Thursday, May 31, 2012

Former Football Coach Faces Accusers

Story first appeared in USA Today.

Their accounts of horrific child abuse shattered the idyllic facade of a prestigious university.

Since November, their identities have been masked by simple numerals in reports by a Pennsylvania grand jury — markers spanning a period of 15 years during which they were allegedly victimized by a local icon.

Next week, as many as eight of the 10 alleged child victims of a former Penn State University football coach will prepare to step from the shadows and, for the first time in public, recount a litany of offenses that have shaken the state's largest university and surrounding community. Four top university administrators, including its former president, have been ousted in the past six months. The most convulsive period in the university's history did not spare even its most revered figure: the college football legend and public face of Penn State, was unceremoniously asked to leave. He died just two months later, shortly after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

The dizzying series of events is only a prelude to a trial set to open June 5 with jury selection in nearby Bellefonte, where the defendant is scheduled to face 52 criminal counts in what promises fresh trauma for the place long known as Happy Valley.

There is a curiosity, an anxiety about what else might be coming.

Prosecutors have said it could take two weeks to present its case to a jury, whose members will be drawn from the same region where the defendant was long viewed as one of its unshakeable pillars.

The legal drama, set to unfold in nearby Bellefonte, has already thrust the quiet borough studded with Victorian homes into the sometimes uncomfortable national spotlight. For the December preliminary hearing appearance, Bellefonte traffic was rerouted away from the courthouse, some streets were closed and security officers were positioned on neighboring rooftops. Under Pennsylvania rules, the trial will not be televised. The presiding Judge however, issued an order Wednesday that will allow reporters to text, tweet and e-mail dispatches directly from their seats in the ornate, second-floor courtroom as developments unfold. He also denied a renewed request from the defense to delay jury selection.

A Penn State finance professor and one of many collegiate football stars who under the defendant's tutelage helped forge the program's reputation as "Linebacker U," said the trial is likely to inflict much more "pain."

For the school's more than 40,000 students, the trial represents a chance for basic accountability, say Doylestown Criminal Lawyers.

The defense lawyer, has said there are no plans to seek a plea deal that would avert the upcoming courtroom confrontation between his client and the children — now young men — he took in as the trusted founder of a local charity for at-risk kids. He has filed a motion for dismissal that the judge has not ruled on. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

In an interview with USA TODAY before the judge issued an April 9 order barring the defense and prosecution from talking about the case, the defense lawyer said that the defense will "aggressively" challenge each of the accusers. Many of them, the attorney said, are seeking to "destroy" the former coach as part of a strategy to win potentially lucrative civil lawsuits against university officials and the institution.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General, who is overseeing the prosecution, has repeatedly declined to comment on the case. But following a court appearance last month, before the judge issued the sweeping gag order, the Senior Deputy Attorney General tersely characterized the defense lawyer's claims as part of a "pointless escapade" designed to divert attention away from the heart of the state's case.

Public airing of the details

For years, some of their attorneys say, the alleged victims of the defendant had been haunted by events so lurid that they were rendered mute.

Now, they are ready to speak.

Prosecutors, family attorneys, psychologists and therapists have been guiding the witnesses through a delicate process that began more than two years ago in halting interviews with law enforcement officials.

Those initial interviews, according to court documents, led state investigators to a string of additional alleged victims and witnesses who told their grim stories to a state grand jury meeting secretly in a Harrisburg, Pa., conference room. While access to the victims has been closely guarded since the first allegations were revealed in November, the trial will require that their troubling accounts be shared in public — and in person.

In a bid to at least partially shield them from "overwhelming publicity" surrounding the case, attorneys for at least five of the alleged victims petitioned the judge earlier this week to assign them pseudonyms so that their actual identities could be protected. A decision on that request was pending late Wednesday.

A Harrisburg attorney who represents a 27-year-old man identified by prosecutors as "Victim 4," one of the witnesses seeking to block his name from being publicly disclosed. said that his client is eagerly looking forward to putting this chapter behind him.

Victim 4's allegations are among the most detailed of those outlined by the grand jury. It is a ghastly account of his association with the defendant, whose initial mentorship allegedly veered into a dark period of sexual abuse in which the witness, beginning at about age 12, was subjected to oral sex, fondling and attempted anal assault.

