Know Your Rights--How to survive a traffic stop.

Do you live in Alcona County? Then you probably just contributed to the Nigerian Royalty Fraud.

Alcona County, MI: Thomas Katona, former treasurer of Alcona County is accused of embezzling over $1,200,000 from tax payers, part of which he used to pay a Nigerian 419 scammer. Katona is being charged with NINE felonies. Bank officials even told him that the investment was a scam, but he didn't listen. Prepare to see this email coming to your inbox:

To: FaithfulReader
From: tkatona@alconacountyjail.gov
Subject: Investment Opportunity

Hello. You do not know me but I am an official being held prisoner in Alcona County Jail, Michigan. I have over $1.2 MILLION dollars in a hidden account that I cannot access to free myself. I need a checking account that I can move this money into so that I can pay for lawyers and / or shovels. If you provide me with this account, I will let you keep 50%. I may need you to advance me a small amount to cover my bail bond, but this is a small investment that will earn you $600,000.

Please reply with your routing and checking account number.

Tom.

Source: The Register.

Archaic law and Prosecutorial over-reaching result in tragic conviction.

For an in-depth examination of the story of Genarlow Wilson, high school football star and victim of the perfect storm combination of archaic laws, over-reaching prosecutors, and the current RSO regime, please click here.

Election Staff Convicted of Rigging Recount!

Cleveland, OH: Cuyahoga County, which was crucial to delivering Ohio to Bush in 2004, should have received a full, in-depth hand recount. In order to avoid such a (required by law, democratic, American) result, two election workers tampered with and pre-selected ballots that would not show a discrepancy when checked by hand. Because these pre-selected ballots seemed to match the machine count, a full hand recount was never ordered.

Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. They also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty.

Current Official American Casualties in Iraq: 3,063 killed, 22,951 wounded.

But who's counting? Not Cuyahoga County, that's for sure.

Source: The Associated Press

Possible 295-Year sentence for conviction in Hobart drug slayings

Crown Point, IN -- After seven hours of deliberation, a jury delivered a guilty verdict for the third defendant in a 2005 drug-related triple homicide. Sajjad Q. Rasheed was found guilty on three counts of murder during a robbery and two counts of attempted murder.

Rasheed faces a possible prison term of 295 years and will be sentenced on February 15th.

Source: The IndyStar

Never bring a knife to a gunfight...unless it's this one.

The Drug Enforcement Agency is putting out an alert regarding a new weapon hitting the streets. A new "knife" that fires bullets may begin appearing in the hands of gangbangers and lawbreakers, and the DEA wants local police departments to know about it.

The weapon can fire up to five rounds, and officials speculate that they are manufactured overseas, in someone's garage.

Source: WCBS TV.

Fresh Start: Wayne County, MI program gives women caught up in drug and prostitution a way out.

Instead of slapping prostitutes with a misdemeanor charge, giving them 30 day jail tour, and tossing them back onto the streets to continue their downward spiral, Wayne County authorities are taking a new approach.
The program, called Fresh Start, is a collaboration between Detroit Health and Law departments, the city's Bureau of Substance Abuse and 36th District Drug Court and Probation. Fresh Start keeps the women for 15 to 24 months, rehabilitating them, and combating the cycle of self-abuse and hooking. Of the 100 women that have entered the program, 18 have graduated and 59 are still working their way through it. None of the 18 have relapsed.

Source: The Detroit Free Press

Corrections Officers fired for contacting teenage juvie inmate -- On MySpace

Medina, OH -- The Medina County Juvenile Detention center acted quickly in firing two corrections officers who setup a MySpace account at work and used that account to contact a teenage inmate at their facility. John Stone and Anthony Berrios do not appear to have contacted the girl in other ways or met with her inappropriately...all interactions seem to have taken place on MySpace.

Seems like the real story here, though, is that inmates at the Medina County Juvenile Detention facility have Internet Access and MySpace accounts. That seems like exactly what troubled teenagers need...unbridled access to the sexual deviants and pedophiles who troll MySpace. "Welcome to the Medina County Juvenile Detention Facility. Please step this way so that we can photograph you for a milk carton notice that will be published within six months of your release."

Wisconsin Hmong-hunter clashes end with murder charge

The body of squirrel hunter Cha Vang, age 30, was found on January 6th, a day after his friends had reported him missing. When James Nichols, 28, appeared at a local hospital suffering from a gunshot wound, sherrif deputies arrested him for Vang's murder. Nichols had previously been charged with breaking into a cabin and spray-painting "KKK" on its walls.

Racially charged killings among white and Hmong hunters in Wisconsin seems to be growing more popular than hunting game itself. It has been just two years since another Hmong deer hunter shot and killed six white hunters, claiming that they had shot at him first and shouted racial epithets.

Source: The Associated Press.

AZ has some dirty words for drunk drivers

Okay, this one doesn't take place in the midwest, but we just couldn't pass it up. After a phone number mix-up, the State of Arizona is directing people convicted of drunk driving to a phone sex hotline. As one of the options to have an ignition interlock system installed in your car, AZ official accidentally listed a phone number that may leave its drunk drivers breathless for entirely different reasons. The problem has now apparently been fixed.

The charge for the call? 69 cents per minute.
Source: Arizona Daily Star

Danville, IL: Jury convicts Danville man in 2004 slaying

Juan Antonio Reyes faces 45 years to life now that he has been convicted of first degree murder for gunning down William Thomas three years ago. He will be sentenced on February 1, 2007. The jury, evenly divided by gender, deliberated just over three hours before unanimously voting to convict.

"I'll appeal," Reyes confidently told the courtroom.

Source: Champaign-Urbana News Gazette