Free Republic

SPITZ WILL TALK DIRTY TO PANELLast updated: 3:51 am July 14, 2008 Fredric Dicker DISGRACED former Gov. Eliot Spitzer will be subpoenaed within weeks to give his first public testimony in the Dirty Tricks Scandal if, as expected, a state commission charges his former aide Darren Dopp with violating state law. Dopp lawyer Michael Koenig, a former federal prosecutor, has concluded Spitzer's testimony would be crucial to back up his client's claim that the former governor gave the go-ahead for every step in the plot that used the State Police to gather purportedly damaging information on now-former Senate Majority Leader...

THE Austrian man who locked his daughter in a windowless dungeon for 24 years has asked to be allowed to leave his prison cell for 30 minutes a day. Josef Fritzl, 73, who kept his daughter Elisabeth locked in a cellar in Amstetten, Austria, and fathered her seven children, has demanded his right to be allowed out of his cell, the UK's Telegraph newspaper reported today. After just two months of incarceration and despite his fear of being attacked by fellow prisoners, Fritzl has been having half-hour walks outside his cell in an Austrian prison, the newspaper said. "Mr Fritzl...

The Board’s action closed PUSD high school campuses at lunchtime for all students. Only third-year and fourth-year students in good standing, and with parent permission, will have the opportunity to leave campus for lunch beginning in August 2006. Based on community input, a student in good standing must have at least a cumulative 2.0 grade point average – or C average – and have earned enough credits to stay on track to graduate: Specifically students must earn the following: § 14 credits by the end of the fourth semester; § 18 credits by the end of the fifth semester; §...

Tran Trong Duyet - a sprightly retiree and amateur ballroom dancer - must rank as one of John McCain's more unlikely supporters.Four decades ago, during the Vietnam war, Mr Duyet was in charge of the notorious Hoa Lo prison - the place where Mr McCain says he was brutally beaten and tortured during five-and-a-half years as an American prisoner of war. "McCain is my friend," said 75-year-old Mr Duyet as he feeds the caged birds he now keeps in his garden in this coastal city. "If I was American, I would vote for him." Informal chatsNavy pilot John McCain was...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents blew open the gate of a main prison in the Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday, allowing hundreds of prisoners including suspected militants to escape, officials said. Under cover of darkness, nearly all of an estimated 1,150 prisoners, including some 400 Taliban inmates, fled from the jail, two officials in the southern city of Kandahar told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Another official said between 750 and 800 prisoners had managed to escape, adding some prisoners were killed in a gun battle between police and Taliban fighters inside the jail. "I think scores of...

PORTLAND, Ore. - An environmental activist and former fugitive who once won thousands of votes in a congressional election pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges under a deal that would send him to prison for two years. Tre Arrow, 34, pleaded guilty to the destruction of concrete-mixing trucks in Portland in April 2001 and to firebombing logging trucks at a contested logging sale near Mount Hood in June 2001. He had faced up to 40 years in prison if convicted of two counts of arson. In a separate case, a radical environmentalist who helped federal officials round up a militant...

Translated by me: - Anchorwoman says that Hillary is heavily favored by the Puerto Rico prison population, which voted in the span of the past 2 days (Thurs. & Fri.) - Prisoners voting are dressed in grey and blue prison garb in the video. - Prisoner #1: "Hillary gives us hope; we're going through a really bad economic crisis". -Prisoner #2: "We need a change in life. All changes are necessary in life". -Prisoner #3: "We're a U.S. territory and the relationship we have with the U.S. could benefit us from getting out of this economic rut". -Prisoner #4: "We're...

A Prison Service report has expressed concern about problems with the high number of Muslim inmates at one of Britain's high-security jails. A review of Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire found staff were fearful of doing the wrong thing, "shifting the power dynamic towards prisoners". The Howard League for Penal Reform said the report was "extremely disturbing". The Prison Service says it will examine how to manage gangs and terrorist prisoners at the jail. The report, written by the Prison Service's Directorate of High Security, was obtained by the Howard League under the Freedom of Information Act. It found staff at...

London, May 26 (ANI): Naming his sniffer dog “Allah” has resulted in in prison officer Chris Langridge, 28, being shifted out of Britains top Belmarsh high-security jail. Though Langridge insisted that his labrador was called Ali, and not Allah, a Muslim inmate filed an official complaint against the the dog handler, and he was promptly shifted. One Belmarsh officer said: This is political correctness gone mad. Belmarsh houses some of Britains most notorious extremist Muslims, including hook-handed Abu Hamza. It also has the highest proportion of Muslim prisoners of any jail in Britain. Muslims dont like dogs and it would...

