History of Chicanos," by Rodolfo Acuna, a professor and founder of the Chicano studies program at Cal State Northridge.

"To begin with, the title of the book implies to the kids that they live in occupied America, or occupied Mexico," Horne said last week in a telephone interview.

Also last week, Augustine Romero, director of student equity in the Tucson school district, said it now had become politically acceptable to attack Latinos in Arizona.

Ethnic studies are taught at high schools and colleges nationwide, but the Tucson district officials say their 14-year-old program is unique because it's districtwide, offered to grades K-12, and can satisfy high school graduation requirements.

In Los Angeles, more educators have been attempting to build curriculums, teaching lessons or units in ethnic studies, especially with the growth of charter schools in the area, said Maythee Rojas, the president of the National. Assn. of Ethnic Studies. "I don't think it's uncommon anymore," she said.

In Tucson, the program is supported by a court-ordered desegregation budget, and is part of the district's initiative to create equal access for Latinos.

Board member Mark Stegeman said he believes the board needs to consider the program carefully and whether the courses, as taught, violate the new law. Perhaps an external audit could be done to assess that, he said.

Ethnic studies courses are sometimes controversial because people believe the programs are attempting to replace one voice with another, Rojas said.

The Tucson district plans to double the number of students in Chicano studies in the upcoming school year, said Sean Arce, the director of the program. Arce said that now that the bill has become law, he's waiting for direction from the district's legal department.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ethnic-studies-20100512,0,7335565,print.story

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Personal cellphone data end up for sale at Mexico flea market

The government had asked everyone to register their phones, but many refused, citing fears of spying or other misuse of the data. It turns out they were right.

By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

May 12, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City

When the government launched a nationwide campaign to register cellphones, millions of Mexicans refused. And thousands of others registered with a familiar name: Felipe Calderon, the country's president.

The idea was that the registry would combat rampant telephone extortion rackets and kidnapping attempts. But even with the threat of having their lines disconnected, an estimated 26 million users (about 30% of all holders of cellphones in Mexico) hadn't submitted their names on the eve of the government-set deadline.

Some said they were convinced that the government would use the information to spy on dissidents or anyone else out of favor. Others said they feared the information would end up in the wrong hands.

They were proved right last month when the confidential data of millions of Mexicans from official state registries suddenly became available for a few thousand dollars at Mexico City's wild Tepito flea market.

"Mexicans left naked!" complained one columnist.

Threat to national security! opined experts.

In Mexico, unlike the United States, voter sign-up rolls and motor vehicle registrations are not a matter of public record. Mexicans, in theory at least, expect privacy. So when these databases began turning up in the chaotic Tepito market, Mexicans were not pleased.

In a country seized by the fear of kidnapping and held hostage by violent crime bosses, having this quantity of personal information on open display seemed tantamount to a death sentence, or, at the minimum, a magnet for trouble.

It confirmed the worst suspicions of many Mexicans: that any attempt to do their civic duty by registering property or signing up to vote would end up being used against them.

"This was a devastating blow to any effort to create a relationship of trust between citizens and the authorities," said Gustavo Fondevila, a researcher at the Center for Investigation and Economic Studies, a Mexico City think tank. "There is complete mistrust toward everything the government decides, promises and especially when it asks for personal information. And it is completely justified."

It is that suspicion that fuels Mexico's notorious scofflaw culture.

The personal data discovered at the Tepito market, part of an investigation by El Universal newspaper, also included lists of police officers with their photographs, which could easily be cross-referenced with other databases to find out where they live. The paper said a complete package of data could be had for about $12,000.

The revelations lighted a fire under the Mexican Senate, where a privacy law had been languishing. Senators quickly passed the law unanimously late last month and congratulated themselves for being able to give reassurances to the public that their private data would not be misused.

But, as they say in Mexico: They were covering the well after the child had drowned.

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/topofthetimes/topstories/la-fg-mexico-data-20100512,0,989832,print.story

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7 kindergarteners, teacher hacked to death in China

The attack takes place despite increased security following similar crimes. The middle-aged assailant reportedly kills himself later.

By Barbara Demick

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 12, 2010

Reporting from Beijing

Despite stepped-up security at China's schools, another kindergarten was the scene of a gruesome rampage Wednesday when a middle-aged man armed with a kitchen knife hacked to death seven children and a teacher.

The latest in a troubling string of attacks on children took place at 8 a.m. Wednesday at the Linchang Village Kindergarten in the town of Hanzhong, about 100 miles southwest Xian, famous for its terra-cotta warriors. The killer was identified by the official New China News Agency as 48-year-old Wu Huanmin. He reportedly escaped from the scene and killed himself at home.

Some reports said he was the landlord for the school, which provided instruction and childcare for children as young as 3. Besides the pupils killed, 20 were reported injured.

A posting on the Tianya news forum said that there might have been more than one person involved and that the criminals got into the kindergarten by driving a van into the main gate. The report could not be verified.

News coverage was sketchy, with few Chinese-language websites reporting on the attack and the report from New China posted only in English. Chinese authorities have avoiding publicizing such attacks on the grounds that they could inspire copycat killers.

Wednesday's attack is the deadliest since March 23, when an unemployed doctor stabbed to death eight children in Nanping City, Fujian province. Since then, there have been half a dozen similar rampages around China, almost all of them involving middle-aged men who went after young children with knives, cleavers, axes and in one case, gasoline.

"The atmosphere is very bad these days. People are really terrified," said a doctor who gave her name as Yu from the Shankou Village Medical Clinic, which is near the school that was attacked. She said she was leaving early to pick up her 8-year-old grandson from school.

Around the country, police and paramilitary forces have been assigned to watch schools at key hours when children are coming and going, and security guards have been trained to use batons to defend schools against knife-wielding attackers. In Nanzheng county, where Liulang village is located, a conference on school security took place May 5, exactly a week before the attack.

"It is mission impossible to prevent these attacks in the short term. More and more people have been inspired to copy what the others have done, and it is very difficult to stop them," said Liu Shanying, a political scientist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

China has strict controls on guns, but large knives and cleavers are found in every Chinese kitchen.

Liu said it is no coincidence that all the attackers have been middle-aged men living in small towns.

"When you look at attacks in the United States, it is usually about social isolation or pressure at school, but these are men in their 40s, who feel they didn't enjoy the fruits of economic development and have passed the golden period where they can improve their lives," he said.

"They feel they have no other way to express their grievances. They go after the most defenseless segment of the population, young children, in order to kill as many people as possible."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-school-attack-20100513,0,1208520,print.story

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U.S. puts financial sanctions on group tied to Christmas Day bomb plot

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday slapped financial sanctions on leaders of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda group that claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton approved sanctions that include a travel ban, assets freeze and arms embargo against Qasim al-Raimi, a top military commander for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsuala. Raimi, whose name is also spelled al-Rimi, threatened new attacks against America, saying in an online magazine in February that his group “will blow up the earth from below your feet.”

Also a target was Nayif al-Qahtani, who manages the group's operations in Yemen and has served as a liaison between the Al Qaeda cells in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has become increasingly worried about militants based in Yemen since Al Qaeda groups there and in Saudi Arabia merged last year to become AQAP, and began to openly target U.S. and other Western interests in Yemen and abroad.

This marks the second time terrorist leaders in Yemen have been the targets of sanctions. Administration officials decided to target AQAP just 11 days before the failed attempt Dec. 25 to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Clinton approved the latest sanctions on April 6, but they took effect Tuesday when they were published in the Federal Register.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2010/05/state-department-sanctions-al-qeada.html

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Haidl, accomplices take case to state Supreme Court

Defense has argued in the past that the three were not given a fair trial because of shield law.

By Joseph Serna

After losing in the local Court of Appeal, Greg Haidl and his two accomplices, who were convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Haidl's Newport Beach home, are taking their case to the state Supreme Court.

Haidl's attorney, Dennis Fischer, petitioned the court last week to hear arguments on why his client should have his conviction overturned and not have to register as a sex offender for life.

Fischer said that the chances of the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the petition are “next to none.”

Haidl's convicted accomplices, Kyle Nachreiner, 25, and Keith Spann, 25, filed petitions with the court, too, Fischer said.

