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From the Los Angeles Times

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Cellphone alarms were set to trigger Yemen package bombs, U.S. officials say

U.S. officials also dismiss claims by a French government minister that one of the bombs was disarmed minutes before it was set to explode.

by Brian Bennett and Richard A. Serrano, Tribune Washington Bureau

November 4, 2010

Reporting from Washington

Two package bombs sent from Yemen were probably designed to be triggered by an alarm set on a cellphone attached to a syringe filled with chemical material to detonate the explosives, two U.S. officials said Thursday.

Militants are believed to have tested the length of time it took a package to travel from Yemen to Chicago during a dry-run shipment of books and compact discs in September, and probably set the cellphone alarms to go off while the aircraft were in the air, authorities previously said.

John Brennan, President Obama's top counterterrorism advisor, had said Sunday that the bombs were designed to be "self-contained" and did not require someone to press a syringe.

On Thursday, two U.S. officials confirmed that a syringe in the bomb was intended to act as a blasting cap initiated by a cellphone alarm. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose information about an ongoing investigation.

When the alarm went off, electrical current from the phone battery would have run through a thin wire filament, similar to those in lightbulbs, that would have ignited a small amount of combustible liquid and detonated the bomb.

Once the bomb makers had the parts, the devices would not have been difficult to assemble, said Dave Williams, a retired FBI explosives expert who investigated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

"If you could make brownies from a Duncan Hines box mix, you could make this device," Williams said Thursday.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials were skeptical of claims by a French government minister that one of the bombs was disarmed minutes before it was set to explode.

Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux told France 2 television Thursday that "one of these packages was defused just 17 minutes before the planned explosion time." White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he had "no information that would confirm that," but he did not entirely dismiss the claims.

An official at the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said his government also was not aware that the bombs were defused with 17 minutes to spare.

"I love this French minister," said the Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "He talks a lot."

The bombs were discovered on planes last Friday and defused, one in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and the other in East Midlands, England. Both packages were addressed to Jewish organizations in Chicago, though officials believe they were intended to be detonated before arrival.

Yemeni commando units have been sent to the Marib province in central Yemen to capture the bomb maker, the Yemeni official said.

Investigators believe the devices are the work of Ibrahim Hassan Asiri, a Saudi member of Al Qaeda in Yemen, who designed the bomb used on a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. That bomb, which failed to detonate, involved PETN, the same explosive found in the Yemen packages. It also included a syringe full of a chemical liquid that was designed to be plunged by hand into the PETN to set off an explosion.

The bombs bear the hallmarks of two generations of Al Qaeda explosives designers, said Williams, whose forensic work contributed to the 1997 conviction of bomb maker Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, nephew of self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Yousef trained many of the Al Qaeda bomb makers working today, Williams said.

Chris Ronay, who headed the FBI forensic investigation into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, said the basic outlines of the Yemen plot — putting into the international transit system a disguised time bomb set to explode days later — are not that different from the Lockerbie plot.

It also mirrors one of the first bombings by the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, who mailed a bomb wired to a barometer that went off inside the cargo hold of an airplane in 1978.

Twenty years ago, it was difficult to build a timer that could be set for days ahead. The Libyan bombers who planned the 1988 Lockerbie attack, which involved checking a suitcase in Malta bound for the U.S., had to have a special timer designed in Switzerland, Ronay said.

Today, the cellphones people carry around in their pockets are "much more sophisticated timers," Ronay said.

Before it was uncovered, the explosive device found in Dubai had flown on two passenger airliners, first from Sana, the Yemeni capital, to Doha, Qatar, and then from Doha to Dubai.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-yemen-bombs-20101105,0,7899017,print.story

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Part of Jessica's Law ruled unconstitutional

In response to a judge's decision, California corrections officials stop enforcing a section of the measure in L.A. County restricting how close sex offenders can live to parks or schools.

by Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

November 5, 2010

California corrections officials this week stopped enforcing portions of Jessica's Law in Los Angeles County after a judge ruled that the 2006 statute restricting how close sex offenders can live to parks or schools is unconstitutional.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza concluded that the controversial measure left sex offenders in some areas with the choice of being homeless or going to jail because the law restricts them from living in large swaths of some cities such as Los Angeles.

