2 Cars Explode in Mexico Where 72 Bodies Found

Prosecuting Attorney & Transit Police Officer Are Missing

From http://www.wbt.com

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO

August 27, 2010

SAN FERNANDO, Mexico – Two cars exploded early Friday in a northern state where officials are investigating the killing of 72 Central and South American migrants, while a prosecutor investigating the massacre has disappeared.

The prosecutor, Roberto Jaime Suarez, disappeared Wednesday in the town of San Fernando, where the bodies of the migrants were found, the Tamaulipas state attorney general’s office said in a statement. A transit police officer in the town is also missing.

President Felipe Calderon, speaking during a forum on security, said Suarez, a Tamaulipas state prosecutor, was involved in the initial investigation of the massacre, which authorities have blamed on the Zetas drug cartel. The federal Attorney General’s Office has since taken the lead in the case.

The two car explosions happened less than 45 minutes apart in Ciudad Victoria, the Tamulipas state capital, the Attorney General’s Office said. The first exploded in front of the offices of the Televisa network and the second in front of transit-police offices.

There were no injuries, though both caused some damage to buildings and knocked out the signal of the Televisa network for several hours. The explosion outside Televisa was felt for several blocks.

The network described the explosion as a car bomb, but the state attorney general’s office said the cause of the explosions have not been determined.

If confirmed, it would mean a total of four car bombs in Mexico this year _ a new and frightening tactic in the country’s escalating drug war.

The first exploded July 5 in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, killing a federal police officer and two other people. The second, which caused no injuries, happened just two weeks ago in front of police headquarters in Ciudad Victoria.

Just north of Ciudad Victoria, heavily guarded investigators working at a private funeral home in San Fernando identified 31 of the 72 massacred migrants, whose bodies were discovered on a ranch Tuesday, bound, blindfolded and slumped against a wall.

Those identified include 14 Hondurans, 12 Salvadorans, four Guatemalans and one Brazilian, the state attorney general’s office said.

Feds Arrest 370 Immigrants in Raids in 10 States

The Associated Press

CHICAGO – Federal officials in Chicago say they’ve arrested 370 immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally or were convicted of other crimes.

They say the arrests were made over three days in 10 states. Those arrested fall into three groups: legal immigrants with convictions that make them eligible for deportation, illegal immigrants who have been convicted of other crimes, and immigration fugitives, who are wanted just for being in the U.S. illegally.

In a news release Friday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says some of the people arrested included gang members and sex offenders.

The operation ended Thursday. Arrests were made in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska and Ohio.

(This version CORRECTS the number of states involved to 10. It deletes the reference to South Dakota as it was not involved.)

Man Waiting For ‘Ghost Train,’ Killed By Real One

From The Associated Press via The Wniston-Salem Journal

 August 27, 2010

STATESVILLE, NC
Authorities say a man who was waiting with several friends for a “ghost train” from a North Carolina legend has been killed when a real train came down the tracks.

Iredell County Sheriff Phil Redmond says 29-year-old Christopher Kaiser of Charlotte was killed about 2:45 a.m. Friday as he waited with friends at a railroad trestle. Redmond says witnesses said about 12 people were on the trestle hoping to see a ghost train when the real train rounded a bend.

Everyone but Kaiser was able to clear the tracks at the end of the trestle. The train struck Kaiser, who was thrown into a ravine.

The legend developed from a train wreck on Aug. 27, 1891, that killed about two dozen people and injured many others. Folklore Web sites claim the accident can be heard on each anniversary.

Woman Charged in Double Homicide Faces Embezzlement Charges

From www.wral.com

August 27, 2010

Roanoke Rapids, N.C. — A woman who authorities say helped her boyfriend get rid of evidence in a double homicide has been charged with stealing from her late mother’s estate, police said Friday.

Valerie Mayo McGee, 33, was charged with 37 counts of embezzlement. Roanoke Rapids Police Chief Jeff Hinton said the charges are related to the theft of more than $300,000 from her mother’s estate.

In May, McGee was charged with being an accessory after the fact of murder in the deaths of a mother and daughter.

Maxine McCrary, 92, and Nancy Burgess, 65, were stabbed to death on May 7 in McCrary’s home in Roanoke Rapids.

