30 Apr 2012 at 2:51 PMPosted in:
Attorney Misconduct, Bad Ideas, Breasts, Drugs, Lawyer of the Day, Pro Bono
Lawyer of the Day: Criminal Defense Attorney Accused of Offering ‘Pro Boner’ Assistance to Female Inmates
By Staci Zaretsky
Depending on which state you’re licensed in, you may have to do a certain number of pro bono service hours in order to keep up with your ethical obligations. In general, doing pro bono work is a great way to get that happy feeling deep down inside.
But one lawyer in Georgia may have a different idea about how to achieve that sense of inner nirvana. He’s allegedly more interested in getting serviced pro boner than offering pro bono services.
That being said, let’s meet our Lawyer of the Day, a man who stands accused of trading contraband for peep shows from prisoners at the local jail….
Michael Stuart Winner, a graduate of Mercer Law School, is no stranger to disciplinary action by the state bar, but apparently he just can’t get enough of it. This time around, he’s been accused of offering female inmates prohibited items and legal services in exchange for sexual favors. The Marietta Daily Journal has more:
Michael Winner
Winner provided female inmates at the jail with prescription drugs and legal help in exchange for the women lifting up their tops to expose their breasts, which Winner would watch from the other side of a glass partition, [Cobb County Sheriff Neil] Warren said. He said the inmates also promised Winner sex when they were released from jail.
Warren said the number of inmates that Winner made these exchanges with was still under investigation. While he said it was more than one, it was not widespread.
Winning! And you thought “Put ‘Em on the Glass” was just a Sir Mix-A-Lot song. Winner also allegedly exposed himself to a female inmate, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. What’s it say about you when the only play you’re getting is through a glass partition?
Winner has been charged with the following felonies: four counts of conspiracy to commit crime, three counts of unlawful trading with inmates, one count of a violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act, and one count of “use of communications facilities to violate provisions prohibited.”
Congratulations, ladies, because it looks like you picked a real Winner to represent you.
Arrested attorney moves from Cobb to Fulton jail [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
Attorney accused of unlawful trading [Marietta Daily Journal]
Lawyer Accused of Trading Contraband for Sexual Favors with Inmates [ABA Journal]
http://abovethelaw.com/2012/04/lawyer-of-the-day-criminal-defense-attorney-accused-of-offering-pro-boner-assistance-to-female-inmates/
Monday, April 30, 2012
FEAR STRIKES OUT
FEAR STRIKES OUT
Only in Chicago could the 1853 killing of an early Constable rise from
the ashes to expose the meager state of moral courage in contemporary
municipal leaders. From the moment the long forgotten story of
Constable James Quinn's death first resurfaced some seven years ago, it
represented not only a can of worms to the police department's
so-called "historians" but served as a catalyst to expose a city that
had not changed much over the past 150 years. Clout is still clout.
Double standards remain common practice, and having two sets of rules:
one for insiders and another for outsiders is alive and well in the
Windy City.
The modern investigation into the death of Constable Quinn proved to be
so much more than just a walk through history. Piecing together
hundreds of artifacts found in various archives around town revealed
ugly secrets - exposing hypocrisy in some folks and uncommon valor in
others. Along the way, two themes surfaced: the police brass were
afraid of change and that fear caused otherwise good men to act badly.
From a factual perspective, the Quinn case was a no-brainer right from
the start. Primary source documents surviving the Great Fire of 1871
revealed a
long forgotten fact: Constable Quinn died as a result of
injuries sustained while in the discharge of his duty and a three man
legal team, known as the Committee on the Judiciary of the Common
Council of 1854, had determined just that. Despite this
incontrovertible evidence, the police department - its brass, its
historians, and others - not only denied this truth but spun and
twisted the facts to new heights - even for Chicago standards. Rather
than accepting the legal findings of the city, Quinn nay-sayers pointed
to a single uncorroborated allegation made by a vicious convicted felon
at the trial of the man convicted of killing the Constable as their
basis for believing Quinn died while off-duty in a barroom brawl. They
actually advanced this lie with a straight face never showing a bit of
shame.
In effect, the recently removed police brass treated the Constable no
differently than the Pharisees reacted to the curing of the Blind Man
by a certain young Man from Nazareth almost 2000 years ago. In this
Biblical story, the Truth scared the Pharisees. Why? Because the story
and all that it meant ran contrary to their belief systems and
historical narratives. Therefore they did everything to discredit and
discount the truth. To accept the curing of the blind man by Jesus
meant He was the Messiah - something the Pharisees refused to accept no
matter how weighty the evidence. Similarly, the police brass in Quinn
refused to accept 19th century primary
source evidence showing the
Quinn case was decided long ago. They also pooh-poohed a 2007 finding
by seven professional historians from the Chicago History Museum that
concluded, “We can say with certainty that Constable Quinn is the
earliest known Chicago police officer to die in the line of duty."
The rejection of the truth in the case of the Constable was much more
than just "an institutional reluctance to change" on the part of police
brass. No. It was an intentional and deliberate campaign launched and
orchestrated by men of bad character with ill-intent. They showed their
true colors by attacking the legacy and good name of a defenseless,
dead hero -- a man who had made the ultimate sacrifice for his city.
.
How could this seemingly harmless discovery scare the hell out of men
who had no doubt stood toe to toe with violent criminals over the
years? It just didn't make a lick of sense -- unless you understand the
power of FEAR - FEAR of change; FEAR of outsiders; and FEAR of being
viewed as having been "upstaged" by such outsiders are all very
powerful factors that influenced their bad behavior.
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but nobody is entitled to
their own facts. Facts are stubborn things. Truth is irrepressible.
Beginning in 2003, the story of Constable Quinn took on so much more
than just an interesting historical tid bit. It became the prism
through which endless buffoonery, hypocrisy and vicious politics was
exposed.
Rather than just simply rejoicing the finding of its proverbial Lost
Sheep, the police brass chose to reject Quinn and embarked on their
campaign to deny, deceive and destroy this story and all those who
advanced it. The smear campaign to kill Quinn for a second time was so
effective that it almost claimed another victim: Thomas Epach, a career
prosecutor...a man of unquestioned integrity, and a man who, in his
day, prosecuted and convicted cop killers. Tom, after capping off a
tremendously successful career prosecuting violent criminals, was
hand-picked to become the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of
the Chicago Police Department... In Tom's eyes, this assignment was his
crowning achievement in public service. In this role, he was assigned
to perform many sensitive tasks for the Superintendent; one of which
included a tasking in 2005 to review the evidence in the Quinn case.
This job was given to him directly by his boss - Superintendent Phil
Cline - but his order came with one caveat: Cline told him, "Find a way
to kill the case."
Duty bound, Epach diligently reviewed all of the evidence in Quinn. He
digested every morsel, memorized all of the facts, asked endless
questions, challenged every piece of evidence, engaged in scholarly
inquiry and debated the case from every angle. In the end, he arrived
at the same inescapable conclusion that city fathers had reached over
150 years ago: Quinn died as a result of injuries he sustained
while in
the discharge of his duty as an officer of the city.
Epach knew his findings would not be received well by his boss and
others. But duty bound, he pressed forward. He knew that the
department's historical narrative had placed Casper Lauer as its first
to fall and news that Quinn’s line of duty death preceded Lauer’s would
not be welcome. But “it is what it is” and Quinn happened to have died
nine months before Lauer. Epach delivered his findings in January of
2006 and immediately was demonized. He was viewed and treated as the
enemy. Rather than being complimented for a job well done; he was
ostracized and relegated to the "out" group within the department. But
this was the price he was willing to pay, for Epach would have no part
in the lynching of a dead man.
Nobody deserved such treatment - let alone Tom Epach. For years, he had
been the top boss for criminal prosecutors in the county, and took what
he called a step up- to join the best Police Department in the country
and protect from the front lines rather than the safety of the
courtroom.
After looking at the facts through every possible lens,Tom Epach knew
for sure what Rick Barrett, Skinny Sheahan, Ed Burke and Tom O' Gorman
and James Quinn already knew- that Constable Quinn's legacy was of the
greatest sort: that he had made the ultimate sacrifice...that he had
died in
the line of duty.
From t
he moment of that realization, Epach's spirit was forever joined
with the Constable's and he pushed forward armed with the Truth and
unafraid of any and all repercussions.
Epach wasn't Pollyannaish. He never walked through life wearing rose
colored glasses. In fact, through his many years of public service,
he'd seen his fill of bad guys masquerading as good guys -- but this
time, it was too much. His boss, the Superintendent, a man who, while
at the very time was building a multi-million dollar police memorial on
the city's lakefront to honor Chicago's fallen heroes, was at the same
time, privately spearheading an effort to kill the case Chicago's
earliest hero, reducing the memorial's motto of "Never Forget" to
nothing more than meaningless rhetoric.
Not only would Cline retaliate against Epach for "disloyalty" but the
disgraced Superintendent continued to weave himself deeper and deeper
into a tangled web of deception. Cline fabricated a March 22, 2006,
meeting of his Awards Committee to fool the Mayor into thinking the
Quinn case had been properly adjudicated. He lied to the mayor when he
claimed the Committee had reconvened and determined there was no new
evidence to justify enshrining Quinn's star in the Superintendent's
Honored Star Case. One hitch: That meeting never happened. It was all a
lie. He cowardly told Epach that if he were ever challenged by the
Mayor or anyone else on his decision to deny Quinn he would just point
to his Awards Committe
e claim they did it. So, Cline pulled a Pontius
Pilate and washed his hands of the matter.
Then came the Friday night massacre...On the eve of Labor Day week-end
2006, when Epach was on furlough and out of town, a late night General
Order was issued by the Superintendent's office "dumping" Epach. He was
banished to the basement of the building to be the Evidence Custodian
in charge of counting recovered stolen lawn mowers and such. Make no
mistake: This was not an upward mobility move; it was retaliation,
Chicago style.
As unimaginable as it may seem, at the same time small minds and little
men were advancing lies about the hero Constable, they enshrined a
truly undeserving officer: Morgan P. Donahue, who, according to
original CPD homicide reports from 1919 was killed in a "bar room
brawl" while "off-duty" and drinking in a "saloon."
For the original CPD homicide report relative to P.O. Donahue see:
http://homicide.northwestern.edu/database/3401/?page=
The enshrining of Donahue brought hypocrisy, double standards and clout
to new highs not often seen even in Chicago...Cline's own "historians"
spoke out against enshrining Donahue...but Cline prevailed as Donahue
was claimed to have been an ancestor to one of Cline's life-long
buddies...but hey, what's a little corner cutting between friends?
And Epach? Well, he became both the second victim and the second hero
in the odyssey known as the Quinn case. In the end, he resigned fr
om
the job he loved rather than compromise his integrity and give in to an
order he knew was immoral. Although resigning was obviously a painful
choice for him, when all was said and done, and given his moral
courage, it was the only decision this man would make.
Police work is all about righting wrongs. In this case, as in all of
his cases, Epach did the right thing. He wasn't afraid of advancing the
truth no matter what the personal cost would be to him.
Finally, fear struck out.
http://www.constablequinn.com/FEAR%20STRIKES%20OUT.htm
Editor's note: Your ProbateShark has received communications challenging the historical validity and accuracy of this article. ProbateShark does not wish to be in the middle of a historical controversy or accused of being a revisionist. Any persons wishing to comment on this article, please make you thoughts known in the comment section of this blog. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
KawamotoDragon.com
Only in Chicago could the 1853 killing of an early Constable rise from
the ashes to expose the meager state of moral courage in contemporary
municipal leaders. From the moment the long forgotten story of
Constable James Quinn's death first resurfaced some seven years ago, it
represented not only a can of worms to the police department's
so-called "historians" but served as a catalyst to expose a city that
had not changed much over the past 150 years. Clout is still clout.
Double standards remain common practice, and having two sets of rules:
one for insiders and another for outsiders is alive and well in the
Windy City.
The modern investigation into the death of Constable Quinn proved to be
so much more than just a walk through history. Piecing together
hundreds of artifacts found in various archives around town revealed
ugly secrets - exposing hypocrisy in some folks and uncommon valor in
others. Along the way, two themes surfaced: the police brass were
afraid of change and that fear caused otherwise good men to act badly.
From a factual perspective, the Quinn case was a no-brainer right from
the start. Primary source documents surviving the Great Fire of 1871
revealed a
long forgotten fact: Constable Quinn died as a result of
injuries sustained while in the discharge of his duty and a three man
legal team, known as the Committee on the Judiciary of the Common
Council of 1854, had determined just that. Despite this
incontrovertible evidence, the police department - its brass, its
historians, and others - not only denied this truth but spun and
twisted the facts to new heights - even for Chicago standards. Rather
than accepting the legal findings of the city, Quinn nay-sayers pointed
to a single uncorroborated allegation made by a vicious convicted felon
at the trial of the man convicted of killing the Constable as their
basis for believing Quinn died while off-duty in a barroom brawl. They
actually advanced this lie with a straight face never showing a bit of
shame.
In effect, the recently removed police brass treated the Constable no
differently than the Pharisees reacted to the curing of the Blind Man
by a certain young Man from Nazareth almost 2000 years ago. In this
Biblical story, the Truth scared the Pharisees. Why? Because the story
and all that it meant ran contrary to their belief systems and
historical narratives. Therefore they did everything to discredit and
discount the truth. To accept the curing of the blind man by Jesus
meant He was the Messiah - something the Pharisees refused to accept no
matter how weighty the evidence. Similarly, the police brass in Quinn
refused to accept 19th century primary
source evidence showing the
Quinn case was decided long ago. They also pooh-poohed a 2007 finding
by seven professional historians from the Chicago History Museum that
concluded, “We can say with certainty that Constable Quinn is the
earliest known Chicago police officer to die in the line of duty."
The rejection of the truth in the case of the Constable was much more
than just "an institutional reluctance to change" on the part of police
brass. No. It was an intentional and deliberate campaign launched and
orchestrated by men of bad character with ill-intent. They showed their
true colors by attacking the legacy and good name of a defenseless,
dead hero -- a man who had made the ultimate sacrifice for his city.
.
How could this seemingly harmless discovery scare the hell out of men
who had no doubt stood toe to toe with violent criminals over the
years? It just didn't make a lick of sense -- unless you understand the
power of FEAR - FEAR of change; FEAR of outsiders; and FEAR of being
viewed as having been "upstaged" by such outsiders are all very
powerful factors that influenced their bad behavior.
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion but nobody is entitled to
their own facts. Facts are stubborn things. Truth is irrepressible.
Beginning in 2003, the story of Constable Quinn took on so much more
than just an interesting historical tid bit. It became the prism
through which endless buffoonery, hypocrisy and vicious politics was
exposed.
Rather than just simply rejoicing the finding of its proverbial Lost
Sheep, the police brass chose to reject Quinn and embarked on their
campaign to deny, deceive and destroy this story and all those who
advanced it. The smear campaign to kill Quinn for a second time was so
effective that it almost claimed another victim: Thomas Epach, a career
prosecutor...a man of unquestioned integrity, and a man who, in his
day, prosecuted and convicted cop killers. Tom, after capping off a
tremendously successful career prosecuting violent criminals, was
hand-picked to become the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of
the Chicago Police Department... In Tom's eyes, this assignment was his
crowning achievement in public service. In this role, he was assigned
to perform many sensitive tasks for the Superintendent; one of which
included a tasking in 2005 to review the evidence in the Quinn case.
This job was given to him directly by his boss - Superintendent Phil
Cline - but his order came with one caveat: Cline told him, "Find a way
to kill the case."
Duty bound, Epach diligently reviewed all of the evidence in Quinn. He
digested every morsel, memorized all of the facts, asked endless
questions, challenged every piece of evidence, engaged in scholarly
inquiry and debated the case from every angle. In the end, he arrived
at the same inescapable conclusion that city fathers had reached over
150 years ago: Quinn died as a result of injuries he sustained
while in
the discharge of his duty as an officer of the city.
Epach knew his findings would not be received well by his boss and
others. But duty bound, he pressed forward. He knew that the
department's historical narrative had placed Casper Lauer as its first
to fall and news that Quinn’s line of duty death preceded Lauer’s would
not be welcome. But “it is what it is” and Quinn happened to have died
nine months before Lauer. Epach delivered his findings in January of
2006 and immediately was demonized. He was viewed and treated as the
enemy. Rather than being complimented for a job well done; he was
ostracized and relegated to the "out" group within the department. But
this was the price he was willing to pay, for Epach would have no part
in the lynching of a dead man.
Nobody deserved such treatment - let alone Tom Epach. For years, he had
been the top boss for criminal prosecutors in the county, and took what
he called a step up- to join the best Police Department in the country
and protect from the front lines rather than the safety of the
courtroom.
