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FEDERAL COURT – A peripheral figure in the bribery scandal that ensnared former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced to five years' probation by a San Diego federal judge yesterday, bringing the three-year-old case closer to finality. Advertisement John Thomas Michael, a mortgage broker from Long Island, sighed deeply and closed his eyes when U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns said he would not be going to prison. As part of his probation, Michael will have to perform 1,000 hours of community service and pay a fine of $100,000. Michael pleaded guilty in February to one count of conspiracy to...

Another cop killed by a repeat offender http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=20128356&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

A female teacher accused of having a year-long sexual relationship with one of her underage male students surrendered to Margate police on Friday morning. Margate Police say that Christine Jouini, 38, who teaches the 11th and 12th grade at The Center Academy, a private school in Coral Springs, was charged with three counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor. Margate Police spokesman Detective Chip Kolenda said the illicit affair was exposed after the former student, who has since graduated and has turned 18, recently confessed the activity to another teacher at the school. The former student said that between...

FORT HUACHUCA — A trio who trespassed on this Southern Arizona Army post in November were sentenced to two years probation by a federal magistrate in Tucson on Monday. The motion hearings on Monday were initially scheduled with a trial to be started Tuesday, but ended up with the Rev. Jerome Zawada of Las Vegas, Frances Elizabeth Lamb of Bend, Ore., and Mary Burton Riseley of Cliff, N.M., each being given the probation sentenced by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Marshall. The three also were ordered to pay a $5,000 fine or serve 500 hours of community service. Prosecutor Army Capt....

PORT HURON, Mich. (AP) - A former Wayne County sheriff's deputy who pleaded guilty to drug trafficking could have gotten 20 years in prison, but was sentenced to 30 months' probation instead.

SELMER, Tenn. — A woman who killed her preacher husband with a shotgun blast to the back as he lay in bed was sentenced Friday to three years in prison, but she may end up serving only 60 days in a mental hospital. Mary Winkler must serve 210 days, or about seven months, of her sentence before she can be released on probation, but she gets credit for the five months she has already spent in jail, Judge Weber McCraw said. That leaves only two months, and McCraw said up to 60 days of the sentence could be served in...

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Paris Hilton could have her probation revoked — possibly resulting in jail time — if she is found to have been driving with a suspended license because it would violate conditions of her previous sentence for reckless driving, authorities said Wednesday. The 26-year-old hotel heiress and star of "The Simple Life" was ticketed for misdemeanor driving with a suspended license after her blue Bentley Continental GTC was pulled over on Sunset Boulevard on Tuesday, Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Duane Allen Jr. said. She was stopped about 11 p.m. after authorities saw the car speeding with...

Criminals under the supervision of the probation service have been convicted of nearly 100 murders and more than 500 other serious violent and sexual offences, including rape, over the past two years, according to official figures out yesterday. The Home Office statistics confirm that high-profile murders such as the death of London banker John Monckton and Winchester woman Naomi Bryant by those under probation supervision were not isolated cases. The figures come just two weeks after the home secretary, John Reid, criticised the performance of the probation service, saying that public confidence had been shaken by such high-profile failures. MPs...

WASHINGTON - A record 7 million people — or one in every 32 American adults — were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2,193,798 were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year. Even though data show more prison releases, the report said, admissions still exceed releases. More than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole at the end of 2005. Men still far outnumber women in prisons and jails, but the female population is growing faster....

Just a quick taste of this "quality" citizen of the NFL community ... 10/2003: Jones was sentenced to one year in jail following a bar fight while he was a student at West Virginia University, but the sentence was suspended and he was placed on two years probation. His probation was scheduled to end on Thursday. 4/27/05: Adam "Pacman" Jones was at Club Blaze in Conley, Ga., around 3 a.m. ET on April 27 when officers responded to a fight involving two women. Andrea Akins, a supervisor at the club, told police she was punched in the mouth by a...

Commentary Mel Gibson is the latest reminder of the perils of drunken driving. But in his case it was talking while intoxicated that attracted so much attention. Typically, of course, it is not what someone says under the influence that concerns the public, but what he does. Safety is our main worry. And the goal is to keep the person from driving while intoxicated. That was the aim of the judge who in June handled the case of another high-profile arrestee, Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island. Mr. Kennedy pleaded guilty to driving under the influence after crashing his...

