Homeless in Arizona

Cops are very well paid!!!!!

I suspect there are two reasons behind that.

First cops are unionized and the unions are very powerful.

If the city of Phoenix there are 3,700 cops on the city of Phoenix police force. When you have a city government election where only 5 percent of the registered voters, actually show up and vote, but almost all of the cops show up and vote, it is very easy for the police to throw and election. The elected officials know this and for that reason they pretty much give the cops what they want to get their votes.

Of course in addition to the 3,700 police officers on the city of Phoenix Police force there are several thousand more cops that live in the city of Phoenix but work for the Maricopa County Sheriff, the Arizona Department of Public Safety (Arizona DPS), Federal police forces like the FBI and Homeland Security, along with an alphabet soup of local Arizona police agencies, like the Maricopa Community College Police force.

Source

Rising Arizona public safety pensions strain budgets

Four-day series

Sunday: The cost of funding retirement for Arizona’s first responders has risen 500 percent during the past decade, inflated by enhanced benefits and battered by investment losses, forcing some communities to curb their hiring of police officers and firefighters.

Monday: When the Arizona Legislature created a public-safety retirement system in 1968, its goal was to provide a statewide pension program for police officers and firefighters. The objective was met, but taxpayers now spend more than $300 million a year to fund pensions.

Tuesday: Soon after the 2011 Legislature tried to ease the burden on taxpayers and improve the fiscal health of the public-safety retirement system, a group of current and retired police officers sued the state, arguing the state Constitution and federal contract law protect changes to their pensions.

Wednesday: A Phoenix policy that allows retiring police officers and firefighters to trade in unused sick leave, vacation and deferred compensation can spike pension benefits so much that a few pensioners have become millionaires after a few years of retirement.

By Craig Harris The Republic | azcentral.com Sun May 5, 2013 12:29 AM

The cost of funding retirement for Arizona’s first responders has risen 500 percent during the past decade, inflated by enhanced benefits and battered by investment losses, forcing some communities to curb their hiring of police officers and firefighters, The Arizona Republic has found.

Arizona taxpayers now spend more than $300 million a year to keep the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System solvent, while the typical retirement payout now exceeds Arizona’s average wage and some former public employees receive more in retirement than they earned on the job. [As of now most Phoenix area cops start at around $50,000. They can retire in 20 years at 80 percent of the highest pay they made and receive that for life]

Policy makers at the state and local levels contributed to this escalation in costs by enhancing public-safety pension benefits and allowing employees to inflate their salaries before retiring — which further increased pensions. The high costs of those policies became evident in the last few years.

Lawmakers have tried to rein in benefits and control costs, but lawsuits threaten those efforts. An Arizona Republic series in 2010 exposing abuses led Phoenix to curb some pricey practices, but the city’s reforms exempted public-safety workers. [Because of powerful police unions, and how cops can swing elections for elected officials. There are 3,000 Phoenix police officers and 1,600 firemen]

Phoenix’s generous policies have made a handful of Police and Fire Department retirees millionaires in their first few years of retirement. They were allowed to cash in unused sick leave, vacation and deferred compensation benefits in the final years of service, boosting salaries which, in turn, significantly increased annual retirement payouts.

Former Phoenix Assistant Fire Chief Bobby Ruiz, for example, cashed in $110,877 in sick leave, $14,528 of vacation time and $43,152 in deferred compensation benefits shortly before entering a retirement-deferral program in December 2006. Those payments increased his final years’ salary.

The 32-year city employee at that point enrolled in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP, which permitted him to remain on the job for five more years at full salary, while the pension he would have earned was paid into an account with a guaranteed return of at least 8 percent.

When Ruiz left his job in December 2011, he took with him $795,983 that had accrued in the plan account. He also began receiving a pension now worth $130,046 a year.

Months after leaving Phoenix, Ruiz became Peoria’s fire chief, earning $145,000 a year. He receives an annual payment of $5,800 from Peoria toward another retirement plan.

Ruiz declined interview requests. He issued a written statement saying he worked hard for more than three decades, rarely called in sick, and followed city rules.

Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, an outspoken critic of public pensions, said the city’s rules need to change.

“When someone is walking away with $1 million, that represents 10 police officers you could have hired,” DiCiccio said. “It’s insane.” [Which means the average pay of one of these cops DiCiccio is talking about is $100,000 a year.]

Average salaries of public-safety employees — a key factor in retirement pay — rose every year except one during the past decade, roughly parallel to overall wages in Arizona. Until last year, however, public-safety-system retirees were guaranteed annual cost-of-living increases.

The typical public-safety pension rose 47 percent — nearly twice the rate of inflation — to $49,480 between fiscal 2003 and 2012. By comparison, the average wage in Arizona rose by just 25 percent, to $43,950.

The Legislature over more than a decade had enacted cost-of-living increases for public-safety retirees and approved a deferred-retirement program, in part to recruit and retain workers. But as costs skyrocketed, lawmakers tried in 2011 to slow them by increasing employees’ contributions to their retirement, and temporarily halting pensioners’ cost-of-living raises.

Current and retired police officers sued, saying Arizona’s Constitution and federal contract law prohibit changes to their benefits. The changes have gone into effect, but litigation is ongoing.

Phoenix also reined in some of its pension benefits last year, but did not touch public-safety pensions.

Police officers and firefighters are sympathetic to the cities’ plight but say they didn’t create the problem. [That is a LIE. They ARE the problem. For years 40 percent of the city of Phoenix's budget goes to the police. The next 20 percent of the city of Phoenix budget goes to the fire department. Combined the city of Phoenix's police and fire departments get 60 percent of the money the city of Phoenix spends. All other departments combined in the city of Phoenix have to share the remaining 40 percent of the Phoenix budget Last the in most cities in Arizona cops and firemen account for 60 percent of the budget expenses like they do in Phoenix]

“We don’t control the system. We are the players in the game,” said Tim Hill, president of the 6,700-member Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona.

They say enhanced benefits did not create the problems and blame economic factors that tanked the system’s investments, including Wall Street’s failures during the 2008 banking crisis, and poor investments during the dot-com bust early last decade. The retirement trust lost more than $1 billion during the recession.

“We are caught firmly in the middle, and we understand the issues,” said Jim Mann, a retired Maricopa County sheriff’s deputy who represents the 6,500-member Arizona Fraternal Order of Police. “But why are we the ones taking the blame when there are not enough resources?”

Nearly everyone seems to agree on at least one thing: Rising pension costs, coupled with the effects of the recent recession, forced cities to scale back public-safety hiring. The number of first responders in the retirement system has fallen by 1,370 people since fiscal 2008, leaving some communities vulnerable.

“What do you do? Do you protect the public and eat the cost, or do you leave the public unprotected to save your budget? That’s a tough call a lot of people are making these days,” said Bisbee City Manager Stephen Pauken, whose city has been one of the hardest hit.

Two views of law

About 10,000 individuals, including surviving spouses and children of deceased officers, receive benefits from the public-safety retirement plan. Most do not contribute into the federal Social Security retirement system, and they do not receive those benefits in retirement.

Retirees have a defined benefit based on the number of years they worked and their compensation at the end of their career. Employees with a large ending salary and lengthy service will receive a higher pension that generally continues until they die, regardless of how much was contributed during their working years.

After 20 years on the job, a person in the plan can retire and receive half of his or her ending salary as the starting point for an annual pension. Typically, the maximum starting pension cannot exceed 80 percent of the average salary during the last three years of service.

State law bars public employees from using “unused sick leave, payment in lieu of vacation, payment for unused compensatory time or payment for any fringe benefit” to “spike” the final compensation on which retirement benefits are calculated.

Yet some cities like Phoenix interpret the law differently, allowing these buybacks over a longer period — essentially, their final few years of employment, which matches the three-year window typically used to calculate pension benefits.

“As part of their negotiated contracts, police officers and firefighters can receive monthly pay in lieu of sick or vacation leave accrual,” Phoenix spokeswoman Toni Maccarone said.

Boosted by these additional payments, some retirees’ pensions exceeded their base pay while they were employed. Nobody has challenged Phoenix’s legal interpretation.

Plan officials say they don’t track whether a city allows employees to spike their pay. It is not a concern to the statewide system, said Jim Hacking, the plan administrator, because each of the 237 jurisdictions in the system is responsible for funding the pensions of its current and retired employees.

“Ultimately, if the employer is allowing these kinds of practices, then the employer — and that employer only — is paying for the cost,” Hacking said. “There is no free lunch.”

Translation: Phoenix and Tucson taxpayers are on the hook.

The retirement system is also under strain from the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, the program allowing public-safety workers to stay on the job at full pay for up to five years after retirement.

It was designed to entice veteran police officers and firefighters to stay on the job for up to five additional years. The plan allowed a person to “retire” but keep working up to 60 months. During this time, the individual would receive a regular paycheck and have the pension placed into a pension-system savings account. The individual is then given a lump-sum check upon leaving employment and then his or her annual pension benefits begin.

But it has been costly. It carries a guaranteed return that in recent years was about 8 percent. This year, the rate was cut to 4.4 percent.

The Arizona Republic obtained more than 8,000 individual financial records from the plan under the state’s Public Records Law. An examination of retiree benefits shows:

At least 79 retirees receive annual pensions greater than $100,000. The largest, at nearly $146,000, belongs to a former top Phoenix police executive.

The median Deferred Retirement Option Plan payment is $236,483. At least 1,367 retirees received more than that amount. At least 98 of them received a lump sum of more than $500,000.

Ten former Phoenix employees received plan payments in excess of $700,000 each.

More than 500 former employees of 12 suburban cities and towns received average plan payments of $222,000.

State Sen. Steve Yarbrough, who pushed through pension reform in 2011 and has two sons who are police officers, said The Republic’s findings were “stunning to say the least.”

“It’s a relatively few people compared to the whole system, but when you hear those numbers you think: ‘Oh my gosh, that is incredible,’ ” Yarbrough, a Chandler Republican, said. “Pension costs have risen significantly, and the number of personnel has gone down. That can only mean we are paying far more to sustain those pensions. ... It’s because the program is so generous.”

A few retirees like Ruiz hired onto new public jobs with additional pensions. Another was former Tucson Police Chief Richard Miranda, who received a $511,570 payment from the Deferred Retirement Option Plan in 2008 and now collects a $137,724 annual pension.

He immediately became Tucson’s assistant city manager and has since become city manager. He is paid $200,000 annually and is provided a $23,000 annual payment into a second retirement account.

Miranda, who spent 30 years in law enforcement, did not respond to requests to discuss the matter. A Tucson spokesman said Miranda’s compensation and retirement were negotiated with the City Council.

Exceptions to the rule

Law-enforcement and firefighting representatives say those kinds of deals are the exception.

“We’re not going to walk away from this job after 20 years and have a very significant monthly pension check,” said Jimmy Chavez, president of the Arizona Highway Patrol Association.

Chavez added that many active officers have not seen pay raises in more than six years, and most retiring public-safety officials are not getting rich off their pensions.

Hill, of the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona, said a minority of top officers are well compensated in retirement, and, “Taken out of context, it looks really bad.”

But Hill said many rank-and-file retirees get a $35,000 to $40,000 annual pension, and some pay as much as $18,000 a year for health insurance.

Among them is Fred Adler, who retired from the Lake Havasu City Fire Department in 2000 after 20 years. Adler, 61, receives just under $40,000 a year, according to plan records, and he says his medical costs have become so high that he dropped his family’s dental insurance.

“By far, most retirees are like me at the lower end of the pension scale,” Adler said. “For most of us, it’s a struggle.”

Adler said he has no problem with those who went into upper management and are now receiving large pensions.

“I know these guys went above and beyond to serve the community,” Adler said. “I understand why some may not understand — or may just be jealous.”

Adler adds that, unlike firefighters or police officers, most citizens don’t risk their lives daily to protect the public. [While cops love to tell us their jobs are dangerous and they risk their lives to protect us that is a lie. The job of being a police officer rarely falls into the top 10 most dangerous jobs. Any job that requires driving a vehicle is a dangerous job, and that is why being a cop is slightly more dangerous then a job that doesn't require driving. Other then the risk of driving a car and possibly being involved in a traffic accident, being a cop is NOT a dangerous job]

The Legislature long ago acknowledged that risk, and the service that public-safety workers provide, as key factors in how it crafted pension benefits. Lawmakers allow these workers to retire earlier and with better lifetime benefits than other public employees.

For example, the average age of a plan retiree is 51, after 23.6 years working. The average retiree gets back all of the retirement contributions he or she made within 22 months of retirement, according to retirement-system data.

A private-sector employee seeking the same average pension of $49,480 a year would have to save $1,088 a month for 23.6 years, and the savings would have to generate a return of at least 6 percent, according to Neal Van Zutphen, president of Mesa-based Intrinsic Wealth Counsel.

Van Zutphen, who did the calculation at The Republic’s request, said the private-sector employee would have accumulated about $670,554, which would provide an annual pension of nearly $50,000 for 25 years.

Trust in poor health

The system is not in danger of becoming insolvent, but it is in extremely poor financial health.

The trust, as of June 30, 2012, had $6.05 billion in assets and $10.32 billion in liabilities, meaning it has just 58.6 percent of the amount it needs to pay all current and future pension obligations for its active and retired members.

Ideally, a pension system is funded at 100 percent. Minimal contributions are needed when that occurs because investments, in the main, have kept the trust flush with money. A trust is considered healthy if it is at least 80 percent funded.

Investment losses, for the most part, cause a trust’s funding ratio to decline. Then, more cash is needed to make it actuarially sound. Along with earnings, a trust typically is funded by payments from employers and employees. In Arizona, each is tapped for a contribution at a set rate applied to a worker’s wages.

For years, the employee-contribution rate for police officers and firefighters was capped at 7.65 percent, but it gradually increased after 2011 legislative reforms to the current 9.55 percent. It will rise to 10.35 percent on July 1, when the new fiscal year begins. It can rise no higher than 11.65 percent by fiscal 2016.

Though that rate has slowly gone up, there are fewer active employees making those contributions. After four consecutive years of reductions in force, there were 18,542 employees paying into the retirement system in fiscal 2012 — down from 19,912 and the fewest since 2006.

The 237 cities, counties and state agencies whose employees make up the system contribute based on each jurisdiction’s pension liabilities, with no caps. Some now contribute at rates equivalent to 50 percent of each employee’s wage. Governments with high salaries and large numbers of retirees will have higher contribution costs, and costs can vary within a city for its Fire and Police departments.

Paradise Valley, an affluent town of 13,000 residents, has made budget cuts and stopped hiring police officers as a direct result of its higher pension costs, Town Manager Jim Bacon said.

“I don’t see it getting significantly better for us because of the way the system is designed,” Bacon said.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Tucson Police Department also were smaller in 2012 than a decade ago. And Phoenix as of mid-February had 305 police vacancies and 90 Fire Department openings.

Mike Galloway, a retired Mesa police lieutenant who was the retirement system’s chairman from 2008 to 2010, noted that shrinking workforces create a vicious cycle. By not hiring as many new public-safety employees, local governments still increase their pension costs indirectly because they have fewer workers to help shoulder the pension burden by contributing to the retirement system.

Twelve suburban Valley cities and towns saw their contributions to public-safety pensions soar by an average of 350 percent from fiscal 2003 to 2012. Collectively, the increases during those years totaled nearly $50 million.

Mesa had the highest increase during those years — about $13.4 million. The number of police employees has declined by 110 since 2003-04, to 707 employees in the last fiscal year. Mesa Mayor Scott Smith said the rising costs concern city officials, nearing the point where they could affect Mesa’s ability to hire new police officers and firefighters.

Smith called the additional pension payments “a dead cost ... we’re not getting benefits, but we’re paying more. We don’t mind investing more and paying more when we get more in return.”

Tempe had the second-largest increase in the suburbs: roughly $7.8 million. Like other municipalities, it trimmed its budget and cut pay during the recession.

“It isn’t until recently that the cost has grown to the point where it has become cumbersome and over-burdensome to our budget,” said Ken Jones, Tempe finance and technology director. “We want to get back to reasonable retirement systems.”

Scottsdale contributed nearly 450 percent more in fiscal 2012 than it did in fiscal 2003 to the retirements of its police officers. City officials predict annual increases for at least five more years.

David Draine, a senior researcher who specializes in public pensions for Pew Charitable Trusts, said there’s no easy pill to fix the retirement system’s problems.

“Part one of the solution, as painful as it will be, is to find resources to pay for the pension debt,” Draine said. “The other piece going forward is that policy makers don’t offer benefits they can’t afford.”

Reach the reporters at craig.harris@arizonarepublic.com and beth.duckett@arizonarepublic.com.

Public-safety pensions fund billions short

Public-safety pensions fund billions short despite $300 mil a year from taxpayers

By Craig Harris and Beth Duckett The Republic | azcentral.com Sun May 5, 2013 11:49 PM

The Arizona Legislature created the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System in 1968 with a goal of providing a statewide pension program for police officers and firefighters.

The objective was met: More than 31,000 active, vested and retired public-safety officers across Arizona have a retirement system that guarantees lifetime benefits for their service. Until the last decade, the system was generally successful in minimizing taxpayer costs by maximizing investment yield on its funds.

But taxpayers now contribute more than $300 million a year — a 500 percent increase from 2003 and roughly three times what employees pay into the system. Even so, the system remains underfunded by nearly $4.3 billion, raising concerns about its ability to pay future retirement obligations.

Police and fire departments, meanwhile, have gotten smaller since 2008 because of the recession and rising pension costs. Fewer employees paying into the system to support current pension beneficiaries means additional public funding is needed. That leaves governments with even less money for replacements or new hires.

How did we get here? The answer is complex.

The retirement-system trust is funded by both employees and employers. The money is invested, and the earnings go into the trust as well.

For the last decade, however, employers have been required by law to make ever larger payments to cover the trust’s investment losses, while worker contribution rates have remained mostly flat.

In the early years, the retirement system invested heavily in blue-chip stocks, bonds and real estate, creating steady financial growth through the 1980s and 1990s. Gains surpassed 20 or even 30 percent some years.

Even in bad years — 1984, 1988 and 1994 — losses were comparatively minor and were followed by double-digit investment gains.

Investments in technology companies during the dot-com boom helped make the retirement system so flush that it was significantly overfunded in 2001, minimizing the financial burden for taxpayers.

As of June 30, 2001, records show, the retirement system’s funding ratio was a record 127 percent.

The ideal funding ratio for a pension trust is 100 percent, meaning all pension liabilities for current employees and retirees are covered by the system’s assets.

But when the tech bubble burst, the pension system suffered a combined $1.55 billion investment loss in fiscal 2001 and 2002.

Before 2001, the plan had not suffered a substantial financial loss in almost two decades.

The Legislature continued to sweeten retirement benefits. Among other things, lawmakers added a costly deferred-retirement plan, increasing costs at the very time when it was suffering losses.

In addition, excess investment earnings in subsequent years that could have been used to cover losses were placed in a reserve fund and used to provide annual cost-of-living raises for retirees that continued until last year. In some years, the cost-of-living increases outpaced inflation.

Meanwhile, the retirement system suffered a $1.28 billion investment loss in fiscal 2008 and 2009 because of the collapse of the housing and stock markets.

Those in the private sector with 401(k)-style plans also experienced heavy financial losses in their retirement accounts during the collapse.

System sued

Firefighters and police officers, who contribute a portion of their income to the fund, say they should not be held liable for investment losses on Wall Street that hurt the trust.

Levi Bolton, executive director of the Arizona Police Association, said many police officers see themselves as victims of poor investments.

Following the financial dive, a 2011 pension-reform law raised contribution rates to help offset investment losses.

Public-safety employees who had paid 7.65 percent of their wages into the pension system now pay 9.55 percent. It will go to 10.35 percent on July 1 and then be capped at 11.65 percent on July 1, 2015.

There is no cap on employer contributions. Each employer is charged based on the retirement liabilities of its current workers and retirees.

But four law-enforcement officers have sued the system to return to a contribution rate of 7.65 percent. The litigation is ongoing.

The average statewide contribution for cities, counties and state agencies has steadily risen from 3.75 percent of employee wages in 2003 to the current 27.18 percent. It will increase to 30.44 percent on July 1. A few communities will have rates higher than 50 percent.

At the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, like other public-pension funds, if investment returns surpass expectations, then fewer public dollars are needed to support it. From fiscal 2003 to 2012, the system’s investments were in the black until 2007.

But the return on investments exceeded the expected rate of return only three times, meaning an additional backfill of employer dollars was needed.

During those 10 years, the expected rate of return ranged from 8 percent to 9 percent, with the higher figures in the earlier years.

The retirement system smooths its gains and losses over a seven-year period to avoid large fluctuations in what employers pay. That policy, however, means it could take many years to recover from one or two especially bad years.

That was the case in 2008-09, when the combined investment returns were a negative 25 percent — or $1.28 billion in the red. During each of those years, the expected rate of return was 8.5 percent, or a combined 17 percent.

The rate of return this fiscal year is 7.85 percent.

More diversified

To avoid the effects of wild swings in the financial markets, the system’s board in 2007 adopted a more diversified investment strategy and reduced its reliance on stocks.

That move did not have a dramatic effect during the succeeding two years, when a global recession soured many investments.

But it improved the system’s investment performance in 2010 and 2011, when the system posted gains that exceeded expectations.

Fiscal 2012 brought another downswing. The system lost $41.7 million and had a negative return of less than 1 percent.

Jim Hacking, system administrator, said expanding the portfolio to include investments in global markets and private equity makes the trust less vulnerable to stock-market swings.

Bryan Jeffries, executive vice president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona, said he has followed the pension system for close to 20 years.

He believes a rebounding economy and a diversified investment strategy eventually will turn the system around.

“Unfortunately, when you’re talking about a plan this size, a battleship can’t turn in a bathtub,” Jeffries said. “We will never allow the fund to be so overweight in high-risk investments again.”

But Hacking predicted that payments from employers — meaning taxpayers — will increase for at least the next few years to compensate for the investment losses of 2008-09.

Arizona pensions not easily reined in

Source

Arizona pensions not easily reined in

State has few options to cut public-safety retirement costs

By Craig Harris and Beth Duckett The Republic | azcentral.com Mon May 6, 2013 11:39 PM

The Arizona Legislature tried in 2011 to improve the fiscal health of two ailing public-employee pension systems and ease the burden on taxpayers with a series of changes.

Lawmakers suspended cost-of-living raises, made future pension increases reflect the health of the retirement funds, and required current workers to contribute more toward their future retirement benefits.

Members of those state retirement systems sued, claiming the changes violate the state Constitution.

Active and retired judges, members of the Elected Officials’ Retirement Plan, were the first to file suit, followed by active and retired police officers on behalf of the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System. Firefighters did not join the litigation.

The changes to the pensions are in effect as the judges’ lawsuits work their way through the courts. The public-safety suits, meanwhile, are on hold in Maricopa County Superior Court to await an outcome in the judges’ cases.

The matter is being litigated as policy makers struggle with public-pension costs: The public-safety-pension system costs more than $300 million annually to fund, a sixfold increase from a decade ago. The additional costs and the impact of the recession have slowed the hiring of police officers and firefighters statewide, adding to the system’s financial woes as fewer new employees contribute to the fund.

The Elected Officials’ Retirement Plan is costing taxpayers more than $21 million a year.

As in some other states, Arizona lawmakers are hard-pressed to find a solution short of facing down public employees in court. The only other option, one being contemplated by some lawmakers, is a constitutional amendment that ends protections for all public-employee pensions.

The Arizona Supreme Court on June 4 will hear arguments on whether lawmakers could lawfully suspend cost-of-living raises for retired judges. The lower court ruled that the change was unconstitutional.

If the high court rules in favor of the judges, the decision will negate legislative changes in benefits made to both pension systems, said Jim Hacking, administrator for both trust funds. The changes were made to hold benefits in check because both systems are severely underfunded.

If guaranteed benefit increases continue, there will be additional costs for taxpayers.

“The picture is not good,” Hacking said.

Lawmakers say that if the state Supreme Court invalidates the pension reforms they put in place in 2011, they are poised to take the issue to voters in 2014.

“The financial situation is dire,” said state House Appropriations Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills. “The taxpayers are on the hook because of the Constitution.”

Kavanagh said he and others may ask voters to amend the Arizona Constitution to make it easier for the state to alter public-pension benefits.

“We made some very modest and reasonable changes to the pension systems,” Kavanagh said. The plan is to “sit down in a strategy session with the Senate” and devise a plan for a measure to be placed on the 2014 ballot, he said.

State protections

Arizona, as a right-to-work state, is not considered friendly to public employees or unions. But it has one of the nation’s strongest constitutional protections for public pensions. Voters in 1998 amended the Arizona Constitution to say “public retirement benefits shall not be diminished or impaired.”

The lawsuits focus on that provision as well as federal contract law.

The provision protecting public pensions in Arizona’s Constitution is something most other states don’t have, said Phoenix attorney Jennifer Kroll, who practices labor and employment law.

“In Arizona, the view is you made the contract when you started employment,” Kroll said. “In other states, it’s not necessarily the case.”

Public-safety advocates argue that there is another good reason not to take away their public benefits: It could affect recruitment.

“This is a dangerous job, and if we ... make the reward aspect diminish, we will have fewer people applying and we will have less qualified applicants,” said John Ortolano, an Arizona Department of Public Safety sergeant and president of the state Fraternal Order of Police. [Cops love to sell us the lie that being a police officer is a very dangerous job. The top 3 most dangerous jobs year in and year out are being a fisherman, a logger and a construction worker. The job of a police officer rarely falls into the top 10 most dangerous job. Last any job that requires driving a vehicle is a dangerous job because of the deaths and injuries car accidents cause, and for that reason being a cop is a dangerous job because most cops drive cars. So being a cop is about as dangerous as being a truck driver, mailman, or any other job that requires driving. Cops are rarely the victims of armed robbery, because criminals are usually smart enough not to attack armed people that can defend themselves. The most dangerous job when it comes to being shot on the job is convenience and liquor store clerks.]

Arizona law does not give the same pension protection to workers in the private sector, where many employers have stopped offering pensions. Most instead offer 401(k)-type retirement plans that are less costly and fluctuate with the performance of their investments.

Byron Schlomach, an economist with the conservative Goldwater Institute who has studied public pensions, said he’s not convinced a change to the state Constitution would bolster lawmakers’ ability to address current public-pension costs.

“Even if we change the Constitution, there is a risk that someone could successfully sue and say, ‘Even though the voters changed the Constitution, I should be protected by the old constitutional guarantees because this is a contract issue,’ ” Schlomach said. “So, we seem to be between a rock and a hard place.”

If Arizona loses in court, Schlomach said, the state should, at the very least, put new hires into a less costly defined-contribution plan, similar to a 401(k). In such a system, employees and employers contribute a set amount to a retirement account that grows or diminishes based on the performance of the fund’s investments without any guarantee on the size of the ultimate benefit.

Arizona public employees have a defined-benefit plan in which both the employee and employer make contributions to a pension trust that guarantees a specific retirement benefit based on years of service and ending salary, regardless of how invested funds have performed.

David Draine, a senior researcher who specializes in public pensions for the Pew Charitable Trusts, said states such as Minnesota and Florida have implemented pension reform and won their battles in court. Making changes for prospective employees, who do not yet have contract rights, would be more simple than a constitutional amendment, he said.

Caroline Pilch, an attorney representing the police officers, said her clients wouldn’t have a problem with that.

Scottsdale, which contributed nearly 450 percent more in fiscal 2012 than it did in fiscal 2003 to the retirements of its police officers, has explored moving all current or future employees from state public-pension plans to a 401(k)-style plan.

But the concept never gained traction in the face of an adverse legal opinion, said Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane, a retired accountant.

“There are some very serious obstacles in trying to move away from that system,” he said.

Former Scottsdale Councilman Ron McCullagh pushed for the city to consider withdrawing from the state’s pension systems. He believes all public-pension plans should be converted to 401(k)-type plans.

“Any proposal to amend Arizona’s Constitution should mandate that change — and given the chance, voters would do it in a heartbeat,” McCullagh said.

He argued that an amendment “to alter but retain the existing plan is little more than political window dressing” to protect elected officials who benefit under the existing plan.

Pressure stalls bill

The Legislature this year has tried putting new elected officials into a less-costly defined contribution, or 401(k)-style, plan instead of the Elected Officials Retirement Plan, which is the most generous in the state.

The bill passed the House but stalled in the Senate amid pressure from key judges, including Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch.

Berch, who could be involved in a ruling on the constitutionality of the 2011 pension-reform laws, urged a Senate committee in March to increase court fees so future judges could continue to receive guaranteed public-pension benefits and not move to a 401(k)-style plan.

She also urged lawmakers to craft such a deal in private, outside public hearings.

State Sen. Steve Yarbrough, who pushed through the 2011 pension-reform law, said “the irony didn’t escape me” when Berch testified before his Finance Committee in March. He said it is extremely rare for a chief justice to appear on any issue before a legislative committee.

When asked at the time if testifying was a conflict of interest because she might hear the pension-reform case regarding fellow judges, Berch initially declined to answer, then asked a reporter rhetorically, “Are all pension issues the same?”

Berch declined to be interviewed for this story.

Jennifer Liewer, a spokeswoman for the court, said the justice’s testimony did not relate to her retirement or that of any other sitting judge.

The chief justice plans to address the litigating parties after a hearing to see if they have concerns about her impartiality, Liewer added.

She will then “take this and other factors into account in deciding whether she should recuse herself on this case,” Liewer said.

Ruling awaited

In the lawsuits against the state, current and retired judges — like current and retired police officers — claim that the 2011 pension-reform law was illegal.

That law required them to pay more for their retirement benefits, temporarily suspended cost-of-living pension increases and adjusted a benefit formula for future cost-of-living adjustments.

One Maricopa County judge has ruled that changes to the cost-of-living raises for judicial retirees was illegal. The matter is now before the state high court.

In a second case, a different Maricopa County judge issued a ruling that distinguished between judges hired before and after 2000. He upheld legislative changes that increased contribution rates and amended the formula for benefit increases for those who went on the bench after 2000, when a vesting law went into effect.

The ruling is being appealed.

Ben Cooper, a lawyer for the pension plans, said the vesting ruling is significant because the majority of current judges came into the system after 2000, meaning they would have to pay more.

At the Capitol, where Republicans control both houses and the executive branch, there is no movement to make any additional changes to the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System until the state Supreme Court rules on the judges’ cases. Republicans also say there is not a lot of political will to again take on the pensions of police officers and firefighters.

“There would be more of a reluctance because you are dealing with people who are putting their lives on the line,” said state Rep. Phil Lovas, R-Peoria, who is a key sponsor to change the elected officials’ pension plan serving judges. “I have a real concern on changing the rules for those who are in.”

Matt Benson, a spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer, said lawmakers should “stay the course and wait and see the conclusions of the legal action.”

“The state will continue to defend those pension reforms, and we believe the courts will uphold what we have done,” Benson said. “Once we get some finality to that legal action, we will have a better action plan on what course to take.

“What you need is balance,” he said. “There has to be a balance in protecting the taxpayers and holding up the government’s end of the bargain.”

PENSION REFORM IN OTHER STATES

At least 41 states, including Arizona, have enacted significant revisions to their state retirement plans since 2010, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Lawsuits have been filed in response to some of the changes. Here are some of the reforms:

Alabama: Increased employee contribution rates in two steps.

Colorado: Shifted burden from employers to employees of state government to fund statewide retirement system.

Florida: Required all members of the Florida Retirement System to make contributions of 3percent of salary and lowered employer contributions.

Hawaii: Raised contribution rates for government employees as well as firefighters, police officers and corrections officers.

Maine: Cost-of-living adjustments for retirees were temporarily frozen and then capped at 3percent in future years based on the Consumer Price Index.

Maryland: Increased employee-contribution requirements for most current and future members of state plans.

Rhode Island: Suspended cost-of-living adjustments for retirees until the pension system is funded at 80 percent.

Legality of boosting Phoenix police pensions in question

Source

Legality of boosting Phoenix pensions in question

By Craig Harris and Beth Duckett The Republic | azcentral.com Wed May 8, 2013 12:02 AM

A Phoenix policy that lets police and firefighters cash in unused sick leave, vacation and deferred compensation has allowed some to spike their pay and pension benefits so much that they became millionaires shortly after retiring, records obtained by The Arizona Republic show.

The pay spiking, which appears to violate state law, in at least a dozen instances allowed veteran Phoenix public-safety workers to add at least $100,000 each to their salary in their last few years of employment, a key component in determining pension benefits.

Five of them added more than $200,000 to their paychecks, with one getting more than a quarter-million dollars primarily by cashing in $187,854 in unused sick leave.

Ten retirees significantly increased their lump-sum retirement benefits to more than $700,000 through the Deferred Retirement Option Plan. All also receive annual pensions greater than $114,000 a year.

State law prohibits public employees from using “unused sick leave, payment in lieu of vacation, payment for unused compensatory time or payment for any fringe benefit” to “spike” the final compensation on which retirement benefits are calculated.

Yet Phoenix interprets the law differently. It allows police and firefighters through their city contracts to receive monthly pay in lieu of accrued sick or vacation leave. City officials have said the policy does not violate the law. The city declined to provide any legal opinion to support its policy. [Hey, who cares, when you have sold out the taxpayers you pretend to represent and given boatloads of money to the special interest groups in the police and fire departments it may be illegal, but it sure makes it easy to get reelected when you the the 3,000 votes of the members of the Phoenix Police Department and 1,600 votes of the Phoenix Fire Department]

Mayor Greg Stanton, a former deputy state attorney general, wouldn’t say whether he supports ending the practice, which is popular with one of his key constituencies: police and firefighters. He said in a written statement Tuesday that to do so would “require a change to the personnel rules, which cannot be done by a simple vote of the City Council.” [Mayor Greg Stanton also lied about eliminating a 2 percent food tax which he said he would repeal if elected. That money mostly goes to the Phoenix police and firefighters who receive about 60 percent of the Phoenix city budget tax dollars. Mayor Greg Stanton after being elected flip flop and said he was not going to repeal the 2 percent sales tax is promised to repeal when running for mayor.]