All three men were convicted in 2005 of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in the basement of the house belonging to Haidl's dad. Haidl, 24, is the son of former Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl. While the girl apparently was passed out drunk, the men made a videotape of penetrating her vagina with several objects including a pool cue, Snapple bottle and a lighted cigarette.

For the Supreme Court, Fischer will narrow the arguments he presented to the Court of Appeal. He argued that the judge did not give his client a fair trial in electing to withhold evidence that the victim in the case had participated in similar sexual activity not long before the assault. The woman's sexual history was protected under California's Rape Shield law.

He also argues that Haidl should not have to register as a sex offender. The men were juveniles during the crime but were tried as adults.

The jury dismissed the assault with a deadly weapon charge the men faced. Without that charge, they would have been tried as juveniles and wouldn't be required to register, he said.

Prosecutors say the men's attempts to clear their records is exactly why they should be registered as sex offenders.

“Men who are convicted of preying on women who are too intoxicated to say ‘no' are sexual predators. The public has the right to know who they are, where the live, and what they did,” said Orange County district attorney's office Chief of Staff Susan Schroeder. “Again, they want to be treated different than other similarly situated defendants. This is one of the reasons why they are dangerous.”

Haidl, Nachreiner and Spann lost their case in the Court of Appeal in March. This is their last chance to appeal their case on the state level.

The state Supreme Court has 60 days to decide if it wants to hear the case.

http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2010/05/11/publicsafety/dpt-haidl051110.prt

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U.S. Justice Department joins probe into stolen Mojave cross

U.S. Justice Department officials said Tuesday they are working to find whoever tore down and stole an 8-foot-high cross that stood as a war memorial in Mojave National Preserve and which prompted a lengthy legal battle culminating in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing the cross to remain on federal land.

An employee of the National Park Service on Monday discovered the metal cross missing from its site atop Sunrise Rock. The bolts attaching the cross to a metal plate were cut sometime between late Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, said park service spokeswoman Linda Slater.

“We are working with the appropriate agencies to look into the theft as well as what impact it may have on the ongoing litigation,” Department of Justice officials said in a statement.

Although the Supreme Court ruled two weeks ago that the cross could stay in the preserve, the decision still could be affected by a lower court. It was ordered to look into the possibility of transferring the federal land under the site into private hands.

Slater said park officials had been told to continue covering the cross with its plywood case until litigation ends completely.

Officials were ordered to remove the cross, but in April Supreme Court justices reversed the decision in a 5-4 ruling.

The wooden cover for the cross was reported missing by park staff Saturday morning. The cross itself was last seen standing Sunday.

"This happened on Sunday night when someone went up there and demolished it,” said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel at the Liberty Institute, which has represented the veterans groups in court throughout the controversy. “It hasn't even been two weeks since the Supreme Court decision and evidently someone didn't like that decision and took the law into their own hands and tore it down.”

Shackelford said the cross was made of 3- to 4-inch-thick pipes filled with cement and bolted into the ground. To remove it, he said, would have taken a major effort involving planning and probably more than one person.

The national commander of the VFW called the destruction of the cross "sickening."

"This was a legal fight that a vandal just made personal to 50 million veterans, military personnel and their families," said Thomas J. Tradewell Sr. "To think anyone can rationalize the desecration of a war memorial is sickening, and for them to believe they won't be apprehended is very naive."

Anyone with information is asked to call National Park Service law enforcement at (760) 252-6120.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/05/us-justice-department-joins-probe-into-stolen-mojave-cross.html#more

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Safer food, and soon

The Senate is expected to act soon on food safety legislation similar to that passed by the House last year.

May 11, 2010

Two-thirds of the chickens sold in this country are contaminated with campylobacter or salmonella or both. And that's a significant improvement over three years ago, when 80% of the chickens contained at least one of those kinds of bacteria, according to Consumers Union. So of course the U.S. Department of Agriculture is right to be raising its standards to guard against poultry contamination, which sickens more than 60,000 people a year. But this is chicken feed compared with the 76 million people who fall prey to food poisoning each year in the United States. For that, the country needs to overhaul its food safety system — and finally, after eight months of letting it languish, the Senate is again taking up legislation that would tighten food tracking and oversight.

The House passed its version in July 2009, but the Senate bill stalled. Recently, though, it picked up support and is expected to come to the floor this month. Both versions of the legislation would require more frequent inspections by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, increase its staffing and empower it to mandate recalls of tainted food. They also would authorize the secretary of Health and Human Services to implement a tracking system so that when there is an outbreak of food poisoning — for example, the 1,300 people who fell ill from eating salsa in 2008 that confounded investigators for weeks — the government can quickly track the source of the contamination.

The House bill falls short on several fronts, and we hope the Senate will address those weaknesses. The tracking system should be a requirement, not something left up to possible future action — or inaction — by administrators. We would have preferred legislation that combines and streamlines the food safety functions of the FDA and the USDA, which oversees meat and some dairy products. And amendments should free small producers from some of the most onerous requirements. Small farms are seldom the source of widespread food poisoning, and they cannot afford costly tracking technology. Ensuring food safety should not have to mean dealing another blow to family farms, many of which produce organic foods.

Which brings us back to poultry. The most recent testing by Consumers Union found that organic chickens that were air-chilled — refrigerated rather than subjected to the more common procedure of dunking them in chlorinated water — were the least likely to be contaminated, with 60% testing bacteria-free. That's a process more common to small producers who specialize in quality food, a sector of U.S. farming that should be encouraged.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-food-20100512,0,4683117,print.story

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From the New York Times

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In Newburgh, Gangs and Violence Reign

NEWBURGH, N.Y. — It started with adolescent taunting near a frozen pond on a January afternoon and soon escalated into a brawl.

By the time it was over, Levi King Flores, a 17-year-old suspected gang member, was dead from a stab wound between his shoulder blades. A 13-year-old was in jail for his murder. And the year was off to a bloody start.

Gang violence is nothing new in this dilapidated city an hour north of Manhattan. Built along a scenic bluff on the west bank of the Hudson River, Newburgh has long been known for problems far out of proportion to its population of 29,000. In the 1960s and '70s, it was racial strife and disastrous urban renewal efforts. In the 1980s, when the city was known as “crack alley,” it was drug-fueled violence, which has ebbed and flowed here ever since.

But this latest round of violence is shining a harsh new glare on the city, both for the intensity of the attacks and the young ages of many of those involved. The community led the state in violent crimes per capita in 2008 and is on course to do so again this year.

Gang violence has been responsible for all but 2 or 3 of the city's 16 homicides in the last two and a half years. By law enforcement estimates, gang members with national affiliations outnumber the city's police by a ratio of three to one, not counting the hundreds of young people in homegrown groups.

At a Senate hearing with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in Washington last month, Senator Charles E. Schumer called the situation in Newburgh “shocking.”

“There are reports of shootouts in the town streets, strings of robberies and gang assaults with machetes,” Mr. Schumer said.

At the senator's urging, Mr. Holder promised to send a top-level official to Newburgh to examine the problem. Even before that assurance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States attorney's office for the Southern District of New York had already made Newburgh one of its top priorities in the region after a spate of killings in 2008.

“I think that we will see shortly some of the results of that work,” Mr. Holder said at the hearing.

Newburgh's persistent violence is remarkable considering what the community is not: a big city. Though people on the streets here like to call it the sixth borough of New York, it is no such thing, either in density or geography.

Adorned with brick row houses and 19th-century Gothic Revival mansions, relics of its industrial past, the city has a certain nostalgic charm. Pleasure boats and upscale restaurants with colorful awnings line the riverfront esplanade. From there, a grassy slope leads to Grand Street, a tree-lined avenue where the expansive homes of the city's Gilded Age stand in varying states of renovation and neglect.

But just a few blocks away is Lander Street, a menacing little stretch of boarded-up row houses and graffiti-tagged walls that has become one of the state's most implacable centers of poverty and violence. Young men with pit bulls occupy porch stoops at all hours, guarding barely concealed drug markets inside. It is one of several such streets within a few blocks in the city's northeast end that law enforcement officials say are mainly controlled by the Bloods street gang, the city's largest with an estimated 160 members.

A number of homegrown groups — not formal gangs necessarily, but with the same territorial and violent tendencies — occupy various blocks and bear names like Ashey Bandits, Ave World and D-Block.

