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A federal judge sentenced Tony Rezko to 10 1/2 years in prison Tuesday, describing his actions under Rod Blagojevich’s tenure as “selfish and corrupt.” Rezko has already served about 44 months. His daughter burst into tears at hearing the sentence. U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said she found it offensive that Rezko put at risk the Teachers’ Retirement System by scheming for kickbacks with a board member in 2004. “You put their retirements at risk for your own greed and your own thirst for power,” St. Eve said. A pale, thin Rezko gave a brief statement before he learned...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former lobbyist who was a rising star under Jack Abramoff's tutelage was sentenced Wednesday to nearly two years in prison for giving public officials meals and event tickets. Kevin Ring argued up until his emotional sentencing hearing that he was operating in a corrupt Washington environment controlled by people with money and that he did not break the law. "I found a ridiculous system full of gray areas and I manipulated it," a sobbing Ring told the judge in asking her not to lock him up. It was the first time he spoke about the charges...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Five Somali men were sentenced on Monday to spend the rest of their lives in a U.S. prison after being convicted of piracy and trying to attack an American warship off the coast of Africa last year. In November the group was convicted by a jury in a federal court in Virginia on charges of piracy, attacking to plunder a vessel and various other firearms and weapons charges. Piracy off the coast of Somalia has been a growing problem over the last several years, with pirate gangs making tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, .. The...

Lakin Sentenced 1545: Sentence announced. Dismissal, confinement for 6 months, total forfeitures. CAAFLOG

An Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning was subjected to a mock execution by hanging. In preparation for her death, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani wrote her will and embraced her cellmates in Tabriz prison. But the mother-of-two, who was acquitted of murdering her husband but found guilty of adultery, was not led to the gallows. Her son told The Guardian: ‘Pressure from the international community has so far stopped them from carrying out the sentence but they’re killing her every day by any means possible.’

Washington - A former US State Department official has been sentenced to life in prison for spying, while his wife was ordered to spend nearly seven years behind bars for helping to pass highly classified information to Cuba, the Justice Department said Friday. Walter Kendall Myers, 73, and wife Gwendolyn, 71, pleaded guilty in November to espionage charges and acting as agents for the Cuban government. Myers had also admitted to passing top secret information in a conversation with an undercover FBI agent, the Justice Department said.

Lebanese judicial officials say a military court has convicted a man of spying for Israel during the 2006 summer war and sentenced him to death. Ali Manstash, who has been in custody since April 2009, was convicted of giving Israel locations of military and civilian targets bombed during the war and resulting in deaths, the officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Lebanon and Israel are technically at war. In 2006, a war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah group left 1,200 Lebanese and 165 Israelis dead.

PHOENIX (KGUN9-TV) – Several Mexican men have been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison on drug charges. 29-year-old Antelmo Vega-Cristin of San Ignacio, Sinaloa, Mexico and 23-year-old Efrain Plata-Jimenez of Acaponeta, Nayaritt, Mexico were sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Paul G. Rosenblatt. The pair pleaded guilty on March 16, 2010, to importing more than 400 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. from Mexico. On November 12, 2009, Vega-Cristin, Plata-Jimenez and their co-defendants, Manuel Alberto Alvarado-Romero, Raymundo Nunez-Rodriguez, Tomas Payanez-Carrazco, Santana Ponce-Perez, and Jose Garcia-Angulo, were apprehended by Wellton Station Border Patrol agents as they made their way towards...

Jail For Corruption. William Jefferson was sentenced today for quite a few federal offenses. Among them bribery. He’s most famous for having the freezer with $90,000 in cash inside. According to Politico: Jefferson’s sentence was the harshest ever handed out to a former lawmaker, but Justice Department officials said Jefferson warranted such a severe sanction due to the unprecedented scale of his corruption. Jefferson appeared in court Friday afternoon in a black suit and a red tie, with his five daughters, his wife and his brother. Jefferson did not speak at his sentencing, and his attorney Robert Trout says he...

SAN DIEGO -- A former high-ranking Pentagon official snared in a child pornography investigation was sentenced to 37 months by a federal judge on Monday. Wade Sanders, 69, was arrested after an FBI agent identified him in October 2007 as one of a batch of suspects who were allegedly sharing child porn electronically. In December, he pleaded guilty, and prosecutors sought a 63-month prison sentence. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is an old friend. Like Kerry, Sanders commanded a swift boat in Vietnam and is a decorated veteran. And Kerry is one of dozens of powerful allies who have written to...

