NYC's Mayor Michael Bloomberg with Living Liberty

Roaming the world as Lady Liberty Jennifer Stewart, with a torch, tablet and green garb, is the statue's preeminent look-alike. It's more than performance art; it's an opportunity to raise social awareness and inspire patriotism. By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times July 3, 2010 Reporting from New York It's not easy being one of the most photographed women in the world. There are the come-ons from men, like the celebrity who just couldn't take no for an answer. There is the pressure to look perfect, flowing frock arranged just so and head held high as the sun threatens to melt your makeup or the rain soaks your ringlets. There is the physical strain of standing for hours on end as people stare in wonderment, occasionally tapping you to be sure you're real. And just try carrying that spiked headpiece and glowing torch — the trademarks of your fame — on board a plane nowadays.

"Let's just say my heart beats a little faster when I see her standing there," Stewart said as she rode on a packed ferry one day last week near the copper behemoth rising from New York Harbor. Like virtually everyone else on the boat, Stewart gazed transfixed at Lady Liberty and began snapping pictures. Stewart was not in character that day, and with her petite stature, blond pixie haircut and turquoise eyes, she looked more like Tinker Bell than the Statue of Liberty. Up close, with its full lips, straight nose and deep-set eyes, the statue looks more like Elvis than Jennifer Stewart.

But once Stewart climbs atop her carefully crafted pedestal in her green cloak, the homemade crown, torch and tablet in place, a transformation takes place. She becomes not just the statue's look-alike but the statue itself, remaining stoic as occasional hecklers question her motives and butterflies land on her nose — determined to spread the spirit of liberty whether she is raising money for Sept. 11 victims, presiding over a morticians trade show or serving as a prop at a teenager's birthday party.

"To this day, it humbles me greatly," Stewart said of the overwhelmingly positive response she generated from people who, in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, dropped about $15,000 — much of it in $1 bills — into her bucket to support a fire station that lost eight firefighters in the terrorist attack. It was a turning point for Stewart, who until then had viewed herself more as a performance artist than a vehicle for raising social awareness and inspiring patriotism.

"It struck me then that you can buy hardly anything for a buck, but people wanted to help, and they did it by throwing a dollar bill into the bucket," said Stewart, who feels that a big part of her job is reminding the masses — huddled or otherwise — that good comes from working together. "After 9/11, Miss Liberty took on much bigger proportions for me."

Stewart, who grew up in Audubon, Iowa — population about 2,500 — and now lives in Brooklyn, credits her parents with giving her the skills that made her a lock to win a 1986 national Statue of Liberty look-alike contest. Her late father, Wayne, an auctioneer, was also a masterful jury-rigger. Her mother, Mardelle, is a seamstress. Stewart, nudged by her art student's comment, used the skills they taught her to fashion an elaborate replica of the Statue of Liberty's outfit.

"I never imagined winning," said Stewart, who didn't even know what color the statue was. "I viewed it more as an art project."

An empty Cool Whip container was impaled on a cardboard tube to form the basis for the torch. A rectangle of Styrofoam was the tablet, and magnetic letters normally found on refrigerators spelled out the message that it carries in Roman numerals: July 4, 1776.

For the crown, Stewart made a plaster cast of her head and used strands of yarn from a kitchen mop to create the thick curls that brush the statue's neck. But she was stymied over how to attach to the headpiece a tiara that would accommodate 25 tiny windows and provide a base for seven spikes.

The contest was less than a month away, and Stewart was ready to give up. "I thought, this is crazy. I've got to get back to my life," she said. Stewart went to do a load of laundry and had an epiphany: The laundry basket's flexible plastic was just what she needed to finish the crown.

An oxidized penny guided her in choosing the color to paint everything — once it had been sealed into place with glue — and in picking fabric for the dress. Stewart even painted her skin green, making her the obvious standout in a line of contestants clad mainly in white toga-like dresses with sparkly accoutrements.

"She has always been very creative," Stewart's mother said wryly during a recent visit to New York.

In a scrapbook, Stewart keeps the front page from the July 1, 1986, edition of the Des Moines Register, where the story of her win appeared. Months later, after moving to New York to attend graduate school, Stewart won two Halloween costume contests in a single night by donning her Statue of Liberty garb. The first contest netted her $1,000. From there, she and her then-husband grabbed a cab to the next event and won a trip to the Bahamas.

A New York restaurant called America hired her for regular gigs, leading to invitations to appear at corporate events and private parties. Between jobs, Stewart would set herself up in parks and squares, collecting money in a bucket as passers-by posed with her for photographs. Someone once dropped in a $100 bill. As time went on, the jobs became more frequent. Slowly it dawned on Stewart that this was no longer just a sideshow. It was a full-time job.

