We called the Fairfax County police for help....the punks they sent threatened to arrest us. One cop tells my wife that if she keeps crying he'll arrest her and the other cop, La Forge or something, says to me "You call the police this what you get"
I said that was wrong and he said
"Go ahead, say more fuck'n thing prick" and I thought "Well if you insist".
WESTBURY, N.Y. (AP) — A Long
Island cabbie says he was falsely arrested after eight students used a police
connection to prevent their own arrests for refusing to pay a $28 fare.Newsday
(http://bit.ly/1ikorlk ) says Mevyo Jean of Westbury claims in a lawsuit his
civil rights were violated. The suit names an unidentified Nassau County police
chief, the district attorney and eight LIU Post lacrosse players.It alleges an
arresting officer told him police knew the charges were false but had orders to
arrest him because one of the students was the police chief's nephew.Jean's
lawyer says a judge dismissed the March 2013 robbery case in February. A DA
spokesman referred questions to the county. The county and police declined to
comment. The students and their families couldn't be reached or declined to
comment.
CAMDEN — People who agreed to
plea bargains after being falsely arrested by corrupt Camden cops cannot seek
financial damages under a state law, an appellate court has ruled.
The decision came in a lawsuit
involving three men and a woman arrested by members of a rogue narcotics unit
in 2007-08. But it is expected to affect a much larger group of people ensnared
in a Camden City police scandal that became public in 2010.
The Camden County Prosecutor’s
Office dismissed charges against 215 people after the police misconduct
surfaced; more than 80 have sued seeking damages for wrongful arrest and
incarceration, the decision noted.
Almost all of those convicted
admitted guilt in plea bargains, county Prosecutor Warren Faulk noted Friday.
The appellate decision
overturned a Superior Court ruling in favor of the plaintiffs — Albert Cass, Robert
Henderson, Antwyne Rolax and Dayna Hinton. Hinton received probation and the
others got prison terms after admitting guilt to purported drug or weapons
offenses.
The three-judge panel delivered
its opinion last week. It cited the ruling that same day in dismissing a
separate lawsuit by William Graham, another man jailed after his arrest by the
Camden officers.
The appellate ruling said the
state’s Mistaken Imprisonment Act is off-limits to people who “cause or bring
about” their convictions. It said someone who admits guilt “necessarily” causes
his or her conviction.
The appeals court acknowledged
innocent people may plead guilty to lesser offenses to avoid a trial on more
serious charges. But it said the state Supreme Court “has clearly established a
strong judicial policy disapproving such pleas.”
As a result, the ruling noted,
people admitting guilt are required “to provide a truthful account of what
actually occurred to justify the acceptance of a plea.”
Kenneth Aita, one of the
attorneys for those arrested, said people are unlikely to fight trumped-up
charges.
“If the officers are willing to
lie about your arrest, they’re certainly willing to come to court and lie,”
said the Haddon Heights lawyer. “In a perfect world, nobody would plead to a
crime they didn’t commit, but that’s not reality.”
Aita said he would discuss the
case with his clients before deciding on future actions.
Benjamin Yaster, an attorney
for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, expressed disappointment.
He said the ruling seeks “to maintain the fiction that actually innocent people
do not plead guilty.”
But Faulk said the ruling
reflected the Legislature’s intent in writing the law, noting the measure was
amended last year specifically to bar claims involving plea agreements. He said
the state Attorney General’s Office initially settled claims by some of those
arrested but challenged the others in court after the prosecutor’s office
expressed its concern.
“The courts can’t allow fraud
to be perpetrated,” Faulk said. “You can’t stand up and lie under oath, confess
… and then come back later and say, ‘No, I was lying and I deserve money.’”
Of the 215 cases that were
dismissed, only two involved suspects who went to trial, Faulk said. Both
resulted in convictions.The remaining cases either involved plea bargains or
were still pending at the time of dismissal.According to court papers, the
average length of incarceration for the dozens of plaintiffs was 510 days.
Together, the group spent a collective 107 years in prison.
Camden City last year agreed to
pay more than $3.5 million to 85 people who sued in federal court over their
treatment. That group included Cass, Henderson, Rolax and Hinton.Three Camden
City police officers pleaded guilty to corruption charges, and a fourth was
convicted at a trial in December 2011.
YUMA, Ariz. (AP) — A former
Yuma police officer will be able move despite awaiting trial on one count of
luring a minor for sexual exploitation.
The Yuma Sun reports
(http://bit.ly/1fZIuGr) that a Yuma County Superior Court judge on Friday
granted the request made by 25-year-old Ron Anton Ciancimino.
The judge ordered that
Ciancimino check in with probation officials every week.
Michael Donovan, Ciancimino's
defense attorney, says his client wants to move to his parents' home in Safford
because he can't find employment and had to sell his house.
Ciancimino is scheduled to go
on trial Oct. 7.
Prosecutors say Ciancimino
solicited sexual conduct from a 16-year-old girl.