Woodland, Calif. (AP) -- A Woodland dentist has been sentenced to six years in prison for fondling female patients. Yolo County Superior Court Judge Stephen Mock imposed the sentence Friday after Mark Anderson made a tearful statement insisting that the victims had misinterpreted his actions. He described his actions as massages given as treatment for a jaw condition.

PHOENIX, Arizona (AFP) – A serial killer convicted of terrorizing Phoenix for over a year with a series of random drive-by shootings was on Friday sentenced to death, court officials said. Dale Hausner, 36, was found guilty earlier this month of six murders and 74 other offences during a deadly crime spree in this southwestern US city from May 2005 to June 2006. He was sentenced to death for each murder conviction. Earlier this week Hausner ordered his attorneys not to argue on behalf of his life. He also waived his right to present evidence about his life and background...

LONDON (Reuters) – Former Culture Club frontman Boy George was sentenced on Friday to 15 months in jail after being found guilty last month of falsely imprisoning a Norwegian male escort. Tried under his real name George O'Dowd, the 47-year-old Briton denied the charge of false imprisonment at his London flat in April, 2007. After his conviction on December 5, judge David Radford had warned him that he faced a prison term. But the length of the sentence was a surprise to lawyers who had expected a term of around three months, or even a suspended sentence. Shocked family members...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose corruption scandal shook up Washington's power elite and contributed to the Republican loss of control in Congress, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in federal prison. Judge Ellen Huvelle issued the sentence on conspiracy and other charges after federal prosecutors recommended leniency due to Abramoff's cooperation in pursuing corruption cases against lawmakers and former administration officials. He faced a maximum of 11 years under a plea deal reached in 2006.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Taiwan-born American who admitted spying for China was given more than 15 years in prison, the US Justice Department said Friday. Tai Shen Kuo, 58, of New Orleans, Louisiana, was sentenced by federal court in Virginia to 188 months in prison, and required to forfeit 40,000 dollars, after he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to deliver US military information to China. Kuo was charged as a part of a small ring that included a Chinese woman, Yu Xin Kang, and former Pentagon analyst Gregg Bergersen, that obtained secret information mainly on US military sales to...

Former Loveland Teacher Sentenced For Sex AssaultMay 28, 2008 3:37 pm US/Mountain FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) A former social studies teacher at a Loveland middle school is being ordered to spend one year behind bars and 10 years on probation for sexually assaulting an underage girl. Larimer County District Judge James Hiatt handed down the sentence Tuesday to 42-year-old Michael Gaylor. The former Walt Clark Middle School teacher apologized in court, saying he took advantage of his position without any regard for the girl. He said he took the victim's innocence, and called his former students victims, saying they'll "forever...

A New York financier was sentenced Friday to more than eight years in federal prison for laundering bribes to former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. A tearful Thomas Kontogiannis apologized and pleaded for leniency, but District Judge Larry Burns ordered him to serve eight years and one month in prison. Prosecutors wanted the maximum 10-year sentence. "You caused people to think ... this (system) doesn't work," Burns told Kontogiannis. "I just hope the opportunity is given to me to make good to the people that I let down," Kontogiannis said. Kontogiannis, 59, pleaded guilty one count of money laundering in...

Former Urbana teacher White sentenced to 48 yearsBy Mary Schenk Friday, April 4, 2008 3:33 PM CDT URBANA – A former Urbana grade school teacher was sentenced this afternoon to 48 years in prison for molesting female students. Champaign County Judge Harry Clem sentenced Jon White, 27, of Villa Grove for aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving acts that occurred between August 2005 and December 2007 with 7- and 8-year-old girls who were students at Thomas Paine School in Urbana. White pleaded guilty in February to eight counts that accused him of deriving sexual gratification from having the blindfolded girls put...

NEW YORK - A former United Nations procurement official convicted of accepting bribes was sentenced Tuesday to eight years and a month in prison. Sanjaya Bahel, 57, was sentenced after a jury found he had helped a friend win $100 million in U.N. contracts in exchange for a huge discount on two luxury Manhattan apartments and cash. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas P. Griesa also ordered Bahel to forfeit $103,500 and his interest in the apartments, near the United Nations headquarters. Bahel was chief of the U.N.'s Commodity Procurement Section from 1999 to 2003. Before he was sentenced, Bahel apologized....

MEXICO CITY - A former female wrestler who terrorized Mexico City as the "Little Old Lady Killer" was sentenced to 759 years in jail on Monday for killing 16 elderly women. Juana Barraza, 50, admitted to killing four women over the age of 70 out of anger toward her elderly mother. She said she did not kill the others and did not agree with Monday's sentence, but prosecutors say her fingerprints matched those in the 12 other cases. The series of murders created a wave of fear among elderly women in Mexico City and lurid speculation in the press. The...

