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According to the Winona Daily News , fewer young criminals are being incarcerated causing many state institutions to close. The reason for the closing is lower juvenile arrests, softer treatment policies and of course state budgets.
In Ohio, the number of juvenile offenders is nearly half over the last two years. This has caused the closing of three facilities. California has closed a youth institution near Los Angeles that has operated for nearly 115 years. In Texas a facility is closing, that was once a World War II era training base.
The juvenile arrest rate has dropped 33 percent between 1997 and 2008 according to the latest U.S. Justice Department data. Justice Department also reported that the number of juvenile offenders declined 26 percent between 2000 and 2008, from about 109,000 to 80,000.
In Wisconsin, state corrections officials are considering closing the Ethan Allen School, a former tuberculosis sanitarium near Wales, about 25 miles west of Milwaukee. The school’s population has dropped from 460 in 1998 to 195 in May.
Criminologists aren’t sure why fewer kids are getting in trouble. Some believe more kids are avoiding drug trafficking. Others think programs such as group homes, halfway houses and after-school tutoring closer to kids’ homes have reduced recidivism.
If you live in or around Northeast Philadelphia and haven’t received your mail yet, you may want to check with the police. A local postal carrier was stashing over 20,000 letters including checks, bills and a college acceptance letter from 2007 in his house.
The postal service in Philadelphia thought something was unusual with this mail man didn’t show up for work for several days. They went to his house and found tubs of undelivered and unopened mail.
Some of the pieces of mail included a $900 check dated December 2007, mail from Social Security Administration, the IRS and an acceptance letter to college dated 2007 to West Chester University. The recipient, who received the letter on Thursday, is now a senior in college. In fact, there was mail dated as far back as 1997.
Delaying mail and stealing mail are both federal offenses. Investigators have yet to question the mail man because they have not been able to locate him.
In a small town of Pekin, Indiana, a volunteer census worker is accused of beating and raping a physically handicapped woman in her home. Earlier that week he was making his rounds for the census bureau but came back to a house he previously interviewed. There he broke in and beat and raped a physically handicapped young woman.
The people at the house agreed that he was a friendly person and seemed nice. Daniel Miller, a self-employed tile-layer and volunteer Census worker is accused of this crime. After his crime, he drove around the house several times as if he was drunk. According to Miller’s friends, he had been drinking that night. They too can’t believe that he would be involved in this type of crime. Miller has been married for 13 years and has two daughters.
Miller is incarcerated at the Washington County Detention Center. He is being held with no bond and will appear in court soon. It just goes to show you, you really can’t trust anyone today.
According to a Denver, Colorado, police report 27-year-old Jerrad Lowell Leonard of Commerce City, Colorado, was arrested after a series of hit-and-run crashes that injured six people. This was the same man that Dog the Bounty Hunter Chapman captured in 2006 and turned over to authorities.
At the time, Dog told Mr. Leonard that he had a chance to turn his life around – to go away from the “dark side and straighten up”. Leonard served his time and had a job at a Taco Bell. But last week, Leonard must have once again turned to the “dark side.”
Police arrested him for driving under restraint, driving without a license, duty to report an accident, duty to give information and aid, driving without proof of insurance, DUI and reckless driving charges. He sped down a busy street at 80 mph in an Expedition, caused four crashes, including a police car, and injured six people and himself. When he hit a police cruiser, he injured a suspect who was in the back seat and then sped off hitting two other vehicles and injuring three people inside one of them. Authorities say Leonard continued on, hitting a fourth vehicle, dragging it 30 yards and injuring one person inside.
When Dog the Bounty Hunter was questioned about Leonard he said that all he wanted to say was, “I told you so.” Dog was relieved that no one died in the crashes and hopes that Leonard would get another chance to redeem himself. Dog also said that about 40 percent of people he arrest do not live a life of crime, but the rest do.
Last week, two young thieves planning to steal an iPad from a man in Denver, Colorado stalked him, attacked him and severed his little finger.
All of this happened in the middle of the afternoon at a busy shopping mall. The man just bought the iPad as a business gift. When he was leaving the Apple Store in an upscale mall in Denver, one of the thugs started to struggle with the man to get the bag from his hand. The thief was trying to pull the bag out of the man’s hand but his fingers were caught in the handles of the bag. Finally, the thief pulled the bag out of the man’s hand; ripped off the flesh and tendons of his little finger. As a result, the man’s little finger had to be amputated.
The thief and his accomplice got away but the police are looking for the two suspects. Police are looking at video from the mall to identify these thieves.
Because iPads are very popular, it now gives criminals another reason to steal. It seems that some criminals who are stalking people are looking to steal them to make money.
This may be bittersweet, scamming lawyers, but lawyers are people too and don’t deserve to be duped by a criminal. Recently a large law firm in Denver, Colorado was almost a victim of a major scam.
Because of the bad economy and the sophistication of counterfeiting cashier’s checks, a scam artist tried to rip off this law firm. Last month the law firm received an email from a potential client living in Japan. The woman claimed that she was trying to collect money from her ex-husband who lives in Colorado. The email said that they were divorced in 2003 and that a “huge” settlement was still outstanding. She wanted to collect this amount from him. After six weeks of on-line correspondence, the scam artist sent a cashier’s check for $197,000 to the law firm claiming it was from her ex-husband’s part of the settlement. She asked the law firm to deposit the check, keep a retainer fee and wire her the difference.