Taxpayers bear the cost of pay spiking allowed by several Arizona cities, Phoenix and Tucson among them, because it increases city payments to the state’s Public Safety Personnel Retirement System. Phoenix taxpayers already pay a food tax enacted in 2010 in part to protect public-safety jobs and balance the city budget.

Officials disagree and point fingers over responsibility for ending pay spiking.

Jim Hacking, public-safety pension-system administrator, said the Arizona Legislature should crack down on cities that violate the anti-spiking law. Hacking said the law is clear, yet cities like Phoenix willfully ignore it.

“If they are doing something to inflate their pay, it adds to their (city pension) liabilities,” Hacking said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

Stanton disagrees, saying, “The legal issues are up to the state pension board.” [What rubbish. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton is owned by the police and fire unions, and receives the votes of their members in exchange for the high pensions]

State Sen. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, who continues to push pension reforms at the Legislature, said lawmakers may need to take up the issue. Yarbrough said that he does not believe it is a widespread practice but that it dramatically benefits a few individuals.

Pay spiking has been heavily debated by the Phoenix City Council, but there are not enough votes to end the practice, Councilman Sal DiCiccio said. [While Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio talks like a Libertarian he votes like a socialist]

“There are a few of us on the council who think this is disrespectful to the taxpayers,” DiCiccio said. “But the mayor has not fought against this — or other council members. Until you get five (votes), none of this goes away.”

Stanton, a former councilman who became mayor in 2012, indicated in a memo to DiCiccio on Tuesday that he would not deal with the issue until this fall. In a prior interview, Stanton said he saw reason to act immediately.

“We have to make sure the abuses in the system are not allowed in the future, and that is what we will deliver,” he said. “To the extreme cases where people have taken advantage of the system, we have to stop that.”

Stanton said he will direct City Manager David Cavazos to “find additional ways to save money for the people of the city,” such as curbing overtime.

DiCiccio said Stanton should schedule a vote to force the council to confront spiking. In Tuesday’s memo, Stanton said the City Council could provide input on the issue this fall, prior to beginning employee-contract negotiations.

‘I played by the rules’

Stanton, Cavazos and other assistant city managers who craft the budget have been aware for years of the spiking issue, but there has been no official action to prevent public-safety workers from doing it. Former City Manager Frank Fairbanks spiked his pension when he retired several years ago, making more in retirement than he did when he worked for Phoenix.

After The Republic reported on the windfall, the city eventually ended pay spiking for all employees except public-safety employees. [Well so what!!! those other employees only account for 40 percent of the Phoenix employees. the "public-safety" employees which are cops and firemen account for 60 percent of the Phoenix payroll and budget]

One ex-firefighter who took home more than $1 million in retirement incentives and pension benefits said the spiking policy should end because the city can’t afford it. But, he added, he would have been foolish to not make use of a policy available to prospective pensioners.

“It’s not sustainable,” said Decker Williams, a former deputy fire chief who retired in 2011. “But I played by the rules.” [Translation - I screwed the taxpayers fair and square]

Williams said it is bad public policy, comparing it to using public funds to build sports stadiums for millionaire owners.

There are approximately 2,400 Phoenix retirees receiving benefits from the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, and union leaders say most rank-and-file employees are not retiring with six-figure pensions. Those with large retirement benefits typically are top-level managers with higher salaries who spent more than a quarter-century working for the city. [Yea, but it's mostly cops and firemen who can retire after working 20 years at 80 percent of their highest pay. Now cops start at around $50,000 and many cops make $100,000 or more a year before overtime is thrown in]

Those taking home more than $1 million in total benefits are mostly former upper-level managers. But there also are 153 Phoenix public-safety retirees who currently receive pensions greater than $88,000 — more than two times the average income in Arizona. And 650 retired police officers and firefighters who receive pensions also each received lump-sum retirement payments in excess of $250,000 from the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, The Republic found. [Yep, just like I said, it's mostly cops and firemen who get these huge pensions]

A need for more funding

As pension benefits have increased, Phoenix, like many Arizona communities, has seen the costs to fund its retirement plans skyrocket over the past decade.

Phoenix budgeted $109 million this fiscal year for public-safety pension costs. In fiscal 2003, the city paid $7.2 million.

The primary reasons for the cost increase are investment losses by the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, of which Phoenix is the largest member. But pension spiking contributes to the need for additional tax dollars, according to Hacking.

Phoenix plans to spend an additional $7.9 million on deferred-compensation retirement benefits for firefighters and $866,314 for police officers this fiscal year. Those retirement benefits can be cashed in to increase their annual pension benefit.

As retirement costs grew, the workforce in Phoenix’s Police and Fire departments got smaller. As of mid-February, there were 305 unfilled police-officer positions and 90 unfilled firefighter positions.

The city in fiscal 2012 had 3,021 police officers and 1,578 firefighters. Four years earlier, Phoenix had 3,375 police officers and 1,671 firefighters.

Cavazos said Phoenix has been forced to cut public-safety positions primarily because of the 2008 recession, but he acknowledged that rising pension costs have contributed to the cuts.

Effect of the food tax

The debate over pay spiking could become enmeshed in the council debate over Phoenix’s controversial 2 percent tax on food. During his mayoral campaign, Stanton promised to end the tax by last month.

The mayor pulled back from that commitment, saying the tax is needed to help fund a city budget that has been besieged by higher pension costs, particularly public-safety pension costs. He has said if the sales tax ends, it will result in the layoffs of 99 additional police officers and about 300 other employees. [I better way to put it would be to say that Mayor Stanton lied and said he would repeal the food tax to get elected.]

Any money saved by curbing pension costs could be reallocated in the city budget, thereby lowering its reliance on the food tax.

The City Council on May 1 voted to prepare for an early repeal of half of the city’s sales tax and directed Cavazos to prepare for its repeal. Another vote on the repeal plan is expected later this year.

DiCiccio said the city can do without the $50 million generated annually by the food tax if the city reduces its more than $100 million in public-safety pension costs.

“These monies could be going for after-school programs for kids, senior programs, library hours, parks and more police on the streets,” DiCiccio said. [That is a LIE. Almost all of the money goes to cops and firemen, because the account for about 60 percent of the Phoenix budget. The police get 40 percent of the budget and the firemen get 20 percent of the budget, and all other Phoenix departments combined get the other 40 percent of the Phoenix budget]

Some residents who oppose the food tax say they were surprised by The Republic’s findings on public-safety pension benefits.

“It’s just not fair,” said Regina Saucedo, a 48-year-old south Phoenix resident. “They shouldn’t be getting so much money. It shouldn’t be happening.”

But others say they understand the need for the tax. Tina Sweeney, for example, said she does not necessarily like it but supports it because she does not want city workers to lose their jobs.

Stanton said he would like to eliminate the tax but cannot justify ending it because the city has a “barely balanced budget.” [Rubbish. The tax goes to pay for the Phoenix bloated, over paid police force and could easily be cut, by firing a 100 or so cops]

Enticement to stay on the job

The average public-safety pension for a Phoenix retiree is $59,341, about $10,000 more than the statewide average, according to pension-system records. The average pension for Phoenix’s non-law-enforcement employees, who are part of the city’s pension system, is $29,256.

The Republic, through the Arizona Public Records Law, obtained financial documents from the city and the pension system regarding Phoenix’s public-safety pension costs and retirees receiving the benefits.

At the top of the benefits list were those who received large deferred-retirement payments. The Legislature created the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, and it began in 2001 as a five-year test. Lawmakers made it permanent in 2002.

It was designed to entice veteran police officers and firefighters to stay on the job for up to five additional years. The plan allowed a person to “retire” but keep working for up to 60 months. During this time, the person would receive a regular paycheck and have the pension placed into a Public Safety Personnel Retirement System savings account with a guaranteed interest rate. The person was then given a lump-sum Deferred Retirement Option Plan check upon leaving employment. [Translation - That's a bunch of government gobbly gook to justify a government welfare program for cops and firemen]

The guaranteed interest rate for the Deferred Retirement Option Plan the past few years had been 8 percent or higher, regardless of how investments had done for the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System. The 2011 Legislature, recognizing the high cost to taxpayers, made the plan less enticing, and the guaranteed interest rate is now 4.4 percent. In addition, those hired on or after Jan. 1, 2012, are not eligible for the plan.

The Legislature changed the Deferred Retirement Option Plan and made other pension reforms following a series of stories in The Republic in November 2010 that documented the soaring financial burden on taxpayers and questionable practices, such as pension spiking, in public-pension systems across Arizona.

Williams, the former deputy chief, said he understands that large pension benefits can upset the public. Williams currently is a volunteer with the Phoenix Fire Department, where he spent decades as a firefighter. His current annual pension is $116,712, roughly what he made when he left the city.

“I’m not going to sit here and say I earned every nickel,” Williams said. “But was I going to say, ‘No, I don’t want it’?” [Translation - I screwed the taxpayers fair and square!!!!]

Republic reporter Dustin Gardiner contributed to this article.

Pensions - A government welfare program for cops and firemen???

Southeast Valley cities paying millions more to fund pensions

By Beth Duckett and Craig Harris The Republic | azcentral.com Tue May 7, 2013 11:10 AM

The price tag for Southeast Valley cities’ contributions to the pensions of police officers and firefighters has more than quadrupled as taxpayers have been forced to prop up the retirement system in the past decade.

Mesa and other cities are paying millions of dollars more to bankroll the retirements of employees in the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, which has been damaged by crushing investment losses, guaranteed cost-of-living increases and fewer employees paying into the system, according to interviews and records obtained by The Arizona Republic.

Those pension contributions are a big part of the escalating costs that have made it harder for Southeast Valley cities to balance budgets as revenues plummeted in the Great Recession. To make ends meet, cities have resorted to cutting public services, raising taxes, and scaling back or not hiring as many employees — including police officers and firefighters. [Duh, that should be obvious!!! In most city budgets the police account for 40 percent of the employees, and firemen account for the next 20 percent of the employees, with all other employees accounting for the remaining 40 percent of city employees. So cops and firemen account for around 60 percent of most cities budgets.]

Despite legislative efforts to reform the system, taxpayers have been on the hook to pump additional money into the retirement system, which is underfunded by $4.27 billion.

“It is very much a part of our budget discussions and we are very concerned about it,” Mesa Mayor Scott Smith said. “The reason we’re concerned is we’re having to pay greater costs to maintain staffing levels, and these are costs we have no control over.” [Yea, but you do have control over the number of cops you hire!!!]

Cities predict increasing pension costs every year based on past trends and projections, with no definitive end in sight.

“There is no doubt we’re going to have to look to see how we can create a pension plan that is sustainable and therefore will be there for all of our officers,” Smith said.

Public-safety representatives note that police officers and firefighters also contribute toward their pensions, and are not at fault for the market losses that played a major role in the decline of PSPRS.

“We view ourselves as victims,” said Levi Bolton, executive director of the Arizona Police Association, which represents nearly 13,000 public-safety officers statewide. [Yea, the police unions will say anything to justify higher wages. They always claim to be under paid along with being down and out to justify more money!]

The Arizona Legislature tried to change PSPRS by requiring public-safety officers to pay slightly more for their pensions and to temporarily stop cost-of-living increases for retirees in July 2012. As a result, a group of current and retired police officers sued the state, saying they want the cost-of-living increases restored and they shouldn’t have to pay more.

Legislators who have supported pension reform say there is little political resolve to make more changes until those lawsuits are resolved.

Public employees with pension plans “are in so much better shape than the taxpayers funding those plans,” said state Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills.

Kavanagh put forward a measure this session that he called an attempt to stabilize the state pension systems. It would ask voters to amend the Arizona Constitution, which protects public pensions by saying they cannot be diminished.

“It will either be the end of this session or next session when we’ll consider putting the constitutional amendment on the ballot for voters to approve,” Kavanagh said.

Cities’ costs spiral

Meanwhile, the costs for cities paying into the system continue to rise significantly.

Records obtained by The Republic show that, from fiscal 2003 to 2012, the PSPRS contributions paid by 12 major Valley cities, not including Phoenix, increased an average of 350 percent, often by millions of dollars.

In Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert and Tempe, the collective contributions made toward public-safety pensions totaled approximately $37 million in 2011-12, up from roughly $8 million in 2002-03.

Mesa saw the highest increase: $13.4 million.

“Most of the time we get the bill for these costs late in the city budget process, so at times it is a case of sticker shock,” Mesa Councilman Dennis Kavanaugh said. [Well, if you are getting sticker shock, you are probably not doing your job as a city councilman and planning for the city's future.]

Cities and taxpayers weren’t always on the hook to prop up the public-pension system.

Kavanaugh, who served on the City Council previously from 1996 to 2004, said cities were “rarely faced with increased charges such as we have seen in recent years.”

Before 2002, “as long as the fund balance was doing well, the employers didn’t have to contribute to the system,” said Bryan Jeffries, executive vice president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona and a Mesa fire captain.

After the collapse of the dot-com bubble in 2000 and 2001, PSPRS fund investments, which were heavily concentrated in technology and telecommunications, took a hit and the trust funding fell below 100 percent, meaning the value of assets no longer met the pension cost calculated for all current and future retirees.

The current funded ratio is about 59 percent, the second worst of Arizona’s public-pension systems, meaning it has enough money to pay for only 59 percent of its current and future liabilities.

Meanwhile, the number of retirees continues to grow every year.

On average, cities and other government agencies are paying higher contribution rates than public-safety employees, who have experienced no losses because their pensions are guaranteed.

Statewide, the average annual pension benefit is $49,480, according to PSPRS.

‘DROP’ adds fiscal pressure

In addition, records show hundreds of local police and fire employees have received lump-sum payouts in excess of $100,000 from the Deferred Retirement Option Plan.

To encourage veteran police officers and firefighters to stay on the job longer, public-safety employees can work an extra five years before retiring as part of DROP.

Upon entering DROP, employees no longer accrue credits for their years of service. At the end of the five years, participants typically receive a six-figure lump sum when they finally begin collecting their pensions.

Officers who work longer than 20 years but don’t take part in DROP can accrue more credits for their longer years of service. Their monthly pension benefits may exceed the one-time DROP payout over time.

In Arizona, the average DROP payment in Arizona is $238,048.

Six public-safety retirees in Mesa, Chandler and Tempe each received DROP payments in excess of $500,000, in addition to annual pensions greater than $80,000, according to PSPRS records. The average DROP payment in Mesa was $251,024.

Approximately 10,000 individuals, including surviving spouses and children of deceased officers, receive PSPRS benefits. A majority do not contribute into the federal Social Security retirement system. [Wow really is a welfare program, not only do the cops get the loot, but it also goes to their spouses and children!!!!!!]

Each city and town within the system is responsible for the pension liabilities of its current and retired employees and has its own contribution rate. The rate is a set percentage applied to every employee’s wages to determine an amount that is sent to the pension trust.

Tempe has some of the Valley’s highest contribution rates. The city will pay rates of 37.41 percent toward fire pensions and 33.58 percent toward police pensions as of July 1, according to PSPRS.

Tempe’s tab for public-safety pensions rose $7.8 million — from 2002-03 to 2011-12 — and is the second highest after Mesa.

“It isn’t until recently that the cost has grown to the point where it has become cumbersome and overburdensome to our budget,” said Ken Jones, Tempe finance and technology director.

Tempe, like other cities, was forced to cut back on services and downgrade employee wages as pension and health-insurance costs continued to rise and revenues dipped during the economic downturn.

Chandler seeks ‘balance’

Chandler taxpayers contributed $6.7 million toward public-safety retirements in 2011-12, up from $1.9 million in 2002-03.

Since 2009, Chandler has reduced its spending as a result of diminished revenue and higher costs, including pensions, said Dawn Lang, Chandler management services director. The city expects pension costs to continue rising year after year.

Chandler City Councilman Rick Heumann said the city’s pension situation is not as bad as those in other cities including Phoenix, which paid $93.8 million toward public-safety pensions in 2011-12, up from $7.2 million in 2002-03.

Police officers and firefighters “risk their lives every day,” Heumann said. “It’s important they are treated fairly and, obviously, the taxpayers are treated fairly as well.” [That is 100 percent BS!!!! Cop routinely give us the line they risk their lives every day to protect us, which is 100 percent BS. Year in and year out the 3 most dangerous jobs are fishermen, loggers and construction workers. Cops rarely fall into the top 10 most dangerous jobs. And job that requires driving a vehicle is a dangerous job, because auto accidents cause many fatalities and nasty injuries. So being a cop is a dangers job, just like being a truck driver or mailman is, because all those jobs require driving a vehicle, which makes the job dangerous. Yes, a few cops do get shot on the job, that is rare because most criminals are smart enough not to attacked arm people who can defend themselves. The most dangerous job when it comes to being shot in a crime are convenience and liquor store clerks. There jobs are far more dangerous then cops when it comes to being shot in a robbery.]

Chandler has taken action to curb additional retirement costs borne by taxpayers, he said.

Before a policy change that took effect several years ago, income that Chandler police officers earned while working extra duty after hours was taken into account when setting officers’ retirement rates.

The policy change stopped the practice but it “does not stop officers from working extra duty,” Heumann said.

Gilbert’s pension situation appears to be in better shape than many other communities, Mayor John Lewis said, after an inquiry from The Republic led him to research the town’s pension costs.

“We’re not seeing the dramatic increase in costs,” Lewis said. “Therefore, it has not been on my radar to fix it.”

Retirements for Gilbert’s Fire and Police departments are funded at 93 percent and 74.5 percent, respectively, which is higher than many other law-enforcement agencies.

Still, Gilbert’s costs rose $3.1 million from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2012, and budget forecasts show increases in costs for all pension funds, Management and Budget Manager Dawn Irvine said.

Fewer feet on the street

Records indicate many Valley municipalities have laid off or stopped hiring many public-safety employees during the recession, leading to fewer firefighters and officers patrolling the streets and leaving some cities vulnerable, said Bolton, a retired Phoenix police officer.

As of yet, Mesa has not stopped hiring public-safety officers as a result of pension costs but it is getting the point where it could, Smith said.

Overall personnel costs in the Mesa Police Department, including pensions, are set to rise again in the coming fiscal year, he said.

“We’re just having to spend more for the same benefit,” Smith said. “I’d much rather be able to hire a new police officer or pay the police officers more.” [Well, it sounds like Mesa Mayor Scott Smith has also sold out the taxpayers he pretends to represents for the special interest groups in the police department]

Workers have also endured layoffs, salary freezes and furloughs as cities slashed their budgets to weather the financial hardship, exacerbated in part by rising pension costs. With stagnant salaries and fewer employees contributing financially to the PSPRS trust, cities and towns are forced to dip into their already-lean budgets to pick up the rest of the tab.

Despite fewer officers, records show that most cities have not experienced an increase in reported crimes, and some cities reported decreases in crime rates, which Jim Mann, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police Arizona Labor Council, attributed to possible technological advances and fewer responding officers.

Bolton said the stress and continued criticism of the system have taken a toll on officers, who he said are also victims of poor investments and being unfairly blamed for the financial troubles of the PSPRS trust.

Long road to recovery

Public-safety officials estimate that it could be 10 to 15 years or longer before PSPRS reaches a healthy funding level and taxpayers aren’t on the hook to pour increasingly larger amounts of money into the system.

Jeffries said some legislators have used the troubled system as “an opportunity to try to make it out like the pension system is not sustainable and we should all go to defined-contribution plans,” such as 401(k)-type plans.

Jeffries said positive changes have been made to the PSPRS trust, including diversifying the system’s investment portfolio.

“Unfortunately, when you’re talking about a plan this size, a battleship can’t turn in a bathtub,” Jeffries said. “If there is any silver lining, we have learned never again will we allow employers to pay nothing. And we will never allow the fund to be so overweight in high-risk investments again.”

Reporter Gary Nelson contributed.

By the numbers

The median pension benefit for retired public-safety employees is $47,393, according to the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System.

In addition, some employees take part in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan. To encourage veteran police officers and firefighters to stay on the job longer, public-safety employees can work an extra five years before retiring.

Below are figures on pensions and DROP payments in the Southeast Valley. The figures are through this February.

Mesa

Retired employees in PSPRS: 558.

Average years of service: 20.

Average annual pension: $54,212.

Participants in DROP: 197.

Average DROP payment: $251,024.

Chandler

Retired employees in PSPRS: 118.

Average years of service: 22.

Average annual pension: $51,952.

Participants in DROP: 53.

Average DROP payment: $210,852.

Gilbert

Retired employees in PSPRS: 34.

Average years of service: 15.

Average annual pension: $46,492.

Participants in DROP: 3.

Average DROP payment: $143,743.

Tempe

Retired employees in PSPRS: 284.

Average years of service: 22.

Average annual pension: $52,871.

Participants in DROP: 91.

Average DROP payment: $206,133.

Source: PSPRS.

It's not about good government it's about money.

Source

DWP union is a big donor in mayor's race, its members get big pay

By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times

May 1, 2013, 8:23 p.m.

Employees at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, whose union is the single biggest contributor in the current mayoral race, earned average total pay of nearly $100,000 in 2011, according to a Times analysis of the most recent publicly available payroll data.

That's more than 50% higher than the average total pay of all other city employees, The Times found. It's also about 25% higher than employees at comparable public and private utilities, according to a report commissioned by the City Council last year.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents the vast majority of employees at the DWP, has made itself a key player and a central issue in the campaign by giving $1.45 million to an independent effort to elect mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel. That has made the union by far the largest single source of cash in the race.

The DWP has released far less detailed and current data about employee salaries than other city agencies. This week, the union signaled it plans to go to court in an effort to further delay the release of salary information about individual DWP workers.

In 2011, the DWP's $99,381 average total pay — which includes salary, overtime, and a wide range of other compensation such as unused sick and vacation time and cost of living bonuses — covered more than 10,000 department employees from the highest-paid engineers to the lowest paid temps and clerks, according to the Times' analysis.

The 2-year-old payroll snapshot showed General Manager Ron Nichols made $347,000. His five executive assistants averaged $198,000. Mechanics who install and repair power lines averaged $153,000. Service representatives who answer customer calls averaged $68,000.

The City Council-commissioned study last year found DWP workers received significantly higher compensation than those working at more than a dozen comparable utilities. Groundsmen and utility workers, for example, made 41% more and call center workers made 20% more, according to the report.

In February, The Times requested data showing what DWP employees made last year and how their pay has changed during the five years after the economic collapse. The Times requested — and received — the same data for other city employees.

After multiple delays, DWP officials were poised to provide the information Wednesday — three weeks before the election. But union officials notified the city attorney's office that they would seek a court order indefinitely delaying the release.

Such information is routinely made public by state and local governments across California, including the city of Los Angeles. In limited cases, courts have allowed the identities of undercover police officers and employees with restraining orders against violent stalkers to be withheld due to safety concerns.

DWP spokesman Joseph Ramallo said his agency eventually will release the payroll data, but only after administrators finish asking each worker if he or she has a reason to withhold the information.

William Carter, chief deputy in the city attorney's office, which advises the DWP, said the city would not join the union's legal battle, and the agency should release the information as soon as possible.

Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, said the delay appears to be designed to put off the release of pay data until after the May 21 election. "If there wasn't something embarrassing or unflattering, the information would already be public," he said. "This isn't the type of information you can delay indefinitely."

Organized labor has put more than six times as much money into the effort to elect Greuel than it has placed toward Eric Garcetti's bid. She has promised to initiate talks with city worker representatives, including at the DWP, to discuss sacrifices that may be needed to balance future budgets.

"I am committed to sitting with our union leaders to figure this out together," Greuel said in an email to The Times. "I will be able to bring labor to the table, because I have their trust." Garcetti has claimed the DWP union is trying to buy the election for Greuel and she would find it difficult to stand up to its members.

Labor leaders providing the most financial backing to Greuel's election effort have indicated they'll seek more money, not less, when they open contract negotiations with the new mayor next year. As city controller, Greuel provided five years of salary data for city workers not employed by the DWP, which has its own payroll system. The broader city data included names of employees, except at the Police Department. Greuel has repeatedly asked the police to provide names, but they have so far refused.

The police union is the second-biggest financial backer of Greuel's mayoral bid, having contributed $580,347 so far to independent pro-Greuel campaign activities. Officers' average total pay last year was $87,183.

The city firefighters union has spent $250,000 on Greuel's election effort.

Firefighters' average total pay rose 15% over the last five years, from $114,000 in 2008 to $132,000 in 2012. The increase was driven mostly by overtime, as the department reduced overall payroll costs by not replacing some 300 retiring firefighters.

Frank Lima, spokesman for the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, said he is not interested in pay cuts or trimming the workforce. He said he'll ask the new mayor to hire more firefighters when contract negotiations begin in 2014. Lima said the reductions in the size of the fire force have contributed to increased response times and left the department stretched dangerously thin.

The firefighters' unions contributions to assist Greuel are a response to Garcetti's vote as a City Council member to support reductions in Fire Department staffing, Lima said. "We needed to set the tone for the other politicians," he said. "You will not kick us in the ribs, decimate us, then walk into our union hall and ask for our endorsement."

Brian D'Arcy, head of the DWP union, did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story. He told the Times in February that he is expecting raises for his members from the new mayor.

The Times analysis found a quarter of DWP's employees made more than $100,000 in 2011. The department-wide average total pay of $99,381 dwarfed the average for all other city employees, which was $65,274, the Times found.

The DWP ratepayer advocate, Frederick Pickel, said in an interview that city utility workers' benefits and pay are higher than others in the industry. "They get at least 25% more [pay] and that doesn't count the value of their pension plan, which is at least as good if not better than other utilities' pension plans," he said.

DWP spokesman Ramallo initially refused to tell a reporter how much he made. In a follow-up conversation he said he made $218,000 in 2011.

That specific amount does not appear in the 2011 data the DWP provided. Seven employees worked the full year at Ramallo's rank of "Assistant General Manager." One made $210,392, three made $233,396, one made $235,601 and two made $249,446, records show. That year, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made $213,011.

jack.dolan@latimes.com

Times staff writers Maloy Moore and David Zahniser contributed to this report.

State Take-Back day gathers 13,000 lbs. of prescription medication

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State Take-Back day gathers 13,000 lbs. of prescription medication

Posted: Saturday, May 4, 2013 1:35 pm

Douglas W. Coleman, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), announced Thursday that Arizonans turned in 60 percent more pills than last year's Take-Back event, demonstrating the public’s continued appreciation and need for the opportunity to discard unwanted, unused and expired prescription drugs from medicine cabinets, bedside tables and kitchen drawers.

On April 27, 13,069 pounds (6½ tons) of prescription medications were collected from members of the public at more than 95 locations manned by over 60 state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies that partnered with DEA on the event. When added to the collections from DEA’s previous five Take-Back events, more than 48,000 pounds (24 tons) of prescription medications have been removed from circulation.

“We are pleased at the response of our communities once again, and we thank them for participating and contributing to the battle against prescription drug abuse,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Doug Coleman. “Our take-back events highlight the problems related to prescription drug abuse and give our citizens an opportunity to contribute to the solution. “These events are only made possible through the dedicated work and commitment of our state, local and tribal law enforcement partners, and DEA thanks each and every one of them for their efforts on behalf of the American people.”

The DEA’s Take-Back events are a significant piece of the White House’s prescription drug abuse prevention strategy released in 2011 by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Disposal of unwanted, unused or expired drugs is one of four strategies for reducing prescription drug abuse and diversion laid out in Epidemic: Responding to America’s Prescription Drug Abuse Crisis. The other strategies include education of health care providers, patients, parents and youth; enhancing and encouraging the establishment of prescription drug monitoring programs in all the states; and increased enforcement to address doctor shopping and pill mills.

Want to score some dope??? Try the Baltimore jail

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Baltimore jail case depicts a corrupt culture driven by drugs, money and sex

By Theresa Vargas, Ann E. Marimow and Annys Shin, Published: May 4

Inside a gray brick fortress, past a barbed-wire fence, two women in prison guard uniforms traded words about their pregnancies.

“Did he tell you we was having a son?” Tiffany Linder asked, according to court documents recounting the conversation. “Did you know about our baby?”

Chania Brooks said she didn’t care about that baby. That was their child, not hers.

“We having one, too,” she said. “So what?”

The two 27-year-old corrections officers at the Baltimore City Detention Center were sparring over an inmate who prosecutors said left both women with a permanent reminder of their allegiance to him.

To investigators, Tavon White is a thug who has been in and out of jail since he was 18, most recently on charges that he shot a fellow drug dealer four times. He is allegedly a high-ranking “bushman” in the Black Guerilla Family, a gang with a reputation for not just killing its enemies but also burning down their homes.

But during his three years at the state-run detention center, White, 36, was allegedly a figure who commanded respect, not only from fellow inmates in jumpsuits but also from many of the women in blue collared shirts and pressed slacks guarding him. Thirteen of them allegedly smuggled cellphones and drugs inside their hair, lunches and underwear for the man they called “Bulldog” or “Tay.” One tattooed his name on her neck, another on her wrist. Four have carried his children.

Through court documents, an affidavit from an FBI agent that contains transcripts of wiretapped conversations, and interviews with people familiar with White, the 13 officers indicted in April and the jail, a portrait emerges of a place where sex and drugs were swapped with stunning casualness, where thousands of dollars flowed in and out each week, and where one man’s power was, by all accounts, no match for a badge.

Just weeks before the two pregnant guards talked about the children they were expecting, a third allegedly pondered possible names for her son.

“What if I name the baby King?” Katera Stevenson, 24, asked in a wiretapped call to her sister recounted in the affidavit. “I like the name King. King Tavon White.”

‘A city within a city’

The Baltimore City Detention Center takes up most of a city block in East Baltimore, a little more than a mile from the Inner Harbor. The warren of seven buildings houses 2,000 or more prisoners awaiting trial for everything from writing bad checks to rape and murder.

It is a miserable place, with some parts more than 150 years old and conditions that state and local officials have been trying to fix for the past four decades. Its well-documented shortcomings have included rodent-infested cells, a lack of medical care for inmates and extreme temperatures.

In the winter, everyone shivers, former inmates say. In the summer, the heat can become unbearable in the parts of the facility that lack air conditioning. One former prisoner blogged about running a T-shirt under cold water, putting it on for a bit of relief, then within 15 minutes having to do it again.

In 1991, the state took over the detention center. In 2002, the Justice Department concluded that conditions there violated the constitutional rights of inmates.

Baltimore jail case depicts a corrupt culture driven by drugs, money and sex

“I hate going over there to visit clients, because it is so depressing,” said defense lawyer Warren A. Brown. The ventilation inside is so bad, he said, that past clients have told him what they appreciate most upon their release “is not their mama’s cooking but fresh air.”

The inmates vastly outnumber the 625 guards, who make a base salary of $35,000 to $45,000 a year but can earn considerably more through overtime. They receive five to six weeks of training before entering — without any weapons to protect themselves — what one former guard calls “a city within a city.”

After 2009 case, more than $1 million spent on anti-corruption measures; now legislators want investigation.

“It has its own government. It has its own rules. It has its own understanding,” said James McEachin, a former detention center corrections officer turned pastor. As a guard, he said, “once you go behind that door, it closes for you, too.”

It was here, in this troubled place, that White seized an opportunity. He used the jail’s lax security, its female guards and his unusually long three-year stay at the facility to build what prosecutors described as a lucrative drug-trafficking and money-laundering operation, complete with a “minister of finance.”

Some of the guards who allegedly conspired with White said they were in it solely for the cash.

“I am just about my money,” 25-year-old corrections officer Adrena Rice told White during a wiretapped call Feb. 10. She had no interest in relationships with inmates, who would want a cut of what she was earning by working for him. “Nah. I love money, Tay. I want my own money.”

The corruption extends far beyond the 13 women charged, the affidavit suggested, with one inmate estimating that as many as 70 percent of the corrections officers were compromised.

Gang members have long manipulated guards at Maryland’s prisons. Since 2010, 89 officers across the state, including five at the Baltimore detention center, have been terminated or forced to resign for fraternization or contraband, said state corrections spokesman Rick Binetti.

Gary D. Maynard, who was appointed head of the state’s troubled prison system by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) in 2007, acknowledged how deeply rooted the problems at the jail are. “The collusion, corruption, riots were part of this system for a long, long time,” he said. “We have exposed it now.”

What investigators found at the Baltimore jail astounded law enforcement officials across the country, who described it as “bizarre” and “unbelievable.”

“In all my years, and I’ve been in the business since 1960, I have never heard of this level of complicity,” said Arnett Gaston, the former commanding officer of New York City’s Rikers Island detention facilities and a retired University of Maryland criminal justice professor.

With the ease of ordering takeout, White used a smuggled cellphone to arrange exchanges between outside drug dealers and corrections officers, who brought the contraband to him to be sold inside the jail at huge markups, the affidavit alleged. Percocet went for $30 a pill; one-gram bags of marijuana sold for $50. The gang’s control was so complete that any non-member who tried to get in on the action had to pay a tax or risk physical harm.

In one taped conversation, White boasted that he made $15,800 that month, less than normal. “This is my jail. You understand that?” he said to a friend. “I’m dead serious. . . . I make every final call in this jail. . . . Everything come to me.”

‘A hustle game’

Chania Brooks’s hands were shaking. She had just seen an inmate get attacked by a fellow gang member, blood spilling from his head, the affidavit said.

She needed advice, so she went to get it. Not from a supervisor. From White.

“I abandoned my post,” Brooks said in an intercepted call between her and White. “I said, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ I thought he was going to have to go 911.”

Brooks has denied the charges against her, including the allegation that White fathered her child. When a reporter went to her home after the indictment was unsealed, she peeked out a partially open door and said, “I don’t have a story to tell.”

Calls to the other women were not returned, and attorneys for some of them declined to comment. Among the guards, only Linder has entered a plea. She told a judge last week that she is not guilty.

