Keepingitreal

Sarah Kruzan: 16-Year-Old sentenced to life for killing pimp

Filmed by the National Center for Youth Law, an advocacy group assisting her, Sarah tells in full detail her background, and the path leading up to the prison cell she resides in today.

She grew up in Riverside, California, in the home of a drug-addicted mother who frequently abused her. Nonetheless, this "over-achiever" excelled in school, making the principal's Honor Roll consistently, running track, winning a Young Author's Award for a book on the effects of drugs. It all seemed like the perfect Horatio Alger mythology come true, until she met a 31-year-old man, G.G.   

The missing "father figure" vacuum in her life was happily filled by G.G. who would take her and her friends skating and to the mall. "G.G. was there at some times," she says, "and he would talk to me, take me out, and give me all these lavish gifts... and then he would tell me, sex-wise, 'you don't need to give it up for free'." G.G. was a skilled manipulator who knew what he wanted, and just how to get it. When Sarah turned 13, he raped her.

"He uses his manhood to hurt--like break you in," Sarah recounts. The break-you-in allusion is a mere euphemism for prostitution. At that same age, Sarah was put on the streets, working 12-hour shifts (6P.M.-6.A.M.) for G.G. Sarah saw none of the money she worked for. "Everything was his," she reports.    

Three years later, fed up and frustrated, Sarah snapped and killed G.G., and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Plus four years.

She recounts the court proceedings: "I remember my lawyer saying that he wanted to ask for me to be sentenced as a Juvenile because Y.A. [California Youth Authority] had found me amenable and susceptible to the treatment; but the judge said that because of my crime--and he said it was well thought-out--that I deserved life without."  

"That means I'm gonna die here," she heartbreakingly reflects. And with tears soaking up her eyes, admits all wrongdoing: "I definitely know I deserve punishment: I mean, you don't just take somebody's life and think that it's okay; so, yes, definitely, I deserve punishment." But then she asks, and answers, a question the judge who sentenced her should have pondered more carefully: "How much? I don't know."

Even while the possibility of life beyond bars looks gloomy for Sarah, she's tried to "educate" herself, "reading books," though admits it's hard to "excel in prison."

Perhaps this was what her judge imagined when he condemned her for lack of "moral scruples." But given the opportunity at a parole hearing, Sarah would like to tell the board: "first of all, I've learned what moral scruples are; second, that every day is a challenge ... that I've found the ability to believe in myself, and that I have a lot of good to offer, now--the person who I am today, at 29: I believe that I could set a positive example. I'm very determined to show that no matter what you've done, or where you've come from, or what you've experienced in life, it's up to you to change."

This is California, a state with 150,000 inmates, 70% recidivism, 200% capacity, and $10 billion for its prison industrial complex budget. So, it makes sense that even harmless offenders like Sarah Kruzan, whose action while unlawful seem reasonable, are condemned as irredeemable, thus deserving of an existence devoid of any shot at redemption. CONTINUE READING...

Hearing on whether to toss Bart Cop murder charge

The lawyer for a former Bay Area transit police officer accused in the New Year's Day fatal shooting of an unarmed man on a train platform is arguing that the murder charge should be tossed out.

On Friday, defense attorney Michael Rains said at a hearing that Alameda County Judge C. Don Clay's ruling to have Johannes Mehserle stand trial for murder is "arbitrary, capricious and patently absurd." Rains says Clay excluded key evidence during Mehserle's preliminary hearing.

Judge Thomas Reardon did not render a ruling Friday, telling Rains and prosecutors that he could issue one early next month.

Mehserle shot in the back Oscar Grant after he was pulled off a train for allegedly fighting.

Mehserle has pleaded not guilty. Rains has said Mehserle had intended to use his stun gun but accidentally pulled his handgun.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/04/state/n122149D96.DTL#ixzz0QFnEv8Kr

Prisons: The New Asylum for Youth

A New York Times article reports that more and more courts are ordering mentally ill youth to jail as community mental health programs are facing bigger cuts and thinning resources.