He issued the 10-page ruling Monday after four registered sex offenders petitioned the court. He noted that the court has received about 650 habeas corpus petitions raising similar legal issues, and that hundreds more were being prepared.

In his opinion, Espinoza cited comments by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck that Jessica's Law restrictions had resulted in "a marked increase of homeless/transient [sex offender] registrants." In 2007, there were 30 sex offenders on active parole in Los Angeles. By this September, that number had jumped to 259, Beck said. Most of the new cases were filed in the last six months.

"Rather than protecting public safety, it appears that the sharp rise in homelessness rates in sex offenders on active parole in Los Angeles County actually undermines public safety," wrote Espinoza, who is the supervising judge of Los Angeles County criminal courts. "The evidence presented suggests that despite lay belief, a sex offender parolee's residential proximity to a school or park where children regularly gather does not bear on the parolee's likelihood to commit a sexual offense against a child."

In the wake of the ruling, the state Department of Corrections issued a memo Tuesday to local parole agents stating that they should immediately suspend the portion of the law prohibiting sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school, park or play area.

The memo, obtained by The Times, stressed that parole agents can still use global positioning systems to track the movement of offenders and continue to enforce local ordinances governing offenders. "The duration of this order is unknown," the memo states.

State corrections officials said they could not comment on the specifics of Espinoza's ruling, but that the department would continue to monitor sex offenders in the best way they can. They also plan to appeal the ruling.

"There are other tools that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can and will continue to use to further public safety, including residency restrictions specific to each offender," said agency spokesman Luis Patino.

Proposition 83, overwhelmingly approved by state voters in 2006 and informally known as Jessica's Law, imposes strict residency requirements on sex offenders, including rules forbidding them from residing near locations where children gather. Before the law passed, those residency requirements were imposed only on offenders whose victims were children.

Civil rights attorneys have argued that provisions of the law make it impossible for some registered sex offenders to live in densely populated cities. Nearly all of San Francisco, for example, is off-limits to sex offenders because of the number of parks and schools close to housing. Los Angeles officials also said there are few places in the city where sex offenders can find housing that meets Jessica's Law requirements.

In Orange County, where more than a third of the paroled sex offenders are homeless, dozens of homeless people started living on the streets in an industrial section of Anaheim because it was the only place they could find that complied with Jessica's Law. After complaints, police broke up the camp in May. But many of the offenders moved to another industrial area.

The California Supreme Court ruled in February that registered sex offenders could challenge residency requirements in the law if it proves impossible to avoid living near parks and schools.

Backers of Jessica's Law acknowledge that the rules have made it harder for some sex offenders to find housing, but they believe the scope of the problem has been exaggerated.

State Sen. George Runner (R- Lancaster), the author of Jessica's Law, said most parts of the state still have ample housing for sex offenders, including Los Angeles County.

"Clearly there are places to live in Los Angeles County," Runner said. "That's what's so astounding about the ruling. Even those who have found a place to live are now being allowed to live across the street from a school. You don't give a card to every sex offender, pervert in the county to let them live wherever they want. That's just wrong. The voters didn't want that and it's wrong for a judge to unilaterally decide that."

Runner said he was confident the geographic rules would eventually be restored in L.A. County and elsewhere. He also suspected that the judge's order might prompt local cities to impose their own rules on where sex offenders can live that might be more restrictive than Jessica's Law.

Espinoza's ruling comes as the Superior Court is hearing the cases of sex offenders. It is possible the judge could modify his ruling at a later date, or that a higher court ultimately could decide the matter.

In recent months, Los Angeles Police Department officials have been voicing concerns about the growing number of sex offenders living on the streets.

There are about 5,100 registered sex offenders in the city, and about 1,020 of them are prohibited under Jessica's Law from living near places where children congregate. Throughout Los Angeles County, about 2,000 registered sex offenders are subject to residency restrictions.

