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NEWS of the Day - January 6, 2011
on some NAACC / LACP issues of interest

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NEWS of the Day - January 6, 2011
on some issues of interest to the community policing and neighborhood activist across the country

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following group of articles from local newspapers and other sources constitutes but a small percentage of the information available to the community policing and neighborhood activist public. It is by no means meant to cover every possible issue of interest, nor is it meant to convey any particular point of view ...

We present this simply as a convenience to our readership ...

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From the Los Angeles Times

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Huntington Beach police turn to Facebook to help identify woman killed in 1968

Detectives get dozens of calls and e-mails, and quickly learn that a key piece of evidence they had followed for decades was nothing more than a false lead.

by Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times

January 6, 2011

Her body was found face down in a drainage ditch in an open field. Her throat was slit and she had been sexually assaulted.

On March 14, 1968, detectives in Huntington Beach would begin a 42-year search to identify the victim, later dubbed "Jane Doe" — and the person who killed her.

Monty McKennon, 82, remembers the case well. For 12 years, it sat on his desk, McKennon and his team the only advocates for the answers to the mystery. McKennon, who spent 24 years with the Huntington Beach Police Department, recalled how long it took to bury the woman's body.

"We had her on ice for a long time," he said. "Every time we started to bury her, someone would claim they knew who it was."

But the case never went anywhere. Until now.

After reopening the mystery several times, police turned to Facebook in an effort to put a name to the woman's face. What they learned — quickly — was that a key piece of evidence police had followed for decades was nothing more than a false lead.

When the woman's body was found, some boys playing in a nearby oil field came across a white purse containing a wallet and a collection of black-and-white photographs, including a snapshot of a young boy wearing a cowboy hat.

For years, detectives assumed the pictures were family members or friends of the slain woman and hoped if they found them, they might be able to unlock the mystery.

On Tuesday, police posted a composite drawing of the woman, photos of the purse, a matching wallet and seven photographs, six of them that were found tucked inside the wallet.

Overnight, the department received 50 to 60 phone calls, dozens of e-mails and 16 comments on its Facebook page. It became clear the purse and photos had no connection to the woman.

"We talked to the people who were actually in the pictures," said Lt. Russell Reinhart, a department spokesman.

Jane Doe's body was discovered by several children playing in an open field near Newland Street and Yorktown Avenue, a neighborhood now dotted with homes.

The woman was white or Latina, 20 to 25 years old, about 5 feet 4 inches tall and had dark hair.

Shortly after the grisly discovery, a Long Beach nurse's aide came forward claiming the victim was a 23-year-old woman named Rhonda Fischer from Hollywood, the first in a series of false identifications.

In 2001, the Orange County crime lab created a DNA profile of the killer, using evidence from the scene. But authorities have not found a match.

Stephanie Rohrbach, 27, said when she browsed the Facebook page Tuesday night, she became convinced that one of photos from the purse was of her grandfather and his brother. She immediately e-mailed the photo to her father with her iPhone.

"When I saw the picture, I just started shaking because it was like I'd seen a ghost," said Rohrbach, who lives in Tucson.

Reinhart said Wednesday afternoon that Rohrbach was wrong and that the photo was not her grandfather and great uncle. But he said the department welcomed the calls and e-mails. Facebook and other social media will be utilized for cold cases in the future.

"We're confident we'll be doing it more," he said.

Reinhart said ruling out the purse in the 1968 case is significant.

"It takes that piece of the puzzle away," he said.

Reinhart said the department now has new and workable leads into the woman's identity.

Meanwhile, McKennon, who has since moved to Washington, said the case has never left his mind.

"We went door-to-door," he said. "We tried everything we could think of."

He said certain things will trigger the memory of the case.

Every time he hears the name Jane Doe, he thinks of the woman in Huntington Beach, the one whose killer has yet to be found.

Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Mike Reilly at (714) 536-5940 .

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0106-mystery-woman-20110106,0,5205018,print.story

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FBI cyber-crime lab opens in Orange

The $7-million regional crime lab will help law enforcement agencies analyze evidence from computers, cellphones and other digital devices.

by Nardine Saad, Los Angeles Times

January 6, 2011

A regional FBI crime lab where investigators can analyze evidence from computers, cellphones, cameras and other digital media opened Wednesday in Orange.