A federal judge sentenced former Los Angeles City Councilman Martin Ludlow on Monday to five years' probation and 2,000 hours of community service, and ordered him to return $36,400 diverted from a school employees union to his 2003 election campaign. The sentence by U.S. District Judge Manuel Real followed Ludlow's recent guilty plea to a charge of conspiring to embezzle union funds. In hopes of avoiding jail, Ludlow agreed to cooperate with authorities in the federal prosecution of Janett Humphries, the former head of Service Employees International Union Local 99, who is accused of working with Ludlow to divert the...

<p>SIDNEY, Neb.  — A judge said a 5-foot-1 man convicted of sexually assaulting a child was too small to survive in prison, and gave him 10 years of probation instead.</p> <p>His crimes deserved a long sentence, said, but she worried that , 50, would be especially imperiled by prison dangers.</p>

The former top labor leader in Los Angeles County was sentenced to three years of probation Friday and temporarily barred from raising political money after pleading guilty to state charges of conspiracy and violating campaign laws. Martin Ludlow also was fined $15,000 but with court fees that figure will reach about $45,000, Deputy District Attorney Max Huntsman said. State and federal prosecutors charged Ludlow with conspiring with a former union official to illegally divert more than $36,000 in union funds to help finance his successful 2003 City Council campaign. He resigned from the council last year to become head of...

A woman who pleaded guilty to manslaughter for giving birth on a toilet and letting the baby drown was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to get psychological treatment for depression, paranoia and anorexia. Shatoya Nelson, 23, told investigators she did not know she was pregnant until she gave birth at her mother's Tamarac home on July 21, 2004. According to detectives, Nelson said she left the female infant in the toilet for several minutes before taking her out and wrapping her in a towel. The woman's mother discovered the dead baby the following morning and insisted Nelson take...

NEW HAMPTON — A high school teacher guilty of making advances on a student via the Internet received a five-year suspended sentence today and must register as a sex offender. Lee Ayers, 50, initially was charged in October with sexual exploitation by a school employee, a Class D felony. The former social studies teacher pleaded guilty in January. He will be on probation for two to five years. A judge today in Chickasaw County District Court also sentenced Ayers, a former basketball and volleyball coach, to pay a $1,000 fine, seek mental health counseling and to receive a substance abuse...

Former District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry was sentenced to three years probation Thursday in connection with charges that he failed to file federal or local tax returns for 2000. Barry pleaded guilty last October under an agreement reached with federal prosecutors which required him to acknowledge his failure to file returns for the years 1999 through 2004. Barry, 70, completed his fourth term as mayor in early 1999. While Barry has said he's unsure how much money he earned during the time period in question, he did not challenge claims by federal prosecutors that his income topped $534,000 during...

LOS ANGELES - A judge on Thursday sentenced Tom Sizemore to three years probation after the actor tearfully admitted he used methamphetamine last month. Sizemore, 44, could have faced 16 months in prison after violating his probation stemming from a conviction for methamphetamine possession. The judge's sentence included a 90-day stay at a drug treatment program. Sizemore also must submit to weekly drug tests the entire probationary term, said court spokesman Allan Parachini. The judge's decision came after a series of hearings to determine if Sizemore's probation should be revoked a second time. Sizemore's probation was revoked in July after...

MALIBU, Calif. - Nick Nolte has successfully completed probation ordered after his 2002 no contest plea to a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of drugs, a judge ruled Wednesday. Nolte was present at the hearing before Judge Lawrence Mira. "I'm about to do `Pride and Glory,' a film in New York with Colin Farrell, and he'll just be coming out of rehab so he'll have a lot of support (from me)," the 64-year-old actor told syndicated TV show "The Insider" outside court. Farrell was being treated for exhaustion and dependency on medication prescribed after a back injury, his...

GOLDEN - A former hospice nurse who molested a terminally ill 10-year-old girl in his care several years ago apologized to the family of the child before he was sentenced Thursday.

In a stunning turn of events, the French Government today promised to put all the rioters on Double Secret Probation if they don't cease and desist their actions immediately. Jacque Chirac, contacted at his underground bunker somewhere on the outskirts of Paris said he's taking this drastic action because of the refusal of the rioters to stop burning stuff even though the government has told them they'll jump up and down and hold their breath if they don't. This reporter (ahem) contacted members of Delta House regarding this escalation of threats by the French and responded that this is no...