After looking at the facts through every possible lens,Tom Epach knew
for sure what Rick Barrett, Skinny Sheahan, Ed Burke and Tom O' Gorman
and James Quinn already knew- that Constable Quinn's legacy was of the
greatest sort: that he had made the ultimate sacrifice...that he had
died in
the line of duty.
From t
he moment of that realization, Epach's spirit was forever joined
with the Constable's and he pushed forward armed with the Truth and
unafraid of any and all repercussions.
Epach wasn't Pollyannaish. He never walked through life wearing rose
colored glasses. In fact, through his many years of public service,
he'd seen his fill of bad guys masquerading as good guys -- but this
time, it was too much. His boss, the Superintendent, a man who, while
at the very time was building a multi-million dollar police memorial on
the city's lakefront to honor Chicago's fallen heroes, was at the same
time, privately spearheading an effort to kill the case Chicago's
earliest hero, reducing the memorial's motto of "Never Forget" to
nothing more than meaningless rhetoric.
Not only would Cline retaliate against Epach for "disloyalty" but the
disgraced Superintendent continued to weave himself deeper and deeper
into a tangled web of deception. Cline fabricated a March 22, 2006,
meeting of his Awards Committee to fool the Mayor into thinking the
Quinn case had been properly adjudicated. He lied to the mayor when he
claimed the Committee had reconvened and determined there was no new
evidence to justify enshrining Quinn's star in the Superintendent's
Honored Star Case. One hitch: That meeting never happened. It was all a
lie. He cowardly told Epach that if he were ever challenged by the
Mayor or anyone else on his decision to deny Quinn he would just point
to his Awards Committe
e claim they did it. So, Cline pulled a Pontius
Pilate and washed his hands of the matter.
Then came the Friday night massacre...On the eve of Labor Day week-end
2006, when Epach was on furlough and out of town, a late night General
Order was issued by the Superintendent's office "dumping" Epach. He was
banished to the basement of the building to be the Evidence Custodian
in charge of counting recovered stolen lawn mowers and such. Make no
mistake: This was not an upward mobility move; it was retaliation,
Chicago style.
As unimaginable as it may seem, at the same time small minds and little
men were advancing lies about the hero Constable, they enshrined a
truly undeserving officer: Morgan P. Donahue, who, according to
original CPD homicide reports from 1919 was killed in a "bar room
brawl" while "off-duty" and drinking in a "saloon."
For the original CPD homicide report relative to P.O. Donahue see:
http://homicide.northwestern.edu/database/3401/?page=
The enshrining of Donahue brought hypocrisy, double standards and clout
to new highs not often seen even in Chicago...Cline's own "historians"
spoke out against enshrining Donahue...but Cline prevailed as Donahue
was claimed to have been an ancestor to one of Cline's life-long
buddies...but hey, what's a little corner cutting between friends?
And Epach? Well, he became both the second victim and the second hero
in the odyssey known as the Quinn case. In the end, he resigned fr
om
the job he loved rather than compromise his integrity and give in to an
order he knew was immoral. Although resigning was obviously a painful
choice for him, when all was said and done, and given his moral
courage, it was the only decision this man would make.
Police work is all about righting wrongs. In this case, as in all of
his cases, Epach did the right thing. He wasn't afraid of advancing the
truth no matter what the personal cost would be to him.
Finally, fear struck out.
http://www.constablequinn.com/FEAR%20STRIKES%20OUT.htm
Editor's note: Your ProbateShark has received communications challenging the historical validity and accuracy of this article. ProbateShark does not wish to be in the middle of a historical controversy or accused of being a revisionist. Any persons wishing to comment on this article, please make you thoughts known in the comment section of this blog. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
KawamotoDragon.com
Task Force: Whistleblowers should get more protection
Task Force: Whistleblowers should get more protection
BY ART GOLAB
Staff Reporter
Last Modified: Apr 30, 2012 02:11AM
Whistleblowers will get more protection and city employees will be required to report corruption under proposed changes to Chicago’s ethics ordinance that will be announced Monday.
Those changes are among 34 recommendations by an Ethics Task Force recruited by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to overhaul the city’s ethics ordinance.
The task force is chaired by Cindy Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. Other members include former state senator, comptroller and gubernatorial candidate Dawn Clark Netsch; former federal prosecutor Sergio Acosta and Ald. Will Burns (4th).
Other task force recommendations include:
◆ Adding a “reverse revolving door” provision that prevents City employees or officials from working on any matter that involves a former employer for two years from the time of hire.
◆ Simplifying and increasing the penalties for violations of the ethics ordinance.
◆ Strengthening gift restrictions by prohibiting all honoraria and cutting the cumulative gift cap in half, to $50 per year.
◆ Prohibiting supervisors from soliciting political contributions from anyone they supervise. Additionally, prohibiting city employees and officials from either accepting or giving campaign contributions at City Hall or on city property.
More details on whistleblower protection, corruption requirements and ethic proposals will be in a report released by the task force Monday.
Andy Shaw, whose Better Government Association participated in hearings held by the task force, said Mayor Emanuel has “made a good start.”
“The mayor appears to be serious about adding teeth to the city’s ethics ordinance, but his additional safeguards are only meaningful if he also embraces the recommendations of his ethics panel,” Shaw said. “He talked the talk in his first year — now let’s see if he really plans to walk the walk.”
Another round of recommendations will come out next summer addressing more difficult issues such as how to investigate corruption, according to Jennifer Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the city.
Still open is the question of whether the proposed reforms will include allowing aldermen to be investigated by the city’s inspector general, an idea that already met resistance from the city council.
http://www.suntimes.com/12215244-418/task-force-whistleblowers-should-get-more-protection.html
Editor's note: Andy, What about the crooks in the Probate Court of Cook County? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
BY ART GOLAB
Staff Reporter
Last Modified: Apr 30, 2012 02:11AM
Whistleblowers will get more protection and city employees will be required to report corruption under proposed changes to Chicago’s ethics ordinance that will be announced Monday.
Those changes are among 34 recommendations by an Ethics Task Force recruited by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to overhaul the city’s ethics ordinance.
The task force is chaired by Cindy Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. Other members include former state senator, comptroller and gubernatorial candidate Dawn Clark Netsch; former federal prosecutor Sergio Acosta and Ald. Will Burns (4th).
Other task force recommendations include:
◆ Adding a “reverse revolving door” provision that prevents City employees or officials from working on any matter that involves a former employer for two years from the time of hire.
◆ Simplifying and increasing the penalties for violations of the ethics ordinance.
◆ Strengthening gift restrictions by prohibiting all honoraria and cutting the cumulative gift cap in half, to $50 per year.
◆ Prohibiting supervisors from soliciting political contributions from anyone they supervise. Additionally, prohibiting city employees and officials from either accepting or giving campaign contributions at City Hall or on city property.
More details on whistleblower protection, corruption requirements and ethic proposals will be in a report released by the task force Monday.
Andy Shaw, whose Better Government Association participated in hearings held by the task force, said Mayor Emanuel has “made a good start.”
“The mayor appears to be serious about adding teeth to the city’s ethics ordinance, but his additional safeguards are only meaningful if he also embraces the recommendations of his ethics panel,” Shaw said. “He talked the talk in his first year — now let’s see if he really plans to walk the walk.”
Another round of recommendations will come out next summer addressing more difficult issues such as how to investigate corruption, according to Jennifer Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the city.
Still open is the question of whether the proposed reforms will include allowing aldermen to be investigated by the city’s inspector general, an idea that already met resistance from the city council.
http://www.suntimes.com/12215244-418/task-force-whistleblowers-should-get-more-protection.html
Editor's note: Andy, What about the crooks in the Probate Court of Cook County? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
City seeks gag order in police neglect case
City seeks gag order in police neglect case
Lawyers want to keep Christina Eilman's family from speaking to media
By David Heinzmann, Chicago Tribune reporter
12:49 AM CDT, April 30, 2012
In the wake of a damaging appellate court ruling against the Chicago Police Department, lawyers for Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration have asked a judge to keep the family of a mentally ill California woman from speaking publicly about the case.
The move was prompted by a sharply critical statement Christina Eilman's family issued after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that their lawsuit could proceed after a two-year delay, a legal opinion that likened police conduct to throwing her in a lion's den.
The family blamed the city's legal maneuvering for dragging out the lawsuit, which seeks as much as $100 million for the devastating injuries Eilman suffered after police released her into one of Chicago's highest-crime neighborhoods. She was sexually assaulted and fell from the seventh-floor window of a public housing building.
City lawyers filed a motion Friday asking U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall to enter a formal gag order in the case after emailing Eilman's lawyer to accuse the family of violating a previous, informal agreement among the parties to not talk to news media.
The family's attorney, Jeffrey Singer, responded that the January 2010 agreement was made in anticipation of a jury trial that was scheduled to start soon in the case, and "all bets were off" once the city filed a last-minute appeal that Kendall warned might simply be a stall tactic, according to a portion of the email exchange that the city attached to its motion Friday.
Although Singer has not himself commented publicly since the agreement, in the interim his clients have made public statements at least twice, including Thursday's written release. However, Singer told city attorney Matthew Hurd in the email that his clients have had no obligation to remain quiet since the city moved to delay the case.
"You guys chose to do this and essentially assured no imminent trial. In my view, all bets were off once the trial date was vacated — over two years ago. That was your decision — not mine," Singer wrote in an email Friday to Hurd.
City officials said they want the judge to clarify whether her informal agreement of should be interpreted as a gag order. "The fact that it was issued orally doesn't make it any less an order," said Roderick Drew, spokesman for the city Law Department.
City lawyers said they planned to appear in court Thursday to argue their motion, but Kendall on Friday scheduled a status hearing in the case for Monday morning.
In the court filing, Hurd noted that the statement by Eilman's parents appeared in a front-page story in Friday's Tribune. The motion also referenced part of a transcript from the hearing in January 2010 when Kendall asked the parties to enter into "a gentleman's and ladies' agreement" to no longer speak to the news media as the parties prepared to pick a jury.
At the time, the city had filed a motion to delay the trial because of publicity. Kendall said she didn't think a delay, or a formal gag order, were necessary but that they would need to question the jury pool "to know whether the jury's read these articles, and the articles are front-page articles with a lot of detail."
The details of the Eilman case shocked many and raised further questions about police oversight at a time when the department was already dealing with multiple misconduct scandals.
Eilman suffered what experts have described as a bipolar breakdown while she was in Chicago in May 2006 and was arrested at Midway Airport. Police took her from the airport to the nearby Chicago Lawn police station. They contacted her parents, who informed officers that her behavior was due to mental illness.
Instead of following department policy requiring a hospital evaluation for mentally ill people in custody, officers booked her and transported her seven miles to a lockup facility in one of the city's highest-crime neighborhoods. The next night, they released her without any direction, and she wandered the neighborhood before being lured into a public housing high-rise.
Eilman's catastrophic injuries included a severe brain injury with permanent damage. Now 27, she lives in California with her parents and is dependent on state aid for her around-the-clock care.
dheinzmann@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-police-lawsuit-eilman-0430-20120430,0,4971455.story
Editor's note: Typical Chicago style freedom of speech! Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Sunday, April 29, 2012
There is a crying need for a Grand Jury Investigation into the Sykes case, the Tyler case, the Gore case
Corruption at the highest levels of government is the biggest enemy to a democratic society.
When you look carefully at the Greylord scandal and couple it to our ability to populate the Federal prisons with our political elite it is not a mystery that the Sykes case, the Tyler case, and a bunch of other Elder Abuse/Financial Exploitation cases have been so obvious. The Judicial Inquiry and ARDCs have been impotent. I do not know if this is by design or just coincidence; but, ******
There is a crying need for a Grand Jury Investigation into the Sykes case, the Tyler case, the Gore case including but not limited to the aiders and abetters! I know that the Illinois ARDC considers these calls for honest government to be unethical conduct on the part of a lawyer, but, I and my brethren who want a level playing field in the courthouse do not subscribe to the new morality. For us the ten commandments being in the courthouse does not create a hostile work environment.
I urge everyone to join in the call for a Grand Jury Investigation and the prosecution of the miscreants and those who are aiding and abetting them! Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Ken Ditkowsky
http://www.ditkowskylawoffice.com/
KawamotoDragon.com
When you look carefully at the Greylord scandal and couple it to our ability to populate the Federal prisons with our political elite it is not a mystery that the Sykes case, the Tyler case, and a bunch of other Elder Abuse/Financial Exploitation cases have been so obvious. The Judicial Inquiry and ARDCs have been impotent. I do not know if this is by design or just coincidence; but, ******
There is a crying need for a Grand Jury Investigation into the Sykes case, the Tyler case, the Gore case including but not limited to the aiders and abetters! I know that the Illinois ARDC considers these calls for honest government to be unethical conduct on the part of a lawyer, but, I and my brethren who want a level playing field in the courthouse do not subscribe to the new morality. For us the ten commandments being in the courthouse does not create a hostile work environment.
I urge everyone to join in the call for a Grand Jury Investigation and the prosecution of the miscreants and those who are aiding and abetting them! Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Ken Ditkowsky
http://www.ditkowskylawoffice.com/
KawamotoDragon.com
70 years from internment of Japanese Americans
70 years from internment of Japanese Americans
A ceremony has been held in California to mark 70 years since a presidential order was issued for forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two.
Following the 1941 attacks on Pearl Harbor by Japan, President Franklin Roosevelt issued the order to detain Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast.
About 120,000 people of Japanese descent were interned for four years.
On the 70th anniversary this year, about 1,500 people took part in a commemorative event on Saturday at the site where the Manzanar camp used to be. The event is held each year for those who died in internment camps and to pass on information about internees' hardships.
California State University Professor Mitchell Maki said to participants that the United States is still not free from racial and religious discrimination. He added that stories of the hardship of former Japanese-American internees should be passed on to future generations.
An 83-year-old former internee said he was discriminated against just because he was a Japanese American although he was born in the United States, and that a similar incident should not happen again.
The United States is tasked with how to hand down the internment story to future generations as Japanese Americans are aging.
The US government officially apologized for the internment in 1988 and 1992. Payment of a total of 1.6 billion dollars in reparations was completed in 1999 to Japanese Americans who had been interned and their descendants.
Sunday, April 29, 2012 13:29 +0900 (JST)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120429_11.html
KawamotoDragon.com
A ceremony has been held in California to mark 70 years since a presidential order was issued for forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two.
Following the 1941 attacks on Pearl Harbor by Japan, President Franklin Roosevelt issued the order to detain Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast.
About 120,000 people of Japanese descent were interned for four years.
On the 70th anniversary this year, about 1,500 people took part in a commemorative event on Saturday at the site where the Manzanar camp used to be. The event is held each year for those who died in internment camps and to pass on information about internees' hardships.
California State University Professor Mitchell Maki said to participants that the United States is still not free from racial and religious discrimination. He added that stories of the hardship of former Japanese-American internees should be passed on to future generations.
An 83-year-old former internee said he was discriminated against just because he was a Japanese American although he was born in the United States, and that a similar incident should not happen again.
The United States is tasked with how to hand down the internment story to future generations as Japanese Americans are aging.
The US government officially apologized for the internment in 1988 and 1992. Payment of a total of 1.6 billion dollars in reparations was completed in 1999 to Japanese Americans who had been interned and their descendants.
Sunday, April 29, 2012 13:29 +0900 (JST)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120429_11.html
KawamotoDragon.com
Judge says New Port Richey attorney not responsible for client's actions
Judge says New Port Richey attorney not responsible for client's actions
By Erin Sullivan, Times Staff Writer
Erin SullivanTampa Bay Times In Print: Wednesday, April 25, 2012
A Montana judge has ruled that David Gilmore, a New Port Richey attorney whose client gunned down the mother of a teenage prodigy he was obsessed with, is not responsible for his client's actions.
In October, Gilmore was named as a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Montana by the victim, Georgia Smith, and her daughter, Promethea Pythaitha. They are suing the estate of Gilmore's client, Thomas Kyros, an 81-year-old New Port Richey retiree who was fanatical about Pythaitha.
In his will, which Gilmore drafted, Kyros gave Pythaitha two-thirds of his estate but wrote — in bold — she would receive no money "while her mother, Georgia A. Smith, is living."
In November 2010, Kyros left his home and drove 2,430 miles to Bozeman, Mont., to be near Pythaitha, who was then 19. She was a Greek-American child genius who graduated from Montana State University at 14 with a degree in mathematics. Kyros heard about her and began sending her financial support. But as his obsession grew, Pythaitha and her mother, Georgia Smith, withdrew and refused to communicate with him or accept his gifts.
He blamed Smith.
On Jan. 17, 2011, Kyros drove his car into the fence around Pythaitha's and Smith's home on Outlaw Hill Road outside Livingston, a remote area of Montana. When the two women came outside, authorities say, Kyros shot Smith five times, calling her a whore and a beast. Smith survived. Kyros was killed by police.
