Thursday, November 12, 2009
Early bird 2010 nomination section
Since nominations for 2009 ended on Halloween, I need a spot in case we have a few early bird nominees. With mid-term elections just around the corner, I'm sure that we might get a few early bird candidates. Anyways, if you have a good nominee in any of the eight categories to start the ball rolling, let me know. The early bird catches the worm, so I'm sure there's a few early worms to catch, LOL!
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The first idiot of 2010's Shiitake awards, under "Everyday Zeroes"
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/nov/12/na-priest-beaten-not-bowed/
Priest beaten, not bowed
TARPON SPRINGS - A visiting Greek Orthodox priest who was the victim of a tire iron attack in Tampa two days ago was back at work Wednesday, officiating over a funeral at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral.
The Rev. Alexios Marakis did not return telephone calls for comment about Monday night's incident, in which the attacker, a Marine reservist who works in a pharmacy in Palm Harbor, said he was acting in self defense. He accused the priest of being a robber, terrorist and molester.
The parish of St. Nicholas is rallying around Marakis, 29.
"The guy is like a saint," said Nicholas Manias, who serves as church council president. "He's a New Testament, turn-the-cheek kind of guy. The first thing he said when they went to see him in the emergency room? He asked if the other guy was OK.
"He's showing us what a good Christian does," Manias said.
Tampa police said that Marakis was in Tampa on Monday to bless a retiring priest in the West Shore part of town and accidentally got lost downtown. At the Seaport Channelside Apartments, he got out of his car, police said, and sought directions from Jasen D. Bruce.
Bruce grabbed a tire iron from the trunk of his car and struck Marakis, police said. He later told police that he couldn't understand Marakis and initially thought he was being robbed. He later told police he thought the robed priest was an Arab terrorist who was going to blow him up.
Police said that Bruce also accused the cleric of trying to molest him.
Bruce chased injured Marakis and pinned him to the ground three blocks away. It was Bruce, 28, who called 911. Police on Wednesday said the tape of that call would not be released for a day or two, if that soon.
Bruce was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and released after posting $7,500 bail. His attorney, Jeffrey Brown, said his client was only trying to protect himself.
Catherine Billiris, a 72-year-old member of St. Nicholas, said that church members are in full support of the priest and are angry about the allegations made by Bruce.
She said she doesn't buy the Marine reservist's story. "I just don't believe it," she said, "I'm sorry that's all I can say."
Marakis is recovering from bruises and cuts, Manias said.
In a letter to the parish sent out this morning, Manias said that, "We should not allow this terrible act to make us angry, hateful or vengeful because those come from the evil one. We will continue to pray for Father Alexios and his recovery. We should also pray for the man who did this to Father Alexios and the man's lawyer."
Marakis is upset about the incident, said Manias, who teaches ethics at St. Petersburg College, "because he doesn't want the ministry to be scandalized."
This man, on top of writing the worst piece of fluff in a while, is a major league asshole. If he's a Christian, then I'm the Pope!
http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article.cfm?add=2&articleID=25925
John G. Winder "The Monster Next Door"
The FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act included $1.1 TRILLION in reckless spending, but the clincher is giving $353.5 MILLION to the bullshit Adam Walsh Act!
http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news.cfm?method=news.view&id=bebd92f1-0193-4228-bfd3-e7a353fefe10
http://kfab.com/pages/localnews.html?feed=122285&article=6645836
Jon Bruning calls a judge an "apoligist for sex offenders" after judge bars enforcement of new Nebraska sex offender law
http://hosted2.ap.org/PAWES/APODD/Article_2010-01-15-US-Soldier-Pornography-Charge/id-p73448fea95e645a1bc93c000cdbffc9c
From "Army Strong" to "Army Wrong"
Our fine US military charged a soldier for "possession of child porn." Why? Because his family sent him pictures of home, which included "innocent snapshots of a 4-year-old relative in a swimsuit."
"The pictures show the girl in a swimsuit playing in a pool and sitting on Billy Miler's pickup truck, according to the family. A small portion of one of the girl's buttocks is visible in one, Rodney Miller said."
