Item in today's Journal, New York section:
Manhattan: Bald Man With Backpack Sought in Bank Robbery
Police are searching for a bald bank robber who stuck up a midtown bank this week. Just before noon on Thursday a man in sunglasses wearing a dark-gray hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and sneakers walked into Valley National Bank at 295 Fifth Ave. The man, who was also carrying a backpack, handed a note to the teller. The teller gave him an undetermined amount of money which he put in the backpack before turning and walking out of the bank, police said.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). Tips can also be submitted to the Crime Stoppers website at www.NYPDCrimeStoppers.com or by text messages at 274637 (CRIMES) and then entering TIP577.
Guess he didn't have the hood of his sweatshirt on his head. Bright?
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Aftermath
From El Universal.com.mx:
SAQUEOS, ROBOS, DESASTRE
Mientras socorristas tratan de rescatar víctimas atrapadas bajo los escombros, decenas de personas saquean supermercados y roban bancos, después del terremoto de 8.8 grados que ayer sacudió a Chile | Ver notaTuesday, January 19, 2010
Detienen a jefe de sicarios de El Muletas
GOLPE.Soky Martínez tenía la encomienda de realizar levantones, secuestros, ejecuciones y agresiones en contra de las corporaciones policiacas
Detienen a jefe de sicarios de El Muletas
Héctor Rodrigo Soky asumió el control de una célula criminal de Raydel López Uriarte El Muletas, a quien se ubica a su vez como jefe de sicarios de Teodoro García Simental El Teo
Julieta Martínez / Corresponsal - El Universal
TIJUANA, BC Martes 19 de enero de 2010
Elementos del Ejército Mexicano detuvieron a tres individuos, entre ellos una mujer y un ex-policía identificado extraoficialmente como antiguo escolta de periodistas e integrante de una célula criminal al servicio de Teodoro García Simental, alias "El Teo" o "El Tres Letras".
Elements if the Mexican Army arrested three individuals, among them a woman and an ex-police officer unofficially identified as an old escort (guard) of journalists and member of a criminal cell at the service of "El Teo." [who was arrested last week, or so.]
En el domicilio donde se les detuvo se encontró el cadáver de una persona en una tina de baño, armas largas y mariguana, además se les identificó como responsables de agresiones contra policías, la ejecución de personas, secuestros y levantones.
In the house where theu were arrested a body was found in a bathtub, rifles and marijuana; they were also identified as responsible of attacks against police, executions, kidnappings and ?
La Secretaria de la Defensa Nacional identificó a este individuo como Héctor Rodrigo Soky Martínez, originario de Tijuana. Versiones extraoficiales lo ubicaron como ex-escolta de uno de los hijos del periodista Jesús Blancornelas, director del periódico Zeta de Tijuana.
De acuerdo con información oficial, Soky Martínez asumió el control de una célula criminal de Raydel López Uriarte "El Muletas", a quien se ubica como jefe de sicarios de Teodoro García Simental, enlace del cártel de Sinaloa en Tijuana.
El Ejército mexicano confirmó que este hombre ascendió en la estructura delictiva de "El Teo" como jefe de sicarios de "El Muletas" a raíz de las detenciones de Moisés Ruiz Flores "El Cabezón"; Édgar Zúñiga Nuño "El Mono" y José Manuel Gómez Bastida "El Chocho", todas en noviembre del 2009.
Tras el arresto de éste último individuo, Soky Martínez, alias "Diego" o "Adán", asumió el cargo, y junto con ello la encomienda de realizar levantones, secuestros, ejecuciones y agresiones en contra de las corporaciones policiacas.
El detenido se encontraba en un domicilio de la colonia Ex-Ejido Mariano Matamoros, delegación La Presa, junto con una mujer identificada como Mónica Paniagua Parra, de 20 años y Guillermo Aurelio Mendívil Ríos, de 30 años, ambos originarios de Tijuana.
Tenían en su poder 43 paquetes de mariguana que daban un peso de 117.1 kilogramos, tres armas largas y una corta. Además, los militares encontraron un cadáver en una tina de baño en el domicilio donde realizaron la detención.
La Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional identificó a esta célula criminal como responsable de varios secuestros, el más reciente registrado el 12 de enero contra una estudiante universitaria.
Detienen a jefe de sicarios de El Muletas
Héctor Rodrigo Soky asumió el control de una célula criminal de Raydel López Uriarte El Muletas, a quien se ubica a su vez como jefe de sicarios de Teodoro García Simental El Teo
Julieta Martínez / Corresponsal - El Universal
TIJUANA, BC Martes 19 de enero de 2010
Elementos del Ejército Mexicano detuvieron a tres individuos, entre ellos una mujer y un ex-policía identificado extraoficialmente como antiguo escolta de periodistas e integrante de una célula criminal al servicio de Teodoro García Simental, alias "El Teo" o "El Tres Letras".
Elements if the Mexican Army arrested three individuals, among them a woman and an ex-police officer unofficially identified as an old escort (guard) of journalists and member of a criminal cell at the service of "El Teo." [who was arrested last week, or so.]
En el domicilio donde se les detuvo se encontró el cadáver de una persona en una tina de baño, armas largas y mariguana, además se les identificó como responsables de agresiones contra policías, la ejecución de personas, secuestros y levantones.
In the house where theu were arrested a body was found in a bathtub, rifles and marijuana; they were also identified as responsible of attacks against police, executions, kidnappings and ?
La Secretaria de la Defensa Nacional identificó a este individuo como Héctor Rodrigo Soky Martínez, originario de Tijuana. Versiones extraoficiales lo ubicaron como ex-escolta de uno de los hijos del periodista Jesús Blancornelas, director del periódico Zeta de Tijuana.
De acuerdo con información oficial, Soky Martínez asumió el control de una célula criminal de Raydel López Uriarte "El Muletas", a quien se ubica como jefe de sicarios de Teodoro García Simental, enlace del cártel de Sinaloa en Tijuana.
El Ejército mexicano confirmó que este hombre ascendió en la estructura delictiva de "El Teo" como jefe de sicarios de "El Muletas" a raíz de las detenciones de Moisés Ruiz Flores "El Cabezón"; Édgar Zúñiga Nuño "El Mono" y José Manuel Gómez Bastida "El Chocho", todas en noviembre del 2009.
Tras el arresto de éste último individuo, Soky Martínez, alias "Diego" o "Adán", asumió el cargo, y junto con ello la encomienda de realizar levantones, secuestros, ejecuciones y agresiones en contra de las corporaciones policiacas.
El detenido se encontraba en un domicilio de la colonia Ex-Ejido Mariano Matamoros, delegación La Presa, junto con una mujer identificada como Mónica Paniagua Parra, de 20 años y Guillermo Aurelio Mendívil Ríos, de 30 años, ambos originarios de Tijuana.
Tenían en su poder 43 paquetes de mariguana que daban un peso de 117.1 kilogramos, tres armas largas y una corta. Además, los militares encontraron un cadáver en una tina de baño en el domicilio donde realizaron la detención.
La Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional identificó a esta célula criminal como responsable de varios secuestros, el más reciente registrado el 12 de enero contra una estudiante universitaria.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
That'll cost ya, buddy
November 25, 2009
Citation for Gesture Costs Pittsburgh
By Sean D. Hamill
PITTSBURGH — The City of Pittsburgh has agreed to pay $50,000 to a man who sued after being issued a disorderly conduct citation for gesturing offensively at a police officer.
Offensively? Musta been da bird.
The settlement, in which the city also agreed to retrain its officers in the limits of disorderly conduct law, was reached with Dave Hackbart, 35, after research undertaken by his lawyers found that police citations for swearing or offensive gestures were common here.
From March 2005 to July 2009, the research found, Pittsburgh officers cited 198 people for disorderly conduct on the basis of that sort of behavior, even though the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has consistently found such citations unlawful on free speech grounds.
“Hopefully we’ll send a message to other police officers across the state, where this is a consistent problem, that this is not legal,” said Sara J. Rose, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which helped represent Mr. Hackbart in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city.
Pittsburgh’s deputy police chief, Paul J. Donaldson, said the city had retrained officers in the law twice since 2006 but would do so again, to emphasize that “the disorderly conduct statute can’t be used to protect the police from all verbal indignities.”
Mr. Hackbart was charged on April 10, 2006, while trying to parallel-park. According to his lawsuit, another car pulled up and blocked him from parking, frustrating Mr. Hackbart, who gestured with his middle finger at the other driver.
I knew it.
When a third driver objected to the gesture, Mr. Hackbart delivered it to him as well.
Yeah.
