Free Republic

Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker, national campaign finance chairwoman for the Obama campaign, has taken herself out of the running to be secretary of Commerce because of vetting issues, a Democratic official said.

Police in suburban Chicago have arrested a Muslim college student for allegedly faking a racist attack by a masked gunman, an attack police now say never happened. Earlier this month, Safia Jilani, 19, was found by friends in the basement bathroom of the Schaible science building of Elmhurst College, claiming she was clubbed with a gun by a masked assailant. Anti-Muslim epithets were found scrawled on a nearby mirror, similar to a hate-filled graffiti that had been found on Jilani's locker only a week earlier. The college locked down the campus after the alleged attack and, according to the Chicago...

LINK Case Name Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank Fair Housing/Lending/Insurance Docket / Court 94 C 4094 ( N.D. Ill. ) FH-IL-0011 State/Territory Illinois Case Summary Plaintiffs filed their class action lawsuit on July 6, 1994, alleging that Citibank had engaged in redlining practices in the Chicago metropolitan area in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), 15 U.S.C. 1691; the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3601-3619; the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; and 42 U.S.C. 1981, 1982. Plaintiffs alleged that the Defendant-bank rejected loan applications of minority applicants while approving loan applications filed by white applicants with...

OJ Attorney Yale Galanter said it was not a happy day for anybody. BUT HE WAS WRONG!!! While most of you were sleeping, the OJ Simpson jury came back with a GUILTY ON ALL CHARGES verdict against Nicole Brown Simpson’s…last visitor. How Galanter can think that this “isn’t a happy day for anyone” is beyond me. Off the top of my head, I can think of a LOT of people who think that this is a HAP-HAP HAPPY DAY…Ron Brown’s family, Nicole Simpson’s family, ME and every single person that I know for starters. As a matter of fact, I...

Revenge comes in many ways. This time OJ Simpson got his comeuppance. He was found guilty of all charges of his robbery trial in Las Vegas.

CARDIFF, Wales (AP) - Even at 50, the queen of pop just can't stop courting controversy. As Madonna kicked off her international "Sticky and Sweet" tour Saturday night, she took a none-too subtle swipe at the presumptive Republican nominee for U.S. president. Amid a four-act show at Cardiff's packed Millennium Stadium, a video interlude carried images of destruction, global warming, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Zimbabwe's authoritarian President Robert Mugabe - and U.S. Senator John McCain. Another sequence, shown later, pictured slain Beatle John Lennon, followed by climate activist Al Gore, Mahatma Gandhi and finally McCain's Democratic rival Barack Obama. The...

A military jury convicted Salim Hamdan on charges of providing material support to terrorism at his hearing at Guantanamo Bay. Hamdan was acquitted on additional charges of conspiring with al Qaeda to commit war crimes. The US military accused him of transporting missiles for al Qaeda and helping Bin Laden escape US authorities following the September 11 attacks by driving him around Afghanistan. Hamdan's defence team said he was merely a low-level Bin Laden employee. The Yemeni, who now faces a maximum life sentence, held his head in his hands and wept at the defence table. The White House welcomed...

Capping the highest-profile case to come out of City Hall "pay-to-play" corruption investigations in the administration of former Mayor James Hahn, former commissioner Leland Wong was convicted Thursday of more than a dozen felony charges, including bribery, in connection with taking $100,000 from a company doing business with the city. Wong, 51, was found guilty of 14 felony charges, including one count of bribery, two counts of conflict of interest, one count of perjury, seven counts of theft by embezzlement and three counts of filing false tax returns. But the jury also acquitted Wong on six other counts of theft...

(CNSNews.com) - A Consumer Reports survey reveals that Americans are blaming Congress for high gas prices, which are compelling them to make shifts and sacrifices in their consuming habits. The Auto Pulse Survey, conducted by Consumer Reports National Research Center, showed that 77 percent of consumers single out the government's failure to implement an effective energy policy as a root cause for high gas prices; 75 percent of consumers blame oil companies; and 70 percent blame foreign oil producers. When asked about actions the federal government could take to reduce fuel costs, 81 percent want to allow more drilling in...

A 60-year-old Palm Bay teacher was arrested late Wednesday on suspicion of having sex with one of her 17-year-old students, police said. The boy's mother complained that Adrienne Laflamme, who taught science at the Brevard County Juvenile Detention Center, picked her son up at home and had a four-week relationship with him, investigators said. The two had sex at least 15 times, police said, including one time that also involved another teenage boy. Laflamme, of Palm Bay, lent her car to the boy while she was on vacation but reported it stolen after a co-worker told her she was being...