Documents that investigators recovered from the Black Guerrilla Family detail how its new members are taught to target specific officers. Look for women, they are told, with “low self-esteem, insecurities, and certain physical attributes.”

The manipulation of young female officers often starts with a smile or a brief conversation, said a former inmate very familiar with the gang’s tactics. Then the inmate slips the guard a few hundred bucks in exchange for bringing him a pack of cigarettes.

“Once that door is open, you find your way in,” said the former inmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of safety concerns. “It’s a hustle game.”

The gang also recruits relatives, girlfriends and fellow gang members without criminal records to apply for positions as corrections officers to establish a network of operatives within the prison walls, he said.

As many as 80 percent of corrections-officer applicants in the central region, which includes Baltimore, do not make it through the background investigation, said Binetti, the corrections spokesman.

Among those who do, women seem to dominate. More than 60 percent of the corrections officers in Baltimore’s jails are women, Maryland officials estimate. By comparison, women make up 37 percent of the guards in the District, a D.C. Corrections Department spokesman said.

Regardless of the jurisdiction, officials say, all guards receive training on how to deal with the con games they will encounter inside prisons. They are warned how easily a compliment can turn into a favor, which can turn into an obligation.

Jon Galley, a top Maryland corrections official, said he likes to show trainees a copy of a how-to guide, confiscated from an inmate’s cell, that lays out how to win over guards. The two pages of tips include dropping a “kite,” or love note, confessing to the officer that the inmate “felt a connection to her, that she was beautiful.”

James Gondles, executive director of the American Correctional Association, said he has little sympathy for the officers who ignored their training. They knew better.

“If they danced to the fiddler, they’ve got to pay the price,” he said. “And they danced to the fiddler.”

‘He’s a hunk’

After 2009 case, more than $1 million spent on anti-corruption measures; now legislators want investigation.

They danced, prosecutors said, to Tavon White.

Soon after White was born, court records show, his father began serving a life sentence for murder, and his mother struggled with drugs. He was raised largely by his grandparents and lived for a time in McCulloh Homes, a bleak public housing project in West Baltimore, said one family member.

His own troubles began early, court records show. He was expelled from middle school in eighth grade. By 19, he was a convicted murderer who would spend seven years behind bars.

It isn’t clear when his alleged gang ties began. His most recent charge — attempted murder — stems from a fight with one of his “boys” over a cocaine sale in 2009, according to court documents. White was charged with firing four bullets at close range into the man’s ankle, thighs and buttocks.

White, prosecutors said during his trial in December, wanted to make sure there was no doubt about who was in charge.

“Lesson learned: One shot at Tavon White’s ego gets you four in the body,” Assistant State’s Attorney Katie O’Hara told a Baltimore jury as White watched calmly from the defense table.

But White’s attorney, Melissa Phinn, raised doubts about the credibility and consistency of testimony from key witnesses, and the jury deadlocked on the attempted-murder charge. They had done the same in an earlier trial.

Now White is awaiting a third trial, scheduled for June, at the maximum-security North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland. Last week, he pleaded not guilty in federal court to racketeering, money-laundering and drug-dealing charges.

What his criminal history doesn’t reveal, a family member said, is the loyal grandson and doting father who attended PTA meetings, accompanied his children to church and took them to Six Flags and Sesame Place. (In January, White called his grandmother Bessie Timmons from the detention center to tick off the due dates of the guards he had impregnated, according to the affidavit.)

In jail, he played chess and read novels, court records show. Between prison stints, he cleaned swimming pools and packed boxes for a moving company. That is what he was doing when he met Danielle Hall at a Wendy’s down the street from McCulloh Homes. The two moved in together and had a daughter, who is now 7.

“Tavon will always be a good guy in my book,” said Hall’s mother, who asked not to be identified by name, because of safety concerns. She said she was floored by the allegations that White was a gang leader at the detention center but not by his appeal to so many of the female corrections officers.

“He’s a hunk,” she said. “He’s got a mean-looking body, a body that’s all that, that says, ‘Catch me if you can.’ ”

‘I’m dirty’

Jennifer Owens had her diamond ring and her flashy cars and the name of the man who had provided them tattooed on her neck, according to the indictment. The 31-year-old corrections officer, who lives in Randallstown, drove around in two ­Mercedes-Benzes — one black and one white — allegedly financed by the gang leader.

In return, she gave him two children in two years.

“Like really, who the [expletive] does that?” Owens said in an intercepted call to an unidentified woman in October. She called herself dumb but also said, “I don’t regret it.”

After 2009 case, more than $1 million spent on anti-corruption measures; now legislators want investigation.

Several former detention center guards said White could not have run such a large criminal enterprise without the help of higher-ups, tacit or explicit. But none have been implicated.

Maynard, the prison system chief, said that may change. State corrections officials are interviewing everyone to “cleanse” the detention center’s officer ranks. Some people will be polygraphed.

“They need to dig deep” to hold jail managers accountable, said Patrick Moran, president of Maryland Council 3 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union that represents the corrections officers.

The challenge will be changing the culture of a place where, according to the affidavit, the names of 14 female guards were scrawled on a wall along with the price they allegedly charged for sexual favors: $150.

It is an environment, former corrections officers said, where it is hard to know whom to trust among the keepers and the kept.

When corrections officers report to work, they have to pass through a metal detector and receive a pat-down from a colleague, the affidavit noted. But they could simply wait for a friendly face before bringing in contraband.

At the detention center, corrections officers also had little fear of losing their jobs if they were caught smuggling. In one wiretapped call, an officer told an inmate about getting transferred from the jail to the intake center next door: “It ain’t nothing new. I got moved over there basically because I’m dirty.”

At least one of the 13 officers charged had been accused of gang ties at the detention center before. In 2008, inmate Tashma McFadden sued officer Antonia Allison, 27, for allegedly allowing a group of inmates who belonged to the Bloods to attack him in his cell. McFadden was stabbed 32 times; Allison, who denied having gang ties, remained on the job. Allison could not be reached for comment.

“We let her get a second chance. Why?” asked McFadden, who is no longer incarcerated and settled his suit with Allison. “The average guy in there, we’re not giving him a chance.”

Investigators were told that White and other gang leaders had informal agreements with jail officials: They would reduce violence inside the detention center and, in exchange, officials would “turn a blind eye to contraband smuggling and actively protect White and the [Black Guerilla Family] by warning them of investigations,” according to the affidavit.

One such warning allegedly came from Tiffany Linder, who had worked at Wal-Mart and Panera, her uncle said, before she was hired to be a guard three years ago. Investigators say the pregnant guard alerted White in January that cells were going to be searched.

“I just got a message saying they going to pull a shake-down tonight,” White said in a phone call afterward. “Let me call all these dudes in my phone and let them know.”

He quickly passed along the news to men with nicknames such as Hammer, Fatboy, Ack and Flatline.

An inmate’s legacy

In February, White was transferred out of the detention center. Last week, Maynard moved his office into the warden’s conference room.

On Friday, the prison chief arrived at the detention center at 6:30 a.m. so he could watch the morning shift report to work and go through security. Then Maynard went off to meetings with a leather folder tucked under his arm. Inside were business cards and important papers, including one sheet titled, “Why did this happen?” He said he intends to find out.

“If you have an issue and you fire somebody here or there and move on, you haven’t really solved the problem,” Maynard said. “Exposing ourselves to an internal investigation is risky and difficult, but it was the only way to get at the core problem.”

All 13 corrections officers who are awaiting trial have been suspended without pay. The case against them could take two months to lay out for a jury, prosecutors say.

No matter what happens in court or at the jail in the months to come, one fact remains indisputable: Tavon White ensured his legacy.

Tiffany Linder is due any day.

Peter Hermann and Jennifer Jenkins contributed to this report.

Government gets attorneys to snitch on clients???

Attorney turns on clients

By Robert Anglen The Republic | azcentral.com Sat May 4, 2013 2:14 PM

The biggest opponent facing two Arizona businessmen on trial last month for tax evasion was not the federal prosecutor.

It was their lawyer, the government’s star witness in the case against them.

Businessmen Stephen Kerr and Michael Quiel say the California lawyer who for years gave them legal advice also was supplying federal investigators with information used to indict them.

The case raises questions about legal procedures and attorney-client privilege, one of the most sacrosanct legal protections the law affords.

The case also provides insight into the way offshore shell companies are used to conceal revenue so that it isn’t counted as income, which the Internal Revenue Service says is one of the nation’s top ongoing tax scams.

The IRS for several years has been targeting people who are hiding income in offshore banks, brokerage accounts or corporations called nominee entities.

“Others have employed foreign trusts, employee-leasing schemes, private annuities or insurance plans for the same purpose,” the IRS said in a bulletin called the “Dirty Dozen Tax Scams for 2013.”

Kerr, of Scottsdale, and Quiel, of Fountain Hills, were accused of setting up accounts tied to foreign companies and using stock transactions to avoid paying taxes on millions of dollars. They also were accused of moving money to the United States through their lawyer’s trust accounts.

Their former lawyer, Christopher Rusch, in San Diego, turned state’s evidence against his clients in exchange for a reduced sentence. He admitted conspiring with Kerr and Quiel to hide assets from the government.

“If your lawyer gets up on the stand and calls you a crook, you’ve got a problem,” said Houston attorney Michael Minns, who specializes in tax cases and now represents Quiel.

Minns said Quiel and Kerr were duped by Rusch into believing the transactions were legal. He said when federal authorities began investigating, Rusch secured a deal and provided them with documents and other information that were products of his legal work.

Courts typically afford attorney-client communication the same confidentiality given to husbands and wives, doctors and patients and clergy and their congregants. The purpose is to ensure that a client can discuss any legal issue with an attorney without fear that the information will be disclosed.

But there are exceptions, chiefly the “crime-fraud exception,” which does not allow the attorney-client privilege to be used to further a crime or in cases in which an attorney was hired to facilitate illegal activity.

Arizona U.S. District Court Judge James Tielborg, however, ruled the exception was moot since Quiel and Kerr used communications from Rusch to challenge the government’s case and show they were acting on their lawyer’s advice.

“Kerr cannot invoke the attorney-client privilege to deny the government the very communications and information it must refute in order to prove that defendants conspired to defraud the United States,” Tielborg said.

The government initially charged Quiel and Kerr with multiple counts of tax fraud, including conspiracy. A jury last month convicted them on two counts each of filing false income-tax returns in 2007 and 2008.

Kerr was convicted on two additional charges of failing to file a report disclosing foreign accounts.

United States residents with control of or interest in any account in a foreign country worth more than $10,000 are required to file a Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts Report.

Federal prosecutors said Rusch helped Quiel and Kerr set up bank accounts in Switzerland, the Caribbean and Panama, then created intermediary companies to move money and stock through them.

In court documents, prosecutors described how the transactions worked. For example, one of the Swiss companies was called Red Rock Investment AG. It was created in 2006. A year later, Kerr opened a bank account at UBS in Switzerland. Kerr was the beneficiary, and Rusch had signatory control over the account. The account held balances of more than $750,000.

According to court documents, Rusch and Kerr deposited 400,000 shares of stock into the Red Rock account in 2007. They directed the UBS account manager to sell the stock when the share price hit a certain point.

Quiel was involved in several similar transactions, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Quiel and Kerr directed Rusch to transfer some of the money in the undeclared accounts back to the United States through trust accounts set up by Rusch.

These accounts, called Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts, are used by lawyers to generate interest on client money. The revenue generated by the trusts often goes to establish low-income legal-aid grants.

Prosecutors said Rusch transferred approximately $2 million through his trust account so Kerr could buy a golf course in Erie, Colo. He also used the trust to transfer $955,000 for Quiel, writing checks that Quiel could cash at an Arizona bank.

In court filings, Kerr said Rusch advised them on how to set up the foreign companies and accounts and told them that U.S. reporting requirements were minimal.

He pointed to an October 2006 e-mail from Rusch “stating that they could own about 4 percent of the foreign company without reporting control over the ... accounts.”

Kerr said Rusch told them that “because the Swiss company was making direct investments, and the defendants’ ownership interest was small,” they wouldn’t have to report most of the transactions.

“Rusch assured the defendants that the scenario was “very clean” and that any U.S. reporting would be based on the Swiss tax return,” Kerr said in court filings.

Sentencing in June

Quiel and Kerr face up to five years in prison on each count when they are sentenced in June.

Minns, however, said the case is not the victory that federal prosecutors would have the public believe.

Despite the government’s claims that his clients attempted to evade taxes, prosecutors could not point to any unpaid tax obligations, Minns said. He said prosecutors could not prove that Quiel or Kerr owed any taxes in 2007 and 2008.

In fact, he said, Quiel received a $500,000 tax return one year and never cashed the check. He said the check was offered to the jury as evidence.

If they didn’t owe taxes, then how can they be accused of tax fraud, Minns asked.

He said that explains why the jury failed to convict on the most serious of the charges, conspiracy.

The Department of Justice would not comment on the case Friday.

Brian Watson, spokesman for the IRS criminal division in Phoenix, also declined comment.

“The jury verdict speaks for itself,” he said.

Robert Anglen and Veronica Sanchez lead the Call 12 for Action team, focused on issues important to Arizona consumers. Contact the reporter at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @robertanglen.

U.S. used severe torture on detainees

Mercury News editorial: U.S. used severe torture on detainees

Posted: 05/03/2013 01:00:00 PM PDT

It is indisputable that agents of our government used severe torture techniques on detainees suspected of having terrorist ties. That is the conclusion of a report by an independent panel after an intense, two-year investigation into America's treatment of detainees.

Most of us already figured that was the case, and some -- former Vice President Dick Cheney -- comes to mind -- probably don't care. But to have it confirmed by a credible source is agonizing.

The Constitution Project's Task Force on Detainee Treatment found that the interrogation techniques used were "cruel, inhuman or degrading" and violated U.S. laws as well as international treaties. They ran counter to the values of the Constitution Americans claim to hold sacred.

And despite assertions in the movie "Zero Dark Thirty," the report says little credible information was derived from such techniques, especially as to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

The panel acknowledges that it had no subpoena power and that some people claim national security prevents disclosure of what was truly learned. But the task force decided to accept the assertions of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which had access to sensitive documents, and found no connection.

The Constitution Project -- a watchdog group that has been around for about 15 years -- undertook the detainee project because no one else would.

Both President Barack Obama and Congress refused to do so. Obama said it would be "unproductive to look backward" and Congress rejected a proposal by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to investigate.

The report is the opposite of unproductive. An honest self-examination is vital to the very essence of democracy and informs future decisions.

For example, panel extensively examined issues surrounding the infamous U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; whether it should be closed and, if so, what should be done with the detainees who are there. Fortunately, Obama is again raising the topic of closing the prison. We suggest this report as good reading for him and Congress as they move forward.

The lengthy report is nonpartisan, fair and doesn't bash individuals. It notes that while much of the rendition activity was prompted by Sept. 11 fear and occurred during the Bush administration, such practices began in the Clinton administration. It also acknowledges that those who undertook questionable measures did so "as their best efforts to protect their fellow citizens."

The Constitutional Project has no veiled agenda. It is co-chaired by Asa Hutchison, a former Republican congressman who served in the Bush administration, and James Jones, a former Democrat congressman who Camp Delta military-run prison, at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base, Cuba. (Brennan Linsley/AP) was chairman of the House Budget Committee and later U.S. ambassador to Mexico. The membership list includes such luminaries as William Sessions, FBI director under three presidents. It conducted on-the-ground fact-finding in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lithuania, Poland, the United Kingdom and, yes, Guantánamo Bay.

Every American should read the findings. The report is online at www.detaineetaskforce.org.

Former U.S. Rep. Renzi’s corruption trial set

Former U.S. Rep. Renzi’s corruption trial set

By Dennis Wagner The Republic | azcentral.com Sat May 4, 2013 9:28 PM

Six years after his congressional career ended amid an FBI corruption probe, former U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi is expected to get his day in court with a trial that opens on Tuesday in Tucson.

The three-term Republican House member, who pleaded not guilty, is accused of extortion, fraud, racketeering, money laundering and other crimes involving his insurance business and his conduct as a legislator.

The U.S. District Court case file reveals a web of political intrigue amid a tangle of legal complications. So far, three dozen attorneys have taken part in litigation, which has produced more than 1,145 motions, briefs, responses, judicial rulings and appeals.

Among the mysteries as the trial convenes: Who tipped off federal investigators? Why? What will Renzi’s defense strategy be? And will he take the witness stand?

The defense team declined comment, but it is clear from legal papers that the trial will involve contrasting depictions of the 54-year-old businessman turned politician.

Prosecutors are poised to describe Renzi as a manipulator who embezzled money from business customers, funneled the cash into his election treasury and used his legislative power to profit from an extortion conspiracy.

The defense is geared to present Renzi as a pragmatist whose private and public dealings overlapped but were not criminal; or, perhaps, as the victim of political enemies who dragged him down with help from overzealous federal agents.

Spelling out narratives likely will require more than a month of the trial, dozens of witnesses and tens of thousands of pages of evidence.

“This is just going to be fascinating,” said Mike Black, a Phoenix attorney who briefly represented one of Renzi’s co-defendants. “I might even go down there just to watch.”

Winding through appeals

Renzi was first indicted in February 2008 and eventually faced 49 felony counts.

The charges arise from two sets of allegations that, if true, would constitute a betrayal of the public trust and corruption of the U.S. political system: First, Renzi is accused of defrauding clients at his Patriot Insurance Agency by taking funds that were intended as premiums and using the money to win his first House race in 2002. Second, Renzi is charged with orchestrating a land-swap deal after taking office to benefit a real-estate investor who owed him money.

While it is not unusual for white-collar cases to defy the speedy-trial model of justice, Renzi’s litigation has been particularly glacial due to rare constitutional issues that come with prosecution of a former member of Congress.

Delays included two appeals handled by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and numerous hearings to resolve disputes.

Defense attorneys partially succeeded in efforts to get charges thrown out and evidence suppressed but failed in a bid to disqualify the Justice Department team based on claims of prosecutorial misconduct. Among the pretrial issues that had to be sorted out by U.S. District Judge David Bury:

FBI agents who monitored wiretaps improperly listened to phone calls between Renzi and his attorneys, destroyed their notes and misled a judge about the conversations. Bury found the government’s conduct egregious and suppressed all evidence from electronic surveillance. [Sadly the police routinely act like the criminals they are trying to arrest. When FBI agents and other cops routinely lie in their daily work, how can we possibly expect them to tell the truth in a trial.]

Defense attorneys contended that charges of embezzlement were bogus because, as Renzi’s companies were structured, he merely borrowed money. The Appeals Court agreed.

Perhaps most significantly, defense lawyers contended that all charges related to the land-swap deal should be dropped because a clause in the U.S. Constitution prohibits the criminal investigation of a federal lawmaker for legislative acts.

Under the so-called Speech or Debate Clause, Renzi’s attorneys argued, the Justice Department violated U.S. law not just by wiretapping the congressman, but by interviewing his staffers and obtaining his records.

The constitutional provision was drafted to prevent the executive branch from using its law-enforcement authority as a political weapon against opponents in Congress. Members of the House and Senate are generally immune to criminal prosecution for their legislative conduct.

In this case, House lawyers filed briefs supporting Renzi’s legal position while the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington argued on behalf of the government.

The Speech or Debate question went to the 9th Circuit, which ruled that Renzi’s conduct was not protected.

Still, the issue is likely to resurface during the trial, and House lawyers have asked to remain as players in future courtroom disputes.

Setbacks for prosecutors

The government has suffered a number of setbacks leading up to the trial.

Sixteen counts against Renzi have been dismissed so far, including a tax charge that was thrown out a few weeks ago. Andrew Beardall, Renzi’s lawyer in the insurance case, was acquitted. Dwayne Lequire, the insurance-company accountant, was found guilty but the Appeals Court overturned his verdict and issued an acquittal.

The investigation and prosecution have cost U.S. taxpayers and defendants untold millions. Lequire is now seeking more than $400,000 from the government as compensation for his legal expenses. His attorney, Mark Willimann, said the Justice Department keeps losing in Renzi’s case because prosecutors went “well beyond the realm of decency” in filing charges.

Although the case was launched under the administration of Republican President George W. Bush and former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton, also a Republican, Willimann said he believes it was orchestrated by Democrats to oust a GOP incumbent.

“This is purely political,” he said. “Renzi did nothing wrong here. ... I think the government is in (cover-up) mode. They’ve got a tiger by the tail, and they didn’t realize the tail was long enough for Mr. Renzi to turn around and bite them.”

A Justice Department spokesman declined comment.

Controversial mine plan

Richard George Renzi, an insurance and real-estate entrepreneur who also owned a southern Arizona vineyard, was elected to Arizona’s 1st Congressional District in 2002, the year he got his law degree. He was viewed as a conservative Catholic with 12 kids and a wide-open political future.

In 2005, Resolution Copper Mining was seeking to trade about 5,000 acres of private property for 2,400 acres of government land near Superior — a parcel containing one of America’s richest remaining copper deposits. Mining plans call for excavation up to 7,000 feet underground to exploit an estimated $61 billion in ore, providing 3,700 jobs.

Such real-estate swaps require congressional approval.

According to prosecutors, Renzi vowed to block legislation unless Resolution purchased and included a 480-acre alfalfa field from business associate James Sandlin, who owed him money. On the other hand, if Sandlin’s property was part of the deal, Renzi ensured approval, according to prosecutors. [If you ask me that sure sounds like a conflict of interest.]

Sandlin, convicted by a Texas jury in 2008 on related charges of filing false financial information, is going to trial on Tuesday with Renzi to face additional charges. His attorney did not respond to an interview request.

The indictment says Resolution balked at Renzi’s extortion attempt. A group of other speculators, including former Arizona governor and ex-Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, then bought Sandlin’s land and agreed to make it part of the exchange, according to the indictment, and Renzi introduced legislation to authorize the deal.

That bill died after FBI agents raided Renzi’s home and news leaked of a possible indictment. It is impossible to say whether the scandal damaged future prospects for the controversial land swap. However, 11 bills have failed in Congress so far, opposed by some conservation groups, the Apache tribe and Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz..

In December, Resolution announced that it was dismissing 400 workers and essentially abandoning the project.

Two months later, Arizona’s congressional delegation offered a 12th version of the land-exchange bill. That, too, appears to be stalled.

Grijalva said he has repeatedly voted against the project because Resolution and its congressional sponsors will not agree to an environmental review and a more careful valuation of the copper reserves before the deal is struck. He said the Superior mine could have severe ecological impacts but would be nearly impossible to stop if land is transferred into private ownership.

Grijalva said Renzi’s trial may bring out more information about the land-exchange deal and the mining company’s role.

“It puts Resolution Copper front and center,” he said. “I think there’s some exposure that’s going to happen. ... And I believe the asset in the ground — the copper — is worth much, much more than the trade we’re getting.”

Grijalva and others said Resolution officials have been portrayed as “white hats” — good guys who blew the whistle on corruption — but Renzi’s defense attorneys likely will challenge their motives and credibility.

“This trial is as much a difficult situation for the company as it is for Renzi,” he said. “The defense is going to be vigorous, and it has to be against the company.”

Resolution Copper has been represented by lobbyist Ron Ober, a longtime Democratic Party operative who once served as chief of staff for former Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz. Ober works with public-relations specialist Troy Corder, a former staffer for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Arizona Govs. Fife Symington and Jane Dee Hull.

Neither Ober nor Corder would comment on the Renzi trial or its impact on the planned copper project in Superior.

Jennifer Russo, director of communications at Resolution’s parent company, Rio Tinto Copper Group, said the land-swap bill was affected by Renzi’s controversy while he was in office, but today’s legislation is moving forward with bipartisan support. She emphasized that, in the criminal case, Resolution “did nothing wrong and is a cooperating government witness.”

If a land swap is approved, Russo said, a full environmental report will be completed before mining gets under way.

“We are pleased with the progress being made in the 113th Congress,” she added, “and we are working through all issues and concerns that have been raised.”

Reach the reporter at dennis.wagner@arizonarepublic.com.

Timeline

2001

Republican Rick Renzi runs for Congress. Authorities later allege that he funneled money from insurance clients into his campaign treasury.

2002

Renzi wins election over Democrat George Cordova.

Federal Election Commission orders audit of Renzi campaign finances.

2004

FEC audit says Renzi made $369,000 in “impermissible” loans to his campaign.

Renzi is re-elected, defeating Paul Babbitt.

2005

Resolution Copper begins trying to orchestrate a real-estate swap to obtain copper-rich federal land near Superior.

Authorities allege that Renzi told Resolution that there will be no deal unless property owned by business associate James Sandlin is included. Resolution reportedly balks.

2006

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington names Renzi among 20 “most corrupt” members of Congress.

Department of Justice secretly approves FBI wiretaps and search warrants targeting Renzi.

News leaks of possible indictment.

Renzi is elected to a third term, defeating Ellen Simon.

2007

FBI raids Renzi’s business.

Renzi resigns from House Intelligence Committee, then announces he will not seek a fourth term.

2008

Renzi is indicted on 35 counts.

A superseding indictment lists 49 felonies.

2010

All wiretap evidence is suppressed from Renzi’s future trial due to FBI misconduct.

Judge refuses to disqualify Justice Department team for prosecutorial misconduct.

2011

9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refuses to throw out case based on claims of congressional immunity.

2012

After failure of 11 land-swap bills, Resolution Copper shuts down planned operations near Superior.

2013

Members of Arizona delegation introduce new land-exchange measure.

May 7: Renzi trial scheduled to begin.

Source: U.S. District Court records and Arizona Republic archives

California cities can ban pot shops

State's high court: Calif. cities can ban pot shops

By Lisa Leff Associated Press Mon May 6, 2013 11:13 AM

SAN FRANCISCO — California cities and counties can ban pot shops, the state’s highest court ruled Monday in a unanimous opinion likely to further diminish California’s once-robust medical marijuana industry.

The California Supreme Court said neither the state’s voter-approved law legalizing medical marijuana nor a companion measure adopted by the Legislature prevent local governments from using their land use and zoning powers to prohibit storefront dispensaries.

The ruling came in a legal challenge to a ban enacted by the city of Riverside in 2010.

“While some counties and cities might consider themselves well-suited to accommodating medical marijuana dispensaries, conditions in other communities might lead to the reasonable decision that such facilities within their borders, even if carefully sited, well managed, and closely monitored, would present unacceptable local risks and burdens,” Justice Marvin Baxter wrote for the seven-member court.

The advocacy group Americans for Safe Access estimates another 200 jurisdictions statewide have similar prohibitions on retail pot sales. Many were enacted after the number of retail medical marijuana outlets boomed in Southern California after a 2009 memo from the U.S. Justice Department said prosecuting pot sales would be a low priority.

However, the rush to outlaw pot shops has slowed in the 21 months since the four federal prosecutors in California launched a coordinated crackdown on dispensaries by threatening to seize the property of landlords who lease space to the shops. Hundreds of dispensary operators have since been evicted or closed voluntarily.

Marijuana advocates have argued that allowing local governments to bar dispensaries thwarts the intent of the state’s medical marijuana law — the nation’s first — to make the drug accessible to residents with doctor’s recommendations to use it.

Riverside city lawmakers used their zoning authority to declare storefront pot shops as public nuisances and ban the operations in 2010. The Inland Empire Patient’s Health and Wellness Center, part of the explosion of retail medical marijuana outlets, sued to stop the city from shutting it down.

A number of counties and cities were awaiting the Supreme Court ruling before moving forward with bans of their own.

A mid-level appeals court previously sided with the city of Riverside, but other courts have come to opposite conclusions. Last summer, a trial judge ruled that Riverside County could not close medical marijuana dispensaries in unincorporated areas because the move did not give the shops any room to operate legally under state law.

Meanwhile, an appeals court in Southern California struck down Los Angeles County’s 2-year-old ban on dispensaries, ruling state law allows cooperatives and collectives to grow, store and distribute pot.

The Supreme Court’s decision might not be the last word on the issue, however. Pending legislation would establish a new statewide system for regulating and licensing the medical marijuana industry and clarify the role of dispensaries in it.

Activists also are in the early stages of planning a ballot initiative that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana and regulate it like alcohol, as voters in Washington and Colorado did last year.

Phoenix: Red-light deal for photo radar bandits extended in error

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Phoenix: Red-light deal extended in error

By Matthew Seeman Special for The Republic | azcentral.com Mon May 6, 2013 10:16 PM

Phoenix leaders said staffers erred when they recently approved a contract extension to continue using red-light cameras at intersections and speed cameras in roving vans.

City officials now say they must review the contract with Redflex Traffic Systems. City staff did approve a one-year contract extension with the company. However, after an article appeared in The Arizona Republic highlighting the move, city leaders said it was “improperly extended.”

“We made a mistake,” said Jeff Dewitt, the city’s chief financial officer.

Dewitt said the City Manager’s Office should have been informed about the renewal before approval. The city will now conduct a “fair and full analysis,” which will include a data review and a look at what other cities have done. At that point, city leaders and the council could have a policy discussion about the cameras.

“We are working to make sure the proper procedures are in place so this doesn’t happen again,” Dewitt said.

The city created the contract in 2009 after ending one with American Traffic Solutions. There are 12 red-light cameras at intersections programmed to photograph a vehicle when it runs a red light or makes an illegal right turn on red. Phoenix also uses speed cameras in eight vans that are moved among school zones.

Local and state governments have faced criticism for using the cameras. Critics question their effectiveness, accuracy, cost and whether the cameras constitute an invasion of privacy.

One state lawmaker proposed banning all photo-enforcement systems, but his bill failed. Surprise ended its contract with Redflex.

“People will be speeding up until the point of the ‘photo enforced’ signs and the cameras, then slam on their brakes, causing everyone behind them to also slam on their brakes,” said Jennifer Crane, 22, a student at Arizona State University.

Phoenix officials, however, believe the cameras work and in January, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an insurance-industry-funded research group, released a study saying cameras effectively reducde red-light running in Arlington, Va.

Phoenix police Sgt. Tommy Thompson said people tend to drive appropriately when they know a red-light camera can catch an infraction.

Data provided by the Phoenix Street Transportation Department show a drop in crashes involving red-light running and a reduction in total crashes at the 12 intersections that have cameras.

The data show that the average number of crashes per year involving red-light running at the intersections has fallen by about 44percent — from an average of 39.7 to 22.3 — since the company installed the cameras. However, the reporting periods weren’t an exact comparison.

The numbers are based on Arizona Department of Transportation information. The city department also noted in its report that total miles driven in the city have fallen because of the poor economy.

The number of Phoenix collisions in general has climbed. The city had more than 31,000 collisions in 2011, according to data collected by ADOT, up from 29,000 in 2010. However, the number of fatal crashes fell during the same time frame, to 124 from 134.

“They slow down,” Jody Ryan, director of communications for Redflex, said of drivers. “They don’t run red lights.”

Phoenix officials also say the cameras deter traffic infractions. Kerry Wilcoxon, a traffic engineer with the Street Transportation Department, said he was skeptical but has since changed his mind.

“The overall impression is that they’ve been saving a lot of lives,” Wilcoxon said.

Police have said several factors go into locating cameras: speed, number and seriousness of accidents, and fatalities.

There is a plan to add two red-light cameras, Wilcoxon said, but the intersections have not been finalized. Installing the cameras would not cost the city money. The city’s contract calls for installation costs to be provided by the camera provider. The company is paid on the basis of citations that result in court fines.

Redflex had received about $1.3 million from Phoenix citations through last December, according to city documents. Fees can range from about $211 to $290, depending on the citation, according to the city. Redflex receives about $34 from each citation.

There were nearly 40,000 photo-enforcement citations issued from July to December 2011, according to Wilcoxon.

Was Debra Milke framed by the Phoenix police for murder???

Arizona denied reversal in Milke death-row case

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Mon May 6, 2013 10:12 PM

Debra Milke, one of three women on Arizona’s death row, moved a step closer to escaping execution after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday denied a petition by the state attorney general to reconsider an earlier decision to throw out her murder conviction.

Milke was accused in 1989 and later convicted of dressing up her 4-year-old son in his favorite clothes and cowboy boots to see Santa Claus and, instead, sending him off to be shot execution-style in a desert wash.

On Monday, the 9th Circuit denied a petition by Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne to either reconsider its earlier decision to dismiss Milke’s conviction and death sentence, or to allow the appeal to be heard by the full bench of the court.

In March, a three-judge panel of the appellate court threw out her death sentence and murder conviction, saying the trial court refused to let her introduce evidence that might have discredited her supposed confession.

The Phoenix police detective who claimed Milke confessed to him had a history of lying to grand juries, according to the March court opinion, and extracting confessions even from unconscious suspects on hospital gurneys. There were no witnesses to the confession, it was not recorded, and Milke denied she ever confessed.

Horne is considering whether to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

Stephanie Grisham, a Horne spokeswoman, wrote in a statement to The Arizona Republic that the agency “will promptly decide” whether to petition the Supreme Court to review the case. If Horne does not petition the high court, she wrote, the case will go back to the District Court to determine whether there are other personnel records related to the detective — “meaning to determine if there is anything new we can offer the court to show why she should remain on death row,” Grisham wrote.

If there isn’t, she wrote, Milke will be released unless the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office notifies the court of its intent to retry her. A spokesman for the County Attorney’s Office said no determination has been made because the case has not been returned to it.

Milke’s attorney, Lori Voepel, said, “We are very pleased that the 9th Circuit denied the petition for rehearing and do not believe there is a constitutional basis to support a petition for (an appeal) to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We look forward to what we hope will be an expedited process with the state and Police Department in obtaining Detective (Armando) Saldate’s personnel files.”