The $7-million lab is the third of its kind in California and the 15th in the nation and is designed to tackle the growing use of computers and the Internet to commit and conceal crimes, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said.

Mueller said Regional Computer Forensic Labs are intended to help local law enforcement agencies analyze evidence and have helped investigators throughout the country solve public corruption, fraud, gang crime and counterterrorism cases. The labs streamline resources and investigative standards across agencies, he said.

"There's no one agency that can be successful in addressing the threats of today," Mueller said. "This [lab] is a perfect example of how we come together and how we are far more effective than we would be individually."

The Orange County district attorney's forensic lab was incorporated into the new regional center.

Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said the evidence processed by the lab would speed up the process of bringing charges against criminals and taking them to court.

"We are in need of staying a step ahead of the criminals," he said. "We know that this resource and this sharing of resources is going to help us protect the community and save lives."

Six employees from the district attorney's former forensics lab have been added to the regional crime lab's 25-person staff of examiners, Rackauckas said.

The 21,000-square-foot lab houses about 25 workstations where evidence will be analyzed with specialized forensic software, which categorizes data found on computers and other digital media.

The lab also has investigative kiosks to extract data from cellphones, including text messages and information about incoming and outgoing calls. If phones contain geotagged photos, the kiosks can generate the latitude and longitude of a suspect.

"Almost every case in the FBI now has digital components," said Jason Weiss, director of the Orange County regional lab. "With facilities like this, we can help fight cyber-crime in a digital age."

Nearly every computer confiscated by officials in Orange County will probably go through the lab for hard-drive analysis, Weiss said.

Weiss said his lab has more space than the two other California labs — in Menlo Park and San Diego — combined.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fbi-lab-20110106,0,520576.story?track=rss

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FBI lab will examine remains of Mitrice Richardson, sheriff says

January 5, 2011

The remains of Mitrice Richardson, the woman who disappeared after being released from the Lost Hills/Malibu sheriff's station and was found dead nearly a year later, will be exhumed and sent to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., for further examination, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

Clothing that was found near her remains — and assumed to be hers — as well as a hank of hair discovered near her will also be sent for investigation.

“I am responding to the family's wishes,” Baca said in a phone interview. 

He said he called the FBI's assistant director here in L.A. in late December to request the agency's involvement.

“But I also think it doesn't hurt having the FBI say, ‘We've examined this and find the following,'" Baca said. "I think the needs of the family should be my first priority.”

The Sheriff's Department has been dogged by criticism ever since Richardson disappeared after walking out of the Lost Hills sheriff's station in Calabasas shortly after midnight on Sept. 17, 2009.  She had been arrested for not paying a dinner bill at Geoffrey's restaurant in Malibu. Her car had been impounded that night and in it were her cellphone and purse.

Her skeletal remains were found last August in a remote area of the rugged Malibu Canyon area just south of the station.

The department, which faces two negligence lawsuits in this matter, was found to have correctly followed its policy that early morning.

“Certainly you have to think twice about everything you do in this business we're in,” said Baca, who has met several times with Richardson's family members since she went missing. “The most important thing is that Mitrice was offered the opportunity to stay [at the station] until it was a safer period of time for her to leave. I don't know if there's a policy that can stop a free person from leaving a jail facility which she had a right to do as an adult.”

But Baca said he would like to add a sheriff's station to serve that area that would be less remote than the Lost Hills/Malibu station. 

“I have for years wanted to reopen the old Malibu station where people could come to the city of Malibu, get booked and not have that distance to go from Lost Hills,” Baca said. It would help people, he said, “if we don't just put cars in an impound area ridiculously far from where the individual is jailed.”

Baca said that he and L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky were working on a plan to open a substation in the Malibu Civic Center.  “I think it's going to happen,” he said.

The L.A. County coroner has agreed to the exhumation, Baca said.  Its own report on Richardson's skeletal remains listed the cause of death as undetermined. 

Richardson's mother and an anthropologist who works with families of missing persons had publicly said that body should be examined further and they wanted the FBI involved.