E.D. Hill reported that Sandy Berger had been stopped for Reckless Driving in Virginia. This violation is more than simple speeding. He was clocked 88 in a 55mph zone. He will stand before the judge who sentenced him for his "pants-gate" plundering and the charge is such that he could do jail time for violating his probation.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - (KRT) - Satellite tracking technology, a staple of weather forecasting and military operations for decades, is the latest tool California can use to ease its overburdened parole and probation system under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill, written by Democratic state Sen. Jackie Speier, clears the way for the state and its counties to continuously monitor the location of people on probation or parole by using global positioning system (GPS) devices. Although expensive - the cost runs close to $9 a day for each person tracked - widespread use of the GPS system could...

Judge Orders 17-Year-Old Girl Not To Have Sex POSTED: 10:16 am EDT September 30, 2005 SHERMAN, Texas -- No sex. That's part of a sentence imposed on a 17-old-girl by Texas state district judge Lauri Blake. She's ordered the young drug offender not have sex as long as she is living with her parents and attending school, as a condition of her probation. It is one of several unorthodox rulings Judge Lauri Blake has imposed since she was elected 10 months ago in the district court that covers Fannin and Grayson counties. She has also prohibited tattoos, body piercings, earrings...

'DOCS IN SOCKS' BERGER RAPPED By DEBORAH ORIN September 7, 2005 WASHINGTON — The feds yesterday recommended that former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger get at least a year's probation and do community service — but no jail time — for stealing top-secret memos and lying about it. Berger pleaded guilty last April to taking the documents — and reportedly hiding them in his pants and socks — from the National Archives while vetting them to refresh his memory before testifying before the 9/11 commission. He's to be sentenced tomorrow. The memos were versions of a report that Berger...

I spent two days recently in the Circuit Court for Macon County, North Carolina, waiting to be a witness. The Bailiff called people to order, “This is a Court. Tuck in your shirt.” It’s an indication of folks hereabouts that half the males stood up and tucked in their shirts. At the end of this I have a suggestion for y’all. Here’s what I saw in this Court. First, of a total of more than 200 people, only two non-lawyers were wearing suits and ties. Maybe elsewhere, folks put on their best duds to go to court, but not in...

NEW WINDSOR, NY-August 16, 2005 - Joseph Siragusa 20 traffic tickets in the time it takes some people just to find their car keys. Police in the Town of Highlands, New York, say Siragusa broke just about every rule of the road. He was finally stopped by military police after a chase that topped more than 90 miles an hour. Siragusa was also cited for passing on the right, failure to stay in lane, drunk driving and possession of marijuana. Siragusa might have been celebrating. According to the Middletown Herald Record, Siragusa's three-year probation for grand larceny had just ended.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - US rock diva Courtney Love, who narrowly escaped jail time earlier this year, was in hot water again when a judge ordered her to answer allegations she violated probation by using drugs. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rand Rubin issued a bench warrant for Love's arrest, but agreed to hold it pending a hearing on August 19, which he ordered the 41-year-old widow of grunge rocker Kurt Cobain to attend. "I'm certainly not happy with what's going on," Rubin said during a brief hearing, noting that he wanted a report from Love's drug counsellor. The former...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A retired FBI agent who pleaded guilty to lying about his affair with a suspected Chinese double agent was sentenced Monday to probation and fined $10,000 after apologizing for his behavior. "I have nobody but myself to blame for being here today," James J. Smith said. "I stand before you ashamed and humiliated by my actions, and all I can do is apologize." Standing before Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, Smith added, "I apologize to your honor, to the court and to the citizens of the United States." Smith, 61, at one time faced up to five years...

LOS ANGELES - A prosecutor told a judge Wednesday that actor Tom Sizemore violated his probation by trying to falsify a urine test for drugs. Deputy District Attorney Sean Carney said Sizemore, 43, also failed to report to his probation officer, did not advise authorities of his new address and missed drug rehab counseling sessions. Outside court, Sizemore denied the allegations. "I have been clean and sober and they are pandering to the city attorney," said the actor, who has appeared in such films as "Black Hawk Down" and "Saving Private Ryan." If a judge determines he violated probation, Sizemore...

Elkhart, IN - An Elkhart boy who climbed into a crane machine last week has garnered national attention including an appearance on the Today Show but the media spotlight almost landed his mother in jail. According to our reporting partners at The Truth, the boy's mother, 22-year-old Danielle Manges, violated her probation Monday when she went to New York and appeared on the Today Show with her son. Manges pleaded guilty last year to a felony charge of auto theft and was sentenced last October to 18 months of probation. Her Today Show appearance was her third violation in...