California objects to moving inmates because of fungus

Source

California objects to moving inmates because of fungus

Associated Press Mon May 6, 2013 7:59 PM

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — It is premature to move more than 3,000 inmates out of two state prisons until more is known about an airborne fungus that is being blamed for nearly three-dozen inmate deaths and hundreds of hospitalizations, Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration said in a court filing Monday night.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the affiliated National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health agreed last week to study problems with valley fever at Avenal and Pleasant Valley state prisons.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of San Francisco should wait for the centers’ recommendations before enforcing an order last week by the federal official who controls prison medical care, the administration said.

J. Clark Kelso, the federal receiver, says more black, Filipino and medically at-risk inmates have contracted the illness, leading to his order that the state exclude them from the prisons.

That would mean moving about 40 percent of the 8,200 inmates at the two prisons just as the state faces a federal court order to reduce prison crowding statewide to improve conditions for sick and mentally ill inmates.

Brown has been aggressively fighting the crowding order, which requires the state to reduce its prison population by another 9,000 inmates by year’s end. He defended his approach Monday in his first public comments since his administration filed its inmate-reduction plan last week.

The governor said California has spent billions on prison construction and hiring medical staff in recent years.

“We have an incredible transformation, and for some reason people say, ‘Gee, nothing happened,’” Brown said.

The state is preparing to move about 600 medically high-risk inmates out of the two prisons by August, but the complexity of swapping thousands of vulnerable inmates with other inmates who are less susceptible to valley fever makes it difficult to comply with Kelso’s larger order, the state argued. It also says Kelso’s order is confusing about which inmates could stay and which would have to go.

Ordering the inmates out also is premature until officials can learn whether other steps taken by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation are effective in limiting the exposure of all inmates and staff to the dust that carries the disease, the state said.

The department is trying to control dust during construction, giving surgical masks to inmates and employees who ask for them, and providing education materials to employees and inmates. The corrections department also is installing air filters and is considering ways to cover up dusty areas and screen out more dust from entering prison buildings.

Henderson has scheduled a June 17 hearing to weigh arguments by the state against those by attorneys representing inmates who say their prisoners are dying unnecessarily.

The inmates’ attorneys and the receivers’ office say the state has known about the problem since 2006 without taking appropriate steps to combat a disease that has hospitalized hundreds of inmates, though the state said in the court filing that it “engaged in consistent efforts” to fight the problem since then.

The dispute is just the latest battle between the courts and the governor.

Brown has pledged to appeal the population reduction order to the U.S. Supreme Court. But its outcome is far from certain. In May 2011, the high court sided with the federal judges’ decision to reduce the prison population.

Brown said he will comply with the high court’s decision even if that means cutting other programs to increase prison spending. The state used to spend about $7,000 per inmate on annual health care but now spends about $15,000 per inmate.

“If the Supreme Court says, ‘No, you have to spend $20,000 a prisoner,’ well, that’s what we’ll do,” he said. “We’ll cut whatever we have to cut and we’ll just spend more and more money. But I believe that to go from $7,000 to $15,000 to get to all the things we’ve done should be looked at fairly and honestly.”

Arizona National Guard system is broken

Yes, governments almost always start out with noble goals of protecting and benefiting the people they pretend to serve, but sadly over time governments almost always evolve to serve the elected officials and government bureaucrats that run them.

Source

Guard system is broken

The Republic | azcentral.com Mon May 6, 2013 6:39 PM

A 107-page Department of Defense agency report on the Arizona National Guard found lax discipline, unethical behavior by top commanders, cronyism, evidence of fraud, sexual harassment, cover-ups of sexual harassment and harassment of whistle-blowers attempting to call attention to rampant harassment.

Yet Gov. Jan Brewer insists the Arizona Guard command structure is “not broken”?

We had better define “broken,” then. Because the evidence first unearthed by Arizona Republic reporter Dennis Wagner and verified by the recently released report from the Defense Department’s National Guard Bureau depicts an Arizona Guard whose credibility at the top looks nigh on shattered.

It’s natural for a top executive to come to the defense of a subordinate who is taking it on the chin from critics on the outside. It’s a form of self-defense.

There are limits, though, and Arizona’s top exec appears to be bumping hard against them.

Brewer’s sense of loyalty to Maj. Gen. Hugo Salazar certainly has been consistent. In fairness, many of the problems Wagner reported occurred before Salazar’s appointment as the Arizona National Guard adjutant general in April 2009.

But many of the problems persisted, in particular an iron-willed resistance to criticism from outsiders, including nosy reporters like Wagner. Salazar and other top officers clearly viewed whistle-blowers as snitches — so much so that Salazar’s much-anticipated new code of conduct released in January included new restrictions on anyone discussing internal matters with the media.

Rather than encourage guardsmen to report perceived misconduct, the new rules instituted by Salazar have done the opposite. According to the official report, that policy of prodding enlisted personnel to “quit making waves” contributed to a sense, particularly among harassment victims, of having been victimized twice — once by the perpetrator and again by a system designed to protect the perps.

The Arizona National Guard is a vital state and national resource with a laudable history. But as Wagner’s insightful series described, the static nature of the National Guard can create problems that are less of an issue in the regular military, where officers and enlisted personnel are regularly transferred.

Guard personnel serve where they live. And a Guard command structure that fails to diligently address the inherent dangers of overly familiar personnel risks just the sort of chaos that has visited the Arizona Guard.

On the positive side, a survey by the team of investigators, led by Maj. Gen. Ricky Adams, found that at least half of the state’s 8,000 Guard personnel considered morale to be high. On the down side, the same survey found that Guard personnel remain concerned about rampant, casual fraternization, particularly among non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel. That latter is a condition destined to destroy whatever high morale remains.

Gov. Brewer’s response to the investigation notes Maj. Gen. Salazar’s “planned retirement,” scheduled for later this year.

We join Brewer in acknowledging Salazar’s 30-year military career. But after the release of a National Guard report as critical as this one, Salazar should step down now, rather than later.

We hope the governor develops a more clear-eyed appreciation for the performance of Salazar’s replacement.

If the National Guard Bureau’s assessment doesn’t suggest a “broken” command structure, then the Arizona National Guard must exist in a world made of Play-Doh.

Arizona law - only dogs and horses can be service animals

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New Arizona law recognizes only dogs, miniature horses as service animals

By Alia Beard Rau The Republic | azcentral.com Sat May 4, 2013 10:10 PM

People will soon no longer be allowed to carry parrots, squirrels, cats and ferrets into Arizona restaurants claiming they are service animals, under a new law that restricts the types of animals people can use to help them in public places.

And attempts by some people to claim their pet is providing an emotional-comfort “service,” a ruse that has frustrated some restaurant owners, is explicitly forbidden by the law, which goes into effect later this year.

Only two kinds will be recognized service animals for the disabled in Arizona: dogs and miniature horses.

Although the part of the law that names miniature horses as eligible service animals surprised some observers — there was no push from miniature-horse owners in the state to include them — the motivation for the bill was more about excluding other animals.

Rep. Heather Carter, R-Cave Creek, sponsored House Bill 2401 at the request of the Arizona Restaurant Association, whose members said the state’s existing law, which broadly recognizes any animal that provides any service, tied their hands when it came to keeping out more exotic creatures.

“We feel the definition of service animal in Arizona is not succinct enough,” Sherry Gillespie, government-relations manager with the Arizona Restaurant Association, said during a committee hearing on the bill. “Restaurants try to make every accommodation for the people dining there, but those accommodations must be reasonable.”

Gillespie said the U.S. Department of Justice’s Americans with Disabilities Act was updated in 2011 to restrict service animals to only dogs and miniature horses and to outline the duties a service animal must perform. Arizona’s new law mirrors that, she said.

The new law allows only dogs and miniature horses to be service animals, and only if they are trained and perform work directly related to an individual’s disability, such as assisting blind people with navigation, alerting deaf individuals to the presence of people, pulling a wheelchair, alerting owners to the presence of allergens or assisting someone during a seizure.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law in April, and it will go into effect 90 days after the current legislative session ends. It’s unclear when that will be.

A few people across the country use miniature horses as service animals, and the Guide Horse Foundation website says it works with such animals.

It was unclear whether anyone in Arizona uses a miniature horse as a service animal, and several miniature-horse owners here said they hadn’t heard of such an arrangement.

The horses, however, are used to provide comfort therapy to patients and the elderly.

Marcia and Jimmie Sizemore of Scottsdale have for decades taken their miniature horse, Mountain Dew, age 28, to visit patients at Arizona hospitals and nursing homes. She visits the veterans hospital in Phoenix several times a year.

“We just go from room to room and bring her over to each bed,” Marcia Sizemore said. “The patients follow us all around in their wheelchairs. They are really glad to see her.”

Marcia said they didn’t train Dew, as they call her, to be a therapy horse.

“She just has the right disposition,” she said. “And she’s been doing it since she was two.”

The waist-high horse travels in the back of the couple’s van, using a ramp to climb in. She has special rubber shoes she wears so she doesn’t slide on the hospital’s slick floors, and Marcia carries along plastic bags and a little bucket just in case.

“They say you can house-train them, but I don’t know how you’d do it,” Marcia said.

Jimmie Sizemore said while Dew has the perfect disposition to be a therapy horse, that’s not true across the board for all miniature horses. Each one has his or her own personality. He said he had never heard of someone using a miniature horse as a service animal and wasn’t too keen on the idea.

“I wouldn’t trust a horse to lead me across the road,” he said. “But they are smart. I guess you better have a good trainer.”

A restaurateur’s bane

Arizona business owners say the value of the new law is in allowing them to keep out animals that clearly aren’t service animals.

Roxane Nielsen, who has owned Prescott Brewing Co. for 19 years, had called on legislators to clamp down on the rise in exotic animals being passed off as service animals by restaurant patrons.

“I can’t say we’ve had lions and tigers and bears, but we have had ferrets, parrots and squirrels,” she said during a committee hearing. “It used to be we would look the other way as long as there were no problems being created. But now there are problems being created.”

She said she’s seen a spike in customers trying to bring in pets, particularly dogs, under the guise of being a service animal whose job is to provide “comfort.” The new law clearly states that providing comfort, companionship, emotional support or well-being are not recognized as a service.

“This change will prevent ferrets, parrots, cats, alligators, rats and squirrels but still provides for people who need these service animals,” she said.

Louis Basile, CEO of Wildflower Bread Co., said he wants to ensure his employees are sensitive to individuals who need service animals. But he said during a committee hearing that there is a lot of abuse of the law.

“There are instances we experience on a regular basis with customers who bring in their animals and allow them to eat off the china,” he said. “It’s unbelievably disturbing to folks.”

Rep. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, who manages his family’s grocery store in Coolidge, said this has been an issue for grocers, too.

“We take food safety very seriously, and some creatures, in my opinion, are a potential health problem,” he said during a hearing.

How do you spell revenue??? DUI tickets

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Valley police agencies ramping up DUI enforcement this month

By Jackee Coe The Republic | azcentral.com Mon May 6, 2013 1:32 PM

Police made 460 DUI arrests as part of statewide Cinco de Mayo saturation DUI patrol efforts over an extended holiday weekend, authorities said.

Officers were out in force Wednesday through Sunday night looking for people who chose to drink and drive. Several agencies conducted enforcement in their own cities, and many teamed up on Saturday and Sunday nights for joint task forces across multiple cities, including in Scottsdale and Avondale.

Of the 460 total arrests since Wednesday , 186 came Sunday night and early Monday morning, according to data from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. The total also included 67 drug DUI arrests, 53 aggravated DUIs, 148 extreme DUI arrests, which is a blood-alcohol content of 0.15 percent or higher, and 53 people who had prior DUI arrests.

The total arrests were down from last year’s 490 DUI arrests between May 2 and 7, 2012, data shows. The average blood-alcohol content this year was 0.151, compared to 0.145 last year.

Governor’s Office of Highway Safety director Alberto Gutier said the overall decrease in arrests indicates their public education efforts are working.

“The message that we’re trying to put (out) is not that we want to arrest people,” he said. “In fact, less numbers, to us, is a great improvement.”

Police departments have ramped up their DUI enforcement for May in anticipation of festivities celebrating Cinco de Mayo, Memorial Day, and high school and college graduations.

The month kicks off heavier statewide enforcement, funded through the highway safety office, during the summer when students are out of school and people travel to lakes and rivers, have backyard pool parties and barbecues, and celebrate holidays such as the Fourth of July and Labor Day.

The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety provides grants to police agencies that make up 14 DUI task forces statewide to cover overtime costs so officers can participate in DUI enforcement outside of their normal work hours. It also provides grants for training for field sobriety tests, drawing blood and drug recognition, and money for equipment such as motorcycles, speed-detection equipment and alcohol-testing machines.

The office launched a “massive” public-education campaign this weekend to remind people of the dangers of driving impaired and the importance of getting a designated driver, Gutier said. The campaign includes slogans like “Drive hammered, get nailed” displayed on freeway message boards across the state, and TV and radio commercials.

“The big effort is going to start now because of summer coming up and the fact that Memorial Day is exactly where people start doing the fun stuff that they do and then we end up with more tragedies,” he said.

The 1,205 cumulative officers who participated in the enforcements this weekend conducted a total of 6,581 traffic stops for things like DUI, speeding, stop sign violation, running a red light, and other traffic violations. Officers handed out 3,218 citations for non-DUI related traffic violations, 27 child restraint violations and 191 seat belt citations. There were 268 sober designated drivers.

Gutier, who spent time at command posts in Scottsdale and Avondale, said he just wants people to be responsible. He was impressed with how many people he saw using sober designated drivers and taking taxis when they left bars.

While driving through Scottsdale near Camelback and Scottsdale roads Sunday night, he said he was following behind “a bunch of taxis” and saw several groups of people come out of bars and get into taxis.

“That’s the message: Get a designated driver, get a taxi, sleep it off, but don’t get behind the wheel,” Gutier said. “It’s very encouraging to see people heeding the... message.”

Chris Christie underwent secret weight-loss surgery

Source

Chris Christie underwent secret weight-loss surgery

Posted by Aaron Blake on May 7, 2013 at 9:08 am

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) secretly underwent weight-loss surgery earlier this year, his office and campaign have confirmed.

Christie initially disclosed that he underwent the surgery, known as lap band surgery, in an interview published Tuesday by the New York Post.

“I’ve struggled with this issue for 20 years,” he told the Post. “For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them.”

Christie aides confirm he checked into the hospital on Feb. 16. They will not say whether he has lost weight or, if so, how much.

In the surgery, known as lap band surgery or adjustable gastric banding surgery, a tube is placed around the stomach to reduce the amount of food one can eat and makes one feel full with less food. The tube can be adjusted as the stomach shrinks.

Christie said that the move was not motivated by any designs on running for the White House in 2016.

“I know it sounds crazy to say that running for president is minor, but in the grand scheme of things, it was looking at Mary Pat and the kids and going, ‘I have to do this for them, even if I don’t give a crap about myself,’” he said.

Shortly before undergoing the surgery, Christie poked fun at his weight during an appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman.” As Letterman talked, Christie produced a doughnut and took a bite while expressing frustration with how long the interview was taking.

“I’m basically the healthiest fat guy you’ve ever seen in your life,” he said then.

The gag earned a rebuke from a former White House doctor, whom Christie later told to “shut up.”

Political candidates often lose weight in preparation for big political campaigns. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R), for example, famously lost more than 100 pounds before running for president and wrote a book about healthy living.

Christie’s weight was the subject of significant debate when he briefly entertained the idea of running for president in late 2011.

IRS employees to protest furloughs in New York

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IRS employees to protest furloughs in New York

Posted by Lisa Rein on May 7, 2013 at 6:00 am

Furloughs at the Internal Revenue Service will be the focus of a union rally in New York Tuesday morning, as hundreds of employees at the tax agency are expected to protest unpaid days forced by the federal budget cuts known as sequestration.

The “Stop the Sequester” rally is scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m. at 26 Federal Plaza. National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen M. Kelley and chapter leaders from New York and New Jersey will speak. The NTEU represents IRS employees.

As a result of the $85 billion in budget cuts that took effect across the government in March, the IRS plans to shut down all public operations on five days between May 24 and Aug. 30. Employees could be asked to take an additional two days in August or September.

The furloughs were arranged to take place after tax season. But opponents say closing the agency still will inconvenience taxpayers. Union officials also say the freeze on most hiring at the IRS, part of its strategy to cover the budget cuts, is hampering its enforcement operation, which brings in revenue to the U.S. Treasury by going after tax cheats.

Imprisoned at Guantanamo - America's Honor!!!!

Toy company owner sentenced for drug money laundering

The government did the same thing during it's failed war on booze, which was called the Prohibition. That is how the Feds send bootlegger Al Capone to prison.

Sadly in America, the government ofen will steal all your money if you can't prove you obtained it legally. Which is exactly opposite of the motto of "innocent until proven guilty", which this country was founded on.

Source

Toy company co-owner sentenced for role in drug money laundering

By Adolfo Flores

May 7, 2013, 7:00 a.m.

The co-owner of a City of Industry toy company was sentenced to 14 months in custody for her role in laundering money for Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers in a scheme known as the black market peso exchange.

Dan “Daisy” Xin Li, 44, co-owner of Woody Toys Inc., was sentenced Monday to eight months in prison, followed by six months of home detention. The sentencing for Jia “Gary” Hui Zhou, 44, her husband, was delayed until Jan. 6.

“It appears to be a growing phenomenon,” said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Drug traffickers “are using legitimate businesses to launder money as opposed to literally smuggling giant bricks of cash back to Mexico.”

About $3 million, generated from U.S. drug sales, was deposited into the business' bank accounts from 2005 to 2011, according to court documents. The cash deposits of $10,000 or less were made to avoid having to report the funds to federal authorities.

Woody Toys would then purchase merchandise from "legitimate" companies in Colombia and Mexico with the money. The money would be funneled back to drug traffickers, Mrozek said.

Federal prosecutors declined to describe the drug traffickers further, Mrozek said. He declined to say whether cartels were involved.

Woody Toys was “the last 'spoke in the wheel,' that cleaned illicit proceeds and enabled drug trafficking organizations to convert their dirty dollars into clean pesos,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memo.

Zhou and Li pleaded guilty in September to conspiring to structure currency transactions with a U.S. financial institution to avoid filing a currency transaction report. As part of their deal with federal prosecutors, they forfeited $2 million in proceeds they made from the scheme.

Also as part of their deal their company instead of the couple was sentenced in November to five years of probation after pleading guilty to money laundering conspiracy charges involving drug proceeds.

“We always look for ways to interject the money going back to the drug traffickers,” Mrozek said. “You can either seize the drugs coming in or seize the money going back.”

Police officer accidentally shot in leg by fellow cop

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Police officer accidentally shot in leg by fellow cop

By Rosemary Regina Sobol and Adam Sege Tribune reporters

7:33 a.m. CDT, May 7, 2013

A Chicago police officer was shot in the leg by a fellow officer who had fired at a charging dog Monday night in the Englewood neighborhood, authorities said.

The shooting happened about 9 p.m. in the 1200 block of West 72nd Place as Englewood District officers were responding to a call of a burglary in progress, according to a police statement.

Two officers and a supervisor went to the second-floor landing of the building, where they were confronted by a "vicious dog," according to police.

When the dog charged toward them, an officer fired a single shot that struck the dog and also hit another officer in the thigh, according to a police source. It was unclear if the bullet struck the officer or the dog first, the source said.

Paramedics took the 42-year-old officer in good condition to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, where he was treated and released, authorities said.

Investigators from the Chicago Independent Police Review Authority responded to the scene, spokesman Larry Merritt said.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

San Jose cop frames man for rape with phoney lab report!!!

Source

San Jose poised to settle case involving cop and phony lab report

By Tracey Kaplan

tkaplan@mercurynews.com

Posted: 05/06/2013 06:12:00 PM PDT

SAN JOSE -- A local man who was held over for trial on the basis of a phony lab report cooked up by a police officer and presented in court by a prosecutor is poised to win a legal settlement with the city for $150,000.

On Tuesday, the San Jose City Council is expected to approve the settlement with Michael Kerkeles of San Jose. Under the agreement, the city must also pay Kerkeles' legal fees, which could be at least $1 million because the federal civil rights case dragged on for six years and included a hard-fought appeal.

Kerkeles declined to comment, but one of his lawyers said the case has taken a major toll on him. Not only was Kerkeles at work when the sexual assault of a developmentally disabled woman supposedly occurred, the lawyer said, but his wife also was in her home office, steps from where the alleged rape took place.

"It's a significant sum, but Mr. Kerkeles certainly wouldn't trade the money he got for what he went through," lawyer Matt Davis said.

Fake crime report

The evidence that Kerkeles' rights had been violated was bolstered last year when prosecutor Jaime Stringfield admitted she misled the court about the lab report. She was suspended for a month by the state Supreme Court, based on a recommendation by the State Bar, which licenses attorneys. She had already resigned from the District Attorney's Office to pursue a teaching career, but is currently licensed to practice law.

However, the police officer, Sgt. Matthew Christian, remains on the job and is now assigned to the Traffic Investigations Unit, said SJPD spokesman Albert Morales.

The injustice unfolded after Kerkeles was accused in 2005 of sexually assaulting the developmentally disabled neighbor with the mental acuity of a 7-year-old.

In hopes of extracting a confession, Christian created a "ruse" crime report indicating that Kerkeles' semen had been found on a blanket, while the actual report revealed no semen. Such a tactic is legal -- at that stage of a case.

Kerkeles asked for an attorney, so the report was never actually used as a ruse. Instead, it was presented in court after the District Attorney's Office lost two preliminary hearings in the case.

'Huge mistake'

On both occasions, the judge found the woman was not a competent witness and there was insufficient evidence to hold Kerkeles over for trial on charges.

But at the third preliminary hearing, then-prosecutor Stringfield elicited testimony from officer Christian regarding the contents of the ruse report. The officer's testimony was that semen had been found on the blanket, prompting the court to find there was probable cause to hold Kerkeles over for trial.

"In our view, that was a huge mistake," San Jose City Attorney Rick Doyle said, referring to the presentation of the phony document in court and Sgt. Matthew Christian's testimony about it.

There were several indications that the report was false. For one thing, the officer used a phony name for the crime lab analyst. It was also dated within a day of the evidence being seized -- contrary to normal DNA examinations, which take considerably longer to complete. Stringfield had in her file a real report that did not find semen on the bedspread.

"It's a good number ($150,000) to settle the case for," the city attorney said, "given the (legal) risks."

Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482. Follow her at Twitter.com/tkaplanreport.

AZ deputy from Glendale pleads guilty in assault in N.D.

Former AZ deputy from Glendale pleads guilty in assault in N.D.

Associated Press Tue May 7, 2013 9:44 AM

An Arizona sheriff’s deputy accused of driving to North Dakota and assaulting a man who had an affair with his wife has pleaded guilty to felony aggravated assault.

A sentencing date was not immediately set for 41-year-old Timothy Abrahamson, of Glendale, Ariz. He faces up to five years in prison.

Abrahamson was accused of driving to West Fargo last September and confronting Jason Swart in Swart’s driveway. Court documents state Swart lost part of an ear in the assault.

The Forum newspaper reports (http://bit.ly/13f8fdo) that Swart was a high school classmate of Abrahamson’s wife.

Abrahamson no longer works for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona.

———

Information from: The Forum, http://www.in-forum.com

Source Former Arizona sheriff's deputy pleads guilty in West Fargo attack

FARGO – A former sheriff’s deputy for Maricopa County in Arizona pleaded guilty Monday in a Cass County court case that alleges he drove to West Fargo to beat up a man who slept with his wife.

Timothy Abrahamson, 41, of Glendale, Ariz. pleaded guilty to one count of Class C felony aggravated assault.

Charging documents state Abrahamson drove to West Fargo Sept. 16 and confronted the victim, Jason Swart, in the driveway of Swart’s home.

Swart, an high school classmate of Abrahamson’s wife, reconnected with her on Facebook. Court documents state Swart lost part of an ear in the assault.

The judge ordered a presentencing investigation. A sentencing date hasn’t been set.

AZ deputy from Glendale pleads guilty in assault in N.D.

Former AZ deputy from Glendale pleads guilty in assault in N.D.

Associated Press Tue May 7, 2013 9:44 AM

An Arizona sheriff’s deputy accused of driving to North Dakota and assaulting a man who had an affair with his wife has pleaded guilty to felony aggravated assault.

A sentencing date was not immediately set for 41-year-old Timothy Abrahamson, of Glendale, Ariz. He faces up to five years in prison.

Abrahamson was accused of driving to West Fargo last September and confronting Jason Swart in Swart’s driveway. Court documents state Swart lost part of an ear in the assault.

The Forum newspaper reports (http://bit.ly/13f8fdo) that Swart was a high school classmate of Abrahamson’s wife.

Abrahamson no longer works for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona.

———

Information from: The Forum, http://www.in-forum.com

Source Former Arizona sheriff's deputy pleads guilty in West Fargo attack

FARGO – A former sheriff’s deputy for Maricopa County in Arizona pleaded guilty Monday in a Cass County court case that alleges he drove to West Fargo to beat up a man who slept with his wife.

Timothy Abrahamson, 41, of Glendale, Ariz. pleaded guilty to one count of Class C felony aggravated assault.

Charging documents state Abrahamson drove to West Fargo Sept. 16 and confronted the victim, Jason Swart, in the driveway of Swart’s home.

Swart, an high school classmate of Abrahamson’s wife, reconnected with her on Facebook. Court documents state Swart lost part of an ear in the assault.

The judge ordered a presentencing investigation. A sentencing date hasn’t been set.

Government bureaucrats elect signs on homes of sex offenders

Source

Home signs warn of presence of predators

Associated Press Tue May 7, 2013 4:42 PM

STARKE, Fla. — Brian Speer thought he had completed all of his obligations when he registered in Bradford County as a convicted sex predator after serving an eight-year prison sentence for child molestation.

But now, in addition to submitting to a public registry for sex offenders, he has a permanent reminder of his crime posted right in his front yard: a bright red sign reading, “Brian Speer is a convicted Sexual Predator and lives at this location.”

The sign is one of 18 the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office erected in mid-April outside the homes of convicted sex predators.

The signs have been praised by many residents in the small rural county southwest of Jacksonville, but some question whether the new measure reaches too far and could be harassment against people who have served jail terms and already submit to the public registry. Neighboring Baker County started a similar program six years ago.

“I think it’s a lot of bull,” said Speer, who was convicted of lewd or lascivious molestation in 2004. “I believe that anybody that has any criminal background should have a sign in front of their house if we have one in front of ours.”

Bradford officials say they are working within the discretion afforded by state statutes, which mandate that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement use the Internet to notify the public of all sexual predators and requires that a sheriff or police chief conduct community notification of a sexual predator’s presence.

It does not specify how that community notification must take place. It traditionally has been done through fliers, print and television media, and websites, but Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith thought his office could do more.

The federal Sex Offender and Registration Act, passed in 2006, sets minimum standards for sex offender notification across the country. There is no central database to track how agencies notify residents, but counties and towns in other states have tried sign programs with mixed success. Judges have ordered signs to be posted outside the homes of specific sex offenders in cases in Texas, Louisiana and Oregon.

Sign placement also has been shot down. In 2009, a Kansas appeals court overturned a judge’s order requiring a sex offender to post signs on both his home and vehicle.

In Bradford County, Smith said that when his chief of jails told him about Baker County’s sign program, he jumped at the idea.

Brad Smith, the office’s chief of operations, said the sheriff cleared it with the county attorney. The sheriff then floated the idea on social media in March, with an overwhelmingly positive response, and the first signs were posted April 16.

“We realized it was not only a good idea, but something important to ensure that a consistent notification was being made,” Brad Smith said. He said residents not living in Bradford County when original notifications go out could be unaware of a sexual predator’s presence. With permanent signs, that is less likely.

He also said cost was not an issue: The signs cost $10 each, and inmate labor is used to erect them. [ie slave labor]

Baker County Sheriff Joey Dobson said he is proud of the new program and happy others are adopting it.

“I know the predators are not real fond of it,” he said. “I understand, but I think it’s important for the community to know where these people live.”

The signs are only for sexual predators, not for all sex offenders, Brad Smith said. Florida defines a sexual predator as someone who has been convicted of a first-degree sex crime such as child molestation or sexual battery or has been convicted of two second-degree sex crimes such as solicitation of a minor or lewd, lascivious, or indecent assault. A judge also can designate a person a sex predator.

Bradford County has 98 registered sex offenders, and 18 were predators at the time the signs were erected.

On the Facebook page for the sheriff’s office, about 1,000 people combined have “liked” a pair of posts about the new signs.

Mike Rowe, 27, recently moved to Bradford County. He said that though he doesn’t have children, he thinks the signs are positive. He said he was “fine with authorities doing whatever they can to notify us where these people live.”

Starke resident Rashonda Green, 26, has three children and lives down the street from sexual predator John Goodman, who has two convictions for lewd and lascivious exhibition. She said that because the community is small, most people were already aware of his status and that the sign was an invasion of privacy.

No one answered the phone at a number listed for Goodman.

“I felt embarrassed for him,” Green said. “It seems like it’s a little too much. Kids living in the neighborhood read (the sign) and are asking questions like ‘What is a sex predator?’ I think he should be able to live in peace at least. It’s a little over the top for me.”

For now, though, the signs aren’t going anywhere.

“If they’re a sexual predator, we’re not going to sugarcoat it or give anybody any preferential treatment,” Brad Smith said. “We’re going to put the sign out there.”

Emperor Obama is a liar and hypocrite???

Source

Whistle-blowers: Rescue requests denied in Libya attack

By Oren Dorell USA Today Tue May 7, 2013 11:49 AM

Revelations from State Department "whistle-blowers" on the Benghazi terror attack that left the U.S. ambassador of Libya dead will show that requests for military rescue were turned down and that the White House was immediately aware that the CIA concluded the attackers were linked to al-Qaeda.

Documents released by various Congressional committees and excerpts of interviews provided by the House oversight committee appear to contradict the description of events as provided by the Pentagon, the White House and then-secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Among them:

• The U.S. military refused to send jets over a raging battlefield in Benghazi in an attempt to scatter the attackers.

• The Pentagon's Africa command refused to let a Special Forces team in Tripoli fly the short distance to Benghazi in an attempt to rescue U.S. personnel.

• The CIA told the White House the attack was a coordinated assault by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists. But the White House and State Department publicly blamed the attack on a spontaneous mob angered over an anti-Islam video, and claimed the reports of terrorists was not learned until later.

• The State Department never activated a foreign emergency response team, which assists diplomats under attack. A State official will testify this was done to avoid the appearance that a terrorist attack had happened.

The revelations come from witnesses who will appear in public Wednesday before the House oversight committee. Scheduled to speak are Mark Thompson, acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism; Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission and chargé d'affairs in Libya, and Eric Nordstrom, the former regional security officer in Libya. All are current State Department employees.

The information they have already provided committee staffers, together with published reports from other committees, paint a picture of a White House and State Department that tried to prevent information about a terrorist attack from being exposed just weeks before President Obama faced re-election, according Frederick Hill, spokesman for the oversight committee.

"These witnesses have information that has not previously come forward because the administration has tried to suppress it," Hill said. "The testimony of the former deputy chief of mission directly contradicts statements made by high-ranking officials."

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed in the attack along with State Department employee Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. The State Department's Accountability Review Board, appointed by Clinton, later issued a report saying the military assets in the region could not have saved the Americans.

While it was clear from the start that terrorists were involved, that information was scrubbed from talking points memos distributed by the White House, according to the witnesses and investigations conducted by various Republican-led committees in the House of Representatives.

Hicks, who became the top U.S. official in Libya after Stevens' death, told committee staffers he pushed for a stronger military response to an attack he knew from the start was launched by Islamist terrorists, but was rebuffed by Washington, according to excerpts of interview transcripts provided by the House oversight committee.

Hicks said he asked twice whether an F-16 or some other "fast-mover" aircraft could fly over the battlefield with hopes it would scatter the attackers.

"I talked with the Defense Attache, Lt. Col. Keith Phillips, and I asked him, 'Is there anything coming?' "

According to Hicks' account, Phillips said the nearest fighter planes were in Aviano, Italy, and it would take two to three hours to get them airborne, and there were no tanker assets close enough to support them.

Hicks says when he asked again, before the 5:15 a.m. mortar attack that killed Doherty and Woods, "the answer, again, was the same as before."

Hicks says he believes the Libyan government would have approved the flyover and that it would have been effective because the militias "were under no illusions that American and NATO air power won that war for them," he said.

"If we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split," according to Hicks' excerpts.

"The Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them."

A four-man team of military special operations forces was told not to board a Libyan military flight from Tripoli to Benghazi to reinforce troops sent to defend U.S. diplomatic personnel, Hicks said.

A previous team had already arrived at Benghazi at 1:15 a.m., Hicks said. Less than two hours later, Hicks received a phone call from then-prime minister of Libya, Mohammed Magarief, reporting that Stevens had died. His death meant Hicks was then in charge of the U.S. mission in Libya.

A second special forces team was organized, geared up and about to drive to a C-130 aircraft, when its commander, Lt. Col. Gibson, was ordered to stop by his superiors, Hicks said.

"He got a phone call from SOCAFRICA (Special Operations Command Africa) which said, you can't go now, you don't have authority to go now," Hicks said. "They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it."

Hicks said Gibson told him: "I have never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military."

Hicks said he believed the military stopped the trip because "they just didn't have the right authority from the right level."

Maj. Robert Firman, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday: "There was never any kind of stand-down order to anybody."

State Department and White House officials scrubbed any mention of terrorism from Benghazi talking points given to Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, before she went on Sunday talk shows five days after the attack, according to a report by five House committees that investigated how that happened.

The CIA on Sept. 14 circulated a memo that said it had issued numerous warnings about al-Qaeda-linked extremists in Benghazi and throughout Libya. According to the Weekly Standard, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland objected that the CIA report gave the appearance that State did not heed agency warnings. By the time work on the memo was complete the next day, the Standard reported, mention of al-Qaeda and Islamic extremists was gone.

