Suspect in 2005 Holloway case sought in Peru slaying

Officials say Joran van der Sloot was seen with the Peruvian victim before her body was found. He was never charged in the earlier disappearance of the American teen in Aruba.

The Associated Press

June 3, 2010

LIMA, Peru

Police in neighboring Chile are checking hotels for a young Dutchman long suspected in the 2005 disappearance of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway who is now being sought in the killing of a woman in Peru.

After Peruvian officials announced Wednesday that Joran van der Sloot is the prime suspect in the death of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in a Lima hotel, Chilean police confirmed he had entered their country two days earlier.

Chilean Police Inspector Douglas Rodriguez in Arica told The Associated Press there was no record of van der Sloot leaving Chile and authorities were searching the country's dry, sparsely populated northern provinces for him.

In Lima, police Gen. Cesar Guardia said at a news conference that the slain woman was found Wednesday in a room at a hotel where van der Sloot had been staying and that she had been seen with the suspect early Sunday, when she was killed.

The killing occurred exactly five years after the May 30, 2005, disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway during a high school trip in Aruba, a Dutch Caribbean island where van der Sloot's late father was a prominent judge.

Prosecutors said van der Sloot is still their main suspect in the case even though he was never charged.

The Dutch government said Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for van der Sloot in the Peru killing. But Rodriguez, the Chilean police official, said authorities there had received only a request to locate the suspect, not an arrest warrant.

Guardia, the Peruvian police general, said the 22-year-old Dutchman was in Peru for a poker tournament and appears with the dead woman in a video taken at a Lima casino early Sunday. The two were later seen entering the hotel by one of its employees about 5 a.m. and the Dutchman departed alone about four hours later, he said.

"We have an interview with a worker at the hotel who says she saw this foreigner with the victim enter his room," said Guardia.

The woman's body was found face down on the hotel room floor Wednesday, abrasions on her face and body, and signs of trauma, Guardia said. He said she was clothed.

Asked if she had been asphyxiated, Guardia said he was waiting for autopsy results on the cause of death.

The victim's father, Ricardo Flores, 48, is a former president of the Peruvian Automobile Club who won the "Caminos del Inca" rally in 1991 and brings circuses and foreign entertainers to Peru. He ran for vice president in 2001 and for president five years later on fringe tickets.

A lawyer for van der Sloot in New York, Joe Tacopina, said he did not know his client's whereabouts and had not been in touch with him since the Peru allegations emerged.

Tacopina cautioned against a rush to judgment.

"Joran van der Sloot has been falsely accused of murder once before. The fact is he wears a bull's-eye on his back now and he is a quote-unquote usual suspect when it comes to allegations of foul play," Tacopina said.

Van der Sloot was twice arrested but later released for lack of evidence in the 2005 disappearance of Holloway in Aruba.

No trace of her has been found and van der Sloot remains the main suspect in the case, Ann Angela, spokeswoman for the Aruba prosecutor's office, said Wednesday.

"What's happening now is incredible," she said. "At this moment we don't have anything to do with it, but we are following the case with great interest and if Peruvian authorities would need us, we are here."

The mystery of Holloway's disappearance garnered wide attention on television and in newspapers in Europe and the United States.

Two years ago, a Dutch television crime reporter captured hidden-camera footage of van der Sloot saying he was with Holloway when she collapsed on a beach from being drunk. He said he believed she was dead and asked a friend to dump her body in the sea.

Judges subsequently refused to arrest van der Sloot on the basis of the tape.

A spokeswoman for Holloway's mother, Beth Twitty of Mountain Brook, Alabama, told the AP the family was aware of the development in Peru but would have no comment.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-peru-holloway-20100604,0,5904151,print.story

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U.S. proposes tougher passenger-rights rules for airlines

Among the changes sought by the Obama administration are the clear disclosure of fees, higher compensation for passengers bumped from overbooked flights and locked fare prices after purchase.

By Hugo Martín, Los Angeles Times

June 3, 2010

Airline passengers would be able to cancel new reservations within 24 hours without penalty and collect up to $1,300 in compensation for being bumped from an overbooked flight under rules proposed Wednesday by the Obama administration.

Under the proposal, airlines also could not increase fare prices after a ticket is purchased and would be required to clearly disclose information to passengers about baggage fees, flight status changes and passenger bumping rules.

Unveiled as Americans get ready for the busy summer travel season, the proposed rules come only six months after the administration adopted hefty new fines against airlines that strand passengers on delayed flights.

"Airline passengers have rights and should be able to expect fair and reasonable treatment when they fly," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who added that he hopes to put the rules in effect by this fall after a 60-day public-comment period.

The proposed rules were applauded by passenger rights groups and criticized by airline industry experts.

"This is incredible news," said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, a nonprofit passenger rights group. She said her group has been advocating all of these proposed rules to the administration.

The new rules could help the airlines by eliminating some of the headaches that discourage people from flying, other experts said.

"A lot of people don't fly, saying it's too frustrating, customer service is terrible," said Anne Banas, executive editor of SmarterTravel.com, an online resources guide for travelers. "A lot of these changes bode well for consumers and airlines."

For example, she said the proposed rule to require airlines to advertise the full fare, including all fees and taxes, would make it easier for passengers to shop for the best price.

The Air Transport Assn. of America, a trade group that represents the nation's largest airlines, issued a statement saying only that it would evaluate the proposed rules. But some industry experts said the latest rules would make little difference in the way airlines operate.

Bob McAdoo, an airline expert and senior research analyst for Avondale Partners, a Nashville-based investment bank, said the increased compensation for passengers who are denied a seat won't make a big difference because most bumped passengers give up their seats voluntarily.

"That is one of those things that makes politicians feel like they've done something," he said of the proposed rule.

The proposal to increase compensation for bumped passengers comes as slumping travel demand has prompted airlines to cut back on flights and fill planes to near capacity.

Federal law allows airlines to oversell a flight to compensate for passengers who don't show up. But if an airline overbooks a flight and must deny a paying passenger a seat, the airline is currently required to compensate each flyer up to $800, depending on how long the passenger is delayed getting on the next flight.