In a briefing before the Los Angeles Police Commission last month, Det. Diane Webb said some of the city's sex offender population has come to Los Angeles from surrounding cities that have passed sex offender rules even tougher than Jessica's Law. Los Angeles has no such laws on the books.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sex-offenders-20101105,0,146213,print.story

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Backers of Jessica's Law vow to fight L.A. judge's ruling

California corrections officials voted to appeal a Los Angeles judge's ruling that the 2006 statute restricting how close sex offenders can live to parks or schools was unconstitutional.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza concluded that the controversial measure left sex offenders in some areas with the choice of being homeless or going to jail because the law restricts them from living in large swaths of some cities such as Los Angeles.

Backers of Jessica's Law said they want a higher court to review the ruling.

State Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster), the author of Jessica's Law, said most parts of the state still have ample housing for sex offenders, including Los Angeles.

“Clearly there are places to live in Los Angeles County,” Runner said. “That's what's so astounding about the ruling. Even those who have found a place to live are now being allowed to live across the street from a school. You don't give a card to every sex offender, pervert in the county to let them live wherever they want. That's just wrong. The voters didn't want that and it's wrong for a judge to unilaterally decide that.”

Runner said he was confident the geographic rules would eventually be restored in Los Angeles County and elsewhere. He also suspected that the judge's order might prompt local cities to impose their own rules on where sex offenders can live that might be more restrictive than Jessica's Law.

Judge Espinoza issued the 10-page ruling Monday after four registered sex offenders petitioned the court. He noted that the court has received about 650 habeas corpus petitions raising similar legal issues, and that hundreds more were being prepared.

In his opinion, Espinoza cited comments by Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck that Jessica's Law restrictions had resulted in “a marked increase of homeless/transient [sex offender] registrants.” In 2007, there were 30 homeless sex offenders on active parole in Los Angeles. By this September, that number had jumped to 259, Beck said. Most of the new cases were filed in the last six months.

There were 30 homeless sex offenders on active parole in the city of Los Angeles in 2007.

Body of student missing for 9 years is found in Santa Clarita

Placentia police arrest Christopher McAmis, who reportedly told them where to find the body of Lynsie Ekelund. Police had long suspected McAmis, but were still surprised when he confessed.

by Sam Allen, Nicole Santa Cruz and Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times

November 5, 2010

After nearly a decade of steadfast denials, three interrogations and two inconclusive polygraph tests, the man who last saw 20-year-old Lynsie Ekelund alive led detectives to a tree-dotted Santa Clarita hillside last week and indicated where to start digging. He had done a construction job there, police said, and it was where he had buried her.

Tearing into the hillside with a backhoe Wednesday, investigators unearthed a blue sneaker. They got on their knees and continued searching with small shovels and handheld buckets. Under several feet of dirt, they found bones.

Christopher McAmis, 31, an unemployed construction worker with a young family, had long maintained that he dropped the Fullerton College student off near her suburban northern Orange County home on the morning of Feb. 17, 2001, after she joined him on a trip to San Diego.

But Ekelund, a hazel-eyed journalism student who lived with her mother in Placentia and was partially paralyzed from a childhood car accident, was not seen again. With her disabilities, family members thought it unlikely that she would run away and be able to survive on her own. She didn't drive, and had little money with her.

Though searches of his house and car yielded no hard evidence, investigators were convinced that McAmis, of Fullerton, was involved in her disappearance.

"For many years we were often in a place of 'Yes, you did,' 'No, I didn't,' 'Yes, you did,' 'No, I didn't,' " Placentia Police Det. Corinne Loomis said.

Last Wednesday, detectives confronted McAmis with fresh evidence, including enhanced footage from ATM cameras that contradicted his statement that he had driven up Rose Drive in Placentia and gone home after dropping her off, police said.

"The statements that he made were laid against the information we had and it didn't match up," Loomis said, adding that detectives confronted him "in a way that made him realize he had nowhere to go."

As Loomis watched the interrogation through a window, she said the man who had always maintained his innocence uttered a sentence that stunned her: "I might as well tell you."

In a confession that Loomis described as "unemotional" and "matter-of-fact," McAmis said he attempted to rape Ekelund at his Whittier apartment and strangled her in the struggle, then drove her body more than 50 miles to a Santa Clarita construction site where he had worked with his father and dug the grave with a backhoe, police said.

"I really couldn't believe that I was hearing him confess to what we knew in our hearts for years," Loomis said.

That day, she said, he pointed out the burial spot on a satellite map, and detectives accompanied him to a hillside in Bouquet Canyon, near a ranch-like facility for the mentally disabled.