TAMMS | Lawmakers: Don't keep inmates there more than a year Reginald "Akkeem" Berry said he wasted away during eight years in Tamms Correctional Center at the southern tip of Illinois. Berry, a former Four Corner Hustler imprisoned for killing a gang rival over turf, said he lost 75 pounds from his muscular frame while in the state's only "supermax" facility, where he was sent after a series of disciplinary problems in other prisons. He was paroled in 2006. "Tamms starved me," Berry, 45, said during a news conference Sunday to promote state legislation to make the 10-year-old prison more...

You've heard of resume inflation? You've heard of people who lie about having Ph.D.s or Ivy League pedigrees in order to get ahead? The world of thug culture has its own perverse equivalent, in which middle-class men with minor legal transgressions exaggerate their bad behavior, claiming to be hard-core degenerates in order to impress youngsters looking for outlaw role models. In this destructive environment, the more violent and predatory you are, the more heroic you seem. That helps to explain why a metro Atlanta hip-hop star known as Akon wove a tall tale of malevolence and criminal activity, claiming to...

Book about Eliot Spitzer to be published by PenguinThe Associated Press Posted on Fri, May. 02, 2008 In this March 31, 2007 file photo, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is shown at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., A book about the rise and stunning decline of Eliot Spitzer, co-authored by the makers of a book and film about the fall of Enron, is being published by Penguin Group (USA), Penguin imprint Portfolio announced Wednesday, April 30, 2008. AP Photo NEW YORK --A book about the rise and stunning decline of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, co-authored by the...

French Prisons: Up to 70% of Inmates Are Muslims April 29, 2008 Muslims make up only about 12 percent of France’s population — but account for from 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country’s prisons. French prison officials blame that remarkable statistic on the poverty of people who have moved to France from North Africa and other Muslim nations in recent decades. French Muslim leaders further hold racism and discrimination as the root cause of unemployment and crime rates among the Muslim minority, according to the Islam Online Web site. In Britain, Muslims reportedly make up 3...

Thanks to Libertas, I noticed a New York Times interview in which “Iron Man”’s Tony Stark, Robert Downey, Jr., admitted that though he doesn’t say it too loudly at dinner parties, he’s a conservative. This is a pretty big catch for our side: consider that Downey’s father, who made the radical underground film “Putney Swope,” was one of the most celebrated leftists in the film world in the 60s. Says Downey Jr: “I have a really interesting political point of view, and it’s not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you can’t go from a...

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - An inmate awaiting trial on a murder charge is suing the county, complaining he has lost more than 100 pounds because of the jailhouse menu. Broderick Lloyd Laswell says he isn't happy that he's down to 308 pounds after eight months in the Benton County jail. He has filed a federal lawsuit complaining the jail doesn't provide inmates with enough food. According to the suit, Laswell weighed 413 pounds when he was jailed in September. Police say he and a co-defendant fatally beat and stabbed a man, then set his home on fire. "On several occasions I...

Prison life is so comfortable and the drugs are so cheap that prisoners don't want to escape, says prison officers chiefLast updated at 17:59pm on 24th April 2008  Prisoners are ignoring chances to escape because they would rather stay in their cushy jails where drugs are cheaper than on the outside, a prison chief officers has said.  Lags at Britain's 'toughest' prisons are treated to breakfast in bed, have Sky TV in every cell and are given cash bonuses for good behaviour. At one prison in Yorkshire, drug dealers and hookers regularly break IN to ply their trade by...

Wrongly Convicted Man Released After 26 Years Reporting Derrick Blakley CHICAGO (CBS) The man who spent 26 years in prison for a crime he says he didn't commit was released on bond Friday night. Alton Logan's release was made possible because of two attorneys who this year dropped a bombshell when they admitted Logan was the wrong man convicted of a crime. CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports Logan had been serving a life sentence for the 1982 murder of a McDonald's security guard. Another man, Andrew Wilson, told his lawyers years ago that he was the real killer. But under...

Our prisons are boiling over capacity with criminals. Convicted criminal immigrants make up a large number of inmates. IF it costs approximately $42,000 per year to house these illegal immigrants, should they be deported? Even small rural towns like mine are having to cough up tax money to build new jails. No one wants to point to the criminal illegal immigrants that are filling the old jail. They just tell us that we need a bigger jail. Yet the papers are filled with names in the arrest column that points squarely to immigrants.