Under the rules proposed Wednesday, the compensation amount would increase the limit to $1,300 and rise every two years to reflect inflation. The changes would also require that airlines compensate bumped passengers traveling on tickets issued through a frequent flyer reward program.

Although many airlines already allow passengers to cancel a reservation within 24 hours without penalty, the proposed changes would extend the penalty-free rule to all airlines.

The new rules come six months after the Department of Transportation adopted fines against airlines that strand passengers on airport tarmacs more than three hours. The fines of up to $27,500 per passenger took effect in April.

McAdoo, the airline analyst, said such fines could deal a financial blow to a struggling industry.

"The tarmac rule is off the charts in being unreasonable," he said.

But Hanni said airline executives need to worry about the rights of passengers over their profit margins.

"We should not be concerned about them being profitable or not profitable," she said. "Ultimately, we are the biggest stakeholder in the [airline] companies."

The federal agency is also considering how to accommodate airline passengers with peanut allergies. It asked for public comments on several options, including whether to ban peanuts from flights with passengers requesting a "peanut-free" flight in advance.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airline-rules-20100603,0,6928604,print.story

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Scandal at San Francisco police lab may unravel hundreds of cases

After criminologist admits stealing drugs, officials discover a past conviction that should have been disclosed before she testified at trials. The D.A., an attorney general candidate, scrambles to change policy and review old cases.

By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times

June 3, 2010

Reporting from San Francisco

A scandal that has shaken San Francisco's criminal justice system and rocked the race for state attorney general began with a criminalist who allegedly stole drugs from a police laboratory.

Investigators said Deborah Madden, a longtime Police Department criminalist who testified for the prosecution in scores of cases, told them she skimmed cocaine from the lab to help her quit drinking. She also implicated other analysts in sloppy investigative work.

But the revelation that reverberated most was about Madden's past: She had been convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence in 2008, a fact known to her supervisor but never revealed to prosecutors or defense lawyers when she testified.

Under Brady vs. Maryland, a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, prosecutors are required to disclose evidence helpful to the defense if it would likely change the outcome of a case. Madden's alleged thievery has sparked revelations that Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris, who is running for state attorney general, and her predecessors failed to seek and disclose potentially incriminating information about law enforcement witnesses.

"It was kind of a like a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," said Jeff Adachi, the elected head of the Public Defender's office. "The police weren't telling and the district attorney wasn't asking."

Madden's admissions have prompted Harris to dismiss 700 pending drug cases and the police to shut down the drug lab. They also have sparked an ongoing background review of law enforcement personnel who may have testified for the prosecution.

Once the review is complete, prosecutors and defense lawyers will have to comb through a multitude of cases in which witnesses with undisclosed misconduct testified. Although felons are barred by law from being uniformed police officers, some officers could have misdemeanor convictions.

Adachi said that more than 100 police employees may have a history of misconduct that should have been disclosed and that "hundreds, if not thousands" of criminal cases were likely to have been affected.

Harris' opponents in the race for the Democratic nomination for attorney general have used the scandal to pummel her record. Former Facebook Inc. executive Chris Kelly has accused Harris of "extraordinary malfeasance," and former Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo also has blamed her for the problems.

Her defenders say she inherited a dysfunctional office and moved quickly to make changes once she learned that law enforcement witnesses had backgrounds that required disclosure.

"You have a duty to turn over evidence that is exculpatory that is in your possession, but you don't have a duty to find it," said UC Hastings Law Professor Rory Little, a former federal prosecutor. But he added, "It is stupid not to ask" potential witnesses for such information.

He estimated that 90% of prosecutor's offices in the U.S. have no system for determining whether law enforcement witnesses have records that should be disclosed, although Los Angeles has had such a policy in place for years.

"Until a case blows up, you tend not to do it because police unions resist it," Little said. "The D.A.'s office would assume the cops aren't using a chemist who steals drugs and has a conviction. But you cannot depend on people to disclose this kind of embarrassing information voluntarily. You are going to have to put a system in place that discovers it."

Harris established a 13-page internal policy on April 13, but that has not spared her from criticism.

San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo lectured Harris' office in a ruling last month to be "more mindful" of due process.

A spokeswoman for Harris said she hopes to refile the drug cases that were dismissed, after the evidence is tested by outside laboratories. But Golden Gate University Law Professor Peter Keane predicted that "many cases are going to be fatally defective and are going to wind up being dumped."

"Ninety-nine percent of them will be cheap dope cases," said Keane, a former San Francisco public defender. "I doubt you will see anyone walking off death row as a result of this."

He said the revelations have highlighted the "stumblebum nature of the criminal justice system in San Francisco," which he contrasted to what he viewed as more professional law enforcement in Los Angeles and New York.

"You can't lay this entirely on Harris' doorstep," Keane said. "It surfaced on her watch, but it has been endemic for a long time."

Police Chief George Gascon, who was hired from the Los Angeles Police Department, has said he noticed the absence of a system for learning about so-called Brady material not long after he took over the department. He said he discussed it with the D.A.'s office in September.

Prosecutors said they were prepared to address the problem before Madden's alleged theft was uncovered.

Hastings Law Professor David Faigman, who specializes in forensic science, said Madden's case did not surprise him. He recalled taking a class to the drug lab several years ago and seeing open garbage bags of what appeared to be marijuana laying on the floor.

"Courts need to be more attentive to what is going on in laboratories," Faigman said. "The courts have been trusting them, and there is good reason to mistrust."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/la-me-sfpd-20100603,0,2940029,print.story

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Cartels smuggle U.S. drug money back to Mexico in cash, study finds

A new U.S.-Mexico government study estimates that $19 billion to $29 billion is shipped south, then laundered through cash purchases of land, luxury hotels, cars and other high-end items.

By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

June 3, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City

More than half of the "breathtaking" sums of money earned by Mexican drug cartels in the U.S. and smuggled into this country dissolves into Mexico's cash-based economy, eluding detection and funding vast criminal operations, according to a new U.S.-Mexican government study released Wednesday.