The suit alleged that Gilmore, who is also the executor of Kyros' estate, knew his client was in Montana and had enough evidence to know he was plotting something malicious and should have contacted law enforcement. It said Kyros sent a fax to Gilmore more than a month before the attempted murder and told him that all information about Pythaitha was null and void "for as long as Georgia is alive."
The Montana judge ruled Friday that Gilmore could not have known Smith would be harmed, the Associated Press reported.
"Georgia and Promethea are disappointed," said their attorney, Jason Armstrong,
The judge ordered the two sides to go into settlement talks.
"We are looking at our options," Armstrong said.
Kyros' estate is estimated to be $600,000 or less, court documents state.
Gilmore did not return a call Tuesday for comment.
Smith is paralyzed in her left arm, the lawsuit said, and will require "a lifetime of care" and further surgery to repair the wounds Kyros caused. Pythaitha, who jumped on top of her mother's body to stop the shooting, and Smith have suffered severe emotional and psychological distress, the suit states.
Erin Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@tampabay.com or (727) 869-6229
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/judge-says-new-port-richey-attorney-not-responsible-for-clients-actions/1226694
Editor's note: Would your ProbateShark, a non-lawyer, receive the same consideration as lawyer Gilmore? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
By Erin Sullivan, Times Staff Writer
Erin SullivanTampa Bay Times In Print: Wednesday, April 25, 2012
A Montana judge has ruled that David Gilmore, a New Port Richey attorney whose client gunned down the mother of a teenage prodigy he was obsessed with, is not responsible for his client's actions.
In October, Gilmore was named as a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Montana by the victim, Georgia Smith, and her daughter, Promethea Pythaitha. They are suing the estate of Gilmore's client, Thomas Kyros, an 81-year-old New Port Richey retiree who was fanatical about Pythaitha.
In his will, which Gilmore drafted, Kyros gave Pythaitha two-thirds of his estate but wrote — in bold — she would receive no money "while her mother, Georgia A. Smith, is living."
In November 2010, Kyros left his home and drove 2,430 miles to Bozeman, Mont., to be near Pythaitha, who was then 19. She was a Greek-American child genius who graduated from Montana State University at 14 with a degree in mathematics. Kyros heard about her and began sending her financial support. But as his obsession grew, Pythaitha and her mother, Georgia Smith, withdrew and refused to communicate with him or accept his gifts.
He blamed Smith.
On Jan. 17, 2011, Kyros drove his car into the fence around Pythaitha's and Smith's home on Outlaw Hill Road outside Livingston, a remote area of Montana. When the two women came outside, authorities say, Kyros shot Smith five times, calling her a whore and a beast. Smith survived. Kyros was killed by police.
The suit alleged that Gilmore, who is also the executor of Kyros' estate, knew his client was in Montana and had enough evidence to know he was plotting something malicious and should have contacted law enforcement. It said Kyros sent a fax to Gilmore more than a month before the attempted murder and told him that all information about Pythaitha was null and void "for as long as Georgia is alive."
The Montana judge ruled Friday that Gilmore could not have known Smith would be harmed, the Associated Press reported.
"Georgia and Promethea are disappointed," said their attorney, Jason Armstrong,
The judge ordered the two sides to go into settlement talks.
"We are looking at our options," Armstrong said.
Kyros' estate is estimated to be $600,000 or less, court documents state.
Gilmore did not return a call Tuesday for comment.
Smith is paralyzed in her left arm, the lawsuit said, and will require "a lifetime of care" and further surgery to repair the wounds Kyros caused. Pythaitha, who jumped on top of her mother's body to stop the shooting, and Smith have suffered severe emotional and psychological distress, the suit states.
Erin Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@tampabay.com or (727) 869-6229
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/judge-says-new-port-richey-attorney-not-responsible-for-clients-actions/1226694
Editor's note: Would your ProbateShark, a non-lawyer, receive the same consideration as lawyer Gilmore? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Saturday, April 28, 2012
It's time to pay Christina Eilman and her family for what city did to her
It's time to pay Christina Eilman and her family for what city did to her
Police released the disturbed woman into a dangerous neighborhood, where she was attacked and thrown out a 7th-floor window
John Kass
April 27, 2012
The beast Marvin Powell is out of prison, released the other day on parole after serving six years for what he did to Christina Eilman.
He's a gang-banger, 6 feet tall, about 200 pounds, arms covered with tattoos. Some tats are memorials to dead comrades, but who they are and how they fell doesn't matter.
It's what happened to Eilman, the young woman suffering from bipolar disorder, that matters. And what is on his left arm also matters.
One tattoo says "Lord have mercy on my soul." And the other says "Pay me."
Pay me.
That's what Chicago taxpayers are going to do. They're going to pay. They won't pay Powell. He's already paid some of what he owes, doing time for kidnapping and confining her in an abandoned apartment in a South Side housing project where she was sexually assaulted.
And then she either jumped or was pushed from the seventh floor. She can't tell us, because she suffered irreparable brain damage from the fall.
If that tattoo about his soul means anything to Powell, then he'll have to wait until he's dead to pay the rest of what he owes. But the taxpayers will have to pay for what the Chicago police did to Eilman — releasing a mentally ill woman into a crime-ridden area where she was vulnerable to attack. And what Mayor Richard Daley's administration did later is also outrageous, dragging this case out year after year after year, as her family struggled to care for her.
I'm told the price tag could possibly be as high as $80 million, a wild sum until you consider what was done to her, by the thugs and the police and City Hall.
So now Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration has to clean up another Daley mess. And that's not the only one that Daley's law department left behind.
There are other cases pending that could cost additional millions, like the one involving the cop who mercilessly beat up the bartender, yet another case stalled by Daley's City Hall. But the Eilman case looms largest.
"There's no question that this case has been kicked down the road," a city official told me Thursday. "And there's no question the outcome was tragic. And if you're trying to outline a made-for-TV movie, or novel, it plays all the cards, race and sexual violence, brutality and so on. We understand that. But we have to protect the taxpayers.
"We're trying more cases. But we've inherited a backlog," said the official. "These are ugly cases from an exposure standpoint. And the politics are ugly. But we'll try this one if we have to."
Whether this case is settled or not won't be determined for some time. What was determined Thursday, however, is how the police treated her.
"They might as well have released her into the lion's den at the Brookfield Zoo," wrote the United States 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, in an opinion allowing the case to go to civil trial.
What happened to her has already been revealed by the dogged reporting of the Tribune's David Heinzmann. He's been on this relentlessly since it began in 2006, and many of the details he found were reflected in the federal appellate opinion.
Eilman had made a scene at Midway Airport and was taken into police custody, where she screamed "take me to the hospital" and later kicked at the bars of her cell and exhibited other bizarre behavior.
She spent 29 hours in custody, ending up in the lockup at 51st and Wentworth. Her father called from California, trying to tell police that his daughter was mentally ill. Officials blew it off.
Then they did something unconscionable. They let her go, out into the South Side a few blocks from the notorious housing project known as Robert Taylor Homes.
The justices noted that she would have stood out as a stranger, as a potential victim in the wrong place. A white girl, a California blond in a midriff top, tight white shorts and boots, was let loose in no condition to take care of herself in a black neighborhood that was one of the roughest in the city.
Careful readers know I avoid mentioning the race of people in my columns unless it's relevant. And it's only relevant here because the justices cited it as a reason why she would have been vulnerable — in the same way a judge noted during oral arguments that it would have been like dropping off a black man into the middle of a Ku Klux Klan rally.
The way she was dressed, the way she looked, the color of her skin, all of it made her stand out in a violent neighborhood, and the police should have realized this, the justices said.
"They did not warn Eilman about the neighborhood's dangers," the justices wrote. "They did not walk her to the nearest CTA station, from which she could have reached a safer neighborhood in minutes. They did not drive her back to the airport where she could have used her ticket to return to California. They did not put Eilman in contact with her mother, who had called the stationhouse repeatedly."
Once released, she walked a few blocks, then was coaxed into the building. Some folks tried to help her but didn't help enough. She was taken up to the seventh floor. Then she was set upon.
Those were the acts of criminals. They come in all colors and sizes. They prey upon the weak.
But City Hall also preyed on the weak, by dragging this on and on, stalling, year after year after year, preying upon Eilman and her family.
That's over. Now it's time to pay.
jskass@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0427-20120427,0,7495169.column
Editor's note: Judge Fleming, found the cop who beat up the woman bartender not guilty also judged the Alice Gore case in the Probate Court of Cook County.
Alice R. Gore Estate value about 1 million dollars: Alice R. Gore, deceased, a disabled 99 year old ward of the Probate Court of Cook County, Judge Kawamoto’s courtroom was hours away from ending up in the Cook County Morgue. Alice's estate was depleted by probate court parasites and there were reportedly no funds to bury her. Her loving family paid for the burial expenses so that Alice would not have to suffer the indignity of being stacked like an Auschwitz inmate in the Cook County morgue. The judge allowed an easily manipulated mentally disabled granddaughter to be appointed as Alice’s guardian and yet no sanctions were instituted against the judge or court officers for this blatant infraction of the law.
Strangely, 16 of Alice’s annuity checks, two of which show forged endorsements, disappeared. Alice’s daughter has a copy of a check with her signature possibly forged. The daughter’s attorney has been trying to obtain copies of the 16 other annuity checks for two years without success. Even more puzzling is a $150,000 life insurance policy owned by Alice and not inventoried into the estate by the court. The Probate Court of Cook of Cook County refuses to investigate these blatant infractions of the law. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
KawamotoDragon.com
Police released the disturbed woman into a dangerous neighborhood, where she was attacked and thrown out a 7th-floor window
John Kass
April 27, 2012
The beast Marvin Powell is out of prison, released the other day on parole after serving six years for what he did to Christina Eilman.
He's a gang-banger, 6 feet tall, about 200 pounds, arms covered with tattoos. Some tats are memorials to dead comrades, but who they are and how they fell doesn't matter.
It's what happened to Eilman, the young woman suffering from bipolar disorder, that matters. And what is on his left arm also matters.
One tattoo says "Lord have mercy on my soul." And the other says "Pay me."
Pay me.
That's what Chicago taxpayers are going to do. They're going to pay. They won't pay Powell. He's already paid some of what he owes, doing time for kidnapping and confining her in an abandoned apartment in a South Side housing project where she was sexually assaulted.
And then she either jumped or was pushed from the seventh floor. She can't tell us, because she suffered irreparable brain damage from the fall.
If that tattoo about his soul means anything to Powell, then he'll have to wait until he's dead to pay the rest of what he owes. But the taxpayers will have to pay for what the Chicago police did to Eilman — releasing a mentally ill woman into a crime-ridden area where she was vulnerable to attack. And what Mayor Richard Daley's administration did later is also outrageous, dragging this case out year after year after year, as her family struggled to care for her.
I'm told the price tag could possibly be as high as $80 million, a wild sum until you consider what was done to her, by the thugs and the police and City Hall.
So now Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration has to clean up another Daley mess. And that's not the only one that Daley's law department left behind.
There are other cases pending that could cost additional millions, like the one involving the cop who mercilessly beat up the bartender, yet another case stalled by Daley's City Hall. But the Eilman case looms largest.
"There's no question that this case has been kicked down the road," a city official told me Thursday. "And there's no question the outcome was tragic. And if you're trying to outline a made-for-TV movie, or novel, it plays all the cards, race and sexual violence, brutality and so on. We understand that. But we have to protect the taxpayers.
"We're trying more cases. But we've inherited a backlog," said the official. "These are ugly cases from an exposure standpoint. And the politics are ugly. But we'll try this one if we have to."
Whether this case is settled or not won't be determined for some time. What was determined Thursday, however, is how the police treated her.
"They might as well have released her into the lion's den at the Brookfield Zoo," wrote the United States 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, in an opinion allowing the case to go to civil trial.
What happened to her has already been revealed by the dogged reporting of the Tribune's David Heinzmann. He's been on this relentlessly since it began in 2006, and many of the details he found were reflected in the federal appellate opinion.
Eilman had made a scene at Midway Airport and was taken into police custody, where she screamed "take me to the hospital" and later kicked at the bars of her cell and exhibited other bizarre behavior.
She spent 29 hours in custody, ending up in the lockup at 51st and Wentworth. Her father called from California, trying to tell police that his daughter was mentally ill. Officials blew it off.
Then they did something unconscionable. They let her go, out into the South Side a few blocks from the notorious housing project known as Robert Taylor Homes.
The justices noted that she would have stood out as a stranger, as a potential victim in the wrong place. A white girl, a California blond in a midriff top, tight white shorts and boots, was let loose in no condition to take care of herself in a black neighborhood that was one of the roughest in the city.
Careful readers know I avoid mentioning the race of people in my columns unless it's relevant. And it's only relevant here because the justices cited it as a reason why she would have been vulnerable — in the same way a judge noted during oral arguments that it would have been like dropping off a black man into the middle of a Ku Klux Klan rally.
The way she was dressed, the way she looked, the color of her skin, all of it made her stand out in a violent neighborhood, and the police should have realized this, the justices said.
"They did not warn Eilman about the neighborhood's dangers," the justices wrote. "They did not walk her to the nearest CTA station, from which she could have reached a safer neighborhood in minutes. They did not drive her back to the airport where she could have used her ticket to return to California. They did not put Eilman in contact with her mother, who had called the stationhouse repeatedly."
Once released, she walked a few blocks, then was coaxed into the building. Some folks tried to help her but didn't help enough. She was taken up to the seventh floor. Then she was set upon.
Those were the acts of criminals. They come in all colors and sizes. They prey upon the weak.
But City Hall also preyed on the weak, by dragging this on and on, stalling, year after year after year, preying upon Eilman and her family.
That's over. Now it's time to pay.
jskass@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0427-20120427,0,7495169.column
Editor's note: Judge Fleming, found the cop who beat up the woman bartender not guilty also judged the Alice Gore case in the Probate Court of Cook County.
Alice R. Gore Estate value about 1 million dollars: Alice R. Gore, deceased, a disabled 99 year old ward of the Probate Court of Cook County, Judge Kawamoto’s courtroom was hours away from ending up in the Cook County Morgue. Alice's estate was depleted by probate court parasites and there were reportedly no funds to bury her. Her loving family paid for the burial expenses so that Alice would not have to suffer the indignity of being stacked like an Auschwitz inmate in the Cook County morgue. The judge allowed an easily manipulated mentally disabled granddaughter to be appointed as Alice’s guardian and yet no sanctions were instituted against the judge or court officers for this blatant infraction of the law.
Strangely, 16 of Alice’s annuity checks, two of which show forged endorsements, disappeared. Alice’s daughter has a copy of a check with her signature possibly forged. The daughter’s attorney has been trying to obtain copies of the 16 other annuity checks for two years without success. Even more puzzling is a $150,000 life insurance policy owned by Alice and not inventoried into the estate by the court. The Probate Court of Cook of Cook County refuses to investigate these blatant infractions of the law. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
KawamotoDragon.com
County inspector general rips small sanitary district’s board spending
County inspector general rips small sanitary district’s board spending
By Todd Shields
Sun-Times Media
tshields@pioneerlocal.com
Last Modified: Apr 28, 2012 02:09AM
The Cook County Inspector General’s office has determined three trustees from the Northfield Woods Sanitary District serving Glenview overpaid themselves some $264,000 from 2008 to 2011.
Inspector General Patrick M. Blanchard issued a report Friday to county commissioners detailing the allegations and calling for dissolving the district due its fiscal mismanagement.
Blanchard declined to name the trustees, but the district’s website identifies them as President Frank Ness and trustees Mike Downing and Mike Lockett.
Ness and Downing were unavailable for comment, and Lockett could not be reached.
The district was formed in 1956 to provide sanitary sewer service to then-unincorporated north Cook County. The district contains 1,800 homes and 400 acres of commercial property, mostly in incorporated Glenview, bounded by I-294 and Willow Road on the north, Milwaukee Avenue on the west, Timber Trails and Forest Drive subdivisions on the south and Landwehr Road on the east.
Among other findings, Blanchard said the trustees should have received $6,000 each in annual salary. But he said the trustees hired themselves for jobs to do jobs for the district, then paid themselves some $264,000 for those duties over the course of the three years.
In addition, they established a pension plan for themselves and made contributions to that fund, though Blanchard said the law does not allow them to do so.
Blanchard’s investigation also alleged that trustees voted to increase the district’s two attorneys’ total monthly pay from $4,650 to the $7,000 in 2010. When one attorney left in 2011, they continued to pay the other the full amount.
The board also allowed the attorneys to bill the district separately for certain legal work at $300 to $375 per hour, Blanchard wrote.
“The lack of a written scope of work management exposed the District to a billing environment that is ripe for abuse,” he stated.