The topography had changed slightly since 2001, but police said McAmis indicated the general area in which he remembered burying the body.

McAmis has been charged with murder during the attempted commission of a rape and remains in custody.

In an interview last year with a Fullerton College student magazine McAmis maintained his innocence. He speculated that Ekelund may have encountered a burglar, or been picked up by someone else after he dropped her off. Neither his attorney nor family members could be reached for comment Thursday.

Police believe the sneaker and the excavated remains belong to Ekelund, though they have not been officially identified.

Some in Ekelund's family had held out hope that she might still be alive, though they knew the odds were against it.

She had already survived one close brush with death when she was 5. Her father, Stewart, recalled doctors telling him that she wouldn't survive the car accident that put her in a coma for months. He remembered her waking up and saying, "I love you, dad."

He said that although police were vague about McAmis' involvement in his daughter's disappearance, he always suspected that McAmis had killed her.

The possibility that she had run away didn't make sense to him. She lacked motor control of her left arm, and would have had trouble surviving on her own. "I thought the worst had happened a long time ago," he said. "There was just nothing to indicate that she was alive."

Ekelund's older brother, Scott, described her as an upbeat and caring person who never complained about her disability, "though she had every reason in the world" to do so.

For years, he said, he had not understood the strategy of Placentia detectives investigating the case, but now he praised the work that culminated in the confession. "They played a psychological game with this guy," he said. "They poked at this guy little by little by little, all along knowing that he was the one who did it."

With no crime scene and no body, the investigation dragged on for nine years. Loomis said the break came after her department asked the Orange County district attorney's office for help in 2008. Investigators reexamined McAmis' statements and studied video cameras that would have captured him on streets he said he passed.

During the investigation, Loomis said, she spoke often with Lynsie Ekelund's mother, Nancy, who would call with questions and feared that her daughter might have been the victim of a human trafficking ring. Mother and daughter had been close.

After the confession, Loomis arranged to meet Nancy Ekelund at her home to inform her of the development.

By Loomis' account, Ekelund said she suspected the news would be bad, but

told her, "I held out hope that you had found her, and that when I came home you were going to be standing on the porch and Lynsie would be with you."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-missing-student-20101105,0,5335030,print.story

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Father of missing Fullerton College student Lynsie Ekelund says he had concerns about suspect from ‘very beginning'

Stewart Ekelund said knew this day would come. He said even though the police were vague, he always suspected that Christopher McAmis was the culprit in the disappearance of his daughter nearly 10 years ago.

"He was the last person that supposedly let her off," he said. "I just felt that he was the main person of interest in this from the very beginning."

Placentia police arrested McAmis last week. Officials said that after he was confronted with new evidence, he confessed and told them where they could find Lynsie Ekelund's body.

Humain remains were discovered Wednesday at that site in Santa Clarita. Although they have not been positively identified, Placentia police Det. Corinne Loomis said investigators found a blue athletic shoe at the site that they believe to be Lynsie Ekelund's.

Though some believed the Fullerton College student could have been kidnapped, or that there was a chance she was still alive, Stewart Ekelund said he never felt that way.

He said he is not in a position to criticize the Placentia Police Department and that he believes its officers worked on the case to the best of their abilities.

"It was very, very frustrating, but it's hard for me to second-guess them," he said. "One of the worst things you can do is arrest a suspect and not have enough evidence and not have it stick."

After Lynsie Ekelund disappeared, her family and friends blanketed the community with signs asking for help. Her mother published a cookbook to raise funds to aid in the search. A reward was offered.

But after about a year, Stewart Ekeland said, the tips and clues stopped coming from the public. People weren't calling to say they saw her in the grocery store or at a nightclub, he recalled.

"There was just nothing to indicate that she was alive," he said.

Now, however, he says he feels some relief.

"The long arm of the law has come to clamp down, finally," he said.

As remains are recovered, victim's grandmother says, 'How could anyone be so cruel?'

Over the years, Patricia Ekelund grew accustomed to scanning crowds for her granddaughter.

Lynsie Ekelund, then 20 and living with her mother in Placentia, disappeared in 2001. Authorities launched a massive search for the Fullerton College student, but she wasn't found.