Monday, May 23, 2005 Minister had hope for ex-con in Maine Associated Press ©Copyright 2004 Associated Press. E-mail this story to a friend MONTPELIER, Vt. — The pastor who drove Kent Hanson to Maine after he was released from prison had high hopes for the ex-convict. The Rev. Pete Fiske of The Church at Prison holds services at the St. Albans prison and helps offenders after they leave prison. On the morning of May 12, the 63-year-old Hanson had just served the last minutes of a 20-year sentence for the 1985 murder of Helena Warner. Fiske was taking the man...

BEND, Ore. (AP) — A mother was sentenced to five years probation because her baby ingested methamphetamine from breast milk. Kristy Meialoha Davis, 30, of Redmond is one of three women who have been charged in Deschutes County with this type of offense in recent months. Two have been sentenced to probation and a third is awaiting trial. Prosecutor Victoria Roe said at Wednesday’s sentencing that the baby’s father — who faces drug charges of his own — reported Davis to authorities in November. The baby tested positive for cocaine and methamphetamine. Roe told Judge A. Michael Adler that the...

Nude Man Covered in Cheese Gets Probation 39 minutes ago Strange News - AP MARYVILLE, Tenn. - A man caught by police last summer on his 23rd birthday running naked and covered in nacho cheese pleaded guilty Monday to burglary and four other charges. Michael David Monn of Maryville appeared before Blount County Circuit Court Judge D. Kelly Thomas and pleaded guilty to burglary, theft, vandalism, indecent exposure and public intoxication. In a plea bargain with prosecutors, Monn was sentenced to three years in prison but was given supervised probation. He also was given a judicial deferral, which means if...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 - An estimated 1.5 million former convicts are unable to vote in 14 states around the country because of state policies that make it cumbersome, confusing and difficult for them to return to voter rolls after completing their sentences, according to a new study. Fewer than 3 percent of felons in those states have managed to register to vote after finishing their sentences, according to the study released Wednesday by the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit research group that favors more liberal sentencing policies for criminals. In Mississippi, for instance, just 107 of more than 82,000 felons have...

The mother of murdered three year old Myia George will serve no time in prison, despite being ordered by a judge not to leave her daughter in the care of the man who killed her. In September of 2003, Myia's mother, Melissa Turnage, left the toddler in the hands of Jessie White. Prosecutors say that's when White beat and sexually abused Myia. She died two days later in a hospital. White was convicted of Myia's death and is now serving a life sentence at Angola. Thirty-one year old Turnage was charged with second degree cruelty to juveniles in connection with...

LOS ANGELES - Actor Tom Sizemore's probation in a domestic abuse case involving former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss was revoked Thursday because he failed to complete a drug test. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Antonio Barreto Jr. allowed Sizemore to remain free pending an evidence hearing on Nov. 8. But in the meantime, the judge said, the actor's probation "is in a revoked status." Authorities said Sizemore refused to provide a urine sample for a drug test at a probation office last month. "He simply walked out," prosecutor Robert Cha said outside court. Sizemore's attorney said the actor went to...

A woman whose 3-year-old daughter died after being left inside a hot car received a sentence of five years probation in Fulton County Superior Court Friday. Prosecutors wanted Nakia Burgess to spend six years in prison. The sentencing came after Burgess took the stand, accepted responsibility for Asan'te Burgess' death, and said there was no worse punishment than watching your own child die. “I have images of her calling for me, grabbing for the window when I know she was calling for me because I was the one that always protected her, I was the one that loved her. Even...

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Actor Tom Sizemore was arrested Wednesday on a probation violation and released after posting $10,000 bail, authorities said. Sizemore, 42, was arrested for a narcotics violation when probation officers conducting random visits discovered drugs at his residence, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Vance Duffy. Sizemore, who has appeared in such films as "Black Hawk Down" and "Saving Private Ryan," was sentenced in October to six months in jail on misdemeanor charges of harassing, annoying and physically abusing former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss during their two-year relationship. Superior Court Judge Antonio Barreto Jr. stayed the jail...

The Caribbean cruise ship docked at Port Canaveral, Fla., that morning, and Patrick and Bernadette Clerkin and their three children awoke tanned and relaxed and ready for their trip home to Maryland. There was a knock at their cabin door. Patrick Clerkin, owner of a Brandywine roofing company, was about to take a shower, so his wife answered to find three U.S. customs agents. Politely and almost apologetically, the agents announced that they were there to arrest Patrick Clerkin. "This must be some kind of mistake," Bernadette Clerkin told herself as the children giggled at seeing their churchgoing father being...