The investigation charged one of the trustees was getting health insurance from his regular job and didn’t need insurance from the district, so he was given a $1,200 monthly pay increase instead to inspect district buildings and grounds.
County commissioners appointed the trustees, and Blanchard urged them to amend county ethics rules to allow the county board to recall district trustees found violating ethic codes.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/12178544-418/county-inspector-general-rips-small-sanitary-districts-board-spending.html
Editor's note: General Blanchard, don't bother with these little sewerage carp. The big sewer is in the Probate Court of Cook County where the major bottom feeders art stealing millions of dollars from the dead, disabled and helpless. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
By Todd Shields
Sun-Times Media
tshields@pioneerlocal.com
Last Modified: Apr 28, 2012 02:09AM
The Cook County Inspector General’s office has determined three trustees from the Northfield Woods Sanitary District serving Glenview overpaid themselves some $264,000 from 2008 to 2011.
Inspector General Patrick M. Blanchard issued a report Friday to county commissioners detailing the allegations and calling for dissolving the district due its fiscal mismanagement.
Blanchard declined to name the trustees, but the district’s website identifies them as President Frank Ness and trustees Mike Downing and Mike Lockett.
Ness and Downing were unavailable for comment, and Lockett could not be reached.
The district was formed in 1956 to provide sanitary sewer service to then-unincorporated north Cook County. The district contains 1,800 homes and 400 acres of commercial property, mostly in incorporated Glenview, bounded by I-294 and Willow Road on the north, Milwaukee Avenue on the west, Timber Trails and Forest Drive subdivisions on the south and Landwehr Road on the east.
Among other findings, Blanchard said the trustees should have received $6,000 each in annual salary. But he said the trustees hired themselves for jobs to do jobs for the district, then paid themselves some $264,000 for those duties over the course of the three years.
In addition, they established a pension plan for themselves and made contributions to that fund, though Blanchard said the law does not allow them to do so.
Blanchard’s investigation also alleged that trustees voted to increase the district’s two attorneys’ total monthly pay from $4,650 to the $7,000 in 2010. When one attorney left in 2011, they continued to pay the other the full amount.
The board also allowed the attorneys to bill the district separately for certain legal work at $300 to $375 per hour, Blanchard wrote.
“The lack of a written scope of work management exposed the District to a billing environment that is ripe for abuse,” he stated.
The investigation charged one of the trustees was getting health insurance from his regular job and didn’t need insurance from the district, so he was given a $1,200 monthly pay increase instead to inspect district buildings and grounds.
County commissioners appointed the trustees, and Blanchard urged them to amend county ethics rules to allow the county board to recall district trustees found violating ethic codes.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/12178544-418/county-inspector-general-rips-small-sanitary-districts-board-spending.html
Editor's note: General Blanchard, don't bother with these little sewerage carp. The big sewer is in the Probate Court of Cook County where the major bottom feeders art stealing millions of dollars from the dead, disabled and helpless. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
University of Pennsylvania Dean Faked PhD
University of Pennsylvania Dean Faked PhD
Doug Lynch has resigned as vice dean of the graduate school of education at University of Pennsylvania.
April 27, 2012
The University of Pennsylvania is keeping mum on the resignation of a dean of its graduate school, who duped the Ivy League school into believing he had a doctoral degree from Columbia University.
A report this week by the Philadelphia Inquirer raised questions about the pedigree of Doug Lynch, vice dean of the graduate school of education, who claimed to have received a master's degree and a doctorate from Columbia University in 2005 and 2007, respectively.
Neither of those claims is true, according to Columbia officials. Lynch did received a master's degree in 2010, and has entered -- but not yet completed -- the doctoral program.
But UPenn, having found out about the bogus claims earlier this year, decided to keep Lynch in a leadership role, school officials told the Inquirer. Lynch was kept on as an administrator after "appropriate sanctions" were enacted, according to the report.
"He mistakenly believed that it was complete," University of Pennsylvania graduate school spokeswoman Kat Stein told the newspaper, referring to his doctoral degree.
This week, however, after the report appeared in the Inquirer, officials immediately placed Lynch on leave "pending the outcome of an ongoing investigation."
Lynch then resigned.
Various UPenn university officials who spoke to the Philadelphia Inquirer about the situation refused to speak to ABC News today, including Stein, university president Amy Gutmann, and dean of the graduate school Andrew Porter. All three officials directed calls to the media relations department, which said in a statement that "the university now considers this matter closed."
Prior to working at the University of Pennsylvania, Lynch worked at New York University and the College Board, according to his biography on the University of Pennsylvania's website.
In a short biography written for a University of Pennsylvania event where he spoke, Lynch is described as being an economist by training, who also completed doctoral work in education evaluation (ASU), Political Theory (New School) and an MBA (NYU). The biography states that Lynch helped start one of the country's first charter schools, helped the company WorldCom "out of sanctions with the SEC," and worked with the FDNY after 9/11.
Officials at Columbia University would not comment on the process for receiving a doctorate, nor would they explain how the mistake could have been made.
Reached at home by phone today, Lynch declined to comment.
http://news.yahoo.com/university-pennsylvania-dean-faked-phd-173731687--abc-news-topstories.html?ugc_c=Yrsrv8v12QAnVWmuWAxFD0mw8jgsy_S_ppgBSw621AIDeo2W_6H2SgysD5lC6508HkY6Gxi4QVR9B6ngqYVaAhy6n1n_y96e8FEapPzCkJquUVKSsy7tehE2_Ld8Gr9kLY3uB1wv9vIKuNNNzxrj1uwKt0dHxMW5RBl5H6.P7PBrV0PrpY8cNfXXMBFQegQN3ioCUUnLdljovwLaBV.elnJmFgT6wmvGJRpmn8RyRo7GXOETIKuiZhBmXw--&bcnv_s=e&ugc_scnv=1&ll=5
Editor's note: Your ProbateShark's mentally disabled child had a school district psychologist assigned to her case. Upon investigation, it was found that the "psychologist" had "stolen" her masters degree from another woman with a similar name and had "bought" her doctorate from a Florida diploma mill. Further scrutiny found this person wearing a white coat and visiting patients in our local hospital. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Doug Lynch has resigned as vice dean of the graduate school of education at University of Pennsylvania.
April 27, 2012
The University of Pennsylvania is keeping mum on the resignation of a dean of its graduate school, who duped the Ivy League school into believing he had a doctoral degree from Columbia University.
A report this week by the Philadelphia Inquirer raised questions about the pedigree of Doug Lynch, vice dean of the graduate school of education, who claimed to have received a master's degree and a doctorate from Columbia University in 2005 and 2007, respectively.
Neither of those claims is true, according to Columbia officials. Lynch did received a master's degree in 2010, and has entered -- but not yet completed -- the doctoral program.
But UPenn, having found out about the bogus claims earlier this year, decided to keep Lynch in a leadership role, school officials told the Inquirer. Lynch was kept on as an administrator after "appropriate sanctions" were enacted, according to the report.
"He mistakenly believed that it was complete," University of Pennsylvania graduate school spokeswoman Kat Stein told the newspaper, referring to his doctoral degree.
This week, however, after the report appeared in the Inquirer, officials immediately placed Lynch on leave "pending the outcome of an ongoing investigation."
Lynch then resigned.
Various UPenn university officials who spoke to the Philadelphia Inquirer about the situation refused to speak to ABC News today, including Stein, university president Amy Gutmann, and dean of the graduate school Andrew Porter. All three officials directed calls to the media relations department, which said in a statement that "the university now considers this matter closed."
Prior to working at the University of Pennsylvania, Lynch worked at New York University and the College Board, according to his biography on the University of Pennsylvania's website.
In a short biography written for a University of Pennsylvania event where he spoke, Lynch is described as being an economist by training, who also completed doctoral work in education evaluation (ASU), Political Theory (New School) and an MBA (NYU). The biography states that Lynch helped start one of the country's first charter schools, helped the company WorldCom "out of sanctions with the SEC," and worked with the FDNY after 9/11.
Officials at Columbia University would not comment on the process for receiving a doctorate, nor would they explain how the mistake could have been made.
Reached at home by phone today, Lynch declined to comment.
http://news.yahoo.com/university-pennsylvania-dean-faked-phd-173731687--abc-news-topstories.html?ugc_c=Yrsrv8v12QAnVWmuWAxFD0mw8jgsy_S_ppgBSw621AIDeo2W_6H2SgysD5lC6508HkY6Gxi4QVR9B6ngqYVaAhy6n1n_y96e8FEapPzCkJquUVKSsy7tehE2_Ld8Gr9kLY3uB1wv9vIKuNNNzxrj1uwKt0dHxMW5RBl5H6.P7PBrV0PrpY8cNfXXMBFQegQN3ioCUUnLdljovwLaBV.elnJmFgT6wmvGJRpmn8RyRo7GXOETIKuiZhBmXw--&bcnv_s=e&ugc_scnv=1&ll=5
Editor's note: Your ProbateShark's mentally disabled child had a school district psychologist assigned to her case. Upon investigation, it was found that the "psychologist" had "stolen" her masters degree from another woman with a similar name and had "bought" her doctorate from a Florida diploma mill. Further scrutiny found this person wearing a white coat and visiting patients in our local hospital. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Friday, April 27, 2012
Woman kills man by squeezing his testicles over parking dispute
Woman kills man by squeezing his testicles over parking dispute. [Copy link] 215
April 19, a female scooter rider killed a man by squeezing his testicles for the packing dispute, in Haikou City, Hainan Province.
It was learned, the woman, 41 years old, rode on her scooter to an elementary school in Meilan District, Haikou City to pick up her child that day. When she wanted to pack her scooter in front of a shop, she was rejected by the shop owner, a 42-year-old male.
The two parties soon fell into a quarrel, and then the physical confrontation. The furious woman called up her husband and brother to come help her, which resulted in a more violent fist fight.
During the fight, the middle aged woman manged to grab the man’s testicles, and squeezed them till he finally collapsed on the ground.
The man was immediately rushed to hospital, but unfortunately died there despite of efforts.
http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/thread-744542-1-1.html
Editor's note: Alice R. Gore Estate value about 1 million dollars: Alice R. Gore, deceased, a disabled 99 year old ward of the Probate Court of Cook County, Judge Kawamoto’s courtroom was hours away from ending up in the Cook County Morgue. Alice's estate was depleted by probate court parasites and there were reportedly no funds to bury her. Her loving family paid for the burial expenses so that Alice would not have to suffer the indignity of being stacked like an Auschwitz inmate in the Cook County morgue. The judge allowed an easily manipulated mentally disabled granddaughter to be appointed as Alice’s guardian and yet no sanctions were instituted against the judge or court officers for this blatant infraction of the law.
Strangely, 16 of Alice’s annuity checks, two of which show forged endorsements, disappeared. Alice’s daughter has a copy of a check with her signature possibly forged. The daughter’s attorney has been trying to obtain copies of the 16 other annuity checks for two years without success. Even more puzzling is a $150,000 life insurance policy owned by Alice and not inventoried into the estate by the court. The Probate Court of Cook of Cook County refuses to investigate these blatant infractions of the law. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
KawamotoDragon.com
April 19, a female scooter rider killed a man by squeezing his testicles for the packing dispute, in Haikou City, Hainan Province.
It was learned, the woman, 41 years old, rode on her scooter to an elementary school in Meilan District, Haikou City to pick up her child that day. When she wanted to pack her scooter in front of a shop, she was rejected by the shop owner, a 42-year-old male.
The two parties soon fell into a quarrel, and then the physical confrontation. The furious woman called up her husband and brother to come help her, which resulted in a more violent fist fight.
During the fight, the middle aged woman manged to grab the man’s testicles, and squeezed them till he finally collapsed on the ground.
The man was immediately rushed to hospital, but unfortunately died there despite of efforts.
http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/thread-744542-1-1.html
Editor's note: Alice R. Gore Estate value about 1 million dollars: Alice R. Gore, deceased, a disabled 99 year old ward of the Probate Court of Cook County, Judge Kawamoto’s courtroom was hours away from ending up in the Cook County Morgue. Alice's estate was depleted by probate court parasites and there were reportedly no funds to bury her. Her loving family paid for the burial expenses so that Alice would not have to suffer the indignity of being stacked like an Auschwitz inmate in the Cook County morgue. The judge allowed an easily manipulated mentally disabled granddaughter to be appointed as Alice’s guardian and yet no sanctions were instituted against the judge or court officers for this blatant infraction of the law.
Strangely, 16 of Alice’s annuity checks, two of which show forged endorsements, disappeared. Alice’s daughter has a copy of a check with her signature possibly forged. The daughter’s attorney has been trying to obtain copies of the 16 other annuity checks for two years without success. Even more puzzling is a $150,000 life insurance policy owned by Alice and not inventoried into the estate by the court. The Probate Court of Cook of Cook County refuses to investigate these blatant infractions of the law. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
KawamotoDragon.com
North Chicago fires one officer, suspends another in death of man in custody
North Chicago fires one officer, suspends another in death of man in custody
By Robert McCoppin and Susan Berger
Tribune reporters
3:20 PM CDT, April 27, 2012
North Chicago fired one police officer and suspended another today for their roles in the violent arrest of a man who died a week after he was taken into custody.
Officials immediately dismissed Officer Brandon Yost and suspended Officer Arthur Strong for 30 days without pay. Four other officers and one sergeant involved in the arrest who had been temporarily placed on desk duty were returned to regular duties without penalty.
The action comes in the case of Darrin "Dagwood" Hanna, 45, who was arrested Nov. 6 in his North Chicago apartment, where police said he slapped and tried to drown his pregnant girlfriend. He died in a hospital of multiple factors, according to the Lake County Coroner, including physical restraint and Taser shocks, as well as chronic cocaine abuse, hypertension, kidney disease and sickle cell disease.
His death prompted a public uproar, which led to an investigation by Illinois State Police. The Lake County State's Attorney's office concluded officers committed no crime, saying they acted "reasonably and appropriately" to subdue a large man police said rushed them with clenched fists yelling, "Shoot me."
Yost was fired for repeatedly punching Hanna in the face, which was unnecessary force, and for an unspecified falsification of reports on the incident, interim Chief James Jackson said. Strong's reported use of force, kneeling on the back of Hanna's legs, was considered acceptable, but he was disciplined for falsifying a report by indicating Hanna was swinging a flashlight.
Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. and Jackson made the announcement at a news conference at North Chicago City Hall, where a crowd of protesters led by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson greeted the news angrily. People in the crowd yelled "cover up" and chanted, "murderers."
"These six officers should be fired and charged with murder," Jackson said.
TheU.S. Department of Justiceis conducting a preliminary inquiry into the case, which is a step short of a full investigation.
rmccoppin@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-north-chicago-suspends-two-police-officers-in-death-of-man-in-custody-20120427,0,5738289.story
By Robert McCoppin and Susan Berger
Tribune reporters
3:20 PM CDT, April 27, 2012
North Chicago fired one police officer and suspended another today for their roles in the violent arrest of a man who died a week after he was taken into custody.
Officials immediately dismissed Officer Brandon Yost and suspended Officer Arthur Strong for 30 days without pay. Four other officers and one sergeant involved in the arrest who had been temporarily placed on desk duty were returned to regular duties without penalty.
The action comes in the case of Darrin "Dagwood" Hanna, 45, who was arrested Nov. 6 in his North Chicago apartment, where police said he slapped and tried to drown his pregnant girlfriend. He died in a hospital of multiple factors, according to the Lake County Coroner, including physical restraint and Taser shocks, as well as chronic cocaine abuse, hypertension, kidney disease and sickle cell disease.
His death prompted a public uproar, which led to an investigation by Illinois State Police. The Lake County State's Attorney's office concluded officers committed no crime, saying they acted "reasonably and appropriately" to subdue a large man police said rushed them with clenched fists yelling, "Shoot me."
Yost was fired for repeatedly punching Hanna in the face, which was unnecessary force, and for an unspecified falsification of reports on the incident, interim Chief James Jackson said. Strong's reported use of force, kneeling on the back of Hanna's legs, was considered acceptable, but he was disciplined for falsifying a report by indicating Hanna was swinging a flashlight.
Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. and Jackson made the announcement at a news conference at North Chicago City Hall, where a crowd of protesters led by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson greeted the news angrily. People in the crowd yelled "cover up" and chanted, "murderers."
"These six officers should be fired and charged with murder," Jackson said.
TheU.S. Department of Justiceis conducting a preliminary inquiry into the case, which is a step short of a full investigation.
rmccoppin@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-north-chicago-suspends-two-police-officers-in-death-of-man-in-custody-20120427,0,5738289.story
Don't Fall for Jury Duty Scam
The Verdict: Hang Up
Don't Fall for Jury Duty Scam
06/02/06
The phone rings, you pick it up, and the caller identifies himself as an officer of the court. He says you failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. You say you never received a notice. To clear it up, the caller says he'll need some information for "verification purposes"-your birth date, social security number, maybe even a credit card number.