A high school science teacher in North Carolina has been arrested and is facing charges of sexually assaulting a student nine times. Shebana Rajput, 35, a biology and physical science instructor since August 2005 at Jones Senior High School in Trenton, N.C., resigned her position May 21 – just two days before she was arrested in her home for alleged sexual conduct with a 17-year-old student, according to WNCT-TV. Rajput is just the latest instructor to make WND's big list of American teachers accused or convicted of having sexual relations with students. Sheriff's officials say she had sexual relations with...

A sleepover at a Bucks County home turned into a sex party between a 38-year-old woman and five boys as young as 14, Lower Makefield Township police said. Police Chief Ken Coluzzi said that the woman, identified as Angela Honeycutt, had sex with a 15-year-old boy in a bathroom. Afterward, she took a 14-year-old boy into the shower where she masturbated him and allowed him to penetrate her with his finger. Coluzzi said that the "sleepover" took place April 14 at the home of Lynne Long, 45, whose son invited the five other boys but was not present when the...

An airline pilot and flight attendant who ventured into a wooded area, apparently to have sex last month in Lower Swatara Township,each pleaded guilty this afternoon to disorderly conduct. Jeffrey Paul Bradford, 24, of Moon Twp., a Pittsburgh suburb, and Adrianna Grace Connor, 24, of Belleville, Mich., each paid a $300 fine for the summary offense. Saying they didn't have enough evidence, prosecutors withdrew charges of indecent exposure, open lewdness, public drunkenness, loitering and prowling at night against Bradford, and theft from a motor vehicle, public drunkenness, and loitering and prowling at night against Connor.

arrested on charges of having sex with four teenage boys, two of whom were her students, was warned by school officials to never be alone in a classroom with "any male students," Local 6 News reported on Friday. Danielle Jones, 32, was in court on Friday, a day after the Stambaugh (Auburndale) Middle School sixth-grade science teacher was arrested on suspicion of having sex with two of her students, ages 14 and 15, and their two 16-year-old cousins. The school principal sent Jones a letter on Jan. 23 -- about six months after the alleged sex took place -- after...

Woman pleads guilty in Spitzer call girl scandalBy The Associated Press Wednesday, June 4, 2008 11:38 AM EDT NEW YORK - A woman accused of helping run the prostitution ring patronized by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to violate federal prostitution laws. Prosecutors say Cecil Suwal, 23, ran the day-to-day operations of the Emperors Club V.I.P. escort service, which charged clients up to $5,500 an hour for the services of its women. Suwal was accused of supervising the company's booking agents, paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars to prostitutes and controlling shell companies used to...

Ex-Obama friend convicted in Chicago Antoin Tony Rezko, a former friend of Barack Obama and former top adviser to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted Wednesday on corruption charges. Rezko was charged with trading on his clout as a Blagojevich adviser and fundraiser. The Chicago Tribune reported the conviction could spell trouble for the governor, who made Rezko an important member of his kitchen Cabinet. A federal jury in Chicago convicted Rezko on 16 of 24 corruption counts after deliberating for parts of 13 days. Rezko was convicted of conspiring with Stuart Levine, a longtime GOP activist, to extort millions...

State Sen. Julia Boseman and her former domestic partner have defaulted on a $1.3 million mortgage on a house in a ritzy subdivision near the Intracoastal Waterway. The house is now expected to be sold at public auction later this month after Boseman and Melissa Jarrell failed to pay months worth of bills on the loan from Regions Bank. Boseman and Jarrell, who lived together and were raising a son together before separating, had the mortgage on the house at 1526 Portsmouth Place in the Avenel Subdivision just across the bridge from Figure Eight Island. According to evidence presented Wednesday...

ORANGE COUNTy, Fla. -- A 13-year-old girl's sexual shenanigans have put a second man behind bars. Morris Williams, 22, told the judge he thought the girl was 18-years-old, but he found out Tuesday that ignorance is not a defense. Morris Williams' mother wailed as he went off to jail. The judge asked for media not to show 13-year-old Alisha Dean's face in court, but her pictures are all over her MySpace page and they portray a sexy, 19-year-old divorced woman. "She told me she had just turned 18," Williams said. Williams said Dean picked him up on the street and...