Of course, the cashier’s check is phony and whatever real money she receives from the law firm is her easy money to keep. This scam is very smooth and very professional and unfortunately law firms nationwide are falling for this cyber-scam.
Even law firms are hungry for business during this poor economy. That’s why scammers are targeting law firms in hope of cashing in. Lessons learned from this scam is to never cash suspicious looking checks and never wire funds to unknown clients. Once again if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. The FBI has issued a nationwide alert regarding this type of law firm scam.
Trevor Cook of Minneapolis pleaded guilty in a Ponzi scheme that stole $190 million from investors. This criminal choked back tears when he admitted in federal court in running an international Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 1,000 people.
Mr. Cook’s career started out as a sports bookie in college and then rose to a multi-million dollar commodities trader. As a commodities trader, he placed client money into a Swiss brokerage firm called Crown Forex SA. He continued to trade even when he learned late in 2008 that the firm was going bankrupt.
He had promised investors low double-digit annual returns with no risk to capital if they would invest their savings in a currency investment program that he claimed relied on Islamic banks to forgo interest in the deals. While Cook said he did invest some of the investors’ money in currencies, federal regulators contend that the rest of his pitch was a fiction.
Cook told the court that he lied to investors about a number of things. One claim was to have $4 billion in assets under management. He plead guilty to a single count of mail fraud and one count of tax evasion. This carries a statutory maximum penalty of 25 years in prison, followed by up to three years of supervised release. This sentence is less than he might have faced under the advisory sentencing guidelines. These guidelines are based on the number of victims and amount of loss and could have called for 27 to 33 ¾ years in prison.
His guilty plea still doesn’t get him off the hook. If Cook fails to help the government locate and return assets for investors up to the day of sentencing, his plea bargain can be voided and he may face a longer time in jail.
A Massachusetts man driving in New Hampshire has been arrested for texting while driving. The new law took effect on January 1st of this year.
Stephen Judd age 20, of Dracut, Massachusetts was texting on his phone while driving when a police officer spotted him. Judd was also driving with a suspended license. The texting violation only could not have lead to an arrest. The fine for texting while driving in New Hampshire is $100. However, because Judd’s license was suspended the police officer had to arrest him.
New Hampshire is one of 21 states with texting laws. However, texting bans are hard to enforce. Law enforcement have to look for telltale signs of distracted driving such as swerving to not moving with the flow of traffic. When texting you take your eyes off the road and that is when accidents may occur. Texting while driving is just as dangerous as drinking and driving.
According to a recent Amnesty International annual survey report, ninety-five countries have abolished the death penalty. Nine countries throughout the world have abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes but use it for wartime crimes such as treason. In 2009, only eighteen countries executed people. However, China was high on the list of the most death penalty cases but refused to release official figures. Seventeen other countries saw 714 people executed for their crimes.
Thirty-five countries have stopped using the death penalty in the last ten years. The death penalty has been abolished in Burundi and Togo, Africa. In 2009 there were no executions in Europe except for Belarus which still has the death penalty. There one person was executed in the first months of 2010. In North and South America, the United States was the only country to use the death penalty. The U.S. executed 52 people in 2009. Of that 24 were in Texas.
Other countries that do use the death penalty include Iran with 388 by hanging or stoning, Iraq with 120 by hanging, Saudi Arabia with 69 by beheading or crucifixion, and the United States with 52 by lethal injection or electrocution. The U.S. is virtually alone among recognized democracies to use the death penalty.
Saudi Arabia is planning to execute a Lebanese citizen for the crime of sorcery. In China, people are being executed if they are convicted of economic crimes like theft of state property and corruption. Iran saw a big spike in executions between the June 12 elections and the August inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some 100 people were executed in that eight week period. It seems that both Iran and China are using the death penalty for political purposes and not for punishment fitting the crime.
Amnesty International sees the death penalty for crimes dwindling. For instance, in Asia the death penalty is decreasing. India occasionally executes people but it did not carry any executions out in 2009. Thailand does occasionally execute people and Japan rarely. In sub-Saharan Africa only Botswana and Sudan carried out judicial executions in 2009. Kenya commuted the death sentences of 4,000 prisoners who were on death row. That was the largest commutation of death sentences ever known
Of course Amnesty International would like to see the end of the death penalty for non-violent crimes as well as political opposition in a country. In addition, they say if a country is going to use the death penalty they would like to see rigorous safeguards in place to minimize the chances that innocent people are executed as well as any juveniles under the age of 18.
Thieves broke into an Eli Lilly warehouse over the weekend in the town of Enfield, Connecticut and stole as much as $75 million in prescription drugs. This warehouse stored Eli Lilly & Co (LLY.N) prescription medicines such as Prozac, Cymbalta, Zyprexa and other medicines.
During a violent rainstorm, the thieves drilled a hole in the ceiling of the warehouse, disabled a burglar alarm in the building and carted away dozens of pallets. Police officials speculate the drugs could be headed for the black market and possibly overseas where the demand is great for medicines made in the U.S. Common sense says that this seems to be the real the reason for the burglary.
However, an Eli Lilly spokesperson said in a published report that the loss may not have a material financial impact for the company and has not disrupted supply of medicines to the east coast. Both Connecticut police and the FBI are investigating this burglary.
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