SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: TideGlider who wrote (156887)3/13/2009 2:58:26 PM
From: jlallen5 Recommendations  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 173976
 
He/She/It is a nutcase....you'll never get through that....

J.



To: TideGlider who wrote (156887)3/13/2009 4:29:25 PM
From: geode00  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 173976
 
TidyWhiney, it is obvious from your silly posts that you are mentally defective AND running around carrying weaponry. You are the poster baby for what is wrong with this country.

You have spent your entire adult life in the military because, as has obviously escaped your notice, being a cop means that you are in the domestic military. What exactly do you think is the difference?

As for protecting the public...why don't you protect the public against yourselves? These are just the ones who are stupid enough to be caught.

--------------------------------

2 former NYC cops sentenced to life for mob hits

By TOM HAYS – 6 days ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Two former New York police detectives convicted of moonlighting as contract killers in eight mob hits were sentenced Friday to life in prison after telling a judge they were innocent.

"I was a hard-working cop," Louis Eppolito told U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein in federal court in Brooklyn. "I never hurt anybody. I never kidnapped anybody. ... I never did any of this."

Eppolito was sentenced to life in prison for his conspiracy conviction plus 100 years for various other offenses including money laundering, and fined $4.7 million. Stephen Caracappa received a life term plus 80 years, and a $4.2 million fine.

Eppolito, 61, and Caracappa, 67, had worked as partners on the police force and logged a combined 44 years on the job. They were found guilty of secretly being on the payroll of Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso starting in the 1980s.

Prosecutors said the pair used their police credentials to make traffic stops that ended with the driver killed. They also said the officers kidnapped a man suspected in an attempted mob hit against Casso and turned him over to a mobster responsible for 36 slayings.

The former detectives also were accused of providing bad information that led to the mistaken-identity murder of an innocent man killed as his mother washed the dishes following a Christmas Day family dinner.

Eppolito and Caracappa were arrested during a 2005 drug sting in Las Vegas, where they had retired.

The case had been marked by legal twists, including the judge's 2006 decision to throw out a conviction after finding that the statute of limitations had expired on the slayings. An appeals court reversed the decision last year, clearing the way for the sentencing.

U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell said in a statement that he hoped the sentences would bring closure "for the families of the victims of these defendants' unspeakable crimes and for the citizens of the city whose trust they betrayed."

Vincent Lino, the son of one of the victims, told the former officers: "May you have a long life in prison."

-------------even better from the NYT

"Both men have been drawing tax-free disability pensions from the city since they left the Police Department, according to city records. Mr. Caracappa, who retired in 1992 as a first-grade detective, receives $5,313 a month. Mr. Eppolito, who retired in 1990 as a second-grade detective, is paid $3,896 a month. Because they retired before they were accused of crimes, their pensions will continue.

Moreover, the pensions are not subject to seizure for payment of the fines, said Joseph A. Bondy, the lawyer for Mr. Caracappa. “I fought the government for Peter Gotti when they tried to garnish a disability pension, and we won,” said Mr. Bondy, who defended Mr. Gotti on murder and racketeering charges in 2004.

Under state law, public pensions are treated as property held in trust for the employees, and periodic efforts to make their forfeiture a penalty for corrupt public employees have failed. The Daily News reported last year that 450 corrupt former officials, judges and police officers were receiving pensions.

While both men have families, the two are likely to have little use in prison for the tax-free bounty that, in theory, they earned during the years that, a jury found, they were also killing for the Mafia, setting up informants for death or exposure, and poring through confidential police computers in service of the organized crime figures who were providing them with regular payoffs. "



To: TideGlider who wrote (156887)3/13/2009 4:32:32 PM
From: geode00  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 173976
 
Ex-cops convicted of sexual assault
BY ELIZABETH AHLIN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Life has been some version of hell ever since the early morning hours of April 18, 2008.

That morning, sometime around 2 a.m., a Creston, Iowa, woman has testified, two police officers cornered her behind the bar in a local country club, where one stroked her hand and shushed her while the other man raped her.

"The nightmare that will haunt her dreams the rest of her life had been born," Assistant Attorney General Andrew Prosser said in his closing arguments.

The jury deliberated Thursday afternoon and evening in the case against former Creston Police Chief James Christensen, 41, and former Assistant Police Chief John Sickels, 39. Around 10 p.m., jurors found the men guilty of second-degree sexual abuse. Both had pleaded not guilty. Each now faces a potential prison sentence of 25 years.

Christensen and Sickels were fired from their police jobs following their June arrests. On Thursday, they were led away in handcuffs by Woodbury County sheriff's deputies. They are not eligible for bail.

