Eideard

Shellie Leonard — neighborly burglar

At first, on Wednesday, she helped herself to some craft supplies. And a knife. A purse. One hundred CDs.

The window curtains.

Shellie Leonard wanted more, authorities said, and on Thursday she went back to her neighbor’s house on Dalwood Drive with plans to steal a computer and electronics. Her neighbor was incarcerated at the Pasco County jail. But Thursday happened to be the day the neighbor came home — and caught Leonard stealing, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said.

Leonard, 43, of 4004 Darlington Road in Holiday, was arrested and charged with two counts of burglary. Information on the victim — and what crime the victim is suspected of committing — was not available from authorities…

Leonard remained Friday at the Pasco jail in lieu of bail…

Har! More konvoluted karma.

Henry Marin was assigned to provide courthouse security, but in 2010 prosecutors say the Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy strayed.

He poked his head out of his courtroom doors, according to an indictment, and spotted a woman who was there to sneak him a package. Marin waved her over. The woman told him she had been instructed to hide the special delivery inside a burrito.

“OK … no problem,” the deputy said as he allegedly accepted the hand-off.

Inside that bean-and-cheese burrito was heroin that prosecutors say the deputy intended to smuggle into the courthouse jail.

On Wednesday, Marin, 27, surrendered to fellow deputies at the sheriff’s South Los Angeles station. He pleaded not guilty to charges of bringing drugs into a jail and conspiracy to commit a crime.

The charges against him are the latest in a string of prosecutions and internal affairs investigations that have targeted corrupt sheriff’s deputies and other department staff for delivering contraband behind bars, and helping fuel a lucrative drug trade behind bars.

Three sheriff’s guards have been convicted and a fourth fired in recent years for smuggling or attempting to smuggle narcotics into jail for inmates…

In Marin’s case, prosecutors allege that at least two other unnamed individuals conspired with him. According to the indictment, one of those individuals contacted the other to discuss using a deputy to get narcotics into the Airport Courthouse jail…

How do you think drugs get into any jail in the country? Homing pigeon?

You can only carry illegal substances into a lockup via folks who are there via established procedures: visitors, staff and law enforcement. The latter two are most often used as mules because they’re most likely to have experience with bribes in the first place.

Detention Center named for Sheriff Sullivan – now holds him

Patrick Sullivan was the kind of lawman Coloradoans loved: a straight-shooting Republican sheriff who once crashed a Jeep through a fence to rescue two deputies from a gunman and pleaded with legislators to keep assault weapons off the street lest any more citizens get shot.

On Tuesday afternoon, though, investigators from the same sheriff’s department he oversaw for nearly two decades found themselves monitoring a home near Denver that Mr. Sullivan was seen entering. Soon after, the police arrested Mr. Sullivan, now 68 and retired from the Arapahoe County sheriff’s office, on charges that he had been trying to exchange methamphetamines for sex with a man. He was booked that night at a local county jail that proudly bears his name…

Sheriff Robinson said the police began an investigation into Mr. Sullivan’s activities on Nov. 17 after several people informed the authorities that he might be involved with methamphetamines…

According to a probable cause statement filed in court on Wednesday morning, two confidential informers told the police that they had engaged in sexual activity with Mr. Sullivan before, in exchange for methamphetamines or cash…

Mr. Sullivan, whose dramatic rescue of his deputies in 1989 was captured on television, was named national Sheriff of the Year in 2001 and became a widely respected law enforcement figure here.

Certainly this wouldn’t disqualify him from running for office again as a Republican candidate? I bet he’d do well in a primary.

A Nova Scotia man is headed to jail for pricking holes in condoms in an attempt to get his girlfriend pregnant and save their relationship.

Craig Jaret Hutchinson, 41, was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison for sexual assault.

The Crown asked for a two-year prison sentence, while the defence wanted a two-year suspended sentence and probation.

Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Richard Coughlan said a suspended sentence was “totally inadequate.”

Hutchinson, of Clyde River, was dating a woman for several months in 2006. When she told him she wanted to end the relationship, he decided to puncture her condoms so she would get pregnant and stay with him.

The woman became pregnant. She had an abortion…The woman called police after Hutchinson told her what he did to the condoms. Police subsequently charged him with aggravated sexual assault.

Hutchinson was acquitted in 2009. The judge said Hutchinson’s actions were “dastardly” but didn’t constitute sexual assault.

The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ordered a new trial last year…and Hutchison was convicted of sexual assault in September.