Wow. You've GOT to be kidding me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHsZYFLv8n4&feature=youtu.be&a
Video of this debacle. Geez. Fight for THIS country? If we had a draft card, I'd burn it.
Cop in sex scandal
http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2010/01/md-officer-james-cifala-charged-in.html
An Anne Arundel County police lieutenant is facing a federal child pornography charge.
According to court documents, 47-year-old James Cifala exchanged sexually explicit picture messages — a practice known as "sexting" — with an underage girl. Cifala allegedly asked the girl via text message to send the photos, and prosecutors say the images constitute child porn.
Cifala is a 27-year veteran of the department and lives in Edgewater. Police say he has been suspended without pay.
He appeared in federal court in Baltimore Thursday afternoon, and a detention hearing was tentatively scheduled for Friday. His attorney declined to comment.
U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein says the case should serve as a wake-up call to parents to monitor their children's cell phone use.
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100122/NEWS01/1220339
WILMINGTON -- Standing in front of the building where William C. Bradley Jr. had been a judge until last week, attorneys Thursday handed out a one-page, two-sentence statement from the former jurist admitting he molested an 11-year-old boy more than 30 years ago.
Quantcast
For Gregory Kelly, now 44, it was the vindication he has been seeking for decades.
More than 20 years ago he told his family about the incident and about 12 years ago unsuccessfully tried to get the Delaware Attorney General's Office to investigate, he said.
Then in April 2009, Kelly filed his civil lawsuit through the Delaware Child Victims Act on his own after several Delaware attorneys declined to take up the suit against a sitting judge.
"This case should serve as a model of courage and persistence for all victims of crime, especially sex crimes," said Brian D. Kent, a Philadelphia attorney who agreed to represent Kelly in federal court after the suit was filed. "He was determined to seek justice for the heinous actions perpetrated against him as a young boy. And he has been successful."
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/fake_electrocution_of_prisoner.html
Fake electrocution of prisoner detailed in internal Corrections Department report
By Chris Megerian/Statehouse Bureau
January 23, 2010, 8:56PM
One week before Javier Tabora’s release from the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel, a specialized prison for sex offenders, he was summoned to an examination room.
Once there, Tabora later told investigators, a sergeant instructed him to sit in an electronic chair used to scan inmates for contraband and pretend to be electrocuted.
Tabora sat in the chair yelling and shaking, "pretending that electricity was coming from the chair," he said. Then he placed "cream soup" in his mouth and allowed it to seep out "for added effect."
The entire ruse was allegedly conducted to frighten a second inmate, Robert Grant, a sex offender with a history of mental health problems whom officers planned to question. In a separate interview, Grant told investigators he saw an inmate with "foam coming from his mouth" and then became "upset, nervous and shaking" when officers sat him in the chair while interrogating him.
The officers involved denied the allegations, saying none of Tabora’s account was true. They told investigators they were only using the chair to search Grant for contraband before questioning him. Instead of threatening to electrocute Grant, they said, the officers were trying to reassure him by unplugging the chair, used to detect metal in objects like weapons or cell phones, because Grant’s handcuffs set off an alarm, scaring him.
The conflicting accounts of the Oct. 3 incident were contained in a confidential internal affairs report obtained by The Star-Ledger.
The investigation, which concluded this month, did not substantiate the electrocution threat or the preceding ruse, according to the report. Without a video camera in the examination room, the case boiled down to the officers’ word against the inmates’.
Earlier this month, the department moved to fire the three veteran officers involved but instead struck a deal allowing them to keep their jobs and receive transfers to other facilities, according to officials and documents.
Each pleaded guilty to multiple infractions including conduct unbecoming and violation of safety regulations, according to the settlement agreements. Sergeants Mark Percoco and Steven Russo, also charged with neglect of duty, are serving 105-day suspensions without pay, while officer Edward Aponte will be off the job for 14 days.
Officials, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal investigation, said there wasn’t enough evidence to support firing the officers if the case reached an administrative hearing.
"The investigation didn’t produce the results that we thought," one official said. "We knew we weren’t going to be able to sustain the removal."
In addition, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office declined to pursue criminal charges.