Go to jail, get a pension? Hillsborough appears to be the only county in the state where tax dollars provide retirement benefits for inmates who dig ditches and pick up trash. The practice prompted a Florida Senate committee Tuesday to pass a measure (SB 2848) that would prohibit inmates from accruing public retirement benefits. A similar measure is moving swiftly through the House. Hillsborough County has paid at least $162,741 in retirement benefits to the state pension system for 640 Hillsborough County Jail inmates from 2002 through early April, according to the only state data available Tuesday. But it's unclear...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

Wyo. Lawsuit Alleges Prison Mealtime Violates Muslim Inmates' Freedom of Religion Thursday , April 03, 2008 AP CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Thursday claiming that a Wyoming State Penitentiary policy restricting prisoners' mealtimes violates the constitutional rights of two Muslim inmates. The ACLU filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on behalf of Joseph Miller and Hurie Purdiman Jr., two inmates serving time at the penitentiary in Rawlins. At issue is an alleged "20-minute rule" requiring inmates to eat their meals within 20 minutes after the food is delivered to a cell or common...

Peckerwood Hill: An artifact of the death penalty The cheap, cast concrete markers that dot Peckerwood Hill’s 22 acres bespeak lost lives and loneliness. None buried there had family or resources that could have buried them elsewhere. HUNTSVILLE - A shroud of low, ashen mist swathes Peckerwood Hill on a corpse-cold day in Texas. No matter. The Rev. Carroll Pickett knows the spot he seeks. The ground is spongy with night rain, sunken in some places where cheap pine-box coffins have rotted and collapsed, so he walks respectfully among the dead. A plastic grocery sack flutters in the highest...

"I just feel like she gotta live through me. Yes, we were scheduled to be married on a yacht April 27th, but due to circumstances beyond our control we are now making arrangements to be married in prison."

Two terrorists released from prison early By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 8:06pm GMT 28/03/2008 Two convicted terrorists have been released early under a controversial Government scheme to ease prison over-crowding, ministers have been forced to admit. One is a radical Muslim cleric - Yassin Nassari, 29 - who was caught trying to smuggle blueprints on how to build a missile into Britain. Yassin Nassari was freed from Wakefield prison last month The identity of the second terrorist had not been made public but the BBC reported he was Abdul Muneem Patel, who was released from Glen Parva...

Former Gov. Don Siegelman will be released from prison, after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted him an appeal bond, the lead prosecutor in the case said. Acting U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin said he received a courtesy call from the court today. "He's going to be released," Franklin said. He said he was disappointed but said, "The 11th Circuit has the discretion to do that and I respect that." Kim Chandler Return to al.com for updates on this breaking story.

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

A Chinese-born engineer convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China was sentenced Monday to 24 1/2 years in federal prison by a judge who said the defendant betrayed his adopted country. Chi Mak, 67, who worked on naval propulsion systems, was also convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, attempting to violate export control laws and making false statements to the FBI. Federal prosecutors asked for 30 years, while Mak's defense team proposed 10 years. There is no parole in the federal prison system. Mak asked U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney for leniency before sentencing....

Ashfield (MA) lawyer Stewart 'Buz' Eisenberg visits Guantanamo Bay every 10 weeks. He refers to the base's prison, which now holds about 275 terror suspects, as 'hell's lobby.' For the past three years, Eisenberg has represented several Guantanamo detainees, men suspected of being terrorists or having knowledge of terrorist activities. His clients have spent four to six years, and counting, in isolated cells at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. All three have been declared 'no longer enemy combatants' by the U.S. government, which means, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, they 'no longer pose a significant threat.' But...

NORTH HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- A former Norwin homecoming queen accused of attacking her sister with a prosthetic leg and threatening to burn down a neighbor's trailer was ordered on Wednesday to go to rehab. Donna Sturkie-Anthony showed up for her preliminary hearing before District Judge Douglas Weimer, but the 41-year-old woman's hearing was continued so she can go to Greenbriar Treatment Center. Police said Sturkie-Anthony's sister came to visit her at Lincoln Mobile Home Park on Route 30 in January, and the two started arguing about her alcohol abuse. Then, police said Sturkie-Anthony pulled off her sister's prosthetic leg and...

LOS ANGELES - The former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive who hid for years by posing as an ordinary housewife has been released from prison after serving time for trying to bomb police cars, corrections officials said Thursday. Sara Jane Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, walked out of the Central Women's Facility in Chowchilla on Monday, said Bill Sessa, a state Department of Corrections spokesman. In 2001, Olson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in prison for attempting to bomb police cars in 1975 with the SLA, the group best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. Olson...

