WASHINGTON - A federal grand jury in Pensacola, Fla., has indicted former Pinnellas County Deputy Sheriff, Richard G. Farnham, on federal civil rights charges relating to the assault of a man while on storm patrol in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan.

The indictment alleges that on Sept. 20, 2004, Farnham, while acting in his capacity as a deputy sheriff, kicked and deployed a taser on an unnamed victim, and in so doing, willfully deprived the victim of his civil rights. The victim suffered bodily injury as a result of the assault.

The charges contained in the indictment carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating this matter. The case is being jointly prosecuted by the Criminal Section of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Florida.

An indictment is merely an accusation and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

USDOJ

WASHINGTON (USDOJ) – Shaun Hansen, former co-owner of Idaho-based telemarketing firm Mylo Enterprises, pleaded guilty today in federal court in New Hampshire for his involvement in a scheme to jam several New Hampshire telephone lines by placing nearly 1000 hang-up calls on Election Day, 2002, the Department of Justice announced today.

Hansen, 34, was charged in a two-count indictment on March 8, 2006. He pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiring to commit interstate telephone harassment and one count of making repeated and continuous interstate phone calls with intent to harass. Chief Judge Steven J. McAuliffe set sentencing for February 20, 2007 at 10:30 a.m. Hansen will face a maximum of seven years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000.

Hansen admitted that he was contacted by others involved in the scheme and asked to assist in making harassing phone calls to five telephone numbers associated with the New Hampshire Democratic Party and one number associated with the Manchester Professional Firefighters Association on Election Day, November 5, 2002. Hansen agreed that, in return for $2,500, employees of Mylo Enterprises would place repeated hang-up calls to those numbers on that day. At Hansen’s direction, employees of Mylo Enterprises in Idaho placed several hundred hang-up calls to those New Hampshire telephone numbers on that morning before the scheme was discontinued.

Hansen was the fourth individual charged in the Department’s investigation. Allen Raymond, former president of a Virginia communications consulting company, and Charles McGee, former Executive Director of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit telephone harassment. McGee was sentenced to seven months in prison and Raymond was sentenced to three months. James Tobin, former New England Regional Chairman of the Republican National Committee, was convicted after a December 2005 jury trial on for conspiring to commit, and aiding and abetting the commission of, interstate telephone harassment. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

The prosecutions have been led by Andrew Levchuk, Senior Counsel, and Lily Chinn, Trial Attorney, with the Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section, and by Nicholas Marsh, Trial Attorney with the Public Integrity Section. The investigation was conducted by Bedford Resident Agency of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New Hampshire State Attorney General’s Office.

Robin Sheen
Staff Reporter

Ha Jong Sun, former attorney and president of Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance Co. became the second suspect arrested in a week as a result of a probe into the 2003 sale of Korea Exchange Bank to Lone Star Funds.

Lee Kang Won, former Korea Exchange Bank head Lee Kang Won, was the first of the two suspects arrested in connection with the probe that has stalled Lone Star's efforts to sell Korea Exchange Bank for a profit of more than $4 billion.

Sun was apprehended by South Korean prosecutors and taken into custody on a warrant that was issued by the Seoul Central District Court, according to prosecutor, Chae Dong Wook. The court issued the warrant for Ha, a former attorney, because he tried to tamper with evidence.

The Seoul Central District Court refused to issue an arrest warrant for Byeon Yang Ho, the former government official. Byeon's warrant was rejected because prosecutors failed to prove he would destroy evidence or flee, the Korean-language news agency said. Chae, of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, declined to comment on the court's reasons.

Prosecutors are investigatingt to find out whether the U.S. buyout firm bought the countries fifth-largest bank illegally.

WASHINGTON – (USDOJ) The Justice Department today announced the filing of a settlement order to resolve a lawsuit filed against the city of Philadelphia under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In September 2004, the Justice Department intervened in a lawsuit filed by John Gill Smith, which alleged that paramedics employed by the city refused to provide him with appropriate medical care upon learning of his HIV status.

Under the terms of today’s agreement, which still must be approved by a federal court, Philadelphia will provide paramedics employed by the city with ongoing training on appropriate and nondiscriminatory treatment of patients with infectious diseases, specifically HIV/AIDS. The city will also pay Mr. Smith $50,000 in damages. “Vital emergency medical services must be provided in a non-discriminatory manner to all persons who need them,” said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that cities carry out this important function responsibly and in accordance with federal law.”