Like virtually of all of the alleged victims, Victim 4 is expected to speak of a pattern of behavior in which young boys, according to the state grand jury report, were picked by the coach from the pool of participants in the Second Mile program. The defendant founded the organization in 1977 for, as its website states, "children who need additional support and who would benefit from positive human contact."
Many of the children associated with the Second Mile, which last week announced a plan to shutter operations, were the recipients of unusually generous gifts — from clothing to computers — before the encounters allegedly turned abusive.

The pattern, which also included frequent showers with the coach following workouts, is strikingly similar to the account provided by the witness designated by the grand jury as "Victim 1."

Victim 1, while not the first alleged victim, ignited the investigation. After enduring nearly four years of alleged abuse, the teenager and his mother met with authorities in 2009, according to the grand jury report. Victim 1 told grand jurors that his association with Sandusky started with gifts, trips and cash and then moved to "uncomfortable" encounters.

The defense told USA TODAY that his client is "absolutely worried" about how jurors might react to the coach's previous admissions in media interviews that he frequently showered with some of the alleged victims. But the attorney maintains that "nothing sexual occurred."

The lawyer for the defendant did concede that his client continued to shower with children even after he was warned not to by authorities investigating a 1998 abuse allegation involving a shower incident.

He was not charged then, but state prosecutors have included the allegations from that witness, designated as "Victim 6," as part of the current case against the coach.

Most important to the defense, are the charges related to alleged victims, designated as "Victim 2" and "Victim 8," both of whom have yet to be found by prosecutors.

The defense's main target has been the former Penn State football assistant, who told grand jurors that he saw the defendant abusing a young boy, known as "Victim 2," in the showers of the football locker room.

Although the grand jury report directly states that he saw the boy being sodomized by the defendant, he testified in a related case in December that he didn't actually see the boy being raped. And this month, prosecutors said the date of the alleged incident involving Victim 2 was actually Feb. 9, 2001, and not March 1, 2002, as stated in grand jury report.

The incident involving Victim 2 also is at the heart of related perjury charges against the former Penn State athletic director and the former university senior vice president. The two are accused of lying to the same grand jury about what the former assistant told them about the incident and for failing to report the matter to law enforcement authorities.

Both men have denied any wrongdoing and are awaiting trial.

'A much more sober community'

In the place that once seemed immune from such taint, the postcard-quaint college town that once lived for celebratory football weekends has lost much of that innocence, at least for now.

One of the former star linebackers, said the past seven months have thrust Happy Valley into a state of "suspended animation."

A lot of people have been scarred, probably unfairly. He does not harbor such sympathy for his former coach.

At the house on the edge of town where much of the abuse is alleged to have occurred — a modest monument to suburbia at the end of a quiet cul de sac — there is no escaping the outrage that the criminal allegations have unleashed. The defendant, under house arrest, has an unencumbered view of his neighbors' front yards and the carefully positioned signs planted in the grass that urge child victims to report sexual abuse.


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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Fingerprint Program Causes A Stir

Story first appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

A program that gives federal immigration officials access to the fingerprints of undocumented immigrants booked into local jails will start Tuesday across New York state despite staunch opposition from advocates and lawmakers, including the governor.

A law-enforcement official familiar with the program, called Secure Communities, confirmed that New York City and 30 other jurisdictions would join the 31 communities that already have the program in place. Suffolk, Nassau and Westchester counties, among others, have participated in Secure Communities for more than a year.

Asked about the program at a Friday news conference, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said that they prefer that they not do that here.

The federal government's position is that it's required under the law and they're doing it. The police force is obviously complying. They're taking it automatically, actually. It's a policy decision. They're complying to the extent that they have to, say Raleigh Immigration Lawyers.

Secure Communities aims at identifying and deporting illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes. But critics say it has resulted in the deportation of thousands of people who are accused of crimes but not convicted, and erodes the trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement.

Advocates and others argue that some immigrants may become hesitant to report crimes or act as witnesses, incorrectly believing they risk deportation just by speaking with police.