“I feel very elated that Sheriff Baca and the head medical examiner have heard my pleas,” said Richardson's mother, Latice Sutton.  “There is more on Mitrice's body to explain what happened to her.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/fbi-lab-will-examine-remains-of-woman-whose-body-was-in-canyon-a-year-after-her-release-from-sheriff.html

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From the New York Times

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Morocco Says It Foiled Terror Cell in Sahara

by J. DAVID GOODMAN and SOUAD MEKHENNET

The Moroccan government arrested 27 people accused of operating a terrorist cell in Western Sahara led by a member of the local branch of Al Qaeda, officials said Wednesday.

The group was planning suicide and car bomb attacks against Moroccan and foreign security forces as well as bank robberies in Rabat and Casablanca to finance their activities, the interior minister, Tayeb Cherkaoui, said at a news conference carried by state news media.

The group's leader, the minister said, was a Moroccan member of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which operates in North Africa and has camps in neighboring Algeria, Mauritania and northern Mali. The goal was to set up a “rear base” for terrorism planning, he said.

A Moroccan security official said the cell had “links with extremists of different nationalities in European countries.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.

Mr. Cherkaoui gave few details about the timing or location of the arrests, but said the authorities had captured a cache of weapons, including 30 Kalashnikov rifles, two rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and several handguns at three sites around Amgala, an oasis town in a disputed area of Western Sahara. Investigators also seized maps of the border region between Algeria and Morocco.

Morocco governs Western Sahara, a territory on the Atlantic coast the size of Colorado, but has long faced violent opposition from the Polisario Front, a separatist group based in Algeria. The simmering conflict boiled over in November in the desert city of Laayoune, about 130 miles from Amgala, as knife-wielding gangs attacked unarmed Moroccan security officers, killing 11.

Analysts feared that the violence — some of the worst in years — would contribute to the chaos in the territory and provide an opening for Al Qaeda to establish a greater foothold in the region. The arrests of suspected members of a terrorist cell believed to have Qaeda leadership appeared to confirm some of those fears.

“This is potentially a significant episode because it is indicative of a qualitative shift in terms of Al Qaeda itself and the counterterrorism measures in the region,” said Mohammad-Mahmoud Mohamedou, the former foreign minister of Mauritania and an expert on Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. “There has been a show of strength by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb over the last six months.” The group has become increasingly bold since September, he added, when it kidnapped seven foreign contractors, including five French citizens, in Niger. The hostages have yet to be released, and their whereabouts remains unclear.

In 1991, Morocco and the Polisario reached a cease-fire agreement that included a referendum to decide whether Western Sahara would be independent or remain part of Morocco. But the vote has not occurred in the intervening two decades because the two sides cannot agree on who would be allowed to take part.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/world/africa/06morocco.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Hijacker Overpowered on Norway-Turkey Flight

by REUTERS

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Passengers aboard a Turkish Airlines flight from Oslo overpowered a would-be hijacker as the plane landed at Istanbul airport on Wednesday, fellow passengers told Turkish media.

Police said the man was a Turk who had demanded that the plane return to Norway. His motive was unclear. According to the Turkish Dogan news agency, he tried to force his way into the cockpit of the plane saying: "I have a bomb."

The pilot notified emergency services at Istanbul's Ataturk airport. Passengers were quickly taken off after landing and the man was arrested and the bomb found to be a fake.

"I was sitting at the front end of the plane and I heard voices at the back of the plane around 30 minutes before we landed," said Lelya Kilic, one of the 59 passengers aboard flight TK1754 from Oslo.

"I saw a fight between passengers and a man with a mask, carrying a device that looked like a radio handset."

Police said a passenger had been sitting on top of the hijacker when they entered the plane, a Dogan journalist said. Police identified the hijacker as Cuma Yasar.

Private Norwegian television network TV2 quoted witness Salim Tahar as saying someone in the back of the plane had put on a mask and threatened to blow up the plane in the air.

"The man spoke Turkish and demanded the plane return to Oslo," Tahar said.

Tahar told TV2 by telephone from Turkey that the man appeared to be holding something but it was not clear what. He said the crew moved the other passengers to the front of the plane, while the would-be hijacker remained at the back.