Tony Maurice Gorham, 28, of 325 U.S. Highway 158, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon in the slayings.

Gorham, who was McCrary’s neighbor, told investigators that he robbed the women of $200 and then stabbed them with a kitchen knife, according to court documents.

Burgess lived in Durham, where she worked as the budget secretary for Carrington Middle School.

Investigators said McGee helped destroy and conceal evidence in the case.

She posted a $40,000 bond on the embezzlement charges and has been released from jail.

Gorham is being held in the Halifax County jail without bond. Prosecutors said they plan to seek the death penalty against him.

• Reporter: Beau Minnick
• Web Editor: Matthew Burns

8 Arrested in High-Stakes Poker Bust

From The Raleigh News & Observer

Fri, Aug 27, 2010

From Staff Reports

MOUNT OLIVE — Working with Mount Olive police, state Alcohol Law Enforcement agents busted a high-stakes poker game in Seven Springs on Thursday.

Eight people were arrested for violations of the state gambling laws. Agents seized $23,700 in cash and a poker table, cards and chips during the midday raid at 2169 Pine View Cemetery Road, according to a media release.

Arrested were Kay D. Smith, Harold Newcomb, Frankie S. Walker, Edward E. Walters, Prentice J. Newsome, John W. Smith, Ernest L. Vinson and Robert H. Davenport, Jr.

John Ledford, the state’s director of Alcohol Law Enforcement, said the agency investigated after receiving multiple complaints from the public regarding illegal poker games at the site.

“High-stakes card games like this one are illegal in the state, and I commend our agents and officers with the Mount Olive Police Department for taking action,” Ledford said.

N.C. Supreme Court: Life Sentences Cannot Be Reduced

August 25, 2010

From The News & Observer Newspaper of Raleigh, NC

By Mandy Locke – Staff writer

The N.C. Supreme Court ruled today that two prisoners sentenced to life in the 1970s are not eligible for release, reversing a lower court decision that could have affected dozens of inmates in similar circumstances.

Today’s decision will guide judges across the state who might be met with requests to release inmates sentenced to life in the 1970s.

Lawyers for this special class of inmates had argued that credits for good behavior, work and classes cut some of their sentences in half and that they were due their freedom. Their life terms had been defined as “80 years” by the legislature at the time. The credits, lawyers argued, cut their sentences in half or more in some cases.

In December, Superior Court Judge Ripley Rand ordered the immediate release of two of the inmates, Faye Brown and Alford Jones. Attorneys for the state challenged Rand’s order and won the chance to argue their case before the Supreme Court in February.

At that hearing, lawyers for the state said that inmates sentenced to life couldn’t collect credits for good behavior, work or classes.

They said the court didn’t have the authority to obligate the Secretary of the Department of Correction to award those credits.

The Supreme Court agreed in a 5-2 split decision.

Justice Robert H. Edmunds Jr. wrote the majority opinion. He ruled that the Department of Correction had never applied credits for good behavior to the 1970s lifers and couldn’t be forced to do so now.

None of the justices disputed that life sentences imposed between 1974 and 1978 are 80 years. The issue before them was whether credits set out in DOC rules could shorten those sentences.

Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson disagreed with the majority, saying that prison officials had applied the credits and should be bound to honor that now.

It is possible that lawyers for the defendants could now turn to the federal courts for relief.

It’s been a long, heated debate. Lawyers for the prisoners say that public and political pressure may have influenced the court’s decision.

“The sad subtext is that if you can bring political pressure through the media by harnessing the media to create a political issue, it won’t hurt your chances,” said Staples Hughes, North Carolina’s appellate defender.

The fate of the inmates became a public issue last fall when the state Supreme Court affirmed a Court of Appeals ruling that life sentences imposed during parts of the 1970s were limited to 80 years. Since then, Gov. Bev Perdue, legislators and lawyers for the inmates have debated how much credit for good behavior those prisoners are entitled to collect and whether it means some of them should be released.

After initially saying she had not choice but to release the inmates, Perdue pledged she would fight to keep the inmates locked up.