"She sort of inhabits Lady Liberty in that majestic, sophisticated way," said Carl Schmehl, the creative director of Shackman Associates, an event planner that has been hiring Stewart since the early 1990s. Just last month, the firm hired her for an event at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. "I placed her right in the middle of all that gorgeous art, and it was breathtaking," Schmehl said.

She was flown to Brazil to preside over the opening of a skyscraper, and to Japan for a corporate event. She accompanied the U.S. delegation that traveled to Singapore in 2005 to vie for the 2012 Olympic Games. Stevie Wonder ran his hands across her rigid curls and painted face. A famous TV personality, whom she refuses to name, insisted on a dinner date. There was a photo shoot that showed Lady Liberty in bed with Stephen Colbert, and no end of celebrity-studded parties, some of which could net several thousand dollars.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, corporate events were canceled, and Stewart was hesitant to appear to be profiting from the tragedy if she went out in costume with her bucket. Finally, she decided to do just that, with the proviso that the money collected would go toward her local Brooklyn firehouse. Her first day out, she collected more than $2,400.

"I knew this is what I needed to be doing," said Stewart, who by then was divorced and living on her own.

Even with the post-Sept. 11 cancellations, and with the recent recession, the job has paid well. Stewart charges $900 for her first hour and $300 for each hour thereafter, with out-of-town travel extra. She has bookings lined up through September, and in the days before July 4 was fielding requests for appearances. Stewart, though, is taking this Independence Day off to attend a friend's wedding in Iowa.

The emotional payoff is also lucrative, Stewart said. People clamor to have their photographs taken beside Stewart or simply stare, not certain until she moves that she is human. Sometimes even then they're not sure. In Japan, a man thought an earthquake had struck when he saw Stewart move.

Even Lady Liberty can get restless, though, not to mention tired.

Stewart's eyes dry out as she tries not to blink while in position. Her hips lock, and her back aches. Her right arm strains to remain upright, torch clasped firmly overhead. She worries about being knocked off her pedestal, literally. It happened while she was appearing in an episode of "Sex and the City," when a cameraman backed into her. Working without an agent, she has to field all of the job offers that come in and diplomatically handle clients who argue over price.

Stewart is considering hiring an extra or two to stand in for her. She has also begun marketing "Libby," a green pouch modeled on the Statue of Liberty's face, whose first samples were delivered last month to the gift shop on Liberty Island. Eventually, Stewart said she'd like the character to be the vehicle for a project aimed at teaching children about democracy and liberty.

"I'd like to give back long after I'm gone," said Stewart, who hesitates to say how long she envisions traveling the world as the Statue of Liberty.

Not so her mother, who offered: "As long as she can raise her arm."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-liberty-lookalike-20100703-39,0,2521378,print.story

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By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

July 3, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City

Mexican authorities said Friday they have arrested the leader of a Ciudad Juarez street gang who they say ordered the killing of a U.S. consular worker in the border town in March.

Federal police said Jesus Ernesto Chavez told them that consular employee Lesley A. Enriquez, 35, was targeted because she was providing visas to rivals.

Police said Chavez, 41, also confessed to having taken part in a January shooting attack on a party that killed 15 people, mostly teenagers, and raised an outcry in Mexico over the runaway violence that has made Ciudad Juarez the deadliest city in the nation.

Chavez, whose nickname is the "Camel," is a leader of the Aztecas, said Ramon Pequeno, who runs the anti-drug division of the federal police and announced the arrest. The Aztecas are allied with the Juarez cartel and have members on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Chavez said the cartel's armed wing, known as La Linea, ordered Enriquez's killing because she "was providing visas to members of the opposing group," Pequeno told reporters. He did not elaborate.

U.S. officials in Mexico City said that Enriquez worked in the U.S. citizens services section of the consulate, which does not deal with visas.

Enriquez, who was pregnant, and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, 34, both U.S. citizens, were shot dead March 13 as they drove from a birthday party in Ciudad Juarez. The couple's infant daughter was found crying but uninjured in the back seat.

The husband of a Mexican employee at the consulate was also fatally shot leaving the same party in a separate vehicle. The suspect said hit men also targeted the second car, which was the same color as that of Enriquez, because they weren't sure which one she was in, Pequeno said.

The Juarez slayings sparked worries that U.S. citizens or government employees had become targets of the violent drug trafficking gangs that have waged war with Mexican authorities and each other in recent years.

The State Department at the time announced that diplomatic employees along the border in northern Mexico could move family members and dependents to the U.S. side.

