March 9, 2012 Today's Stories |
| Hacking Mastermind, a Dropout, Led Obscure Life in NYC Project ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The New York Times profiles Sabu, a hacker viewed as the mastermind of brash computer attacks intended to cripple the governments of Algeria and Zimbabwe, to shame some of the biggest brand-name companies in the world. His real identity--Hector Xavier Monsegur, 28--was revealed this week when the federal government announced that he had informed on his former colleagues in the hacking group Anonymous. The Times said he did his work from a housing project apartment on Avenue D on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Neighbors often complained about his pounding music and barking pit bull. A large man known as Booby, he was raising the two young children of his imprisoned aunt. He paid bills with stolen credit cards and dabbled in drug sales. In one neighborly gesture, he offered to use his hacking skills to sweeten other tenants' credit ratings. On Twitter, he was prone to grand declarations: "Give us liberty or give us death - and there's billions of us around the world. You can't stop us. Because without us you won't exist." His father, also named Hector Monsegur, was arrested in 1997 along with his sister, Iris, for selling heroin. Both went to prison for seven years. He attended Washington Irving High School, but left in 2001 without finishing ninth grade. Court documents say he went to college, though it is unclear if he actually did. |
| Private Enterprise Pitches Prison Purchases for Cash-Strapped States ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As states struggle to reduce bloated prison populations and tight budgets, a private prison management company is offering to buy prisons in exchange for various considerations, including a controversial guarantee that the governments maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years, reports USA Today. The $250 million proposal, circulated by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America to prison officials in 48 states, has been blasted by some state officials who suggest such a program could pressure criminal justice officials to seek harsher sentences to maintain the contractually required occupancy rates. "You don't want a prison system operating with the goal of maximizing profits," says Texas state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and advocate for reducing prison populations through less costly diversion programs. "The only thing worse is that this seeks to take advantage of some states' troubled financial position." Corrections Corporation spokesman Steve Owen defended the company's "investment initiative" as an option for cash-strapped states to consider. The proposal seeks to build upon a deal reached last fall in which the company purchased the 1,798-bed Lake Erie Correctional Institution from the state of Ohio for $72.7 million. Ohio officials lauded the September transaction, saying that private management of the facility would save a projected $3 million annually. |
| Half of Texas Youth Prison Inmates Need Mental Health Care ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More than half of the people in Texas' youth prisons have a moderate or high need for mental health care, and officials should improve their early intervention efforts to help those young people before they end up behind bars, reports the Associated Press. Cherie Townsend, executive director of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, told legislators this week that more than 52 percent of teens and other youngsters held at the state's six juvenile detention facilities have been diagnosed with at least moderate mental health problems. Including those with at least some kind of mental health care needs would make that tally much higher, she said. "The numbers are increasing," Townsend told members of the Texas House Corrections Committee. Townsend's department was created after the Legislature voted last year to merge the Texas Youth Commission, which had run the prison system for teens, and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, which had been in charge of county-run youth probation programs. Supporters said the merger could save Texas as much as $150 million in the first two years of the new department's existence, while also improving mental health and rehabilitation programs for troubled youth. |
| Paper Says NYPD Report Vindicates 'Secret Tapes' Cop ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A confidential New York police report about secret recordings made by an officer during roll calls in Brooklyn confirms the allegations made in a five-part series by the Village Voice in 2010, the weekly newspaper says. The Voice reported that the recordings by Officer Adrian Schoolcraft captured his superiors urging police officers to manipulate crime statistics by arresting people who were doing little more than standing on the street, but to disregard actual victims of serious crimes who wanted to file reports. In October 2009, Schoolcraft met with NYPD investigators for three hours and detailed more than a dozen cases of crime reports being manipulated in the district. Three weeks after that meeting-which was supposed to have been kept secret from Schoolcraft's superiors-his precinct commander and a deputy chief ordered Schoolcraft to be dragged from his apartment and forced into a psychiatric ward for six days. An investigation was ordered by NYPD commissioner Raymond Kelly, but the findings were kept secret. The Voice has obtained that 95-page report, and it shows that the NYPD confirmed Schoolcraft's allegations, even as the department was attacking his credibility. |