That driver turned out to be an officer, Sgt. Brian Elledge, who wrote the citation. Mr. Hackbart was found guilty by a magistrate and fined court costs. “I felt really let down by the system,” Mr. Hackbart said. “I challenged it as a matter or principle.” Of the $50,000 settlement, he will get $10,000; the rest goes to his lawyers.
Pyrrhic victory, pun intended.
Mr. Hackbart said that the case had raised his interest in law and that he had he quit a job as a waiter and gone back to school to become a paralegal. He is considering going on to law school. “A lot of good things have come out of this,” he said. “Hopefully it’s a big deterrent and it helps other people down the road who are in my shoes.”
Citation for Gesture Costs Pittsburgh
By Sean D. Hamill
PITTSBURGH — The City of Pittsburgh has agreed to pay $50,000 to a man who sued after being issued a disorderly conduct citation for gesturing offensively at a police officer.
Offensively? Musta been da bird.
The settlement, in which the city also agreed to retrain its officers in the limits of disorderly conduct law, was reached with Dave Hackbart, 35, after research undertaken by his lawyers found that police citations for swearing or offensive gestures were common here.
From March 2005 to July 2009, the research found, Pittsburgh officers cited 198 people for disorderly conduct on the basis of that sort of behavior, even though the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has consistently found such citations unlawful on free speech grounds.
“Hopefully we’ll send a message to other police officers across the state, where this is a consistent problem, that this is not legal,” said Sara J. Rose, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which helped represent Mr. Hackbart in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city.
Pittsburgh’s deputy police chief, Paul J. Donaldson, said the city had retrained officers in the law twice since 2006 but would do so again, to emphasize that “the disorderly conduct statute can’t be used to protect the police from all verbal indignities.”
Mr. Hackbart was charged on April 10, 2006, while trying to parallel-park. According to his lawsuit, another car pulled up and blocked him from parking, frustrating Mr. Hackbart, who gestured with his middle finger at the other driver.
I knew it.
When a third driver objected to the gesture, Mr. Hackbart delivered it to him as well.
Yeah.
That driver turned out to be an officer, Sgt. Brian Elledge, who wrote the citation. Mr. Hackbart was found guilty by a magistrate and fined court costs. “I felt really let down by the system,” Mr. Hackbart said. “I challenged it as a matter or principle.” Of the $50,000 settlement, he will get $10,000; the rest goes to his lawyers.
Pyrrhic victory, pun intended.
Mr. Hackbart said that the case had raised his interest in law and that he had he quit a job as a waiter and gone back to school to become a paralegal. He is considering going on to law school. “A lot of good things have come out of this,” he said. “Hopefully it’s a big deterrent and it helps other people down the road who are in my shoes.”
Friday, November 20, 2009
Subway offenses
A group called New Yorkers for Safe Transit said harassment on subways was often overlooked.
I shudder seeing this picture, a reminder of my many years as a subway commuter. I do not miss it, at all.
November 20, 2009
Sex Offenses on the Subways Are Widespread, City Officials Are Told
By Jennifer 8. Lee
The peak times in which women report sexual harassment or assaults on the subways are the late morning rush, roughly 8 to 10 a.m., followed by the early afternoon rush, 4 to 6 p.m. One stretch of the subways — the crowded Nos. 4, 5 and 6 lines between Grand Central Terminal and Union Square — is a particular source of complaints.
People pack into the cars, and more try to get on. There is hardly room to breathe. Feeling someone up is easy, for the pervert who wants to do so.
And the average age of the men arrested this year for sexual offenses on the subways is 39.
Average?
These facts emerged Thursday during a joint hearing of three City Council committees — Transportation, Women’s Issues and Public Safety — and officials from the Police Department and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to discuss a problem that has struck a chord with many subway riders, who say they have been ogled, groped, flashed, harassed and even attacked.
Ogling; curious term.
“There is a clamor for more prevention and more enforcement,” said Councilman John C. Liu, a Queens Democrat, who is chairman of the Transportation Committee and the city’s comptroller-elect. Darlene Mealy, a Brooklyn Democrat, who is chairwoman of the Women’s Issues Committee, said that sexual harassment and assaults were very serious, and that society should “not take them as social behaviors that have to be condoned.”
First to testify on Thursday was James P. Hall, chief of the Police Department’s Transit Bureau, who said that sexual harassment was the “No. 1 quality of life offense on the subway.” Chief Hall reported that as of Nov. 15, there had been 587 reports of sex offenses in the subway system this year. “However, we strongly suspect this is a highly underreported crime,” he said.
The police have arrested 412 people for sex offenses in the subway so far this year. Of that number, 71 had committed prior sexual offenses and 14 were registered sex offenders. Five of the 14 were the most serious level of sex offender.
The average perpetrator is a 39-year-old man, while the vast majority of victims are women over 17. “It’s a crime that goes more to a middle-aged individual,” Chief Hall said. In contrast, other crimes in the subway generally involve younger men, from 17 to 25 years old, he said.
Interesting demographics of the criminal set.
Lois H. Tendler, the director of government and community relations at the transportation authority, said the authority last year started a public awareness campaign against sexual harassment that included ads, printed brochures and on-board announcements — an idea, Ms. Tendler said, that came from Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a Queens Democrat and the chairman of the Council’s Public Safety Committee.
Announcements? Please do not grope, flash or ogle.
The advertising campaign ran for three months in 2008 and is running again through January, Ms. Tendler said. The on-board announcements, which have been running for six months, are recorded messages on newer trains but are read on the older trains.
Councilwoman Helen Sears, a Queens Democrat, questioned how effective the public announcements were, especially given the aging sound system. “They are not supposed to be a periodic thing,” she said. “I don’t think they should be an afterthought.”
Announcements on subways, many, go this way: mumble-mumble-mumble, and thank you for your cooperation.
Ms. Tendler said that they were part of a constant loop of recordings on the new trains, used on about one-third of the subway lines. However, other lawmakers wondered whether the messages were being read by personnel on the older trains. Mr. Liu questioned the state of the installation of cameras, which he believed would deter crimes and help catch offenders. Ms. Tendler said cameras were being installed under different programs. “We’re making progress,” she said.
In recent months, advocates have formed a organization to fight subway sexual harassment, New Yorkers for Safe Transit. The advocates support a bill, introduced this week by Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin, a Manhattan Democrat, that would require the police to collect data on sexual harassment in the subways.
“This is important because historically, harassment is overlooked by law enforcement authorities,” said Oraia Reid, a founding member of New Yorkers for Safe Transit who testified at the hearing.
Ms. Reid, who is also the executive director of RightRides for Women’s Safety, said another challenge was to get law enforcement to take the harassment more seriously.
She added, “It’s actually been very disempowering to report sexual harassment and assault.”
I shudder seeing this picture, a reminder of my many years as a subway commuter. I do not miss it, at all.
November 20, 2009
Sex Offenses on the Subways Are Widespread, City Officials Are Told
By Jennifer 8. Lee
The peak times in which women report sexual harassment or assaults on the subways are the late morning rush, roughly 8 to 10 a.m., followed by the early afternoon rush, 4 to 6 p.m. One stretch of the subways — the crowded Nos. 4, 5 and 6 lines between Grand Central Terminal and Union Square — is a particular source of complaints.
People pack into the cars, and more try to get on. There is hardly room to breathe. Feeling someone up is easy, for the pervert who wants to do so.
And the average age of the men arrested this year for sexual offenses on the subways is 39.
Average?
These facts emerged Thursday during a joint hearing of three City Council committees — Transportation, Women’s Issues and Public Safety — and officials from the Police Department and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to discuss a problem that has struck a chord with many subway riders, who say they have been ogled, groped, flashed, harassed and even attacked.
Ogling; curious term.
“There is a clamor for more prevention and more enforcement,” said Councilman John C. Liu, a Queens Democrat, who is chairman of the Transportation Committee and the city’s comptroller-elect. Darlene Mealy, a Brooklyn Democrat, who is chairwoman of the Women’s Issues Committee, said that sexual harassment and assaults were very serious, and that society should “not take them as social behaviors that have to be condoned.”
First to testify on Thursday was James P. Hall, chief of the Police Department’s Transit Bureau, who said that sexual harassment was the “No. 1 quality of life offense on the subway.” Chief Hall reported that as of Nov. 15, there had been 587 reports of sex offenses in the subway system this year. “However, we strongly suspect this is a highly underreported crime,” he said.
The police have arrested 412 people for sex offenses in the subway so far this year. Of that number, 71 had committed prior sexual offenses and 14 were registered sex offenders. Five of the 14 were the most serious level of sex offender.