This is when you should hang up the phone. It's a scam.
Jury scams have been around for years, but have seen a resurgence in recent months. Communities in more than a dozen states have issued public warnings about cold calls from people claiming to be court officials seeking personal information. As a rule, court officers never ask for confidential information over the phone; they generally correspond with prospective jurors via mail.
The scam's bold simplicity may be what makes it so effective. Facing the unexpected threat of arrest, victims are caught off guard and may be quick to part with some information to defuse the situation.
"They get you scared first," says a special agent in the Minneapolis field office who has heard the complaints. "They get people saying, 'Oh my gosh! I'm not a criminal. What's going on?'" That's when the scammer dangles a solution-a fine, payable by credit card, that will clear up the problem.
With enough information, scammers can assume your identity and empty your bank accounts.
"It seems like a very simple scam," the agent adds. The trick is putting people on the defensive, then reeling them back in with the promise of a clean slate. "It's kind of ingenious. It's social engineering."
More Information
Want to learn more about new and common scams like this one? Then sign up for our e-mail alerts.
In recent months, communities in Florida, New York, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado, Oregon, California, Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Hampshire reported scams or posted warnings or press releases on their local websites. In August, the federal court system issued a warning on the scam and urged people to call their local District Court office if they receive suspicious calls. In September, the FBI issued a press release about jury scams and suggested victims also contact their local FBI field office.
In March, USA.gov, the federal government’s information website, posted details about jury scams in their Frequently Asked Questions area. The site reported scores of queries on the subject from website visitors and callers seeking information.
The jury scam is a simple variation of the identity-theft ploys that have proliferated in recent years as personal information and good credit have become thieves' preferred prey, particularly on the Internet. Scammers might tap your information to make a purchase on your credit card, but could just as easily sell your information to the highest bidder on the Internet's black market.
Protecting yourself is the key: Never give out personal information when you receive an unsolicited phone call.
Resources:
- Common Fraud Schemes
- Jury Fraud Press Release (09/28/05)
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2006/june/jury_scam060206
Don't Fall for Jury Duty Scam
06/02/06
The phone rings, you pick it up, and the caller identifies himself as an officer of the court. He says you failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. You say you never received a notice. To clear it up, the caller says he'll need some information for "verification purposes"-your birth date, social security number, maybe even a credit card number.
This is when you should hang up the phone. It's a scam.
Jury scams have been around for years, but have seen a resurgence in recent months. Communities in more than a dozen states have issued public warnings about cold calls from people claiming to be court officials seeking personal information. As a rule, court officers never ask for confidential information over the phone; they generally correspond with prospective jurors via mail.
The scam's bold simplicity may be what makes it so effective. Facing the unexpected threat of arrest, victims are caught off guard and may be quick to part with some information to defuse the situation.
"They get you scared first," says a special agent in the Minneapolis field office who has heard the complaints. "They get people saying, 'Oh my gosh! I'm not a criminal. What's going on?'" That's when the scammer dangles a solution-a fine, payable by credit card, that will clear up the problem.
With enough information, scammers can assume your identity and empty your bank accounts.
"It seems like a very simple scam," the agent adds. The trick is putting people on the defensive, then reeling them back in with the promise of a clean slate. "It's kind of ingenious. It's social engineering."
More Information
Want to learn more about new and common scams like this one? Then sign up for our e-mail alerts.
In recent months, communities in Florida, New York, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado, Oregon, California, Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Hampshire reported scams or posted warnings or press releases on their local websites. In August, the federal court system issued a warning on the scam and urged people to call their local District Court office if they receive suspicious calls. In September, the FBI issued a press release about jury scams and suggested victims also contact their local FBI field office.
In March, USA.gov, the federal government’s information website, posted details about jury scams in their Frequently Asked Questions area. The site reported scores of queries on the subject from website visitors and callers seeking information.
The jury scam is a simple variation of the identity-theft ploys that have proliferated in recent years as personal information and good credit have become thieves' preferred prey, particularly on the Internet. Scammers might tap your information to make a purchase on your credit card, but could just as easily sell your information to the highest bidder on the Internet's black market.
Protecting yourself is the key: Never give out personal information when you receive an unsolicited phone call.
Resources:
- Common Fraud Schemes
- Jury Fraud Press Release (09/28/05)
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2006/june/jury_scam060206
Cook County State's Attorney Investigator Spends Hours at Cigar Shop on Government Time
Cook County State's Attorney Investigator Spends Hours at Cigar Shop on Government Time
FOX Chicago, BGA Investigation EXCLUSIVE
Updated: Thursday, 26 Apr 2012, 10:55 PM CDT
Published : Thursday, 26 Apr 2012, 9:00 PM CDT
By Dane Placko, FOX Chicago News and The Better Government Association
Chicago - FIRST ON FOX: Your tax dollars, up in smoke.
An investigator with the Cook County State's Attorney's Office has stepped down after FOX Chicago News and the Better Government Association found him spending hours during his work day hanging out at a cigar shop.
That turned out to be just the tip of the problem.
When he was discovered smoking cigars in the middle of the work day, Cook County State’s Attorney Investigator Bob Thomas said he was having lunch.
But for Thomas - lunch is rarely a one hour proposition.
He’s already drawing a Chicago police pension and makes $78,000 a year to investigate cases for State's Attorney Anita Alvarez.
But with undercover cameras outside, and hidden cameras inside, we watched Thomas visit this Bridgeport cigar shop day after day.
He's a regular at the shop's old location, and its new one just down the street..
Some days for 90 minutes, others for more than two hours, Thomas can be seen smoking cigars, reading the paper, just hanging out with the other regulars.
Yet his timecards for the days we watched him say he was working for taxpayers between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
But nothing beats what we saw one Tuesday in March. Thomas showed up just after 12:30 p.m. in an M-plated county car.
It must have been a special day, because around 1 p.m. we notice he's holding what looks like a cake for his buddies.
Three hours later - around 4 p.m. - he walked back to his car, looking like he might finally be going back to work. Instead, Thomas made a run to a nearby Italian ice stand, and got refreshments for his friends.
At 4:30 p.m. he was back at the cigar store, and was still there when we left at 6 p.m. Thomas marked it as a sick day on his timesheet.
But Thomas was wearing his badge and driving his county car, which is only supposed to be used while working.
When asked to explain his actions, Thomas said he had nothing to say.
Karen Ficaro bought the store a few years ago. But the place has an interesting past.
Court documents show former FBI agents had it under surveillance in the late 1990s were hired to investigate mob influence in the Laborer's Union.
Alleged outfit leaders like Toots and Bruno Caruso met at the store, as well as Ronnie Jarrett, who was killed outside his Bridgeport home in an apparent gang hit.
Ficaro said the Caruso brothers still come into the stores to buy cigars.
“If alleged mobsters frequent a place like this, a law enforcement officer has no business being in here,” the BGA’s Andy Shaw said. “What about his supervisor?”
Well, his supervisor seemed to think Thomas was doing a great job. He gave Thomas a checkmark for "exceeding expectations" on how he used his time on last year's review.
His supervisor is Frank Cupello.
Cupello is the same guy FOX Chicago and the BGA found voting in Elmwood Park even though he lives 20 miles away in Lake County.
It’s a story FOX Chicago News broke a few weeks ago, and he is now being investigated for possible voter fraud.
"Maybe it's time to look top to bottom at this office and see who is and isn't doing their job," Shaw said.
We showed our undercover video of Thomas wasting hours at the cigar store to Jack Garcia, the new man in charge of the state's attorney investigators.
Garcia said Thomas’ conduct is unacceptable, and that the cops - as well as their bosses - need to be accountable to taxpayers.
“Everybody here has been put on notice that we will do what we're expected to do at all times,” Garcia said.
Even though Thomas resigned, and is still eligible for a second pension, Garcia said he's moving forward with an Internal Affairs investigation of all that time in the cigar store.
This past Monday Thomas walked into his boss's office and handed in his resignation, along with his car keys and badge.
By phone, Thomas told FOX Chicago News that he knows the Caruso brothers from the store, and would say hi. But he is not friends with the alleged mobsters.
Bruno Caruso said he doesn't know Thomas, and hasn't smoked cigars in years.
The new head of the state's attorney's investigators said he believes this is an isolated case. But sources in the office told FOX Chicago News that the 130-person unit has long been known as a place to coast, especially for those with clout.
http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/investigative/bob-thomas-frank-cupello-caruso-mob-cigar-shop-cook-county-investigator-spend-hours-government-time-20120426#.T5ob2u9Mteo.email
Editor's note: BGA; this shark loves you guys...but how about looking into the Cook County Probate Court-nursing home-hospice relationship? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
FOX Chicago, BGA Investigation EXCLUSIVE
Updated: Thursday, 26 Apr 2012, 10:55 PM CDT
Published : Thursday, 26 Apr 2012, 9:00 PM CDT
By Dane Placko, FOX Chicago News and The Better Government Association
Chicago - FIRST ON FOX: Your tax dollars, up in smoke.
An investigator with the Cook County State's Attorney's Office has stepped down after FOX Chicago News and the Better Government Association found him spending hours during his work day hanging out at a cigar shop.
That turned out to be just the tip of the problem.
When he was discovered smoking cigars in the middle of the work day, Cook County State’s Attorney Investigator Bob Thomas said he was having lunch.
But for Thomas - lunch is rarely a one hour proposition.
He’s already drawing a Chicago police pension and makes $78,000 a year to investigate cases for State's Attorney Anita Alvarez.
But with undercover cameras outside, and hidden cameras inside, we watched Thomas visit this Bridgeport cigar shop day after day.
He's a regular at the shop's old location, and its new one just down the street..
Some days for 90 minutes, others for more than two hours, Thomas can be seen smoking cigars, reading the paper, just hanging out with the other regulars.
Yet his timecards for the days we watched him say he was working for taxpayers between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
But nothing beats what we saw one Tuesday in March. Thomas showed up just after 12:30 p.m. in an M-plated county car.
It must have been a special day, because around 1 p.m. we notice he's holding what looks like a cake for his buddies.
Three hours later - around 4 p.m. - he walked back to his car, looking like he might finally be going back to work. Instead, Thomas made a run to a nearby Italian ice stand, and got refreshments for his friends.
At 4:30 p.m. he was back at the cigar store, and was still there when we left at 6 p.m. Thomas marked it as a sick day on his timesheet.
But Thomas was wearing his badge and driving his county car, which is only supposed to be used while working.
When asked to explain his actions, Thomas said he had nothing to say.
Karen Ficaro bought the store a few years ago. But the place has an interesting past.
Court documents show former FBI agents had it under surveillance in the late 1990s were hired to investigate mob influence in the Laborer's Union.
Alleged outfit leaders like Toots and Bruno Caruso met at the store, as well as Ronnie Jarrett, who was killed outside his Bridgeport home in an apparent gang hit.
Ficaro said the Caruso brothers still come into the stores to buy cigars.
“If alleged mobsters frequent a place like this, a law enforcement officer has no business being in here,” the BGA’s Andy Shaw said. “What about his supervisor?”
Well, his supervisor seemed to think Thomas was doing a great job. He gave Thomas a checkmark for "exceeding expectations" on how he used his time on last year's review.
His supervisor is Frank Cupello.
Cupello is the same guy FOX Chicago and the BGA found voting in Elmwood Park even though he lives 20 miles away in Lake County.
It’s a story FOX Chicago News broke a few weeks ago, and he is now being investigated for possible voter fraud.
"Maybe it's time to look top to bottom at this office and see who is and isn't doing their job," Shaw said.
We showed our undercover video of Thomas wasting hours at the cigar store to Jack Garcia, the new man in charge of the state's attorney investigators.
Garcia said Thomas’ conduct is unacceptable, and that the cops - as well as their bosses - need to be accountable to taxpayers.
“Everybody here has been put on notice that we will do what we're expected to do at all times,” Garcia said.
Even though Thomas resigned, and is still eligible for a second pension, Garcia said he's moving forward with an Internal Affairs investigation of all that time in the cigar store.
This past Monday Thomas walked into his boss's office and handed in his resignation, along with his car keys and badge.
By phone, Thomas told FOX Chicago News that he knows the Caruso brothers from the store, and would say hi. But he is not friends with the alleged mobsters.
Bruno Caruso said he doesn't know Thomas, and hasn't smoked cigars in years.
The new head of the state's attorney's investigators said he believes this is an isolated case. But sources in the office told FOX Chicago News that the 130-person unit has long been known as a place to coast, especially for those with clout.
http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/investigative/bob-thomas-frank-cupello-caruso-mob-cigar-shop-cook-county-investigator-spend-hours-government-time-20120426#.T5ob2u9Mteo.email
Editor's note: BGA; this shark loves you guys...but how about looking into the Cook County Probate Court-nursing home-hospice relationship? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Court: Parents of disabled woman can sue Chicago police for neglect
Court: Parents of disabled woman can sue Chicago police for neglect
By David Heinzmann
Tribune reporter
3:20 PM CDT, April 26, 2012
More than two years after getting the case, a federal appeals court today ruled that a mentally ill California woman can sue the Chicago Police Department for releasing her into a violent neighborhood where she was raped and nearly killed.
“They might as well have released her into the lions’ den at the Brookfield Zoo,” Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote in the opinion from the three-judge panel of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the only way to sort out whether officers violated Christina Eilman's rights is to have a trial.
The appellate court took an usually long time to decide the appeal from city of Chicago lawyers, which was filed in February 2010. Eilman's attorney had filed three motions over the last two years asking the appellate court to hurry up, and recently he asked the federal trial judge to move forward with another part of the case not on appeal.
The judge was still weighing whether to take the unusual step of splitting the case in two when the appellate ruling came down today. The judge had indicated that if she did move forward, the case would go to trial by October.
In the appellate ruling, Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote that police knew Eilman was suffering a bipolar breakdown and that responsibility for the sexual assault and injuries she suffered after police released her into a high-crime neighborhood the night of May 8, 2006 has to be decided in a trial.
The city's appeal had asked the court to dismiss the case against 10 police officers accused of negligence, arguing the police had no responsibility to take care of Eilman, a 21-year-old former UCLA student who had been arrested after creating a disturbance at Midway Airport.
The appellate ruling left most of the police defendants in the case, but the judges excused two officers whose role in the case didn't involve responsibility for making decisions about whether Eilman needed care. Decisions about the status of two other officers were sent back to U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall to evaluate.
In reciting the narrative of what happened that night, Easterbrook suggested the police showed little regard for the danger they were putting Eilman in when they released her.
"She was lost, unable to appreciate her danger, and dressed in a manner to attract attention," Easterbrook wrote. He added, "she is white and well off while the local population is predominantly black and not affluent, causing her to stand out as a person unfamiliar with the environment and thus a potential target for crime."
Eilman, who was thrown or fell from the 7th floor of a public housing building after being assaulted, requires around-the-clock care at her parents' home in California and is dependent on state welfare because she has no health insurance.
Eilman's parents, Rick and Kathleen Paine, released a written statement on the ruling, lamenting the amount of time the appeal has taken. The physical injuries she endured have made Eilman's bipolar disorder worse, and she has been hospitalized for emergency psychiatric care several times in recent years, they have said previously. Because she has no insurance, she is dependent on state aid for medical care.
"Christina's tragedy continues. Six years of litigation without a trial compounds the tragic circumstances here. And, it's time the city's Corporation Counsel's Office stop the incessant delay," the statement said. "We look forward to a public forum -- a Federal courtroom -- for all to see and hear how certain police officers and the City turned away from helping a young disabled person in desperate need."
Roderick Drew, spokesman for the Corporation Counsel's office, declined comment.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-court-parents-of-disabled-woman-can-sue-chicago-police-20120426,0,2030426.story
By David Heinzmann
Tribune reporter
3:20 PM CDT, April 26, 2012
More than two years after getting the case, a federal appeals court today ruled that a mentally ill California woman can sue the Chicago Police Department for releasing her into a violent neighborhood where she was raped and nearly killed.
“They might as well have released her into the lions’ den at the Brookfield Zoo,” Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote in the opinion from the three-judge panel of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the only way to sort out whether officers violated Christina Eilman's rights is to have a trial.
The appellate court took an usually long time to decide the appeal from city of Chicago lawyers, which was filed in February 2010. Eilman's attorney had filed three motions over the last two years asking the appellate court to hurry up, and recently he asked the federal trial judge to move forward with another part of the case not on appeal.
The judge was still weighing whether to take the unusual step of splitting the case in two when the appellate ruling came down today. The judge had indicated that if she did move forward, the case would go to trial by October.
In the appellate ruling, Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote that police knew Eilman was suffering a bipolar breakdown and that responsibility for the sexual assault and injuries she suffered after police released her into a high-crime neighborhood the night of May 8, 2006 has to be decided in a trial.