The narrow avenues and one-way streets make it hard for police — even in unmarked cars that are by now well known by the residents, including a green Chevrolet Suburban they call the “Green Goblin” — to sneak up on anybody.

“As soon as we turn the corner, they call out ‘One time!' ” said Officer Joseph Palermo, on a recent night patrol.

The city's southeast side, a largely Hispanic area known as the Heights, is controlled by Hispanic gangs like the Latin Kings , la Eme and a local group known as the Benkard Barrio Kings.

A sense of how embedded the gang culture has become can be gleaned at the local high school, the Newburgh Free Academy.

Two years ago, Torrance Harvey, a social studies teacher, and Mark Wallace, the school's violence prevention coordinator, created a class where students could come and talk about issues important to them. During a recent session, Mr. Harvey drew a diagram on the board with the word “community” in the center and asked the class to define it. The students rattled off the usual institutions: churches, schools, law enforcement. But high on the list they also called out “gang-bangers,” “drug dealers” and “crackheads.”

Central to the problem, Mr. Harvey and Mr. Wallace said, is the lack of jobs and activities available to young people. The city has no supermarkets, one Boys and Girls Club that is closed on weekends and a virtually nonexistent bus system, leaving young people without cars too far from the only steady source of employment, at regional malls well outside of town.

“Kids are energy,” Mr. Wallace said, “and if they don't have some place to go, where are they going to go? The corner.”

Many of those involved are not yet teenagers. Among those stabbed in the January fight was a 12-year-old who, while later testifying against Mr. Flores's killer, lifted his shirt in court to show his knife wounds. Three months later, that same boy would find himself in jail along with seven others, accused of beating and stabbing a man nearly to death with baseball bats and knives.

“That's the thing: Today's victim is tomorrow's suspect,” said Joseph Cortez, a Newburgh gang detective.

To complicate matters, the acting city manager, Richard F. Herbek, soberly announced earlier this year that Newburgh was broke. It needs $10 million to make it through the rest of this year and is facing a $6 million shortfall in the coming year, leading to fears of further cuts to community services, including the Police Department, which is already down to about 85 officers from a high of more than 100 a few years ago. Officials, though, say police cuts would be a last resort.

“It's a tough, urban city,” said Nicholas Valentine, a tailor who doubles as the mayor of Newburgh. “We have pockets in this city that will rival any other area in the northeast, from Cleveland to Detroit, and we don't have the resources to deal with it.”

Sitting on a stoop on Chambers Street recently, a 19-year-old woman who asked that her name not be used for safety concerns said she began “gang-banging” in seventh grade and stayed with it until a few months ago. She belonged to D-Back, an informal group named for nearby Dubois Street.

“I had the flag going on, the clothes going on, all that,” she said.

She had followed the example of her older brother, she said. “I'd see him getting so much respect outside in the 'hood, and I'm like, ‘That's my bro, I want that respect,' ” she said.

By 10th grade, she was selling marijuana, making as much as $2,500 a week. She had clothes, jewelry, everything she says a young girl could want. “You hear kids with jobs and as much money as they get paid in a week,” she said. “I was making that in a day or two, you know.”

But for her, things began to change the night of May 6, 2008. That night, Jeffrey Zachary, a baby-faced 15-year-old, was killed in a drive-by shooting across from his house on Dubois Street. Police officials said he was not a gang member and had been hit mistakenly.

The woman, who had been with Jeffrey earlier that day, wanted revenge. Everyone in D-Block did. But his mother, who had lost another son in nearly identical fashion three years earlier, pleaded with them not to retaliate.

“She said ‘Listen, that's not what I want,' ” the 19-year-old recalled. “ ‘This is going to go on and on, it's never going to stop.' And she was right.”

For Jeffrey's family, his death was overwhelming. His sister, Tova Zachary, 23, had been in the house when she heard the shots. She ran out to find her brother on the ground. She clutched him, pleading with him: “Please don't go. Hold on. Hold on.”

That night, she sneaked into the emergency ward at nearby St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital a few blocks away where doctors were trying to save her brother. She had done the same thing three years earlier as doctors tried in vain to save her other brother, Trent, 19.

“Everyone always mentions that they died in the exact same way,” Ms. Zachary said. “But not everyone knows they died in the exact same emergency room.”

Jeffrey Zachary's death resonated beyond the neighborhood. In his office in Goshen, about 30 miles away, James Gagliano, an F.B.I. special agent who is head of the Hudson Valley gang task force, keeps a yellowed newspaper clipping of the teenager's death under his desktop glass.

Mr. Gagliano had coached youth basketball in Newburgh for years. Though he never coached Mr. Zachary, he remembered him from the courts playing for a youth team at St. Mary's Church.

“I can't tell you how many times I saw him there,” Mr. Gagliano recalled. “When he caught a bullet and he was the second kid in that family to die as a result of gang of violence — you talk about a mother's grief.”

Jeffrey Zachary's death came about the same time that Mr. Gagliano took over as agent in charge in the Hudson Valley region, armed with orders to build federal gang cases, starting in Newburgh. Over the next several months, the number of agents whose primary focus was gangs increased from 1 to 10. He also enlisted the aid of the local police, the State Police and other federal agencies to build a 30-member gang task force to go after the city's most hardened gangsters. But building federal cases takes time, and jail is only part of the solution, said Mr. Gagliano, a kinetic West Point graduate whose arms are covered with tattoos from years of undercover work.

For that reason, he has also taken an unusually active role in the community, lobbying city officials and business leaders to build an activity center where young people can learn job skills, play basketball or indoor soccer and find a safe place away from the street corners.

“Newburgh is hemorrhaging and we have to make a change,” he said. “And it can't just be on the law enforcement side.”

Others are also taking up that charge. A group of mothers who have lost children to violence recently formed an organization called Mothers for Upward Movement. They hope to raise money to pay for recreational activities for young people like bus trips to the Bronx Zoo.

“So many of these kids have never even been out of the community,” said Jennifer Murchison, 39, whose 16-year-old son James Murchison was stabbed to death in May 2008.

Reflecting recently on her lost son, who was the second oldest of her five children, Ms. Murchison started doing a silent roll call in her head.

“I'm almost 40, and all my friends are still alive,” she said finally. “My kids are young, and they've lost at least eight friends, and a brother.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12newburgh.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

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Pope Issues His Most Direct Words to Date on Abuse

LISBON — Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday issued his most forceful remarks on the sexual abuse crisis sweeping the Catholic Church. He called it “truly terrifying” and, in a marked shift in tone, suggested that its origins lay with abusive priests and with highly placed church officials who for decades concealed or minimized the problem.

The problem, he said, was “the sin inside the church,” and by implication not accusations from victims or the media.

“Forgiveness is not a substitute for justice,” he said, in remarks that underscored the Vatican 's recent if fitful efforts to break with a longstanding practice of handling abuse cases inside the church, rather than reporting abuse to civil authorities for prosecution.

Victims groups said they were still waiting for concrete action more than words, and the Vatican has not yet announced whether it will change its norms for handling abuse. But the pope's comments, made to reporters on board a plane at the start of a four-day visit to Portugal, were by far his strongest, after weeks in which top Vatican officials sought to minimize the issue, despite new revelations of abuse cropping up around the Catholic world.

“This is as clear an example of the pope changing the Vatican's public tone as you're going to see,” said John L. Allen Jr., a Vatican expert and columnist for the National Catholic Reporter .

Benedict, who has been criticized for not acting aggressively enough against allegations of abuse as archbishop of Munich and later as the head of a powerful Vatican office, said, “Attacks on the pope and the church come not only from outside the church, but the suffering of the church comes from inside the church, from sin that exists inside the church.”

His remarks were at once aimed inside the church — a warning to clerics that crimes would not be tolerated — and outside, indicating for the first time since the abuse crisis had swelled in Europe that he personally understood the depth of the problem. The issue has revealed an ancient institution wrestling with modernity and brought to light an internal culture clash between traditionalists who have valued protecting priests and bishops above all else, and others seeking more transparency.

Benedict's remarks on Tuesday were the latest in a series of responses by the Vatican to contend with the crisis.

In March, he issued a strong letter to Irish Catholics reeling from reports of systemic sexual abuse in Catholic institutions, but the letter emphasized forgiveness for the perpetrators as much as sympathy for the victims.