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...

FRESNO The estranged wife of a former Fresno administrative-law judge has been sentenced to life in prison for attacking another woman with an aluminum baseball bat. Forty-six-year-old Robyn Sotelo of Sacramento was sentenced Wednesday for the 2006 attack on Marian Wells. Prosecutors say Sotelo broke into Wells' Fresno home and attacked her because she was infuriated over a relationship Wells was having with her husband, Louis Sotelo. At the time, Louis Sotelo was an administrative-law judge for the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board in Fresno. Robyn Sotelo will be eligible for probation in seven years. Wells survived the attack.

GOSHEN -- Home really isn't home anymore -- not after a family friend stole her daughter's innocence by sexually preying on her less than two years ago, she said Friday. "Before this, my house was full of kids in and out all the time," said the mother of the girl whom Mel Trowbridge had sex with when she was 15 years old -- three times at his Goshen home in the summer of 2006. "It's not that way anymore," she said Friday with tears in her eyes during a 3-hour-long sentencing. "I no longer have a teenager." Trowbridge, a former...

He pleaded guilty more than five years ago to plotting bomb attacks on American embassies, but the case against Al Qaeda member Mohammed Mansour Jabarah has been shrouded in secrecy until now.

MILWAUKEE - Three white former police officers were sentenced to long prison terms Thursday for the off-duty beating of a biracial man, an attack that outraged the city and sent protesters into the streets. A judge sentenced Jon Bartlett to 17 years and four months. Daniel Masarik was sentenced to 15 years and eight months, and Andrew Spengler received the same sentence. Each of the three also was sentenced to three years supervision and ordered to pay $16,365 in restitution. Bartlett, 36, Masarik, 27, and Spengler, 28, were convicted with another former officer for taking part in the beating of...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt, 83, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison on Tuesday for conspiracy in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, becoming the most prominent figure jailed over corruption in the program to buy oil from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The outspoken self-made oil tycoon was sentenced in Manhattan federal court after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in October, four weeks into his criminal trial and just before prosecutors were to rest their case. Under his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped four other counts against him, cutting short a trial in...

TUCSON — Two priests who trespassed on Fort Huachuca last November as part of a protest about alleged torture being taught on the post will spend five months in federal prison. The Revs. Stephen Kelly and Louis Vitale both pleaded no contest Wednesday to two misdemeanor charges stemming from Nov. 19 when they tried to enter the fort as part of a protest against interrogation training done at the Intelligence Center. A no-contest plea means a defendant is not admitting guilt but is still subject to a guilty judgment. Both men faced 10 months behind bars, but U.S. Magistrate Héctor...

A judge has sentenced one of seven brothers behind Mexico's Arellano Felix (ah-RAY'-ah-no FAY'-leeks) drug cartel to serve six years in a U.S. prison. Fifty-seven-year-old Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix is the eldest of the clan. He was extradited to the U.S. after serving a decade in a Mexican prison on weapons violations. Arellano Felix's sentencing Monday follows his guilty plea in June to charges that he sold about a half-pound of cocaine to a San Diego undercover police officer in 1980. His younger brother, Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, pleaded guilty last month to laundering money and running a criminal enterprise....

LOS ANGELES - A federal judge sentenced Hollywood director John McTiernan to four months in prison Monday after refusing to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea to charges of lying to the FBI about his association with disgraced private eye Anthony Pellicano. Judge Dale S. Fischer gave the director of such films as "Die Hard" and "The Thomas Crown Affair" until Jan. 15 to turn himself in to authorities. McTiernan's attorney said he would appeal. McTiernan was also ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. When he entered his plea last year, McTiernan said he lied when he told an...

A federal judge today sentenced the last of four defendants indicted for voter registration fraud on the eve of the 2006 elections. Kwaim A. Stenson was sentenced to four months and five days, most of which he’s already served because his pre-trial release was revoked for illegal marijuana use. He’ll report to a half-way house in Springfield next week. “I’m sorry for all of this,” Stenson said before hearing his sentence. “I’m ready to get a new start on life.” The indictments against Stenson and three others sparked controversy earlier this year when critics charged that they were politically motivated....

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - A woman was sentenced to 30 days in jail for claiming in court that she was her son's wife. Christopher Crowe, 25, was in court recently to plead guilty to four felony counts including residential entry and domestic battery. During the hearing, the judge asked if Crowe's wife agreed with the plea deal. Crowe's mother, 47-year-old Rebecca Crowe, stood up, said she was Crowe's wife and said the plea agreement was OK. Later, Vanderburgh County Deputy Prosecutor Anna Clutter discovered Rebecca Crowe's identity when she saw a picture of Christopher Crowe's wife, a much younger woman. Courtroom...