PORT ST. LUCIE — Tiffany Shepherd, a biology teacher at Port St. Lucie High School, learned last week that she will not be asked to return when school starts next year, nor will she finish this school year. Shepherd doesn't think it's her teaching skills that the St. Lucie County School District found objectionable but, rather, her after-school job as a bikini mate aboard Smokin' Em Charters fishing tours.

MAGNOLIA -- Police say the motives of a teacher accused of taking three youngsters to motels to engage in sex in a nearby town aren't known. Donna Lou Sanders, 46, of Magnolia, was released on $100,000 bond Friday. She is charged with 12 counts of permitting abuse of a minor, and 10 counts of rape. Columbia County deputy prosecutor David Butler said she is being treated at a private mental health center. Chief Robert Gorum said Sanders told investigators on Wednesday, the day she was arrested, that she committed all of the crimes of which she is being accused. Sanders,...

An Albany woman who drove roughly 18 hours to northwestern Wisconsin, allegedly in hopes of having a sexual tryst with a teenage boy she befriended online, remains jailed on attempted sex assault charges. Tracy Taylor, 44, of 181 Second Ave., was in Eau Claire County Circuit Court Monday morning. A judge set bail at $50,000 bail before Taylor was sent back to county jail pending another appearance next week.

BOSTON (WBZ) ― WHDH Channel 7 announced Thursday that general manager Randi Goldklank is now undergoing medical treatment after an allegedly drunken tirade Sunday night that ended with her arrest at Logan Airport. "The unfortunate events of last Sunday night were unanticipated and Ms. Goldklank is deeply regretful," said Ed Ansin, president of Sunbeam Television Corp. in a prepared statement. Mike Carson, the station's previous general manager will take over on a temporary basis while Goldklank remains on administrative leave. According to a State Police report, Goldklank, 40, of Boston, threatened to put a trooper on TV and ruin his...

Muslim preacher Abu Izzadeen guilty of inciting terrorism By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent Last Updated: 1:54am BST 18/04/2008 An engineer has become the first white British Muslim to be convicted of terrorism offences after he was found guilty of inciting others to join a jihad in Iraq. Simon Keeler, 35, was found guilty with preacher of hate Abu Izzadeen, the Al Qaeda disciple who glorified suicide bombers and once famously heckled Home Secretary John Reid. Simon Keeler [left] and Abu Izzadeen, whose real name is Trevor Brooks, were found guilty of inciting terrorism Izzadeen, whose real name is Trevor Brooks,...

Title says it all, can't say anything more. Click through.

At one time, William S. Lerach, Melvyn I. Weiss and Richard F. Scruggs would have been described as three of the nation's most feared and successful trial lawyers. Today, all three can simply be called crooks.

RAINIER, Wash. -- A Rainier teacher's assistant faced a judge Monday on drug and sex abuse charges. Jan Gleaves sexually abused teen boys and served them alcohol and marijuana at her apartment, Columbia County officials said. They began investigating the case in December when a Rainier mother said she found some posts from Gleaves on her son's MySpace page. Gleaves was a teaching assistant in the St. Helens School District. Officials don’t think the allegations involve any kids from the school district where she worked.

Bexley woman arrested on child-sex charge Thursday, March 27, 2008 11:48 AM THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Becky Jo Tatum Becky Jo Tatum A Bexley woman wanted on a charge that she had oral sex with a 14-year-old girl during a party at her home was arrested at a Far East Side apartment complex this morning. Becky Jo Tatum, 41, of 2761 Bellwood Ave. was taken to the Franklin County jail after her 9 a.m. arrest at the Kensington Commons apartments at Gender and Refugee roads. Police said they found Tatum after receiving an anonymous tip. Tatum, a mother of two, regularly...

NEW TAMPA -- Mary Jo Spack. Married 13 years, mother of four kids. At 38, she graduated USF's School of Education with honors, and became an Honors English Teacher herself at Freedom High in Tampa. By all accounts, a teacher's teacher. "Excellent teacher, spotless record," said Hillsborough District spokeswoman Linda Cobbe. "All the evaluations I saw she had the highest marks you can give." A perfect record that's now tainted. Tampa Police say Spack had sex with a 17-year-old male student in the shower of a Howard Johnson motel room while four other students listened in. Police say she also...

Pensions Paid To Guilty OfficialsBy CHRISTOPHER KEATING | Capitol Bureau Chief March 14, 2008 Five convicted state officials who left office after pleading guilty to various crimes are cumulatively collecting nearly $100,000 a year in pensions paid by state taxpayers. That total could rise in the next few years, when former Gov. John G. Rowland and former state Sen. Ernest Newton, who is now in prison, become eligible by turning 55. This is exactly the scenario that some legislators are trying to thwart by calling for legislation to retroactively revoke pensions that are being paid to convicted officials. But therein...