| Orlando-Area Courts Install High-Tech Remote Connections for Interpreters ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Orange County has installed Florida's first high-tech interpreter system that simultaneously connects interpreters across 67 courtrooms through a network of flat-screens, high definition cameras and fiber-optic lines, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Chief Judge Belvin Perry spearheaded the project in an effort to save money and improve services by eliminating the costly travel time for interpreters driving to and from courtrooms. "I think it puts us at the forefront of technology and innovation," Perry said. "It's a very cost-effective system that addresses the growing need for interpreters across the state." Perry said the revamped system installed in February will be tested in the 15th Circuit, which includes Palm Beach County, and he hopes to expand it across Florida's courtrooms. The $41,500 system runs on technology developed by Cisco Systems, a company known for networking equipment. Trial court administrator Matt Benefiel said the court used its technology budget, funded by the fees collected from recording services, to pay for the system. |
| How Knockout-Game Assaults Roiled St. Louis Police, Citizenry ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Post-Dispatch details the challenges that St. Louis police encountered in bringing justice after a series of vicious knockout assaults in 2011 in St. Louis. Groups of teens were cold-cocking older pedestrians at random. One was dead, several injured. Residents were alarmed, police baffled. And the worst was yet to come: On Oct. 21, Matt Quain, 52, a dishwasher, was severely beaten in a knockout assault. The mayor helped rescue him. Seven middle schoolers, some as young as 12, were arrested. Then, at a juvenile court hearing in January, the main witness, a 13-year-old classmate of the defendants, failed to show up. The case was tossed out. The kids celebrated. Others howled. The case seemed to captivate the city with a series of difficult questions: Why was this happening? How would it stop? Was witness intimidation a factor? The story of how police cracked the case, only to see it fall apart, shows the unusual challenges posed by knockout assaults, as well as the communitywide frustrations. The crimes were rare, but terrorizing. These were not muggings. Something else was at play here. It was a matter of finding out what, even if the answers were unsettling. |
| Authorities Seek Identity of Shooter at Pittsburgh Psych Facility ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Authorities were working to identify a gunman who went on a rampage Thursday at a psychiatric hospital near Pittsburgh. He entered the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, with two semiautomatic handguns and extra ammunition and started firing. He was killed in a gun battle with University of Pittsburgh police. A Western Psych employee was shot to death and seven other people were injured, reported the city's Post-Gazette. All those wounded were expected to survive. Police believe the gunman was roaming the first floor before he was killed. Officials said they believed the shooter had never been a patient at Western Pysch. Police had difficulty in identifying the man, who was not carrying identification. |
| Gang Violence Leads to Widespread Prison Lockdowns in NC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A surge of gang violence has prompted a series of unusual lockdowns in six North Carolina prisons in recent months, reports the Raleigh News and Observer. The lockdowns indicate that state prison officials considered the gang violence to be a serious problem. All but one of the prisons has returned to normal operations. Scotland Correctional Institution in Laurinburg, where the violence began, has been on lockdown off and on since January. It has recently eased restrictions and is transitioning to regular operations. State officials were reluctant to discuss what happened in detail, out of concern for encouraging further violence. They said that in January six of the state's 12 prisons with high-security inmates were placed on temporary lockdown "due to a serious gang-related situation."None of the lockdowns lasted more than seven days While lockdowns are common, this was unusually widespread. Lockdowns are used to temporarily stabilize fights or larger outbreaks of violence, or to search for contraband. In a lockdown, inmates are confined to their cells, including for meals and medical attention. Showers and exercise are prohibited or restricted. |