The city's appeal had asked the court to dismiss the case against 10 police officers accused of negligence, arguing the police had no responsibility to take care of Eilman, a 21-year-old former UCLA student who had been arrested after creating a disturbance at Midway Airport.
The appellate ruling left most of the police defendants in the case, but the judges excused two officers whose role in the case didn't involve responsibility for making decisions about whether Eilman needed care. Decisions about the status of two other officers were sent back to U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall to evaluate.
In reciting the narrative of what happened that night, Easterbrook suggested the police showed little regard for the danger they were putting Eilman in when they released her.
"She was lost, unable to appreciate her danger, and dressed in a manner to attract attention," Easterbrook wrote. He added, "she is white and well off while the local population is predominantly black and not affluent, causing her to stand out as a person unfamiliar with the environment and thus a potential target for crime."
Eilman, who was thrown or fell from the 7th floor of a public housing building after being assaulted, requires around-the-clock care at her parents' home in California and is dependent on state welfare because she has no health insurance.
Eilman's parents, Rick and Kathleen Paine, released a written statement on the ruling, lamenting the amount of time the appeal has taken. The physical injuries she endured have made Eilman's bipolar disorder worse, and she has been hospitalized for emergency psychiatric care several times in recent years, they have said previously. Because she has no insurance, she is dependent on state aid for medical care.
"Christina's tragedy continues. Six years of litigation without a trial compounds the tragic circumstances here. And, it's time the city's Corporation Counsel's Office stop the incessant delay," the statement said. "We look forward to a public forum -- a Federal courtroom -- for all to see and hear how certain police officers and the City turned away from helping a young disabled person in desperate need."
Roderick Drew, spokesman for the Corporation Counsel's office, declined comment.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-court-parents-of-disabled-woman-can-sue-chicago-police-20120426,0,2030426.story
Judge’s computer login used in attempts to view pornography
Judge’s computer login used in attempts to view pornography
BY KIM JANSSEN Staff Reporter/kjanssen@suntimes.com April 23, 2012 12:08AM
Updated: April 23, 2012 10:40AM
Associate Judge Joseph Polito was trusted with one of Will County’s most notorious heater cases in 2007 when he presided over Plainfield man Craig Stebic’s attempt to divorce his missing wife Lisa.
Now he’s at the center of an unsolved riddle of his own.
Someone using Judge Polito’s computer login and password at the Joliet courthouse has been trying to use county computers to view hardcore Internet pornography, documents obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
Polito won’t say if it’s him — but Chief Judge Gerald R. Kinney has apologized “for any embarrassment this incident has caused.” And he’s referred the case to the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which has the power to file disciplinary charges that could result in Polito being suspended or even fired.
Among the 243 porn websites somebody using Polito’s county computer account attempted to access are chubbyparade.com, hugeheavybreasts.com, bigbras-club.com, portofdebauchery.com and teenagesextape.com.
Many of the websites have names that can’t be printed in a family newspaper. Several suggest an interest in masturbation and large breasted women. Others cover specialty interests including office sex and older women.
The list of porn websites was logged by Web-filtering software designed to stop county employees from wasting taxpayer time on non-work-related websites.
Tens of thousands of attempts to visit inappropriate websites — typically social networking, chat and shopping sites — are automatically blocked and logged in Will County government every month by the software, which is similar to software used in workplaces across the U.S.
But it wasn’t until the Sun-Times used the Freedom of Information Act to request a copy of the log in May last year that officials say they launched an investigation into the unusual activity on Polito’s computer account.
Chief Judge Kinney insisted for months that documents identifying Polito as the likeliest prolific courthouse porn user were judicial records that the public had no right to see. He finally released them earlier this month, after the Illinois Attorney General’s office wrote in a legal opinion that the list of porn websites was “unrelated to any judicial function [and] is not a judicial record.”
The list covers a six-month period beginning in late 2010. It shows that someone using Polito’s county computer account attempted to view porn on five days in January and April last year.
Polito, who was appointed an associate judge in 2006 and has a computer on the bench of his third-floor courtroom, was assigned as a “floating judge” at the time, records show. He handled traffic, small claims and forfeiture hearings on the days his account was used to try to view porn.
Now assigned to divorce cases, he refused to speak to a Sun-Times reporter about his workplace Internet habits last week. A bailiff who polices Polito’s courtroom said the judge “is not available” for comment.
But a defendant in a small claims case who appeared before Polito on Jan. 4 last year said it would be a “disgrace” if it turns out the judge was looking at porn during court hours.
Andrew Coleman, 53, believes he was treated “unfairly” in several rulings by Polito. His opponent in court was a “young woman in a tight leotard” and Polito “sat there and smiled at everything she said and ignored everything we said,” Coleman said, adding, “Maybe that’s where his mind was — he didn’t seem focused on the facts.”
Judge Kinney disagrees that the alleged porn use had any effect on Polito’s work. The chief judge said there was “no evidence that there’s been any impact on [Polito’s] ability to serve the community as a member of the judiciary.”
In a vaguely worded statement he released with the other Will County Circuit Court Judges, Kinney added that “appropriate steps have been taken to address any underlying issues that led to this behavior.”
He said a probation officer whose account was also used to view porn is no longer employed by Will County but declined to discuss specifics of Polito’s case, saying the matter was a “confidential personnel issue.”
Whoever used Polito’s account was likely frustrated.
Though he or she tried to visit 69 inappropriate websites on April 27 alone, none of those nor any of the other 164 attempts to view porn logged by the filtering software was successful, according to Will County Information, Communications and Technology director Mike Shay.
The software works by blocking websites on a banned list, Shay said. The list of banned sites is updated daily, but the vast amount of pornography published online means it isn’t foolproof, Shay added, making the system vulnerable to a determined and persistent porn hunter.
“Sometimes someone will get through,” he said.
Whether they’re a judge or an office clerk, anyone who uses a computer at work should assume they’re leaving a digital trail that can be tracked by their bosses, according to Daniel Keller, president of Interim HR Consulting.
If you’re at work using a computer and Internet connection supplied by your employer, “There shouldn’t be any expectation of privacy,” he said.
Keller routinely advises clients to install porn-blocking software but said that the biggest problem facing employers is workers using social media during work hours.
“Back in 2007 or 2008, most of the terminations for inappropriate Internet use were related to pornography,” he said. “Now it’s nearly all Facebook and Twitter.”
Whatever you’re looking at, Keller cautioned, “there are tracking mechanisms that go back to the individual user.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/11826964-418/judges-computer-login-used-in-attempts-to-view-pornography.html
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/23/illinois-judge-under-fire-after-being-tied-to-attempts-to-access-243-porn-sites/
BY KIM JANSSEN Staff Reporter/kjanssen@suntimes.com April 23, 2012 12:08AM
Updated: April 23, 2012 10:40AM
Associate Judge Joseph Polito was trusted with one of Will County’s most notorious heater cases in 2007 when he presided over Plainfield man Craig Stebic’s attempt to divorce his missing wife Lisa.
Now he’s at the center of an unsolved riddle of his own.
Someone using Judge Polito’s computer login and password at the Joliet courthouse has been trying to use county computers to view hardcore Internet pornography, documents obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
Polito won’t say if it’s him — but Chief Judge Gerald R. Kinney has apologized “for any embarrassment this incident has caused.” And he’s referred the case to the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which has the power to file disciplinary charges that could result in Polito being suspended or even fired.
Among the 243 porn websites somebody using Polito’s county computer account attempted to access are chubbyparade.com, hugeheavybreasts.com, bigbras-club.com, portofdebauchery.com and teenagesextape.com.
Many of the websites have names that can’t be printed in a family newspaper. Several suggest an interest in masturbation and large breasted women. Others cover specialty interests including office sex and older women.
The list of porn websites was logged by Web-filtering software designed to stop county employees from wasting taxpayer time on non-work-related websites.
Tens of thousands of attempts to visit inappropriate websites — typically social networking, chat and shopping sites — are automatically blocked and logged in Will County government every month by the software, which is similar to software used in workplaces across the U.S.
But it wasn’t until the Sun-Times used the Freedom of Information Act to request a copy of the log in May last year that officials say they launched an investigation into the unusual activity on Polito’s computer account.
Chief Judge Kinney insisted for months that documents identifying Polito as the likeliest prolific courthouse porn user were judicial records that the public had no right to see. He finally released them earlier this month, after the Illinois Attorney General’s office wrote in a legal opinion that the list of porn websites was “unrelated to any judicial function [and] is not a judicial record.”
The list covers a six-month period beginning in late 2010. It shows that someone using Polito’s county computer account attempted to view porn on five days in January and April last year.
Polito, who was appointed an associate judge in 2006 and has a computer on the bench of his third-floor courtroom, was assigned as a “floating judge” at the time, records show. He handled traffic, small claims and forfeiture hearings on the days his account was used to try to view porn.
Now assigned to divorce cases, he refused to speak to a Sun-Times reporter about his workplace Internet habits last week. A bailiff who polices Polito’s courtroom said the judge “is not available” for comment.
But a defendant in a small claims case who appeared before Polito on Jan. 4 last year said it would be a “disgrace” if it turns out the judge was looking at porn during court hours.
Andrew Coleman, 53, believes he was treated “unfairly” in several rulings by Polito. His opponent in court was a “young woman in a tight leotard” and Polito “sat there and smiled at everything she said and ignored everything we said,” Coleman said, adding, “Maybe that’s where his mind was — he didn’t seem focused on the facts.”
Judge Kinney disagrees that the alleged porn use had any effect on Polito’s work. The chief judge said there was “no evidence that there’s been any impact on [Polito’s] ability to serve the community as a member of the judiciary.”
In a vaguely worded statement he released with the other Will County Circuit Court Judges, Kinney added that “appropriate steps have been taken to address any underlying issues that led to this behavior.”
He said a probation officer whose account was also used to view porn is no longer employed by Will County but declined to discuss specifics of Polito’s case, saying the matter was a “confidential personnel issue.”
Whoever used Polito’s account was likely frustrated.
Though he or she tried to visit 69 inappropriate websites on April 27 alone, none of those nor any of the other 164 attempts to view porn logged by the filtering software was successful, according to Will County Information, Communications and Technology director Mike Shay.
The software works by blocking websites on a banned list, Shay said. The list of banned sites is updated daily, but the vast amount of pornography published online means it isn’t foolproof, Shay added, making the system vulnerable to a determined and persistent porn hunter.
“Sometimes someone will get through,” he said.
Whether they’re a judge or an office clerk, anyone who uses a computer at work should assume they’re leaving a digital trail that can be tracked by their bosses, according to Daniel Keller, president of Interim HR Consulting.
If you’re at work using a computer and Internet connection supplied by your employer, “There shouldn’t be any expectation of privacy,” he said.
Keller routinely advises clients to install porn-blocking software but said that the biggest problem facing employers is workers using social media during work hours.
“Back in 2007 or 2008, most of the terminations for inappropriate Internet use were related to pornography,” he said. “Now it’s nearly all Facebook and Twitter.”
Whatever you’re looking at, Keller cautioned, “there are tracking mechanisms that go back to the individual user.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/11826964-418/judges-computer-login-used-in-attempts-to-view-pornography.html
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/23/illinois-judge-under-fire-after-being-tied-to-attempts-to-access-243-porn-sites/
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
8 N.Korean defectors enter S.Korea from Russia
8 N.Korean defectors enter S.Korea from Russia
Eight North Korean defectors who were detained in Russia have been released and taken to South Korea.
South Korean officials said on Wednesday that the eight sent to Russia's Siberia were taken to the South on April 11th and 13th. They escaped harsh working conditions and gained refugee status from a UN agency.
Another 32 defectors are expected to leave Russia for South Korea.
South Korea has been asking China to show humanitarianism toward North Koreans who fled to the country.
This month, 5 North Korean defectors were admitted to the South after being held in custody at the country's embassy in Beijing for nearly 3 years.
Human rights advocates in South Korea have been holding rallies to urge China not to return defectors to the North because they could face severe punishment.
The advocates say they will closely watch China and Russia, hoping that they will act in a humanitarian manner.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 17:51 +0900 (JST)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120425_26.html
KawamotoDragon.com
Eight North Korean defectors who were detained in Russia have been released and taken to South Korea.
South Korean officials said on Wednesday that the eight sent to Russia's Siberia were taken to the South on April 11th and 13th. They escaped harsh working conditions and gained refugee status from a UN agency.
Another 32 defectors are expected to leave Russia for South Korea.
South Korea has been asking China to show humanitarianism toward North Koreans who fled to the country.
This month, 5 North Korean defectors were admitted to the South after being held in custody at the country's embassy in Beijing for nearly 3 years.
Human rights advocates in South Korea have been holding rallies to urge China not to return defectors to the North because they could face severe punishment.
The advocates say they will closely watch China and Russia, hoping that they will act in a humanitarian manner.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 17:51 +0900 (JST)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120425_26.html
KawamotoDragon.com
A Modest Proposal
A Modest Proposal
The lesson of the cases involving the nursing home cabal, Sykes, and Tyler is that in these Elder Abuse, Financial Exploitation cases there is a ‘new reality.’ Objective reality is irrelevant to the political elite; the Court appointed guardians, the Courts, law enforcement, our elected representatives and the regulators. Instead of enforcing the law we promulgate new legislation and muzzle those who speak out, all to the end of depriving ‘grandma’ of her liberty, her property, her civil rights and her human rights and most importantly unjustly enriching the favored few.
If you examine the nursing home cases the over-charges are legend. The cabal charges Medicare, Medicaid, etc. for undelivered utilities, management that never occurs, transportation that is not utilized, drugs administered that were not needed (or which are grossly inflated in price) etc. In the financial exploitation of the senior citizens the Tyler case and the Sykes case are examples of the problem. Ms. Tyler resided in Lake Pointe Tower and had an estate of approximately $8,000,000. Guess who paid for the ‘care that she received?’ It does not require a genius to examine the guardian’s claimed valuation. Sykes only had a million dollar estate and insurance from her husband’s former employer – The City of Chicago. Guess who is being charged for her lack of care?
Governor Quinn wants to raise taxes and cut services. President Obama wants to raise taxes. After dozens of letters from the victims (including friends and family of the affected seniors) do you notice the hue and cry generated? Indeed, do you see the two attorneys who unconscionably threaten and harass the heirs of Lydia Tyler being investigated by the IARDC? Do you see law enforcement pursing an inquiry into the suspicious circumstances surrounding Ms. Tyler’s death or the non-inventory of her assets? Indeed, do you see any effort on the part of law enforcement to free Mary Sykes and restore her liberty, her property and human rights? It is now admitted that the guardians have something to hide as they have not only rejected the call for a full and complete investigation of the charges made in Sykes, but have successful enlisted the IARDC to attempt to silence dissent.
Indeed, those who speak out can be expect be punished. The two Marys’ were found in criminal contempt for their audacity. They were fined. Gloria Sykes was not only forced into Bankruptcy, but, the intellectual property (book notes, research, and other materials) were confiscated. Right here in the United States of America the plenary guardian of Mary Sykes appeared with Sheriff’s officers and removed her property. As Ms. Sykes is a targeted person all she can raise is a deaf ear. Even though the Probate Court had no jurisdiction, it fined me almost $5000.00. The Appellate Court vacated the sanction, but the IARDC is now prosecuting me for my audacity in writing the august persons and others demanding an investigation. (Or that they do their jobs!)
That is the background.
It is my estimation that the over-charges generated out of the nursing homes are quite significant. The ‘loot’ from senior exploitation and charges to the State of Illinois and the United States of America is also quite significant. The charges to the State by the exploiters are similarly significant. Finally the cost of promulgating and passing legislation that is intended to provide window dressing and placate the dissent is also significant.
How much does it costs to employ law enforcement dedicated to assist the exploiters? What is the cost of CYA?
My proposal is very simple. We have enough legislation and unenforced laws. Quinn is cutting essential services to those who need them but funding the miscreants. There is something wrong with that picture. LET US ENFORCE OUR LAWS!
If we enforce our laws:
1) Fiduciaries that prey on the elderly pay taxes on their unjust enrichment. In Sykes the net gain to the USA is slightly over a million dollars in tax, penalties, and interest. In Tyler it is slightly over eight million dollars.
2) The over-payments by the State of Illinois and the United States of America would have to be reimbursed.
3) The inappropriate charges would not be incurred in the first place, families would take care of their own, and the assets of the senior would be utilized first to provide for his/her care.
4) Certain favorites within the legal community might have to find gainful employment
5) The need to cut essential services would be lessened.