The average perpetrator is a 39-year-old man, while the vast majority of victims are women over 17. “It’s a crime that goes more to a middle-aged individual,” Chief Hall said. In contrast, other crimes in the subway generally involve younger men, from 17 to 25 years old, he said.
Interesting demographics of the criminal set.
Lois H. Tendler, the director of government and community relations at the transportation authority, said the authority last year started a public awareness campaign against sexual harassment that included ads, printed brochures and on-board announcements — an idea, Ms. Tendler said, that came from Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a Queens Democrat and the chairman of the Council’s Public Safety Committee.
Announcements? Please do not grope, flash or ogle.
The advertising campaign ran for three months in 2008 and is running again through January, Ms. Tendler said. The on-board announcements, which have been running for six months, are recorded messages on newer trains but are read on the older trains.
Councilwoman Helen Sears, a Queens Democrat, questioned how effective the public announcements were, especially given the aging sound system. “They are not supposed to be a periodic thing,” she said. “I don’t think they should be an afterthought.”
Announcements on subways, many, go this way: mumble-mumble-mumble, and thank you for your cooperation.
Ms. Tendler said that they were part of a constant loop of recordings on the new trains, used on about one-third of the subway lines. However, other lawmakers wondered whether the messages were being read by personnel on the older trains. Mr. Liu questioned the state of the installation of cameras, which he believed would deter crimes and help catch offenders. Ms. Tendler said cameras were being installed under different programs. “We’re making progress,” she said.
In recent months, advocates have formed a organization to fight subway sexual harassment, New Yorkers for Safe Transit. The advocates support a bill, introduced this week by Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin, a Manhattan Democrat, that would require the police to collect data on sexual harassment in the subways.
“This is important because historically, harassment is overlooked by law enforcement authorities,” said Oraia Reid, a founding member of New Yorkers for Safe Transit who testified at the hearing.
Ms. Reid, who is also the executive director of RightRides for Women’s Safety, said another challenge was to get law enforcement to take the harassment more seriously.
She added, “It’s actually been very disempowering to report sexual harassment and assault.”
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Amid Rising Violence, Mexicans Fight Back
A soldier guards policemen from the town of García who were detained after the shooting of the police chief on Wednesday
View Interactive
in the northern town of García, near the industrial hub of Monterrey in Nuevo León state, the town's new police chief, retired Brig. Gen. Juan Arturo Esparza, was gunned down in an attack by some 30 assailants believed to be working for a drug cartel. Five of his bodyguards also died.
Mr. Esparza was responding to a call for help from García's mayor, who told the police chief that five vehicles with heavily armed men had just sprayed his house with bullets. Mr. Esparza had just taken over as police chief on Oct. 31. He is one of scores of military men taking over policing duties across Mexico because of police corruption. On Thursday, Mexican soldiers entered the town and held some 60 policemen for questioning about the killings, stripping the police of their weapons.
Mexico's war on drugs took a grim twist this week, as a prominent mayor said he had created an undercover group of operatives to "clean up" criminal elements -- even if it had to act outside the law. Underscoring why the mayor may have felt compelled to take such steps, the new police chief in a neighboring town, a retired brigadier general, was shot and killed Wednesday, four days after taking up his post.
Mauricio Fernández, mayor of San Pedro Garza García, said this week he had created a special group to 'clean up' criminal elements in the municipality
"We're tired of sitting around on our hands and waiting for daddy or mommy Calderón to come to fix our fights. We in San Pedro took the decision to grab the bull by the horns," Mr. Fernández said in a radio interview. "Even acting outside the limits of my role as mayor, I will end the kidnappings, extortions and drug trafficking. We are going to do this by whatever means, fair or foul."
Asked if his new squad would operate outside the law, Mr. Fernández said: "In some ways, that's right. What the criminals want is that they can break every law, but that we have to respect every law. Well, I don't get that."
The comments ignited a firestorm. Analysts say that as local and federal officials in Mexico struggle to fight the cartels, they could be tempted to follow in the footsteps of Colombia, where paramilitary gangs and death squads killed thousands of suspected leftists, criminals, and drug traffickers in the late 1990s and early part of this decade.
"This is where we've come in our war on drugs," says Leo Zuckerman, a political analyst in Mexico City. "A mayor justifies, brags, and celebrates that he has carried out justice by his own hands, outside the judicial institutions. This is bad news for those of us who believe that a civilized society is one where criminals get due process."
Interior Minister Fernando Gómez Mont on Thursday criticized the statements by Mr. Fernández, who previously served as a federal senator in Mr. Calderon's conservative PAN party. "The Mexican state, in its different levels, can't act above or beyond the law. Whoever does so is ... a lawbreaker, and we can't accept using criminals to resolve the problem of crime." The Mexican attorney general's office, which could investigate the killings of the four men, said it had no comment.
View Interactivein the northern town of García, near the industrial hub of Monterrey in Nuevo León state, the town's new police chief, retired Brig. Gen. Juan Arturo Esparza, was gunned down in an attack by some 30 assailants believed to be working for a drug cartel. Five of his bodyguards also died.
Mr. Esparza was responding to a call for help from García's mayor, who told the police chief that five vehicles with heavily armed men had just sprayed his house with bullets. Mr. Esparza had just taken over as police chief on Oct. 31. He is one of scores of military men taking over policing duties across Mexico because of police corruption. On Thursday, Mexican soldiers entered the town and held some 60 policemen for questioning about the killings, stripping the police of their weapons.
Mexico's war on drugs took a grim twist this week, as a prominent mayor said he had created an undercover group of operatives to "clean up" criminal elements -- even if it had to act outside the law. Underscoring why the mayor may have felt compelled to take such steps, the new police chief in a neighboring town, a retired brigadier general, was shot and killed Wednesday, four days after taking up his post.
Mauricio Fernández, mayor of San Pedro Garza García, said this week he had created a special group to 'clean up' criminal elements in the municipality
"We're tired of sitting around on our hands and waiting for daddy or mommy Calderón to come to fix our fights. We in San Pedro took the decision to grab the bull by the horns," Mr. Fernández said in a radio interview. "Even acting outside the limits of my role as mayor, I will end the kidnappings, extortions and drug trafficking. We are going to do this by whatever means, fair or foul."
Asked if his new squad would operate outside the law, Mr. Fernández said: "In some ways, that's right. What the criminals want is that they can break every law, but that we have to respect every law. Well, I don't get that."
The comments ignited a firestorm. Analysts say that as local and federal officials in Mexico struggle to fight the cartels, they could be tempted to follow in the footsteps of Colombia, where paramilitary gangs and death squads killed thousands of suspected leftists, criminals, and drug traffickers in the late 1990s and early part of this decade.
"This is where we've come in our war on drugs," says Leo Zuckerman, a political analyst in Mexico City. "A mayor justifies, brags, and celebrates that he has carried out justice by his own hands, outside the judicial institutions. This is bad news for those of us who believe that a civilized society is one where criminals get due process."
Interior Minister Fernando Gómez Mont on Thursday criticized the statements by Mr. Fernández, who previously served as a federal senator in Mr. Calderon's conservative PAN party. "The Mexican state, in its different levels, can't act above or beyond the law. Whoever does so is ... a lawbreaker, and we can't accept using criminals to resolve the problem of crime." The Mexican attorney general's office, which could investigate the killings of the four men, said it had no comment.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Deses guyz wanna stimulus $
August 31, 2009
Concern Is High That the Mob May Seek a Cut of the Stimulus Pie
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Everybody is looking for stimulus money.
From bridge builders to food stamp recipients, from roofers to subway riders, from teachers to housing project residents, people are eager to feel some part of a tidal wave of federal dollars in their lives.
The mob is eager, too.
Federal and state investigators who track organized crime believe that some members have geared up to take advantage of the swift and enormous cash influx — if they have not already — looking, as the old Sicilian expression goes, to wet their beaks.
Nimble, innovative and with a seemingly boundless appetite for the taxpayer’s dollar, the mob’s more sophisticated cadre has plundered municipal, state and federal coffers for generations.
So the F. B. I. office in New York has conducted an extensive analysis of the money flowing into the area to create a blueprint of its vulnerabilities, a process, an official said, that is being continually updated.
Also, some of the 28 inspectors general who have oversight of the federal agencies receiving stimulus money are considering having federal agents sit in on selected screening interviews of contractors to tell them that if they lie to a federal officer, they could be charged with a crime, officials briefed on the matter said.
“Because there is so much money involved, criminals will look to exploit the system,” said Guy Petrillo, chief of the criminal division in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, referring to the New York area’s five Mafia families.