“We can all sleep a little sounder tonight knowing that violent prisoners will not be released into our communities without review or supervision,” Perdue said in a statement this afternoon. “One hundred and thirty three violent criminals will remain behind bars because of today’s decision.”

mandy.locke@newsobserver.com or 919-829-8927

 

Judge Rules Bill Belk Misused His Child’s Funds

Court orders him to repay $131,000 to daughter’s account and pay another $143,000 in legal fees.

Aug. 27, 2010

By Jim Morrill
jmorrill@charlotteobserver.com

A Superior Court judge Thursday ordered Bill Belk to repay nearly $131,000 to his daughter’s custodial account after citing repeated examples of what he called Belk’s misuse of the money, including a $5,000 contribution to a Republican Party group.

Belk

Judge Erwin Spainhour also ordered Belk to pay $143,000 in legal fees accrued by his ex-wife.

The order ends a chapter in the latest legal battle for Belk, the millionaire grandson of the Belk stores founder, who resigned his post as a District Court judge last year amid misconduct allegations.

Thursday’s decision came almost a year after Suzanne Belk filed the suit. It involved a custodial account for their daughter, now 17.

The account, like those for her two older brothers, had been funded with gifts of company stock from Irwin Belk, Bill Belk’s father.

As custodian, Bill Belk was charged with administering the account until the child turns 21.

“I am so glad this is finally over,” Suzanne Belk said. “What was so generously gifted to my daughter by her grandfather will finally be returned to her account.”

But Leonard Kornberg, attorney for Bill Belk, said: “It’s our position the judge created new law when he wrote the decision, and it’s our intention to appeal every portion of his decision.”

In his 15-page ruling, Spainhour ordered Belk removed “immediately” as custodian of his daughter’s account.

“He treated the custodial account as his own property,” the judge wrote, “to do with as he pleased in making a significant political contribution in his own name” as well as paying his daughter’s medical and dental bills from the custodial account instead of his personal funds.

The judge also chided Belk for withholding information about the fund from his daughter’s mother.

According to the judge, Belk told his ex-wife that, “My father gave that money to the children, and I can do with it what I want.”

Among the expenditures the judge called “inappropriate” was $2,000 for a family vacation at a resort on the Georgia coast.

Spainhour described Belk’s “vexatious refusal” to offer an accounting to either his ex-wife or their daughter.

He also criticized Belk’s 2000 check for $5,000 to the RNC Presidential Trust that the judge called a “political contribution to the presidential campaign.”

“This expenditure benefitted (Belk) – not the minor – and was an inappropriate, egregious use of the minor’s funds in complete disregard of the (custodial agreement),” Spainhour wrote.

Belk told the Observer last year that the contribution for his daughter – and similar ones for his sons – was designed to help them by electing George W. Bush, who went on to cut taxes on investment income. Staff writer Lisa Hammersly contributed.

Jim Morrill: 704-358-5059

Davidson College Campus Police Keep Authority For Now, North Carolina Supreme Court rules

By David Boraks
 From http://www.DavidsonNews.net

Friday, Aug. 27, 2010

The N.C. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to delay enforcement of a lower-court ruling that said Davidson College’s campus police cannot enforce state laws because it is a religious institution.

The court issued the order within hours of a request for a stay by the state attorney general’s office. The attorney general on Thursday also asked the state’s top court to accept an appeal of last week’s ruling.

The move follows an Aug. 17 ruling by the N.C. Court of Appeals. The state says the ruling would “have the effect of disabling Davidson College’s campus police from exercising the powers of sworn law enforcement officers, thereby disrupting their ability to ensure public safety and provide prompt emergency response on campus.”

The attorney general’s request for the stay says the ruling “creates a substantial problem” for the college, given that classes have already begun and athletic and other events are now beginning on campus.

The case stemmed from a January 2006 traffic stop by a campus police officer on a road near campus. The defendant, who was charged with driving while intoxicated and reckless driving, initially pleaded guilty. But in August 2008, she appealed, arguing that campus police lacked the authority to arrest her.

The appeals court cited precedents involving two other colleges as well as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in ruling against the state. The ruling also said the N.C. Attorney General’s office erred in certifying the department for law enforcement because of its religious affiliation.

The appeals court ruling raised questions on and off campus about the authority of the college’s police officers. A college spokeswoman said last week that state officials had assured the college the ruling would have no immediate effect on the department.

DavidsonNews.net is a partner in the Charlotte News Network.