There are also benefits (such as respect for law, respect for the court, respect for our institution, etc.) For Gloria Sykes and the Tyler family release from bondage and for society in general the assurance that America in 2012 is not becoming a Gulag. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Ken Ditkowsky
www.ditkowskylawoffice.com
The lesson of the cases involving the nursing home cabal, Sykes, and Tyler is that in these Elder Abuse, Financial Exploitation cases there is a ‘new reality.’ Objective reality is irrelevant to the political elite; the Court appointed guardians, the Courts, law enforcement, our elected representatives and the regulators. Instead of enforcing the law we promulgate new legislation and muzzle those who speak out, all to the end of depriving ‘grandma’ of her liberty, her property, her civil rights and her human rights and most importantly unjustly enriching the favored few.
If you examine the nursing home cases the over-charges are legend. The cabal charges Medicare, Medicaid, etc. for undelivered utilities, management that never occurs, transportation that is not utilized, drugs administered that were not needed (or which are grossly inflated in price) etc. In the financial exploitation of the senior citizens the Tyler case and the Sykes case are examples of the problem. Ms. Tyler resided in Lake Pointe Tower and had an estate of approximately $8,000,000. Guess who paid for the ‘care that she received?’ It does not require a genius to examine the guardian’s claimed valuation. Sykes only had a million dollar estate and insurance from her husband’s former employer – The City of Chicago. Guess who is being charged for her lack of care?
Governor Quinn wants to raise taxes and cut services. President Obama wants to raise taxes. After dozens of letters from the victims (including friends and family of the affected seniors) do you notice the hue and cry generated? Indeed, do you see the two attorneys who unconscionably threaten and harass the heirs of Lydia Tyler being investigated by the IARDC? Do you see law enforcement pursing an inquiry into the suspicious circumstances surrounding Ms. Tyler’s death or the non-inventory of her assets? Indeed, do you see any effort on the part of law enforcement to free Mary Sykes and restore her liberty, her property and human rights? It is now admitted that the guardians have something to hide as they have not only rejected the call for a full and complete investigation of the charges made in Sykes, but have successful enlisted the IARDC to attempt to silence dissent.
Indeed, those who speak out can be expect be punished. The two Marys’ were found in criminal contempt for their audacity. They were fined. Gloria Sykes was not only forced into Bankruptcy, but, the intellectual property (book notes, research, and other materials) were confiscated. Right here in the United States of America the plenary guardian of Mary Sykes appeared with Sheriff’s officers and removed her property. As Ms. Sykes is a targeted person all she can raise is a deaf ear. Even though the Probate Court had no jurisdiction, it fined me almost $5000.00. The Appellate Court vacated the sanction, but the IARDC is now prosecuting me for my audacity in writing the august persons and others demanding an investigation. (Or that they do their jobs!)
That is the background.
It is my estimation that the over-charges generated out of the nursing homes are quite significant. The ‘loot’ from senior exploitation and charges to the State of Illinois and the United States of America is also quite significant. The charges to the State by the exploiters are similarly significant. Finally the cost of promulgating and passing legislation that is intended to provide window dressing and placate the dissent is also significant.
How much does it costs to employ law enforcement dedicated to assist the exploiters? What is the cost of CYA?
My proposal is very simple. We have enough legislation and unenforced laws. Quinn is cutting essential services to those who need them but funding the miscreants. There is something wrong with that picture. LET US ENFORCE OUR LAWS!
If we enforce our laws:
1) Fiduciaries that prey on the elderly pay taxes on their unjust enrichment. In Sykes the net gain to the USA is slightly over a million dollars in tax, penalties, and interest. In Tyler it is slightly over eight million dollars.
2) The over-payments by the State of Illinois and the United States of America would have to be reimbursed.
3) The inappropriate charges would not be incurred in the first place, families would take care of their own, and the assets of the senior would be utilized first to provide for his/her care.
4) Certain favorites within the legal community might have to find gainful employment
5) The need to cut essential services would be lessened.
There are also benefits (such as respect for law, respect for the court, respect for our institution, etc.) For Gloria Sykes and the Tyler family release from bondage and for society in general the assurance that America in 2012 is not becoming a Gulag. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Ken Ditkowsky
www.ditkowskylawoffice.com
North Chicago police put on leave in fatal arrest
North Chicago police put on leave in fatal arrest
Decision near on whether they will face discipline
By Robert McCoppin, Chicago Tribune reporter
10:51 PM CDT, April 24, 2012
The seven North Chicago police officers involved in the violent arrest of a man who died a week later have been placed on paid leave temporarily, the mayor announced Tuesday.
The officers — Tristan Borzick, Jason Geryol, Gary Grayer, Marc Keske, Arthur Strong, Brandon Yost and Sgt. Salvatore Cecala — had been on desk duty since shortly after the Nov. 13 death of Darrin Hanna, 45. Police had been called to Hanna's apartment over complaints that he was fighting with his pregnant girlfriend, who told authorities that Hanna tried to drown her in the bathtub, reports show.
Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. said the officers will remain on administrative leave until interim police Chief James Jackson announces a decision, expected Friday, on whether they will face disciplinary action in Hanna's death.
The Lake County coroner's office concluded that physical restraint and Taser shocks contributed to Hanna's death, as did cocaine abuse and other health problems.
The case has sparked protests and other allegations of police brutality, as well as an Illinois State Police investigation. Lake County prosecutors ruled that officers acted "reasonably and appropriately," but on Friday, theU.S. Department of Justice announced it is conducting a preliminary inquiry into the case.
Attorneys for six of the officers mounted their first public defense Monday, issuing a news release stating that Hanna's relatives and their attorneys have been allowed to "speculate and grossly misrepresent" the case.
The release, from the law firm of DeAno & Scarry, puts the incident in the context of Hanna's drug use, health problems and prior criminal record, including an outstanding arrest warrant for allegedly beating his girlfriend two weeks previously.
"Mr. Hanna chose to attack the officers and create his own demise," the release states. "...There are occasions when police officers do everything right, yet bad things can happen to the people they come into contact with."
An accompanying statement said, "North Chicago police saved the lives of (Hanna's girlfriend) and her unborn child and they acted appropriately when her cocaine-abusing assailant aggressively resisted arrest."
Attorney Laura Scarry said that the case has become "sensationalized" and that she is confident that the full evidence will exonerate the officers.
At a rally Monday, theRev. Jesse Jacksoncriticized the officers' leave as a "paid vacation." Numerous federal lawsuits against the city show a pattern of the same officers using excessive force, Jackson said.
He urged about 200 people at a meeting in First Corinthian Church in North Chicago to go to City Hall on Friday and bring their sleeping bags.
"We plan to stay until reasonable justice has been done," he said.
After previous protests, former North Chicago Police Chief Mike Newsome had been placed on administrative leave in the case before resigning last month.
The disciplinary decision on the remaining officers was delayed, the mayor said, after an audio recording of police communications surfaced with Hanna pleading with police. Retired Illinois State Police Col. Robert Johnson, hired by the city as an independent investigator, reinterviewed the officers last week about the recording.
The mayor said he also sent a letter Monday to the Justice Department, offering full cooperation in the inquiry.
Freelance reporter Susan Berger contributed.
rmccoppin@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-north-chicago-cops-on-leave-20120425,0,7518307.story
Editor's note: It should be remembered that the present Lake County IL Coroner is an ex-police chief. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Decision near on whether they will face discipline
By Robert McCoppin, Chicago Tribune reporter
10:51 PM CDT, April 24, 2012
The seven North Chicago police officers involved in the violent arrest of a man who died a week later have been placed on paid leave temporarily, the mayor announced Tuesday.
The officers — Tristan Borzick, Jason Geryol, Gary Grayer, Marc Keske, Arthur Strong, Brandon Yost and Sgt. Salvatore Cecala — had been on desk duty since shortly after the Nov. 13 death of Darrin Hanna, 45. Police had been called to Hanna's apartment over complaints that he was fighting with his pregnant girlfriend, who told authorities that Hanna tried to drown her in the bathtub, reports show.
Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. said the officers will remain on administrative leave until interim police Chief James Jackson announces a decision, expected Friday, on whether they will face disciplinary action in Hanna's death.
The Lake County coroner's office concluded that physical restraint and Taser shocks contributed to Hanna's death, as did cocaine abuse and other health problems.
The case has sparked protests and other allegations of police brutality, as well as an Illinois State Police investigation. Lake County prosecutors ruled that officers acted "reasonably and appropriately," but on Friday, theU.S. Department of Justice announced it is conducting a preliminary inquiry into the case.
Attorneys for six of the officers mounted their first public defense Monday, issuing a news release stating that Hanna's relatives and their attorneys have been allowed to "speculate and grossly misrepresent" the case.
The release, from the law firm of DeAno & Scarry, puts the incident in the context of Hanna's drug use, health problems and prior criminal record, including an outstanding arrest warrant for allegedly beating his girlfriend two weeks previously.
"Mr. Hanna chose to attack the officers and create his own demise," the release states. "...There are occasions when police officers do everything right, yet bad things can happen to the people they come into contact with."
An accompanying statement said, "North Chicago police saved the lives of (Hanna's girlfriend) and her unborn child and they acted appropriately when her cocaine-abusing assailant aggressively resisted arrest."
Attorney Laura Scarry said that the case has become "sensationalized" and that she is confident that the full evidence will exonerate the officers.
At a rally Monday, theRev. Jesse Jacksoncriticized the officers' leave as a "paid vacation." Numerous federal lawsuits against the city show a pattern of the same officers using excessive force, Jackson said.
He urged about 200 people at a meeting in First Corinthian Church in North Chicago to go to City Hall on Friday and bring their sleeping bags.
"We plan to stay until reasonable justice has been done," he said.
After previous protests, former North Chicago Police Chief Mike Newsome had been placed on administrative leave in the case before resigning last month.
The disciplinary decision on the remaining officers was delayed, the mayor said, after an audio recording of police communications surfaced with Hanna pleading with police. Retired Illinois State Police Col. Robert Johnson, hired by the city as an independent investigator, reinterviewed the officers last week about the recording.
The mayor said he also sent a letter Monday to the Justice Department, offering full cooperation in the inquiry.
Freelance reporter Susan Berger contributed.
rmccoppin@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-north-chicago-cops-on-leave-20120425,0,7518307.story
Editor's note: It should be remembered that the present Lake County IL Coroner is an ex-police chief. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Expert: Person having a guardian appointed by ND court should have lawyer to protect rights
Expert: Person having a guardian appointed by ND court should have lawyer to protect rights
DALE WETZEL Associated Press
First Posted: April 17, 2012 - 7:35 pm
Last Updated: April 17, 2012 - 7:37 pm
AAA
BISMARCK, N.D. — Having a court-appointed guardian take charge of a person's life means fewer legal protections and potentially graver consequences than being sent to prison, said a medical school professor who is studying North Dakota's guardianship system.
The consultant, Winsor Schmidt, told the North Dakota Legislature's Human Services Committee on Tuesday that North Dakotans in guardianship proceedings should have the right to a lawyer and a jury trial on whether the guardianship is necessary. State law now gives them neither.
In a guardianship case, a judge decides whether the person is capable of making decisions about his or her life. If they are not, a judge appoints someone to make those decisions for them.
"You lose all of your rights. You become a non-citizen," Schmidt said in an interview.
The committee hired Schmidt, a professor at the University of Louisville's medical school, to study North Dakota's guardianship system, and he presented his preliminary report on Tuesday.
His recommendations included providing an attorney at public expense if someone can't afford to hire a lawyer for guardianship proceedings.
"With the criminal justice system, if you're found guilty, at least you know there's a term, and you get out of jail," he said. "With guardianship, it's indeterminate. Once you're (judged to be) legally incompetent, you're incompetent from then on."
The committee's chairman, Rep. Alon Wieland, R-West Fargo, said the panel will review Schmidt's report next month and discuss whether to draft legislation to implement its recommendations.
He says there should be a guardian for every 20 people they have to look after, but the ratio is closer to one in 40.
Winsor Schmidt, a professor at the University of Louisville's medical school, speaks on Tuesday, April 17, 2012, during a meeting of the North Dakota Legislature's interim Human Services Committee in the Harvest Room of the North Dakota Capitol in Bismarck, N.D., about a review Schmidt did of the state's guardianship system. Schmidt says anyone who is the subject of guardianship proceedings should be represented by an attorney. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel) About 2,000 people in North Dakota have guardians, and the state averages more than 300 new filings annually.
Schmidt's report estimates about 300 North Dakotans lack needed guardianship services, and a guardian's average caseload is between 36 and 39 clients, when a 20-client caseload is considered manageable.
Nonprofit organizations and public administrators in some North Dakota counties provide guardianship services.
Schmidt said the state does not license guardians, and there is little supervision of their work. They are required to file a report annually with the district judge who appointed them, but the reports are seldom examined, Schmidt said.
"Almost all guardians proceed appropriately almost all the time, but there are some who do not," he said. "If you don't actively monitor it ... they know there are things they can get away with, and it's tempting."
Schmidt said guardians should be required to undergo criminal background and credit checks and to carry bond coverage and liability insurance.
He believes a more efficient guardianship system would be supervised by North Dakota's courts. He suggested that each of the state's seven judicial districts have a public administrator who would be responsible for overseeing guardians' work.
Gerald VandeWalle, North Dakota's chief justice, said the court-based approach could have inherent conflicts of interest. District judges would supervise the administrators overseeing the guardians in their regions while hearing complaints about them, VandeWalle said.
The chief justice said he also was concerned about whether the Legislature would provide sufficient money for North Dakota's court system to supervise a network of guardians. The new task could take away from the courts' regular work, VandeWalle said.
"This is a pretty lean machine. We're running our courts with 44 trial judges across the whole state of North Dakota, that have everything from small claims to felonies," VandeWalle said. "There's a limit as to what you can expect ... the system to carry."
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/a3aa59099d574acf8244563306368866/ND--Guardianship-Services/
Editor's note: Your ProbateShark agrees that in a perfect world Dr. Schmidt's facts would have weight. However, in the corrupt atmosphere of the Probate Court of Cook County, Dr. Schmidt's grand scheme would fail as exemplified by the case history below.
Alice R. Gore Estate value about 1 million dollars: Alice R. Gore, deceased, a disabled 99 year old ward of the Probate Court of Cook County, Judge Kawamoto’s courtroom was hours away from ending up in the Cook County Morgue. Alice's estate was depleted by probate court parasites and there were reportedly no funds to bury her. Her loving family paid for the burial expenses so that Alice would not have to suffer the indignity of being stacked like an Auschwitz inmate in the Cook County morgue. The judge allowed an easily manipulated mentally disabled granddaughter to be appointed as Alice’s guardian and yet no sanctions were instituted against the judge or court officers for this blatant infraction of the law.
Strangely, 16 of Alice’s annuity checks, two of which show forged endorsements, disappeared. Alice’s daughter has a copy of a check with her signature possibly forged. The daughter’s attorney has been trying to obtain copies of the 16 other annuity checks for two years without success. Even more puzzling is a $150,000 life insurance policy owned by Alice and not inventoried into the estate by the court. The Probate Court of Cook of Cook County refuses to investigate these blatant infractions of the law. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
KawamotoDragon.com
DALE WETZEL Associated Press
First Posted: April 17, 2012 - 7:35 pm
Last Updated: April 17, 2012 - 7:37 pm
AAA
BISMARCK, N.D. — Having a court-appointed guardian take charge of a person's life means fewer legal protections and potentially graver consequences than being sent to prison, said a medical school professor who is studying North Dakota's guardianship system.
The consultant, Winsor Schmidt, told the North Dakota Legislature's Human Services Committee on Tuesday that North Dakotans in guardianship proceedings should have the right to a lawyer and a jury trial on whether the guardianship is necessary. State law now gives them neither.
In a guardianship case, a judge decides whether the person is capable of making decisions about his or her life. If they are not, a judge appoints someone to make those decisions for them.
"You lose all of your rights. You become a non-citizen," Schmidt said in an interview.
The committee hired Schmidt, a professor at the University of Louisville's medical school, to study North Dakota's guardianship system, and he presented his preliminary report on Tuesday.
His recommendations included providing an attorney at public expense if someone can't afford to hire a lawyer for guardianship proceedings.
"With the criminal justice system, if you're found guilty, at least you know there's a term, and you get out of jail," he said. "With guardianship, it's indeterminate. Once you're (judged to be) legally incompetent, you're incompetent from then on."
The committee's chairman, Rep. Alon Wieland, R-West Fargo, said the panel will review Schmidt's report next month and discuss whether to draft legislation to implement its recommendations.
He says there should be a guardian for every 20 people they have to look after, but the ratio is closer to one in 40.
Winsor Schmidt, a professor at the University of Louisville's medical school, speaks on Tuesday, April 17, 2012, during a meeting of the North Dakota Legislature's interim Human Services Committee in the Harvest Room of the North Dakota Capitol in Bismarck, N.D., about a review Schmidt did of the state's guardianship system. Schmidt says anyone who is the subject of guardianship proceedings should be represented by an attorney. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel) About 2,000 people in North Dakota have guardians, and the state averages more than 300 new filings annually.