Guilty plea filed in bribe caseDaughter follows mother to court Wednesday, March 12, 2008 By Gordon Russell Stacy Simms, a City Hall appointee under two New Orleans mayors and the daughter of former Orleans Parish School Board President Ellenese Brooks-Simms, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to helping her mother access a series of bribes that totaled $140,000 over several years. Court documents have identified the source of the bribes as Mose Jefferson, the elder brother and chief political strategist of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who is awaiting trial himself in Virginia on 16 unrelated bribery-related counts. Mose Jefferson...

Lerach claims kickbacks were commonplace among class-action litigators when he was practicing. "Everybody was paying plaintiffs," he said in a letter inadvertently made public by his own attorneys last week. This should trigger a wider-ranging federal investigation of the plaintiffs bar, if indeed such a probe is not already being conducted. Senate and House Democrats, many of whom in years past received multiple campaign contributions from Lerach and others at Milberg Weiss, could demonstrate a laudable independence by opening a congressional inquiry.

February 8, 2008 -- After a savage, bone- snapping beating, young Yovany Tellez had barely the strength to speak his final words to his mother: "I want to go to sleep." Yesterday, a Manhattan jury convicted Zahira Matos, 23, of Harlem, of murder, potentially dooming her to life in prison. Her drunken lesbian lover had actually dealt the boy's death blows, but the jurors found that Matos had, unimaginably, done nothing for five hours or longer as her moaning 23-month-old son lapsed into a coma and died.

Beth Modica, 44, a former assistant district attorney in Rockland County and Queens, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to counts including statutory rape, sex abuse and endangering children. Bail was set at $75,000. Her husband, the Spring Valley police chief, is "not implicated whatsoever," Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said. The 35-count indictment says that, beginning in July, Modica had sex with a 16-year-old, as well as oral sex with that boy and a 15-year-old. The judge issued orders of protection for the boys. Modica also is accused of drinking with children at her home and smoking marijuana with them...

NEW CITY, N.Y. - An ex-prosecutor and former PTA president who is also the wife of a suburban police chief has been charged with having sex, smoking marijuana and drinking with high-school-age children. Beth Modica, 44, a former assistant district attorney in Rockland County and Queens, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to counts including statutory rape, sex abuse and endangering children. Her hands were cuffed in front of her in court, where the indictment was unsealed. She later posted $75,000 bail. Her husband is police chief of Spring Valley. He is "not implicated whatsoever," Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said....

Robin Handel Janelle Thompson .

'Lyrical Terrorist' Samina Malik guilty By Duncan Gardham Last Updated: 3:20am GMT 09/11/2007 A Heathrow shop assistant who dubbed herself the "Lyrical Terrorist" has became the first Muslim woman in Britain to be found guilty of terrorism offences. Samina Malik has been found guilty of terror offences Samina Malik, who worked air-side for WH Smith, posted a series of poems on websites across the internet about killing non-believers, pursuing martyrdom and raising children to be holy fighters. She was described as a "committed Islamic extremist who supports terrorism and terrorists" and had a library of material for that purpose. Malik,...

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has used $23,000 in campaign funds to pay the top Washington ethics lawyer, Stan Brand, who is fighting his case before the Senate ethics committee, according to Craig’s latest filing with the Federal Election Commission. No additional legal expenses appear in the report, but they eventually will. Craig, according to his office, has decided to use his campaign committee for attorney fees related to his criminal defense in Minnesota as well. “A better read (of the latest report) is that Stan Brand bills more quickly,” Craig’s spokesman, Dan Whiting, wrote in an email. The report covers...

Paul Ross Evans, who admitted leaving a bomb in April outside an Austin women's clinic that performs abortions, was sentenced to 40 years in prison Friday. "I never meant for anyone, except for the abortionists, to get hurt," Evans told U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks. The sentence was the result of a plea agreement that Evans, 27, struck with prosecutors in July. He pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. According to the plea agreement, the bomb was found April 25 by an employee in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center on Interstate...

A Minnesota judge denied a motion by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, to withdraw the guilty plea he entered in August in connection to an airport bathroom stall sting operation. The order, released Thursday, likely derails Craig's plans to remain in the Senate.