The internal documents obtained by this newspaper provide a rare glimpse at an internal investigation and the disciplinary process within the state’s prison system. Such proceedings are kept confidential: public records show when disciplinary action is taken but reveal little about the employees’ infractions or how the punishment was decided.
The Oct. 3 incident also raises questions about how inmate complaints are handled in state prisons. Officers told investigators they were questioning Grant because he was making threats against an officer, but the internal report concluded the "threats" were only the filing of "remedy forms," which give inmates a way to express concerns. And, when pressed, no one could locate the "threatening" complaints Grant was accused of writing.
http://www.examiner.com/x-37621-Public-Safety-Examiner~y2010m2d6-Guilty-Judge-sold-justice-for-money-and-sex
A federal jury in Texas yesterday found an El Paso Criminal District Court judge guilty of charges related to a bribery scheme that included soliciting and accepting cash and sex, according to a report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.
The jury convicted Judge Manuel Joseph Barraza, aka Manny Barraza, of two counts of wire fraud and the deprivation of honest services and one count of making false statements. The jury acquitted Barraza of one count of mail fraud.
Evidence presented during trial revealed that beginning on or about December 2008 and continuing and including February 26, 2009, Barraza solicited, agreed to accept, and accepted bribes in the form of cash money.
According to court documents, he also solicited sex and agreed to accept a bribe of engaging in sexual activity with women. These acts were all committed in exchange for his influence and exercise of discretion in his official capacity as an elected judge.
In carrying out his bribery scheme, Judge Barraza promised to intervene in a felony criminal case filed by the State of Texas pending in state district court in order to influence the outcome of the case.
Barraza, who remains on bond pending sentencing, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the two fraud counts, and up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the false statements charge.
Sentencing is scheduled for April 28, 2010, before United States District Judge Frank Montalvo. At sentencing, Judge Montalvo is expected to enter a judgement of criminal forfeiture against Barraza, who today agreed to forfeit to the Government the bribe money he received -- $5,100.
http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2010/03/ca-radio-host-rick-roberts-spewing.html
Rick Roberts of KFMB 760 in California lost last year's shiitake awards but he's apparently determined to win THIS year!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34001.html
Democratic Rep. Eric Massa will resign from Congress on Monday, only days after reports first surfaced that the freshman New York lawmaker was under investigation by the House ethics committee for allegedly sexually harassing a male staffer.
Massa was preparing the news in the Corning Leader, his local newspaper, but several media outlets were already reporting the news Friday afternoon.
In a statement released Friday, Massa directly addressed the ethics issue for the first time, acknowledging that he used language that might have made staffers uncomfortable. But he did not specifically address any specific sexual harassment allegations.
“I own this reality. There is no doubt in my mind that I did in fact, use language in the privacy of my own home and in my inner office that, after 24 years in the Navy, might make a Chief Petty Officer feel uncomfortable,” Massa said. “In fact, there is no doubt that this Ethics issue is my fault and mine alone. But in the incredibly toxic atmosphere that is Washington D.C., with the destruction of our elected leaders having become a blood sport, especially in talk radio and on the internet, there is also no doubt that an Ethics investigation would tear my family and my staff apart.”
Massa, who was elected in November 2008, announced earlier in the week that he would not be seeking a second term following a cancer scare in December.
He initially dismissed as “unsubstantiated” a POLITICO report that he was being scrutinized for improper advances to a junior aide in his office. In fact, he mentioned this report in his resignation statement Friday afternoon.
“At no point prior to this had any member of the Ethics Committee communicated with me directly - if fact I first read it on the internet,” Massa said.
The ethics committee formally announced on Thursday night that Massa was under investigation by the panel, although Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.), the chairwoman and ranking member of the committee, did not announce the reason for their probe.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) also publicly acknowledged that his staff had told a former Massa aide that he should report the Massa harassment allegation to the ethics committee or else Hoyer would take it to the ethics panel himself. Ronald Hikel, Massa’s former deputy chief of staff and legislative director, was then interviewed twice by ethics committee investigators.
Massa’s assertion that he did not learn that he was under investigation by the ethics committee until after making his retirement announcement appears to contradict the facts of the case.