There were no reports of anyone being hurt in the incident.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/01/05/world/international-uk-turkey-norway-hijack.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Prescription Drug Abuse Sends More People to the Hospital

by ABBY GOODNOUGH

The number of emergency room visits resulting from misuse or abuse of prescription drugs has nearly doubled over the last five years, according to new federal data, even as the number of visits because of illicit drugs like cocaine and heroin has barely changed.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found there were about 1.2 million visits to emergency rooms involving pharmaceutical drugs in 2009, compared with 627,000 in 2004. The agency did not include visits due to adverse reactions to drugs taken as prescribed.

Emergency room visits resulting from prescription drugs have exceeded those related to illicit drugs for three consecutive years, said R. Gil Kerlikowske, President Obama's top drug policy adviser.

“I would say that when you see a 98 percent increase,” Mr. Kerlikowske said, “and you think about the cost involved in lives and families, not to mention dollars, it's pretty startling.”

In 2010, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported that the number of people seeking treatment for addiction to painkillers jumped 400 percent from 1998 to 2008. And in a growing number of states, deaths from prescription drugs now exceed those from motor vehicle accidents, with opiate painkillers like Vicodin, Percocet and OxyContin playing a leading role.

In September, the Drug Enforcement Administration organized the first national prescription drug take-back program, and thousands of people dropped off old or unused drugs at designated locations around the country. While the effort captured but a tiny fraction of the addictive drugs in the nation's medicine cabinets, law enforcement officials said it helped people understand how deadly such drugs can be. Another collection day is being planned for April, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

“The most important thing that actually seems to be gaining a lot of traction,” he said, “is the recognition that the prescription drugs sitting in your medicine cabinet can be dangerous. That's huge.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/health/06drugs.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Nebraska: School Shooting Ends in Two Deaths

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A student opened fire at Millard South High School in Omaha on Wednesday, killing one person, wounding another and causing students to take cover, the authorities said.

No motive was apparent for the shooting of the principal, Curtis Case, and the vice principal, Vicki Kasper, who later died.

After the shootings the student, Robert Butler Jr., 17, was found dead in a car about a mile away from the school after shooting himself, said the Omaha police chief, Alex Hayes.

Mr. Butler is the son of an Omaha police detective.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/us/06brfs-SCHOOLSHOOTI_BRF.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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Bizarre final days and hours of John P. Wheeler 3d

by Kathleen Brady Shea and Larry King

Inquirer Staff Writers

As more becomes publicly known of the final days and hours of John P. Wheeler 3d, an image is emerging of a man coming unglued.

Less than 48 hours before the respected former Pentagon aide turned up dead last week in a Delaware landfill, Wheeler limped into a Wilmington parking garage. Coatless and confused, one of his shoes in hand, he bizarrely inquired about the location of his car, then declined offers of help, witnesses said.

A day later, police said Wednesday, surveillance video captured Wheeler in downtown Wilmington again - this time looking "confused" inside the Nemours Building at 10th and Orange Streets about 8:30 p.m. Dec. 30.

That was less than 14 hours before Wheeler's body tumbled into a Wilmington landfill from a garbage truck. Police have called his death a homicide, but have refused to disclose how they believe Wheeler, 66, died.

"I knew something wasn't right," said Iman Goldsborough, a parking-lot attendant who encountered Wheeler on Dec. 29, "but I never thought it would end up like this."

Also this week, police found evidence that Wheeler may have been involved in an arson attempt at the home of a couple he had been battling in court, a law enforcement source has told The Inquirer.

It all runs counter to the burnished public image of Wheeler, who served in Vietnam, successfully pushed for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall, advised presidents and Pentagon brass, and served as the first chief executive of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and as secretary of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Phoebe Dill, a friend and neighbor of Wheeler and his wife, Katherine Klyce, in New Castle, Del., said she last saw Wheeler on Christmas Eve when her husband, Robert, drove him to the train station.

"He was going to New York with his wife's Christmas present," she said. Wheeler and Klyce have a condominium in Manhattan.

Dill said she assumed Wheeler then took a train directly to Washington, near his consulting job at Mitre Corp., a defense contractor in McLean, Va.

The news that Wheeler appeared disoriented in Wilmington several days later greatly distressed her and her husband, she said.

"It's a terrible thing to happen to anyone," she said, surmising a medical problem had occurred.