The study, described by a senior U.S. official as the first of its kind, attempts to explore the ways illicit drug-trafficking profits make their way from the United States to Mexico or Colombia and how to stem the tide.

It estimates the money shipped south at $19 billion to $29 billion.

The failure or inability of the Mexican government to pierce intricate money-laundering operations is often cited as one of the major flaws in an offensive against cartels that was launched by President Felipe Calderon when he took office in December 2006. The fight has claimed more than 22,700 lives.

John Morton, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant secretary, discussed some of the new report's findings at a small news conference in Mexico City. A tape recording of the conference was later released by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. The full report was not released because it contained what U.S. officials said was secret information.

Morton acknowledged that the U.S. and Mexican governments have not done enough to slow the money flow.

"Simply arresting people won't be a full solution," Morton said. "We have to completely undermine the organizations as businesses, and to do this we have to identify, seize and forfeit their profits."

The cash is brought into Mexico both in amounts small enough for an individual to carry and in amounts large enough to fill shipping containers. Revenue from local dealing operations across the U.S. is first consolidated in cities that serve as "collection points," including Los Angeles, then moved to the border and broken up again for the cross-border leg of the transport.

In Mexico, where 75% of the formal and informal economy works through cash transactions, cartel bosses can launder their profits with all-cash purchases of large tracts of land, luxury hotels, cars, car dealerships and an endless array of high-end items.

For this reason, tackling the problem must include restrictions on the way cash is used in large transactions, including notarized certifications of the money and its origin that would be filed with the Mexican Treasury department, said U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual, who joined Morton at the conference.

The Mexican government has taken occasional stabs at requiring better accounting of large all-cash purchases, but most of those efforts have foundered.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-cash-20100603,0,4004790,print.story

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The Mississippi Delta's healthcare blues

Anne Brooks, a nun and a physician, has struggled for years to treat the poor at a run-down clinic in Tutwiler. The nation's new healthcare law could help – but her state is fighting it.

By Noam N. Levey, Tribune Washington Bureau

June 2, 2010

Reporting from Tutwiler, Miss.

This crumbling Delta town, set amid cotton fields, abandoned railroad tracks and cypress-studded bayous, is a hard place.

So hard that the plaintive sound of a local musician drawing a knife blade across the strings of his guitar gave birth to the blues here a century ago. So hard that a Roman Catholic nun named Anne Brooks has struggled for the last 27 years to keep a medical clinic open for the poor.

"It's a pretty hand-to-mouth existence," said Brooks, 71, a physician with a wry sensibility and a profane streak. Brooks earned a medical degree at age 44 before coming to the Mississippi Delta to open the Tutwiler Clinic with the blessing of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.

She sees the nation's new healthcare law as a potentially happy turn in a long, hard journey. The measure provides hundreds of billions of dollars to help states expand medical insurance for the poor and pay doctors like Brooks, nearly half of whose patients have no coverage.

But there's a good chance this story will end with another difficult twist in the road for Brooks and for Tutwiler.

Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the nation and some of the sickest people, with the country's highest rate of heart disease and the second-highest rate of diabetes.

For every dollar the state spends to expand healthcare for the poor, it stands to get as much as $20 from Washington. But state officials have been making it harder, not easier, to enroll in government-backed healthcare programs.

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour campaigned on a promise to cut the healthcare safety net to balance the state budget. Shortly afterward, Mississippi began requiring Medicaid recipients to submit to in-person interviews once a year, making it the only state with such sweeping a rule. In Tutwiler, the closest registration office is in nearby Sumner. It's open one day a week, on Tuesdays, from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., as well as the third Wednesday of month.

Barbour, who said recently that the healthcare overhaul "would prove disastrous" for Mississippi, has joined a lawsuit filed by GOP officials in several states seeking to overturn the law. For the little clinic near the banks of Hobson Bayou, that could mean more challenging days ahead.

Built before desegregation, the Tutwiler Clinic had separate waiting rooms for black and white patients when Brooks took it over in 1983. Many still remember the September day in 1955 when an all-white jury at the county courthouse in Sumner acquitted two white men for killing a 14-year-old black boy named Emmett Till and dumping his body in the nearby Tallahatchie River because he whistled at a white woman.

Brooks was fresh out of osteopathic school when she got here. She had sent letters offering her medical services to mayors up and down the Mississippi Delta. Tutwiler was the only place that answered.

"Catholics are terrible about quoting things," she said. "But there is a place in the gospel of Matthew where it says something like, 'Freely you have received, freely give.'"

For herself, Brooks said, "I have received so much."

It wasn't always clear that would be true.

The only child of a Navy captain and an alcoholic mother, Brooks didn't have much of a family life growing up in the 1940s in Washington, D.C. When she was in sixth grade, her parents divorced and her father sent her to a Catholic boarding school in Key West, Fla.

In her teens, Brooks was stricken with rheumatoid arthritis and confined to a wheelchair. Protected by the sisters who taught at the school, Brooks decided she too would become a nun.

Then, in 1972, Brooks met a doctor at a free clinic in Clearwater, Fla., who changed her life, treating her with a mix of acupuncture, dietary changes and psychotherapy. Within six months, Brooks was walking again.

Six years later, Brooks once more heeded her doctor's advice. With permission from her Catholic order, she enrolled at Michigan State University's College of Osteopathic Medicine. "I never thought I would be a doctor," she said. "I couldn't even pass chemistry."

But become a doctor she did, and she soon found herself with the keys to a dilapidated one-story brick building just off Tutwiler's derelict main street.

"I didn't tell them I was a nun," Brooks said with a chuckle.

Today, Brooks' patients sit together in a single waiting room. They come in search of relief from unexplained aches and pains, prescription drugs they can afford, an X-ray they think they need. The clinic has a staff of 32, including four more nuns and a physician from Nepal who has been here three years.