Phoenix to phase out food tax....maybe

Phoenix to phase out food tax....maybe

Posted on May 7, 2013 5:00 pm by Laurie Roberts

Phoenix to phase out food tax….maybe

The Phoenix City Council has voted to phase out the food tax …

… Maybe.

… Or possibly not.

OK, it depends.

If you’ve followed the ever evolving saga of the city’s emergency food tax, I suspect that like me you’re nursing a painful case of whiplash.

From the mayor’s pre-election pledge to get rid of the tax to the mayor’s post-election pledge to break his pre-election pledge.

From the city manager’s sky is falling no-food-tax forecast in March to his assurances last week that he could cut the tax in half by January, no sweat.

From plans by a bare majority of the council to vote last week to halve the tax in January to last Wednesday’s actual 8-1 vote, to put off a decision until October.

Giving the city’s employee groups five months to pick off one vote in order to keep the tax intact and the revenues flowing forth — at least until 2015, when the emergency five-year tax will expire… [Well, it's not the city employees, it's mostly cops and firemen. Cops and firemen get about 60 percent of the Phoenix budget, with cops getting 40 percent, and the firemen getting the next 20 percent. All other city employees combined get the remaining 40 percent of the budget]

Presumably.

The 2 percent food tax – hastily enacted in 2010 as the city faced financial freefall — vaulted into public view this spring as the time approached for fulfillment of Mayor Greg Stanton’s campaign pledge to repeal the tax by April 2013. Because the council was deadlocked 4-4, all eyes were on Stanton who did as many suspected all along. [Mayor Greg Stanton used that lie to get elected]

He changed his mind. Citing the no-food-tax budget put together by City Manager David Cavazos – the one that required laying off 100 police officers, closing recreation centers and slashing library hours – Stanton said in March that good leadership required him to support the continued collection of the most regressive tax around. [Why are they closing recreation centers and slashing library hours when the police and fire departments account for 60 percent of the Phoenix budget. They should be firing cops and firemen!!!]

Imagine Stanton’s surprise in April, when one of the food tax supporters, Councilman Michael Nowakowski, called for a phase-out of the tax. Nowakowski told me he’d been assured by Cavazos that the tax could be cut in half in January without cutting public safety or city services.

He and Councilwoman Thelda Williams called for a May 1 vote.

By last week, however, the plan to vote on the tax cut had softened to a vote to take up the issue on Oct. 1, giving Cavazos until then to factor in the $12 million loss of food-tax funds from next year’s budget.

Understandably, city employee groups oppose the move. [And 60 percent of those employees are cops and firemen] Though most employees continued to get annual raises or “longevity” bonuses through the recession, only half of their agreed-upon 3.2 percent cut to pay and benefits has been restored.

Meanwhile, the insatiable piranha that is the public pension program eats up every dime the food tax brings in – and more. Much more. [again most of these fabulously expensive pensions go to the cops and firemen.]

So it was no surprise when union reps stood before the council last week and branded the tax cut “irresponsible.” I imagine they’ll be busy over the next few months, trying to pull Nowakowski back into the fold.

I’ve long suspected that the end game is to preserve at least half of the food tax to fund future raises and pension costs. As Stanton likes to point out, 22 of the Valley’s 25 cities have a permanent food tax.

But that’s a story for another day.

As we wait for October, there are questions to ponder…

… Like why Cavazos – who rated got a 33 percent pay raise last fall – didn’t propose a phase-out plan himself rather than defaulting in March to the usual police-officers-will-be-fired-if-you-touch-the-tax stance? Why now, after mayor reneged on his campaign pledge, is it doable to start ramping down the tax? Did the sudden appearance of an unexpected fifth council vote change the budget numbers?

And why was Stanton so quick to throw in with Cavazos’ sky-is-falling budget without first considering other options? Why is it that a mayor who opposed the tax (before he supported it) left it to a councilman who supported the tax to plow solid middle ground? [Probably because Mayor Greg Stanton is a puppet for the special interest groups in the police and fire departments]

And finally, will Nowakowski, the new swing vote, be able to withstand the inevitable pressure over the next few months to resist pulling a Stanton and changing his mind?

Honestly, the player to watch will be the city manager, who says that he can cut the tax in half in January without affecting services or the city’s AAA bond rating.

“I believe it’s achievable but it does require a second vote in October,” Cavazos told the council last week. “But the basic direction is that this tax is going away.”

So he says in May.

The question is, what will he say in October?

Chicago loves that photo radar loot from Redflex???

Chicago and red light vendor: Breaking up is hard to do

By David Kidwell, Chicago Tribune reporter

7:01 a.m. CDT, May 8, 2013

Chicago's divorce with Redflex Traffic Systems is getting messy.

In his hurry to sever ties with the red-light camera operator amid a burgeoning bribery scandal, Mayor Rahm Emanuel in February set a six-month deadline for Redflex to leave town after a decadelong relationship that produced more than $300 million for City Hall and $100 million for the company.

But now Emanuel's office is backing away from the eviction date, extending the deadline indefinitely as officials work to untangle a complex series of thorny questions from eager suitors about how best to take over a 384-camera network that grew to become Redflex's largest North American program.

So while federal and local investigators examine allegations Redflex won its Chicago contract in a $2 million bribery scheme, the Emanuel administration is working with the company to try to ensure a transition to a new vendor won't interrupt the flow of ticket revenue — a stream of cash on which City Hall has come to rely. Redflex, now facing scrutiny across the country following disclosures prompted by a Tribune investigation, is under pressure to cooperate in its own exit from Chicago.

More than 100 questions from Redflex's potential successors have raised myriad concerns about how to satisfy the city's insistence on a seamless handoff — from where to obtain spare camera parts to how to unlock encrypted and proprietary software. Some even asked if they can hire Redflex as a subcontractor.

The answer from City Hall: an emphatic "No."

After what it describes as a "limited transition period," there will be no spare parts from Redflex, no software help, no maintenance contracts, the mayor's office said. "The one thing we are not open to is a continued relationship with Redflex," said Bill McCaffrey, an Emanuel spokesman.

Further complicating the transition is the fact that the administration of former Mayor Richard M. Daley opted to purchase outright the Redflex camera systems installed at 190 intersections around Chicago at a price tag of about $19 million. Redflex has earned the bulk of its money in Chicago operating and maintaining a camera network owned by taxpayers.

According to interviews and the city's responses to bidder questions, it is looking more likely the city will have to scrap that network and replace it with equipment from the new vendor. Potential bidders, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing selection process, said starting from scratch with new equipment is the best option.

"It's clear to us that is the direction the city is going," said one red-light executive. "So that is what we intend to propose."

An executive of another potential bidder said the Redflex cameras are likely to be a multimillion dollar heap of shiny metal.

"Look, it's not like it can't be done. Of course we can figure out how to use their equipment," said the company executive. "But all things being equal, it would be much simpler — and preferable — just to use our own cameras. There are a lot of questions about how this might work."

Just how much a completely new system will cost the city depends on the bid proposals. The city moved the bid deadline from April 30 to Friday "in light of the number and complexity of questions."

The bribery scandal has also complicated Emanuel's plans to install automated speed cameras in school and park zones — an effort with the potential to dwarf the red-light program in size and revenue. The city had hoped to raise as much as $30 million in speeding-ticket revenue this year alone and Redflex officials had hoped to snag that contract as well.

One of the mayor's closest political allies, former campaign manager Greg Goldner, was working as a consultant to Redflex at the time Emanuel won legislative and City Council approval for speed cameras. The Tribune disclosed that as part of his efforts to promote Redflex around the country, Goldner hired the former city official who oversaw the red-light program since it began.

In a series of reports, the newspaper has raised questions about a much deeper relationship between Redflex and that manager, John Bills.

In addition to providing Bills with 17 vacation trips, the company has acknowledged paying $2 million to a consultant who is a longtime Bills friend — a relationship disclosed by the Tribune in October. Authorities will "likely" consider the consultant's payments part of a bribery scheme, according to an internal company investigation in February. Bills and his friend have denied any wrongdoing.

The disclosures have been devastating for the company.

The entire top management structure of Redflex was replaced. Emanuel initially banned the company from competing for his speed-camera initiative on grounds Redflex officials had kept the Bills allegations secret until the Tribune inquiries. In February, as the corruption allegations widened, the mayor declared the company would no longer be welcome in Chicago when its red-light contract expires in July.

The city had hoped to have speed cameras running earlier this year, but no deal has been signed. The city is still in negotiations with its top choice, one of Redflex's fiercest rivals, American Traffic Solutions Inc. ATS is also considering bidding to take over Redflex's red-light business.

Although the city has told potential bidders it hopes to make a selection by the end of July, the transition period is open ended. McCaffrey said the city is open to three options: buying all new red-light cameras from the new vendor, leasing the new vendor's equipment or figuring out a way for a new vendor to use Redflex's equipment without ongoing help or parts from Redflex.

The mayor's office rejected Tribune requests for an interview with city transportation officials to discuss the complications.

But an examination of the questions submitted by potential bidders, which include suburban-based RedSpeed Illinois, Maryland-based Xerox State & Local Solutions Inc. and Arizona-based ATS, illustrate some of the problems. Nearly half the questions centered on the potential pitfalls in taking over a competitor's program. They asked technical questions about decryption keys and transfer protocols. They also asked simpler questions about the availability of technical manuals and whether or not they would be allowed to purchase replacement parts from Redflex.

"The current vendor cannot perform services as a subcontractor for this project,'' the city responded. "After the transition period, there cannot be any relationship with the current vendor or any successor assignee to the current vendor without city authorization."

The city also said Redflex has agreed to provide training and a "translation program" for any new vendor seeking to marry its software with the Redflex network.

But the most likely scenario remains a total system replacement.

In that case, one potential vendor said the city might be able to offload its Redflex relics to an aftermarket buyer in Latin America.

dkidwell@tribune.com

Twitter @DavidKidwell1

F*ck the 4th Amendment the FBI has a God give right to spy on you!!!!

Source

U.S. Is Weighing Wide Overhaul of Wiretap Laws

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

Published: May 7, 2013 305 Comments

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.

Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom.

“I think the F.B.I.’s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,” said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren’t the same mandates.”

Andrew Weissmann, the general counsel of the F.B.I., said in a statement that the proposal was aimed only at preserving law enforcement officials’ longstanding ability to investigate suspected criminals, spies and terrorists subject to a court’s permission.

“This doesn’t create any new legal surveillance authority,” he said. “This always requires a court order. None of the ‘going dark’ solutions would do anything except update the law given means of modern communications.”

A central element of the F.B.I.’s 2010 proposal was to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act — a 1994 law that already requires phone and network carriers to build interception capabilities into their systems — so that it would also cover Internet-based services that allow people to converse. But the bureau has now largely moved away from that one-size-fits-all mandate.

Instead, the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies to say they tried but could not make the technology work. Under the new proposal, providers could be ordered to comply, and judges could impose fines if they did not. The shift in thinking toward the judicial fines was first reported by The Washington Post, and additional details were described to The New York Times by several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Under the proposal, officials said, for a company to be eligible for the strictest deadlines and fines — starting at $25,000 a day — it must first have been put on notice that it needed surveillance capabilities, triggering a 30-day period to consult with the government on any technical problems.

Such notice could be the receipt of its first wiretap order or a warning from the attorney general that it might receive a surveillance request in the future, officials said, arguing that most small start-ups would never receive either.

Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers, said that aspect of the plan appeared to be modeled on a British law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000.

Foreign-based communications services that do business in the United States would be subject to the same procedures, and would be required to have a point of contact on domestic soil who could be served with a wiretap order, officials said.

Albert Gidari Jr., who represents technology companies on law enforcement matters, criticized that proposed procedure. He argued that if the United States started imposing fines on foreign Internet firms, it would encourage other countries, some of which may be looking for political dissidents, to penalize American companies if they refused to turn over users’ information.

“We’ll look a lot more like China than America after this,” Mr. Gidari said.

The expanded fines would also apply to phone and network carriers, like Verizon and AT&T, which are separately subject to the 1994 wiretapping capacity law. The FBI has argued that such companies sometimes roll out system upgrades without making sure that their wiretap capabilities will keep working.

The 1994 law would be expanded to cover peer-to-peer voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP — calls between computers that do not connect to the regular phone network. Such services typically do not route data packets through any central hub, making them difficult to intercept.

The F.B.I. has abandoned a component of its original proposal that would have required companies that facilitate the encryption of users’ messages to always have a key to unscramble them if presented with a court order. Critics had charged that such a law would create back doors for hackers. The current proposal would allow services that fully encrypt messages between users to keep operating, officials said.

In November 2010, Mr. Mueller toured Silicon Valley and briefed executives on the proposal as it then existed, urging them not to lobby against it, but the firms have adopted a cautious stance. In February 2011, the F.B.I.’s top lawyer at the time testified about the “going dark” problem at a House hearing, emphasizing that there was no administration proposal yet. Still, several top lawmakers at the hearing expressed skepticism, raising fears about innovation and security.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 8, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers and commented on one aspect of the F.B.I.’s plan to overhaul surveillance laws. He is Michael Sussmann, not Sussman.

Bill allows state universities to research medical marijuana

Bill allows state universities to research medical marijuana

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Tue May 7, 2013 6:35 PM

State universities will be allowed to conduct federally approved research of medical marijuana under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Jan Brewer.

Senate Bill 1443 had the support of proponents of medical marijuana, who said universities provide safe places to research the drug and that it is too difficult to perform such research in other locations. The governor's signature is a victory for those proponents, especially Dr. Sue Sisley, a Scottsdale internist in private practice and assistant professor of psychiatry and internal medicine at the University of Arizona.

She plans to study the efficacy of marijuana on combat veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“This is a triumph for the Arizona scientific community and proves there is the potential that science will win over politics,” Sisley said, adding that Brewer has opened the door to conduct a range of medical marijuana research that could be used nationally and internationally.

A voter-approved law allows patients with certain debilitating medical conditions to use medical marijuana; about 38,000 Arizonans particpate in the program.

Feds sue landlord of longtime Berkeley pot dispensary

President Obama has lied a number of times and said he wasn't going to have his DEA thugs shake down legal medical marijuana dispensaries.

Now Obama's jackbooted DEA thugs are trying to seize the property leased to one of California's oldest medical marijuana.

Source

Feds sue landlord of longtime Berkeley pot dispensary

By Kate Mather

May 8, 2013, 1:17 p.m.

Federal prosecutors have filed a lawsuit attempting to seize property leased to one of California's oldest medical marijuana dispensaries, a rare step in the ongoing battle over who has authority over such facilities.

The forfeiture complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco alleges that Berkeley Patients Group violated federal law by operating a marijuana dispensary, making the property owner subject to seizure of the space.

The suit also says the dispensary is located within 1,000 feet of two preschools.

The 14-year-old facility's website bills it as "one of California's largest and most respected medical cannabis collectives" that has "provided safe access and fair prices to thousands of Northern California patients."

Berkeley Patients Group changed locations last year after its old landlord received a letter threatening seizure for the same reasons, the Oakland Tribune reported. The facility closed its doors in May and moved down the street, where it reopened at its current spot in December.

Berkeley City Council members Darryl Moore and Laurie Capitelli have recommended a resolution opposing the federal government's forfeiture action.

"The U.S. Attorney is ignoring the will of the people and continues to attack licensed dispensaries operating in compliance with all state and local laws," the proposal states. "The U.S. Attorney's current forfeiture action against BPG victimizes its patients, many of them Berkeley residents, who rely on it to provide the medication that they most desperately need."

The suit is similar to one filed last year against Harborside Health Center, the nation's largest pot dispensary, located in Oakland. That case has yet to be resolved.

Supporters of the Berkeley Patients Group planned a news conference Wednesday in Berkeley. The facility's chief operations officer, Sean Luse, said in a statement that "Berkeley Patients Group intends to vigorously defend the rights of its patients to be able to obtain medical cannabis from a responsible, city-licensed dispensary."

News of the lawsuit came days after the California Supreme Court gave local governments authority to zone medical marijuana dispensaries out of existence, in effect upholding bans in about 200 cities.

LA piggies want more government pork????

Source

Police union puts another $850,000 into bid to elect Greuel

By David Zahniser

May 8, 2013, 12:41 p.m.

The union that represents Los Angeles police officers put another $850,000 into the effort to elect mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel, according to a report posted Wednesday by the city’s Ethics Commission.

The independent expenditure brings the total spending for Greuel by the Police Protective League to more than $1.43 million, contribution records show.

That makes the union a close second to International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, which represents workers at the Department of Water and Power, in spending on behalf of Greuel. IBEW Local 18 has put at least $1.45 million into the effort to elect Greuel. The city firefighters union has put another $425,000 into various committees that support Greuel.

The police union's contribution was reported a day after Greuel's campaign suspended its TV advertising, just two weeks before the election. That move reflects Greuel's continuing struggle to raise enough money to compete head-to-head on the airwaves with her rival, Councilman Eric Garcetti.

Union spending has been a hotly debated issue in the mayor’s race. City leaders have been coping with a major budget crisis and the next mayor will serve on the committee that negotiates salary agreements with the unions that represent police officers, firefighters, DWP workers and thousands of other city employees.

Most city employee unions have lined up behind Greuel, who has criticized opponent Eric Garcetti over his support for budget cuts. Appearing in front of one union, she hit Garcetti for backing layoffs, furloughs and a vote to hike the retirement age for future civilian employees, saying it was not properly negotiated with workers.

Garcetti has responded by saying he made tough decisions while Greuel sat on the sidelines during a financial crisis.

A handful of unions -- including those that represent longshore workers, supermarket clerks and teachers -- have endorsed Garcetti. Their campaign contributions are a fraction of the amount being spent on Greuel.

In recent weeks, Greuel has said she would sit down with civilian city employees to discuss a hike in the retirement age for existing workers. Budget officials said they would need to provide city employees with a financial benefit of equal value if such a change were sought.

Greuel's campaign has ties to the police union that go beyond its endorsement and fundraising. Two months ago, a spokesman for the league confirmed that Greuel campaign co-chairman Bob Hertzberg, a former Assembly speaker, had been retained by the union as one of its lawyers.

League spokesman Eric Rose said in March that a team of attorneys at Mayer Brown – including Hertzberg, former Assemblyman Dario Frommer and Tim McOsker, chief of staff to former Mayor James Hahn – were hired by the league to handle “airport security issues.”

“The [union] is not going to disclose the terms or any additional information about the legal work being done by Mayer Brown – including whether or not they are currently retained,” Rose said in an email sent on March 22.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton is a gun grabber???

Source

Gun buyback in Phoenix is a ‘success,’ officials say

By Amy B Wang The Republic | azcentral.com Wed May 8, 2013 10:25 PM

The first of three planned gun-buyback events in Phoenix drew so much interest that it nearly exhausted the program’s funding, forcing organizers to scale back the two remaining buyback dates.

The Saturday gun buyback, held at three churches across the city, netted 803 weapons: 442 handguns, 162 shotguns, 198 rifles and one assault rifle, according to Phoenix police.

Those who turned in guns received Bashas’ grocery gift cards: $100 cards for handguns, shotguns and rifles; $200 cards for assault weapons.

Based on those calculations, police last weekend distributed $80,400 in gift cards — the bulk of a $100,000 anonymous donation that funded the program, a partnership between Phoenix police and the non-profit Arizonans for Gun Safety.

As a result, the buyback this Saturday will take place at only one location: Betania Presbyterian Church, 2811 N. 39th Ave., in west Phoenix. City officials said they likely will cancel the May 18 date unless the program receives more donations.

“As far as I know, there has been no additional money that has been raised,” said Sgt. Steve Martos, a police spokesman.

Originally, officials had planned to also give $10 to $25 gift cards for high-capacity magazines that accompanied a weapon, but Martos said they scrapped that plan for the sake of efficiency.

Before last Saturday’s event had officially started, police at the south Phoenix location had already collected 50 guns, with waiting cars backed up for 10 blocks, Martos said.

“I understand it was the same situation up north (at the third location),” he said. “It was just lines of cars down the street.”

The program will continue to distribute free gun locks along with lessons on how to store guns safely.

Phoenix officials have acknowledged that a buyback is unlikely to dramatically decrease gun deaths but said that such a program is an important service for residents to safely dispose of unwanted firearms “with no questions asked.” Residents who want to turn in an unwanted gun even without receiving a gift card may do so.

“This was really (for) people who have weapons that no longer want them and perhaps want to dispose of them in a responsible manner,” Martos said.

Mayor Greg Stanton announced the program in his State of the City speech in February. On Wednesday, Stanton called the first buyback event a “success” and encouraged donations in order for the buybacks to continue through its third planned weekend.

These events could be the last for Phoenix.

Phoenix officials plan to destroy the guns residents bring them during this program. However, a new state law — once it goes into effect — will require police to sell any weapons they receive, whether the guns are abandoned, lost or forfeited to the agency through a court order.

More details: phoenixgunbuyback.com

It's not about justice, it's about jobs for cops and prison guards.

Source

Pinal County hopes to alter ICE contract

By Lindsey Collom The Republic | azcentral.com Wed May 8, 2013 10:27 PM

Members of Arizona’s congressional delegation have agreed to intervene on Pinal County’s behalf in hopes that the Department of Homeland Security will renegotiate a more equitable contract to hold immigration detainees at the county jail.

Pinal County supervisors voted during a standing-room-only session Wednesday to make a last, friendly effort to “bring ICE to the table.” They decided not to threaten to sever the jail contract after Sheriff’s Office detention workers and their families pleaded with the board for help to keep their jobs.

Up to 200 jobs would be in jeopardy if the county was unable to recoup operating costs associated with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract.

A recent internal audit revealed that Pinal County annually spends about $2 million more than it receives from the federal government to house ICE detainees and carry out the contract’s terms.

County Manager Fritz Behring’s multiple attempts to initiate negotiations have been rebuffed by ICE officials who say they cannot consider any rate increases because of sequestration and budget concerns for fiscal 2014.

In a letter to ICE’s congressional liaison Wednesday, U.S. Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Flagstaff, and Paul Gosar, R-Prescott, pushed for the federal government to take action and pay its share. Sheriff Paul Babeu said he appealed to Kirkpatrick and Gosar for help earlier this week.

“Federal unfunded costs should not be imposed on the taxpayers of Pinal County, Arizona — such costs are the sole and exclusive responsibility of the federal government,” Kirkpatrick and Gosar wrote. “If the costs of housing an inmate are in fact higher than the federal reimbursement rate, there is a serious issue that must be addressed.”

The pair included in the letter an offer to facilitate a meeting between ICE officials, the Sheriff’s Office and county supervisors “so that all parties may come to a reasonable solution.”

County officials have warned for months that, if the daily rate paid to Pinal County for each federal detainee is not increased, the only foreseeable option to stem the negative cash flow is to cancel the contract, lay off up to 200 detention employees and shutter portions of the jail.

“These Board of Supervisors see nothing but paper and numbers, but we’re people,” said Sandra Price, a detention officer who spoke Wednesday before the board. “We have children; we have medical insurance to pay for; we have people to put through college. I’m 53 damn years old, and I should not be worried about losing a job that I love and I am dedicated to because they don’t want to negotiate.” [How can you love a job that jails people for the victimless crime of searching for a better life in America. I wonder if the jail guards that helped Hitler round up and murder the Jews also loved their jobs!!!]

The supervisors who signed off on the ICE contract in 2006 are long gone, as are the key administrators who were part of the negotiations.

Since then, officials have operated on the assumption that the contract was paying for itself, covering the debt from a $62.1 million detention-facilities expansion and sparing taxpayers any expense. The reality was far different, according to a recent internal audit that found Pinal County has forgone millions of dollars in potential revenue.

County officials admit the contract has been poorly administered but say they are now taking steps to correct the situation.

“If the feds will not renegotiate, what are we to do?” Supervisor Pete Rios asked board-meeting attendees Wednesday. “I don’t want these employees to lose their jobs, either. But we also need to look at property taxes that people don’t want increased, and we have to balance the budget.”

The board had been slated to vote on a motion directing Behring to give ICE an ultimatum: Work with Pinal County, or find another jail for immigration detainees.

Board Chairman Steve Miller said the idea was to apply pressure and determine whether ICE was truly interested in keeping its detainees at the county jail. In the latest correspondence, an ICE official said Pinal County is “an important partner in ICE’s mission.”

“Our office (Office of Acquisition Management) has been directed to not take any action that would result in a bed day-rate increase unless it is related to the Service Contract Act or some other mandated federal regulation,” contract specialist Grace Garrity told Behring in an April 2 e-mail.

She added that the office needed “a more clear idea of the budget constraints and fiscal priorities” before considering a rate hike and that that could happen in September or October at the earliest.

Miller admitted the federal government has no incentive to renegotiate. More than a dozen agencies in Arizona besides Pinal County have similar contract agreements with ICE, but with a prisoner per diem rate of $59.64, no one has given the feds a better deal.

“We need to figure out how to stop the bleeding,” Miller said. “We’re losing money every day, and we cannot afford to do that. If we want to get our arms around it, bring the levy down, the burden to each and every citizen of Pinal County, we cannot continue to lose money. Unless we can break even, we’ll have to pursue another way to address the issue. We’re doing the best we can.”

Tom Horne pays fine for hit and run accident.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is one of the government tyrants who is trying to flush Arizona's voter approved medical marijuana law down the toilet. That is Prop 203.

Source

Horne pays $300 traffic ticket tied to probe

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Wed May 8, 2013 10:54 PM

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne announced Wednesday that he has settled a traffic ticket that arose as a result of a federal investigation into allegations of campaign-finance violations.

In a statement released by his press secretary, Horne said he paid a $300 fine and reiterated prior comments that the hit-and-run fender-bender last year in a downtown Phoenix parking garage “at most left a paint scratch and no dent.” [I wonder if the cops would let me go if I claimed the hit and run accident I was in caused almost no damage. Probably not. I guess AG Tom Horne thinks he is special because he is a royal government ruler.]

Records from Phoenix Municipal Court indicate Horne pleaded no contest and will pay a total of $582, which includes the fine plus a surcharge. [Wow those fine surcharges almost doubled the fine bumping it from $300 to almost $600 or $582 to be exact!]

Horne received a misdemeanor citation alleging that he caused paint damage to the bumper of a parked vehicle during the March 27, 2012, incident that he did not report. The citation was for one count of leaving the scene of a crash with an unattended vehicle, a Class 3 misdemeanor.

Horne had argued that he was being unfairly targeted for prosecution for the fender-bender. [Why??? Does Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne think elected officials and government bureaucrats should be above the law???]

The accident was witnessed by two FBI agents who were tailing Horne as part of a joint investigation with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office into the alleged campaign-finance violations. Last week, a county Superior Court judge ruled that the campaign-finance case against Horne and an aide that was due to be heard this week cannot move forward because of legal technicalities and procedural failings by the secretary of state.

The campaign-finance case now goes back for review to the Secretary of State’s Office, which has already determined that reasonable cause exists to believe a campaign-finance violation occurred and can still pursue the case through another prosecutor — after first submitting it to Horne in his role as state attorney general.

The FBI turned the information about the car accident over to the County Attorney’s Office, which referred the matter to the Phoenix Police Department.

Public records obtained by The Arizona Republic from the County Attorney’s Office detail the accident. County attorney’s Detective Mark Stribling wrote a memo in April last year describing how FBI Agents Brian Grehoski and Merv Mason watched the crash and the minutes leading up to it.

Stribling wrote that agents saw Carmen Chenal, a longtime Horne confidante and employee, leave the Attorney General’s Office during lunch hour, get into a borrowed Volkswagen car and drive to a downtown Phoenix parking garage.

Horne then left the office and drove his gold Jaguar into the same garage.

Horne and Chenal then left the garage, with Horne driving the vehicle originally driven by Chenal, Stribling wrote. Chenal was in the passenger seat. Horne was wearing a baseball cap as they drove to Chenal’s home.

After the accident at Chenal’s apartment complex, the Phoenix report states, Horne “stopped for an estimated 10 to 20 seconds.”

“Neither Tom nor Carmen got out or opened the windows to look out to see the damage,” the report said. “Tom pulled away and parked the vehicle in another area of the parking garage, and the two of them walked through the resident gate and went into Carmen’s apartment.”

Authorities concluded that Horne, a married man, did not leave a note so that he could hide a relationship with Chenal.

Government is really good at wasting money!!!!

With 10 patterns, U.S. military branches out on camouflage front

With 10 patterns, U.S. military branches out on camouflage front

Source

With 10 patterns, U.S. military branches out on camouflage front

By David A. Fahrenthold, Published: May 8

In 2002, the U.S. military had just two kinds of camouflage uniforms. One was green, for the woods. The other was brown, for the desert.

Then things got strange.

Today, there is one camouflage pattern just for Marines in the desert. There is another just for Navy personnel in the desert. The Army has its own “universal” camouflage pattern, which is designed to work anywhere. It also has another one just for Afghanistan, where the first one doesn’t work.

Even the Air Force has its own unique camouflage, used in a new Airman Battle Uniform. But it has flaws. So in Afghanistan, airmen are told not to wear it in battle.

In just 11 years, two kinds of camouflage have turned into 10. And a simple aspect of the U.S. government has emerged as a complicated and expensive case study in federal duplication.

Duplication is one of Washington’s most expensive traditions: Multiple agencies do the same job at the same time, and taxpayers pay billions for the government to repeat itself.

The habit remains stubbornly hard to break, even in an era of austerity. There are, for instance, at least 209 federal programs to improve science and math skills. There are 16 programs that teach personal finance.

At the Pentagon, the story of the multiplying uniforms has provided a step-by-step illustration of how duplication blooms in government — and why it’s usually not good.

“If you have 10 patterns, some of them are going to be good. Some of them are going to be bad. Some of them are going to be in the middle,” said Timothy O’Neill, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who studied camouflage patterns as a West Point professor. “Who wants to have the second-best pattern?”

The duplication problem grows out of three qualities that are deeply rooted in Washington. Good intentions. Little patience. And a lust for new turf.

When a bureaucrat or lawmaker sees someone else doing a job poorly, those qualities stir an itch to take over the job.

“You don’t have empirical information on what’s working and what’s not working” in the profusion of new programs, said Gene Dodaro, who heads the Government Accountability Office (GAO). He hopes the country will finally decide it can’t afford this. “The fiscal situation . . . will begin to force that kind of decision to be made,” he said.

President Obama and congressional Republicans say they’re trying to prune back decades of redundant programs. Obama, for example, is seeking to kill or consolidate more than 100 of those science and math programs. But the problem lives on in many other places.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for instance, has a new congressionally mandated Office of Financial Education. It costs $7.87 million a year and is authorized to employ 14 people.

It is, by the GAO’s count, the 16th government program aimed at teaching the public better money management. And that shows.

At the Pentagon, a GAO study commissioned by the Senate Armed Services Committee found that the military services have spent more than $12 million on designing new camouflage patterns. The cost of buying, stocking and shipping 10 different types of camouflage uniforms is believed to be millions more.

Is anybody trying to fix this?

“The Department of Defense continues to look for ways to streamline processes and implement better business practices,” a Pentagon spokesman said this week. He gave no details.

Uniform, but unique

This, in brief, is how two camouflage patterns became 10.

The Marine Corps started it. The branch spent two years and $319,000 testing patterns to replace the green and brown ones. In the end, the Marines settled on a digital design, which used small pixels to help troops blend in.

There was a desert version and a woodland version — camouflage pattern Nos. 3 and 4.

The Marines did not intend to share them.

“The people who saw this uniform in a combat area would know [the wearers] were United States Marines, for whatever that might mean,” said retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, who initiated the uniform design and later became Obama’s national security adviser.

After that, the Army set out to duplicate what the Marines had done, spending at least $2.63 million on its own camouflage research. The Army produced what it called a “universal” camouflage, in shades of green, gray and tan. Pattern No. 5.

It was not as universal as they said.

After complaints that the pattern didn’t work in Afghanistan, the Army had to spend $2.9 million to design a camouflage specific to that country. The GAO found that the Army then spent more than $30 million to outfit troops with the new design, called Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage. Pattern No. 6.

Now, the Army is working to replace that replacement, with a new camouflage-design effort that has cost at least $4.2 million so far. The branch has given up on “universal.”

“A uniform that is specific to the desert and one that is specific to a woodland environment . . . outperform a single pattern, a universal camouflage pattern,” Brig. Gen. Paul A. Ostrowski, who oversees the Army’s uniform and equipment research, said in testimony before Congress last month. “We’ve learned that.”

Pattern No. 7 came from the Air Force. On the surface, that did not make a whole lot of sense: Only a subset of Air Force personnel fight on the ground, including rescuers of downed pilots and battlefield air controllers. But the branch still spent $3.1 million to come up with its own ground combat uniform. It was a “tiger stripe” pattern, a throwback to camouflage used in the Vietnam War.

But it was not well-suited to Afghanistan.

“They were not designed to hide anybody. They were designed to look cool,” said O’Neill, the West Point camouflage expert, giving his outside appraisal of the Air Force design. “It’s what we call ‘CDI Factor.’ Which is, ‘Chicks dig it.’ ”

Finally, in 2010, the Air Force ordered its personnel in Afghanistan to ditch the Airman Battle Uniform and wear Army camouflage instead. The Army pattern “provides the higher level of protection and functionality our airmen need,” an Air Force spokeswoman said this week.

Lost in the camouflage

The next three camouflage patterns arrived in 2011, from another unlikely source: the Navy.

“The Marine Corps, Air Force and Army had either all shifted, or were shifting. Which meant that if we wanted to continue using [the two original patterns], the Navy was going to have to pick up the entire contract,” said Terry Scott, who was the service’s top enlisted man at the time, the master chief petty officer of the Navy. “We knew we had to change.”

He said, “I remember saying, ‘Why don’t we just use the exact same thing’ ” as the Marine Corps? “Well, the Marine Corps had embedded . . . their symbol in the actual uniform pattern.”

It was true. The Marines had inserted tiny eagles, globes and anchors into the camouflage — betting that no other service would go to war with another branch’s logo on its pants. It worked.