Already, the fingerprints of suspects in jail are sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Under the Secure Communities program, those fingerprints are also shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In an email, an ICE spokesman said Secure Communities has proven to be the single most valuable tool in allowing the agency to eliminate the ad hoc approach of the past and focus on criminal aliens and repeat immigration law violators.

To date, Secure Communities has helped ICE remove more than 135,000 convicted criminal aliens, including more than 49,000 convicted of major violent offenses like murder, rape and the sexual abuse of children.

The news of the program's launch startled lawmakers and immigration advocates who nearly a year ago hailed the governor's announcement that he was suspending the state's participation in Secure Communities. At the time, agreements signed with each state suggested that joining the program was voluntary.

Practically speaking, the announcement did little. Although no new communities in New York have activated Secure Communities since then, those that were already using it continued to do so.

In August, a few months after governors began threatening to opt out of the program, the ICE Director sent a letter to governors terminating the agreements.

The agency describes Secure Communities as an information-sharing program between ICE and the FBI—rather than with local law enforcement—and therefore the federal government makes the decision on when and where to activate it.

As of May 11, the program is active in 2,792 jurisdictions in 48 states and Puerto Rico. ICE expects to be nationwide by the end of 2013. Forty states have it statewide, including Connecticut and New Jersey. On Tuesday, Massachusetts, Wyoming and Arkansas will join New York with statewide rollouts.

Speaking on the radio Friday, a City Council Speaker said there will be a rally on City Hall's steps on Monday to urge the federal government to refrain from forcing the city's hand.

She also said the police were being put in a terrible position.

It's just so counter productive to what New York is about as an immigrant city. The police can't disregard the law at the end of the day, but it's a terrible thing to put them in when they should be focusing on real crime.

Until now, New York City would comply with an ICE request to hold a prisoner on Rikers Island only if the person previously had been convicted of a crime, had an outstanding criminal warrant, was a defendant in a pending case, was a gang member or possible terrorist or had previously or currently faced a final deportation order.

Residents wish they would have looked at the process that was developed here, which strikes the right balance by protecting public safety and national security while ensuring we remain immigrant-friendly.

Immigration advocates are planning a rally at ICE headquarters on Monday, said the co-executive director of Make the Road New York. He felt "blindsided" by the news.


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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Illegal Immigrants with College Education

Story first appeared in USA Today.
Going to college seemed inconceivable when the 12-year-old daughter of farm workers was brought from Mexico to Central California and the family overstayed their visas.

Even though she excelled in high school, she was in the country illegally, lacked a Social Security number and work permit, and didn't qualify for financial aid. But she volunteered hundreds of hours and paid her way through college and graduate school with a dozen internships.

Now 24, she graduated last week from California State University, Fresno with a master's degree in International Relations, a full-time job and no loans to repay. Using a gray area in federal law, she works as an independent contractor.

With thousands of young adults who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children now holding college degrees, they are finding creative ways to get around the legal roadblocks and find a career. They are getting work experience, opening businesses and seeking professional licenses in their fields.

The Associated Press interviewed about two dozen such graduates across the country. Some, like many legal graduates, are struggling in a grim economy. But others do highly-skilled work, though not always in their professions. Many are "out" about their status despite the risk of deportation; a few asked not to be identified for fear it could cost them their jobs or alert immigration authorities.

There's a pool of talented young people who in their hearts believe they're American, because they're raised and educated here, speak fluent English and have a level of education that equals or surpasses that of average Americans.

The growth in young illegal immigrants with college degrees is spurred by demographics — children who crossed the border with their parents are coming of age — and by laws granting illegal immigrants in-state tuition. Eleven years ago, California and Texas passed such laws, followed by a dozen other states, according to Raleigh Immigration Lawyers.

No one knows how many illegal immigrants are enrolled in colleges or have graduated; schools don't collect such data. But in 2010, an estimated 96,000 young adults without legal status held at least an associate's degree or higher, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.

What motivated them was hope for the passage of federal legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for those who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and attended college.

But 11 years later, the DREAM Act— the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors measure — is in political gridlock.