What an egregious idiot. Bad enough he’s fool enough to believe he will force his girlfriend to marry him if he gets her pregnant; but, to deceive her into thinking they’re sharing safe sex is despicable.

At least she lives where she can have an abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy. That continues to become more and more difficult down here in the lower 48 – the Land of Liberty and Christian sharia law.

When Teresa Culpepper called Atlanta police to report her car stolen, the last thing she expected was to land behind bars for 53 days in a case of mistaken identity.

Mistaken for a woman of the same first name who was wanted on a battery charge, Culpepper is now trying to return her life to normal after the ordeal cost her home and her car. Her attorney said none of it would have happened if police had followed basic procedures…

Culpepper’s saga started August 21, whe she called police to report that her car was stolen, attorney Ashleigh Merchant said. An officer took information from her, but never filed a report. Shortly after, police dispatchers called out a bulletin, alerting officers to look out for a woman named Teresa Gilbert who was suspected of aggravated battery.

Police returned to Culpepper’s house and arrested her. And the differences between the two women didn’t stop at their last names, Merchant said.

“The birth dates didn’t match. The addresses were different. The description didn’t match. Other than the name Teresa, nothing matched,” Merchant said. “All they had to do was show a picture of Teresa to the victim and none of this would have happened…”

Weeks later…the battery victim came forward in court and cleared Culpepper’s name. Released on October 12, Culpepper found herself homeless and her car in the impound lot.

“After investigating this matter thoroughly and discussing it carefully with the Atlanta Police Department, we have concluded that the wrong person was arrested,” District Attorney Paul Howard Jr. said in a written statement to CNN affiliate WSB. “The fact that both of the women in question had the same first name and lived in the same police beat led the officer to believe Ms. Culpepper was responsible … Unfortunately, the officer never presented a picture or any form of identification to the victim.”

Culpepper is seeking legal action against the Atlanta police, Merchant said.

“It is scary, really,” Merchant said. “Because it is not like Teresa is an uncommon name. It makes you feel that it could have happened to anybody.”

Well, at least anybody who is Black and named Teresa – in Atlanta.

A hoax bomber has been jailed for claiming his wife was carrying explosives aboard a transatlantic flight because he wanted to “humiliate” her after their relationship ended.

Kevin Flynn, a 31-year-old chef, phoned police to say a device was being taken on a New York-bound aircraft by his wife, Kerensa, from either Heathrow or Gatwick airport.

Flynn made the anonymous call from a phone box in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, after the couple decided to end their relationship and she was travelling home to the United States…

Judge William Wood QC said: “When there is a chance of large-scale disruption or evacuation of buildings or aeroplanes and airports, this class of misconduct is so serious there is no possibility to do anything but impose an immediate custodial sentence…”

Following the sentencing, a spokesman for Sussex Police said: “Flynn acted without care for any anxiety or disruption he might cause and our investigation and the sentence reflects the seriousness with which we and the courts take such hoaxes.”

RTFA for the details of the soap opera.

Fact is that if the coppers hadn’t been sharp and connected Flynn to an earlier call from his home they might have gone for an emergency evacuation of the plane and the nearby terminal. You don’t always succeed in something like that being safe and orderly. Some innocent person could have been injured in a fear-driven stampede – just for his anger at his wife.

A Florida lawmaker is pushing to repeal a state law that makes it illegal to cohabitate with someone who is not their spouse, and makes it a crime punishable by a $500 fine and up to 60 days in jail.

According to 2010 U.S. Census figures, at least 544,907 Floridians reported being an “unmarried partner” — meaning they live in an intimate relationship with someone they are not married to, and thus are in defiance of Florida statute 798.02…

Last week, state Rep. Ritch Workman filed legislation — HB 4021 — to repeal that provision, as well as a related one that bars people from “living in open adultery…”

“What you do in your bedroom is your business, not the business of my great state,” said Workman, a Republican from Melbourne, adding that the statute is rarely enforced. “Quite frankly, I just want it gone…”

Actually, over 100 couples were arrested and charged under the law in the last year. Which illustrates how backwards Florida is – if nothing else.

Workman, himself married with two children, stressed that his legislative initiative is not anti-marriage or anti-family.

Rather, he described it as a practical move to remove statutes that are no longer realistic in today’s society. Workman said most legislators, even those who are more conservative in Florida, don’t want to discuss cohabitation and adultery.

“And I say ‘Great, let’s not talk about it,’” he said. “Let’s talk about an unenforceable and unenforced law that needs to be off the books.

Go back to our post a few days ago about the failure rate of Bible Belt marriages compared to educated parts of the country.