The Navy spent more than $435,000 on three new designs. One was a blue-and-gray pattern, to be worn aboard ships. Pattern No. 8.

Sailors worried that it would hide them at the one time they would want to be found.

“You fall in the damn water and you’re wearing water-colored camouflage. What the hell is that?” said one active-duty petty officer. He asked that his name be withheld because he was criticizing a decision by the brass. “It’s not logical. It’s not logical at all to have water-colored uniforms.”

For the desert, the Navy came up with another design, a tan pattern that resembled the Marines’ desert pattern. Except theirs had a small USS Constitution embedded in the pattern. No. 9.

To the Marines, the Navy pattern was still too close a copy.

“We objected to that. We just said, ‘Look, there are plenty of patterns that are out there that are effective,’ ” said Gen. James F. Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, recounting that complaint during a Senate hearing in 2010. The reason was not battlefield safety, it was Marine pride.

“Even though [the Navy] is not using the patented pattern, I guess that it’s so very, very close,” Amos said. “It’s a point of pride, sir. It’s internal pride.”

That seemed a good enough reason for the Senate committee: “Well, pride and unit elan is certainly an important factor. I appreciate your response,” said then-Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.). The next question was about helicopters.

It was also good enough for the Navy. After the Marines objected, the Navy decreed that its new desert uniform would be given only to a select few: Navy SEALs and other personnel serving with them.

The rest of the Navy personnel who might serve in the desert — more than 50,000 of them — were issued a different camouflage pattern.

This was pattern No. 10. The Pentagon’s long and expensive search for new camouflage uniforms had previously defied logic. Now it would defy camouflage itself.

It ended with U.S. service members wearing green in the desert.

Discuss this topic and other political issues in the politics discussion forums.

Students Face Child Porn Charges in Nude Sexting Scandal

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Students Face Child Porn Charges in Nude Sexting Scandal

ETIWANDA, Calif. (KTLA) — They are nude self-portraits, taken by teenage girls, now on display in cyber space for everyone to see.

A sophomore boy at Etiwanda High School who tweeted nude pictures of at least four underage girls at nearby Rancho Cucamonga High created more than teenage Twitter drama.

His actions have now led to a criminal investigation.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident as a suspected case of child pornography.

But it’s not just the teenage boy who tweeted the nude photos who may have committed a felony, according to a department spokesperson.

Any underage girl who takes a nude self-portrait and texts it from her phone is committing the same crime.

Fellow students believe the boy collected the nude pictures from the girls’ ex-boyfriends, then sent them out in order to gain popularity on Twitter.

–Carolyn Costello, KTLA News

Poll: undocumented immigrants more popular than Congress

And of course unlike Kyrsten Sinema if these hard working Mexicans help you score some medical marijuana they won't shake you down for a 300 percent tax.

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Poll: undocumented immigrants more popular than Congress

Undocumented immigrants are more popular than Congress. No wonder. They work harder.

A New York Times/CBS poll last month found that a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants is favored by a whopping 83 percent.

What’s more, 56 percent of those who favored a path to citizenship said legal status should be offered while the border is being secured, not after the border is secure. So forget the triggers, Congress.

Or forget the public. That’s more likely.

And people know it.

Only 40 percent of those polled trust Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions about immigration. President Obama inched ahead with 43 percent saying he’d make the right choices on this issue.

Overall, only 17 percent approve of how Congress is doing its job.

Sixty-one percent disapprove of how Democrats in Congress are doing their job, and 69 percent disapprove of how the GOP is handling things.

The public is not pleased.

But the public doesn’t think Congress cares.

Only 9 percent said they think members of Congress are most interested in serving the people. But 85 percent said most members of Congress are more interested in serving special interests.

The public will on immigration reform is quite clear.

But Congress has a long history of ignoring the public will.

People have noticed.

So maybe we should just stop paying Congress. Turn off the lights. Shut down the phones. Let them hitchhike home.

Nothing is likely to get done right anyway.

Jan Brewer, medical marijuana and Doctor Robert Gear

Arizona medical official resigns, faces license suspension

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Thu May 9, 2013 6:38 PM

A member of two state medical regulatory boards has resigned, just hours before his colleagues were scheduled to discuss a possible suspension of his naturopathic license because of recent criminal charges against him.

Robert Gear, an appointee of Gov. Jan Brewer, stepped down Wednesday evening from the Arizona Naturopathic Physicians Medical Board and the Arizona Acupuncture Board of Examiners. The naturopathic board voted Thursday to hold a formal hearing to determine whether Gear can keep his license pending the criminal allegations.

Typically, the board suspends licenses if there is a potential public safety risk, said Craig Runbeck, the naturopathic board's executive director.

Gear’s tenure on the naturopathic board was marked with controversy partly because of an investigation by the board into his professional conduct, as well as his public comments about how he would use his ties to the governor and her husband to advance his agenda. His conduct did not sit well with some members of the board, which regulates about 700 licensed naturopaths, who combine traditional and natural medicine. And his conduct became problematic for the Governor’s Office, which oversees appointments to that board and dozens of others.

The governor appointed Gear to the naturopathic board last year and to the chiropractor board in 2009, according to her office.

Brewer’s spokesman, Matthew Benson, would not comment on the resignation.

Nor would Gear. In his letter to Brewer, he wrote he has “enjoyed serving you and the people of the state of Arizona.”

“I am of the opinion the time has arrived for me to step down from these positions,” he wrote.

A grand jury in February indicted Gear on two felony counts stemming from a six-month investigation by the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office into medical marijuana collective Nature’s Harvest, which has offices in Payson and Lakeside. The investigation was dubbed “Cash for Compassion: The World’s Second Oldest Profession.”

Navajo County authorities allege employees were illegally selling medical marijuana, court records show. As part of that probe, Gear was charged with fraudulent schemes and artifices as well as forgery, according to the indictment obtained by The Arizona Republic. The website for Nature’s Harvest once listed Gear, a naturopath and chiropractor, as a consultant.

Jim Molesa, Navajo County sheriff’s chief deputy, said authorities investigated Gear over allegations that he did not ask for medical records from people who sought medical marijuana recommendations.

Gear’s attorney, Kimberly Kent, told naturopathic board members Thursday he did not act illegally or improperly, that patient care was not impacted by his actions and that it would be “wholly inappropriate” to suspend his license.

Kent said the charges against Gear are tied to protocols he uses while certifying patients for medical marijuana and stressed those certifications make up a small portion of his practice. She said Gear is willing to show the board that his protocols “are in strict adherence” with the state’s medical marijuana law.

“There’s no allegation that any patient has been harmed ...There’s no allegation of injury, there’s actually no patient who has complained of any untoward action,” Kent told the board. “There’s no victim, as there sometimes can be in criminal cases.”

Nature’s Harvest is operated by Sheelah Golliglee, whom the governor removed as a public board member from the naturopathic panel last year after The Republic started asking questions about her professional connections to Gear. Board rules forbid public board members such as Golliglee from having any connection to someone in the health field.

Golliglee, has told other media she did not violate the state’s voter-approved medical marijuana law, which allows people with certain medical conditions, including chronic pain, cancer and muscle spasms, to use the drug after obtaining a physician's recommendation.

Gear is scheduled to appear in Navajo Superior Court on May 17.

11-year-old arrested for Airsoft gun on school bus

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Officials: Prescott Valley 11-year-old arrested for Airsoft gun on school bus

By Chris Cole The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Thu May 9, 2013 5:19 PM

A Prescott Valley fifth grader was arrested on suspicion of interfering with an education institution after he brought an Airsoft gun on a school bus in his backpack on Wednesday, authorities said.

Deputies responded to a call about an 11-year-old student in possession of a handgun on a school bus about 3 p.m., according to the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies, assisted by Arizona Department of Safety officers, had the school bus dispatcher locate the bus in a parking lot near the Arizona 69 and Central Avenue in Mayer, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Inside the student’s bag deputies found an Airsoft gun that looked and felt like an actual handgun, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The student told authorities that he had mistakenly left the gun in his backpack after playing with it over the weekend, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The student had found the gun in his backpack earlier in the bus ride and told the other student that he would show him the gun if the other student didn‘t tell anyone. The student then displayed the gun and told the other student that he carried it “for protection,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

The other student thought it was real and told his father, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The 11-year-old was was released to a Child Protective Services’ case worker for follow-up, the Sheriff’s Office said.

DPS rehires man suspected of fraud

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DPS rehires man suspected of fraud

High-profile accountant has served as expert; he hasn’t been certified in Ariz. since 2000

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Thu May 9, 2013 10:52 PM

Richard Echols has not been a certified public accountant in Arizona for more than a decade, but that has not stopped him from working on high-profile criminal cases as a forensic accountant for the Department of Public Safety.

Last month, a grand jury indicted Echols, 65, on allegations of fraud and forgery related to statements he made on DPS applications about his qualifications.

But on Thursday, Echols, who was fired from DPS last year for making false statements, was reinstated in his job with back pay after a law-enforcement review board decided to overturn the decision to terminate him, according to DPS.

Echols did not respond to a request for comment. But his attorney intends to argue that the state has insufficient evidence and that Echols had no criminal intent, according to court documents.

Bart Graves, a DPS spokesman, would not comment on Echols’ pending criminal charges, but said the Law Enforcement Merit System Council’s decision is binding.

“We will abide by the board’s ruling,” Graves said.

Despite the reinstatement, it is unclear what position Echols could return to with DPS because he is still not licensed to work as an accountant in Arizona. Echols was the accounting-fraud coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Information Network, a federally funded information-sharing system that serves more than 1,000 law-enforcement agencies in eight states, including Arizona.

DPS serves as the grant administrator for the network, and DPS Director Robert Halliday is the center’s policy-board chairman.

Echols’ position with the network, which also provides experts and assistance to law-enforcement agencies that cannot afford those full-time services, allowed him to testify in some high-profile cases around Arizona.

In 2010, Echols served as an expert accountant in the Yavapai County trial of self-help entrepreneur James Arthur Ray, who was ultimately convicted of negligent homicide for leading a retreat outside Sedona that resulted in the deaths of three participants.

Echols testified when Ray was trying to get his $5 million bond reduced and told a judge that Ray’s net worth was more than $2 million with more assets that had not been totaled.

Echols also played a role in the trial of Prescott financier Steve DeMocker, who is accused of bludgeoning his estranged wife with a golf club to collect $750,000 in life-insurance benefits and to avoid alimony expenses. A 2009 court filing claimed Echols’ conclusions about DeMocker’s finances were shaky, at best.

“This was a violation of Mr. DeMocker’s right to a fair and impartial presentation of the evidence and a violation of the state’s obligation to correct false testimony,” DeMocker’s attorney wrote. “All of this testimony was entirely speculative, untruthful and extremely prejudicial.”

DeMocker’s current attorney, Greg Parzych, said the defense team is aware of the fraud and forgery allegations against Echols and is conducting its own investigation. But with the recent indictment, it is too early to predict how that could affect DeMocker’s case, which has been delayed several times since the 2008 death of DeMocker’s estranged wife, Carol Kennedy.

“It’s obviously a potential issue. The state’s motive in Democker is that it’s a financial motive, so clearly this is a important witness to them,” Parzych said. “Obviously, it leaves us, the defense, open to talk about what his report says and potentially cross-examine (any) new expert on relying on Mr. Echols report.”

Court documents indicate that Echols lied about his certification on nine occasions between October 2006 and October 2010, through acts such as signing employment applications, applying for reinstatement as an accountant and ordering business cards that tout his qualifications.

According to the Arizona State Board of Accountancy, Echols has not been a certified accountant in Arizona since 2000.

His certification in Missouri remains active, and Echols could have worked as a certified accountant in Arizona under a reciprocity agreement, but a stipulation when he lost his license in 2000 prevented that, said Monica Petersen, executive director of the accountancy board.

Petersen said Echols relinquished his Arizona license in 2000 and stipulations for reinstatement included his passing a CPA exam and meeting other statutory requirements. Echols tried to get his license reinstated in 2007 and again in 2010, Petersen said, but abandoned his most recent effort in mid-2011.

Echols pleaded not guilty to the fraud and forgery allegations in a hearing last month and has an appearance in Maricopa County Superior Court scheduled for mid-June.

Messy yard cops hate hoarders???

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Dangers of hoarding can extend outside the home

By Cecilia Chan and Laurie Merrill The Arizona Republic-12 News , Breaking News Team Thu May 9, 2013 10:50 PM

It took a decade of complaints for officials to condemn the home of a Scottsdale recluse and seize 13 large tortoises, 13 exotic birds and a dog from his reeking, fly- infested home.

Neighbors in the 8700 block of East Sage Drive had complained for years about the elderly man who hoarded animals. It wasn’t just the smell and the flies, they said; it was also the untended forest of vegetation in his front yard.

Lately, the reeking had gotten worse.

“It was the smell of death,” neighbor Ann Sespico said. “You couldn’t be in your backyard.”

When police officers entered the house on Monday, they found more than a dozen tortoises in the backyard. Five were dead, Scottsdale police spokesman Dave Pubins said.

The animal-filled home in Scottsdale and the debris-packed house recently found in Phoenix hurt the quality of life in the neighborhoods, experts say.

Though the number of people plagued by a powerless need to collect worthless items and accumulate dozens of pets is not rising in the Valley, residents are becoming increasingly aware of the hoarders in their midst.

Hoarding poses a danger for first-responders whose lives are imperiled by the especially hot fires and narrow passageways.

While Scottsdale police officers were seizing the macaws, African grays and tortoises, a fire broke out in the kitchen next to a faulty microwave. Officials told neighbors one of the birds had been pecking on a wire.

Scottsdale firefighters responded and quelled the smoky blaze. But without such a swift response, there is no telling how much damage it could have caused to surrounding houses.

On a recent night, Phoenix firefighters found themselves battling a raging house fire that posed challenges — a house full of clutter that fueled flames and blocked their entry.

“It was packed almost to the ceiling,” fire spokesman Tony Mure said about the Maryvale house in west Phoenix. “Firefighters could not get into the front door.”

Firefighters broke the lock but couldn’t open the door because it was blocked by a wall made up of stacked paper and other items, Mure said. Firefighters finally busted a window and crawled precariously through the house atop piles of clutter, dragging their hose.

“It was very dangerous for our firefighters to be crawling on something that is three-dimensional and lose your footing,” Mure said. Neighbors later told firefighters that the owner had not lived in the house for some time.

Lack of regulation

Phoenix has no laws regulating hoarding, except when it involves animal cruelty. Nor is hoarding against the law in Scottsdale.

“We don’t dictate how people live within their own home,” Phoenix spokeswoman Barb Fraser said.

The city prohibits the storage of personal items that are visible such as in a front yard or carport, said Tim Boling, deputy director of the Phoenix Neighborhood Services Department.

Inspectors can only cite for blight violations outside the home, he said, adding that inspectors try to educate the resident of the dangers of hoarding if they see signs of it in the house.

“It’s like smoking in bed,” Boling said. “There’s no law against it but you know it’s not a good thing to do. It’s a hazard but people still do it.”

Scottsdale officials had been working with the hoarder whose animals were seized, neighbors involved in the case said. Officials had responded to neighbor’s complaints at least twice a year, said Raun Keagy, Scottsdale planning, neighborhood and transportation director.

The resident was cited twice, once in 2005 for having an overgrown front yard, and again in 2007, for overgrowth as well as having an inoperable vehicle in his driveway, Keagy said. Both times, he paid the fines and brought his property into compliance, Keagy said.

But neighbors said any compliance was at best temporary, and that the stench, ticks, flies, mosquitoes and overgrowth were the norm.

Fires harder to fight

One elderly Phoenix couple learned the hard way about the dangers of their compulsive hoarding — their home burned down as a result, city officials said.

The couple had crammed their home near 26th Street and Cactus Road with newspapers, bicycle parts, appliances and other items, Boling said.

After the fire, the couple lived in their backyard with no water, electricity or bathroom facilities, and refused to clean up the property and repair the fire damage to the home, prompting city inspectors to intervene.

“We received complaints from neighbors,” Boling said. “They had storage outside the home visible to the next-door neighbor.”

The house was red-tagged as unfit to occupy, he said.

“So under those circumstances we sent a notice of violation, either board it up, demolish it or fix it,” he said.

Eventually, the couple sold their home and the new owners are cleaning up the property, city officials said.

“The sale of the property was the best result for everyone involved,” Boling said.

Hoarders hard to track

Boling said Phoenix doesn’t keep numbers on hoarding.

“There’s no way to track it or ID it,” he said. “The only way we find it a lot of time is if there is a fire at a house and a fire department goes there and once they get the fire out they see it’s a hoarder situation, stacks of newspapers that keep the fire ignited and created a big problem for them.”

Mure said that in his 20-year career with Phoenix Fire Department, he’s encountered 20 to 30 cases of hoarding. And just about every firefighter in the department has seen it, he said.

Mure has been to a medical call where a resident kept 25 cats in the house and “the ammonia smell was so bad you wanted to puke.” Hehas treated someone with chest pains in a home scattered with human and animal feces, he said.

Mary Dickson, co-founder of the Arizona Hoarding Task Force, said an estimated 5 percent of the nation’s population is dealing with hoarding. [So the one percent of the populations that are neat freaks like the "Odd Couple's" Felix Ungar, wants to terrorize the 5 percent of us that are slobs like the "Odd Couple's" Oscar Madison]

The task force, formed in 2010 as a statewide collaborative resource on the issue, includes members who work in social work, public safety and code enforcement. Dickson is a building official for El Mirage.

Dickson said hoarding is not on the increase but rather more people are becoming aware of the issue through TV reality shows such as “Hoarders” and “Hoarding: Buried Alive.”

“It’s always been there in some form or another,” she said. “People are becoming less embarrassed to come out on it.”

The task force looks for three key criterion in determining a hoarding situation: collecting things that appear useless, living spaces that can’t be used because of clutter and impairment in functioning caused by hoarding.

“It doesn’t have to be all three but one of those three,” Dickson said.

A progressive disease

Hoarding is a psychological disorder that is triggered by a traumatic life-altering event such as a death of a spouse, divorce or job loss, she said.

“The tendency to hoard starts in adolescence,” Dickson said. “It crosses all boundaries—age, sex, ethnicity and economic levels.”

This month, the American Psychiatric Association will officially recognize hoarding as a mental disorder instead of clumping it with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Hoarders also put themselves as risk with their inability to throw anything away.

If a fire were to occur, the resident might be blocked from getting to the door, or emergency responders may not be able to find the person, she said.

In April, a New Jersey woman was found dead in her cluttered apartment two months after she was reported missing, according to the Associated Press. Her mummified body was hidden beneath clothing and debris that apparently hid her presence during earlier searches, the news organization reported.

Dickson said in many hoarding cases, lack of sanitation also comes into play; the shower or toilet doesn’t work or the kitchen is so full of junk, people can’t properly cook their food.

Mure said he’s been on medical calls where it was difficult for responders to reach someone in a back bedroom because of the clutter.

“Usually, you don’t see clean, immaculate kitchens and bathrooms that are sparkling,” Mure said. “Everything is run-down, everything is packed and piled on. You can’t physically put your foot on the floor without stepping on piles of paper, old soda cans, plastic bottles and trash.

“Usually when it gets in that situation, there’s stagnant air, cockroaches and mice. It’s an unhealthy situation for people.”

IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups

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IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups

Associated Press Fri May 10, 2013 9:03 AM

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

“That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out.

Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.

The forms, which the groups made available at the time, sought information about group members’ political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.

Certain tax-exempt charitable groups can conduct political activities but it cannot be their primary activity.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.

“There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

Shulman was appointed by President George W. Bush. His 6-year term ended in November. President Barack

Senator Steve Gallardo - Impeach AG Tom Horne

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Arizona senator calls for impeachment trial for Attorney General Horne

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Fri May 10, 2013 5:16 PM

A state Democratic senator is calling for lawmakers to initiate an impeachment trial against Arizona’s Republican Attorney General Tom Horne in the wake of his admission to a driving offense.

Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, told The Arizona Republic that lawmakers should scrutinize the state’s top prosecutor because of his no-contest plea this week to a misdemeanor hit-and-run charge. Gallardo said Horne should be held “to a higher standard.”

Horne on Wednesday agreed to pay a $300 fine to resolve the charge, filed last year after FBI agents saw him back a borrowed car into a Range Rover and leave without leaving a note. The FBI agents were tailing Horne as part of an investigation into alleged campaign-finance violations and witnessed the incident.

Horne has said the fender bender “at most left a paint scratch and no dent.”

Gallardo said Horne’s actions may not rise to the level of removal of office but that the state Legislature “has the responsibility” to look into it.

Gallardo is pitching the idea to members of his party in the House of Representatives, which has the power to impeach public officials.

“Politics aside, I think we have an obligation to have this type of hearing,” Gallardo said Friday. “We’d determine if his actions rise to level of impeachment, censure other punishment, or nothing. We have an obligation to hold him accountable.”

In response to Gallardo’s call, Horne’s press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, said, “When you're in the political minority, asking for impeachment of opponents is insignificant because it's not going anywhere.”

“Senator Gallardo already called for the Attorney General's resignation back in October. When you couple that with his involvement in the attempt to recall Sheriff (Joe) Arpaio, he is clearly the go to guy for political charades,” Grisham said.

It is unclear how much support — if any — an impeachment effort would have. With the 2014 attorney general’s race on the horizon, some Democrats say Horne is weakened by several controversies surrounding his tenure, making it easier for Democrats to re-take the post. Republicans have been reluctant to publicly criticize Horne and may be less inclined to try to force a fellow party member out of office.

House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, said the impeachment process should be considered and that he may talk with members about it.

“We need to look at all possible avenues to make sure that Mr. Horne and all the activities surrounding Mr. Horne are fully investigated, and the public feels due process has been given,” Campbell said. “If you look at what’s happened so far, it seems to have been a series of technicalities and loopholes that have saved Mr. Horne.”

Horne and an aide were under investigation for 14 months by the FBI and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office over allegations he violated campaign-finance violations. Last week, a county Superior Court judge ruled that the campaign-finance case against them cannot move forward because of legal technicalities and procedural failings by the Secretary of State.

The campaign-finance case now goes back for review to the Secretary of State’s Office, which has already determined that reasonable cause exists to believe a campaign-finance violation occurred and can still pursue the case through another prosecutor — after first submitting it to Horne in his role as state attorney general.

Horne and his aide have denied all wrongdoing, with Horne saying the case is based on speculation and that he will be vindicated through legal proceedings.

The impeachment process can be used to investigate and remove public officials who are accused of committing high crimes, misdemeanors or misconduct in office. The process involves a hearing, and if warranted, removal from office.

The process must be initiated by a majority vote of the Arizona House of Representatives, according to the state Supreme Court. Impeachment requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate.

The impeachment process was last used in the 1980s on former Gov. Evan Mecham. He was elected in 1986, impeached and ousted by the Senate in 1988. In a separate action, Mecham was indicted by a state grand jury on allegations that he tried to conceal a loan from a developer, but he was later acquitted of criminal charges.

Gallardo and Campbell said they hold members of their party accountable, pointing out that last year, Tucson Rep. Daniel Patterson resigned his House seat minutes before his colleagues were expected to vote to remove him as part of an ethics investigation.

Tucson officer suspected of having child porn

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Missing ex-Tucson officer suspected of having child porn

By Jane Lednovich The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Fri May 10, 2013 6:53 PM

Investigators are searching for a former Tucson police officer they suspect is involved with distributing child pornography online, officials said Friday.

On Thursday, police found multiple videos of child pornography at the Tucson home of 29-year-old Martin Ward, said Sgt. Chris Widmer with the Tucson Police Department. The investigation, which began in March, led officials to Ward’s home, located near the 9200 block of East Palm Tree Drive, Widmer said.

Police obtained an arrest warrant on Friday for Ward on one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, Widmer said. Further charges could possibly be filed after Ward’s arrest, he said.

Ward was hired by Tucson police in April 2007, Widmer said. He resigned last December instead of termination as the result of an unrelated internal investigation, according to police.

Anyone with information regarding Ward’s whereabouts is encouraged to call Tucson police at 520-88-CRIME.

Why does justice take so long and cost so much?

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Posted on May 10, 2013 2:36 pm by Robert Robb

Arias trial: Why does justice take so long and cost so much?

From the political notebook:

* I watched not a minute of the Arias trial. I followed the news about it only casually and haphazardly. It was a cultural phenomenon I was quite happy to just pass me by.

In the aftermath, what strikes my dull mind is the timeline and cost.

Travis Alexander was killed June 4, 2008, four years and 11 months ago. Jodi Arias was arrested for the murder July 15, 2008, four years and nearly 10 months ago. It was another three and a half years before she came to trial. The trial took another 4 months. It cost taxpayers millions.

Did it really require nearly five years and millions of dollars to decide whether Arias did the deed? [A good example is the OJ trail. Even if OJ was innocent, the legal system is so expensive that it bankrupted him. For poor people who can't afford lawyers, the system usually just railroads them, because they don't have any money for the lawyers to grab]

The Arias trial is, of course, a monumental exception. Most criminal cases are disposed of through assembly-line justice. An overworked prosecutor strikes a plea bargain with an overworked public defender in a case regarding which both have only a passing familiarity. [I think 99 percent of the criminal cases are done with plea bargains. People cop pleas because they can't afford a lawyer to properly defend themselves. And sadly most of these people were not arrested for real crimes, but for victimless drug war crimes.]

Does justice have to take so long and cost so much? Has it gotten so expensive that we can only afford it as an exception rather than the rule?

The same question plagues the civil justice system, except that there isn’t really an official assembly-line alternative. The civil justice system has become a place where large corporations can settle business disputes and severely injured people can receive compensation. The process is just too expensive and time-consuming for anyone else. [One way around this is to use binding arbitration, which is offered, not by the government, but by the private sector. And ALL the parties must agree in advance to the conditions.]

So, we now have criminal and civil justice systems that don’t really dispense justice for average Jacks and Jills.

That’s obviously not a good thing. The problem with reform is that doing anything meaningful would probably require rethinking the adversarial ethos that is the heart of the American justice system.

In our system each side gets a lawyer-gladiator who is supposed to do his best, not to ensure that truth emerges, but to get the best result for his side. Public prosecutors are supposed to keep an eye out for justice, but the competitive nature of the process distorts the lens through which that is evaluated. [That's a lie. Public prosecutors look out for themselves and the government, not the people they pretend to serve. I have posted numerous articles where people were framed by prosecutors who hid evidence that would have set them free. As of now 300+ people have been freed from death row when DNA testing proved they were framed by the police and prosecutors. I suspect that is just the tip of the iceberg]

In the American credo, everyone deserves his day in court, so there is great caution about limiting what the lawyer-gladiators can do. The result, however, is a justice system that is too costly and time-consuming for most people and most disputes.

Someone needs to be thinking about big reforms.

* Congressional Democrats are making a mistake in piling up the political sandbags on Benghazi.

Yes, Republican investigations into Benghazi are politically motivated. It’s Washington, D.C. That’s a given.

Nevertheless, there are three salient questions Republicans are raising:

Was security at the Benghazi consulate negligently neglected?

Could more have been done to save American personnel at the consulate during the attack?

How did a terrorist attack get inaccurately described as a protest over a video gone amuck?

The first two involve the kind of judgment calls for which clear-cut answers are unlikely.

There are always more legitimate requests for resources than there are resources. There’s at least some indication that the Benghazi consulate was partially, and perhaps principally, a CIA cover. There was no firepower close at hand that could have come to the rescue. Whether firepower elsewhere could have arrived in time, and whether it would have been wise to deploy it given the uncertainty on the ground, is speculative.

On the third question, however, things are starting to stink. At this point, it is clear that reporting from Libya and the conclusion of frontline analysts was, from the beginning, that this was a terrorist attack. The false video-protest-gone-amuck description was developed someplace higher up. Where and why are important and unanswered, although answerable, questions.

Congressional Democrats aren’t going to be able to protect the Obama administration on this. And there are risks to them in appearing indifferent to what frontline officials are risking their careers to say.

* The person who was most hurt by the false video-protest-gone-amuck story was U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who was put on all the weekend talk shows to spread it. At the time, she was being profiled to boost her chances to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Instead, her appearances killed them.

Maybe she should be put in charge of finding out who in the administration decided that was to be the story.

Student charged in nude pope parody

Source

Student charged in nude pope parody

Associated Press Fri May 10, 2013 11:47 AM

PITTSBURGH — Carnegie Mellon University Police have filed indecent exposure charges against a female student who paraded nude from the waist down while dressed as the pope.

CMU President Jared Cohon says in a Friday morning statement that charges were filed against the unnamed woman and an unnamed male who was also nude, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports.

Cohon says the school upholds the right to create works of art but public nudity is a violation of the law. Last week Cohon apologized for the April 18 incident after Bishop David Zubik of the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese complained.

Zubik says in a statement Friday that freedom of expression does not mean people should be allowed to disrespect anyone’s religious belief.

Student faces charges for mooning girls

Student faces charges for mooning girls

CHESTNUT TOWNSHIP, Penn. - A high school senior was banned from participating in graduation and faces criminal charges after mooning two eighth-grade girls, according to video from WBRE.

Larry Liero, 18, was escorted out of school in handcuffs after baring his buttocks to the girls as they toured Pleasant Valley High School, according to his father.

"I definitely was very upset with him," the father, Chad Liero, said.

The student was charged with disorderly conduct and open lewdness, a third-degree misdemeanor. The maximum penalty for that type of charge in Pennsylvania is one year in prison, WBRE said.

LA messy yard cops cite man for paintings of scary monsters.

Source

To Chris Brown, it's art; his neighbors see a monster nuisance

Kate Mather and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times

May 10, 2013, 6:02 p.m.

Rinconia Drive is one of those narrow, tree-shaded roads that snakes up the Hollywood Hills, lined with a mix of older bungalows and towering modern mansions.

But when you get to Chris Brown's concrete-and-steel-and-glass Jay Vanos-designed home, the mood changes dramatically. A flashy Lamborghini is parked in front, blocking the sidewalk and part of the street. A creature in a silver spacesuit is perched on a ledge.

And on the walls are massive paintings of monsters, standing 8 feet tall in bright neon colors. Their bulging eyeballs and giant fangs loom over the canyon.

To the pop star, this is art.

But to his neighbors, it's the latest insult in what has been an increasingly testy relationship. They say the monsters are scaring neighborhood kids and ruining the hillside aesthetic of the area below Lake Hollywood.

"There are lots of babies, lots of children, and they're literally frightened. It's like devils on the wall — big scary eyes and big scary teeth, and just the whole vibe is not what we're used to," said Patti Negri, president of the Hollywood Dell Civic Assn.

Negri is quick to point out that she has nothing against celebrities. Many live quietly in the area, and Negri bills herself as a celebrity psychic who once choreographed dance numbers for David Hasselhoff.

Brown is far from the first celebrity to ruffle neighborhood feathers. Not far away, Madonna drew protests in the 1990s when she painted her Hollywood Hills home in red and yellow stripes. Residents pulled the welcome mat from Lindsay Lohan over an endless procession of paparazzi and others speeding on her street. Justin Bieber's neighbors in Calabasas complain that his entourage regularly races through the suburban gated community.

But the Brown feud has taken on a life of its own.

"Chris himself did not warm himself to the neighborhood when he first got here, so this is kind of the straw that broke the camel's back," said Negri, adding that the community is fed up with his noisy parties and fast cars.

Responding to complaints about the monster art, L.A. city code officials cited Brown for unpermitted and excessive signage and ordered him to remove the art within 30 days. He also faces fines that start at $376 but could rise significantly if he fails to comply.

"They jump right out at you. They aren't just at the curb by the bins. It is all the way up the side of the house," said Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district includes Brown's colorful abode.

Brown's attorney, Mark Geragos, said the musician is not backing down. He says Brown has more to fear from the neighbors than the other way around.

"I'm scared of neighborhood busybodies like this," Geragos said. "They've called animal control. They have sicced parking [enforcement] on him, and now they reached the heights of ridiculousness here. Shame on them."

Geragos said the city can expect a legal fight over Brown's personal artwork, which unwittingly thrust him into one of L.A.'s longest-running civic debates. Although the city has a reputation for being the street mural capital of the world, much of that artwork has been done illicitly.

City ordinances make it illegal to create murals on the vast majority of private properties.

"They are trying to suspend the 1st Amendment," Geragos said.

Negri remains hopeful that Brown and his neighbors can mend fences.

"I know a $300 fine is probably pocket change. But hopefully and maybe, he'll just see the light and decide to be a good neighbor," she said. "We're happy to have him — if he just tones it down."

kate.mather@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

Naked airport protester still in hot water with TSA

Source

Naked airport protester still in hot water with TSA

By Devin Kelly

May 11, 2013, 8:00 a.m.

The man who stripped naked at a Portland, Ore., airport last year in protest of what he saw as overly invasive security measures successfully defended himself against a charge of indecent exposure.

But John Brennan hasn’t yet put the incident behind him.

The 50-year-old Portland man will be back before a judge next week to appeal a $1,000 fine from the Transportation Security Administration.

The fine came after a TSA investigation determined Brennan had interfered with the screening process last April at Portland International Airport.

Brennan told the Los Angeles Times that nothing about his behavior was intimidating or threatening.

“I’m very cooperative," Brennan said of the incident. "I wasn’t threatening. I’m using a normal tone of voice."

He added: "My reaction is they didn’t know what to do with somebody who was naked.”

He had opted out of the TSA’s full-body image technology screening, undergoing a full hand pat-down instead. He was told he had tested positive on a swab for nitrates, an ingredient associated with explosives.

A frustrated Brennan removed all his clothes on the spot to show he wasn’t carrying explosives, and to make a statement. Security camera video shows a naked Brennan standing motionless in the security area while officials rushed to block off the view with stacks of item containers.

In July, a Multnomah County judge acquitted Brennan of an indecent exposure charge, ruling that Brennan’s actions were a symbolic protest protected by free speech.