"You're always thinking about it," her grandmother said.

Last week, Christopher McAmis, 31, was charged with Ekelund's murder, said a spokeswoman with the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. McAmis told authorities that Ekelund's remains were at a construction site where he worked at the time, she said.

On Wednesday, workers began digging up what were believed to be Lynsie Ekelund's remains at a site off Bouquet Canyon Road in Santa Clarita.

Authorities say that on the morning of Feb. 17, 2001, McAmis attempted to rape Ekelund at his apartment in Whittier and then killed her and disposed of the body. McAmis had driven Ekelund and two other friends to a San Diego nightclub that evening.

"How could anyone be so cruel?" Patricia Ekelund said. "She was just a nice, little, lovely girl."

"This has been a terrible thing for all of us," she said. "At least we know she's not going to be harmed anymore."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/11/grandmother-mourns-lynsie-ekelund-as-remains-are-dug-up.html

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From the New York Times

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Another Package Is Defused as Greece Halts Overseas Mail

ATHENS — With the eyes of the world — and the financial markets — paying close attention to Greece ahead of crucial regional elections this weekend, the country was on high alert on Thursday as developments regarding an elaborate plot involving letter bombs addressed to foreign embassies in Athens stretched into a fourth day.

The authorities in Athens found another explosive device on Thursday, this one addressed to the French Embassy, and also formally charged two men, accusing them of sending similar crude explosive devices to the German, Italian and French Embassies in Athens this week in packages addressed to those countries' leaders.

In a country where 1970s-style political terrorism has never entirely disappeared, the police said that one of the two men charged was believed to have ties to the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, a leftist group that since its founding in 2008 has claimed responsibility for several bomb attacks against the Greek police, politicians and other targets.

Although the authorities said the explosives were relatively mild — one security expert called them the product of “inventive amateurism” — the packages contributed to a growing sense of instability here ahead of elections on Sunday. The vote is expected to be a referendum on the deeply unpopular austerity measures of the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou.

“I do think there is a danger, even though these groups are modest and amateurish, that this will only exacerbate Greece's image problem at a very critical time,” said Ian Lesser, who directs the Mediterranean affairs programs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

“When you are facing the prospect of the restructuring of Greek debt, and the international community is looking on a daily basis, it does become critical,” Mr. Lesser added.

Indeed, Greece has been under an international microscope since May, when it adopted a raft of austerity measures in exchange for a pledge of more than $150 billion in loans from its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund.

Those measures, which included cuts to pensions and civil servants' wages as well as tax increases, were aimed at reducing the country's debt and budget deficit, but they have not gone over well with Greeks.

On Nov. 15, the Communist-backed labor union, PAME, plans to hold a protest rally in central Athens to coincide with the scheduled arrival of I.M.F. inspectors. On Dec. 15, the main labor union, GSEE, which represents half a million people, is expected to hold a 24-hour strike.

On Thursday, hundreds of firemen and dock workers staged vehement rallies in the city center, protesting salary cuts and demanding job security. The police cordoned off the area in front of Parliament after another package set off an alert; the area was reopened after the package turned out to contain books.

This week, Mr. Papandreou took pains to say that the letter-bomb plot was not linked to the powerful parcel bombs suspected of having been shipped from Yemen last week by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and intercepted in Britain and Dubai when officials acted on a tip from Saudi intelligence.

In Greece, one device exploded Monday and two exploded on Tuesday; one person suffered minor injuries.

Most of the devices were sent to foreign embassies in Athens. But one, addressed to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was found in her office's mailroom in Germany, and another, addressed to the Italian leader, Silvio Berlusconi, was intercepted in Italy.

On Thursday, a package addressed to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France was returned by French Embassy officials in Athens to a courier service in the Athens area, where bomb experts detonated it. The explosives were hidden in a hollowed-out volume of the complete works of George Souris, a Greek satirical poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Agence France-Presse reported.

In all, officials have dealt with 12 confirmed bombs in Greece this week, including ones addressed to the embassies of Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Chile, Mexico and Russia. Three bombs exploded, two at the Swiss and Russian Embassies. The third, which had been destined for the Mexican Embassy, blew up in the hands of a courier company worker, causing minor burns.