The attack on the youth party in January was carried out by Aztecas who mistakenly believed members of a rival street gang were gathering, authorities said.

President Felipe Calderon came under intense criticism after he initially blamed the massacre on gang rivalries. He backtracked after it turned out that the slain youths were promising students and athletes.

Chavez was previously imprisoned for five years in Louisiana on drug-dealing charges. In 2008, he was arrested by Mexican soldiers on drug charges, but freed, Pequeno said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-consul-20100703,0,1738656,print.story

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A city measure that restricts the use, sale and transport of firearms is approved after a Supreme Court ruling extended handgun rights.

By John Byrne and Hal Dardick, Chicago Tribune

July 3, 2010

Reporting from Chicago

The Chicago City Council on Friday unanimously passed a tough set of restrictions to control the use, sale and even transport of guns in the city.

The approval came four days after the U.S. Supreme Court effectively tossed out Chicago's longstanding ban on handguns. Mayor Richard M. Daley introduced the gun restrictions Thursday and aldermen approved the ordinance 45 to 0.

"This is a good ordinance, and it abides by the Constitution," said Alderman James Balcer. "People can defend the inside of their homes. No one is seizing your weapons."

Alderman Rey Colon, whose brother was fatally shot in 1979, said the justices on the nation's top court didn't understand the reality of the inner city. "I understand the right to bear arms, but I also understand parents crying in their sleep," he said.

On Monday the high court overturned 19th century rulings that said the 2nd Amendment restricted only federal gun laws, not local or state measures. In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the right to have a handgun for self-defense is "fundamental from an American perspective [and] applies equally to the federal government and the states."

It will be 10 days before the new ordinance becomes city law. Then anyone who wants to get a handgun must obtain a Chicago firearm permit.

People who have committed violent crimes, or have two or more convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, will not be allowed permits.

Key provisions of the ordinance:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-chicago-guns-20100703,0,5248829,print.story

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The right words on immigration

Obama's speech outlined a clear analysis of the problem and a vision for how to fix it. Now all that's needed is action.

July 3, 2010

President Obama is at his oratorical best when hewing to a middle path on the complex, divisive issues confronting the nation: race, healthcare and, now, immigration. In his first major speech on immigration, delivered at American University on Thursday, he analyzed the broken, irrational system that hobbles the country's economy, threatens its security and tears at its social fabric. Then he described how to fix it. He called on the U.S. to reaffirm its identity as a nation of immigrants. The genius of America, Obama said, is not passed down by birthright or heredity; its power is that of a magnet, attracting likeminded people from around the world who yearn for opportunity.

To those who maintain that "sealing" the border must come before other reform measures, as if the Mexican border is a Ziploc bag and not 1,930 miles of often rugged terrain, he explained that the internal and external pressures that encourage illegal immigration must be addressed to be successful. That means taking steps to end the bureaucratic backlog that leaves eligible people waiting for years to reunite with family members; supplying work visas more easily to potential immigrants who have the promise of employment; and requiring employers to verify the legal status of workers. And we need to bring 11 million illegal immigrants out of the shadow economy. Yes, this is a nation of laws, he said, but no, we do not have the economic or logistical wherewithal to deport them all — nor is it the right thing to do. Better to have them admit their wrongdoing, pay taxes and fines, and learn English.

There was sobering prose along with the poetry. Obama acknowledged the impossibility of fixing the system without bipartisan support.  "Reform that brings accountability to our immigration system cannot pass without Republican votes. That is the political and mathematical reality," he said. He's right. But if reform is vital, then it is not enough to chide recalcitrant Republicans. After all, Democrats are not eager to undertake reform either — it would be political suicide before the midterm elections.

Obama can lead. Arizona's polarizing new anti-immigrant law, which by month's end will encourage police to ethnically profile people in an effort to rid the state of illegal immigrants, should be overturned. The administration is expected to file suit against the state, and it should. Obama can also urge Congress to take up measures that have bipartisan support, such as the DREAM Act, which would allow undocumented students conditional citizenship if they go to college or into the armed services. The president's speech was a good beginning, a welcome note of civility in the ugly immigration debate. Now we need to see him turn eloquence into action.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-immigration-20100703,0,3756495,print.story

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From the Department of Justice

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WASHINGTON – Four defendants were sentenced today in connection with their participation in an online child pornography conspiracy, while a fifth defendant was sentenced for receiving child pornography, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Timothy M. Morrison of the Southern District of Indiana.