“We’re seeing more and more mentally ill kids who couldn’t find community programs that were intensive enough to treat them,” said Joseph Penn, a child psychiatrist at the Texas Youth Commission. “Jails and juvenile justice facilities are the new asylums.”

Some judges say they’ll get the help they need in prison. However several lawsuits and federal civil rights investigations in Indiana, Maryland, Ohio and Texas say these prisons neglect and abuse incarcerated youth, a majority of which are youth of color, with mental illnesses, sometimes body slamming them and breaking their bones. While across the country, many of them are over prescribed with drugs sometimes just to help them sleep. But there seems to be little other recourse for some families.

From the article:

According to a Government Accountability Office report, in 2001, families relinquished custody of 9,000 children to juvenile justice systems so they could receive mental health services.

Donald has been in and out of mental health programs since he attacked a schoolteacher at age 5. As he grew older, he became more violent until he was eventually committed to the Department of Youth Services.

“I’ve begged D.Y.S. to get him into a mental facility where they’re trained to deal with people like him,” said his grandmother, who asked not to be identified because of the stigma of having a grandson who is mentally ill. “I don’t think a lockup situation is where he should be, although I don’t think he should be on the street either.”

I’m not an expert on prisons or a psychiatrist, but a prison system that thinks about mental illness as a crime is most definitely not any path towards mental health and personal healing.

Leticia Miranda

Sonia Sotomayor won confirmation Thursday as the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

WASHINGTON (Aug. 6) - Sonia Sotomayor won confirmation Thursday as the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, a history-making Senate vote that capped a summer-long debate heavy with ethnic politics and hints of high court fights to come. The third woman in court history, she'll be sworn in Saturday as the 111th justice and the first nominated by a Democrat in 15 years.With her Senate confirmation Thursday, Sonia Sotomayor, 55, is due to become the first Hispanic member of the Supreme Court. She's scheduled to be sworn in on Saturday.The Senate vote was 68-31 to confirm Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, with Democrats unanimously behind her but most Republicans lining up in a show of opposition both for her and for the president's standards for a justice. The 55-year-old daughter of Puerto Rican parents was raised in a South Bronx housing project and educated in the Ivy League before rising to the highest legal echelons, spending the past 17 years as a federal judge. She watched the vote on TV at a federal courthouse in New York City, among friends and colleagues.>Republicans argued she'd bring personal bias and a liberal agenda to the bench. But Democrats praised Sotomayor as an extraordinarily qualified mainstream moderate and touted her elevation to the court as a milestone in the nation's journey toward greater equality and a reaffirmation of the American dream. Obama, the nation's first black president, praised the Senate's vote as "breaking another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union." He planned to welcome Sotomayor at the White House next week. Minutes before the vote, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman, called it one for the ages. "Years from now ... we will remember this time when we crossed paths with the quintessentially American journey of Sonia Sotomayor."Senators took the rare step of assembling at their desks for the vote, rising from their seats to call out "aye" or "nay." The longest-serving senator, 91-year-old Robert Byrd of West Virginia who has been in frail health following a long hospitalization, was brought in in a wheelchair to vote in Sotomayor's favor. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., suffering from brain cancer, was the only senator absent. Sotomayor replaces retiring Justice David Souter, a liberal named by a Republican president, and she is not expected to alter the court's ideological split. Still, Republicans and Democrats were deeply at odds over confirming Sotomayor, and the battle over her nomination highlighted profound philosophical disagreements that will shape future fights over the court's makeup as Obama looks to another likely vacancy — perhaps more than one — while he's in the White House. In the final tally, nine Republicans joined majority Democrats and the Senate's two independents to support Sotomayor's confirmation. They included the Senate's few GOP moderates and its lone Hispanic Republican, retiring Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, as well as conservative Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the party's third-ranking leader. SOURCE: AOL NEWS

U.S. ruling: State must cut prison population

(08-04) 21:12 PDT -- A federal court panel ordered California on Tuesday to reduce the population of its bulging prisons by 40,000 over the next two years to meet constitutional standards for inmate health care and said it could be done without releasing dangerous prisoners to the streets.