Brooks and her team see all who come. On a recent morning, she quizzed a young woman with pain in her wrist about her smoking habits after smelling smoke on her patient's breath. "When are you going to quit? Let's pick a day," Brooks commanded firmly.

She helped another woman navigate a garbled notification from her Medicare prescription drug provider. On a house call across the bayou, Brooks visited 82-year-old Johnnie Lane, bedridden after suffering a stroke. Brooks held his hand and gently reminded his wife to make sure she was getting enough rest too.

"When you take care of the person, you take care of the family," Brooks explained after giving Lane's wife a long hug and admiring her roses before heading back to the clinic in her aging white Toyota.

Sometimes, Brooks is able to find a hospital to provide charity care to people like David Kitchens, a 61-year-old farmer who has never had health insurance. Kitchens needed surgery to have a lunch-plate sized tumor removed from his chest.

"I was up a creek without a paddle, and drifting away pretty fast," Kitchens said. "They saved me."

Brooks and her team wish they could do more. But they are up against relentless math.

When they see a patient with private insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi, the clinic can collect $44.80. For an elderly patient with Medicare, the clinic can bill $61.47.

Medicaid, which in some states pays so little that many doctors have stopped taking poor patients, has higher reimbursements in Mississippi, in part because so many providers rely on it. The program pays $121 for a routine office visit, and $124.01 if the patient is under 18.

Brooks' problem is that 4 in 10 of her patients have no insurance at all. The clinic bills them $15 for an office visit but many never pay.

"When someone brings me a basket of squash, I'm happy," Brooks said.

In 2008, Brooks collected $552,572 for delivering medical care, barely a quarter of the clinic's expenses, according to tax records. Most of the difference had to come from grants and donations.

Even then, there isn't enough money to fix the crack in the ceiling above the X-ray machine or wax the linoleum very often, or upgrade the clinic's aging computer system. The clinic has 24 computers, and seven don't have enough memory to run an electronic records system Brooks wants to install.

"I'm hoping for a little help from Uncle Gates for that one," Brooks joked, plotting the pitch she imagines making to Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

More heartbreaking are the no's that Brooks sometimes has to say to patients. When a woman came to the clinic complaining about pain in her left arm and shoulder, the best Brooks could do was recommend rest. A neurological test might have ruled out something serious, but the woman didn't have insurance — nor the $800 — to pay for the specialized exam.

"There are so many people who need to get help, who go through life in pain because they can't get the tests they need," Brooks noted sadly.

Some of these patients are probably eligible for Medicaid, but they have not enrolled — a fact that many advocates say reflects in no small part the extra hurdles the state has erected.

Mississippi is one of eight states that cut its Medicaid rolls between 2004 and 2008, according to enrollment data analyzed for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. In the same period, the number of Mississippi children living in poverty increased.

Enrollment in Medicaid has begun creeping back up more recently. But the governor has said Mississippi cannot afford to insure any more people, even with the extra help from Washington.

"This new law will ultimately force the state to raise taxes, as hundreds of thousands of new people will be added to our Medicaid rolls," Barbour said.

Mississippi will have to find about $429 million over the next decade , a nearly 5% increase in Medicaid spending, according to an estimate by the Urban Institute, a left-leaning Washington-based think tank. But the federal government has agreed to kick in an estimated $9.9 billion over the same period to help Mississippi, enough to allow the state to cut in half the number of poor adults without insurance.

At the Tutwiler Clinic, Brooks said she's doubtful the state's leaders will take advantage of the federal help. "I just know I have to see my patients," Brooks said, as she reminisced about those she has treated, including the town's former physician who rode through the bayous to see patients with a rifle on his saddle to fend off panthers. "It would be nice if someone could figure out a way to pay us for doing it."

http://www.latimes.com/news/health/healthcare/la-na-mississippi-20100603,0,4387710,print.story

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Authorities missed many chances to re-imprison sex offender and save Chelsea King and Amber Dubois

Authorities missed dozens of parole violations that would have sent registered sex offender John Albert Gardner III back to prison and kept him from raping and murdering two teenage girls in northern San Diego County, according to a report released Wednesday by the inspector general of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Among other violations, Gardner visited the grounds of a state prison in 2008, a felony that could have brought a life sentence as a third strike, the report said.

Also, a review of the data from the GPS device that Gardner was required to wear shows that on 158 occasions in a 13-month period he violated his parole by going near schools, leaving home after curfew or visiting a storage facility.

Gardner, 31, served five years in prison for attacking a 13-year-old girl before being released in 2005. As a registered sex offender, he was required to abide by a lengthy set of rules about where he could live or visit -- all meant to keep him away from potential victims.

On May 14, Gardner was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to the Feb. 13, 2009, murder of 14-year-old Amber Dubois and the Feb. 25, 2010, murder of 17-year-old Chelsea King.

Dubois was kidnapped while walking to class at Escondido High School; King, an honor student at Poway High School, was attacked while jogging near Lake Hodges.

Among other deficiencies, the report notes that until recently, parole agents were not required to check  GPS data to see if parolees were abiding by the rules. Although those procedures have been changed, the process remains cumbersome and the policy changes “still fall short of the department's goal of aggressively monitoring all sexual offender parolees.”

The shortcomings uncovered in how Gardner was supervised show “systemic problems that transcend Gardner's case.”

The murders have led to calls from both families for toughening standards on convicted sexual predators. A bill dubbed “Chelsea's Law,” written by Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (R-San Diego) and supported by Gov. Schwarzenegger, would call for life sentences for offenders convicted of sexually assaulting minors.

In 2008, Gardner visited the grounds of Donovan State Prison in Otay Mesa. In an interview after his conviction for the murders, he told investigators that he was taking a friend to visit an inmate but never entered the prison, although being on the grounds would still constitute a felony that could have been prosecuted by the district attorney.

Gardner was spared the death penalty under a plea bargain. Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis said that without his guilty plea, her office would not have had enough evidence to prosecute him for the Dubois murder.

Gardner was linked to the King murder by a pair of her underwear with his semen on it. Arrested for King's murder, he offered to take authorities to the spot northeast of Escondido where he had buried Dubois as long as that admission was not used against him in court.