Benedict met privately with victims of sexual abuse on a brief trip to Malta last month, and last week the Vatican took control of the Legionaries of Christ , a powerful religious order whose founder was found to have abused seminarians and fathered several children.

But every step forward seemed to be undercut by other Vatican officials, who at turns blamed the media or perceived enemies of the church for the sexual abuse crisis. Most notable among these officials was Cardinal Angelo Sodano , a former Vatican secretary of state and dean of the College of Cardinals. On Easter, Cardinal Sodano dismissed criticism of the pope as “petty gossip,” words that offended many victims.

“The theory is that popes are insulated from understanding public perceptions of the church; it's their aides who have to correct” a problem, Mr. Allen said. “Here, it's the aides who have created the problem.”

Benedict's remarks on Tuesday appeared to show that the pope himself would now be dictating the message.

“Today we see in a really terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the church does not come from the enemies outside, but is born from the sin in the church,” the pope said.

“The church has a profound need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn on the one hand forgiveness but also the necessity of justice,” he added.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, characteristically played down the idea that the pope's remarks on sexual abuse represented a change in his thinking. “I would insist on the fact that the pope didn't change gears,” Father Lombardi said at a news conference late Tuesday.

He said that the pope had expressed his thoughts more deeply in his letter to Irish Catholics, but acknowledged that on Tuesday the pope expressed himself with more “density and clarity” than he had in recent days. The pope, he said, was “more clear and explicit in the way in which he lives and sees the spiritual meaning of this situation of the church with the scandal of pedophilia.”

The crisis has raised questions about how Benedict handled sexual abuse as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, and as archbishop in Munich in 1980 when a pedophile priest was moved to his diocese for treatment .

The pope landed in Lisbon on Tuesday to begin a trip aimed at underscoring several themes of his papacy: the threat posed by secularism in Europe, the tension between faith and reason, and the role of ethics in economics .

Markets are jittery about Portugal's prospects of bringing its debt and deficit under control. En route to Lisbon, Benedict told reporters that the financial crisis and the threat to the euro were opportunities to reintroduce a “moral dimension” to economics.

Benedict is also expected to emphasize the church's stance on social issues. A largely Catholic country, Portugal legalized abortion in 2007 and its Socialist majority Parliament approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage earlier this year, which the president of Portugal has not yet signed into law.

On Wednesday, the pope is expected to travel to the pilgrim shrine of Fátima on the 10th anniversary of the beatification of two of the three shepherd children who say they saw a vision of the Virgin Mary there in 1917. Pope John Paul II credited the Virgin of Fátima with saving him from an assassination attempt in 1981 on the anniversary of the apparition.

Tradition has it that the Virgin revealed three secrets to the children, which the Vatican acknowledged in 1930. The first was a vision of hell, which some interpreted to predict the end of World War I and the start of World War II. The second told of the rise and fall of communism and included an appeal for the conversion of Russia.

In 2000, Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, oversaw the Vatican's revelation of the famous third secret of Fátima , after years in which it had developed a feverish cult status for some Catholics.

Disclosing the secret in 2000 , Cardinal Sodano, then the Vatican secretary of state, said that the third vision was of a “bishop clothed in white,” the pope, who makes his way through a field of martyrs, which the Vatican interpreted as prefiguring the assassination attempt on John Paul by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish gunman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/world/europe/12pope.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Senators Demand Tighter Rules on No-Fly List and Addition to Terror Group List

WASHINGTON — After a briefing on the Times Square bombing attempt , the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee called Tuesday for improvements in the no-fly list and the addition of the Pakistani Taliban to the government's official list of terrorist organizations.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee's Democratic chairwoman, and Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the Republican vice chairman, said that the tightened requirements for airlines to check the no-fly list , imposed after the man accused of being the Times Square bomber was allowed to board a flight to Dubai, were still not adequate.

After the accused man, Faisal Shahzad , 30, a naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan, was taken from the plane and arrested, the Department of Homeland Security said Emirates airline had failed to check an updated no-fly list to which his name had been added earlier in the day. The department had ordered airlines to check the list within two hours of being told of an update.

But Mrs. Feinstein said that the delay should be reduced to 30 minutes, and that a plan for the Transportation Security Administration to take over the no-fly list checks from airlines should be accelerated.

Mrs. Feinstein said that Mr. Shahzad “was almost completely under the radar,” and as a person living legally in the United States appears to represent a new wave of homegrown terrorists.

“It's clear we're facing a new kind of attacker, who's already here, able to hide in plain sight, and we need to think about new defenses,” she said. “The no-fly list itself is one of our best lines of defense.”

Particularly after an attempted act of terrorism, Mr. Bond added, “This is not something that should be waiting on a list for people to review hours later.”

Both senators called for the State Department to add the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, to the government's list of designated terrorist organizations. The same demand was made separately by a group of senators led by Charles E. Schumer , Democrat of New York, in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton .

The list includes organizations believed to threaten the security of the United States or its citizens. The Pakistani Taliban have focused largely on the Pakistani government and military targets, but they have grown increasingly close to Al Qaeda and since last year have publicly threatened to attack the United States.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Sunday on NBC 's “Meet the Press” that the Pakistani Taliban “directed” the attempted Times Square attack on May 1, which involved an S.U.V. loaded with gasoline and propane.

Mr. Bond said that based on Tuesday's briefing, he thought the evidence was less definitive than Mr. Holder suggested. Mrs. Feinstein said she disagreed with Mr. Bond but would not elaborate, saying the evidence was classified.

A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said the department stood by Mr. Holder's characterization of the Pakistani Taliban's role in the attack.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/world/americas/12investigate.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Side by Side, but Divided Over Immigration

ALBUQUERQUE — As the Arizona Legislature steamed ahead with the most stringent immigration enforcement bill in the country this year, this state's House of Representatives was unanimously passing a resolution recognizing the economic benefits of illegal immigrants.

While the Arizona police will check driver's licenses and other documents to root out illegal immigrants, New Mexico allows illegal residents to obtain driver's licenses as a public safety measure.

And if Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, a Republican, has become, for now, the public face of tough immigration enforcement, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat, has told any interviewer who will listen about his effort to “to integrate immigrants that are here and make them part of society and protect the values of our Hispanic and multiethnic communities.”

They may sit side by side on the border, they may share historical ties to Mexico; they may have once even been part of the same territory, but Arizona and New Mexico have grown up like distant siblings.

People on all sides of the immigration debate have taken notice.

“If a burglar breaks into your home, do you serve him dinner? That is pretty much what they do there with illegals,” said State Representative John Kavanagh of Arizona, a Republican. Mr. Kavanagh is one of the staunchest supporters of the new law there, which will give the local police broad power to check the legal status of people they stop and suspect are in the country illegally.

But Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a liberal group in Washington that advocates reworking immigration law, offered New Mexico as a model of balancing a push for border security — Mr. Richardson once declared a state of emergency there — with coping with the illegal immigrants already in this country.

“Richardson has got it,” Mr. Sharry said.

Even supporters of Arizona's law here — and there are some — agree that such a measure would never pass in New Mexico, given the outcry among legislators and immigrant advocates that the police in Arizona might detain and question Latinos who are legal residents and citizens but are mistaken for illegal immigrants.

Why the difference?

First, New Mexico (population two million) has the highest percentage of Hispanics of any state — 45 percent, compared with 30 percent in Arizona (population 6.5 million), and they historically have commanded far more political power than their neighbors do. The New Mexico Legislature is 44 percent Hispanic, a contrast to the 16 percent in Arizona, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

Both were once part of Mexico and, later, the same United States territory. But since they became states in 1912, New Mexico has had five Hispanic governors (including Mr. Richardson, whose mother is Mexican), and Arizona has had one, according to the group.

New Mexico's legislators embrace the civil rights protections in the state's Constitution — including so-called unamendable provisions akin to a Bill of Rights that historically protected Spanish-speaking citizens of the former Mexican territory — and often mount a “protective stance” toward immigrants regardless of legal status, said Christine M. Sierra, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico .

“When the community at large feels threatened, folks close ranks and join in solidarity to protect the group,” Professor Sierra said, noting that Arizona Latinos have struggled to assume the same kind of a power in a state where a greater influx of Anglos (the general term for non-Hispanic whites) over the decades has diluted their strength.