Schmidt's report estimates about 300 North Dakotans lack needed guardianship services, and a guardian's average caseload is between 36 and 39 clients, when a 20-client caseload is considered manageable.
Nonprofit organizations and public administrators in some North Dakota counties provide guardianship services.
Schmidt said the state does not license guardians, and there is little supervision of their work. They are required to file a report annually with the district judge who appointed them, but the reports are seldom examined, Schmidt said.
"Almost all guardians proceed appropriately almost all the time, but there are some who do not," he said. "If you don't actively monitor it ... they know there are things they can get away with, and it's tempting."
Schmidt said guardians should be required to undergo criminal background and credit checks and to carry bond coverage and liability insurance.
He believes a more efficient guardianship system would be supervised by North Dakota's courts. He suggested that each of the state's seven judicial districts have a public administrator who would be responsible for overseeing guardians' work.
Gerald VandeWalle, North Dakota's chief justice, said the court-based approach could have inherent conflicts of interest. District judges would supervise the administrators overseeing the guardians in their regions while hearing complaints about them, VandeWalle said.
The chief justice said he also was concerned about whether the Legislature would provide sufficient money for North Dakota's court system to supervise a network of guardians. The new task could take away from the courts' regular work, VandeWalle said.
"This is a pretty lean machine. We're running our courts with 44 trial judges across the whole state of North Dakota, that have everything from small claims to felonies," VandeWalle said. "There's a limit as to what you can expect ... the system to carry."
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/a3aa59099d574acf8244563306368866/ND--Guardianship-Services/
Editor's note: Your ProbateShark agrees that in a perfect world Dr. Schmidt's facts would have weight. However, in the corrupt atmosphere of the Probate Court of Cook County, Dr. Schmidt's grand scheme would fail as exemplified by the case history below.
Alice R. Gore Estate value about 1 million dollars: Alice R. Gore, deceased, a disabled 99 year old ward of the Probate Court of Cook County, Judge Kawamoto’s courtroom was hours away from ending up in the Cook County Morgue. Alice's estate was depleted by probate court parasites and there were reportedly no funds to bury her. Her loving family paid for the burial expenses so that Alice would not have to suffer the indignity of being stacked like an Auschwitz inmate in the Cook County morgue. The judge allowed an easily manipulated mentally disabled granddaughter to be appointed as Alice’s guardian and yet no sanctions were instituted against the judge or court officers for this blatant infraction of the law.
Strangely, 16 of Alice’s annuity checks, two of which show forged endorsements, disappeared. Alice’s daughter has a copy of a check with her signature possibly forged. The daughter’s attorney has been trying to obtain copies of the 16 other annuity checks for two years without success. Even more puzzling is a $150,000 life insurance policy owned by Alice and not inventoried into the estate by the court. The Probate Court of Cook of Cook County refuses to investigate these blatant infractions of the law. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
KawamotoDragon.com
Scientists find connection between brain freeze and migraines
Scientists find connection between brain freeze and migraines
Published April 23, 2012
Most people have likely experienced brain freeze — the debilitating, instantaneous pain in the temples after eating something frozen — but researchers didn't really understand what causes it, until now.
Previous studies have found that migraine sufferers are actually more likely to get brain freeze than people who don't get migraines. Because of this, the researchers thought the two might share some kind of common mechanism or cause, so they decided to use brain freeze to study migraines.
Headaches like migraines are difficult to study, because they are unpredictable. Researchers aren't able to monitor a whole one from start to finish in the lab. They can give drugs to induce migraines, but those can also have side effects that interfere with the results. Brain freeze can quickly and easily be used to start a headache in the lab, and it also ends quickly, which makes monitoring the entire event easy.
The researchers brought on brain freeze in the lab by having 13 healthy volunteers sip ice water through a straw right up against the roof of their mouth. The volunteers raised their hands when they felt the familiar brain freeze come on, and raised them again once it disappeared.
The researchers monitored the blood flow through their brains using an ultrasoundlike process on the skull. They saw that increased blood flow to the brain through a blood vessel called the anterior cerebral artery, which is located in the middle of the brain behind the eyes. This increase in flow and resulting increase in size in this artery brought on the pain associated with brain freeze. [Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind]
When the artery constricts, reining in the response to this increased flow, the pain disappears. The dilation, then quick constriction, of this blood vessel may be a type of self-defense for the brain, the researchers suggested.
"The brain is one of the relatively important organs in the body, and it needs to be working all the time," study researcher Jorge Serrador, of Harvard Medical School, said in a statement. "It's fairly sensitive to temperature, so vasodilation [the widening of the blood vessels] might be moving warm blood inside tissue to make sure the brain stays warm."
This influx of blood can't be cleared as quickly as it is coming in during the brain freeze, so it could raise the pressure inside the skull and induce pain that way. As the pressure and temperature in the brain rise, the blood vessel constricts, reducing pressure in the brain before it reaches dangerous levels.
If other headaches work in the same way, drugs that stop these blood vessels from opening up, or that could make this blood vessel constrict could help treat them, the researchers say. [Big Headaches: Facts on Migraines]
The work was presented during a poster session Sunday (April 22) afternoon at the Experimental Biology 2012 meeting in San Diego.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/04/23/cause-brain-freeze-revealed/
Monday, April 23, 2012
Owner of tsunami-swept volleyball found
Owner of tsunami-swept volleyball found
A volleyball that floated across the Pacific Ocean after being swept away in last year's devastating tsunami on March 11 is on its way back to its owner in Japan.
A couple residing near Anchorage, Alaska, found the volleyball washed up on a beach of Middleton Island last month.
The ball bore various messages, as well as the name "Shiori."
After a viewer who saw the news report on the volleyball contacted NHK, the ball was traced to 19-year-old Shiori Sato, who was living in Tanohata Village, Iwate Prefecture, until last summer.
Sato, who now lives at a company dormitory near Tokyo, told NHK on Monday that she was stunned to hear about her volleyball. She said she had treasured it and kept it in her room because her teammates had written a lot of messages on it.
She said that after her house was washed away by the tsunami, she abandoned hope of ever seeing the ball again. She said its survival is a miracle and that she is thrilled it's coming back.
A soccer ball belonging to another youth in Rikuzentakata City, Iwate, who lost his home in the disaster was also found on the coast of Middleton a few days ago. It was traced to its owner on Sunday.
Monday, April 23, 2012 18:16 +0900 (JST)
.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120423_25.html
KawamotoDragon.com
A volleyball that floated across the Pacific Ocean after being swept away in last year's devastating tsunami on March 11 is on its way back to its owner in Japan.
A couple residing near Anchorage, Alaska, found the volleyball washed up on a beach of Middleton Island last month.
The ball bore various messages, as well as the name "Shiori."
After a viewer who saw the news report on the volleyball contacted NHK, the ball was traced to 19-year-old Shiori Sato, who was living in Tanohata Village, Iwate Prefecture, until last summer.
Sato, who now lives at a company dormitory near Tokyo, told NHK on Monday that she was stunned to hear about her volleyball. She said she had treasured it and kept it in her room because her teammates had written a lot of messages on it.
She said that after her house was washed away by the tsunami, she abandoned hope of ever seeing the ball again. She said its survival is a miracle and that she is thrilled it's coming back.
A soccer ball belonging to another youth in Rikuzentakata City, Iwate, who lost his home in the disaster was also found on the coast of Middleton a few days ago. It was traced to its owner on Sunday.
Monday, April 23, 2012 18:16 +0900 (JST)
.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120423_25.html
KawamotoDragon.com
Scammed veteran gets help managing finances
Scammed veteran gets help managing finances
Written by Macklin Reid
Thursday, 19 April 2012 05:00
Chris Murray, left, is working to raise money to help World War II bomber pilot Roger McCollester, right, who amassed debts after falling victim to a scam artist.
It just didn’t sit well — a veteran who’d faced Nazi flak in a B-24 Liberator to defend America facing eviction from public housing — so Chris Murray decided to get involved.
Now Mr. Murray, who serves on Ridgefield’s Board of Education, is in the process of being made a conservator who will oversee 88-year-old Roger McCollester’s finances.
He is starting to raise money for a fund that will pay off debts Mr. McCollester accumulated after falling victim to a scam artist, and ensure the former bomber pilot may remain in his apartment at the Ridgefield Housing Authority’s Congregate Housing on Prospect Ridge.
“Roger’s a friend of mine, and I did not know about his circumstances until I read it online,” said Mr. Murray, who saw a story from the March 15 Ridgefield Press on TheRidgefieldPress.com.
“He is a friend of mine,” Mr. Murray continued. “We had him for Thanksgiving last year, and my son had escorted Roger to the Veterans Day events at East Ridge (Middle School) last fall.
“I decided to intervene, and I met with Roger within days of the article, and Roger agreed, readily so, to my help,” Mr. Murray said.
He consulted with attorney Robert Jewell and Probate Judge Joseph Egan about the legal options.
“We decided that voluntary conservatorship was the way to go, and the process is underway with the probate court,” Mr. Murray said.
The idea is to set up a vehicle for helping Mr. McCollester, and also guard against future scam attempts.
“Roger has provided me with his file of scam letters — it’s got to be at least 50, and that doesn’t include the Internet solicitations,” Mr. Murray said.
“These scam artists know precisely when Roger is getting his monthly benefit and Social Security checks, and they inundate him with calls, repeatedly, on the day before and the day of,” Mr. Murray said.
“They are not unsophisticated scam artists.”
So, the voluntary conservatorship will be set up.
“He’s taking over my finances,” Mr. McCollester said.
“Basically, control of Roger’s checkbook, to be granted to me, exclusively, by the probate court,” Mr. Murray said.
“I’m hopeful that this will give the all-clear sign to many people who helped Roger in the past and have expressed an interest in helping Roger now, that their donations will solve Roger’s financial obligations, and put him on the right course with respect to his living arrangements and his day-to-day living expenses.”
Things are looking up for Mr. McCollester, and eviction proceedings have been staved off.
“I intervened on Roger’s behalf and held him up financially for a short period of time, and then relied on the generosity of several friends of mine to help. Many of them have been very forthcoming and generous,” Mr. Murray said, “and Roger’s kind of back in the good graces of the Ridgefield Housing Authority.”
“His car insurance has been reinstated, his phone has been turned back on. I’ve renegotiated several of his bills. His life is getting back toward normal.”
“Oh yeah, definitely,” Mr. McCollester added.
“But we need to raise around $20,000 to completely solve his problems,” Mr. Murray said.
The hope is to raise enough to provide Mr. McCollester with a small financial cushion — $4,000 or so — to fall back on.
Mr. Murray believes there are people who would be willing to support the effort.
“There was a gentlemen who called the Housing Authority and offered to pay a certain amount of Roger’s back rent. They didn’t get his information,” he said.
“There are a lot of people who want to help and they just need to know where to send the money and to know it’s properly allocated.
“They can make a check out to Roger McCollester, and send it to my address, for now,” Mr. Murray said. “Once we’ve established a formal authority, we can set up one of the local banks as the recipient of the monies, on Roger’s behalf.”
Donatoins may be sent to:
“Roger McCollester c/o Christopher Murray, 124 Ivy Hill Road, Ridgefield, CT 06877.
Mr. Murray and his wife Lisa have lived in Ridgefield for 15 years. He was elected to the Board of Education last fall, and has served on the Republican Town Committee since 2007.
Mr. Murray owned a Manhattan-based real estate brokerage company, Development Strategies Inc., which specialized in high tech clients.
His wife is in real estate management in Scarsdale, with a private developer, Rabina Realty.
He feels lucky to be in a position to help people like Mr. McCollester.
“Through my wife’s company we invested in data centers, and have done well,” Mr. Murray said.
“This is my fourth veterans associated money-raising project. The first one was in 2006. We raised about $5,000 and we gave it to The Charlie Company Family Assistance Fund. It’s our reserve unit in Connecticut. The men at that time were serving in Fallujah, Iraq, including four of our local Marines,” he said.
Please read complete article's part 2 at link below:
http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/theridgefieldpress/news/localnews/119914-scammed-veteran-gets-help-managing-finances.html
Written by Macklin Reid
Thursday, 19 April 2012 05:00
Chris Murray, left, is working to raise money to help World War II bomber pilot Roger McCollester, right, who amassed debts after falling victim to a scam artist.
It just didn’t sit well — a veteran who’d faced Nazi flak in a B-24 Liberator to defend America facing eviction from public housing — so Chris Murray decided to get involved.
Now Mr. Murray, who serves on Ridgefield’s Board of Education, is in the process of being made a conservator who will oversee 88-year-old Roger McCollester’s finances.
He is starting to raise money for a fund that will pay off debts Mr. McCollester accumulated after falling victim to a scam artist, and ensure the former bomber pilot may remain in his apartment at the Ridgefield Housing Authority’s Congregate Housing on Prospect Ridge.
“Roger’s a friend of mine, and I did not know about his circumstances until I read it online,” said Mr. Murray, who saw a story from the March 15 Ridgefield Press on TheRidgefieldPress.com.
“He is a friend of mine,” Mr. Murray continued. “We had him for Thanksgiving last year, and my son had escorted Roger to the Veterans Day events at East Ridge (Middle School) last fall.
“I decided to intervene, and I met with Roger within days of the article, and Roger agreed, readily so, to my help,” Mr. Murray said.
He consulted with attorney Robert Jewell and Probate Judge Joseph Egan about the legal options.
“We decided that voluntary conservatorship was the way to go, and the process is underway with the probate court,” Mr. Murray said.
The idea is to set up a vehicle for helping Mr. McCollester, and also guard against future scam attempts.
“Roger has provided me with his file of scam letters — it’s got to be at least 50, and that doesn’t include the Internet solicitations,” Mr. Murray said.
“These scam artists know precisely when Roger is getting his monthly benefit and Social Security checks, and they inundate him with calls, repeatedly, on the day before and the day of,” Mr. Murray said.
“They are not unsophisticated scam artists.”
So, the voluntary conservatorship will be set up.
“He’s taking over my finances,” Mr. McCollester said.
“Basically, control of Roger’s checkbook, to be granted to me, exclusively, by the probate court,” Mr. Murray said.
“I’m hopeful that this will give the all-clear sign to many people who helped Roger in the past and have expressed an interest in helping Roger now, that their donations will solve Roger’s financial obligations, and put him on the right course with respect to his living arrangements and his day-to-day living expenses.”
Things are looking up for Mr. McCollester, and eviction proceedings have been staved off.
“I intervened on Roger’s behalf and held him up financially for a short period of time, and then relied on the generosity of several friends of mine to help. Many of them have been very forthcoming and generous,” Mr. Murray said, “and Roger’s kind of back in the good graces of the Ridgefield Housing Authority.”
“His car insurance has been reinstated, his phone has been turned back on. I’ve renegotiated several of his bills. His life is getting back toward normal.”
“Oh yeah, definitely,” Mr. McCollester added.
“But we need to raise around $20,000 to completely solve his problems,” Mr. Murray said.
The hope is to raise enough to provide Mr. McCollester with a small financial cushion — $4,000 or so — to fall back on.
Mr. Murray believes there are people who would be willing to support the effort.
“There was a gentlemen who called the Housing Authority and offered to pay a certain amount of Roger’s back rent. They didn’t get his information,” he said.
“There are a lot of people who want to help and they just need to know where to send the money and to know it’s properly allocated.
“They can make a check out to Roger McCollester, and send it to my address, for now,” Mr. Murray said. “Once we’ve established a formal authority, we can set up one of the local banks as the recipient of the monies, on Roger’s behalf.”
Donatoins may be sent to:
“Roger McCollester c/o Christopher Murray, 124 Ivy Hill Road, Ridgefield, CT 06877.
Mr. Murray and his wife Lisa have lived in Ridgefield for 15 years. He was elected to the Board of Education last fall, and has served on the Republican Town Committee since 2007.
Mr. Murray owned a Manhattan-based real estate brokerage company, Development Strategies Inc., which specialized in high tech clients.
His wife is in real estate management in Scarsdale, with a private developer, Rabina Realty.
He feels lucky to be in a position to help people like Mr. McCollester.
“Through my wife’s company we invested in data centers, and have done well,” Mr. Murray said.
“This is my fourth veterans associated money-raising project. The first one was in 2006. We raised about $5,000 and we gave it to The Charlie Company Family Assistance Fund. It’s our reserve unit in Connecticut. The men at that time were serving in Fallujah, Iraq, including four of our local Marines,” he said.
Please read complete article's part 2 at link below:
http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/theridgefieldpress/news/localnews/119914-scammed-veteran-gets-help-managing-finances.html
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