Some graduates who are here illegally defer going into the workplace by getting another advanced degree, including the Ph.D., according to interviews. Others leave the country. Others work under the table in low wage jobs, still hoping for immigration reform.

But many who once dreamed of a career with the U.S. Department of State— are driven to find meaningful work without papers.

Although federal law prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, it does not require those who hire independent contractors to ask for proof of immigration status. As a result, the client who pays for services is not necessarily breaking the law even if the contractor isn't authorized to work in the United States.

And while self-employed illegal immigrants still violate immigration law, they may avoid additional grounds for deportation if they don't present counterfeit documents.

Sanchez consults full-time for a Fresno-area education nonprofit, and teaches literacy and English at an adult school and a domestic violence shelter. But she lives with major frustration. Her parents, who have been crossing the border to work in the fields since the 1970's, are legal residents and her oldest brother is a U.S. citizen through marriage, but it would take years for Sanchez to get a green card through them and pursue her dream of becoming a diplomat.

Other illegal immigrant graduates are pursuing professional licenses in fields such as law and nursing.

Courts in California and Florida are considering cases involving two law school graduates who passed their state bars to determine whether they should be allowed to get licenses to practice law in those states. Both graduates are illegally in this country after being brought here as children.

While such legal issues play out a CUNY School of Law graduate who entered the country illegally when he was 5 years old — passed the New York bar exam and opened a legislative lobbying firm, DRM Capitol Group LLC. He recruited several other so-called Dreamers and a U.S. citizen to work with him.

Though he once planned to be a prosecutor, he's now contributing to congressional blogs and planning to open a Dreamers' Chamber of Commerce.

Organizations and industry leaders have stepped up to help graduates without legal status start careers. The Dream Resource Center at UCLA places such graduates at job sites throughout the country via its national internship program called Dream Summer.

San Francisco-based Educators for Fair Consideration, or E4FC, connects graduates with lawyers and Silicon Valley leaders. Mentors such as Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, and Palm Pilot inventor Jeff Hawkins provide financial support, life and legal advice and networking clout.

One option they're exploring is getting companies to sponsor graduates for H-1B visas, temporary employment visas for specialty occupations. It has been done in a few cases. But it's risky; the young person has to leave the country and could be barred from returning for ten years.

Despite such sentiments, many graduates have come out publicly about their status and formed a nationwide network through social media, marches and conferences.

Experts say a growing number have become politically active.


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Friday, May 25, 2012

POM Still Allowed to Advertise Benefits

Story first appeared in USA Today.

POM Wonderful, which has claimed its pomegranate juice helps prevent disease and improve sex lives, took on federal regulators in a new advertising campaign Thursday.

A federal administrative law judge ruled last week that the company did not have the scientific backing to make some of its ad claims about POM juice and its ability to ward off and treat heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction.

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday said the judge's decision upheld its charges that POM advertising was deceptive and misrepresented the science.

AS POM spokesman said the new ad campaign was designed to refute suggestions the company can no longer advertise its products' health benefits.

In a statement, the FTC said the staff was not going to comment on POM's advertising campaign because one or both parties are likely to appeal certain aspects of the administrative law judge's decision.

The FTC filed a lawsuit in 2010 that said POM violated federal law by making deceptive and often unsubstantiated disease-prevention and treatment claims. The FTC said these included ads stating pomegranate juice was beneficial for treating or preventing heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction. But POM noted its health benefit claims were deemed to be supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence in the ruling.

Key in the decision: the difference between "benefits" and disease treatment or prevention.

In its new ads, POM used three excerpts from the judge's 335-page ruling that it says show it can still advertise the health benefits of its pomegranate juice. In one, a FTC Chief Administrative Law Judge cited expert testimony that pomegranate juice and extract supports prostate health. In another, he cites testimony that pomegranate juice provides a benefit to promoting erectile health and erectile function.

However, the ruling also says there's not enough scientific evidence or clinical proof to show pomegranate juice prevents, treats or reduces the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer or erectile dysfunction.

Even if POM didn't literally win the case, consumer psychologists call its ad campaign a sophisticated move.

Consumers are ready to battle, love to champion underdogs and consider the government to be a big ugly Goliath.


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