Michael Baratta, 49, of Sacramento, Calif., was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in the conspiracy as an administrator of an online bulletin board dedicated to the advertisement and distribution of child pornography. Scott Van Dorp, 51, of Nashville, Ind., also was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the role he played in the conspiracy and for his criminal conduct related to a second Internet bulletin board containing child pornography. William Watkins, 39, of Lake Worth, Fla., was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in the conspiracy as a moderator of the Internet-based bulletin board. March Beren Reeder, 33, of Harrisburg, Pa., was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his participation in the conspiracy.

All four defendants pleaded guilty in Indianapolis before U.S. District Court Judge William T. Lawrence to one count of conspiracy to advertise child pornography, one count of conspiracy to distribute child pornography, two counts of advertising child pornography and two counts of distributing child pornography. Van Dorp also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to advertise child pornography and one count of conspiracy to distribute child pornography for his role in the second Internet bulletin board. Each defendant was sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release following their release from prison.

According to court documents filed in the Southern District of Indiana, the 26 co-conspirators participated in a sophisticated, password-protected Internet bulletin board group, which existed to allow members to meet like-minded individuals with a sexualized interest in children, to discuss that interest and to trade images of child pornography. The defendants are charged with conspiring to advertise and distribute child pornography, along with substantive counts of advertising and distributing child pornography. Twenty-two of the 26 defendants charged in the conspiracy have been arrested. Twenty of the 22 individuals arrested have been convicted or have pleaded guilty. Nine of the 20 individuals who have pleaded guilty for their role in the conspiracy have been sentenced to prison on previous dates.

Four of the 26 individuals charged in the conspiracy remain at large and are known only by their online identities. Efforts to identify and apprehend these four individuals continue.

In a separate case, Christopher Philpot of Rushville, Ind., was sentenced today to 60 months in prison and lifetime supervised release following his prison term for receiving child pornography. Philpot, 32, pleaded guilty on April 17, 2009, in Indianapolis before Judge Lawrence to one count of receipt of child pornography.

The charges against Baratta, Van Dorp, Watkins, Reeder and 22 co-defendants, as well as against Philpot, are a result of “Operation Nest Egg,” an ongoing and joint investigation led by the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Indiana, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Operation Nest Egg, launched in February 2008 targeted approximately 500 additional individuals located throughout the world for their involvement in an online group dedicated to trading images of child pornography.

As a result of Operation Nest Egg more than 80 searches have been conducted to date in the United States. In total, more than 50 individuals have been arrested and 38 individuals have been convicted. The investigation is ongoing. Numerous members of the Internet-based bulletin board were found to have been personally sexually abusing children, sometimes producing images of the sexual abuse. For example, lead administrator Delwyn Savigar of the United Kingdom was identified and arrested in partnership with the U.K.'s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre for his involvement in the conspiracy. After his initial arrest, Savigar was identified through DNA testing as the perpetrator of a previously unsolved sexual assault against a minor female in Great Britain, to which he pleaded guilty. Following this discovery, Savigar was linked to additional incidents of sexual assaults. Ultimately, he pleaded guilty to either abusing or attempting to abuse three minors from 1999 to 2002. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison in the United Kingdom. To date, 16 child victims have been identified through Operation Nest Egg.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov .

The cases are being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven D. DeBrota of the Southern District of Indiana, Assistant U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of Virginia and former CEOS Trial Attorney Elizabeth M. Yusi and CEOS Trial Attorney Alecia Riewerts Wolak. CEOS Trial Attorney Anitha S. Ibrahim also prosecuted the case against Philpot. The investigation was conducted jointly by CEOS' High Technology Investigative Unit, USPIS and ICE, with assistance provided by the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Taskforce, Indiana State Police and numerous local and international law enforcement agencies across the United States and Europe.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/July/10-crm-772.html

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From the FBI

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Evaluate Appeals for Help from Friends Traveling Abroad with Caution

The Internet Crime Complaint Center continues to receive reports of individuals' e-mail or social networking accounts being compromised and used in a social engineering scam to swindle consumers out of thousands of dollars.

Here's how it works: Hackers infiltrate your social networking page, claim to be you, and write your contacts/friends. They portray themselves as “victims” who were robbed while traveling abroad and state they need money immediately because they don't have a passport, money, credit cards, or cell phone and are stranded.

Some claim they only have a few days to pay their hotel bill and promise to reimburse costs upon their return home. Recipients may be tempted to respond to these appeals because they appear to be from a friend and there's a sense of urgency to help.

If you receive a similar notice and aren't sure if it is a scam, you should always verify the information before sending any money. If you have been a victim of this type of scam or any other cyber crime, report it to the IC3 website at www.IC3.gov .

The IC3's database links complaints for potential referral to the appropriate law enforcement agency for case consideration. Complaint information is also used to identity emerging trends and patterns.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/evaluate070210.htm

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