Sickels has said he had consensual sex with the bartender. Christensen said he was outside urinating when the sex began. He walked in on Sickels and the bartender, he testified, but he didn't realize what he had interrupted.

The jury went into deliberations just before 2 p.m. Thursday, after about four hours of closing arguments.

During those arguments, Prosser told jurors that the woman's story was consistent and believable because she told the truth. He said Christensen and Sickels made "no sense," because their stories changed repeatedly during interviews with agents from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. He used video clips from their taped interviews to make his point.

First, the men both said nobody had sex with the bartender. Then, Sickels said he put his hand down the bartender's pants. Later, Sickels said he and the bartender did have sex.

In his closing argument, Richard McConville, Sickels' attorney, criticized the prosecutors' use of the video clips, saying they reduced hours of interviews with division agents to sound bites that best benefited the prosecution.

McConville also hammered the woman's credibility, saying she was wrong on several points, including who was at the bar that night, who was drinking what, and when people arrived at and left the country club. In one instance, McConville said, the woman said Sickels had been drinking whiskey and coke. But several other witnesses said he was drinking beer.

"Is that a big deal? Maybe not," said McConville. "The only problem is, she's absolutely sure it happened."

Defense attorney Paul Scott questioned the bartender's actions after the alleged assault.

Why didn't she go to the hospital? Why didn't she call the sheriff? Because she had "nothing to report," he said.

He also pointed to her testimony that she went home and got into bed, asking why she didn't take a steaming shower.

Scott, the attorney for Christensen, had described the rape accusation as false.

"Every person's worst nightmare is to be accused of a crime that you did not commit," Scott said.

It was the eighth day of the trial for jurors, who have heard from the woman, both defendants and agents with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, among other witnesses. The trial was moved from Union County at the request of the defense, because of extensive news coverage of the case.

The woman, 45, still lives in Creston but no longer works at the country club. She hopes to become an elementary school teacher.



To: TideGlider who wrote (156887)3/13/2009 4:34:40 PM
From: geode00  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 173976
 
Inquiry into firings of 3 Surprise police officers kept secret

Mar. 13, 2009 10:47 AM
The Arizona Republic

Surprise officials refuse to release results of the Police Department's investigation of two detectives and an officer who were fired earlier this year.

City Manager Randy Oliver, in a statement Thursday, wrote that releasing details of the investigation of the former police employees "would compromise the ability of the department to effectively conduct internal investigations, which could, in turn, conceivably in rare cases, diminish the capability of the department to quickly identify and discipline officers whose conduct may be a disservice or to the public they are hired to serve."

The Republic is continuing to pursue the release of the documents under the state's Public Records Law...

------------
Hey, we ARE the law so why do WE have to abide by it?

Typical.



To: TideGlider who wrote (156887)3/13/2009 4:37:47 PM
From: geode00  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 173976
 
Peterson Under Investigation for Police Misconduct

Police Department Alleges the Former Sargeant Ran Background Checks on Wife's Friends
Dec. 3, 2007

Drew Peterson is not only a suspect in his fourth wife's disappearance and his third wife's death, the former police officer is now under investigation for police misconduct, ABC News has learned.

The Bolingbrook Police Department, where the 53-year-old was a sergeant, has turned over evidence to prosecutors that alleges Peterson used department computers to track private citizens not under active police investigation.

The evidence alleges that Peterson ran ID and background information on friends and associates of his wife, Stacy Peterson, before she disappeared, as well as other people. It's an allegation that may have nothing to do with the disappearance of Stacy Peterson, but if proved could cost Drew his $6,000-a-month police pension....



To: TideGlider who wrote (156887)3/13/2009 4:43:07 PM
From: geode00  Respond to of 173976
 
LAPD Officers' Names Mistakenly Put on Internet
Confidential LAPD files with officers' names mistakenly posted on the Internet
LOS ANGELES February 7, 2009 (AP)

Authorities in Los Angeles say a confidential report on police misconduct that included the names of hundreds of officers was mistakenly posted on the Internet.

The Police Commission report was e-mailed to the news media. It also was posted on a city Web site on Friday but removed less than an hour later.

The report included the names of about 250 officers that the internal affairs unit had investigated over allegations of racial profiling.

Police Commission Executive Director Richard Tefank called it an "unfortunate mistake."

Commission and LAPD representatives apologized to the president of the police union, the Police Protective League.

Union president Paul M. Weber called it "absolutely outrageous."

----------

Why shouldn't this be made public? These are supposedly public SERVANTS. Why shouldn't the public, the employers, be made aware of these issues?

250?

Jeepers.

If you don't want this information out then DON'T engage in misconduct. It's as simple as that.