"The convergence of tough-on-crime policies and an unwillingness to expend the necessary funds to support the population growth has brought California's prisons to the breaking point," the three-judge panel said. Unless the courts intervene, the panel said, inmates will continue to suffer and die needlessly because prisons lack the space and the staff to treat them.

By changing parole practices and releasing some low-risk inmates to local custody, treatment programs or electronic monitoring, the prison population can be reduced "without a meaningful adverse impact on public safety," the judges said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration immediately announced that it would appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The state needs to reduce prison crowding on its own, by lowering the inmate population and building more prisons, but "we just don't think the federal courts should be ordering us to take those steps," state Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate said.

Don Specter, a lawyer for prisoners who sued the state over health care, said the ruling allows California to "finally fix the horrible problems caused by prison overcrowding, and do so in a way that will not harm public safety but will make us all safer."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/05/MN1P193TJK.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0NJcKhXVJ

Chris Brown Pleads Guilty to Assault

LOS ANGELES — It was going to be another highly anticipated, media-clogged celebrity courtroom showdown, pitting pop singer Rihanna against her erstwhile boyfriend, R&B star Chris Brown. But it fizzled Monday when Brown accepted a deal in which he pleaded guilty to felony assault but avoided a trial and jail time.The plea agreement, under which Brown, 20, will serve 180 days of community service and undergo domestic-violence counseling, was announced at the start of a preliminary hearing here."Do we have a deal?" Judge Patricia Schnegg asked after calling the hearing into session.Rihanna, 21, had been prepared to take the stand to testify about what happened when the couple drove home from a pre-Grammy party in February.Brown, dressed in a black-, white- and grey-checkered suit, entered the courtroom flanked by five sheriff's deputies. Nearly a dozen members of his family filled two courtroom rows behind him and his attorney, famed celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos."I want Mr. Brown to be treated as any other person of this type of charge," the judge said.Dozens of media outlets were there to record the courtroom confrontation that didn't happen. Rihanna, wearing a black dress and pearls, appeared in court only after Brown had left. Rihanna — born in Barbados, real name Robyn Rihanna Fenty — listened as Schnegg explained the stay-away order she issued: Brown can't contact Rihanna and she can't contact him at least until Aug. 5, when Brown will be formally sentenced. Later, Rihanna's attorney, Donald Etra, said Rihanna didn't think the terms of the stay-away order were necessary. Etra would not comment on the current state of Brown's relationship with Rihanna. Brown's plea deal includes five years of supervised probation, plus Brown must pay court restitution and contribute to a domestic violence fund. Brown could have been sentenced to up to four years in prison. He will be allowed to do his community service in his home state of Virginia since he doesn't own any property in Los Angeles. Brown spoke softly as he told the judge he understood the terms and conditions of his plea. "I think it's commendable that you took responsibility," Schnegg told Brown. "I hope this will have some meaning for you." Once known for a squeaky-clean image, Brown has already suffered fallout from the case; he was dropped by some sponsors and had to cancel several appearances. Because violence was involved in the case, it may be tougher for the singer to rebound, but not impossible. "What happened today will have less impact than people thought," says Jason Adams, Entertainment Weekly assistant managing editor. "(It) pretty much sets both of them up to continue with their careers without turning a blind eye to what happened. … When it's all said and done, he's a young man, and this stuff will be over pretty quickly." SOURCE:USA TODAY

Chris Brown attorney seeks delay in assault case

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An attorney for R&B singer Chris Brown has asked the California Supreme Court to delay the assault case against the pop star until it can rule on the lawyer's attempt to get information from police.Court records showed on Tuesday that the court has not ruled on the request by attorney Mark Geragos, who is defending the 20-year-old Brown against a charge that in February he beat former girlfriend Rihanna, who is also a pop star.Geragos' appeal with the California Supreme Court seeks to delay a Los Angeles Superior Court hearing set for Monday.Geragos is seeking the delay while he asks the California Supreme Court to rule on his request for information from Los Angeles police. Geragos wants details on a police probe of a photo leak that showed Rihanna looking bruised and bloodied.Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg last month denied Geragos' request for information about the photo leak, saying it was too early in the case to deal with that.Rihanna, 21, has been called to appear at the Los Angeles court hearing set for Monday and if asked to testify, her attorney has said she will do so. Brown would also be present.Rihanna scored hit songs with "Umbrella" and "Disturbia," and Brown hit the pop charts with "Kiss Kiss" and "Run It." SOURCE:YAHOO.COM