Donovan says sexually explicit
photos of the victim were taken by another defendant and the victim has made
statements in support of Ciancimino.
A Philadelphia Police Officer
faces charges in Montgomery County following a fight with her boyfriend
Thursday.Authorities in Cheltenham Township charged 35-year-old Robbi Huff with
simple assault, disorderly conduct, harassment and resisting arrest after
officers responded to a domestic dispute on Arboretum Road near Rock Creek
Drive in Cheltenham, according to reports. She will go before Judge Christopher
Cerski on March 24 for a preliminary hearing, court records show.Huff had been
arrested at least once before by Cheltenham Township Police.Authorities charged
the Philly cop with disorderly conduct in September 2012, but the case was
dismissed, according to court records.
A federal jury in New York
found a mechanic and a former librarian guilty on Friday of conspiring to
kidnap women in order to satisfy sexual fetishes for rape and murder that they
originally nursed online via Internet message boards.
Michael Van Hise, 23, and
Christopher Asch, 61, were convicted in U.S. District Court in Manhattan of
planning to abduct Van Hise's wife, sister-in-law and nieces in a case that
hinged on defining the point where violent fantasy can slip into criminal intent.
Asch, in a dark suit and tie,
watched the jury with an unwavering gaze as the verdict was read. Van Hise
fought back tears as he looked toward his trembling grandmother, who raised him
from infancy and testified in his defense during the two-week-plus trial.
The jury of eight women and
four men deliberated for more than 18 hours over several days before delivering
their unanimous guilty verdicts.
Van Hise, a mechanic from
Trenton, New Jersey, and Asch, a onetime high school librarian from Manhattan,
each faces a maximum penalty of life in prison when sentenced.
Lawyers for both said they
would appeal the verdicts.
A third co-conspirator, Richard
Meltz, pleaded guilty in January to two kidnapping conspiracy counts in a deal
with prosecutors and awaits sentencing.
The arrest of all three men
last year stemmed from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's case against
Gilberto Valle, the former New York City police officer who was convicted of
conspiring to kidnap women as part of a cannibalism fetish.
All the men were registered
users of DarkFetishNet, an online forum where tens of thousands of individuals
share their musings about bizarre sexual fantasies, including necrophilia. The
site has seen a marked increase in membership since Valle captured headlines in
New York tabloids that dubbed him "Cannibal Cop."
Asch also was convicted on a
second count of conspiracy to kidnap a woman who, unbeknownst to him at the
time, was an undercover FBI agent involved in a sting operation.
During the trial, defense
lawyers for both men had repeatedly argued that jurors might find the violent
sexual fantasies of Asch and Van Hise repugnant, but that the two should not be
punished for chatter that would never result in actual harm.
Prosecutors insisted that
detailed discussions between the two men about kidnapping and defiling specific
women proved they had moved beyond fantasy and into reality.
Testimony revealed that Van
Hise frequently sent pictures of his wife and other female relatives by email
to Asch and other men as part of their online communications. And Asch
purchased a collection of tools that prosecutors said were intended for
kidnapping and torturing women, including a stun gun and leg spreaders, after
he began talking with another undercover agent who posed as a fellow fetishist.
Shortly before reaching their
verdict, jurors asked to review the transcripts of several secretly recorded
phone calls in which Asch could be heard speaking at length about how to avoid
toll roads once they had abducted a woman so as not to be tracked - the sort of
mundane detail that the prosecution said a mere fantasist would not bother to
consider.
SHADES OF GREY?
The defense tried to put Asch
and Van Hise's fetishes in a broader context of mainstream culture by citing
the popular "Saw" films, known for relentless scenes of torture, and
the "Fifty Shades of Grey" books, which have become global
bestsellers for their depiction of sadomasochistic sex.
But, after the verdict,
attorneys for both men said they believed jurors may have been frightened by
the relish with which the two defendants discussed torturing and killing women.
"They voted out of fear in
response to the evidence," said Alice Fontier, a lawyer for Van Hise.
"Juries get things wrong."
Van Hise's grandmother,
grandfather and aunt, who attended every day of the trial, left the court with
stricken faces, declining comment.
"They love and support him
and know that this is online chatter and never would have hurt anyone in his
family," Fontier said.
During the trial, Van Hise's
wife, Bolice Van Hise, had testified that she had long known of her husband's
fetishes and that the couple enjoyed sadomasochistic role playing during sex.
She said she had access to his
DarkFetishNet profile and emails and tolerated him sending pictures of her to
strange men he met online, though prosecutors accused her of lying about this.
During the trial, Asch's lawyer
told the jury that his client had actually been in a romantic relationship with
another man for 35 years, and was primarily aroused by the
"male-bonding" aspect of his conversations with men he met online.
His partner could not attend
the trial because he now has Alzheimer's disease, Asch's lawyer said.
Judge Paul Gardephe has not yet
set a sentencing date.