The flow of drugs and illegal immigrants over the sparsely populated, remote border here, moreover, pales compared with that in Arizona, whose border, dotted with towns and roads facilitating trafficking, registers the highest number of drug seizures and arrests of illegal crossers of any state.

The estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona, whose population explosion of the past few decades has been a magnet for low-wage work, is more than eight times that of the estimated 55,000 here in Albuquerque, where the economy turns more on government, military and high-skill jobs.

Though concerns about immigration and the border arise, particularly in the southern “boot heel” of New Mexico, the burner setting is low.

“It's not that there isn't social tension between Hispanics and non-Hispanics,” said Jose Z. Garcia, a political scientist at New Mexico State University. “We just have learned to tolerate each other and get along.”

Illegal immigrants here agree. Where fear and anxiety pervade their communities in Arizona to the point that some do not venture outside or have left the state, here they live more openly and are less guarded.

“People give us food, a place to sleep,” said Samuel Duran, 35, a day laborer looking for work in a Santa Fe park. “The police bother us when they have a reason, like a fight, but in general they leave us alone.”

Marta Nebarez, who manages a grocery store in a heavily immigrant neighborhood in Albuquerque, said that newly arriving illegal immigrants had an easier time here and that word was spreading. Some customers have told her that a few families from Arizona have moved here.

“This government helps people a lot more than over there,” she said, noting several measures, including a state law enacted in 2005 that allows illegal immigrants to pay the same tuition rate as legal, in-state residents.

In an interview, Mr. Richardson promoted that measure as only fair to children who had no choice in being raised here, and said that other measures improved public health, like the Department of Health's cooperation in a health referral service run by the Mexican Consulate for Mexican citizens.

But New Mexico's patience could be tested, and some fear that the Arizona law will push more illegal immigrants into the state, though they typically go where the most jobs are found.

Steve Wilmeth, a cattle rancher near Las Cruces, 30 miles north of the border, said he had grown frustrated with finding illegal immigrants crossing his property and recalled a harrowing confrontation a couple of years ago with a group of 20 near a watering tank. “SB 1070,” Mr. Wilmeth said, referring to the Arizona law, which he supports, “is a desperate attempt by the people of Arizona to do something about the onslaught they face.”

Violence on the Mexican side of the border — one of the bloodiest cities, Ciudad Juárez, is an hour's drive from Las Cruces — has heightened anxiety. So, too, has the shooting death of a rancher in southern Arizona near the New Mexico border by someone the police theorize may have been connected to smuggling.

Mr. Richardson responded by sending 35 National Guard troops to the boot-heel area and repeating a call for more help from the federal government.

Border and immigration issues have spilled into political campaigns, but the issue has not topped residents' concerns, said Brian Sanderoff, a veteran pollster here.

One Republican running in her party's primary for governor this year, Susana Martinez, a southern New Mexico prosecutor, has filmed a commercial promoting border security and a promise to revoke the law granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and deny taxpayer-supported scholarships to illegal immigrants.

Last year, the mayor of Albuquerque, Richard J. Berry, won office after a campaign that included a vow to give the city police more discretion to check the immigration status of offenders. Five months into office, Mr. Berry has said he is still reviewing the policy.

Mr. Richardson, who believes that illegal immigrants should pay back taxes, learn English and take other steps as a condition of getting legal status, makes no apologies for seeking to integrate them, calling them a net plus for the state.

“I just have always felt that this is part of my heritage,” he said, noting his early years spent in Mexico City. “There is a decided positive in encouraging biculturalism and people working and living together instead of inciting tension. The worry I have about Arizona is it is going to spread. It arouses the nativist instinct in people.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/us/12newmexico.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Texas Officer Is Acquitted in Shooting

HOUSTON — A jury on Tuesday acquitted a white police officer accused of shooting a young black man in a case that attracted widespread attention in Texas because the victim's family accused the police of racial profiling.

A defense lawyer for the officer, Sgt. Jeffrey Cotton, a 39-year-old veteran in the Bellaire Police Department, had argued that the sergeant felt his life was in danger when he shot Robert Tolan, a 23-year-old waiter, in the driveway of the young man's family home. The jury agreed that the shooting was justified.

“We are very happy with the verdict,” said the defense lawyer, Paul Amman. “We believe we presented a good case, and Jeff was never guilty of these charges.”

Sergeant Cotton and another officer forced Mr. Tolan and his cousin to lie face down on the ground at gunpoint after the young men had gotten out of their car in front of Mr. Tolan's house. The officers mistakenly believed that the car had been stolen and that Mr. Tolan had a weapon. Mr. Tolan survived the shooting, though a bullet punctured his lung and lodged in his liver.

Mr. Tolan, the son of Bobby Tolan, a former Major League Baseball player, watched stone-faced as the verdict was read and then left the court with the rest of his family, declining requests to be interviewed.

Outside the courtroom, Sergeant Cotton said: “I'm glad it's over. I just want to go back to work.”

The Tolan family has also sued Sergeant Cotton, charging him with racial discrimination. That suit is pending.

The shooting created a storm of controversy last year, as black leaders and lawyers for the Tolan family said Sergeant Cotton's actions were part of a pattern of discrimination in Bellaire, an affluent town largely surrounded by Houston.

The Bellaire Police Department has been accused of stopping black and Hispanic motorists that pass through the city more often than it stops whites, an accusation the city strongly denies.

During closing arguments on Tuesday, the prosecutor, Clint Greenwood, argued that Sergeant Cotton had given three versions of the shooting, once saying he saw something shiny in Mr. Tolan's hand and then later retracting that statement.

“An unarmed kid was shot by the Bellaire police, and you know what? He wasn't doing anything illegal,” Mr. Greenwood told the jury. “It's a tragedy of errors, not a comedy of errors, a tragedy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/us/12houston.html?adxnnl=1&ref=us&adxnnlx=1273672801-TWxqJtuTZ57NQ5AAWqO0tA&pagewanted=print

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F.C.C. Weighs Plan to Warn of High Cellphone Bill

The Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday that it was seeking public comment on a plan that would require wireless phone companies to notify customers when they are running up unusually high charges for data usage, roaming or other uses beyond what is covered by regular monthly fees.

The initiative, outlined on Tuesday by Joel Gurin, chief of the F.C.C.'s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, is intended to help consumers avoid what the commission calls “bill shock.”

The commission has received hundreds of complaints from consumers about receiving bills with unexpected charges, sometimes amounting to hundreds of dollars, Mr. Gurin said in a statement , adding that the charges are often caused by misunderstandings of contract terms.

Wireless carriers in Europe are required by law to send text messages to consumers when they are running up roaming charges or getting close to a set limit for data usage, Mr. Gurin said.

“We're issuing a Public Notice to see if there's any reason that American carriers can't use similar automatic alerts to inform consumers when they are at risk of running up a high bill,” he said. “This is an avoidable problem. Avoiding bill shock is good for consumers and ultimately good business for wireless carriers as well.”

Details on the “Bill Shock” initiative and instructions on how to file a public comment can be found at www.fcc.gov .

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/technology/12fcc.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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2010 National Drug Control Strategy

Yesterday, President Obama unveiled the administration's 2010 National Drug Control Strategy (NDCS) . The Strategy is a plan, a "blueprint" for reducing illicit drug use and its harmful consequences in America, recognizing that an effective national strategy must incorporate aggressive prevention and recovery programs that stand alongside law enforcement efforts to disrupt and interdict the movement and sale of illicit drugs in our country and across our borders.

The 2010 NDCS is transformative in two important ways. First, although it continues to emphasize the need for strong enforcement efforts, especially along the Southwest Border, it takes a more comprehensive and balanced approach to the drug problem. In doing so, it emphasizes the imperatives of preventing drug use and addiction and making treatment available for those who seek recovery.

Second, this new Strategy was developed through collaboration among 30 federal agencies involved in drug control, as well as policy makers, subject matter experts, and citizens. The outcome of this process is a Strategy that is results-based; it lays out key strategic objectives and details the actions government must take to achieve the desired outcomes:

• Strengthening Efforts to Prevent Drug Use in Communities;
  
  
• Seeking Early Intervention Opportunities in Health Care;
  
  
• Integrating Treatment for Substance Use Disorders into Health Care, and Expanding Support for Recovery;
  
  
• Breaking the Cycle of Drug Use, Crime, Delinquency, and Incarceration;
  
  
• Disrupting Domestic Drug Trafficking and Production;
  
  
• Strengthening International Partnerships; and
  
  
• Improving Information Systems for Analysis, Assessment, and Local Management.
  