Because the money is being widely dispersed — flowing to federal agencies, then to states and localities and then to contractors and smaller groups — opportunities for fraud abound at a level rarely seen.
And despite recent improvements, the screening of contractors sometimes still presents a challenge for local, state and federal agencies, which time and again have failed to halt the flow of public money to companies accused of having ties to organized crime or having otherwise troubling histories.
Indeed, even with the mob’s power waning, some members have profited handsomely in the past few years on projects large and small. They have benefited from new baseball stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets, the city’s $3 billion water filtration plant and the post-9/11 cleanup at ground zero, as well as from work on federal buildings, state highways and city schools and playgrounds.
The audacity and accomplishment exhibited by some contractors seem to match the gusto they have for government work. One mob associate, convicted in 1994 in a case stemming from organized crime’s control of lucrative Housing Authority window replacement contracts, pleaded guilty nearly a decade later in a case involving window replacement work on city schools. After serving nearly three years in prison, he got in trouble again last year for improprieties involving another window replacement contract, this one at the same federal courthouse where he was convicted in 1994.
In another case, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s pet project to spruce up City Hall Park was delayed because two successive concrete contractors were found to have ties to organized crime. The mob also had long cornered the market on the city’s lucrative emergency snow removal contracts, as well as controlling city school bus contracts.
The distinctiveness of the immediate challenge surrounding the stimulus money is owed in part to the bill’s twin imperatives: Get a lot of money out and get it out as fast as possible. And it is compounded by the fact that law enforcement agencies like the F. B. I. and prosecutors’ offices are hip deep in the competing priorities of counterterrorism and the explosion of corporate and mortgage fraud cases.
Making matters worse, the money is flowing into familiar territory for those with a history of feeding at the public trough. Two of the largest portions of the stimulus pie in the New York City area are going to sectors of the economy — Medicaid and infrastructure projects — where the mob and Eastern European crime groups have flourished for decades, perfecting old schemes and developing new ones.
And it is not just criminals who are causing concern. Several officials noted that in an area where close to two dozen state and city legislators have been indicted in recent years, the flow of stimulus funds through government agencies will provide ample opportunity for corrupt public employees.
Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose administration will dole out nearly $1 billion for infrastructure projects and $2.5 billion in Medicaid and social service money, played down concerns about the vetting of contractors. The amounts to be awarded, he said, are far from astronomical for a city with a $60 billion budget and “robust fraud- and waste-prevention measures,” which include a staff that has doubled in eight years and an additional layer of review for stimulus contracts.
Mr. La Vorgna added, “The notion that the city’s vendor integrity mechanisms will somehow be taxed is false.”
State officials said they, too, were comfortable with their vetting procedures. Gov. David A. Paterson appointed a panel last month to coordinate the state’s antifraud efforts.
And Congress has appropriated about $220 million in additional money to assist 23 of the 28 federal inspectors general involved in overseeing stimulus money, said Ed Pound, a spokesman for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, the federal stimulus watchdog.
But despite these measures, the speed with which the program has been put in place, along with what many officials have called insufficient oversight, has left some in law enforcement with grave concerns.
“It’s coming out without the internal controls in place,” said a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. “It’s like putting a bank robber in a toll booth.”
Concern Is High That the Mob May Seek a Cut of the Stimulus Pie
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Everybody is looking for stimulus money.
From bridge builders to food stamp recipients, from roofers to subway riders, from teachers to housing project residents, people are eager to feel some part of a tidal wave of federal dollars in their lives.
The mob is eager, too.
Federal and state investigators who track organized crime believe that some members have geared up to take advantage of the swift and enormous cash influx — if they have not already — looking, as the old Sicilian expression goes, to wet their beaks.
Nimble, innovative and with a seemingly boundless appetite for the taxpayer’s dollar, the mob’s more sophisticated cadre has plundered municipal, state and federal coffers for generations.
So the F. B. I. office in New York has conducted an extensive analysis of the money flowing into the area to create a blueprint of its vulnerabilities, a process, an official said, that is being continually updated.
Also, some of the 28 inspectors general who have oversight of the federal agencies receiving stimulus money are considering having federal agents sit in on selected screening interviews of contractors to tell them that if they lie to a federal officer, they could be charged with a crime, officials briefed on the matter said.
“Because there is so much money involved, criminals will look to exploit the system,” said Guy Petrillo, chief of the criminal division in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, referring to the New York area’s five Mafia families.
Because the money is being widely dispersed — flowing to federal agencies, then to states and localities and then to contractors and smaller groups — opportunities for fraud abound at a level rarely seen.
And despite recent improvements, the screening of contractors sometimes still presents a challenge for local, state and federal agencies, which time and again have failed to halt the flow of public money to companies accused of having ties to organized crime or having otherwise troubling histories.
Indeed, even with the mob’s power waning, some members have profited handsomely in the past few years on projects large and small. They have benefited from new baseball stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets, the city’s $3 billion water filtration plant and the post-9/11 cleanup at ground zero, as well as from work on federal buildings, state highways and city schools and playgrounds.
The audacity and accomplishment exhibited by some contractors seem to match the gusto they have for government work. One mob associate, convicted in 1994 in a case stemming from organized crime’s control of lucrative Housing Authority window replacement contracts, pleaded guilty nearly a decade later in a case involving window replacement work on city schools. After serving nearly three years in prison, he got in trouble again last year for improprieties involving another window replacement contract, this one at the same federal courthouse where he was convicted in 1994.
In another case, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s pet project to spruce up City Hall Park was delayed because two successive concrete contractors were found to have ties to organized crime. The mob also had long cornered the market on the city’s lucrative emergency snow removal contracts, as well as controlling city school bus contracts.
The distinctiveness of the immediate challenge surrounding the stimulus money is owed in part to the bill’s twin imperatives: Get a lot of money out and get it out as fast as possible. And it is compounded by the fact that law enforcement agencies like the F. B. I. and prosecutors’ offices are hip deep in the competing priorities of counterterrorism and the explosion of corporate and mortgage fraud cases.
Making matters worse, the money is flowing into familiar territory for those with a history of feeding at the public trough. Two of the largest portions of the stimulus pie in the New York City area are going to sectors of the economy — Medicaid and infrastructure projects — where the mob and Eastern European crime groups have flourished for decades, perfecting old schemes and developing new ones.
And it is not just criminals who are causing concern. Several officials noted that in an area where close to two dozen state and city legislators have been indicted in recent years, the flow of stimulus funds through government agencies will provide ample opportunity for corrupt public employees.
Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose administration will dole out nearly $1 billion for infrastructure projects and $2.5 billion in Medicaid and social service money, played down concerns about the vetting of contractors. The amounts to be awarded, he said, are far from astronomical for a city with a $60 billion budget and “robust fraud- and waste-prevention measures,” which include a staff that has doubled in eight years and an additional layer of review for stimulus contracts.
Mr. La Vorgna added, “The notion that the city’s vendor integrity mechanisms will somehow be taxed is false.”
State officials said they, too, were comfortable with their vetting procedures. Gov. David A. Paterson appointed a panel last month to coordinate the state’s antifraud efforts.
And Congress has appropriated about $220 million in additional money to assist 23 of the 28 federal inspectors general involved in overseeing stimulus money, said Ed Pound, a spokesman for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, the federal stimulus watchdog.
But despite these measures, the speed with which the program has been put in place, along with what many officials have called insufficient oversight, has left some in law enforcement with grave concerns.
“It’s coming out without the internal controls in place,” said a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. “It’s like putting a bank robber in a toll booth.”
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Regresa el PRI
“The PRI comes back” shouted the front page headline of the daily newspaper El Universal on Monday, the day after the political party known as the PRI swept midterm elections.Regresa el PRI
But the story was all in the photograph, a shot of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari as he left a voting booth. He was not running for any office, but the photograph seemed to ask why Mexicans were returning to power the party identified with Mr. Salinas, who left office 15 years ago amid political scandal and economic chaos.
Presidente Calderón's campaign to eradicate corruption and narcos has been violent, disruptive, and does not seem to have been effective (insofar as the results are not complete, and people generally wish they were now complete).
“Yes, I admit the PRI is corrupt,” said Luis Osorio, a juice vendor in Mexico City, on Monday as he discussed election news with customers stopping by his stand. “So we voted for the PAN, and they turned out to be just as corrupt. They turned everything into their personal business.”
Although Mr. Calderón is personally popular, his economic policies are not. Mexico has been buffeted especially hard by the global economic crisis, and the economy is expected to contract by as much as 8 percent this year.