 
Chetan Baghat is India’s best-selling English-language novelist. According to Time magazine, one of the 100 most influential people in the world…His books deal with the lives, fears, aspiration and troubles of young Indians.

At the time I write this, millions of my countrymen are on the streets, fighting for a strong anti-corruption law. Many more are glued to their TV sets, watching developments as the initially defiant Indian government looks on track to eat humble pie.

This fight is led by Anna Hazare, a 74-year-old activist, who is on hunger strike until parliament considers the bill that would establish a Lokpal – ombudsman – with the power to investigate and punish corrupt politicians and civil servants.

Hazare had fasted in April and forced the government to agree to include his team in drafting the bill. His non-violent yet aggressive, Gandhi-like method of protest, together with his anti-corruption cause, struck a chord with Indians. Thousands of non-government organisations fight for social causes every day in India, but none has ever achieved this kind of support. From rickshaw drivers to software engineers, from businessmen to spiritual leaders, people from all walks of life back Anna. So do I…

Cynics thrive in India, and they have ample evidence to support their attitude. After all, things have not changed much over the past five decades – governance is as incompetent and corrupt as ever, and the guilty are almost never punished…

And yet, something is different about India’s class of 2011. Despite all the Uncle Cynics, people from all walks of life came forward to fight for the bill. From their parents’ generation that said “nothing will ever change”, they came forward to say: “I am the change…”

Though the government agreed to engage with Anna in April, it backtracked and insulted, ignored and snubbed his team during the drafting of the new legislation…In a serious lapse of judgment, the government arrested Anna from his home on the morning of 16 August. News spread, and the nation exploded on to the streets. By evening, the government wanted to release him. In a masterstroke, Anna refused to come out of jail, and continued his fast there. The country is in a frenzy, and the government is in a fix…

What has happened? How has a sleepy, defeatist India suddenly been galvanised into action? Why do our people, used to a feudal-colonial setup for centuries, suddenly want their politicians to be accountable, rather than treat them like kings? It is difficult to answer these questions at the moment, as we are still in the middle of the movement. However, a few things are clear: India seems to have suddenly woken up to an intense craving for the good and the honest.

Overdue.

Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw

Two men have been jailed for four years each in northwest England for inciting disorder via social networking sites, as rioting and looting erupted in London and other cities last week…

The pair, who were arrested last week, were named by Cheshire Police as Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22. Neither of their Facebook posts resulted in any rioting, a Cheshire Police spokeswoman said.

Sutcliffe-Keenan had set up a Facebook page called “Warrington Riots” that urged rioters to gather in the northwestern town on August 10, while Blackshaw had created a page encouraging people to cause trouble in his home town of Northwich on August 9, the spokeswoman said.

Residents and businesses reported the posts to police, and the men were arrested before any disorder occurred, she added…

More than 1,300 people have been charged across England in connection with last week’s unrest, which led to widespread looting and damage. Five deaths have been linked to the violence…

England’s cities have remained calm for the past week after a massive police deployment on the streets, but officers continue to make arrests based on security camera images and intelligence.

Police in London said they had arrested a 31-year-old man Tuesday on suspicion of attempted murder in connection with an incident in which two officers were bowled over by a vehicle, as they chased looters last week. Both were injured.

How stupid can you be? Let me count the ways:

Throw away the key.

A former Nasdaq executive has been sentenced to 3-1/2 years in prison after pleading guilty for making hundreds of thousands of dollars by trading on confidential information.

Donald Johnson, 57, was director and then managing director of Nasdaq’s market intelligence desk before retiring in September 2009. In May he pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud for his scheme, which ran from 2006 until 2009.

He was responsible for monitoring the stocks of companies traded on the Nasdaq as well as giving the companies information and analyses about trading in their stocks. As a result, Johnson received advance information about upcoming companies’ earnings, news releases and personnel changes.

Federal prosecutors accused him of using that inside information on at least eight occasions, reaping $641,000. Securities regulators said there was a ninth illegal trade that brings the total ill-gotten gains to just over $755,000…

Judge Anthony Trenga sentenced Johnson to serve 42 months in prison followed by one year of supervised release. The judge also signed a forfeiture order for the $755,000 amount…

Johnson is the latest high-profile prosecution in a string of cases brought by the Obama administration in a bid to crack down on insider trading.

Over at the Big Blog – and many other sites that halfway cover American business [or is that halfassed?] I have given up trying to correct the ignorant who constantly prattle about nothing ever being done about corruption on Wall Street.

Meanwhile, I continue to record a portion of these clowns sent up the river for their crimes.