Good morning, it is a pleasure to join you today.  As you know better than anyone else, our Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces, are truly the front line fighters in the battle against child exploitation.  The Department of Justice has supported the ICAC task force program now for more than a decade and that investment remains a high priority.  The program has grown to 61 task forces in the last 12 years, with more than 3,000 agencies represented. 

Since the ICAC task force program began, more than 180,000 complaints of child exploitation have been investigated, more than 20,000 suspects have been arrested, and thousands of children have been rescued.  These numbers represent an enormous accomplishment, and on behalf of the Department of Justice, I thank you and congratulate you for all your hard work in protecting one of our Nation's most precious assets: our children.

As the trends show, we need to build on that progress because the exploitation of children in this country and around the world continues to grow.  As the front-line fighters, you confront that disturbing trend every day.  As we gather for this national conference, the Department of Justice is in the final stages of formulating the first-ever National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction.  We will be submitting this plan to Congress in the near future. 

This national strategy contains three key components:  first, a recent assessment of the threat that our children face from child exploitation; second, an overview of the multitude of state, federal, local, and non-profit organizations which are working to combat the problem of child exploitation; and third, an outline of some goals and proposed steps the Department will take, including  continued support of you, our ICAC partners, along with a strong emphasis on coordination with all of our state, local, federal, tribal, and international partners. 

I want to take the next few moments to briefly discuss the threats facing our children and, then outline the primary goal of the national strategy, coordination, and to discuss some of the Department's plans to help further our cooperative efforts.

The Threat

Crimes against children are particularly vile. The threat to our children is real and with the advent and increasing sophistication of the Internet, the threat is evolving as much as it is expanding.  It is not a surprise to anyone in this room that assessing the threat posed by child exploitation is difficult.  But in order to address the situation, we must try to better understand the dangers. 

For that reason, the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008 required the Department of Justice to conduct a threat assessment of the risks posed to children by child exploitation.  The National Drug Intelligence Center (“NDIC”) invested more than a year of its time and interviewed more than 100 child exploitation prosecutors, investigators, and experts in the field, and reviewed thousands of pages of documents from investigations, criminal cases, research studies, and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to compile the assessment. 

Research indicates that there has been a significant increase in the proliferation of child pornography, driven in large part by an enormous financial incentive for peddlers of these abhorrent images.  The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Child Victim Identification Program has seen a 432 percent increase in child pornography movies and files submitted for identification of the children depicted between 2005 and 2009.   It is estimated that more than 200 new images are circulated daily and the profit derived from these criminal acts could be as high as $20 billion annually. 

Like child pornography, the enticement of our children over the Internet is a serious threat.  Offenders are using networks of like-minded deviants to share strategies, lurk in chat rooms, social networking or gaming sites where children commonly gather.  One recent, tragic, example of such enticement happened in England.  Ashleigh Hall was 17-years-old when she died.  Ashleigh was in her final year of a child care course at a local college and was aiming for a career as a nursery nurse.

Ashleigh met someone she thought was a 19-year-old on a social networking site.  After “chatting” with him online, one night Ashleigh told her mother she was going to sleep at a friend's house.  Instead, she arranged a meeting with, who she thought, was a teenage boy.  Within hours of finally agreeing to meet in person, Ashleigh was kidnapped, raped, and murdered, allegedly by the 33-year-old man who was the actual  person she had connected with on the Internet.

Tragically, this is one of hundreds of heartbreaking stories.  The United Nations released a report in July 2009 estimating that there are approximately 750,000 sexual predators using the Internet to try to make contact with children for the purpose of sexually exploiting them.  Ashleigh's death underscores the dangers online enticers pose to our children and reminds us that we must work together to educate our children on the risks they face from those they meet on the Internet. 

Ensuring our children are aware of this hidden danger and know how to keep themselves safe is as crucial to our fight as is strong law enforcement efforts.  

This is but one of the dangers to our children.  Some also face the threat of being victimized by commercial sexual exploitation.  Runaways, throwaways, sexual assault victims, and neglected children can be recruited into a violent life of forced prostitution. 

The numbers are staggering.  Between 2004 through 2008, ICAC Task Forces saw a 914 percent increase in the number of child victims of prostitution complaints processed by their members.  The basis of this increase is unknown – making this more of a challenge to confront effectively.  It could be, in part, that more people are starting to register the complaints, but it also may represent and increasing trend in activity.  We know that some criminals have turned away from illicit activities such as drug dealing and robbery toward child sex trafficking because it's more profitable -- these traffickers can make up to several thousand dollars a day as a single child can generate as much as $1,000 on a weekend night. 

  Understanding all of these dangers, we must also keep in mind that it is not just our own children who are at risk.  The child sex tourism industry continues to thrive.  Child sex tourists prey on the most vulnerable children in the most impoverished areas of the world. 

Ultimately, whatever form of child exploitation we discuss, whether it is child pornography, the enticement of children by online predators, or the trafficking of children for sex trafficking – a central theme seems to emerge - child exploitation is a global problem that spans borders and requires a global response.  Coordination and marshalling all of our collective efforts will be necessary to attack these criminals and stop the devastation that they will otherwise wreak.

Next Steps

As we consider how to attack this problem going forward, we must continue to work together, and help lead others to join us in the fight.  Through leadership and coordination with our international allies, with our federal, state, local, and tribal partners, with NGOs, child advocacy centers, victim service providers, educators, and industry we will leave the criminals no place to hide.  Further, through coordination we can devise strategies to combat this war and rescue these victims.

The Department of Justice is committed to continuing to fight with you against the sexual exploitation of children on all fronts, including prevention, deterrence, and interdiction.  While law enforcement remains a very important strategy, we also recognize that we can not simply prosecute our way out of this problem.  On the law enforcement side, we must ensure that we have expertly trained investigators and prosecutors. 

However, the solution to child exploitation must include prevention through public awareness and education campaigns.  It must also include deterrence using tools like sex offender monitoring.  And, law enforcement must have the technological tools you need to investigate these crimes.  Let me share with you some of the activities that the Department is taking to help on each of these fronts.

A National Database

One of the key tools for this fight is the development of a national database.  Case deconfliction, information sharing, technological capability, and intelligence are critical components in staying one step ahead of those who would prey on our children.  The PROTECT Act requires the creation of national database that addresses these needs.  The Department is working closely with the ICACs and others to design and build an Internet Crimes Against Children Data System that will support our efforts and result in a smarter more effective response.  This system will provide meaningful deconfliction among federal, state, local, tribal, and even some international partners who investigate child exploitation.  It will also allow all of you to launch undercover operations, share information, and provide and access data that will give us all critical information to apprehend those who exploit the most vulnerable among us.  This system is in the early stages, but we are hard at work on it, and will launch it as soon as we can.  We recently reached out to all of the ICACs to solicit your input, and encourage you to continue to provide us with your observations, insights and recommendations as we develop a database that will aid you and our federal and international partners.  This is a significant and expensive undertaking but one that is necessary. 

The Expansion of the Innocence Lost Initiative

The Department is also exploring the expansion of the Innocence Lost Initiative into other cities.  As you know, the program targets child prostitution and has shown remarkable success.  Since 2003, these task forces and working groups have been responsible for recovering more than 900 children victimized by pimps, madams, and those who pay to sexually assault them.  More than 500 pimps, madams, and their associates have been prosecuted in state and federal court under this Initiative.  Some have received well deserved life sentences for their crimes.

The program already has 38 tasks forces throughout the country and we would like to expand that number and explore further coordination between ICAC task forces, both of which are staffed by largely local investigators with a wealth of experience in investigating crimes against children. 

National Sex Offender Registry

One of the Department's short-term goals is to have the U.S. Marshals Service stand up a fully operational National Sex Offender Tracking Center to better track and apprehend fugitive sex offenders.  The Center is already online and the Marshals are working to fully staff the Center with analysts and other professionals in the near future.