In addition to the Dubois and King murders, Gardner pleaded guilty to attacking Candice Mancayo, 23, who escaped by punching him in the nose.

"Successful prosecution of Gardner's crime (going to the prison grounds) and administrative action in response to his parole violations would have sent Gardner back to prison, making it impossible for him to murder the two young girls and commit the attempted sexual assault," said the report by David R. Shaw, the correction department's inspector general.

Fletcher said the report "confirms what we all know: California's public safety system is in desperate need of reform. From our criminal sentencing structure all the way to our parole system, dangerous sex offenders have slipped through the cracks."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Violent felons banned from owning body armor under new California law

Fugitive on most wanted list is captured by U.S. marshals in Merced, Calif.

U.S. marshals have captured a convicted cop killer and child molester in Merced, Calif., ending his four-year run as one of America's most wanted fugitives, officials said.

Paul Clouston, 73, was arrested Tuesday after a viewer tipped off the "America's Most Wanted" TV show. He had been added to the U.S. marshals' list of the 15 most wanted fugitives in November 2006.

The marshals' Central Valley joint fugitive task force made the arrest after learning Clouston had been working as a maintenance man for the last four years in a group home in Merced, said Deputy Marshal Kevin Connolly.

He was taken into custody without incident after marshals discovered him sitting in a chair outside the group home, reading a newspaper, Connolly said.

“The capture of Paul Clouston is a testament to the effectiveness of our 15 most wanted list and the partnerships we maintain with other law enforcement agencies,” said John F. Clark director of the U.S. Marshals Service. "It also speaks volumes to the value of someone doing the right thing and reporting a suspicious individual."

Clouston was convicted in 1973 on second-degree murder in the 1972 killing of a police detective in Buena Park, Calif. He was released from prison in 1982.

He was indicted on 17 counts of sexually abusing children in the Williamsburg, Va., area in 1991 and pleaded guilty to seven of those charges. He was returned to prison and paroled in 2005, when he becamea fugitive after failing to register as a sex offender, authorities said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/most-wanted-fugitive-captured-by-us-marshals-in-merced-.html#more

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EDITORIAL

Miranda: a confusing Supreme Court ruling

Tuesday's decision is a problematic one for future application of the Miranda rule.

June 3, 2010

As viewers of "Law & Order" know, criminal suspects in custody must be advised of their right to remain silent. But after a Michigan man exercised that right by refusing to talk to police for nearly three hours, his interrogators asked him if he had asked God for forgiveness for shooting another man to death. On Tuesday , the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that his one-word answer — "Yes" — was admissible because he hadn't explicitly invoked his right to silence to stop the police questioning. It's an unjust outcome and a problematic one for future application of the Miranda rule.

The situation that gave rise to Tuesday's ruling was a complicated one: Van Chester Thompkins was advised of his right to remain silent, though he refused to sign a statement indicating that he understood his rights. For nearly three hours of questioning in an 8-by-10-foot room, Thompkins remained mostly silent, making only brief and inconsequential comments, including a remark about the hardness of his chair.

Two hours and 45 minutes into the interrogation, he answered the questions "Do you believe in God?," "Do you pray to him?" and, finally, "Do you pray to God for forgiveness for shooting that boy down?" Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said these statements amounted to a waiver of the right to remain silent.

Dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that the Supreme Court's original Miranda decision in 1966 said that "a valid waiver will not be presumed simply from the silence of the accused after warnings are given, or simply from the fact that a confession was in fact eventually obtained."

Sotomayor has the better argument, especially in light of Miranda's larger purpose of preventing the badgering of suspects. But taking her position to its logical extreme would prevent police from asking questions after an undefined and possibly very brief period of silence. Sometimes silence will reflect a belief by the suspect that he is successfully asserting his right not to speak (a mistake some suspects will make even after this decision). In other situations, silence may simply be a temporary reaction to being in custody, or a sign that the suspect is weighing whether it's in his interest to talk.

The court should have clarified that ambiguity by amending the Miranda rule to require police to tell a suspect at the outset that if he wants to assert his right to silence, he must say so. Unlike that clear rule, Tuesday's ruling is likely to sow the confusion Miranda was designed to eliminate.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-miranda-20100603,0,4366966,print.story

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From the New York Times

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For 5th Year, Child Sex Abuse Bill Dies in Legislature

For four years, advocates for sexually abused children had fought a battle in the New York Legislature to open a legal window that would allow victims to file lawsuits against predators long after the statute of limitations had expired.

Though the bill died each year, it passed in the Assembly three times and earned the support of two governors. And the renewed attention to sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church augured well for the cause this year.

Yet on Wednesday, in its fifth year on the legislative calendar, the bill, known as the Child Victims Act, was defeated in a Senate committee in the first vote on the measure this session.

Legislators on both sides agreed that the 9-to-6 vote by the panel, the Senate Codes Committee, had doomed the legislation for the remainder of the session. They offered different perspectives, however, on the vote's larger meaning for the bill, which proposes a one-time, one-year suspension of the statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits.

“We knew we didn't have the votes, but we felt it was important to keep it on the public agenda,” said State Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson , a Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester County and who is the bill's sponsor in the Senate. “Whether it is adopted this year or next year is less important than reminding victims that there are people out here trying to bring justice for them.”

Dennis Poust, the communications director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said the vote represented an emerging consensus that time limits on legal liability were an important civil rights protection. The conference is the policy arm of the state's Catholic bishops , the bill's most formidable opponents.

“You cannot ask institutions to take responsibility for the failures of a few individuals whose actions took place 40 and 50 years ago,” Mr. Poust said.

Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, a Queens Democrat who wrote the legislation and has been its chief advocate, said that in one sense the vote on Wednesday represented progress. “Our bill has never even come to a vote before in the Senate,” she said. “So we feel this was an important step.”