After working at Mitre on Dec. 28, Wheeler is believed to have taken a train from Washington to Wilmington. That night, police said, smoke-bomb devices were set off in an unfinished New Castle home across from Wheeler's that belongs to a couple with whom he was long embroiled in a court battle over the dimensions of the house.

On Dec. 13, a Chancery Court judge denied Wheeler's application for a temporary restraining order. Wheeler's lawyer, Bayard Marin, has said he last spoke to Wheeler on Dec. 27 - the day before the arson attempt.

Marin doubted the dispute had anything to do with Wheeler's death. He declined on Wednesday to comment further.

On Dec. 29, Wheeler turned up at a pharmacy in New Castle at 6 p.m. and asked the pharmacist for a ride to Wilmington, the Wilmington News Journal reported. The pharmacist, who declined comment Wednesday, told the newspaper that Wheeler looked "different" and "a little upset." He said he offered to call a cab, but Wheeler refused and left.

About 30 minutes later, Wheeler entered the parking garage attached to the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, about seven miles from the pharmacy. How he got there has not been explained.

A surveillance video shows Wheeler limping inside, wearing a dark suit but no overcoat, his white shirt open at the collar, clutching one tasseled loafer.

"He said he wanted to warm up before getting his car," Goldsborough said. She suggested he close an outside door and stay in the vestibule area.

His car, it turned out, was not in that garage. After his death, it was towed from a garage near the train station several blocks away, where he was a monthly customer.

Goldsborough said Wheeler told her he had been driven from the train station by his brother, had been robbed, and was recovering from the recent death of his mother. He declined Goldsborough's offer to contact police, she said.

Dill, Wheeler's neighbor, said that the limp was not new, but that Wheeler's brother and mother "both died some years ago."

While looking for his car, Wheeler encountered two departing courthouse employees who declined Wednesday to be quoted by name, saying they feared losing their jobs. They said that they encountered Wheeler about 7:30 p.m., that he was having trouble locating his vehicle, and that he wondered aloud whether he was in the right garage.

Wheeler said he didn't have his garage ticket because his wallet and briefcase had been stolen. When asked if he needed money, he told the workers that he had $120. He also declined their offer to call police, they said.

All three people who encountered Wheeler described him as clean and neat. His responses to their questions, they said, seemed labored but lucid.

All said they wished they had called police anyway.

"We feel that we should have done something more," one woman said.

Where Wheeler spent the night is not known, although he reportedly said he was staying at a nearby hotel. Officials at the nearby Hotel du Pont declined comment.

Police initially had said that Wheeler was last seen around midafternoon the following day, Dec. 30, near 10th and Orange Streets. On Wednesday, they disclosed that surveillance video showed him inside the Nemours Building there as late as 8:30 p.m.

Sometime between then and the next morning, Wheeler turned up dead in a Dumpster in Newark, about 15 miles away. Police believe he had been in one of 10 bins collected beginning at 4:20 a.m.

His body was spotted as the collection truck dumped its load about 10 a.m. at the Cherry Island Landfill in Wilmington.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20110106_Bizarre_final_days_and_hours_of_John_P__Wheeler_3d.html

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From the White House

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Another Step Forward For Alzheimer's Research and Services

by Melody Barnes

January 05, 2011

This week, President Obama signed The National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA), bipartisan legislation that will help individuals and families across the country whose lives are touched by Alzheimer's disease.  This legislation represents the next step in our strong, continued commitment to supporting Alzheimer's research and health and long-term care services for affected individuals. 

Alzheimer's disease currently affects 5.3 million Americans, a number which is expected to increase fourfold by 2050.  Additionally, there are nearly 11 million unpaid caregivers and the Nation spends an estimated $172 billion in annual costs.

Signing NAPA builds on a commitment made to individuals and families affected by Alzheimer's disease at a meeting that was held at the White House on World Alzheimer's Day last September.  We brought together leading Alzheimer's disease advocates, researchers, health and long-term care experts, and others to commemorate World Alzheimer's Day. 