So now PRI is demanding a Cabinet shuffle.
And the leader of the PAN, Germán Martínez, has resigned.
The image of the PRI outside the capital is very different from its reputation among the political and social elite in Mexico City. “If you say you’re a PRI-ista in Tamaulipas, it’s something to be proud of,” said Francisco Abundis Luna, a pollster with the firm Parametría, referring to the state of Tamaulipas, which is on the Gulf of Mexico and borders Texas.
Many voters think that PRI politicians are corrupt, Mr. Mercado said, but his polling found what he called a perverse nostalgia for the PRI’s style of corruption. The PRI tolerates a bending of the rules that allows working people, like illegal street vendors or unlicensed cabdrivers, to earn a living. [Lauro Mercado Gasca, a pollster who directs Mercaei]
“It’s perverse and antimodern, but it’s functional,” Mr. Mercado said.
It works.
The PRI will have de facto control over the lower house in an alliance with a smaller party. Mr. Calderón’s only leverage now is in the Senate, whose members were not up for election and where his party has a 40 percent plurality.
Still, many analysts warned against interpreting the election results as a broad shift of power in Mexico, noting that the PRI won only slightly more of the popular vote, about 37 percent on Sunday, than it did during the 2003 midterm elections.
The PRI also prospered from what appears to have been the near-collapse of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution, or P.R.D., which was split by an internal feud. Once-solid P.R.D. territory went to the PRI.
That's interesting: PAN kept its vote percentage, and PRI picked up PRD support.
The PRI has successfully painted itself as more experienced than the PAN. Its new slogan says "Today's PRI: Proven Experience. New Attitude." But analysts said the party has done little soul-searching from its loss of the presidency, when it was widely viewed as corrupt.
Spin. It works.
"Among voters, they have credibility as a governing party that can be summed up like this: 'We might be corrupt, but we're more efficient than the other guys,'" Mr. Rubio said.
Perceptions might be summed up: everyone is corrupt, and PRI delivers.
Growing political clout from the PRI could hurt Mr. Calderón's war on drugs. Many PRI members have been ambivalent about the effort, worried about the army's growing presence in various cities. Some party insiders have also argued that cutting backroom deals with organized crime in Mexico is the best way to control violence.
Negotiate with narcocriminals; nice strategy.
Some analysts hold out hope that the PRI's victory will push it to be cooperative as it tries to convince voters that it can be trusted with the presidency. They said the PRI may even cooperate on thorny issues like tax reform to shore up the country's weakening finances.
That window, analysts say, will stay open for about a year and a half before the next election begins to pit the PAN and the PRI against each other again. Mr. Calderón won't have much time.
Two PRI candidates whose relatives or associates had links to the drugs trade, and who were the subjects of a Wall Street Journal article Friday, romped to easy victories at the polls.
Mario Anguiano Moreno won with about 53% of the vote in his race for governor in the state of Colima, while former Ciudad Juárez Mayor Héctor Murgía Lardizábal easily won his race for a seat in Mexico's national assembly -- beating his nearest rival by 30 percentage points.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
A Gangster With Star Appeal
In truth, there is no secret to Dillinger's appeal. "He was what he seemed to be," says researcher and historian Sandy Jones, who once owned Dillinger's death mask and his 1933 Hudson Essex-Terraplane 8, now on display at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment in Washington. "He was an Indiana farm boy who loved baseball." (He was also a Chicago Cubs fan, so you knew that he would some day come to a bad end.) "He wasn't a Robin Hood, but he was living a revenge fantasy that millions of Americans dreamed about during the Depression. If he was alive today, he'd probably be going after Wall Street brokers."
It's fitting that John Dillinger was killed after an outing to one of his beloved movie houses. The last film he took in was "Manhattan Melodrama" with Clark Gable and William Powell. But his favorite movie gangster was James Cagney, who, according to legend, he actually met in a Chicago tavern. Lucky for Dillinger, he didn't live to see the star of "The Public Enemy" (1931) become -- literally -- a poster boy for J. Edgar Hoover's FBI in the movie "'G' Men," released a year after his death.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Tilt to Right of Souter
While Judge Sonia Sotomayor stands in the liberal mainstream on many issues, her record suggests that the Supreme Court nominee could sometimes rule with the top court's conservatives on questions of criminal justice.Maybe they are beginning to realize they rushed to judge her without knowing anything much about the Judge.
New York criminal-defense lawyers say she is surprisingly tough on crime for a Democratic-backed appointee -- a byproduct, they believe, of her tenure as a prosecutor.
Not every Democrat, not every Hispanic, not every woman is "soft" on crime, nor fits into the expected pigeonhole.
"The reputation of Sotomayor was that sentencing was not an easy ride," says Gerald Shargel, a criminal-defense attorney.
If Nest had bothered to review her record before spewing his nonsense ...
Following recent Supreme Court precedent, Judge Sotomayor tends to see relatively few grounds to overturn criminal convictions, says John Siffert, a New York attorney who taught an appellate advocacy class with the judge at New York University School of Law from 1996 to 2006. On the trial bench, he says, "she was not viewed as a pro-defense judge."
Still, there are reservations, aren't there?
To be sure, Judge Sotomayor has at times shown leniency toward criminal defendants. In 2001, after she had become an appellate-court judge, she agreed to preside over the drug-conspiracy trial of Sandra Carter. The jury convicted Ms. Carter, but Judge Sotomayor sentenced her to six months in prison, far below the term that she could have drawn under the sentencing guidelines, says Edward O'Callaghan, the prosecutor in the case.
Aha!
Judge Sotomayor, he says, took into account the fact that the defendant was a first-time offender who made far less money than other conspiracy participants.
Oh, geez: empathy.
Michael Bachner, a New York defense lawyer who has handled trials and appeals before Judge Sotomayor, senses a divide in her criminal jurisprudence. She can be "very tough" on white-collar defendants from privileged backgrounds, but is "more understanding of individuals who grew up in a tougher circumstance.
What would Newt say?
Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford Law School professor who was on the losing side of the January Supreme Court decision, says Judge Sotomayor's ruling demonstrates a "willingness to give police the benefit of the doubt."
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Mexico City Journal
Florence Cassez was convicted of kidnapping and other crimes. The strongest evidence against her was the testimony of the three victims, none of whom could see the faces of their captors.
Agustín Acosta
Three years ago, morning news programs here broadcast the arrest of a Frenchwoman and her Mexican boyfriend in a police raid that rescued three kidnapping victims from the ranch the couple shared.
The woman, Florence Cassez, was convicted of kidnapping and other crimes and was eventually sentenced to 60 years in jail. Case closed, it would seem.
But through it all, Ms. Cassez, 34, has maintained her innocence. Her boyfriend, Israel Vallarta, who confessed, said she knew nothing. And the television images of police officers storming the ranch? The raid turned out to have been staged the day after the couple was arrested and the hostages released.
Ms. Cassez’s case has become ensnared in Mexicans’ trauma over kidnapping, a crime that has become emblematic of the country’s wave of insecurity. The incompetence of the police and prosecutors, corruption and negligence mean that very few crimes are solved. The paradox is that when they are said to be solved, public opinion quickly hardens against the suspects — no matter how imperfect the case.
The incompetence of police? Seems a sweeping assertion. But ...
“In a general climate of impunity, society becomes very conservative,” said Guillermo Zepeda, a security expert at the Center of Research for Development, a Mexico City policy group. “They want the few cases that are resolved to be exemplary.”
In fewer than 2 percent of crimes does a suspect ever appear before a judge, Mr. Zepeda said. In large part that is because Mexicans have so little faith in any aspect of the criminal justice system that only 12 percent of crimes are ever reported.
Agustín Acosta
Three years ago, morning news programs here broadcast the arrest of a Frenchwoman and her Mexican boyfriend in a police raid that rescued three kidnapping victims from the ranch the couple shared.
The woman, Florence Cassez, was convicted of kidnapping and other crimes and was eventually sentenced to 60 years in jail. Case closed, it would seem.
But through it all, Ms. Cassez, 34, has maintained her innocence. Her boyfriend, Israel Vallarta, who confessed, said she knew nothing. And the television images of police officers storming the ranch? The raid turned out to have been staged the day after the couple was arrested and the hostages released.
Ms. Cassez’s case has become ensnared in Mexicans’ trauma over kidnapping, a crime that has become emblematic of the country’s wave of insecurity. The incompetence of the police and prosecutors, corruption and negligence mean that very few crimes are solved. The paradox is that when they are said to be solved, public opinion quickly hardens against the suspects — no matter how imperfect the case.