On Thursday, the police in Athens formally charged two men, Gerasimos Tsakalos, 24, and Panagiotis Argyrou, 22, with terrorism offenses. Citing court papers, The Associated Press reported that one was a college student and the other unemployed.

The police said that Mr. Argyrou was charged with membership in a criminal organization and involvement in three attacks on Greek targets in 2009. The Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire claimed responsibility in each case. Greek officers have intensified their search for five other people suspected of being members of the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire.

Security experts said the senders of the letters wanted to send a message.

“A crucial goal of the anarchists is always to humiliate the authorities,” said J. Brady Kiesling, a former United States diplomat and a terrorism expert in Greece. “Especially to say, ‘You spend all this time cracking down, and we can still get a bomb into Merkel's office.' ”

Mary Bossis, a security expert at the University of Piraeus, said the letter bombers had clearly wanted “to internationalize their activity.” But she added that they had an incoherent agenda. “We can call it inventive amateurism,” she said. “Very dangerous, but very inventive.”

The Greek police and civil aviation authority said shipments of foreign-bound letters and small packages would resume Friday, after a 48-hour suspension.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/world/europe/05greece.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Graves May Solve Mystery in Mexico

MEXICO CITY — They were 20 men, kidnapped in broad daylight soon after they arrived at the Pacific resort city of Acapulco for what their families said was a guys' vacation.

That was five weeks ago, and their fate has been a mystery since then.

But the discovery of a mass grave in a coconut grove on the city's rural outskirts, after an anonymous tip, may provide the answer many people feared.

The authorities on Wednesday recovered 18 bodies from the grave, and family members of the missing men were traveling to Acapulco, where they will be asked if they can identify them.

A call on Tuesday led the authorities to the coconut grove, where the bodies of two men lay with a note saying they had killed innocent people. It was signed by CIDA, or the Independent Cartel of Acapulco.

The authorities returned early Wednesday and began digging, finding many more bodies underneath. During the day, a video on YouTube appeared, showing interrogations of the two men whose bodies had been found the day before. In the video, they admitted to killing the kidnapped men as part of a feud with La Familia, a cartel in Michoacán.

The search of the grave ended Thursday without uncovering any more bodies. But the authorities said they expected to continue searching nearby.

Leonel Godoy, the governor of Michoacán, which borders the state where Acapulco is located, said the kidnappings appeared to be a case of mistaken identity.

“From the beginning we have sent out the message to those who took them to bring them back because evidently there was confusion, because the honest way they made their living has been proven,” Mr. Godoy said.

Five of the missing men were brothers who owned an auto repair shop in Morelia, the Michoacán state capital, and five more were their employees. The brothers' relatives said they organized a trip every year.

“The only thing that keeps us on our feet is hope,” the brothers' niece, Katiuska Rodríguez Ortiz, told Reforma, a Mexican newspaper, as bodies were being recovered. “We wish for all our heart that they turn up alive because they are good people, working people, people who shouldn't be in a situation like this.”

When the men were reported kidnapped by an armed commando on Sept. 30, the authorities were quick to argue that they must have had some links to drug trafficking. Mexico's tourism minister, Gloria Guevara, argued that tourists usually traveled with their families.

The kidnapping was reported by a member of the group, who had watched from inside a store. The group's cars were found later, with no trace of weapons.

In the weeks that followed, their families struggled to explain that the men were the victims of a mistake. They presented documents showing that the repair shop paid taxes and social security for its employees.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/world/americas/05mexico.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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U.S. Plays Down Ticking Bomb Talk

PARIS (AP) — American and British officials played down on Thursday a comment by the French interior minister, who said that one of the two cargo bombs sent from Yemen last week had been disarmed just 17 minutes before it was set to go off.

The issue of timing is central to the investigation because it could indicate whether terrorists hoped to blow up the planes over American airspace or whether they simply wanted to take down the planes regardless of their location.

“One of the packages was defused only 17 minutes before the moment that it was set to explode,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux told the state-run France-2 television station.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said that the question of when the bombs found in Britain and the United Arab Emirates were to go off was still under investigation and that there was no information confirming such a close call.