In conjunction with the Targeting Center, the Marshals will develop their behavioral analysis capabilities, to aid in developing research that will assist their tracking and apprehension missions.  Of course, the Marshals Service will continue to aggressively pursue and apprehend fugitive sex offenders and enforce all aspects of the sex offender registries in fulfillment of their Adam Walsh Act obligations.  In Fiscal Year 2009 alone, the Marshals arrested more than 10,000 fugitives wanted for failing to register and/or actual sex offenses, and conducted thousands of compliance checks.  The Marshalls intend to build on this record of success.

A National Coordinator

Finally, to help bring all of the pieces together and to further the coordination efforts, the Department has appointed Francey Hakes, the National Coordinator for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction.  She is an experienced federal prosecutor who previously worked closely with the ICAC in her home state of Georgia, has personally prosecuted numerous cases of child pornography and exploitation, and she is eager to work with you and our other partners to increase overall coordination of our efforts.  If you haven't had a chance yet, I encourage you to reach out to her.

OJP

Finally, in emphasizing coordination, I want to thank the dedicated professionals at the Office of Justice Programs, and the Office of Juvenile Justice Programs, in particular.  Mary Lou, thank you to you and your staff for their hard work and incredible dedication on this important issue.  Without ensuring that the much-needed funding and training is provided for the ICAC Task Forces, none of us would be here today.  

This is critically important work.  It is difficult work. What you are doing matters and I want to thank you all for the battle you fight every day on behalf of our children.  We must act together as a nation to protect our children, and children worldwide, and the ICAC program does just that by bringing thousands of federal, state, and local investigators and prosecutors together to share information, investigate cases, conduct training, and develop law enforcement technologies and techniques to interdict child exploitation.  By increasing our cooperation and coordination we will increase our ability to rescue victimized children, arrest those who abuse them, and, hopefully, prevent other children from ever facing the threat of sexual exploitation.

*       *       *       *       *

Now, it is my pleasure to introduce the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder.  The Attorney General regrets that he could not be here in person but I can assure you he, along with the rest of the Department leadership, is fully committed to the ICAC Task Force program, and to vigorously pursuing those who prey on our children.  He has prepared some remarks that we will see now via video.  Thank you.

http://www.justice.gov/dag/speeches/2010/dag-speech-100511.html

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A federal jury in Los Angeles convicted two men late yesterday on kidnapping charges for abducting a Van Nuys, Calif., man who was shot, shocked with a taser and held captive for five days while his kidnappers attempted to negotiate a $1 million ransom payment, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr . , for the Central District of California. The jury convicted the two men after approximately two days of deliberation.

Vagan Adzhemyan, 41, of Costa Mesa, Calif.; Suren Garibyan, 32, of North Hollywood, Calif.; and Galvin Shaun Gibson, 30, of Mira Loma, Calif., were charged in August 2009 with conspiracy to commit kidnapping and kidnapping.  In addition, Gibson was charged with manufacturing marijuana and being a felon in possession of ammunition. Adzhemyan and Gibson were found guilty yesterday of conspiring to commit kidnapping and kidnapping. Gibson was also found guilty of manufacturing marijuana at the house in Mira Loma where he was holding the victim at the time he was rescued. Adzhemyan and Gibson were initially tried in federal court in January 2010, but a mistrial was declared when the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

According to evidence presented during this two-week trial, Adzhemyan and Garibyan abducted the victim in the parking garage of the victim's mother's house in Van Nuys in the early morning hours of July 29, 2009. During the abduction, the victim was shot and shocked with a taser before he was forced into a waiting vehicle, while an associate of the victim's was violently assaulted by the kidnappers. In the process of abducting him, the victim was accidentally shot by his friend – a gunshot wound that caused extensive bleeding and ripped through the victim's intestines. According to the evidence presented at trial, the kidnapping victim was bound and forced to wear a blindfold as he was held at various locations in southern California during the next five days. During the time that the victim was held captive, the kidnappers directed him to use cellular telephones to make calls to family members and close associates in the Los Angeles area and in Russia in order to secure a $1 million ransom in exchange for the victim's safe release.

According to evidence presented at trial, the captors withheld necessary medical treatment for the victim's life-threatening gunshot wound. In addition, the kidnappers repeatedly beat the victim during the course of his captivity and focused their beatings on the victim's stomach area, which was most affected by his gunshot wound.

Adzhemyan, Garibyan and Gibson were taken into custody on Aug. 3, 2009, when the victim was rescued from Gibson's Mira Loma residence by a team of Los Angeles Police Department SWAT officers. The victim was found lying on an air mattress, unable to move on his own, while one of Gibson's pit bull dogs kept watch over him.  According to testimony at trial, officers were able to locate both the kidnappers and the place where the kidnappers were hiding the victim following an extensive undercover surveillance operation conducted by the LAPD. According to evidence presented at trial, the victim was hospitalized for more than one month after he was rescued and underwent three surgeries during his hospitalization.

Trial evidence also showed that Adzhemyan and Garibyan used the victim's ATM card to withdraw the maximum amount of cash from the victim's bank account on three separate occasions while he was being held in captivity.

At sentencing, scheduled for Aug. 2, 2010, Adzhemyan and Gibson each face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Garibyan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit kidnapping on Dec. 30, 2009. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 24, 2010.

The case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney Cristina Moreno of the Criminal Division's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, Chief Robert Dugdale of the Violent and Organized Crime Section in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California and Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada. The investigation was conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division and the FBI's Violent Crimes Squad.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/May/10-crm-555.html

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From ICE

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ICE rescues 3 children being held hostage by human smugglers

PHOENIX - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents Tuesday rescued three Salvadoran children being held by suspected human smugglers in the Phoenix area.

Authorities believe the children's Salvadoran parents, who live in Washington, D.C., paid $13,000 to have the children smuggled into the United States. After the children arrived in Phoenix in late April, the smugglers refused to release them unless the parents paid an additional $6,500. Once the additional fee was paid, the smugglers then demanded another $7,000. At that point, the parents became concerned for their children's welfare and alerted authorities.

"This is yet another example of the ruthlessness and greed of those involved in the human smuggling trade," said Matt Allen, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Arizona. "Parents who contract with human smugglers should remember they are delivering their children into the hands of criminals, criminals who are often all too willing to put a child's welfare at stake for their own personal gain."

After receiving the initial case information Monday, ICE investigators worked round-the-clock to locate the children. Tuesday morning, as a result of those efforts, the youths, ranging in age from 11 to 15, were left at a local business in west Phoenix. There, agents retrieved the children, who were frightened, but appeared to be in good health.

ICE is now coordinating with its Office of Investigations and the Salvadoran Embassy in Washington, D.C., to reunite the children with their parents. The investigation into the smuggling scheme is continuing. ICE officials advise that because of the ongoing nature of the case, no further details can be released at this time.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1005/100511phoenix.htm

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Jacksonville man found guilty of attempted online sexual enticement of a minor, attempted production of child pornography

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - David Marshall Deal, 24, of Jacksonville, was found guilty of using the Internet to attempt to entice a minor child to engage in illegal sexual activity and of attempting to produce images of child pornography, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, and the child predator cyber crime unit of the Florida Attorney General's Office.

Deal faces up to life in federal prison for the attempted enticement charge and up to 30 years in prison for the attempted production charge. His sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Deal has been in custody since his arrest in September 2008.

According to court testimony and evidence introduced during trial, from Aug. 28, 2008, through Sept. 11, 2008, Deal engaged in several online conversations using the Internet with a person whom he believed to be a 13-year-old child.

Unbeknownst to Deal, this "child" was actually a detective with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. During the course of the online conversations, Deal attempted to entice and persuade the "child" to engage in sex with him, and he also stated that he wished to take pornographic pictures of the "child."

On Sept. 11, 2008, Deal arranged to meet the "child" at a restaurant in Jacksonville for the purpose of engaging in sex. As Deal approached the meeting place in his vehicle, he was arrested by investigators with the child predator cyber crime unit of the Florida Attorney General's office and Jacksonville sheriff's officers.

A search of Deal's vehicle revealed that he had brought five condoms, two pairs of thong underwear, and a digital camera in a backpack for use during the planned meeting with the "child."