The incompetence of police? Seems a sweeping assertion. But ...
“In a general climate of impunity, society becomes very conservative,” said Guillermo Zepeda, a security expert at the Center of Research for Development, a Mexico City policy group. “They want the few cases that are resolved to be exemplary.”
In fewer than 2 percent of crimes does a suspect ever appear before a judge, Mr. Zepeda said. In large part that is because Mexicans have so little faith in any aspect of the criminal justice system that only 12 percent of crimes are ever reported.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Missouri System Treats Juvenile Offenders With Lighter Hand
Detainees in a game session at the Hogan Street center, which also provides health and wellness classes and group counseling.
Rules are posted at the Hogan Street Youth Center in St. Louis.
Graphic Fewer Youths in Custody
March 27, 2009
Missouri System Treats Juvenile Offenders With Lighter Hand
By SOLOMON MOORE
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — VonErrick celebrated his 14th birthday last year by committing a daylight carjacking, beating the driver to the ground. With a long record of truancy, assault, and breaking and entering, he was sent to a state group home — the same home that his two older brothers passed through after their own scrapes with the law.
Both of those brothers are out now. Tory, 16, has A grades and plans to attend college. Terry, 20, has a job and has had a clean record for four years. VonErrick was recently released and immediately started high school.
The brothers say they benefited from confinement in the Missouri juvenile system, which emphasizes rehabilitation in small groups, constant therapeutic interventions and minimal force.
Juvenile justice experts across the nation say that the approach, known as the Missouri Model, is one of several promising reform movements that strapped states are trying to reduce the costly confinement of youths. California, which spends more than $200,000 a year on each incarcerated juvenile, reallocated $93 million in prison expenses by reducing state confinement.
There is no barbed wire around facilities like Missouri Hills, on the outskirts of St. Louis. No more than 10 youths and 2 adults called facilitators live in cottage-style dormitories in a wooded setting, a far cry from the quasi penitentiaries in other states. When someone becomes unruly, the other youths are trained to talk him down. Perhaps most impressive, Missouri has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country.
Other states, including Florida, Illinois and Louisiana, have moved in a similar direction, focusing on improving conditions at state facilities to keep young offenders from returning.
Some states have worked at the county level to avoid confinement altogether, keeping youths in their communities while they receive rehabilitative services, which advocates say is a cheaper alternative to residential care.
The two largest state systems, Texas and California, cut long-term youth confinement by requiring counties to house low-level offenders in detention halls. Texas cut its 5,000-youth population by half within two years, while California reduced its population to 2,500, from more than 10,000 in 1997. But critics say that city and county detention programs are uneven and point out that states often do a poor job of monitoring them.
Missouri and other states are using new approaches in the juvenile justice system to try to stem the flow of adults behind bars. Missouri managed to cut its adult population from 2005 through the first half of 2007 by applying techniques from the Missouri Model.
The reforms have begun to have a national impact, with a 12 percent decrease in juvenile offenders from 1997 to 2006, from 105,000 youths to 93,000.
Most of the decline during that period was in state confinements, although some of the decrease is attributed to a 28 percent decline in youth arrests, which reform advocates say proves that there is no detriment associated with fewer incarcerated juveniles.
The Anne E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore has been a leading advocate for ending the confinement of low-risk offenders and placing them in community programs. Since trying the foundation’s approach in 2003, five counties in New Jersey have reduced juvenile detention by 42 percent, to 288 youths from 499.
Three years ago in California, Scott MacDonald, who is in charge of probation in Santa Cruz County, began asking courts to use Casey Foundation methods. Instead of confining every gang member accused of a crime, or every juvenile who failed a drug test, judges now look at a youth’s record and risk to determine whether he should remain free. A youth who fails a drug test, for example, might be ordered to attend substance abuse classes.
“Even if a kid doesn’t follow all of the rules — particularly rules that have nothing to do with crime — we won’t necessarily detain him,” Mr. MacDonald said.
In the 1990s, the Santa Cruz juvenile hall averaged 50 to 60 youths. Now it averages about 20 detainees, most of them under community supervision. More than 90 percent of those in the community programs have not committed new crimes within three years, Mr. McDonald said.
“The question we’re always starting with is, How do we keep them home?” he said.
Isela Gutierrez, a juvenile justice expert with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a nonprofit group, said one drawback to the Missouri state system was that too many low-level offenders there were being confined, while serious juvenile felons were being sent to adult prisons, where conditions are harsher.
Tim Decker, director of the Missouri Division of Youth Services, said judges preferred to send youths to state facilities — Missouri Hills or the Hogan Street Regional Youth Center, with dorms that have wooden beds, male health and wellness classes, group counseling and game rooms — rather than dismal county lockups or to backlogged community programs.
“Judges have more faith in us,” Mr. Decker said. “So far we’re O.K., but you can’t do what we do with 25 kids in a group.”
Missouri Hills is clean and homey, with plush couches, stuffed animals on the bunks, and a dog rescued from the pound. The violence that plagues many juvenile prisons is also absent.
In a typical juvenile corrections environment, Mr. Decker said, if a youth becomes aggressive “you would have guards drag him into isolation” for three days.
“But,” he added, “the problem is that a young person doesn’t learn how to avoid that aggressive behavior and it will get worse.”
In Missouri Hills, isolation rooms were used only about a dozen times last year, Mr. Decker said, and never for more than a few hours. Pepper spray is banned, and youths are taught to de-escalate fights or apply grappling holds, a form of restraint.
Victoria, 16, who stole her grandmother’s car, her second offense, explained how her housing unit does a “circle-up,” or ad hoc counseling session, several times a day, whenever there is a conflict, like cursing.
“There’s drama all the time,” she said. “It’s like having a bunch of sisters.”
The Missouri system provided triage for an imploding system in Washington, where the juvenile corrections agency was plagued by vermin-infested buildings, overcrowding and chronic violence.
“The kids were stuffing their shirts with paper before they went to sleep to keep the roaches and rats from biting them,” said Vincent Schiraldi, head of the city’s Division of Rehabilitative Services.
With advice from experts in Missouri, Mr. Schiraldi divided platoons of youths into small groups. By October, the number of juveniles reconvicted within a year of release dropped to 25 percent, from 31 percent four years earlier. However, as conditions improved, confinements have risen, even as juvenile crime has declined.
Mr. Decker said that upgrading facilities and training new staff cost more initially, but that the reforms would reduce recidivism, which would result in long-term savings.
VonErrick has been home for a few weeks, and his 18-year-old sister said he seemed calmer and less interested in running with the wrong crowd. Their mother, Rosie Williams, said all three of her sons seemed more focused, and she attributed the changes to the counselors at the state group home.
Ms. Williams, whose husband is in prison, occasionally attended family counseling sessions where she said she learned important lessons as a parent. “Instead of just hollering at them and trying to keep them out of trouble,” she said, “I try to do things with them one on one, to get to know what’s on their mind and what’s going on in their lives.”
Rules are posted at the Hogan Street Youth Center in St. Louis.
Graphic Fewer Youths in CustodyMarch 27, 2009
Missouri System Treats Juvenile Offenders With Lighter Hand
By SOLOMON MOORE
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — VonErrick celebrated his 14th birthday last year by committing a daylight carjacking, beating the driver to the ground. With a long record of truancy, assault, and breaking and entering, he was sent to a state group home — the same home that his two older brothers passed through after their own scrapes with the law.
Both of those brothers are out now. Tory, 16, has A grades and plans to attend college. Terry, 20, has a job and has had a clean record for four years. VonErrick was recently released and immediately started high school.
The brothers say they benefited from confinement in the Missouri juvenile system, which emphasizes rehabilitation in small groups, constant therapeutic interventions and minimal force.
Juvenile justice experts across the nation say that the approach, known as the Missouri Model, is one of several promising reform movements that strapped states are trying to reduce the costly confinement of youths. California, which spends more than $200,000 a year on each incarcerated juvenile, reallocated $93 million in prison expenses by reducing state confinement.
There is no barbed wire around facilities like Missouri Hills, on the outskirts of St. Louis. No more than 10 youths and 2 adults called facilitators live in cottage-style dormitories in a wooded setting, a far cry from the quasi penitentiaries in other states. When someone becomes unruly, the other youths are trained to talk him down. Perhaps most impressive, Missouri has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country.
Other states, including Florida, Illinois and Louisiana, have moved in a similar direction, focusing on improving conditions at state facilities to keep young offenders from returning.
Some states have worked at the county level to avoid confinement altogether, keeping youths in their communities while they receive rehabilitative services, which advocates say is a cheaper alternative to residential care.