The State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, Daniel Benjamin, also questioned the French minister's comments. “This is not our understanding of the situation,” he told reporters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/world/asia/05yemen.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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EDITORIAL

The Crisis in Public Housing

After nearly two decades of weak financing from Congress, a large number of the public housing developments that shelter 2.3 million of the nation's poorest, most vulnerable people are falling apart.

The scope of the problem was underscored in a recent article in The Times by Cara Buckley. Unable to pay for basic repairs, the local housing agencies that manage federally owned developments have boarded up or torn down 150,000 units in the last 15 years.

The unmet needs for public housing are staggering and will only get worse if Congress fails to provide more help. Today, because of financing shortfalls, only one in four families that qualify for federal rent support receive it. Families that do get to lease public housing units must often wait 10 years or longer for the opportunity.

Public housing units are set aside for low-income people, a majority of whom are elderly or disabled. Residents typically pay a third of their meager incomes in rent. Congress is supposed to make up the shortfall between the rent and what it costs to maintain buildings but began to renege during the 1990s, forcing local housing authorities to put off crucial repairs.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development says that the majority of the nearly 1.2 million public housing units are sound. But many buildings that pass inspection still have serious problems — leaky roofs or crumbling masonry — that must be dealt with. By HUD's estimates, it could take as much as $32 billion to catch up with all of the needed repairs.

There is little hope that Congress will allocate that much money to public housing any time soon. But a draft bill from Representative Keith Ellison, a Democrat of Minnesota, would help local housing authorities. It would boost federal subsidies from about $7.2 billion this year to about $8.5 billion. It would also streamline hopelessly complicated rules so that housing developments have more flexibility in how they spend federal dollars. Most importantly, it would lift regulations that forbid local housing agencies from borrowing to cover building repairs, a common practice in the real estate industry.

Some lawmakers worry that borrowing might place buildings at risk of foreclosure. But the greater risk lies in doing nothing and watching the stock of public housing decay and more families end up homeless.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/opinion/05fri4.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the Department of Justice

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Former Department of Defense Employee Arrested and Charged for Allegedly Stealing Financial Assistance Funds Intended for Service Members

WASHINGTON – Tyrone L. Ellis, a former civilian employee of the Department of Defense (DoD), was arrested yesterday and has been charged with conspiracy, conversion and false statements related to his alleged theft of Army Emergency Relief (AER) funds while he was employed at Camp Humphreys in the Republic of Korea, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.

Ellis, 56, of Columbus, Ga., was charged in an indictment returned on Oct. 28, 2010, in the Middle District of Georgia with one count of conspiracy, 10 counts of conversion and one count of making a false statement. He will make his initial appearance at 10:30 a.m. this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Hyles.

The AER is a private, non-profit organization that serves as the emergency financial assistance organization for the U.S. Army. AER's operations are financed by voluntary contributions from active and retired soldiers during an annual fund campaign, as well as by unsolicited contributions, repayment of outstanding loans and income from reserve funds.

According to the indictment, Ellis worked as an Assistant Army Emergency Relief Officer at Camp Humphreys in 2005 and 2006. During this time, Ellis was tasked with providing AER loans and grants to service members and their families in financial need. The indictment alleges that Ellis approved grants for at least a dozen soldiers in amounts larger than they needed, and that he requested and received thousands of dollars back from the grant recipients, which he converted to his own use. The indictment also alleges that Ellis conspired with another individual to convert AER funds in the same manner. In addition, Ellis is charged with making false statements to investigators when questioned about the allegations. According to the indictment, Ellis resigned his position as an assistant AER officer in August 2006 and left Camp Humphreys.

Ellis faces up to five years in prison on the conspiracy charge; 10 years in prison for each felony count of conversion; one year in prison for the misdemeanor charges of conversion; and five years in prison on the charge of making a false statement. He also faces a $250,000 fine for each count of conspiracy, felony conversation and making a false statement. He faces a $100,000 fine on the misdemeanor charges of conversion, as well as terms of supervised release following his prison term on all charged counts.