Oil Giant Pays $15 Million to Settle Lawsuit Brought for Environmental Activist's Murder

In one of the many tragic tales of environmental heroism, Ken Saro-Wiwa stood up to the oil giant Shell with peaceful demonstrations and vocal opposition—until he was executed by his own government on false charges. A legal battle was then waged for nearly 15 years, in which Saro-Wiwa's fellow Ogoni people charged Shell with funding the government backed security forces that lead to the violence against them. Now, Shell has just agreed to pay $15 million to settle the case out of court—though the company still says it did nothing wrong.Ken Saro-Wiwa was an Ogoni, an ethnic group of Nigerians whose homes and health were (and still are) endangered by oil extraction practices in their native land. He took to organizing, writing, and activism to bring light to his people's plight.According to the Environmental News Service: An early member of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, organized and led nonviolent protests of up to 300,000 people against Shell's practices in Ogoniland, where crude oil extraction has taken place since the 1950s. The land and communities have suffered extreme and unremediated damage from decades of oil waste dumping and gas flaring, which continues today. Shell of course despised and feared the negative PR beginning to swell around their activities, and the Nigerian government felt economically bound to the giant company. And so what happened next was yet another atrocity in the sad and despicable history of powerful conglomerates protecting their interests: Shell grew increasingly concerned with the international prominence of the Ogoni movement and made payments to security forces that they knew to be engaging in human rights violations against the local communities. The military government of General Sani Abacha violently repressed the demonstrations, arrested Ogoni activists, and falsely accused nine Ogoni activists of murder and bribed witnesses to give fake testimony. The nine were denied a fair trial and then hanged on November 10, 1995. Now, nearly 15 years later, the Ogoni have won a small but deserved victory. The case they brought against the company under an obscure US law that allows foreigners to sue companies for human rights abuses has just been settled out of court. Though $15 million may seem a paltry sum to repay the vast injustices done to their people, and the murder of some of their brightest, perhaps the international attention garnered from this case will draw some attention to their plight. And even though Shell hasn't publicly admitted any wrongdoing, sometimes, actions speak louder than words. Ken Saro-Wiwa, with his courageous dedication to protecting his people, has proved that. SOURCE:CURRENT.COM

Guantanamo Bay Detainee Brought to U.S. for Trial

The Obama administration pressed ahead yesterday with its plans to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, flying a detainee to New York to face federal trial despite bipartisan opposition in Congress to bringing such prisoners to the United States for trial, resettlement or continued detention.The transfer of Ahmed Ghailani to face capital charges in the 1998 East Africa bombings marked the first time a detainee who is not an American citizen has been brought from the prison in Cuba to the United States. Ghailani, appearing briefly in U.S. District Court in Manhattan yesterday, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in connection with the blasts at the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Those attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.Human rights groups, which earlier expressed dismay about President Obama's announcement that some suspects would be tried in reformed military commissions, welcomed Ghailani's transfer. But Republicans and some military groups, who were cheered by the prospect of renewed military tribunals, sharply attacked the decision to hold any trials in the United States."By bringing Ghailani's case into the federal court system without a policy or plan on how to deal with the larger Gitmo issue, the Obama administration is again taking a piecemeal approach to a major national security issue," said Kirk S. Lippold, a senior military fellow at Military Families United who was commander of the USS Cole when it was bombed in Yemen in 2000.Since it announced its decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by next January, the administration has tread a politically treacherous path between the wishes of its liberal constituency and the fears of conservative critics, pleasing and upsetting both at different times.CONTINUE READING

Mehserle ordered to stand trial for murder

(06-04) 15:12 PDT OAKLAND -- Former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle was ordered Thursday to stand trial for murder by a judge who told him he didn't believe the explanation defense attorneys gave for his killing of an unarmed passenger. After listening to seven days of testimony, Judge C. Don Clay concluded that Mehserle hadn't gotten his stun gun and his service pistol mixed up when he shot Oscar Grant in the back at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland early New Year's Day. "There's no doubt in my mind," Clay said at the close of the former officer's preliminary hearing in Oakland, "that Mr. Mehserle intended to shoot Oscar Grant with a gun and not a Taser." The decision set up the first murder trial of a California peace officer for a line-of-duty killing in nearly 15 years. It prompted sobs of relief from Grant's family members, who spoke of having a sense of justice restored.