MELBOURNE, Australia - An Australian "prankster" barmaid who served a patron a shot of disinfectant has appeared in court over what her lawyers said was a "misguided" joke. Melbourne barmaid Emily Craig, 23, served a client a single 30-milliliter shot glass of Pine-O-Cleen disinfectant in March during a 6 a.m. drinking bout at Evolution Nightclub, causing him to become violently ill, the Melbourne Magistrates court was told. "This was a misguided joke at an ungodly hour," Craig's lawyer George Balot told the judge, according to reports Tuesday in local newspapers. -snip- The patron developed ulcers on his skin after drinking...

SACRAMENTO - A federal jury on Thursday found a 29-year-old environmental activist guilty of conspiring to burn down or blow up a northern California dam, a genetics lab, cell phone towers and other targets. Eric McDavid of Foresthill, Calif. faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for what FBI agents said was as an eco-terrorist plot in the name of the Earth Liberation Front, a shadowy, loose-knit group of environmentalists that has claimed credit for arsons throughout the West. McDavid and two others were arrested in January 2006 after purchasing bottles of bleach, a car battery,...

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's (R-Idaho) motion to withdraw his guilty plea will be heard in a Hennepin County District court room this week. You read it here first: Contrary to conventional wisdom, Craig will win this motion. I was out of the country and completely unplugged when the Larry Craig story broke. The only U.S. news I saw while I was in Egypt and Jordan were the mimeographed news sheets printed from an international Internet news service that were hung on hotel room doors each morning. Certainly it was amusing to see the men's room at the Minneapolis St. Paul...

FReep This Poll! Are you going to buy or read 'If I Did It' by O.J. Simpson? Yes No Don't know Go to the North County Times/The Californian link provided. Scroll down a bit and look for the poll on the right hand side. Vote your choice. Note: This poll should remain active until Saturday evening...

Send in the straightjackets - Newsweek has cracked up. Of all the stories in the entire world to cover, Newsweek's website is flagging as its "Top Story" an insane piece about a woman (complete with photo) who thinks she is an ordained Catholic priest. They found her in Missouri, though had Newsweek reporter Karen Springen walked into the nearest asylum, she would have found some who think they're the pope. Springen's discovery is Jessica Rowley. Jessica thinks she's a Catholic priest because some crackpot group said they ordained her. Springen, whose contempt for the Catholic Church is rivaled only by...

Now in Osceola, she is appealing her dismissal in Indiana to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kissimmee Middle School reading teacher Deborah Mayer said her world has been "devastated" by four words she uttered in an Indiana classroom four years ago: "I honk for peace."

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) _ The mother of a young girl known for years as ``Precious Doe'' pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree murder in the death of her 3-year-old daughter. Michelle Johnson, 31, of Muskogee also pleaded guilty to child endangerment, abandoning a corpse and tampering with evidence for not helping her daughter as she lay dying after allegedly being abused by her stepfather. As part of the plea agreement, Johnson will testify against her husband, Harrell Johnson, who is charged with first-degree murder, assistant prosecutor Tim Dollar said. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for Harrell Johnson. In...

"The Hillary Clinton for President Campaign celebrated the opening of its new San Francisco headquarters with a launch party that coincided with the Democratic presidential debate on July 23, 2007. The radical activist groups Breasts Not Bombs and Code Pink heard about the event and decided it would be a good opportunity to stage a surprise topless protest to publicize their anti-war message." "I heard about the planned party-crashing and made sure I was on hand to record what happened." WARNING: link to website contains topless photos ( Mother-Of-All-Barf-Alerts)"Everyone crowded around several large TVs to watch the Democratic candidates. The...

(The Politico) Sen. Larry Craig’s attorney, Billy Martin, said this morning the senator intends to file the legal papers in Minnesota later today to seek a reversal of his guilty plea to disorderly conduct in an airport men’s room. Martin said the Idaho Republican, who was arrested June 11 in a police sex sting operation, had gone to the bathroom simply “to relieve himself.’’ “As he went into that stall, there was no intent to commit a crime,’’ Martin told Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” show. “He was charged with a crime and pleaded guilty, Matt, as convenience to make...

CHICAGO - A federal jury found five aging men guilty Monday in a racketeering conspiracy that involved decades of extortion, loan sharking and murder aimed at rubbing out anyone who dared stand in the way of the ruthless Chicago mob. The verdicts capped an extraordinary 10-week trial that laid bare some of the inner workings of The Outfit. The prosecution's star witness was an admitted hit man who took the stand against his own brother to spell out the allegations, crime by crime. The jury heard about 18 unsolved killings, including the beating death and cornfield burial of Tony "The...

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