CAMP PENDLETON – A general has cut short the sentences of two Marines imprisoned in the Hamdaniya murder case and might do the same for two others. Pvts. Tyler Jackson and Jerry Shumate Jr. were released Monday by order of Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton. The base announced Mattis' decision Tuesday. Jackson and Shumate had been sentenced to 21 months in the brig as part of pretrial deals in which they pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice. They were demoted in rank – from corporal to private....

Suddenly wishes Viagra was harder to come byNotorious spammer Christopher "Rizler" Smith was sentenced to 30 years in prison by a federal judge on Wednesday. US District Judge Michael Davis called Smith a "drug kingpin" before throwing the book at him. Smith was convicted on charges of conspiracy, illegal distribution of drugs, money laundering and operating a continuing criminal enterprise. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the judge was somewhat hesitant about the length of the prison term recommended by sentencing guidelines, but in the end, decided it was reasonable. Smith hasn't exactly been a darling to the court...

A Scottsdale woman who severely malnourished her three children was sentenced to 30 years in prison, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced Thursday. ----------- snip ---------------------

HOUSTON - A U.S. citizen convicted of receiving training at a terrorist camp alongside al-Qaida members in his efforts to help overthrow the Somali government was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison. Daniel Joseph Maldonado, 28, a Muslim convert also known as Daniel Aljughaifi and Abu Mohammed, also was fined $1,000. Maldonado admitted to traveling in December to a terrorist camp in Somalia, where he was trained to use firearms and explosives in an effort to help a group called the Islamic Courts Union topple the government and install an Islamic state. Members of al-Qaida were present at the...

CHICAGO - A Chicago medical van driver accused by federal prosecutors of funneling money to Mideast terrorists was sentenced Wednesday to 21 months in federal prison for lying in a civil lawsuit. Muhammad Salah, 54, also was ordered to pay a $25,000 fine and do 100 hours of community service. "Telling the truth is the bedrock of our judicial system, and a slap on the wrist will not provide a deterrent," U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said in sentencing Salah. He has until Oct. 11 to surrender and begin his sentence. Salah was convicted in February of lying under...

HOUSTON - The former chief of Enron Corp.'s high-speed Internet unit, who turned government witness and testified in the trial of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and company founder Kenneth Lay, was sentenced Monday to 27 months in prison. It's been nearly three years since Kenneth Rice, 48, pleaded guilty to securities fraud and agreed to help federal prosecutors on other cases related to the energy giant's collapse. His sentencing was postponed as he cooperated with prosecutors. Before sentencing, Rice apologized for his role in the corporate scandal that wiped out thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in market...

WASHINGTON - I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, will be sentenced Tuesday morning in federal court before U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who presided over his trial. The sentencing begins at 9:30 a.m. The judge will inform Libby of his fate, the term of his prison time, if any, and whether he will be remanded immediately to a federal facility. Libby has appealed his conviction and may be allowed to remain free until that appeal is resolved.

EUGENE, Ore. - A federal judge sentenced two women to prison Thursday for their roles in arson fires around the West that caused more than $40 million in damage over a five-year period. Suzanne Savoie and Kendall Tankersley were the fifth and sixth of 10 radical environmentalists to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Eugene after they pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy. All were members of an underground cell of the Earth Liberation Front known as "The Family." U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken sentenced Savoie to four years and three months in federal prison. In order to recognize...

Wednesday, May 23, 2007 The horrors facing a first offender locked up with hardened criminals in the nation's high-security federal prisons highlighted testimony Tuesday in the sentencing hearing of Stanislas Meyerhoff, the first of 10 defendants to be sentenced in the Operation Backfire prosecution of radical underground environmental activists. The hearing is expected to conclude today in Eugene before U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken, who will decide Meyerhoff's prison term and rule whether his crimes were acts of terrorism, a ruling that could bring a stiffer sentence. Through the day, prosecution and defense lawyers dueled over whether Meyerhoff was an...

EUGENE, Ore. – Declaring fires set at a police station, an SUV dealer and a tree farm acts of terrorism, a federal judge Wednesday sentenced the first of 10 members of a radical environmental group to 13 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken commended Stanislas Meyerhoff for having the courage to “do the right thing” by informing on his fellow arsonists after his arrest, but declared that his efforts to save the earth by setting fires were misguided and cowardly, and contributed to an unfair characterization of others working legally to protect the environment as radicals. “It was...