"This is going to be huge for people of color," Cephus Johnson, Grant's uncle, said outside court. "The community lacks faith in the judicial system when it comes to police officers."

Racial overtones

Mehserle, who is white, was not accused by prosecutors or Grant's family of a racial motive in the shooting of Grant, a 22-year-old African American who lived in Hayward and worked at an Oakland supermarket. But the outcry over Grant's death had racial overtones, with some African American leaders complaining that police officers often avoided consequences after brutalizing black people.  Mehserle, 27, showed little reaction as Clay made his ruling in Alameda County Superior Court. But earlier in the day, as Clay pushed defense attorneys to wrap up their case, Mehserle's father reacted angrily and suggested the hearing had been unfair. "No justice in Oakland," said Todd Mehserle, a Napa resident, loud enough for reporters who were in court to hear. "They want to see what they want to see. This town is a sham."

Seven days of testimony

During the preliminary hearing, Clay heard prosecutor David Stein and defense attorney Michael Rains spar over whether Grant had resisted arrest, whether he had his hands behind his back when he was shot and whether the train platform had been chaotic and scary for officers. One crucial point of disagreement was whether Mehserle acted like a man who had accidentally fired a gun. Rains, who argued that Mehserle lacked the malice necessary for a murder charge, said in his closing remarks that the officer had intended to stun Grant with a Taser after thinking that he saw Grant reach for a gun. Mehserle announced to a second officer, "I'm going to Tase him," Rains said, and then blurted out "Oh s-" after firing his pistol. CONTINUE READING..

Historic nomination: Hispanic Sotomayor as justice

Reaching for history, President Barack Obama on Tuesday chose federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to be the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court, championing her as a compassionate, seasoned jurist whose against-the-odds life journey affirms the American dream. Republicans who will decide whether to make a fight of her confirmation said they want thorough hearings. However, defeating Sotomayor would be difficult in the heavily Democratic Senate, and even a major effort to block her confirmation could be risky for a party still reeling from last year's elections. Hispanics are the fastest-growing part of the population and increasingly active politically. Obama, eager to begin putting his imprint on the court, beamed as he introduced Sotomayor as a judge who displays both an impressive mind and heart, a jurist who takes on cases with "an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live." He raved about her credentials, saying she would start on the job with more experience on the bench than any of the current nine justices had when they began. The White House tableau itself was history: A black president and his white vice president, Joe Biden, striding onto a stage in the ornate East Room with the nominee who grew up in a New York housing project where her parents had moved from Puerto Rico. At 54, Sotomayor (pronounced soh-toh-my-YOR'), would join Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the court and just the third in its history. She would replace liberal Justice David Souter, thereby maintaining the court's ideological divide. A number of important cases have been divided by 5-4 majorities, with conservative- and liberal-leaning justices split 4-4 and Justice Anthony Kennedy providing the decisive vote. SOURCE:SFGATE.COM