| Mississippi AG Wants Constitutional Amendment on Pardons ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After Thursday's Mississippi Supreme Court ruling that former Gov. Haley Barbour's pardons would stand, Attorney General Jim Hood said he wants to let voters decide whether the judiciary should be able to overturn a governor's pardon, reports the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. Hood challenged the 203 pardons Barbour granted during his last week in office, arguing that they did not comply with a constitutional provision that requires clemency applicants to publish a newspaper notice for 30 days. "I intend to seek an initiative to amend Section 124 of our Constitution to make it very clear that the judicial branch is responsible for enforcing the 30-day notification period in the future," Hood said. "I am calling on all our victims' groups, law enforcement and other volunteers to help me obtain the necessary signatures to place the measure on the ballot." The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 6-3 in reversing a lower court's decision that had granted Hood a temporary restraining order. |
| Drucker Book Views Incarceration as the Problem, Not the Solution ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Huffington Post says, "The breathtaking premise of Ernest Drucker's new book is that mass incarceration is an epidemic ravaging the country -- not a solution to a problem, but a problem in itself." Drucker, a longtime practitioner and scholar of public health, observed the explosive growth and unprecedented number of Americans being sent to prison beginning in the late 1970s and recognized the familiar characteristics of the spread of an epidemic disease: outbreaks and contagion, patterns of transmission, and human impact - tens of millions of years of life lost to incarceration. His book is "A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America." "The paradigm shift here is really from looking at mass incarceration as a solution to social problems like crime and drugs to saying that that level of incarceration is itself a public health problem," Drucker says. His view could have a dramatic impact on the way journalists and policy makers look at a criminal justice system whose default response for three decades has been to lock people up. |
| Former LAPD Detective Convicted in 1986 Love-Rival Murder ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A jury Thursday found former Los Angeles Police Detective Stephanie Lazarus guilty of murdering the wife of a man who spurned her, bringing an end to a remarkable case in which a new generation of the LAPD redeemed the failures of a past one, reports the city's Times. Jurors concluded that Lazarus brutally beat and then shot Sherri Rasmussen three times in the chest on Feb. 24, 1986. Three months before the attack, Rasmussen, a 29-year-old hospital nursing director, had married John Ruetten, who dated Lazarus casually for a few years leading up to the wedding. The case drew national attention for its sensational story line of a love-sick cop killing a woman she viewed as a romantic rival, and then somehow managing to bury her dark secret. The case was a study of stark contrasts between the best and worst of the LAPD, leading Chief Charlie Beck to issue an extraordinary apology to the victim's family, whose calls for an investigation of the long-unsolved murder were largely ignored. Beck said, "I am also sorry it took us so long to solve this case and bring a measure of justice to this tragedy." The department had to confront awkward questions about why detectives two decades ago did not pursue Lazarus, with her apparently obvious motive, as a suspect. Had they been protecting a fellow cop or was it simply sloppy detective work? |
| Ex-Federal Prosecutor Disbarred for 'Egregious' Financial Misdeeds ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The District of Columbia's highest court disbarred a former federal prosecutor on Thursday for "egregious" misconduct during a series of high-profile murder cases in the 1990s, reports USA Today. The court's decision to strip former assistant U.S. attorney G. Paul Howes of his law license is the first time in at least a decade that judges anywhere in the United States have disbarred a federal prosecutor for misconduct in a criminal case. "Disbarment is the only appropriate sanction where (Howes') disregard for the laws of our jurisdiction affected the liberty interests of many and the safety of our larger community," the court said. Thursday's decision by three D.C. Court of Appeals judges came nearly 16 years after Howes was first accused of misusing thousands of dollars of witness vouchers in gang and murder cases. The vouchers are supposed to be used to reimburse witnesses for costs associated with testifying in court, but Howes authorized payments to relatives and girlfriends of informants, an internal Justice Department investigation found. As a result of those violations, the court said, the Justice Department agreed to reduce prison sentences for nine convicted felons, including seven murderers. A USA TODAY investigation in 2010 documented 201 cases since 1997 in which courts found that federal prosecutors had violated laws or ethics rules. Only six federal prosecutors faced any type of discipline from the state offices that oversee legal ethics, and none was disbarred. |
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Friday, March 9, 2012
09 March 2012
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