The two largest state systems, Texas and California, cut long-term youth confinement by requiring counties to house low-level offenders in detention halls. Texas cut its 5,000-youth population by half within two years, while California reduced its population to 2,500, from more than 10,000 in 1997. But critics say that city and county detention programs are uneven and point out that states often do a poor job of monitoring them.
Missouri and other states are using new approaches in the juvenile justice system to try to stem the flow of adults behind bars. Missouri managed to cut its adult population from 2005 through the first half of 2007 by applying techniques from the Missouri Model.
The reforms have begun to have a national impact, with a 12 percent decrease in juvenile offenders from 1997 to 2006, from 105,000 youths to 93,000.
Most of the decline during that period was in state confinements, although some of the decrease is attributed to a 28 percent decline in youth arrests, which reform advocates say proves that there is no detriment associated with fewer incarcerated juveniles.
The Anne E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore has been a leading advocate for ending the confinement of low-risk offenders and placing them in community programs. Since trying the foundation’s approach in 2003, five counties in New Jersey have reduced juvenile detention by 42 percent, to 288 youths from 499.
Three years ago in California, Scott MacDonald, who is in charge of probation in Santa Cruz County, began asking courts to use Casey Foundation methods. Instead of confining every gang member accused of a crime, or every juvenile who failed a drug test, judges now look at a youth’s record and risk to determine whether he should remain free. A youth who fails a drug test, for example, might be ordered to attend substance abuse classes.
“Even if a kid doesn’t follow all of the rules — particularly rules that have nothing to do with crime — we won’t necessarily detain him,” Mr. MacDonald said.
In the 1990s, the Santa Cruz juvenile hall averaged 50 to 60 youths. Now it averages about 20 detainees, most of them under community supervision. More than 90 percent of those in the community programs have not committed new crimes within three years, Mr. McDonald said.
“The question we’re always starting with is, How do we keep them home?” he said.
Isela Gutierrez, a juvenile justice expert with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a nonprofit group, said one drawback to the Missouri state system was that too many low-level offenders there were being confined, while serious juvenile felons were being sent to adult prisons, where conditions are harsher.
Tim Decker, director of the Missouri Division of Youth Services, said judges preferred to send youths to state facilities — Missouri Hills or the Hogan Street Regional Youth Center, with dorms that have wooden beds, male health and wellness classes, group counseling and game rooms — rather than dismal county lockups or to backlogged community programs.
“Judges have more faith in us,” Mr. Decker said. “So far we’re O.K., but you can’t do what we do with 25 kids in a group.”
Missouri Hills is clean and homey, with plush couches, stuffed animals on the bunks, and a dog rescued from the pound. The violence that plagues many juvenile prisons is also absent.
In a typical juvenile corrections environment, Mr. Decker said, if a youth becomes aggressive “you would have guards drag him into isolation” for three days.
“But,” he added, “the problem is that a young person doesn’t learn how to avoid that aggressive behavior and it will get worse.”
In Missouri Hills, isolation rooms were used only about a dozen times last year, Mr. Decker said, and never for more than a few hours. Pepper spray is banned, and youths are taught to de-escalate fights or apply grappling holds, a form of restraint.
Victoria, 16, who stole her grandmother’s car, her second offense, explained how her housing unit does a “circle-up,” or ad hoc counseling session, several times a day, whenever there is a conflict, like cursing.
“There’s drama all the time,” she said. “It’s like having a bunch of sisters.”
The Missouri system provided triage for an imploding system in Washington, where the juvenile corrections agency was plagued by vermin-infested buildings, overcrowding and chronic violence.
“The kids were stuffing their shirts with paper before they went to sleep to keep the roaches and rats from biting them,” said Vincent Schiraldi, head of the city’s Division of Rehabilitative Services.
With advice from experts in Missouri, Mr. Schiraldi divided platoons of youths into small groups. By October, the number of juveniles reconvicted within a year of release dropped to 25 percent, from 31 percent four years earlier. However, as conditions improved, confinements have risen, even as juvenile crime has declined.
Mr. Decker said that upgrading facilities and training new staff cost more initially, but that the reforms would reduce recidivism, which would result in long-term savings.
VonErrick has been home for a few weeks, and his 18-year-old sister said he seemed calmer and less interested in running with the wrong crowd. Their mother, Rosie Williams, said all three of her sons seemed more focused, and she attributed the changes to the counselors at the state group home.
Ms. Williams, whose husband is in prison, occasionally attended family counseling sessions where she said she learned important lessons as a parent. “Instead of just hollering at them and trying to keep them out of trouble,” she said, “I try to do things with them one on one, to get to know what’s on their mind and what’s going on in their lives.”
Thursday, January 8, 2009
In Crime Wave, an Interrupted Meal Haunts Mexico
Felix Batista, a security consultant from Miami, was abducted on Dec. 10 outside this restaurant in Saltillo, Mexico.Until recently, before a customer was abducted outside its front door, El Mesón Principal del Norte was known simply as a great place to get meat, usually roasted on a spit in northern Mexican style. But ask a hotel concierge in this industrial city about El Mesón these days and the gastronomy may not come up first. “Be careful,” one whispered conspiratorially last month. “That’s where they got the gringo.” It was outside El Mesón that Felix Batista, an American security consultant who specialized in resolving kidnappings, was himself abducted on the evening of Dec. 10. He has not been heard from since.
The irony of it.
There is the Vips diner in southern Mexico City, where authorities detained Sandra Ávila Beltrán, suspected of being a third-generation drug trafficker known as the Queen of the Pacific, as she sipped coffee with friends.
3rd generation? Family business redefined.
Gotti's revenge
Gotti Sr.'s grisly acid test The corpse of John Gotti's Howard Beach neighbor - murdered after he accidentally killed the gangster's 12-year-old son in a traffic accident - was dissolved in a barrel of acid, an informant says. Young Frankie Gotti was riding McMahon's minibike when the mob scion was fatally struck on 86th St. by Favara, who was briefly blinded by the setting sun as he drove home from work.
Prosecutors say Carneglia "protected" McMahon from retaliation by the Dapper Don for lending his son the minibike and - in a bizarre twist - McMahon is the one ratting him out.
No one could save Favara.
He found the word Murderer scrawled on his auto and was attacked with a bat by Gotti's wife, Victoria, but failed to heed repeated warnings to move out of the area, sources said.
Several weeks after the tragic accident, Favara was abducted outside the Castro Convertible warehouse where he worked in New Hyde Park, L.I.. Cops identified his killers as Gambino members John Carneglia, Charles' brother, Gene Gotti, Wilfred (Willie Boy) Johnson, Anthony Rampino and Richard (Redbird) Gomes.
Favara was forced into a van, sources said, and shot in the legs. He was taken to another location in Brooklyn where he was killed and stuffed into a 55-gallon drum, sources said.
"In a later discussion concerning his expertise at disposing of bodies for the Gambino family, which included a discussion of a book (Charles Carneglia) was reading on dismemberment, (Carneglia) informed another Gambino family associate that acid was the best method to use to avoid detection," Burlingame wrote.
What strikes me is that they felt a need to hide the evidence; why?