Pul-e-Charkhi lies on the eastern outskirts of Kabul Afghan security forces have sealed off the country's main high-security prison after days of unrest there.Gunfire has been heard from the Pul-e-Charkhi prison, a huge complex built in the 1970s on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul. Inmates are in control of parts of the prison and say they have taken two Afghan soldiers hostage. Pul-e-Charkhi is now used to house common criminals as well as al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects. ProtestOur correspondent says the stand off between prisoners and Afghan security forces, which began on Sunday, appears to be worsening. Large...

The eruption of outrage, shock and fear that is flowing over Barack Obama’s campaign like hot lava because his pastor has preached some strident sermons tells us one thing for certain: Many white people don’t know black people at all. If they did, they would know that Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago is hardly the only black minister who uses the pulpit to rant against racial duplicity and injustice. The black church has always been the place for letting our hair down and speaking our peace -- a safe haven from the criminations outside. It’s how and why the black...

PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A man who gave a loaded gun to his suicidal friend to "snap her out of it" and then watched in shock as she killed herself was sentenced Friday to up to five years in prison for his role in her death. Christopher Burda, a lighting company owner with no previous criminal record, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Tuesday for the November 2005 suicide of Nancy Choquette of Stamford, Vt. He wiped away tears throughout his sentencing, then apologized to Choquette's family and his own. "My deepest condolences and most heartfelt apologies," he said haltingly, often...

An unrepentant prison inmate already serving 97 years in prison was sentenced to an extra 28 years Monday morning for holding a prison guard hostage and sexually abusing her. A Pima County Superior Court jury convicted Timothy Monk, 36, on aggravated assault, kidnapping, sexual abuse and promoting prison contraband charges in January. Deputy Pima County Attorney Jonathan Mosher told jurors that on May 1, 2006, Monk lured a female corrections officer to his cell by telling her he wanted to turn over some black-tar heroin he had gotten from another inmate. As the guard turned to get another officer, Monk...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas oilman David Chalmers was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday after admitting to paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq in connection with the U.N. oil-for-food program. Chalmers, 54, and his two corporations, Bayoil Supply and Trading Ltd. and Bayoil USA Inc., were sentenced in federal court in Manhattan. Chalmers also was ordered to forfeit $9 million dollars. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in August, weeks before he was due to go on trial with Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt. Wyatt was sentenced to a...

U.S. incarcerates more than any other nation: report Thu Feb 28, 2008 7:20pm EST By James Vicini WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world and for the first time in the nation's history, more than one in every 100 American adults is confined in a prison or jail, according to a report released on Thursday. The report by the Pew Center on the States said the American penal system held more than 2.3 million adults at the start of the year. The far more populous nation of China ranked second with...

" For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs."

A British woman who regularly visits prison inmates fell in love with one, and it almost got her killed, the Yorkshire Evening Post reports. The West Yorkshire woman, whose identity was not released, fell for a convicted rapist serving a life sentence and would visit him for several hours every few weeks. After the prisoner was released on parole to a hostel, he began spending weekends at her home and they eventually became engaged, the Yorkshire Evening Post reports. "For the first six months things went very well," the woman told a jury, the Yorkshire Evening Post reports. "He was...

Sacramento -- The former federal receiver hired to improve California's troubled prison health care system misspent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars before being fired last month, according to a state inspector general's report released Wednesday. Robert Sillen, who once threatened to "back up the Brink's truck" to the state's treasury to get the money needed to provide better inmate care, authorized $218,790 in overpayments to staff members for benefits such as health insurance and retirement that they already received, said the report, which found no evidence of fraud. In addition to millions spent on consultants and professional services, the...

LONDON (Reuters) - A lack of Muslim and Arabic-speaking staff at a jail that detains terrorism suspects is creating a security risk because they could not understand what inmates were discussing, a government report revealed on Wednesday. Despite staff working at Long Lartin prison's specialist terrorism unit insisting such culture training was essential, authorities had yet to introduce any sufficient education, a report by the Prisons' chief inspector found. Anne Owers' report said that while managers had "taken steps to raise cultural awareness" - with visits to mosques and funding Arabic lessons - it was a small step "given the...