<p>BINGHAMTON -- Richard V. Lawrence broke a board against his former girlfriend's head and kicked her in the face in a Sept. 19 attack at her Clinton Street apartment.</p> <p>For that crime, he was given five years of probation on Feb. 4 in Broome County Court. He was originally charged with first-degree burglary, but it was reduced to attempted second-degree burglary as part of a plea bargain with the district attorney's office.</p>

A 29-year-old woman has been sentenced to two years of probation for calling German airports with bomb threats in order to avoid a vacation with her boyfriend. Marina Busbosnjac, a student, had admitted on Wednesday that she made calls to the airports in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Cologne last September, claiming al Qaeda wanted to bomb them. The Croatian-born woman said hoped to get the flight cancelled because her parents disapproved of her relationship with her Polish boyfriend. "I couldn't say to my boyfriend that we couldn't travel," Busbosnjac said, according to the Associated Press. The bomb threats shut down Düsseldorf...

Federal judge orders probation in Baldwin immigrant tax case Kamil Miarka sentenced for failure to withhold taxes from employees of his janitorial service 02/13/04 By JOE DANBORN Staff Reporter Kamil Miarka, a former manager for a Gulf Shores janitorial service, will serve four years of probation for failing to collect Social Security and withholding taxes from wages paid to the company's employees, a federal judge in Mobile ruled Wednesday. Miarka, 26, recruited employees for Coastal Cleaning Service from Eastern European countries, get ting them into the United States on visitor visas that did not allow them to work, according to...

Feb. 12, 2004, 11:17PM Ex-juvenile probation officer indicted By MELODY McDONALD Copyright 2004 Fort Worth Star-Telegram FORT WORTH -- A former juvenile probation officer who gave birth to a son fathered by a teenager under her supervision was indicted Thursday by a Tarrant County grand jury. Laura Hernandez, 32, is now awaiting trial on a charge of sexual assault of a child under 17, stemming from accusations that she had a romantic relationship with a Euless youth whose probation she was supervising. Hernandez, who is free on bond, was arrested in October after a DNA test showed her infant son...

SARASOTA, Fla. -- If a Florida probation officer had been successful -- Joseph Smith could have been back behind bars more than a month ago. Instead, he's suspected of being the man who kidnapped an 11-year-old girl on Sunday. According to an official at the Florida Department of Corrections, a probation officer had asked a judge to declare Smith in violation of his probation on Dec. 30. That's because Smith hadn't paid all his fines and court costs. But the official says a judge refused to find Smith in violation, which could have returned him to jail. Carlie Brucia hasn't...

<p>Blacks are 13 times as likely as whites to be behind bars. It is the largest racial disparity in rates of incarceration of any state, and New Jersey has the dubious distinction of claiming it.</p> <p>How did a state that celebrates its diversity and trumpets its commitment to civil rights come to lead the nation in sending whites and blacks to jail at different rates?</p>

AP Special Correspondent   (enlarge photo) Actress Winona Ryder appears at Beverly Hills Superior Court April 7, 2003 in Beverly Hills, Calif. for a progress report following her conviction for shoplifting from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Ryder was commended by a judge Monday, Dec.15, 2003, for abiding by the rules of her probation in a shoplifting case. (AP Photo/Mel Bouzad, Pool) BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. &mdash; Actress Winona Ryder was commended by a judge Monday for abiding by the rules of her probation in a shoplifting case.Ryder's lawyer, Shepard Kopp, said outside court that the judge plans to review...

[If I post ONE WORD of this it'll get zotted for sure, but it's too good to miss!]

Luling police await results of blood test in wreck that killed boy By Jason Embry AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, October 16, 2003 The man who police say drove into a group of Luling High School students on a roadside Saturday was convicted of driving while intoxicated last year, according to police and court records. Juan Flores Jr., 64, was stopped by a state trooper on U.S. 183, 10 miles north of Gonzales on July 19, 2002, an official with the Gonzales County clerk's office said Thursday. In county court two months later, Flores pleaded guilty to drunken driving and was sentenced...

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- Some West Texas men on probation are in trouble again, this time for using the Whizzinator to help them pass court-ordered urinalysis tests. In the past six months, five men on probation were caught using a realistic-looking prosthetic that dispenses synthetic, drug-free urine, Lubbock County sheriff's officials said. One was caught by an alert officer who heard something unusual in the restroom. "A body part when it's up against a plastic cup isn't going to go 'clink,'" said Tom Madigan, interim assistant director of the Lubbock County adult probation office. The device, reusable and available in...