Since it was first introduced in the 2006-7 session, the Child Victims Act has been fervently opposed by the Catholic Church and several Orthodox Jewish groups, which saw potentially devastating financial implications in opening an opportunity for victims, regardless of age, to bring lawsuits for sexual abuse suffered in childhood.

Last year, in an attempt to blunt complaints from the religious groups that they were being singled out, the bill was amended to make public institutions like schools equally liable.

That amendment did not win any new support for the bill, but it earned the opposition of powerful groups like the New York State School Boards Association, the New York Council of School Superintendents, the New York Association of Counties and the New York Conference of Mayors.

Still, some advocates for abuse victims had expressed hope before Wednesday that recent revelations about leniency shown by high Roman Catholic officials — including then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger , the future Pope Benedict XVI — to abusive priests might attract new public support for the legislation.

“I think it actually did increase public support, but that does not always translate into legislative remedy,” said David Clohessy, the executive director of SNAP , the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

Mr. Clohessy said the vote ended efforts this year in three states to pass laws suspending the statute of limitations for a limited period in sex abuse cases. Similar bills have already been defeated in Arizona and Wisconsin.

California and Delaware are the only states to have adopted such legislation, though similar laws have been proposed in about 15 states since 2002, he said.

On Wednesday, all seven Republicans on the Codes Committee and two of the nine Democrats voted no. Senator Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx and Westchester, one of the Democrats who opposed the measure, said he doubted that exposing institutions to lawsuits would solve the problem of sex abuse by their employees.

Instead, he said, he had proposed a law to remove the statute of limitations on criminal prosecution of individuals accused of abusing minors. “I want to address the problem, but not civilly,” he said.

The other Democrat who voted no was Senator Neil D. Breslin of Albany. Senator Shirley L. Huntley, a Democrat from Queens, voted “no recommendation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/nyregion/03abuse.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the White House

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Listening to Rural Communities - A National Summit on Rural America

Tomorrow I will travel to Hillsboro, Missouri to host the Obama Administration's National Summit of Rural America: A Dialogue for Renewing Promise . The event will feature a broad conversation with key policymakers and community leaders to explore the priorities and policies necessary to strengthen America's rural communities.

Rural communities, and the one-in-six Americans who live in them, are at the center of our nation's values and prosperity. Small towns throughout the United States supply much of our food and water, and they are moving our country towards energy independence. But today, as we prepare to gather for a dialogue that will inform and highlight the Obama administration's unprecedented commitment to revitalizing rural America, too many of our communities are struggling.

I am proud and excited at the opportunity to share the stage with panelists who are devoted to renewing America's promise and building a better future for rural communities. Each of our guests will discuss their area of expertise, and will share ideas about how to maintain a thriving agriculture economy. A strong American economy relies on a vibrant rural America, and the assembled group will offer a terrific diversity of ideas and opinions about how to pursue both proven and new avenues to build prosperity in America's rural communities.

Later in the day, summit participants will join in breakout sessions designed to address the big challenges facing rural America. By brainstorming ideas, sharing success stories and outlining possible solutions, these conversations will tackle a range of issues that are critical to the rural economy. The six tracks the summit attendees will explore are: Building Infrastructure for a 21st Century Rural Economy, Expanding Opportunities for Rural Businesses, Renewable Energy and Biofuels, Farm Competitiveness and Productivity, Forest Restoration, Rural Recreation and Private Land Conservation, and Regional Food Systems and Nutrition.

Tomorrow's Summit will serve as a capstone for the Rural Tour I led last year, during which I visited 22 states – often joined by other Cabinet Secretaries – to open dialogue between myself, the Obama administration, farmers, ranchers and people who live in our rural communities. At each event we learned from the communities about how USDA and the Obama Administration are affecting the lives of rural Americans. We gathered thoughts, concerns and stories about each community's vision for its future to help us better serve these communities.

Over the past year, USDA and the Obama administration have worked to revitalize rural communities with more than 140,000 housing loans, Recovery Act investments in broadband, libraries, schools and hospitals and support for rural entrepreneurs to create jobs. I know that this Summit will act as an additional springboard to solidify our vision for working with communities to create income opportunities, generate wealth and build a stronger, more prosperous rural America for generations to come. We know that when we meet this goal, we will ensure that rural communities across the country will remain the best places in American to live, work, and raise a family.

To watch the National Summit of Rural America: A Dialogue for Renewing Promise, tomorrow, June 3, visit http://www.usda.gov/live .

Tom Vilsack is Agriculture Secretary

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/02/listening-rural-communities-a-national-summit-rural-america

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Secretary Napolitano Meets with Middle Eastern Counterparts in Abu Dhabi on Ways to Bolster Aviation Security

Release Date: June 1, 2010

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates—Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today visited Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), at the invitation of UAE Minister of the Economy Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, to meet with her counterparts from the Middle East region and officials from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to discuss ways to bolster global aviation security.

“The attempted terrorist attack on Dec. 25 demonstrated that international terrorist threats must be countered with a coordinated, global response,” said Secretary Napolitano. “My meetings today with partners from nations throughout the Middle East underscore our shared commitment to strengthening global aviation security to better protect the traveling public.”

In Abu Dhabi, Secretary Napolitano addressed UAE ministers and representatives from numerous Middle Eastern countries who attended the conference, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen, and met with officials from ICAO—stressing the need for collaborative international action to prevent terrorists from boarding commercial aircraft.

Secretary Napolitano underscored the Obama administration's commitment to strengthening information sharing with international partners about terrorists and other dangerous individuals and emphasized the need for enhanced cooperation on technological development and deployment; stronger aviation security measures and standards; and coordinated international technical assistance.

This meeting marked the fifth in a series of major international summits—coordinated with ICAO—intended to build consensus around the world to strengthen global aviation security. These meetings have resulted in joint declarations on aviation security with partners in Africa, the Asia/Pacific region, the Western Hemisphere, and Europe.

While the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) does not conduct screening at foreign airports, Secretary Napolitano is committed to strengthening coordination with international partners to implement stronger and more effective measures to protect the integrity of the global aviation network. Since April, TSA has utilized new enhanced threat and risk-based security protocols—tailored to reflect the most current information available to the U.S. government—for all air carriers with international flights to the United States to strengthen the safety and security of all passengers.