Senate to vote on outlawing prison cell phones

(04-30) 04:00 PDT Sacramento, California - -- Cellular phones have become so popular in California's state prisons that inmates are using them to coordinate escapes and, authorities suspect, to orchestrate crimes outside the gates. More than 2,800 cell phones were found on inmates or hidden around the facilities last year, prison officials say, double the number confiscated the year before. In an attempt to curb the problem, the state Senate is expected to pass a law next week that will make it a crime for the nearly 172,000 state prison inmates to possess cell phones or for people to smuggle them into prisons. "Every one of these phones is a threat to everyone - officers, prisoners and the general public," said Sen. John Benoit, R-Bermuda Dunes (Riverside County), who introduced the bill to outlaw unauthorized cell phones in the state's 94 prisons and other facilities. Such actions are now punishable by administrative penalties. If caught, inmates face the loss of 30 days of credit for good behavior. More than half the phones in prisons come from staff at the facilities - including guards, cooks, health care workers and others who sell them for between $100 and $400 apiece, state officials say. Others are concealed in food containers and packages sent to inmates, while still others are hidden at work sites where minimum-security prisoners can retrieve them, authorities say. At least two inmates have used cell phones to coordinate their getaway after escaping, said Richard Subia, associate director for the division of adult institutions in the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. CONTINUE READING..

Craigslist safety questioned after slayings

Responding to an ad on Craigslist for a used car in East Palo Alto got one man shot and robbed. A woman selling a laptop on the classifieds site was held up at gunpoint in Vallejo when she met with a prospective buyer. Although millions of transactions spawned by Craigslist are completed without a problem, a small number end in violent crime. That potential was underscored this week by the arrest of a Boston University medical student, who is charged with killing a woman he met through Craigslist and robbing another. Philip Markoff is accused of murdering Julissa Brisman, with whom he had allegedly arranged a massage in a hotel room, and of pulling a gun on a second masseuse in a separate attack. The high-profile slaying raises the questions: How safe is Craigslist? And should the company do more to prevent violent crime? "We believe the violent crime rate is vanishingly small," said Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's chief executive. "But no crime is acceptable." Craigslist, based in San Francisco, has evolved into a major destination for everything from selling futons to apartment hunting to finding a date. Not just a bulletin board, it is known as a community, where people share tips about pets and rant about their neighbors. More than 42 million people used the site in March, according to comScore. But some have tried to take advantage of the service by posing as legitimate users to find victims. Many users think nothing of inviting strangers they meet through the site to their homes to sell a sofa. SOURCE:SFGATE.COM

High court lets Abu-Jamal's conviction stand

Mumia Abu-Jamal who has been in prison since his conviction in 1982, has recently lost his latest bid to have his conviction overturned. The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would not take up his case. Mr. Jamal was convicted 27 years ago, for killing a Philadelphia Police Officer. He has maintained his innocent since. Mr. Jamal has been very prolific in keeping his case alive, and his beliefs of the injustice he has said he experienced 27 years ago. His story has gained National attention, from ordinary citizens, to some main stream celebrities. It would seem that Mr. Jamal is at the end of his journey to stay his execution. His death penalty sentence is still a matter of debate in the courts. Last year in March 08 the "3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction," but ruled his death sentence was invalid. Apparently, they found some irregularites in the juror instructions during the penalty phase of his trial. Mumia Abu-Jamal remains steadfast in his conviction that his conviction will be overturned in the near future. He has kept his case alive through various books and radio broadcasts.

U.S. turns up heat on Madoff clan, wants assets

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors raised the pressure on jailed swindler Bernard Madoff's family on Tuesday, signaling their intent to ask for $31.5 million from loans to his sons and $2.6 million worth of his wife's jewelry.Documents filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan follow a previous government "notice of intent to seek forfeiture" this week after Madoff pleaded guilty on March 12 to running the biggest investment fraud in Wall Street history, involving as much as $65 billion over 20 years.Madoff, 70, a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market, is the only person charged in the fraud surrounding the family-run business, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, in New York.He was arrested on December 11, and made a dramatic courtroom admission of his crimes last Thursday in front of scores of people he defrauded.Tuesday's second government notice listed as eligible for surrender any and all ownership interest held in the name of Ruth Madoff or Bernard Madoff in 20 entities. These included some real estate ventures of Sterling Equities, co-founded by Fred Wilpon, owner of the Major League Baseball club, the New York Mets.A spokesman for Sterling Equities said in a statement that Ruth Madoff and Bernard Madoff's brother, Peter, "have made investments as passive limited partners in real estate funds" sponsored by partners of Sterling and "a limited number of venture capital type investments.""Any potential forfeiture of these investments will have no material impact on such ventures," the statement said. SOURCE:REUTERS.COM