Joe Racalto, Massa’s chief of staff, told a Rochester TV station on Thursday that he was interviewed by ethics committee investigators several weeks ago in regards to the sexual harassment allegations against Massa, well before the case became a public scandal or Massa announced his intentions to leave the House.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34001.html#ixzz0hXt9r4IJ
First dumb law of 2010, from Missouri
http://www.missourinet.com/2010/03/08/senate-passes-penalty-for-throwing-bodily-fluids/
Senate passes penalty for throwing bodily fluids
by Bob Priddy on March 8, 2010
in Crime & Courts, Health & Medicine
Sex offenders who remain in state custody after finishing prison terms could face more prison time if they throw the wrong stuff at the wrong people. Sex offenders considered a sexually violent predators can be left in the custody of the mental health department indefinitely after they finish their prison time. A special Sexual Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment Unit houses them in Farmington.
The Senate has approved a proposal putting those people back in prison if they throw bodily fluids or feces at Mental Health Department workers. Sponsor Jim Lembke of St. Louis wants those actions declared felonies. He calls his bill an “opportunity” to get sex offenders back to prison if they misbehave. He draws support from Farmington Senator Kevin Engler, who says predators don’t want to go back to prison because pedophiles don’t do well there. But he says the bill is necessary to protect people in his town who work at the special unit.
Lembke’s bill upgrades the charge to a more serious felony if the bodily fluids are from a person with HIV, Hepatitis B or C, and exposes the victim to those diseases. Corrections department workers, visitors, and other convicts are protected from similar assaults in a law passed earlier.
This bill (SB774) is awaiting action in the House.
Inside Edition Chief Correspondent/Author/Attorney Jim Moret for worst news mutt 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moret/sex-predators---trail-the_b_487801.html
It's time we stop the madness and protect our children from predators in our midst. The rape and murder of seventeen year old San Diego high school senior Chelsea King, has sparked national outrage over the ease at which a convicted, registered sex offender moved back into the very neighborhood where he had struck before. None of the residents was ever alerted that a predator was living among them. He allegedly attacked at least twice before being caught again.
I last wrote suggesting that GPS devices should be placed on convicted sex predators as a condition for their release from prison. My argument was this: we routinely see GPS chips in phones and cars, and microchips in our pets - why not use them to track the movements of predators as well? Many people have questioned how this could work, with some calling it just a knee jerk reaction to yet another convicted monster falling through the cracks of an admittedly over-stressed and under-funded system.
We have Megan's Law, Jessica's Law and Amber Alerts. How many more children have to die to prompt new legislation aimed at ending this madness once and for all? I say the time has come and we have the means to make it happen and keep our kids safe.
If you drive a current model GM car equipped with OnStar - and you are involved in an accident deploying your airbag, a central station is immediately and automatically alerted so help can be sent right away. Air traffic controllers are familiar with crash avoidance systems which sounds an alarm if two planes are about to collide. Why can't a similar approach be used with predators? James Gardner III, who is currently held without bail in Chelsea King's rape and murder, was staying with his mother - not at the location he gave to authorities miles away. That home is the very same place where Gardner lured a thirteen year old girl inside in 2000 and beat and molested her. It is also just 1,000 feet from an elementary school, and a school bus stop is right outside the front door. Imagine if an alarm were triggered if this convicted molester ever came within a half mile of a school.
Some people have dismissed the idea by suggesting that monitoring would be too complex - crossing city, county, and state lines. So what? When airliners fly cross-country they are routinely handed over from one flight control center to another. Electronics make it a fairly straightforward operation. There can certainly be a federally funded national system to monitor the movements of these predators. Critics may cite the cost - but I say that cost of doing nothing or maintaining the status quo is even greater. The family of Chelsea King would most certainly agree. Their daughter did not have to die. The monster in their neighborhood should never have been free to roam and stalk, and potentially attack on a whim.
Once an offender is convicted of a sex crime I say they they must be required to satisfy this condition for release: accept a lifetime tracking system or remain in prison. Don't whine about civil rights. I say the rights of our kids are more important. Everything is a balancing act and things are out of balance the way they are. Besides, these creeps gave up certain rights when they violated a child. I called the tracking system a digital scarlet letter: "P" for predator. Now, I suggest we offer them a choice. Trail them or jail them.
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