For more information, visit www.dhs.gov .

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1275422399318.shtm

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From ICE

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ICE arrests 72 during 2-week operation targeting immigration fugitives

CHICAGO - Local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fugitive operations teams arrested 72 foreign nationals in the Chicago area during a two-week-long enforcement action targeting immigration fugitives and criminal aliens.

The ICE operation, which ran May 10-14 and May 24-28, targeted immigration fugitives with outstanding deportation orders, aliens with criminal records, and previously deported aliens.

Arrests were made in the following communities: Addison, Arlington Heights, Aurora, Bensenville, Bloomingdale, Bolingbrook, Bridgeport, Bridgeview, Carol Stream, Carpentersville, Chicago, Darien, DuPage County, Elgin, Glendale Heights, Hanover Park, Joliet, Lisle, Melrose Park, Mundelein, Naperville, North Chicago, Oswego, Palatine, Palos Hills, Plainfield, River Grove, Rock Island, Round Lake, Waukegan, Willow Springs, Hammond, Ind., and Merrillville, Ind.

Of the 72 arrested, 59 are fugitives with outstanding deportation orders. Immigration fugitives are aliens who fail to appear for their immigration hearings, or who abscond after being ordered by a federal immigration judge to leave the country.

The remaining 13 were arrested based on their prior criminal or immigration histories; some of their convictions and arrests include: drug possession, domestic battery, drunken driving, retail theft, residential burglary, and larceny. Seven of those arrested were previously deported aliens.

The arrestees, 65 men and seven women, represent the following countries: China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Israel, Jamaica, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia and South Korea.

"A top priority for the ICE is to enhance public safety by locating and arresting criminal aliens and fugitives, with the ultimate goal of removing them from our country in a safe and humane manner," said Ricardo Wong, field office director for the ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Chicago. "ICE is dedicated to arresting violators who blatantly flout our nation's immigration laws."

The arrestees will be processed administratively for removal from the United States. Fugitives with outstanding deportation orders, and those who returned to the U.S. illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. All others are pending a hearing before an immigration judge.

One of the fugitives in ICE custody is a 54-year-old Jamaican national who was arrested May 25 outside his Waukegan residence. He has a prior criminal conviction for possessing a firearm, and had a loaded pistol at the time of his arrest.

Also arrested was a 50-year-old previously deported Mexican national. He was arrested May 24 in Waukegan and has prior convictions for cocaine possession and retail theft.

Both individuals remain in ICE custody pending removal. For privacy reasons, ICE does not release the names of aliens arrested on administrative immigration charges.

This operation was conducted by ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams, which are responsible for locating, arresting and removing immigration fugitives and at-large criminal aliens. Last year, ICE's FOTs made more than 35,000 arrests nationwide. More than 31,000 of those arrests, or nearly 89 percent, involved immigration fugitives and aliens with prior criminal convictions.

ICE's Fugitive Operations Program is just one facet of the Department of Homeland Security's broader strategy to heighten the federal government's effectiveness at identifying and removing dangerous criminal aliens from the United States. Other initiatives that figure prominently in this effort are the Criminal Alien Program, Secure Communities and the agency's partnerships with state and local law enforcement under 287(g).

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1006/100602chicago.htm

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From the FBI

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Threat to Blow Up FBI Building in D.C. Results in Prison Term

HOUSTON—Jeff Henry Williamson, 45, convicted of threatening to blow up the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington, D.C., has been sentenced to prison, United States Attorney José Angel Moreno and FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge Richard C. Powers announced today.

Williamson, of Jackson, Miss., was found guilty in March 2010 after a four-day trial of sending a threatening communication in interstate commerce. Today, United States District Judge David Hittner sentenced Williamson to 42 months in federal prison to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release. In handing down the sentence, the court considered the defendant's future dangerousness as well as the number of victims he had harassed. Williamson has been in custody since his arrest at the FBI building in Washington, D.C., on July 30, 2008, and will remain in custody pending a transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be designated in the near future where he will serve his sentence.

During the trial, the jury heard testimony about a series of messages left by Williamson on the U.S. Attorney's Office voicemail system in which he claimed to being harassed by the U.S. government and threatening to shoot up the U.S. Attorney's Office with a submachine gun if the harassment continued. The FBI traced one of the calls to the downtown Houston Public Library and on June 11, 2008, FBI agents found Williamson in the library. After admitting to making the phone calls, Williamson was admonished by FBI agents not to threaten to harm individuals in the government.

Sixteen days later, on June 27, 2008, Williamson sent an e-mail from the Houston Public Library public access computers to the United States Attorney's Office in downtown Houston stating in part, “Please advise FBI Director Mueller I will take justice into my hands and blow the front of the J. Edger Hoover building off to get everyone's attention—then the CIA HQ and DOJ.” The e-mail was also sent to the Department of Justice Inspector General and the House Select Intelligence Committee. The e-mail also directed the recipients to Williamson's political websites that expressed views about the government harassing him.

FBI agents executed a federal arrest warrant on July 30, 2008, and arrested Williamson as he stood outside of FBI Headquarters building in Washington, D.C., The arrest warrant had issued after the filing of a criminal complaint in the Southern District of Texas charging him with sending threatening communications relating to the June 27th threat. Williamson told agents that he was waiting for FBI Director Mueller. After he was arrested, agents found a piece of paper in his bag with the e-mail address for the House Select Intelligence Committee scribbled on it. The e-mail came from Williamson's Yahoo.com e-mail account. Williamson's Yahoo.com e-mail and website accounts also contained similar political messages about government harassment.

A few months earlier, in February 2008, Williamson had sent a similar message while in Reno, Nevada to the FBI in Washington D.C., from the Washoe County Law Library using the FBI's tip page from one of the library's public access computers. In that message, Williamson threatened to kill FBI agents. FBI agents traced the tip back to the law library using the library's IP address. When they arrived at the library they interviewed Williamson, who claimed he was on a “smoke break” during the time in which the tip was sent.