Madoff's new home: Cell the size of walk-in closet

NEW YORK — Bernard Madoff's new Manhattan home is the size of a walk-in closet, with cinderblock walls, linoleum floors and a bunk bed. Breakfast will be served before sunrise, and the disgraced financier can stretch his legs outside, but only every other day — in a cage. The Metropolitan Correctional Center, which has housed accused terrorists and reputed mobsters, welcomed the 70-year-old Madoff on Thursday after he pleaded guilty in one of Wall Street's biggest investment swindles and a judge revoked his bail. The federal jail in lower Manhattan stands between a courthouse and a church and holds inmates awaiting trial or serving short sentences. Currently, about 750 men and women are behind bars there. Since his arrest in December, Madoff has been confined to his $7 million penthouse apartment. When inmates first arrive at the jail, they are given physical and psychological exams and instructed on the rules. If cleared to enter the general population, they are issued a baggy brown uniform and assigned to cells measuring 7 1/2-by-8 feet, each fitted with a sink and toilet. Many inmates must share their cells with another prisoner, but it was not immediately clear Thursday whether Madoff would have a cellmate. There's a strict schedule: Lights on at 6 a.m., breakfast at 6:30 a.m., lunch at 11 a.m., dinner at 5 p.m., lights out at 11 p.m. During the day, inmates can watch television, play ping pong, work on their cases in a legal library or volunteer for janitorial duty. On alternate days, they are allowed up on the caged roof, where from courthouse windows they can be seen playing basketball. For court dates, they are shackled and escorted by deputy marshals through an underground tunnel. The facility alots three hours a week for visits by family or lawyers. Inmates can also spend up to 300 minutes per month making phone calls, which can be monitored. Those who misbehave or present a risk of violence are thrown into a separate unit where they spend nearly all day locked in their cells and must endure strip searches and constant monitoring by cameras. SOURCE:COMCAST.NET

Madoff Will Plead Guilty; Faces Life for Vast Swindle

Bernard L. Madoff is facing life in prison for operating a vast Ponzi scheme that began at least 20 years ago and consumed billions of dollars of other people’s money. While his fate will not be certain until he is sentenced, his lawyer told a federal judge on Tuesday that he intended to plead guilty on Thursday to all the criminal charges that federal prosecutors had filed against him — a list that could yield a prison sentence of 150 years. Mr. Madoff was arrested Dec. 12 at his Manhattan home by federal agents who accused him of running what was perhaps the largest fraud in Wall Street’s history. The scheme zigzagged across the world, drawing in foreign banks, hedge funds, charities, celebrities and ordinary retirees who had entrusted their savings to his investment firm. The charges, made public late Tuesday, offered a few fresh details about how Mr. Madoff conducted his long-running fraud. And they raised its price tag from his own estimate of $50 billion to nearly $65 billion, the total amount that thousands of customers were told they had in their accounts at his firm. But left unanswered were questions about the involvement of family members and employees and the treatment of favored investors. To sustain his fraud, prosecutors said, Mr. Madoff assembled an ill-trained and inexperienced clerical staff, directed them to “generate false and fraudulent documents,” told lies and supplied false records to regulators, and shuffled hundreds of millions of dollars from bank to bank to create the illusion of active trading. The government said Mr. Madoff ordered multimillion-dollar bank transfers in part “to give the appearance that he was conducting securities transactions in Europe on behalf of the investors, when, in fact, he was not.” CONTINUE READING..