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U. S. Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

The investigation that led to this case was part of Operation Predator, a nationwide ICE initiative to identify, investigate and arrest those who prey on children, including human traffickers, international sex tourists, Internet pornographers, and foreign-national predators whose crimes make them deportable. Launched in July 2003, ICE agents have arrested more than 12,800 individuals through Operation Predator. ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-347-2423. This hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators. Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at 1-800-843-5678 or http://www.cybertipline.com .

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1005/100510jacksonville.htm

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Washingtonian charged in ICE probe for having sex with minors in Cambodia

SEATTLE - A 59-year-old Washington man is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court here Monday to face charges stemming from an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into allegations he engaged in illicit sexual conduct with underage girls in Cambodia.

Craig Thomas Carr, of Kent, Wash., was accompanied by ICE agents on May 7 as he boarded a plane in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the return flight to the United States. The charges against Carr are detailed in a five-count criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

According to affidavit in the case, the investigation into Carr's activities began in December 2009 when the Cambodian National Police (CNP), acting on information from the French National Police (FNP), learned that a taxi driver in Phnom Penh, identified as S.M., had advertised on the Internet that he could procure minors for the purpose of child prostitution. Carr responded to one of S.M.'s advertisements in November 2009 and they subsequently exchanged approximately 20 e-mail messages.

In the e-mails, Carr and S.M. discussed Carr's desire to have sex with juvenile females around 12 years of age. S.M. told Carr that he could arrange for the age and appearance of girls Carr described.

Court documents describe how Carr traveled to Cambodia via San Francisco International Airport and Taipei, Taiwan, on January 13. The next day, S.M. met Carr at his hotel and transported him to a local guest house where he met an adult female who appeared to be managing the brothel.

ICE's investigation revealed that, for the next seven days, Carr had sex multiple times with three different female juveniles. All fees were pre-negotiated prior to his departure from the United States.

According to the affidavit, Carr told ICE agents that he paid S.M. $3,000 when he arrived in Cambodia and had made two additional payments of $3,000 and $1,800 to the adult female who operated the brothel. Carr also admitted to paying each young girl $20 for allowing him to take sexually explicit photographs of them.

The CNP arrested Carr on January 22. He remained in the custody of Cambodian authorities until he was removed from that country and escorted back to the United States by ICE. S.M. was also arrested by the CNP in January and he remains in Cambodia.

"Pedophiles who believe they can escape the detection of law enforcement and travel overseas to commit heinous crimes against children should take note," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of ICE's Office of Investigations. "ICE and its law enforcement partners around the globe will pursue those who subject children to this type of crime and bring them to justice."

The probe into Carr's activities was conducted by ICE's Office of Investigations in Seattle, ICE's Office of International Affairs that oversees the agency's Attaché Office in Bangkok, the CNP Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection offices and the FNP.

Carr is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington under the PROTECT Act. The PROTECT Act, which went into effect seven years ago, substantially strengthened federal laws against predatory crimes involving children outside the United States by adding new crimes and increasing the penalties for these charges.

This investigation is part of Operation Predator, an ongoing ICE initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers. ICE encourages the public to reporter suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-347-2423. This hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1005/100510seattle.htm

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From the FBI

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Phony Phone Calls Distract Consumers from Genuine Theft — FBI & Partners Warn Public

NEWARK, NJ—Have you recently received a large number of strange and unexplained calls on your mobile or landline telephones? The FBI is warning consumers about a new scheme that uses telecommunications denial-of-service attacks as a diversion to what is really happening: the looting of bank and online trading accounts!

The Scheme

The scheme is known as telephony denial-of–service (TDOS) and according to several telecommunications companies working with the FBI, there has been a recent surge of these attacks in the past few weeks. The perpetrators are suspected of using automated dialing programs and multiple accounts to overwhelm the land and cell phone lines of their victims with thousands of calls. When the calls are answered, the victim may hear anything from dead air (nothing on the other end), an innocuous recorded message, an advertisement, or even a telephone sex menu! The calls are typically short in duration but so numerous that victims have had to have their numbers changed to make the calls stop.

The FBI has determined that these calls serve as a diversionary technique. During these TDOS attacks, online trading and other money management accounts are being accessed by the perpetrators who are transferring funds out of those accounts. The perpetrators will obtain account information of their victims in some way and then contact the financial institutions to change their victims' profile information such as email addresses, telephone numbers and bank account numbers. The purpose of the malicious phone calls is to occupy the victim phone numbers on record with the financial institutions managing the accounts so that when the institutions contact the victim to verify the changes and transactions, the institution is unable to reach the victim. Consequently, the victim has no idea what has really transpired until it's too late.

What Is Being Done About It?

The FBI first learned of this scheme through one of its partnerships with private industry. In November of 2009, a semi-retired dentist in St. Augustine lost as much as $400,000 from his retirement account through telephony DOS. (See the article at http://staugustine.com/node/5477 .) Law enforcement discovered VOIP (Voice over Internet Provider) accounts created by a single user that paired the accounts with automatic dialing tools to dial a large volume of computer-generated calls per minute, all directed toward the business, home, and mobile telephone numbers of the victim dentist. Those VOIP accounts were terminated, but the perpetrators of the scheme were never identified. AT&T, which has a strong working relationship with the FBI, enlisted the help of FBI Newark's Cybercrime squad.

“Following that first incident in November 2009, we've recently seen an increase in this activity targeting our customers across the country,” said Adam Panagia, Associate Director of Global Fraud Management for AT&T.”

Last month, the Communication Fraud Control Association (CFCA) invited the FBI to become its official law enforcement liaison. Headquartered in Roseland, New Jersey, the idea of the CFCA was conceived in February of 1985 when a group of communications security professionals from AT&T, ITT, MCI, Network One, SBS, and Sprint met to establish a cooperative effort to combat the growing problem of communications fraud. CFCA has since expanded its membership to include all areas of communication providers (such as AT&T, PAETEC, and Verizon to name a few) and end users and even includes members of law enforcement. The FBI and CFCA are now working together to analyze the patterns and trends of TDOS to prevent attacks, educate the public, and ultimately identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice. “The cooperation between PAETEC and the FBI has been tremendous,” said Robert Moore, CIO at PAETEC, a business communications firm headquartered in Fairpoint, New York. “It's only with a true partnership between service providers and law enforcement that we can make a real impact in protecting businesses and private citizens from the growing criminal threats we've been seeing over the past years. It's also the reason that for more than ten years, we've employed a highly-trained team of voice security professionals to identify and stop these attacks in progress while working with law enforcement to protect customers.”

Victims don't immediately think to contact law enforcement because to them, the numerous phone calls appear to be a technical issue with the telephone carrier and not a criminal threat. “With the advent of Voice over IP and the newest technologies in phone service, criminal attacks on businesses using those platforms have become increasingly sophisticated,” said Moore. One trend that the FBI sees with the malicious phone calls is that when they are answered, many of the victims report hearing a recorded advertisement for an American car company with an announcer having an Asian accent. The other prominent trend is hearing a telephone sex “menu” when answering one of these calls.

How To Protect Yourself

Protection from TDOS attacks requires consumers to be proactive. “Although unsolicited telephone calls are not always representative of fraud, the FBI believes it is important to advise the public of this scheme,” said Michael B. Ward, Special Agent In Charge of the FBI's Newark division. “Consumers should continue to emphasize strong security procedures for all financial accounts, including placing fraud alerts on all of their financial accounts and with the major credit bureaus if they believe they may have been targeted by a TDOS attack or other form of fraud.” Passwords for online and telephonic banking should be changed regularly and frequently. People should obtain their credit report annually and review it for fraudulent activity.

Adam Panagia of AT&T offered this advice: “We urge anyone who suspects they may be the target of a TDOS attack to immediately contact their telephone provider after notifying their financial institutions.”

This notification should include online trading brokers with whom the victim may have an account. In one recent case, the victim acted early and alerted her financial institutions and was able to successfully thwart an attempt to have money stolen from her accounts. The incident should also be promptly reported to the FBI through www.ic3.gov , the FBI's online cybercrime complaint center. (The FBI does not necessarily respond to individual complaints registered on ic3.gov. Rather, the information is used to look for trends and patterns. Once those patterns are identified, the victims may be contacted for further information.)

http://newark.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/nk051110.htm

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