When the number of kids locked up at San Francisco's juvenile hall reached record numbers last spring, Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the population at the hall to be reduced and the city to recommit to partnering with community groups that work intensively with troubled youth while allowing them to live at home. Nine months later, however, executives with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a leading private funder of such initiatives around the country, say the $587,500 it has given San Francisco since 2001 to help achieve that very goal has been wasted and that change is happening at "a snail's...

Video conferencing is speeding up a slow judicial system, connecting judges, lawyers, and the accused while enhancing savings and security. India has undertaken a nationwide project to connect jails and district courts across the country via a tele-justice or video conferencing system. With tele-justice, the accused can now be present in a court through a video link, established on ISDN lines, between the prison and the court. Today, Indian states including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Bihar have already introduced tele-justice. In Maharashtra, for instance, over 40 jails in and around Mumbai are connected to district level courts...

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Softball, drunken orgies and a prison system run like the mafia. That's what Florida's former prison secretary says he inherited when he took over one of the nation's largest prison systems two years ago. Excerpt: • Top prison officials admitting to kickbacks; • Guards importing and selling steroids in an effort to give them an edge on the softball field; • Taxpayer funds to pay for booze and women; • Guards who punished other guards who threatened to report them. "Corruption had gone to an extreme," McDonough said, saying it all began at the top. "They...

Inquiry launched into 'bugging' of Muslim MP By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 04/02/2008 Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has launched a formal inquiry into claims a senior Labour Muslim MP had been bugged during private meetings with a constituent. David Davis' bugging warning letter in full Leader: Reasoning to listen with Sadiq Khan MP Scotland Yard is alleged to have eavesdropped on meetings between Sadiq Khan, a Government whip, and a terrorist suspect currently being held in prison. The police and security services have been barred from bugging MPs for more than 40 years. Watch:...

Terror watch over Muslim prisoners NEWS.com.au, Australia - February 03, 2008 By Paula Doneman Life behind bars for some Muslim prisoners, and those who have converted to Islam after their incarceration, has been monitored...

Cuban immigrant Julio Gonzalez, who was picked up in the Mariel boatlift in 1980, was mad that he lost his job packing lamps and girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, of 7 years. He wanted to talk to his girlfriend on March 25, 1990, a Sunday. Feliciano worked at the Happyland Club in The Bronx borough of New York. The Happyland Club was ordered to be closed in late 1988 for having no fire exit doors, alarms, and sprinklers. This would prove to be deadly. Since Feliciano rebuffed him and got kicked out by a bouncer, Gonzalez, was upset over this. With revenge...

MOTIHARI, India -- The city of Motihari shows off the worst of India. The streets are a dirty, noisy mess of people and animals, cars and rickshaws, litter, sewage and poverty. It's a heaving frontier town, in the state of Bihar, which has the distinction as India's poorest, most backward, and most lawless. Just the same, Motihari has some history. The British writer, George Orwell was born here in 1903 (his father worked for the Indian Civil Service) and this is where Mahatma Gandhi began his "satyagraha" in 1917, his resistance to British rule, better known to Indians as the...

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Tuesday said more than 50 followers of the minority Baha'i faith were convicted of distributing propaganda against the country's Islamic regime, state media reported. Ali Reza Jamshidi, Iran's judiciary spokesman, said three people, who were in custody in southern city of Shiraz, were sentenced to four years in prison. Another 51 Baha'i followers were given one-year suspended prison terms, Jamshidi said, according to the official IRNA news agency. Last year, Baha'i communities abroad had reported that a group of followers were detained in Shiraz, located about 550 miles south of Tehran, while helping poor communities...

Anger in Iran after law student dies in custody By Kay Biouki in Teheran and Gethin Chamberlain 26/01/2008 The death of a student in the custody of Iranian intelligence officers has provoked outrage among opponents of the regime, who claim it is part of a concerted crackdown on dissent in the run-up to parliamentary elections. Ebrahim Lotf-Allahi, a fourth year law student, was buried before his family could see his body. They later discovered that the grave had been filled with cement, apparently to prevent his body being exhumed for medical examination. Student leaders say 150 students have been arrested...

Son of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius Designs Raunchy Prison-Themed Board Game Sunday , January 27, 2008 The son of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is peddling a board game titled "Don't Drop the Soap," a prison-themed game he created as part of a class project at the Rhode Island School of Design. John Sebelius, 23, has the backing of his mother and father, U.S. Magistrate Judge Gary Sebelius. Sebelius spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran said both parents "are very proud of their son John's creativity and talent." John Sebelius is selling the game on his Internet site for $34.99, plus packaging, shipping and handling....