“This agreement protects both the patient and, by requiring proper training, the emergency responders,” said Pat Meehan, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “Emergency response is a key link in the continuum of care and this agreement ensures the highest quality of care to those in great need.”

Title II of the ADA prohibits public entities, such as the city of Philadelphia, from discriminating against any individual on the basis of disability with respect to the services, programs or activities of the public entity. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act includes a parallel prohibition covering programs or activities which receive federal financial assistance.

Additional information about the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/. Those interested in finding out more about federal disability rights statutes can call the Justice Department’s toll-free ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 or 800-514-0383 (TDD) or access the ADA Web site at http://www.ada.gov.

DETROIT –(ACLU) The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan today urged a federal appeals court to uphold a lower court ruling declaring the government’s warrantless National Security Agency wiretapping program illegal, calling the government’s assertion of unchecked spying powers "radical" and a threat to American democracy.

"Executive spying on Americans without a warrant is precisely the kind of illegal practice that the founders of our country designed the Constitution to prevent," said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU. "In a democracy, no one is above the law, not even the President."

At issue is a program, secretly authorized by President Bush in 2001, directing the National Security Agency to listen in on the phone calls and emails of people within the United States, including U.S. citizens, without a warrant.

On August 17, in the first and only ruling by a federal court to strike down the controversial program, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled that the warrantless wiretapping program is illegal.

"There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all ‘inherent powers’ must derive from that Constitution," Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said in a widely quoted opinion.

Judge Taylor found that the program violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was passed in the 1970s to curb executive abuses that included spying on civil rights leaders and Members of Congress. FISA requires a warrant before the executive can wiretap Americans. Judge Taylor also found that the program violated the separation of powers because it circumvented Congress’s power to regulate presidential authority, and that it violated Americans' rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution. The government appealed the decision to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which granted a stay of the decision pending appeal.

According to legal papers filed by the ACLU today, "The government seeks not simply to dismiss this case, but to prevent any court from reviewing the legality of the Program … perhaps most disturbingly, the government’s sweeping theory of executive power would allow the President to violate any law passed by Congress. This theory presents a profound threat to our democratic system. The government complains that the district court overreached, but it is the government’s theory that is radical, not the district court’s rejection of it."

The ACLU also today challenged the district court’s dismissal of claims that the government is illegally data-mining the phone and email records of Americans, arguing that dismissing the claims on state secrets grounds was premature in that the claims could be decided based on publicly available facts.

The ACLU filed its lawsuit in January on behalf of a group of prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations who frequently communicate by phone and e-mail with people in the Middle East. The ruling found that the NSA program is disrupting the plaintiffs' ability to talk with sources, locate witnesses, conduct scholarship and engage in advocacy.

The case, ACLU v. NSA, was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Attorneys in the case are Beeson, Jameel Jaffer and Melissa Goodman of the national ACLU, and Kary Moss and Michael Steinberg of the ACLU of Michigan.

In Washington, the ACLU is urging Congress to live up to its constitutional responsibility to provide checks and balances to the executive and judicial branches, de-fund the illegal spying program and undertake a thorough investigation into the NSA warrantless eavesdropping. Between its return on November 13 and its adjournment, the 109th Congress may vote on key issues such as a potential $15 billion give-away to telephone companies which would immunize companies from any liability for participating in the NSA spying program. President Bush has also made clear his intention to push through legislation legitimizing the illegal NSA spying program during the "lame-duck" Congressional session.

Spc. James P. Barker, one of four soldiers accused of raping an Iraqi girl last spring and killing her and her family pleaded guilty Wednesday. Spc. Barker agreed to the plea to avoid the death penalty and will testify against the other three soldiers.

In a series of alleged attacks on civilians, the murders in the village of Mahmoudiya, which is about 20 miles south of Baghdad, were among the worst of abuses by the military in Iraq.

Of the other three soldiers implicated, the alleged leader former Army private Steve Green, 21, pleaded not guilty last week to charges including murder and sexual assault. Green was discharged from the army before the allegations were known and it is still unclear if the prosecutors will pursue the death penalty for Green as he was discharged for a “personality disorder.”  The two remaining soldiers implicated still face the death penalty if convicted.

The details of the alleged murders and rape accuse the four of raping the girl and burning her body, and killing the girl’s family (her parents and a 6 year old sister) at a nearby checkpoint.

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Robin Sheen
Staff Writer