The allegations contained in the indictment are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys John P. Pearson and Richard B. Evans of the Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section, and is being investigated by the Army Criminal Investigation Division, with assistance from the U.S. Army Audit Agency.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/November/10-crm-1250.html

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From the FBI

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Thomas Sanders

Suellen Roberts

Suspect Named, Kidnapping Charges Filed Catahoula Parish Sheriff James Kelly, United States Attorney Stephanie A. Finley, Western District of Louisiana, and David W. Welker, Special Agent in Charge of the New Orleans Division of the FBI, announce the following: On the evening of Oct. 8, 2010, human skeletal remains were found in a wooded area north of Harrisonburg, La. The remains were found by hunters who reported it to the Catahoula Parish Sheriff's Office. Since then, numerous investigative agencies, including the Louisiana State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Postal Service, the Office of Louisiana Attorney General, the LSU Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services (FACES) and law enforcement throughout the country have been involved in the case. On Oct. 26, 2010, the remains were positively identified, based primarily on dental records, as being Lexis Kaye Roberts, age 12, of Las Vegas, Nev. Lexis was last seen with her mother, Suellen Roberts, and Thomas Sanders, traveling in a silver 2001 Kia Spectra sedan with Nevada license plate 153UCR.

Today the FBI announces that a federal kidnapping warrant was obtained in the Western District of Louisiana charging Thomas Steven Sanders with the abduction of Lexis Roberts. On Sept. 3, 2010, Sanders was captured on film purchasing ammunition at a local Wal-Mart in Las Vegas. The forensic anthropologist reported that Lexis suffered multiple gunshot wounds. The ammunition Sanders purchased was consistent with the caliber weapon used during the homicide.

In 1994, Thomas Steven Sanders was legally declared dead in the state of Mississippi by family members. However, we now know that he is still alive and has ties to several states across the country. We have been able to obtain photographs of Sanders that illustrate how his appearance has varied over the last several years. Known associates have provided information that Sanders is missing his upper teeth and has only two lower teeth. He also is reported to have a tattoo on his chest of an unknown design and a scar on his abdomen. The most reliable recent physical description for Sanders is as follows: white male, age 53, 5'8", 200 or more pounds with brown eyes. Sanders has worked as a welder, a scrap metal collector, a night watchman, a pallet fabricator and a handyman.

Sanders was last seen driving a silver 2001 Kia Spectra with notable damage on the passenger side doors. It is likely that the Nevada license plate may have been replaced, possibly with stolen plates, to avoid detection. Sanders also has a history of exchanging vehicles through auto salvage yards.

If you have information or have seen any one of these individuals since Sept. 3, 2010, you are urged to call the tipline: 1-800-CALL-FBI

http://neworleans.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/no110410.htm

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From the DEA

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Operation Titan Recognized by Police Chiefs

NOV 01 -- ORLANDO – The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the North Miami Beach Police Department (NMBPD) were recognized last week by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) during their annual conference held in Orlando. Operation Titan was named runner-up for the IACP's “Award for Excellence in Criminal Investigations”.

The joint, multi-jurisdiction, international operation was recognized for innovation in the development of its investigative techniques utilized to identify and arrest large scale international drug traffickers and to also establish the organization's ties to known terrorist groups. To date, Operation Titan has resulted in over 100 arrests, the seizure of over $42 million in assets, 3,700 kilograms of cocaine, and 10 kilograms of heroin. Four of the defendants were on the U.S. Attorney General's list of international “drug kingpins” known as Consolidated Priority Organization Targets.

DEA Miami Field Division (MFD) Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Mark R. Trouville stated “Operation Titan is the epitome of DEA's partnership with our local counterparts. The results listed above are a result of our close friendship with the North Miami Beach Police Department and all of the other state, local, and international agencies we worked with in this case.”

NMBPD Chief Rafael echoed the sentiments stating “NMBPD and DEA have an excellent relationship and partnership in investigating and eradicating the narcotics problem to enhance our overall quality of life.”

Accepting plaques for runner up for IACP's “Award for Excellence in Criminal Investigations” were: DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart, DEA MFD SAC Mark R. Trouville, NMBPD Chief Rafael Hernandez, DEA MFD Deputy SAC Matthew G. Barnes, DEA MFD Assistant SAC A.D. Wright, DEA MFD Group Supervisor Brian McKnight, and NMBPD Task Force Officer William Beauparlan.

http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/2010/mia110110.html

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