Brennan learned of the TSA fine a month later. He said he knew it might be coming, because officials had told him he would be under investigation for interfering with the screening process.

The case made Brennan a local celebrity. He was nicknamed “John Godiva” and “Naked American Hero” and his unclothed image appeared on T-shirts and tote bags.

His life has changed though. Shortly after the incident, Brennan lost his job as a web development manager.

He said he reached a settlement with his former employer in December. But he’s still unemployed, and said the incident has “definitely” affected his job search.

"It's much harder than I thought it would be, just to have all this scrutiny and to have this hanging over my head,” Brennan said.

Even so, Brennan said he’d make the choice to disrobe all over again.

“I know I made the right decision,” Brennan said. “As a citizen and supporter of the U.S. Constitution, that I was doing the right thing.”

If Brennan's appeal fails, he said, he plans to take the case to a higher federal court where his constitutional defense can be considered.

The TSA declined a request for comment. An emailed statement said the agency does not normally comment on civil penalty cases.

Brennan is accused of violating Title 49 under the Code of Federal Regulations, which states that "no person may interfere with, assault, or intimidate" TSA screeners.

How many people has NYPD cop Louis Scarcella framed for murder???

Review Ordered of 50 Brooklyn Murder Cases

By FRANCES ROBLES and N. R. KLEINFIELD

Published: May 11, 2013

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office has ordered a review of some 50 murder cases assigned to an acclaimed homicide detective, an acknowledgment of mounting questions about the officer’s tactics and the legitimacy of the convictions.

Robert Hill at Fishkill Correctional Facility in April. Mr. Hill, who was convicted of murder, and his family say they are convinced that he was railroaded by Mr. Scarcella, and that the detective had coached a witness. “I was kind of no good, but I wasn’t a killer,” Mr. Hill said.

The office’s Conviction Integrity Unit will reopen every murder case that resulted in a guilty verdict after being investigated by Detective Louis Scarcella, a flashy officer who handled some of Brooklyn’s most notorious crimes during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s.

The development comes after The New York Times examined a dozen cases involving Mr. Scarcella and found disturbing patterns, including the detective’s reliance on the same eyewitness, a crack-addicted prostitute, for multiple murder prosecutions and his delivery of confessions from suspects who later said they had told him nothing. At the same time, defense lawyers, inmates and prisoner advocacy organizations have contacted the district attorney’s office to share their own suspicions about Mr. Scarcella.

The review by the office of District Attorney Charles J. Hynes will give special scrutiny to those cases that appear weakest — because they rely on either a single eyewitness or confession, officials said. The staff will re-interview available witnesses, and study any new evidence. If they feel a conviction was unjust, prosecutors could seek for it to be dismissed.

“People will look for blame,” said John O’Mara, who leads the Conviction Integrity Unit. “Our goal isn’t to look for blame. Our goal is to correct injustice.”

Mr. Scarcella’s name surfaced in March after a judge freed David Ranta, who had spent 23 years in prison after being convicted of murdering a rabbi. Prosecutors determined that Mr. Ranta’s conviction resulted in large part from flawed police work by Mr. Scarcella and a partner, including failing to pursue a more logical suspect. An investigation found they removed violent criminals from jail to let them smoke crack cocaine and visit prostitutes in exchange for incriminating Mr. Ranta. A witness also said Mr. Scarcella told him who to choose in a lineup.

Mr. Scarcella, 61, who retired from the police force in 1999, said he was surprised to learn of the review.

“Are you kidding me?,” he said Saturday in an interview.“Wow. This is quite a bit of a shock. Let them look at my convictions. I will help them if they need me. I don’t know what else to say. I expect he will find nothing,” he said.

He has maintained that he did nothing wrong.

“I couldn’t sit with my family the past 30, 40 years if I had hurt an individual,” he said in a previous interview. “I never fudged a lineup in my life. I never, ever took a false confession.”

He suggested that, following the Ranta news, those he put away believe that “Scarcella is the get-out-of-jail-free key.”

Pressed about specific cases, he said he could not recall many details and that he was being unfairly singled out.

“I have to be a pretty smart guy to lock someone up, get it through the D.A.’s office, get it through a trial and jury, and convict a guy,” he said. “I’m not that smart. It’s not a Louie Scarcella show.”

The questions about Mr. Scarcella stem from the sordid decades when the city saw as many as six homicides a day, and the police and the district attorney struggled to keep up.

Interviews with dozens of lawyers, prosecutors, witnesses and suspects, as well as a review of legal documents, suggest a detective who followed his own rules.

The new developments have proved embarrassing for Mr. Hynes, who is seeking re-election to his seventh term this fall. Although many of Mr. Scarcella’s cases date back to Mr. Hynes’s predecessor, Elizabeth Holtzman, his office has for years aggressively fended off appeals and denied public records requests from inmates who believe they were wrongly targeted by Mr. Scarcella.

Ms. Holtzman said Saturday, “I support a review of these cases.”

A Common Eyewitness

Teresa Gomez, a drug addict born in Trinidad who spent her nights on the streets of Crown Heights, seemed to have a knack for witnessing homicides Mr. Scarcella was assigned to, prompting lawyers to call her “Louie’s go-to witness.”

In the late 1980s, Ms. Gomez testified that she saw a drug dealer, Robert Hill, commit two separate murders. Both times, she was the only eyewitness.

In the first trial, she said she was hiding in a closet in a crack den, watching through a keyhole in the door, and saw Mr. Hill put a pillow over a man’s head and shoot him. Mr. Hill’s cousin said the family later hired an investigator and found no keyhole in the closet door.

Mr. Hill was acquitted.

In the second trial, Mr. Hill was accused of shooting a man on a Crown Heights street corner and then, curiously, putting the dying man inside a livery cab and ordering the driver to take him to the hospital.

Ms. Gomez’s testimony was so belligerent that the judge threatened to strike it in its entirety. She contradicted the evidence in several ways, including the direction the shot was fired and the color of the cab. She even admitted she lied during the first trial.

Yet Mr. Hill was convicted.

“I was kind of no good, but I wasn’t a killer,” Mr. Hill, now 52, said in an interview at the Fishkill Correctional Facility.

Mr. Hill and his family say they are convinced he had been railroaded by Mr. Scarcella, and believe the detective coached Ms. Gomez on her testimony.

They said in interviews that they were startled when Ms. Gomez surfaced again, this time at the trial of Mr. Hill’s stepbrothers, Darryl Austin and Alvena Jennette, who were accused of killing a man for his money.

Transcripts show Ms. Gomez, who claimed to see the killing from a nearby street corner and decided to follow the killers home because she was “nosy,” gave muddled answers that contradicted the other eyewitness.

Jurors were deadlocked and leaning toward acquittal, according to court records. They complained of moldy sandwiches, and the judge pressed them to try harder. Three hours later, they returned with a conviction. Mr. Austin died in prison of lung disease, while Mr. Jennette, 49, was released in 2007 after serving 21 years. “The whole neighborhood knows we didn’t kill that guy,” he said.

As for Ms. Gomez, he said, “I don’t know anyone who ever witnessed three, four or five homicides, unless you were doing them.”

The Legal Aid Society said recently that Ms. Gomez’s repeated role is so troubling that it plans to review homicide appeals of that era to see how many mention her.

Mr. Scarcella said she testified in at least six cases and had nothing but praise for her.

“God bless her,” he said. Though he said he did not recall many specifics of the cases that involved her, he “stood by her 100 percent.” She died years ago, in what acquaintances said was a hit-and-run accident.

Witnesses back then were elusive. Yet Mr. Scarcella could not explain Ms. Gomez’s verbosity and ubiquity. He said he would give her cigarettes and some food money, but that was it.

George Duke, a former supervisor of Mr. Scarcella’s who speaks highly of him, said he thinks Ms. Gomez was among several prostitutes whom the police paid $100 per murder for information. But when they were obviously lying, Mr. Duke said, he would not use them in that case.

A prosecutor’s view of Ms. Gomez is available in an Internet posting on a cigar-smokers forum. Neil Ross, a former assistant district attorney who is now a Manhattan criminal court judge, prosecuted the two Hill cases. In a 2000 posting, he reminisced about a cigar he received from the “legendary detective” Louis Scarcella as they celebrated in a bar after the Hill conviction.

In the post, Mr. Ross said that the evidence backed up Ms. Gomez but acknowledged, “It was near folly to even think that anyone would believe Gomez about anything, let alone the fact that she witnessed the same guy kill two different people.”

Mr. Ross declined to comment, citing judicial ethics rules. “That is horrible,” Mr. Scarcella said about the post. “I don’t know what else to say.”

His Own Way

Mr. Scarcella grew up in Bensonhurst and his father, Domenick, was a police officer. The young Scarcella served six years in the Navy, and joined the police force in 1973. He became a detective in 1981, and in 1987 transferred to the Brooklyn North homicide squad. During off hours, he moonlighted as a Coney Island carnival barker.

His day job was nonstop. All told, Mr. Scarcella estimates he was the lead investigator on around 175 homicides and had a role in at least another 175. After he left the police force, he served as a schools investigator and a dock builder.

Some lawyers who crossed paths with Mr. Scarcella said they thought he imagined himself a crusader who created his own rules.

“He had a gregarious, funny, wonderful personality,” said Martin Marshak, a defense lawyer who represented clients in several cases in which, he said, Mr. Scarcella threatened witnesses. “N.Y.P.D. and prosecutors thought he was one of the best homicide detectives. The only problem was he never followed the rules.”

He added, “I don’t want to say he manufactured witnesses, but he got people to say what he wanted them to say.”

The Police Department would not comment on Mr. Scarcella or make his personnel record available.

Jay Saltpeter, a former detective who worked with Mr. Scarcella and is now a private investigator, says Mr. Scarcella is being unfairly scapegoated. He said detectives back then often assembled sloppy cases that prosecutors accepted. But he also said people did harbor doubts about Mr. Scarcella. “All the questions and rumors we heard then are coming out now,” he said.

In the 1987 murder trial of James Jenkins, who was convicted, Judge Francis X. Egitto said that the witness identification procedures used by Mr. Scarcella were “a classic illustration of what not to do.” Witnesses were shown one photo rather than a gallery, the court records show. They were allowed to mingle together while making an identification of Mr. Jenkins, and Mr. Scarcella told them, “We have the guy who committed the murder.”

“That was wrong if I did that,” Mr. Scarcella said. “But I don’t remember.”

Questionable Tactics

When Shabaka Shakur was interrogated by Mr. Scarcella back in 1989, he said he told the detective nothing of consequence.

But when Mr. Shakur showed up in court for his double murder trial, he was confronted by an incriminating statement that Mr. Scarcella swore he had taken from him. Mr. Scarcella’s underlying interrogation notes were missing, a lapse that shows up in other Scarcella cases.

Mr. Shakur was convicted in what was characterized by prosecutors as a squabble over car payments. The key evidence was an eyewitness and the incriminating statement.

Mr. Shakur, 48, is at Auburn Correctional Facility, in his 26th year of a 40-year-to-life sentence. In a telephone interview, he said Mr. Scarcella fabricated the statement and “they ignored the evidence that shows I wasn’t the guy.”

Ronald Kuby, his current lawyer, said he believes further investigation will show that a vicious drug gang was responsible.

Mr. Scarcella said he did not recall the case.

He does readily acknowledge that he obtained confessions and witnesses that fellow detectives could not. But he ascribes it to his beguiling manner.

“You’re right,” Mr. Scarcella said, “there were cases where suspects talked to one detective and they got nothing, and they called me and I got statements. A lot of guys don’t know how to talk to people.”

At times, he would bang tables and belittle suspects, but he said he favored more delicate approaches.

“Sometimes I would cry with them. Sometimes I would pray with them. Sometimes I would sit with them for hours and hours and hours,” he said, adding, “One young man, after advising him of his rights, said I was the father he never had. He felt so good. Unfortunately, he killed his roommate.”

In 2007, Mr. Scarcella appeared on the Dr. Phil show as an interrogation expert to discuss false confessions. At one point, he said: “Are there rules when it comes to homicide? No. No, there are none. I lie to them. I will use deception. [This is pretty normal and it sounds like he uses the "9 Step Reid Method" to get confessions, which is used by most police forces in the USA] The bad guys don’t play by the rules when they kill Ma and Pop, shoot them in the head, ruin the lives of their family. I don’t play by the rules.”

He went on: “I would use a lie. I had a case, and I said: ‘I have your prints. You were there, and that’s it.’ He said: ‘No. No way. I wasn’t there.’ [Again this sounds like the "9 Step Reid Method", which is used by most police forces in the USA to get confessions] It’s like 4 in the morning. I take him into the bathroom, and he says to me, ‘Louis, you were right. I was there, but he kicked me, and I shot him by accident.’ I said, ‘Don’t you feel better now?’ And he’s now doing 37 ½ years to life.”

Few individuals feel as wronged by Mr. Scarcella as Derrick Hamilton. He spent nearly 21 years in prison for a 1991 murder, before being paroled in 2011. Now a paralegal, he continues to try to prove he was set up by Mr. Scarcella.

Prosecutors defend the conviction, but Mr. Hamilton has affidavits from four witnesses, including a former police officer, who put him in New Haven, Conn., when the murder occurred. None had originally testified. The sole eyewitness who testified said Mr. Scarcella coached her on what to say, and has since recanted.

Mr. Hamilton, 47, had earlier served seven years for manslaughter. When Mr. Scarcella came to arrest him at a beauty parlor, Mr. Hamilton said, the detective gave him a smart-alecky kiss, and then at the precinct “looked me straight in the eye and said he knew for a fact I didn’t do it, but said I didn’t do enough time on a prior case.”

Asked about that, Mr. Scarcella said: “He can drop dead. The man is an out-and-out liar.”

Accusations of Intimidation

Witnesses as well as suspects accused Mr. Scarcella of coercing false testimony from them.

In 1992, Ronald Pondexter was accused of murdering a man during a middle-of-the-night robbery in the vestibule of an apartment building. The victim was with another man, who survived. After first offering a description that did not match Mr. Pondexter, the survivor said Mr. Pondexter was the killer, though his consumption of 12 drinks undercut his reliability as a witness.

Mr. Scarcella, the arresting officer, produced one other witness, a 19-year-old girl.

Her testimony of what she saw outside her window implicated Mr. Pondexter. Her mother, however, swore her daughter was asleep. In court papers, it was suggested that the mother might have been intimidated by associates of Mr. Pondexter.

During the trial, Michael Baum, Mr. Pondexter’s defense lawyer, said the daughter told him that she had lied because Mr. Scarcella had threatened her.

The judge did not allow her to take the stand again or strike her testimony. Mr. Pondexter was convicted. In 1996, the Court of Appeals ordered a new trial. The girl did not appear, and Mr. Pondexter was acquitted.

Mr. Scarcella called it “ridiculous” that he would intimidate a person to testify.

“I have no recollection of that whatsoever,” he said.

IRS official knew in 2011 that tea party was targeted

IRS official knew in 2011 that tea party was targeted

Times staff and wire reports

May 11, 2013, 7:55 p.m.

WASHINGTON — A top Internal Revenue Service official knew as early as June 2011 that conservative groups seeking nonprofit status were being singled out for additional scrutiny, raising questions about when senior officials were informed and why the IRS allowed the agency's commissioner to deny the targeting effort in March 2012 testimony before Congress.

The IRS has said the commissioner was not aware of the targeting at the time, but it has not explained why the testimony was never corrected. Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, told reporters Friday that the agency had targeted conservative groups, but she struggled with questions about when she learned of the effort.

A report from the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration, which is expected to be released this week, concluded Lerner had known about the effort, which she acknowledged Friday was "absolutely inappropriate," for almost two years.

Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R-La.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's oversight subcommittee, said the report "raises serious questions as to who at IRS, Treasury and in the administration knew about this, why this practice was allowed to continue for as long as it did, and how widespread it was."

On June 29, 2011, Lerner was told at a meeting that groups with "tea party," "patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being flagged for additional review of their applications for tax-exempt status, according to a section of the inspector general's draft report obtained by the Associated Press. The 9/12 Project was started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck.

Lerner instructed agents to change the criteria for flagging groups "immediately," the report says.

It wasn't until Jan. 25, 2012, however, that the criteria for flagging which groups to review was changed, the report says.

Efforts to reach Lerner on Saturday were not successful.

Throughout this period, conservative groups complained they were being harassed by the IRS and asked to fill out lengthy, intrusive questionnaires that sought information about donors and about members' political activities.

Several committees in Congress sent letters to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman to express concern. At a congressional hearing on March 22, 2012, Shulman was adamant: "There's absolutely no targeting."

The IRS has not said when Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, found out tea party groups were targeted. Shulman's six-year term ended in November.

The IRS said in a statement Saturday that the agency believes the timeline in the report is correct.

"IRS senior leadership was not aware of this level of specific details at the time of the March 2012 hearing," the statement said. "The timeline does not contradict the commissioner's testimony. While exempt-organizations officials knew of the situation earlier, the timeline reflects that IRS senior leadership did not have this level of detail."

The IRS said lower-level staff at its Cincinnati office came up with the plan to flag keywords to deal with a surge in applications for nonprofit status in 2012, an outgrowth of Supreme Court decisions that allowed nonprofit social-welfare organizations, which do not have to disclose their donors, to participate directly in political activities. Those organizations, however, must have social welfare, not political activity, as their primary purpose. The IRS reviews sought to determine the primary purpose of the groups.

In all, about 300 organizations were set aside for additional review, Lerner told reporters on Friday. Of those, she said 75 were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.

Staff writers Lisa Mascaro and Richard Simon contributed to this report.

You can be arrested for having "bomb components"???

Source

West, Texas, paramedic 'vigorously denies' link to explosion

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske

May 11, 2013, 1:50 p.m.

HOUSTON -- A paramedic arrested for possessing bomb-making materials after he responded to the massive fertilizer plant fire in West, Texas, has denied any connection between the fire and the charges he faces.

Bryce Reed, 31, released a statement through his attorney Saturday saying he "vigorously denies" charges filed against him Friday. He is accused of passing bomb-making materials to a resident in nearby Abbott, Texas, where they were discovered by the West bomb squad on Tuesday, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials who arrested him.

The complaint detailed the materials found, including a 3.5-inch length of galvanized metal pipe with two galvanized end caps attached, one of which had a 1/8-inch hole drilled in it. There were also canisters containing hobby fuse, a lighter, a digital scale, a plastic spoon and six coils of metal ribbon.

There were also several pounds of chemical powders in individual bags, including potassium nitrate, potassium perchlorate, aluminum powder, red iron oxide, ammonium perchlorate, sulfur powder, air float charcoal and Eckart 10890 German dark aluminum. An ATF chemist and explosives expert confirmed the material could be used to make a bomb.

According to the complaint, Reed "admitted to possessing the components of the pipe bomb." But his attorney told the Los Angeles Times they were still investigating the information detailed in the complaint and that Reed "disputes the allegations."

Reed did not enter a plea when he appeared in Waco federal court on Friday via video conference, and said Saturday he planned to plead not guilty.

"At this point in time, we have not been able to obtain specific information about the extent of the allegations, but Mr. Reed anxiously awaits his day in court and his opportunity to address these allegations," said the statement released to The Times by Reed's Waco-based attorney, Jonathan Sibley.

The Texas Fire Marshal's office is still investigating what caused the April 17 fire and explosion, which killed 14 and injured more than 160 in the town of 2,800, about 76 miles south of Dallas.

On Friday, McLennan County Sheriff's officials and the Texas Department of Public Safety announced that they had opened a criminal investigation into the explosion.

Officials would not say whether they had linked Reed to the blast.

In his Saturday statement, Reed denied causing the explosion.

"Mr. Reed had no involvement whatsoever in the explosion at the West, Texas, fertilizer plant. Mr. Reed was one of the first responders and lost friends, family, and neighbors in that disaster. Mr. Reed is heartbroken for the friends he lost and remains resolute in his desire to assist in the rebuilding of his community," the statement said.

Reed had become a visible figure in West after the disaster, speaking to the media, including The Times, about losing a close friend: firefighter Cyrus Reed, 29, of Abbott, whom he also spoke about at a memorial last month. The paramedic appeared to face criticism and responded on his Facebook page by saying he was not trying to profit from the disaster.

"We ask that Mr. Reed's family, friends, and community not rush to judgment," the Saturday statement said. "Mr. Reed has been through significant hardship in the wake of the disaster in West and he has responded and served his community with honor and strength."

Reed remained at McLennan County Jail without bond Saturday pending a hearing at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Waco, Sibley said. If convicted, Reed could face up to a decade in federal prison and a maximum $250,000 fine.

E-mails point to problems in Scottsdale crime lab

Source

E-mails point to problems in Scottsdale crime lab

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Sat May 11, 2013 11:04 PM

Scottsdale police crime-lab scientists and supervisors have spent five months arguing in court that blood-alcohol evidence processed in the lab can be trusted because the equipment works fine.

And if there are occasional errors, there are processes in place to prevent those mistakes before the evidence is sent out, they said.

The deputy county attorney defending the lab’s work made the same arguments to Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Jerry Bernstein on Friday during the closing stages of hearings about whether the lab’s blood evidence can be used in a series of drunken-driving cases.

“Not one question came from any of their mouths asking any of their own witnesses if the actual test results in these cases are inaccurate,” Deputy County Attorney Aaron Harder said.

“The state asked every criminalist that did the actual test in these cases, ‘Are these results accurate?’ and every single one of them explained they were.”

But internal e-mails between Scottsdale lab employees and their supervisors that were turned over to The Arizona Republic following a public-records request raise questions about some of those arguments.

The e-mails indicate that a machine in the lab failed a test but was logged as having passed, and results from tests run on the machine were published.

The e-mails also indicate that some employees believed one machine should be taken out of service and revalidated.

Another e-mail shows at least one lab employee mentioned problems with a blood-testing machine to the manufacturer, who wanted to correct the “malfunctioning equipment.”

Court documents indicate Scottsdale police knew for years of potential problems with the pricey blood-testing equipment.

For example, the equipment labeled vials with wrong names or numbers, quit running during tests and erased baseline information from measurements during test runs, according to court documents.

Some DUI attorneys began to notice inconsistencies in the lab’s procedures for handling blood evidence and filed motions to suppress the evidence, which were consolidated in the hearings before Bernstein.

The highly technical hearings have focused on the lab’s circumstantial failures as lawyers hope to convince Bernstein that the lab’s findings cannot be trusted.

If the evidence is disallowed, the lab’s equipment and work could be called into question in other cases, as well. A challenge of DUI-related equipment in the late 1990s resulted in the dismissal of more than 1,500 cases statewide.

The lab’s scientists and supervisors have argued that those errors did not produce enough flawed results to warrant taking the blood-alcohol testing machine, known as a gas chromatograph, out of service.

Joe St. Louis, an attorney working on behalf of the 11 defendants suspected of drunken driving in the consolidated cases, asked Bernstein on Friday where the “tipping point” should have come in the lab.

St. Louis said lab administrators recognized potential problems with the blood-testing machine and should have taken it out of service. But those problems might have never come to light without the work of DUI attorneys.

“We don’t just have this issue with the data, we have the machine not assigning the right names to the vials ... we have incorrect vial numbers,” St. Louis said.

“No one notices this until there is a defense-attorney interview, pointing it out to the analyst ... that is sort of a theme that runs through this. In so much of this, your honor, the quality control in Scottsdale is the defense bar.”

Harder and the lab’s employees have argued that structure of the lab puts scientists and managers in positions to serve as their own quality controls.

The faulty results from the blood-testing machine at the heart of the hearings were caught before they were published, Harder said, and the blood vials were retested to get accurate results. The DUI attorneys’ concerns about bad results being used in criminal cases were exaggerated, he said.

But an e-mail exchange included in the records released to The Republic indicates that test results from faulty equipment were released from the lab’s drug-testing unit. The controlled-substances unit is in a separate area and operates independently from the blood-alcohol lab, according to Scottsdale police.

“Last week, the Varian (gas chromatograph mass spectrometer) failed its weekly autotune check. An entry was made in the log stating that it had passed the check and casework was done using the instrument,” a lab employee wrote to managers on March 21.

“Some of the cases were tech reviewed, admin reviewed and reports were released last week based on results from the improperly functioning equipment.”

Sgt. Mark Clark, a Scottsdale police spokesman, said on Friday that lab managers repaired the 11-year-old drug-testing equipment as soon as the problem was recognized.

The DUI attorneys have also repeatedly hammered the lab for not taking the blood-alcohol testing machine that is prone to errors out of service for a “complete regression test,” as they say the lab’s accreditation requires.

Another e-mail exchange between Scottsdale lab employees in late 2012 discusses demands on the lab and whether administrators can afford to take equipment out of service.

Defense attorneys and their experts have argued that the lab’s caseload can influence the decision-making process when it comes to dealing with ineffective equipment.

A technician had replaced a keyboard on one of the lab’s blood-alcohol testing machines in November 2012 when a lab scientist asked the lab’s manager if any changes in the instrument should require “mini-validation” or full validation of the equipment, according to e-mails.

“Let me ponder this one if I can ... how long can we live with one GC (gas chromatograph) instrument?” the manager asked rhetorically before opining that a full validation might be necessary “in light of the court issues.”

The remainder of the e-mail is redacted.

The production demands on the lab come up in the scientist’s response, where she noted that the lab is getting more than 47 blood-alcohol tests per week, which means the lab needs to run two batches of tests, she wrote.

“In order for the batches to both be out on time they would need two instruments,” she wrote.

On Friday, Harder again scoffed at the notion that the machine was broken.

“It’s a ridiculous statement,” he said. “This instrument is working properly and accurately, and it’s shown over and over again.”

An e-mail that a representative from the machine’s manufacturer wrote to a scientist in May 2012 indicates that not everyone agrees with the prosecutor defending the lab’s work.

“Thank you very much for sharing your concerns about our HS-GC (headspace gas chromatograph) you have in your lab. Let’s work on resolving the issue quickly so you don’t have to face defense attorney’s challenges in court related to our malfunctioning equipment,” the manufacturer’s representative wrote.

Bernstein, who grew weary of the long-running hearings, cut off St. Louis midsentence on Friday when his allotted 15 minutes were up. He gave both sides until mid-July to file written closing arguments.

TSA Dog Bites Woman At Atlanta Airport

TSA Dog Bites Woman At Atlanta Airport

10:05 AM, May 11, 2013

Atlanta, GA -- A Rome, GA woman is still recovering after being bitten in the side by a TSA bomb-sniffing dog.

The incident happened on May 2nd in the south terminal baggage claim carousel at Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

Sue Dubitsky told 11Alive News she was standing in the baggage claim area and noticed the K-9 officer and handler standing beside her. She said she was barely paying them any attention when the dog suddenly lunged and bit her in the lower stomach.

According to an Atlanta Police report, Dubitsky was checked out by EMS on the scene however according to EMS first responders "the skin was broken, there was no bleeding and it just looked like a scratch."

But Dubitsky said the injuries were more serious; she said the bite left three cuts, bleeding and a bruise as big as her hand. She sent pictures of her injury to 11Alive.

"I don't remember feeling the cut," Dubitsky said. "I didn't really realize that he had pierced the skin."

Dubitsky said she wanted to speak out to keep this from happening to someone else.

"Can you imagine that [dog's mouth] around a child's neck?" she said. "And that, the height of my waistline, could easily be a child."

TSA provides and trains bomb-sniffing dogs for airport security. The dogs are handled by local law enforcement. In this case, the handler was an Atlanta Police officer.

Atlanta Police and the TSA are investigating the incident.

WXIA

Source

Posted: 5:09 p.m. Friday, May 10, 2013

Explosives-sniffing dog bites woman at airport

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Rome woman said Friday an explosives-detection dog working the baggage claim area at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport bit her, unprovoked.

Susan Dubitsky said she and her husband were waiting for her sister to arrive around 4:15 p.m. May 2. As an Atlanta police officer and the dog walked past, the dog bit her on the stomach. A little later, when the officer came back to check on her, Dubitsky said, “the dog tried to come at me another time.

“The dog just didn’t like me,” she said. “It was scary. There was no reason to go after me.”

Dubitsky said EMT’s at the airport treated her hand-size bite wound.

While the dog was working with APD, it is owned by the Transportation Security Administration.

TSA said in an email that is is “working with Atlanta PD to investigate the alleged incident with the canine.”

The dogs are trained by TSA to find explosives.

APD did not respond to an email request for comment.

Dubitsky said she had to have several shots but would not need rabies treatment because paperwork showed the dog has had its shots. The wound has now healed significantly, she said.

“I’m kind of upset about the whole thing,” said Dubitsky. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

Arizona Taxi drivers now subject to random drug testing

Source

Arizona Taxi drivers now subject to random drug testing

Posted: Wednesday, May 8, 2013 11:31 am

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services | 3 comments

For the first time ever, drivers of taxi cabs and limousines in Arizona will soon be subject to random drug testing.

Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed legislation which will require those who own or lease out taxis and other vehicle for hire to screen applicants for drugs at the time they are hired or allowed to lease one of the vehicles. That is on top of an existing requirement for a criminal background check. And drivers also will be subject to random tests at least once a year.

The measure takes effect later this year.

Kevin Tyne, director of the Department of Weights and Measures, stressed this is not some new government program with the state going out and stopping drivers. Instead, he said it's designed to make the owners of these vehicles more responsible.

But he said it is up to them to decide what to do with that information: Nothing in the new law prohibits a company from hiring or refusing to fire a driver who tests positive. That mirrors the existing laws on background checks, with no prohibition against hiring certain felons.

Tyne said, though, this is a big step for Arizona.

"Nearly every other jurisdiction that regulates and oversees and licenses 'for hire' vehicles like taxis and liveries and limousines have some sort of a basic drug testing requirement,'' he said. "Arizona was noticeably absent in that regard.''

He said many people use taxis and limousines, both local residents and visitors.

"Patrons ought to have some basic sense that the driver has at least been drug tested,'' Tyne said.

The legislation is unrelated to the mishap Saturday where five people riding in a limousine on the San Mateo Bridge south of San Francisco were killed in a fire. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation and there has been no indication at this point that the driver, who also was burned, was in any way responsible.

California officials said it appears the vehicle, which was licensed for eight passengers, had one more than the permitted number. There appears to be no similar laws in Arizona governing how many passengers can be in any particular vehicle.

According to the governor's office, there are 6,449 "for hire'' vehicles in Arizona. But the number of drivers is closer to 13,000.

Tempe gets 1st medical marijuana dispensary

And of course some politicians like atheist US Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema make worse by attempting to tax the krap out of medical marijuana. When atheist Kyrsten Sinema was a member of the Arizona Senate she tried to slap a 300 percent tax on medical marijuana. You would figure that a 300 percent tax on marijuana that was something only a nut job Christian would come up with, but sadly some atheist are also big fans of the insane war on drugs.

Source

Tempe gets 1st medical marijuana dispensary

By Weldon B. Johnson The Republic | azcentral.com Sun May 12, 2013 10:46 PM

The name, Harvest of Tempe, on the modest storefront in a south Tempe strip mall might suggest it is home to a food bank or perhaps a fresh-produce shop.

If you make it inside, though, your first impression might be of a secure bank.

That’s just what the owners want. Harvest of Tempe is the southeast Valley’s first medical-marijuana dispensary and is among a handful of dispensaries to open since Arizona voters approved the Medical Marijuana Act in 2010.

To enter, customers must pass through a magnetically locked door controlled from the inside. At that point, they must show their medical-marijuana card and other state-issued identification before they can pass through another locked door to the area where they meet with Harvest employees to discuss the type of marijuana needed.

Bulletproof glass protects the employees who handle money and dispense marijuana. Cameras record each transaction.

There are some samples of marijuana on display in that portion of the facility, but the rest is kept locked in a vault.

A large flat-screen monitor serves as a menu board, informing patients of the varieties of marijuana and edibles — brownies, cookies and candy containing the drug — that are available.

Reinforced concrete pillars have been installed at the rear of the building, at 710 W. Elliot Road, and similar planters have been placed in front to discourage any attempt to ram the facility with a vehicle to gain access.

Cameras cover the parking lots in the rear, side and front of the building, and capture anyone who enters.

The Ariz. law allows for the use of marijuana in the treatment of certain medical conditions, such as cancer or chronic pain.

“We’ve worked hard to make sure it’s not what most people would expect,” said Steve White, a member of the dispensary’s management group. “We’ve worked really hard with (Tempe) and the Police Department.

“We have safety precautions that are unlike any other place you’ll find in the state. We have taken it upon ourselves to create the nicest possible storefront.”

It is too early to know if the dispensary’s presence will lead to additional calls for police service, or if there will be an uptick in crime in the neighborhood.

Online reviews of the dispensary, which opened May 4, have been mostly positive. Randy Taylor, for example, said he loves the place.

“I’ve had my card for about two years,” Taylor said. “I’ve been to some of the caregiver clubs. This is a completely different deal. It’s nice to have a place like this where it’s just a regular transaction.”

Before the first dispensary opened in Glendale last December, more than 35,000 people who hold medical-marijuana cards could obtain the product legally only by growing it themselves or from caregivers who could grow the plants for as many as five patients.

Taylor said he was not comfortable with some of the other places where he’s obtained marijuana.

“Have you ever been to one of those clubs?” Taylor said. “It’s almost like you have to know a secret handshake, or you put money in a basket or you have to take a class. Some of those places in are not-so-nice neighborhoods, too. This place has a nice feel. It feels safe.”

White said that Tempe has placed requirements on its dispensaries beyond what state law mandates. Tempe also approved a facility on the north side of the city that has yet to open.

State law requires that there be only one entrance for customers, even if there is another entrance for employee use in the building. But in Tempe, there can only be one entrance to a dispensary.

As a result, the back door of the Harvest storefront has been removed and bricked over.

Tempe requires that patients accessing the facility be at least 21 years old. The state requirement is 18.

The menu monitor appears to be the only allusion in the facility to the illicit history of marijuana in this country.