SANTA ANA An Iranian-born man has been sentenced to two years in prison for illegally exporting U.S. military aircraft parts to Iran, authorities said this week. Reza Tabib, 52, of Irvine, pleaded guilty in June to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which prohibits the export and re-export to Iran of certain items of U.S. origin. As part of his sentencing Monday, Tabib also must complete six months of home confinement. Tabib, a U.S. citizen, was arrested along with his wife, Terri Repic-Tabib, in February 2006 after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents intercepted and seized maintenance kits designed for...

An al Jazeera journalist has been sentenced to six months in prison in absentia by an Egyptian court after producing a film highlighting police torture.Howayda Taha was not in Cairo to hear the court's sentence against her [AP] An al Jazeera journalist has been sentenced to six months in prison in absentia by an Egyptian court after producing a film highlighting police torture. The state security criminal court found Howayda Taha guilty of "harming Egypt's national interest" and ordered her on Wednesday to pay a fine of 30,000 Egyptian pounds ($5,200). She had been accused of planning to broadcast fabricated...

SAN DIEGO - An immigrant smuggler was sentenced today to nearly five years in federal prison for leading a group of illegal aliens across the border and loading them into a van that overturned, killing two women. Carlos Rodriguez-Gonzalez, 46, pleaded guilty last Oct. 3 to five counts, including alien smuggling for financial gain and alien smuggling resulting in death. Defense attorney David Zugman unsuccessfully sought a 36-month prison term, arguing that Rodriguez-Gonzales wasn't the one who flipped the van that killed the victims. Rodriguez-Gonzalez should have gotten a much lighter sentence than the driver of the van, Marcos Olguin,...

A businessman was sentenced Monday to 4 1/2 years in federal prison for a pair of schemes, including one that authorities said involved wiretapping by Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano. Daniel Nicherie, 46, pleaded guilty in December to one count of aiding and abetting, admitting in federal court that he authorized Pellicano to intercept phone conversations pertaining to a business dispute. Prosecutors said Nicherie paid Pellicano $160,000 and listened to the intercepted conversations at the detective's office. Nicherie also pleaded guilty to wire fraud, pension fraud and money laundering charges in a separate case in which he was accused of...

ROME, Ga. - The imam of a Georgia mosque who pleaded guilty to providing support to the militant group Hamas was sentenced Tuesday to more than seven years in prison. Mohamed Shorbagi, 42, could have faced up to 15 years in prison. Shorbagi pleaded guilty in August to providing material support to the militant group Hamas in a case in which the agreement, charges and even the plea hearing were handled in secret. U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy sentenced him Tuesday to seven years and eight months in prison. At the sentencing, Shorbagi said he realized that some of his...

A former border inspector was sentenced Thursday to five years in federal prison for guiding hundreds of illegal immigrants through his checkpoint booth in exchange for taking at least $70,000 from a smuggling ring. Michael Anthony Gilliland, a 44-year-old former Marine and 16-year border agent, pleaded guilty in September to letting illegal immigrants through San Diego's Otay Mesa port of entry in exchange for bribes. Gilliland and five others coordinated smuggling operations and deliberately failed to record vehicles that ferried immigrants through border lanes under his supervision, according to court documents. He was arrested in June. Four other co-conspirators have...

RALEIGH, N.C. - A former CIA contract employee was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 8 1/2 years in prison for beating an Afghan detainee who later died. David Passaro, 40, was accused of hitting Abdul Wali with a flashlight and kicking him in the groin during a two-day interrogation at a remote military base in Afghanistan in July 2003. Wali died within 48 hours of the interrogation, after complaining of abdominal pain and an inability to urinate. Passaro was the first American civilian charged with mistreating a detainee during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was found guilty last year...

The Iraqi High Court has ruled that Saddam Hussein's former vice president should follow him to the gallows, despite appeals from United Nations (UN) officials and international human rights groups for his life to be spared. "God knows I didn't do anything wrong," Taha Yassin Ramadan said shortly before judge Ali al-Kahachi sentenced him to death by hanging for his role in the killing of 148 Shiite men from the town of Dujail in the 1980s. Ramadan was sentenced in November to life in jail for the killings, for which Saddam and two other men have already been hanged....

Frederick Everts, convicted of molesting several San Jose children despite his protestation that he was legally insane at the time, was sentenced this morning to 800 years in prison. Everts, 36, will likely appeal his conviction. A year ago, he was convicted on 15 child molestation counts; among his victims was a 3-year-old. He was also convicted on three other charges related to child porn. Last month, his request for a new sanity hearing was denied by Superior Court Judge Alfonso Fernandez, who handed down the sentence today in San Jose. --snip-- Everts had shared a South San Jose home...