Williamson, who represented himself during trial, unsuccessfully attempted to convince the jury he was being framed by the FBI. The jury returned its guilty verdict after a short period of deliberation.

Assistant United States Attorneys Jay Hileman and Ryan D. McConnell prosecuted the case.

http://houston.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/ho060210.htm

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MASS MARKETING FRAUD

Old Scams, New Wineskins

06/01/10

A few decades ago, mass marketing fraud—the kind that exploits mass communication techniques like bulk mail or telemarketing—was relatively low-tech and mostly a regional crime problem targeting victims nearby.

These days, it's a different story. Thanks to the Internet, criminals and groups can also target victims halfway around the world, blasting out spam e-mails by the millions and setting up phony but realistic websites to lure people in.

The FBI and its partners—particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Secret Service, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service—have been busting these fraudsters for years. But we realize that public awareness must be part of the solution—an educated consumer can stop these scams by not falling for them in the first place.

• Individuals outside our country e-mail U.S. law firms for legal work but then overpay their retainer fees via check and ask that the remaining funds be wired back overseas. (The victims discover later that the check is counterfeit.)
• In online rental schemes, scammers forward a counterfeit check to the property owner for more than the amount of the rent and then ask for the difference to be wired back. They also duplicate postings from legitimate online real estate sites and when contacted over e-mail by interested renters, ask the interested party to send money.
• Unsolicited e-mails supposedly from the FBI that ask for money or personal information (ironically, it was the most common complaint made to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) last year).

You should also be suspicious if you are:

• Asked for personal financial details like bank account information or credit card numbers over the phone or by e-mail;
• Pressured to buy something or give information without time to think it through;
• Specifically asked to pay by cash, check, money order, or commercial wire service transfer (which are harder for law enforcement to detect);
• Told you've won a foreign lottery or sweepstakes you never entered;
• Asked to help transfer funds out of a foreign country for a share of the money; or
• Given a check or money order for more than the cost of an item you are selling (criminals ask you to wire them the difference, but the bank later tells you the check or money order is counterfeit). 

Today's efforts to raise public awareness in the U.S. are part of a multinational day of action against mass marketing fraud. Authorities in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are also doing their part in their respective countries to inform the public of these scams.

The bottom line of our message today: Educate yourself. And if you think you've been targeted, contact the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center , the Federal Trade Commission , or local authorities.

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june10/mass_marketing_fraud_060110.html

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From the DEA

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U.S., Liberia Join Forces In Operation Relentless

JUN 1 -- (NEW YORK) – DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart joined Preet Bharara, The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to announce that five defendants arrived in the Southern District of New York from Liberia on May 30, 2010, to face charges of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.

The defendants, who were arrested in coordination with Liberian authorities on May 28 and 29, 2010, were transferred by the Government of Liberia to the custody of the United States to face narcotics trafficking charges in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. This marks the first defendant transfer by the Government of Liberia to the United States in connection with narcotics related charges in over 30 years.

"Unprecedented cooperation from the highest levels of government in Liberia helped expose drug smuggling and corruption that led to indictments of African, Colombian, and Russian traffickers. Operation Relentless successfully battered the pipeline of cocaine flowing from South America, through Africa, and into Europe. In this case, ton quantities of FARC cocaine were seized and the operations of several major traffickers were disrupted," said Leonhart.

The Honorable Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia, stated: "As today's charges show, the Republic of Liberia is officially closed for business to the narcotics trade. We are strongly committed to combating international drug organizations that seek to exploit our country for their own profit. We are proud of our strong partnership with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Department of Justice, and we look forward to strengthening and deepening this relationship in the years to come."

According to the Indictments and Complaint unsealed today: During the last decade, drug trafficking organizations based in South America have increasingly used countries along or near the West African coast as trans-shipment hubs for importing massive quantities of cocaine to be later distributed in Europe or elsewhere within Africa. Through a combination of privately owned aircraft and maritime vessels, these organizations, predominantly based in Colombia and Venezuela, have transported hundreds of tons of cocaine, worth billions of dollars, to places such as Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone, Togo, Mali, Ghana, Nigeria, and Liberia. In so doing, representatives of these drug trafficking organizations have often sought to bribe high-level public officials with large cash payments and narcotics in order to ensure the safe passage, storage, and distribution of their cocaine shipments.

Since in or about 2007, the defendants have attempted to bribe high-level officials in the Liberian Government in order to protect shipments of vast quantities of cocaine, and to use Liberia as a trans-shipment point for further distribution of the cocaine in Africa and Europe. In particular, certain of the defendants met with two individuals they knew to be Liberian government officials -- the Director and Deputy Director of the Republic of Liberia National Security Agency ("RLNSA"), both of whom (unbeknownst to the defendants) in fact were working jointly with the DEA in an undercover capacity ("UC-1" and "UC-2", respectively).

The Director of the RLNSA is also the son of the current President of Liberia. In a number of the meetings involving these Liberian officials, the defendants also met with a confidential source working with DEA (the "CS"), who purported to be a business partner and confidante of the Director of the RLNSA. In seeking to ensure the safe passage of their cocaine shipments, the defendants agreed to make payments to the Director and the Deputy Director of the RLNSA in cash and also in the form of cocaine. The CS advised the defendants that a portion of the cocaine paid to the CS would be transported from Liberia to Ghana, from where it would be imported into New York.

All of the defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, knowing or intending that the cocaine would be imported into the United States. This offense carries a minimum sentence of ten years in prison and a maximum term of life imprisonment.

The arrests and transfers of the defendants were the result of the close cooperative efforts of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the Special Operations Division of the DEA, the DEA Lagos Country Office, the DEA Warsaw Country Office, the DEA Bogota Country Office, the DEA Rome Country Office, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of International Affairs, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Liberia, the Republic of Liberia and its National Security Agency, and the Security Services of Ukraine.

http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/2010/nyc060110.html

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