Chris Brown appears in court on felony charges

LOS ANGELES — Chris Brown has been charged with two felonies stemming from what a police detective describes as a brutal argument between the singer and his girlfriend, Rihanna, provoked by her discovery of a text message from another woman.Brown appeared in court Thursday afternoon and postponed until next month his arraignment on charges of assault likely to cause great bodily injury and making criminal threats. The 19-year-old R&B singer remains free on $50,000 bail.A court commissioner ordered him not to harass, threaten or harm anyone. At the request of an attorney representing Rihanna, the commissioner did not order Brown to stay away from Rihanna.Brown, wearing a three-piece gray pinstripe suit with gray tie and cream shirt, clasped his hands behind his back as he walked into the courtroom. He answered a few questions from the commissioner as his mother watched from the front row along with a group of family members.The courtroom was filled with onlookers and media for Brown's brief appearance. He and his attorney did not speak to reporters after the hearing.The felony complaint handed down in court Thursday morning identifies Brown's alleged victim only as "Robyn F." Rihanna's real name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty. The "Disturbia" singer's attorney, Donald Etra, also identified her as Brown's alleged victim.Etra declined to say whether Rihanna would testify against Brown, or whether the couple had reunited.If convicted, the possible sentence ranges anywhere from probation to four years and eight months in state prison, said district attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.According to a detective's affidavit, Brown and Rihanna got into a fight early Feb. 8 after the "Umbrella" singer checked her boyfriend's cell phone and found a text message from another woman. SOURCE:COMCAST.NET

T.I. goes back to court—to talk to teenagers

ATLANTA— A month from beginning a yearlong federal prison sentence, rapper T.I. was in court again Friday, but this time he wasn't in the hot seat. The 28-year-old performer, whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., spoke to dozens of high school students—half serving juvenile sentences—gathered at the Georgia Supreme Court."You can see from me that nobody is too rich, too famous, too cool, too good-looking or too young to make a mistake and pay a price for it," said Harris, dressed in jeans, a gray hooded sweat shirt and a blue knit hat. "More important than the mistake you make, though, is what you are able to take away from that mistake. How can you use that mistake to ensure you will never make a similar mistake again?"He told them to work hard, stay in school and do what is necessary to get what they want in life."Education is more important than any material thing you can have," said Harris, who only has a high school diploma. "The things you do not have in your life, the things you do not have in your possession, will be a reflection of the things you have not learned."He warned the teens from high schools across metro Atlanta to learn from his mistakes, which include a 2008 federal firearms conviction that will send him to prison for a year starting next month. His appearance was part of 1,000 hours of community service he must complete under that sentence. His legal troubles didn't start there. Harris grewp in one of Atlanta's housing projects and dealt crack while trying to break into the music industry. The students listened intently as he described the prostitutes, drug dealers and junkies he encountered.He was first arrested at 17 and spent time in jail for violating probation after several other arrests. In 2007, just an hour before he was scheduled to perform at the BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta, authorities arrested him for trying to buy unregistered machine guns and silencers. High School junior Stephen Murphy said he is trying to turn his life around after getting into trouble with drugs and driving without a license last year. Harris' speech was encouragement to keep working at it, he said."Your life can go down the wrong path, and you'll end up in prison, where he's fixing to go," he said. "I don't want to go there."Harris, a Grammy winner, has a list of No. 1 hits on his resume, including two off his latest CD, "Paper Trail," which also hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. SOURCE:INSIDETHEBAYAREA.COM

Police review plans on BART board's agenda

Six weeks after a BART police officer shot dead an unarmed passenger, transit agency officials are still struggling with how to make good on their promise to create a new structure of police accountability.Today, the BART Board of Directors will hear an update on plans for a police review committee and the hiring of an outside consultant to help in that endeavor. "I want to move faster than slower," said BART Director Carole Ward Allen, who is leading the effort. "But everything is in the infancy. We want to make sure that what we do set up is done right." BART is under intense public pressure to restore public confidence and revamp its police oversight system after Officer Johannes Mehserle killed Oscar Grant, 22, on an Oakland station platform after he was pulled from a train before dawn on New Year's Day. The Alameda County district attorney's office has charged Mehserle, 27, with murder. Mehserle, who resigned from the police force, pleaded not guilty. The incident, caught on video by other passengers, triggered multiple protests in downtown Oakland and at BART offices. Protesters are expected to show up in force again at today's meeting. "We are at a critical juncture where we need to have more than just expressions of accountability. We need now to move forward and implement a meaningful structure of accountability," said Dereca Blackmon, one of the protest organizers with the Coalition Against Police Executions. CONTINUE READING...