Though Harvest employees won’t use words such as “pot” or “weed” to describe marijuana, the menu does contain the colorful names of strains such as AK47, Big Blackberry Rhino and Super Lemon Haze.

White said that some of those names make him cringe, and that Harvest has had to modify or change other names.

“There was a different culture of people who were naming these things at a time when it wasn’t legal,” White said. “So at some times, you’ll get names that will make you go, ‘That’s not going to work here.’ Our objective is to make this a professional, legitimate medical-cannabis dispensary. Having those types of names doesn’t work for us.

“We’ll tell people what they might have heard it called previously, but we really think that does a disservice to what we’re doing.”

So, when someone says that Harvest of Tempe isn’t what he or she expected, the owners take that as a compliment.

“We spent a lot of extra money to ensure we’re compliant with the state, compliant with the city and presented an atmosphere that patients will really like,” White said.

For more information, visit harvestoftempe.com.

Tenn. hospital treats drug-dependent babies

One problem not mentioned here is that because drugs are illegal they are super expensive and are sold at black market prices.

If drugs were legal these pregnant women wouldn't have to pay black market prices for their drugs and would have more of their money available to care for their babies.

Source

Tenn. hospital treats drug-dependent babies

Associated Press Sun May 12, 2013 11:24 AM

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- He’s less than two weeks old, but he shows the telltale signs of a baby agitated and in pain: an open sore on his chin where he’s rubbed the skin raw, along with a scratch on his left check. He suffers from so many tremors that he’s been placed in a special area so nurses can watch him around the clock in case he starts seizing —or worse, stops breathing.

The baby is one of many infants born dependent on drugs. He is being treated at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital in Knoxville, where doctors and nurses are on the front lines fighting the nation’s prescription drug epidemic. Drug abuse in the state is ranked among the nation’s highest, according to some estimates, a fact underscored by the number of children born with signs of drug dependence.

In 2008, East Tennessee Children’s Hospital treated 33 infants at the hospital for drug dependence, known as neonatal abstinence syndrome. Officials there expect that number to skyrocket to 320 this year. Since 2008, the hospital has treated 538 infants who are dependent on drugs. Last year, the hospital treated 283 babies suffering from dependence.

“It blew us away,” Andrew Pressnell, a nurse at the unit, said of the dramatic increase. “We didn’t know what to do.”

In most cases at the hospital, which specializes in treating drug-dependent infants and has shared its methods with other facilities nationwide, mothers had abused prescription painkillers or anti-anxiety medicines while pregnant, including hydrocodone, oxycodone, Xanax and Valium.

States across the U.S. have passed laws to crack down on prescription drug abuse, including in the Appalachian region, where the drugs were easily available as they flowed north from so-called “pill mills” in Florida. Federal authorities have stepped up prosecutions, and states including Kentucky and West Virginia have passed laws in an effort to curb the problem.

Tennessee also is working swiftly to get a hold of the crisis, through both new laws and education about the dangers of abusing drugs while pregnant. It also is believed to be the first state to require all health care facilities to report every instance of a baby born dependent on drugs, according to Tennessee Health Department officials.

The federal government doesn’t track the number of babies born dependent on drugs. And until now, the state could provide only estimates because testing for drugs in a baby’s system can’t always tell whether the infant suffers from dependence.

The state estimates that nearly 1,200 drug-dependent babies have been born in Tennessee in 2010 and 2011, the last two years where data is available. State Health Department records show that drug-dependent babies were hospitalized 55 times in 1999, a figure that increased to 672 in 2011.

Compounding that is the fact that the most recent data shows only Alabama and Oklahoma have higher rates of narcotic use, according to Express Scripts, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits manager.

The figures nationally are equally sobering: A study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that more than 13,000 infants were affected across the U.S. in 2009. Tennessee is the first state to track the number of babies born dependent on prescription drugs, said Stephen W. Patrick, a neonatologist at the University of Michigan and one of the authors of the study.

“It’s important for us to understand in as near real time as we can the scope of this epidemic as it relates to babies born dependent on addictive drugs,” Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner John Dreyzehner said.

Dreyzehner, a medical doctor who practiced both occupational and addiction medicine, ordered all medical centers in the state to report every case of drug-dependent newborns.

The prescription drug epidemic that is sweeping the country began in Appalachia, Dreyzehner said, and Tennessee is in crisis because significant portions of the state are in that region. But other states, he said, are now starting to see problems with the babies as the pill epidemic moves outside its epicenters.

Officials have been estimating based on discharge data that showed symptoms that babies suffered while in a hospital. Now they’re going to get real-time data to see how widespread the problem really is in the state.

Part of the solution is better education — the health commissioner is part of a group lobbying the Food and Drug Administration to put a warning on prescription drug bottles of the dangers of taking drugs while pregnant.

The preferred way to treat drug-dependent babies at the Knoxville hospital is by giving them small doses of an opiate and gradually weaning them off, said Dr. John Buchheit, who heads the neonatology unit at East Tennessee Children’s. So every few hours, the staff will give the infants morphine to help them get their symptoms of withdrawal under control. They’ll be weaned off over a period of either days or weeks, Buchheit said. However, there is little research showing the best ways to treat such infants, or how they may be affected long-term.

On average, infants stay at the hospital for about four weeks’ time because they have to be watched so closely.

“The problem is the side effects of morphine,” Buchheit said. “The one we worry about — the biggie — is that it can cause you to stop breathing.” [And of course that problem is caused by the insane war on drugs which has made heroin illegal. Heroin doesn't have this problem, and reduces pain without suppressing breathing like other opiate drugs do. And of course it is illegal for the hospitals to give the babies heroin, which is safer then morphine]

All that extra care adds up. Figures from TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid Program, show that it costs on average $62,973 to treat a baby with NAS compared with $7,763 for the care of an infant who is not dependent.

The influx of cases forced the hospital to develop its own set of protocols for treating infants, and those have been shared with other hospitals nationwide, Buchheit said.

“They have a well-oiled machine,” said Patrick, one of the authors of the national study, said of the Knoxville hospital unit.

And it has to be: Roughly half of the neonatal unit’s 49 infants are being treated for drug dependence. For those infants, the pain can be excruciating. The doctors and nurses who treat them say the babies can suffer from nausea, vomiting, severe stomach cramps and diarrhea.

“Diarrhea so bad that their bottoms will turn red like somebody has dipped them in scalding water and blistered and bled,” said Carla Saunders, a neonatal nurse practitioner who helps coordinate the treatment at the children’s hospital.

They have trouble eating, sleeping and in the worst cases suffer from seizures. Many suffer from skin conditions and tremors. Nurses place mittens on their hands because the babies get so agitated that they constantly scratch and rub their faces.

And they are inconsolable.

A small army of volunteers called “cuddlers” help the staff by holding the infants, rocking them and helping them ride out their symptoms.

Many of the babies have private, dark rooms with high-tech rocking machines to keep them calm.

Bob Woodruff, one of the 57 cuddlers the hospital relies on, gently rocks Liam, a 10-day old infant who was born drug-dependent. Liam sleeps soundly in the 71-year-old retired University of Tennessee professor’s arms. Woodruff moves from room to room, wherever he’s needed. He’ll swaddle the babies tightly, walk with them if it seems to settle them down or just let them feel a loving touch.

Woodruff, a grandfather who said he loves babies, wanted to do some volunteer work after he retired. “It’s very satisfying,” he said. “A big reason why I do it is because I believe it’s helping the babies.”

It is impossible to be unmoved by these infants, said Saunders, the neonatal nurse practitioner.

“If there is anything that could drive the people in our society to stop turning their heads to adult addiction,” she said, “it’s going to be the babies.”

More drug war lies??? Marijuana is a dangerous drug???

Source

Pot lobby’s talking points masking hidden dangers

By Ed Gogek My Turn Sat May 11, 2013 6:58 PM

A recent Liberty Mutual survey found that most teenagers believe they drive better, or at least no worse, high on marijuana. Research shows the opposite, that smoking pot impairs driving and can be as deadly behind the wheel as alcohol, but teens don’t read scientific journals. [I think the survey found SOME teenagers think they can drive better after smoking pot, not MOST teenagers. But hey, who needs to stick to the facts when you are demonizing drugs.]

Apparently, neither do the pundits who repeat pro-marijuana talking points even when those points have been proved wrong.

The latest is syndicated columnist Froma Harrop, proclaiming legalization will boost state-tax revenue (“Marijuana sales sprouting taxes, savings for Colo.,” Opinions, April 30).

The marijuana lobby sold legalization to Colorado and Washington state with this same promise, that taxes on pot would fill state coffers and fund education. But experts now say legalization will cost those states money.

A study by the Colorado Futures Center, a Colorado State University think tank, concluded that “the costs of regulating recreational marijuana — plus possible extra costs for law enforcement, public health and human services — may exceed the tax revenue from the recreational marijuana industry.”

No one should be surprised.

According to a Rand Corp. report, taxes on alcohol cover less than 10 percent of alcohol’s cost to society. Why would pot be different? [Because there are major differences between the two drugs. Alcohol is probably the second most destructive drug on the planet following tobacco. Every year millions of people die from tobacco and alcohol related illness. Of course year in and year out there are a big ZERO documented deaths caused from using marijuana. If the costs to the taxpayers were a reason to outlaw drugs, liquor and tobacco would be the first drugs outlawed.]

Harrop also says states will save money spent on arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations of pot smokers — another pot lobby talking point that’s also untrue. This should be obvious; police in America don’t go looking for pot smokers. They almost always find pot when arresting someone for another crime.

Three-fourths of all prison inmates are substance abusers, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, and many smoke pot. But most of them got arrested for crimes they committed because they were drunk or high, and that includes violent and property crimes. Even if drugs were legal, they’d still be in prison. [That's like saying mothers milk causes crime and that because 99.9 percent of the people in prison drank mothers milk when they were babies]

Selling drugs gets people locked up, too, but possession — almost never. According to the Arizona Sentencing Report, fewer than 100 of Arizona’s 40,000 inmates are in prison solely for drug possession, and most of those pleaded down from a more serious charge. [yea, and that is 100 too many people in Arizona's prisons for victimless drug war crimes]

Besides, history shows that when drugs are legal, use and abuse increase. Since drug abuse causes most crime, legalization would actually increase criminal-justice costs. [Wrong, it's not drug abuse that cause crime, it's the laws criminalizing drug use that cause crime. Legalize drugs and all these victimless crimes will disappear overnight!]

The marijuana lobby position that legalization will keep pot out of the hands of kids is equally wrong. Kids have no trouble getting legal alcohol. And data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health shows teen marijuana use is 30 percent higher in “medical” marijuana states. [Yea so what!!! Today despite the fact that marijuana is illegal, kids can still get marijuana easier then they can get liquor. So the bottom line is that the laws making marijuana illegal don't keep children from obtaining or using marijuana or any other drugs]

America has the choice between legalizing drugs, which would promote drug abuse and cost states money, or maintaining tough drug laws, which prevent crime and protect the next generation. The marijuana lobby is on one side of this debate. Good research is on the other. [Again drugs don't cause crime!! The laws against drugs cause crime. And just because something is "legal" doesn't mean society promotes it's use. While alchol and tobacco are both "legal" drugs, society doesn't encourage people to be drunks are tobacco addicts]

Ed Gogek is an addiction psychiatrist and board member of Keep AZ Drug Free, a group that opposes drug legalization and medical-marijuana laws.

More drug war lies??? Marijuana is a dangerous drug???

Source

Pot lobby’s talking points masking hidden dangers

By Ed Gogek My Turn Sat May 11, 2013 6:58 PM

A recent Liberty Mutual survey found that most teenagers believe they drive better, or at least no worse, high on marijuana. Research shows the opposite, that smoking pot impairs driving and can be as deadly behind the wheel as alcohol, but teens don’t read scientific journals. [I think the survey found SOME teenagers think they can drive better after smoking pot, not MOST teenagers. But hey, who needs to stick to the facts when you are demonizing drugs.]

Apparently, neither do the pundits who repeat pro-marijuana talking points even when those points have been proved wrong.

The latest is syndicated columnist Froma Harrop, proclaiming legalization will boost state-tax revenue (“Marijuana sales sprouting taxes, savings for Colo.,” Opinions, April 30).

The marijuana lobby sold legalization to Colorado and Washington state with this same promise, that taxes on pot would fill state coffers and fund education. But experts now say legalization will cost those states money.

A study by the Colorado Futures Center, a Colorado State University think tank, concluded that “the costs of regulating recreational marijuana — plus possible extra costs for law enforcement, public health and human services — may exceed the tax revenue from the recreational marijuana industry.”

No one should be surprised.

According to a Rand Corp. report, taxes on alcohol cover less than 10 percent of alcohol’s cost to society. Why would pot be different? [Because there are major differences between the two drugs. Alcohol is probably the second most destructive drug on the planet following tobacco. Every year millions of people die from tobacco and alcohol related illness. Of course year in and year out there are a big ZERO documented deaths caused from using marijuana. If the costs to the taxpayers were a reason to outlaw drugs, liquor and tobacco would be the first drugs outlawed.]

Harrop also says states will save money spent on arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations of pot smokers — another pot lobby talking point that’s also untrue. This should be obvious; police in America don’t go looking for pot smokers. They almost always find pot when arresting someone for another crime.

Three-fourths of all prison inmates are substance abusers, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, and many smoke pot. But most of them got arrested for crimes they committed because they were drunk or high, and that includes violent and property crimes. Even if drugs were legal, they’d still be in prison. [That's like saying mothers milk causes crime and that because 99.9 percent of the people in prison drank mothers milk when they were babies]

Selling drugs gets people locked up, too, but possession — almost never. According to the Arizona Sentencing Report, fewer than 100 of Arizona’s 40,000 inmates are in prison solely for drug possession, and most of those pleaded down from a more serious charge. [yea, and that is 100 too many people in Arizona's prisons for victimless drug war crimes]

Besides, history shows that when drugs are legal, use and abuse increase. Since drug abuse causes most crime, legalization would actually increase criminal-justice costs. [Wrong, it's not drug abuse that cause crime, it's the laws criminalizing drug use that cause crime. Legalize drugs and all these victimless crimes will disappear overnight!]

The marijuana lobby position that legalization will keep pot out of the hands of kids is equally wrong. Kids have no trouble getting legal alcohol. And data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health shows teen marijuana use is 30 percent higher in “medical” marijuana states. [Yea so what!!! Today despite the fact that marijuana is illegal, kids can still get marijuana easier then they can get liquor. So the bottom line is that the laws making marijuana illegal don't keep children from obtaining or using marijuana or any other drugs]

America has the choice between legalizing drugs, which would promote drug abuse and cost states money, or maintaining tough drug laws, which prevent crime and protect the next generation. The marijuana lobby is on one side of this debate. Good research is on the other. [Again drugs don't cause crime!! The laws against drugs cause crime. And just because something is "legal" doesn't mean society promotes it's use. While alchol and tobacco are both "legal" drugs, society doesn't encourage people to be drunks are tobacco addicts]

Ed Gogek is an addiction psychiatrist and board member of Keep AZ Drug Free, a group that opposes drug legalization and medical-marijuana laws.

IRS targeted groups critical of government

Source

IRS targeted groups critical of government, documents from agency probe show

By Juliet Eilperin, Published: May 12

At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.

The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that the IRS field office in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status decided to focus on groups making statements that “criticize how the country is being run” and those that were involved in educating Americans “on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

The staffers in the Cincinnati field office were making high-level decisions on how to evaluate the groups because a decade ago the IRS assigned all applications to that unit. The IRS also eliminated an automatic after-the-fact review process Washington used to conduct such determinations.

Marcus Owens, who oversaw tax-exempt groups at the IRS between 1990 and 1999, said that delegation “carries with it a risk” because the Cincinnati office “isn’t as plugged into what’s [politically] sensitive as Washington.”

Owens, now with the firm Caplin & Drysdale, said that before the agency’s most recent reorganization, it had a series of “tripwires in place” that could catch unfair targeting, including the fact that the IRS identified its criteria for special scrutiny in a public manual.

“There’s no longer that safety valve, and as a result, the IRS has been rolling the dice ever since,” said Owens, who worked at the agency for nearly a quarter-century and now represents some organizations seeking tax-exempt status.

The IRS came under withering attack from GOP lawmakers Sunday. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican, described the practice as “absolutely chilling” and called on President Obama to condemn the effort.

“This is truly outrageous,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that even though White House spokesman Jay Carney has said the matter deserves an investigation, “the president needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America.”

In March 2012, then-IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, told Congress that the agency was not targeting conservative groups. On Sunday, the agency declined to answer questions about whether senior officials asked IRS exempt organizations division chief Lois G. Lerner and her staff in Cincinnati about this heightened scrutiny before testifying it did not take place.

“There has to be accountability for the people who did it,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding: “And, quite frankly, up until a few days ago, there’s got to be accountability for people who were telling lies about it being done.”

The appendix of the inspector general’s report — which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be publicly released — chronicles the extent to which the IRS’s exempt organizations division kept redefining what sort of “social welfare” groups it should single out for extra attention since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision allowed corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums on elections as well as register for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, as long as their “primary purpose” was not targeting electoral candidates.

The number of political groups applying for tax-exempt status more than doubled in the wake of the Citizens United ruling, forcing agency officials to make a slew of determinations despite uncertainty about the category’s ambiguous definition.

Of the 298 groups selected for special scrutiny, according to the congressional aide, 72 had “tea party” in their title, 13 had “patriot” and 11 had “9/12.” Lerner, who apologized Friday for the targeting of such groups, described it as a misguided effort to deal with a flood of applications for tax-exempt status. She did not release the names of the groups.

On June 29, 2011, according to the documents, IRS staffers held a briefing with Lerner in which they described giving special attention to instances where “statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run.” She raised an objection, and the agency adopted a more general set of standards. Lerner, who is a Democrat, is not a political appointee.

But six months later, the IRS applied a new political test to social welfare groups, the document says. On Jan. 15, 2012, the agency decided to look at “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement,” according to the appendix in the IG’s report.

The agency did not appear to adopt a more neutral test for 501(c)(4) groups until May 17, 2012, according to the timeline in the report. At that point, the IRS again updated its criteria to focus on “organizations with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention (raising questions as to exempt purpose and/or excess private benefit.)”

Campaign reform groups have been pressing the IRS for several years to conduct greater oversight of nonprofits formed in the wake of the Citizens United case, given that many have become heavily involved in elections. “But this isn’t the type of enforcement we want,” said Paul Ryan, a senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. “We want nonpartisan, non-biased enforcement.”

Loyola Law School professor Ellen Aprill, who specializes in tax law, said any groups that have applied for tax-exempt status has “opened themselves up to scrutiny” by the IRS. “It’s part of their job to look for organizations that may be more likely to have too much campaign intervention,” she said. “But it is important to try to make these criteria as politically neutral as possible.”

Aprill said one of the problems is the agency’s top officials have not provided clear enough guidelines on what constitutes too much political activity for a social welfare group because it’s been “a hot potato,” and that now with this new controversy, “it’s going to make it even more difficult to do so.”

Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party, said the IRS subjected her group to a series of unreasonable requests after it applied for tax-exempt status in June 2010. The requests came in early 2012, Walker said, after being initially informed by an official in the Cincinnati field office that he was “sitting on a stack of tea party applications and they were awaiting word from higher-ups as to how to process them.”

The agency asked the group’s treasurer to supply information on its “close relationship” with current candidates and elected officials as well as future candidates, along with detailed information about its contributors and members. It also asked for transcripts of any radio interviews its officials had done and hard copies of any news articles mentioning them.

“That would take me years to do,” Walker said, noting that in some cases, Chinese media outlets referred to her organization. “Am I responsible for every news article across the globe?”

The group had even more difficulty providing transcripts and details of speakers at its events, since they hosted informal gatherings such as “rant contests” where anyone could come and express their views.

While the IRS awarded the Waco Tea Party tax-exempt status about six weeks ago, Walker said the group was now considering suing the agency since the process not only consumed time and effort but prompted the group to scale back its 2012 get-out-the-vote operation. “We were afraid to do it and get in trouble,” she said.

Sal Russo, chief strategist for the Tea Party Express, said that even though the agency’s actions intimidated tea party adherents, he gives the IRS “credit for standing up and admitting” it targeted them. And while only two of the agency’s officials — the commissioner and the chief counsel — are political appointees, Russo said the administration needs to conduct better oversight.

“The culture is set at the top,” Russo said. “Obviously you can’t control what every employee does. But you have to set a standard, particularly with the IRS, to be squeaky clean.”

Josh Hicks and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Discuss this topic and other political issues in the politics discussion forums.

Playing politics with tax records

Playing politics with tax records

By Editorial Board, Published: May 10

A BEDROCK principle of U.S. democracy is that the coercive powers of government are never used for partisan purpose. The law is blind to political viewpoint, and so are its enforcers, most especially the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. Any violation of this principle threatens the trust and the voluntary cooperation of citizens upon which this democracy depends.

So it was appalling to learn Friday that the IRS had improperly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny. It was almost as disturbing that President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have not personally apologized to the American people and promised a full investigation.

“Mistakes were made,” the agency said in a statement. IRS official Lois Lerner explained that staffers used a “shortcut” to sort through a large number of applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status, highlighting organizations with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names. The IRS insisted emphatically that partisanship had nothing to do with it. However, it seems that groups with “progressive” in their titles did not receive the same scrutiny.

If it was not partisanship, was it incompetence? Stupidity, on a breathtaking scale? At this point, the IRS has lost any standing to determine and report on what exactly happened. Certainly Congress will investigate, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised. Mr. Obama also should guarantee an unimpeachably independent inquiry.

One line of questioning should focus on how the IRS’s procedures failed to catch this “shortcut” before its employees began using it. Another should center on how this misguided practice came to light, and on what the IRS planned and plans to do about it. Ms. Lerner was responding to a question when the news first came out; it’s not clear whether the government intended otherwise to disclose what had happened. Nor have officials been clear whether disciplinary measures have been taken.

Did some officials hope never to reveal this wrongdoing? Did others hope it could quickly get lost in the weekend news cycle? Misguided, if so. We hope to hear Democratic leaders as well as Republican ones loudly saying so.

The agency said that it now has rules in place to make sure this sort of thing never happens again. How could such basic safeguards not have existed in the first place? And what are the new rules? In response to our questions, officials did not say.

Thankfully, it’s a safe bet that the decision on whether to answer such questions won’t rest solely with the agency for much longer.

Lingering questions about the IRS targeting of conservative groups

Lingering questions about the IRS targeting of conservative groups

By Josh Hicks, Published: May 13, 2013 at 6:00 am

The Internal Revenue Service left Washington abuzz over the weekend with a Friday admission that it singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2012 election cycle.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is expected to release a report on the matter sometime this week, with the findings based on an audit the agency conducted at the request of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The Washington Post and other media outlets have obtained details of that report, but many questions remain about the targeting actions. We’ll get to those below, but first let’s review a few things about this development.

Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that reviews tax-exemption applications, has described the targeting efforts as an “absolutely inappropriate” means of dealing with the high volume of applications after the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision, which allowed corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums, as well as to register for tax-exempt status as long as their “primary purpose” was not political.

Documents obtained from the upcoming report show that Lerner’s division repeatedly redefined what types of groups it should single out for special scrutiny.

The targeting of conservative groups started around March of 2010, according to the audit documents. But Lerner, a Democrat, “instructed that the criteria be immediately revised” after a briefing on the matter in late June of 2011.

The IRS adopted a more generic set of standards the next month, but it changed the criteria again in January 2012, deciding to look at “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement,” according to the audit documents.

In May 2012, the agency finally settled on a more neutral standard, targeting groups “with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention,” the documents said.

The Washington Post has created a timeline to show how the search criteria changed and what IRS officials told Congress at various times.

Now for those lingering questions.

How high did this go?

No media outlets have provided an answer yet as to whether anyone in the White House or the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, knew about the targeting.

The White House has simply said it supports more formal investigations and disciplinary action, if necessary. Lerner has stated that she did not contact the Obama administration about the matter.

Did the IRS target liberal groups as well?

Documents from the inspector general’s report show that the IRS singled out groups with names containing “tea party,” “patriot,” and “9/12 Project,” as well as nonprofit organizations that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution. (9/12 Project was founded by right-wing political commentator Glenn Beck).

Those search criteria match the profile of conservative groups that were active during the 2012 election, but the latter two don’t necessarily rule out liberal organizations. For example, the left-leaning group Patriot Majority could have raised a flag, either by accident or deliberately.

The IRS targeted 298 groups for special scrutiny, according to a congressional aide with knowledge of the report. Seventy-two had “tea party” in their title, while 13 had “patriot” and 11 had “9/12,” the aide said.

The audit documents do not expressly state whether the IRS targeted liberal applicants, but it’s possible.

Why didn’t officials acknowledge targeting when lawmakers inquired?

At least three House Republicans asked the IRS about its policies toward reviewing tax-exemption applications after complaints that the agency was singling out conservative groups for intense scrutiny.

Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent queries to Lerner from the Oversight and Government Reform committee, while Charles Boustany (R-La.), a member of the Ways and Means committee, demanded answers from the IRS.

On March 27, 2012, Issa and Jordan asked Lerner how the IRS selected groups for special scrutiny and which organizations were chosen.

Lerner’s reply didn’t mention the targeting of conservative groups — even though the audit documents show she knew about it by then — or name any entities that the IRS had singled out. Instead, she said identifying the targeted applicants that were ultimately approved would require additional work — a “manual review of each file” — and that IRS code prohibited her from providing information about groups that were not approved.

A timeline provided by the Ways and Means committee indicates that the IRS made no mention of targeting conservative groups in five separate responses to inquiries by Boustany.

Did the IRS commissioner talk to Lerner before testifying to Congress?

The Washington Post posed this question to the IRS, but the agency did not respond. Why does it matter?

In March 2012, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified on this issue before a House Ways and Means subcommittee, adamantly denying that the IRS singled out groups for special scrutiny. “There’s absolutely no targeting,” he said. “This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people [who apply for tax-exempt status.]”

That testimony came nearly 10 months after Lerner instructed her division to change its search criteria. Had Shulman consulted her, he might have known about the agency’s targeting — assuming Lerner would not withhold that information.

For more federal news, visit The Federal Eye, The Fed Page and Post Politics. To connect with Josh Hicks, follow his Twitter feed, friend his Facebook page or e-mail josh.hicks@washpost.com. E-mail federalworker@washpost.com with news tips and other suggestions.

3,000 drone murders by America???

According to this article the American government has murdered about 3,000 people with drones.

"about 3,000 foreigners have been killed in [American] drone attacks"

Bringing drones out of the shadows

By The Times editorial board

May 13, 2013

The use of unmanned aircraft to kill suspected terrorists, a practice that has dramatically escalated during the Obama administration, is receiving fresh and welcome scrutiny in Congress and elsewhere even as the number of drone strikes seems to be on the decline. Last week, Rep. William M. "Mac" Thornberry (R-Texas), the chairman of a House armed services subcommittee, introduced legislation to require the Pentagon to promptly inform Congress about every drone strike outside Afghanistan as well as about operations to kill or capture terrorists away from declared war zones.

And in a speech at Oxford University, Harold Koh, who until recently served as the State Department's legal advisor, criticized the administration for not being "sufficiently transparent to the media, to the Congress and to our allies." He urged the administration to publicize its standards for placing targets — Americans and others — on kill lists and to offer a clear tally of civilian casualties.

This page has repeatedly criticized the administration for its lack of transparency about the targeted killing of terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, and for its troublingly elastic definition of what constitutes an "imminent" attack on Americans that would justify the killing of a U.S. citizen abroad by drones or other means. The legality of targeting citizens without due process of law is an urgent issue.

But a debate about drones and targeted killings can't be limited to questions about disclosure, accountability to Congress and legal standards. Nor should legitimate concern about the killing of Americans obscure the fact that about 3,000 foreigners have been killed in drone attacks, some of them high-level Al Qaeda operatives but many others "unknown extremists."

As Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor and former Pentagon official, put it in recent testimony before a Senate judiciary subcommittee: "Over the last decade, we have seen U.S. drone strikes evolve from a tool used in extremely limited circumstances to go after specifically identified high-ranking Al Qaeda officials, to a tool relied on in an increasing number of countries to go after an eternally lengthening list of putative bad actors, with increasingly tenuous links to grave or imminent threats to the United States. Some of these suspected terrorists have been identified by name and specifically targeted, while others are increasingly targeted on the basis of suspicious behavior patterns."

Though estimates vary, it seems that hundreds of civilians also have died in drone strikes, a source of anti-American outrage in Pakistan and Yemen. That drones are more precise than manned jet bomber is small consolation for the families of those victims. In testimony before the Senate committee, Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemeni activist and writer educated in the United States, described the effects on his village of a strike: "For almost all of the people in Wessab, I'm the only person with any connection to the United States. They called and texted me that night with questions that I could not answer: 'Why was the United States terrifying them with these drones? Why was the United States trying to kill a person with a missile when everyone knows where he is and he could have been easily arrested?"

When even former officials of the Obama administration are expressing qualms about drones and targeted killings, it behooves the president and his advisors to reconsider the scope and utility of the policy. There are indications that such a reappraisal is underway. The Times has reported that administration officials are moving to shift authority for drone strikes from the CIA back to the Defense Department. There also have been reports that the administration will eliminate so-called signature strikes that are aimed not at particular individuals but at suspicious behavior, such as the massing of vehicles in areas thought to be under the control of Al Qaeda or similar groups.

For all their technological novelty, drones are weapons, and their use raises the perennial question of when and under what safeguards deadly force should be used to protect the national interest. More than a decade after the 9/11 attacks that provided the ultimate authority for the drone campaign, it's time to take stock of whether that policy still makes sense.

Government obtains wide AP phone records in probe

Government obtains wide AP phone records in probe

By Mark Sherman Associated Press Mon May 13, 2013 2:10 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for the Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.

The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaeda plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP's source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an "unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information."

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual and largely unprecedented.

In the letter notifying the AP received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt's letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012 story.

The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of leaking classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.

Justice Department published rules require that subpoenas of records from news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained though subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.

Spokesmen in Machen's office and at the Justice Department had no immediate comment on Monday.

The Justice Department lays out strict rules for efforts to get phone records from news organizations. A subpoena can only be considered after "all reasonable attempts" have been made to get the same information from other sources, the rules say. It was unclear what other steps, in total, the Justice Department has taken to get information in the case.

A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules.

The reason for these constraints, the department says, is to avoid actions that "might impair the news gathering function" because the government recognizes that "freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news."

News organizations normally are notified in advance that the government wants phone records and enter into negotiations over the desired information. In this case, however, the government, in its letter to the AP, cited an exemption to those rules that holds that prior notification can be waived if such notice, in the exemption's wording, might "pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."

It is unknown whether a judge or a grand jury signed off on the subpoenas.

The May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of the CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot occurred around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.

The plot was significant because the White House had told the public it had "no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden's death."

The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security. Once government officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot because officials said it no longer endangered national security. The Obama administration, however, continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement.

The May 7 story was written by reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman with contributions from reporters Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram. They and their editor, Ted Bridis, were among the journalists whose April-May 2012 phone records were seized by the government.

Brennan talked about the AP story and leaks investigation in written testimony to the Senate. "The irresponsible and damaging leak of classified information was made ... when someone informed the Associated Press that the U.S. Government had intercepted an IED (improvised explosive device) that was supposed to be used in an attack and that the U.S. Government currently had that IED in its possession and was analyzing it," he said.

He also defended the White House's plan to discuss the plot immediately afterward. "Once someone leaked information about interdiction of the IED and that the IED was actually in our possession, it was imperative to inform the American people consistent with Government policy that there was never any danger to the American people associated with this al-Qa'ida plot," Brennan told senators.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Two good reasons why you should take the 5th and refuse to answer all police questions!!!!

Source

Saudi traveler with pressure cooker arrested at Detroit airport

By Tresa Baldas Detroit Free Press Mon May 13, 2013 12:48 PM

DETROIT -- Federal agents arrested a suspicious traveler with an altered Saudi Arabian passport at Detroit Metro Airport over the weekend after discovering a pressure cooker in his luggage.

According to a criminal complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court, the passenger, Hussain Al Khawahir arrived Friday at the Detroit airport from Saudi Arabia via Amersterdam. He had a visa and a Saudi Arabian passport and told officers in the baggage control area that he would be visiting his nephew at the University of Toledo, the complaint said.

In the baggage area, two customs officers interviewed the passenger and noticed a page had been removed from the man’s passport, the complaint said.

The man said he did not know how the page was removed and stated that the passport was locked in a box that only he, his wife and three minor children had access to in his home, the complaint said. His hometown was not listed in court documents.

While at the airport, customs and border officials also examined his luggage and found a pressure cooker inside. When questioned about it, the man initially said that he brought the pressure cooker for his nephew because pressure cookers are not sold in Saudi Arabia, the complaint said. The man then changed his story and admitted his nephew had purchased a pressure cooker in America before, but it “was cheap” and broke after the first use.

Pressure cookers were used in last month’s Boston marathon bombings.

Then a U.S. Customs and Border Protection enforcement officer read Khawahir his Miranda rights.

The man acknowledged that he understood those rights, both verbally and in writing at 4:25 p.m. Friday. A minute later, he invoked his right to remain silent, the complaint said.

On Monday afternoon, Kawahir was in federal court in Detroit, making his initial appearance on charges that he knowingly used an altered Saudi Arabian passport with missing pages, and made a materially false statement to a customs officer about the pressure cooker in his possession, all to gain entry into the United States.

Customs and Border Protection officials and the FBI declined comment.

On Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian student turned al Qaida operative, tried to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner by concealing a bomb in his underwear. The bomb fizzled, a flight attendant put out the flames and passengers subdued him. He was sentenced Feb. 16, 2012, in U.S. District Court in Detroit to multiple life sentences.