Developing a national plan to respond to this disease is critical for making sure that we are supporting individuals and families as effectively as possible and making important research investments to develop effective therapeutics and change the trajectory of this disease.  The Obama Administration looks forward to implementing this legislation. 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/01/05/another-step-forward-alzheimer-s-research-and-services

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From the FBI

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Arlington Man Indicted for Alleged Threats Via Facebook

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Awais Younis, 25, of Arlington, Virginia, was indicted by a federal grand jury today of threatening to bomb the Metro in statements he made on Facebook.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office, made the announcement. On Nov. 6, 2010, Younis was arrested on the same charge and has been detained pending further court action. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted.

According to the indictment, through a Facebook profile under the name of Sudullah “Sunny” Ghilzai, Younis chatted online with another individual. In November 2010, Younis allegedly threatened to injure the individual by harming her father, who lives in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and rides Metrorail to work. The indictment alleges that Younis described to the individual a potential attack he planned to carry out against the Metro and warned “tell your father to cancel work tomorrow.”

The public should be reassured that Younis' activities prior to his arrest were carefully monitored. Younis poses no current threat against Metrorail or the general public in the Washington, D.C., area.

This case was investigated by the FBI Washington Field Office. Assistant United States Attorney Ronald L. Walutes Jr. is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.

Criminal indictments are only charges and not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.uspci.uscourts.gov

http://washingtondc.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/wfo010511.htm

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Self-Proclaimed White Supremacist William White Convicted of Soliciting Violence Against Hale Jury Foreman

CHICAGO—A self-proclaimed white supremacist was convicted today by a federal jury in Chicago of soliciting violence to the foreman of a federal jury in Chicago that convicted another white supremacist, Matthew Hale, in 2004, federal law enforcement officials announced today. The defendant, William A. White, was found guilty on one count of solicitation, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

White, 33, also known as “Bill White,” of Roanoke, Va., faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Jurors deliberated several hours following a two-day trial before U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, of Milwaukee, who was assigned to preside over the case in U.S. District Court in Chicago. A sentencing date was not immediately set.

Judge Adelman initially had dismissed the indictment against White but a federal appeals court in Chicago reinstated the solicitation charge last summer. Today's verdict is White's second federal conviction in little more than a year. He is currently serving a 30-month federal sentence that was imposed last April after a federal jury in Roanoke convicted him in December 2009 of three counts of communicating threats in interstate commerce and one count of witness intimidation.

“After one white supremacist was tried, convicted and sentenced for soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago, White solicited his followers to retaliate against the foreman of that jury,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “While freedom of speech is among our most cherished rights, the First Amendment does not protect anyone who intends to induce others to kill or injure. It is critical to our system of justice that jurors and judges alike must be free to perform their duties without living in fear.”

According to the evidence at trial, White created and maintained a former website, “Overthrow.com,” which was publicly accessible on the Internet. The website purported to be affiliated with the “American National Socialist Workers Party” (ANSWP), and claimed the organization was comprised of a “convergence of former [white supremacy] ‘movement' activists who grew disgusted with the general garbage that ‘the movement' has attracted and who formed the ANSWP under the Command of Bill White.” Members of the ANSWP were described as “National Socialists... who fight for white working people.”

Between Sept. 11 and Oct. 11, 2008, White used the website to solicit another person to injure Juror A on account of Juror A's role as the foreperson of the jury that convicted Hale, the leader of a white supremacist organization known as the World Church of the Creator, who was found guilty and sentenced to 40 years in prison for soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago.

As part of White's solicitation of violence against Juror A, White posted derogatory comments and personal information about Juror A, including Juror A's home address and phone numbers, to be posted on the Overthrow.com website on Sept. 11, 2008. The solicitation occurred under circumstances strongly corroborating White's intent that another person engage in criminal conduct using, attempting to use or threatening the use of force against Juror A.

White was aware that individuals associated with the white supremacist movement, who were the target audience of his website, at times engaged in acts of violence, directed at non-whites, Jews, gays, and persons perceived by white supremacists as acting contrary to their interests. Prior to the solicitation against Juror A, White on multiple occasions caused postings to the website which disclosed what purported to be the home address and/or personal identifying information of individuals who were targets of criticism on the Internet. Certain of these postings during the same time period expressed White's desire that acts of violence be committed against these specific individuals, including author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, individuals known as the “Jena 6,” a Canadian civil rights lawyer, and syndicated newspaper columnist Leonard Pitts.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Ferrara and William Hogan.

http://chicago.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/cg010511a.htm

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