Friday, December 26, 2008
Guerra sigue contra narcos
On Friday, at eluniversal.com.mx, numerous stories:
Arraigan a 16 sicarios de los Beltrán Leyva - Un juez federal con sede en esta ciudad autorizó el arraigo por 40 días de Víctor Serrano Galván, “El G1”, y otros 15 presuntos sicarios de la organización de Arturo Beltrán Leyva, detenidos en Baja California y Sonora tras un enfrentamiento con la policía el pasado 5 de diciembre. Ciudad de México Miércoles 10 de diciembre de 2008
Dictan formal prisión a ex mandos de la PFP - El juez segundo de Distrito en materia penal de Nayarit dictó auto de formal prisión al ex comisionado de la Policía Federal Preventiva (PFP), Víctor Garay Cadena, y al ex coordinador de la División Antidrogas, Francisco Navarro Espinosa, por delincuencia organizada, delitos contra la salud, robo específico y abuso de autoridad. Ciudad de México Miércoles 10 de diciembre de 2008
Dictan prisión a ex mandos ligados a Los Beltrán - Víctor Garay Cadena, ex comisionado interino de la Policía Federal Preventiva (PFP) y Francisco Navarro Espinoza, ex coordinador de la división antidrogas de esa corporación, serán procesados por delincuencia organizada, delitos contra la salud, abuso de autoridad y robo específico. Jueves 11 de diciembre de 2008
“Peligra” el caso del Desierto de Leones - La detención de 15 presuntos narcotraficantes vinculados a Arturo Beltrán Leyva, realizada a mediados de octubre durante un operativo en una mansión del Desierto de los Leones, está en riesgo de ser anulada por los abusos en que incurrieron los mandos y agentes de la Policía Federal Preventiva (PFP) que los capturaron, reconocieron fuentes de la PGR Jueves 18 de diciembre de 2008
Detienen a mando de PFP por vínculos con el narco - Al ex comisionado interino de la Policía Federal, Víctor Gerardo Garay Cadena, así como a Francisco Navarro, se les relaciona con los Beltrán Leyva, mientras que a Fidel Hernández y Jorge Cruz se les vincula con 'El Rey Zambada'; los cuatro formaban parte de la Policía Federal Ciudad de México Viernes 05 de diciembre de 2008
Amplían Arraigo contra ex titular de la SIEDO - Noé Ramírez Mandujano está acusado de recibir dinero a cambio de proporcionar información a la organización criminal de los hermanos Beltrán Leyva, sobre las acciones que llevarían a cabo autoridades federales en su contra Ciudad de México Viernes 26 de diciembre de 2008
Amplían arraigo a ex director de Interpol - Ricardo Gutiérrez Vargas, quien es investigado por presuntamente filtrar información al cártel de Sinaloa, permanecerá 30 días más en el Centro de Investigaciones Federales Ciudad de México Viernes 26 de diciembre de 2008
Arraigan a 16 sicarios de los Beltrán Leyva - Un juez federal con sede en esta ciudad autorizó el arraigo por 40 días de Víctor Serrano Galván, “El G1”, y otros 15 presuntos sicarios de la organización de Arturo Beltrán Leyva, detenidos en Baja California y Sonora tras un enfrentamiento con la policía el pasado 5 de diciembre. Ciudad de México Miércoles 10 de diciembre de 2008
Dictan formal prisión a ex mandos de la PFP - El juez segundo de Distrito en materia penal de Nayarit dictó auto de formal prisión al ex comisionado de la Policía Federal Preventiva (PFP), Víctor Garay Cadena, y al ex coordinador de la División Antidrogas, Francisco Navarro Espinosa, por delincuencia organizada, delitos contra la salud, robo específico y abuso de autoridad. Ciudad de México Miércoles 10 de diciembre de 2008
Dictan prisión a ex mandos ligados a Los Beltrán - Víctor Garay Cadena, ex comisionado interino de la Policía Federal Preventiva (PFP) y Francisco Navarro Espinoza, ex coordinador de la división antidrogas de esa corporación, serán procesados por delincuencia organizada, delitos contra la salud, abuso de autoridad y robo específico. Jueves 11 de diciembre de 2008
“Peligra” el caso del Desierto de Leones - La detención de 15 presuntos narcotraficantes vinculados a Arturo Beltrán Leyva, realizada a mediados de octubre durante un operativo en una mansión del Desierto de los Leones, está en riesgo de ser anulada por los abusos en que incurrieron los mandos y agentes de la Policía Federal Preventiva (PFP) que los capturaron, reconocieron fuentes de la PGR Jueves 18 de diciembre de 2008
Detienen a mando de PFP por vínculos con el narco - Al ex comisionado interino de la Policía Federal, Víctor Gerardo Garay Cadena, así como a Francisco Navarro, se les relaciona con los Beltrán Leyva, mientras que a Fidel Hernández y Jorge Cruz se les vincula con 'El Rey Zambada'; los cuatro formaban parte de la Policía Federal Ciudad de México Viernes 05 de diciembre de 2008
Amplían Arraigo contra ex titular de la SIEDO - Noé Ramírez Mandujano está acusado de recibir dinero a cambio de proporcionar información a la organización criminal de los hermanos Beltrán Leyva, sobre las acciones que llevarían a cabo autoridades federales en su contra Ciudad de México Viernes 26 de diciembre de 2008
Amplían arraigo a ex director de Interpol - Ricardo Gutiérrez Vargas, quien es investigado por presuntamente filtrar información al cártel de Sinaloa, permanecerá 30 días más en el Centro de Investigaciones Federales Ciudad de México Viernes 26 de diciembre de 2008
Miss Sinaloa
Un juez federal concedió a la miss Sinaloa 2008, Laura Zúñiga Huizar, y a otras ocho personas un arraigo de 40 días por delitos de delincuencia organizada, contra la salud, violación a la ley de armas de fuego y operaciones con recursos de procedencia ilícita | Ver nota
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Narcos reubican laboratorios a EU
Today in El Universal's website the story appears, headlined: Narcos relocate laboratories in the US.
Cárteles mexicanos extendieron la producción de metanfetaminas por todo Estados Unidos, la mayor nación consumidora de drogas, reconoció el Departamento de Justicia de ese país.
Mexican cartels extended methamphetamine production all over the United States, the major drug consuming nation, recognized (announced) the Department of Justice of that nation.
En un informe, la dependencia señala que debido a las restricciones que hay en México para importar precursores químicos, el crimen organizado trasladó sus laboratorios clandestinos a Estados Unidos.
In that report the Department signals (Acknowledges?) that due to restrictions in Mexico on importing chemicals, organized crime relocated its clandestine labs to the US. And an increase in production is forecast for next year.
Como muestra de la penetración, el reporte del Departamento de Justicia da a conocer que en el primer semestre de 2008 —tan sólo en California— se incautaron 19 laboratorios donde grupos mexicanos procesaban la metanfetamina. Entre enero y junio las autoridades estadounidenses desmantelaron mil 605 centros de producción clandestina en Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Carolina del Norte, Dakota del Norte, Oklahoma, Carolina del Sur y Wisconsin.
As evidence of the penetration, DOJ reveals that in the first trimester of 2008 —merely in California— 19 labs were seized where groups of Mexicans processed meth. Between January and June US authorities disassembled 1,605 production centers in those states.
Cárteles mexicanos extendieron la producción de metanfetaminas por todo Estados Unidos, la mayor nación consumidora de drogas, reconoció el Departamento de Justicia de ese país.
Mexican cartels extended methamphetamine production all over the United States, the major drug consuming nation, recognized (announced) the Department of Justice of that nation.
En un informe, la dependencia señala que debido a las restricciones que hay en México para importar precursores químicos, el crimen organizado trasladó sus laboratorios clandestinos a Estados Unidos.
In that report the Department signals (Acknowledges?) that due to restrictions in Mexico on importing chemicals, organized crime relocated its clandestine labs to the US. And an increase in production is forecast for next year.
Como muestra de la penetración, el reporte del Departamento de Justicia da a conocer que en el primer semestre de 2008 —tan sólo en California— se incautaron 19 laboratorios donde grupos mexicanos procesaban la metanfetamina. Entre enero y junio las autoridades estadounidenses desmantelaron mil 605 centros de producción clandestina en Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Carolina del Norte, Dakota del Norte, Oklahoma, Carolina del Sur y Wisconsin.
As evidence of the penetration, DOJ reveals that in the first trimester of 2008 —merely in California— 19 labs were seized where groups of Mexicans processed meth. Between January and June US authorities disassembled 1,605 production centers in those states.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Guns, Cash and a Tiara
Get this:The career of an international beauty queen may have come to an abrupt end on Tuesday when the police announced that she had been arrested in suburban Guadalajara in a Toyota Cruiser stuffed with guns and cash. Laura Zúñiga Huizar, 23, winner of her home state’s Miss Sinaloa contest, placed third in Mexico’s national contest in September and won a Latin America-wide pageant, above, in Bolivia in October. The Jalisco State Police said they arrested Ms. Zúñiga and seven men late Monday, and seized two assault rifles, three smaller guns, ammunition and more than $53,000 in cash. They said one of the men was a leader of the Juárez drug cartel. Mexican pageant officials said they would await the results of an investigation before deciding whether to strip her of her crown.
A report has it that they were caught at a military checkpoint outside Guadalajara. Bright they are not, clearly. Look at all the hardware: assault rifles, handguns, 9 magazines, 633 cartridges and $50,00 in US currency. Her excuse: she was going shopping with the 7 guys, in Bolivia.
El Mañana de Nuevo LaredoEs Reyna...¡Del narco!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Murder Suspect Has Witness: A MetroCard
Be careful where you go, and how you get there is the moral of this story.
James B. Dowd, a retired detective working for Jason Jones’s lawyers, found Mr. Jones’s MetroCard in jailhouse storage.
James B. Dowd, a retired detective working for Jason Jones’s lawyers, found Mr. Jones’s MetroCard in jailhouse storage.
Monday, June 9, 2008
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