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Baseline Killer Suspect Gets 438 Years
Court Watch | 2007/12/15 04:43
A man accused of being the Phoenix Baseline Killer was sentenced to 438 years in prison Friday for a brutal attack in which he raped a woman while pointing a pistol at her pregnant sister's belly. "It is clear from the record that you cannot function in a civilized society," Superior Court Judge Andrew Klein told Mark Goudeau, who still faces trial for the slayings of eight women and a man in 2005-2006.

The 43-year-old former construction worker was convicted in September of 19 counts, including sexual assault and kidnapping, for assaulting the sisters in 2005 as they walked home from a park.

The sisters told the jury how Goudeau forced them into the bushes near a road and told them to strip, then raped the younger victim while pointing the gun at the other.

"My daughter was in danger before she was even born," said the woman who had been pregnant when the attack occurred. Speaking through an interpreter, she said she still wakes up crying sometimes.

"I will hope for him to never get out," she said.

DNA evidence linked Goudeau to the rape, but he maintained that he was innocent.

"What happened to those two girls was indeed horrible," he told the judge, "but I had nothing to do with it."

"This is just another freak show of a hearing where they convicted an innocent man," Goudeau's wife, Wendy Carr, said outside the courthouse.

Klein said before handing down the sentence that Goudeau must have two "diametrically opposed" personalities, one calm and respectful in court and the other sociopathic and brutal.

Maricopa County Prosecutors had said earlier that Goudeau faced a maximum of 285 years in prison. But Deputy County Attorney Suzanne Cohen proved a prior violent record in court Friday that made him eligible for the higher sentences.

Goudeau still faces trial on 74 other criminal charges, including nine murder counts, from a crime spree police have attributed to the Baseline Killer, named for the south Phoenix street where many of the early attacks took place. He has pleaded not guilty.

If Goudeau is convicted of murder, County Attorney Andrew Thomas has said he will pursue the death penalty.

Goudeau is the first of three suspects in serial killing to go on trial for a rash of random attacks that terrorized the Phoenix area for more than a year in 2005 and 2006. All three were arrested last year.

Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman were arrested in the so-called "Serial Shooter" case in August 2006 and are expected to go on trial next year. Hausner faces seven murder counts and Dieteman is charged with two. Their trial is expect to begin next year.



Lawsuit claims Kidd groped model at club
Court Watch | 2007/12/15 02:42

New Jersey Nets star Jason Kidd is being sued by a 23-year-old model who accused him of groping and threatening her at a Manhattan nightclub two months ago.

An attorney for Kidd called the allegations "false" and "defamatory" and the lawsuit an attempt to get money from the All-Star guard, who earns almost $20 million a year.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, says Kidd "battered and assaulted" the woman in the Lower West Side club Tenjune on Oct. 10 when he "grabbed her buttocks and crotch on multiple occasions."

"He kept staring at her and then went over and grabbed her butt," the woman's lawyer, Russell S. Adler, said yesterday. He said, "She told him 'Get off me! Get away from me!'" before bouncers pulled Kidd away.

Words were exchanged and Kidd grabbed the woman again, pushing her against a wall and putting his hand under her dress, Adler said.

A spokesman for the New York City Police Department confirmed Oct. 17 that the woman had filed a criminal complaint against Kidd, accusing him of the acts alleged in the lawsuit that was filed Thursday.

But Adler said officials from the district attorney's office told him late yesterday that prosecutors would not pursue charges against Kidd.

The woman is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Kidd's lawyer Paul Grand said, "This lawsuit is nothing more than a brazen and defamatory search for a payout."

A Nets spokesman said the team had no comment because the claims involve a pending legal matter.



Woman Pleads Guilty in NY Fatal Stabbing
Court Watch | 2007/12/14 06:33
The girlfriend of a former tour manager for Billy Joel and Paul Simon pleaded guilty Thursday to stabbing the man to death two years ago during a fight in their apartment. Kathleen Connors, 39, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of first-degree manslaughter in the slaying of Daniel L. Harrison, 57, on Nov. 20, 2005. She is to be sentenced Jan. 10 to 23 years in prison.

Connors and Harrison argued violently before she stabbed him in their Manhattan apartment, police said. A neighbor called police after hearing the ruckus, they said.

Connors initially was charged with second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree assault. She faced a sentence of 25 years to life in prison if she had been convicted after trial.

Published reports quoted Harrison's former wife, Eileen Cavallaro, of Kings Park, N.Y., as saying he had managed Simon's "Graceland" and "Rhythm of the Saints" tours and was in charge of Joel's "Glass Houses" tour.



'Ultimate Fighting' star pleads guilty to assault charge
Court Watch | 2007/12/14 05:41

Jon Koppenhaver, known as “War Machine” from Spike TV's reality series “The Ultimate Fighter,” pleaded guilty Thursday in Superior Court to a felony assault charge.
The professional cage-fighter choked a Las Vegas man unconscious and hit him in the face outside San Diego's Undisputed fitness and training center early Sept. 2.

Koppenhaver also faced a battery charge, but that was dismissed as part of a plea agreement reached during the preliminary hearing Thursday afternoon.
The victim, Darren Zatkow, testified during the hearing that he was visiting San Diego with his then-girlfriend when he was assaulted outside the fitness club after a night of drinks on the town.

Zatkow said he made a joke as he walked out with friends, calling a group of men standing outside the club without shirts “tough guys” while holding his hands up to his shoulders with palms open before he was surrounded by the men. “I cracked a joke and I got hit for it,” Zatkow said.

Zatkow said he was grabbed from behind in a carotid choke and dragged a few feet by one of the men. Zatkow said he did not see who grabbed him.

Zatkow, who practices martial arts but has never competed in tournaments, said he became unconscious 10 seconds after he was choked and came to moments later. Friends of Zatkow's who testified said he was punched in the face while he lay unconscious on the ground.

San Diego Police Detective Fernando Ramirez said a Las Vegas doctor who saw Zatkow days after the assault determined that the facial blow caused four fractures to his left eye socket. The injuries could cause temporary or permanent nerve damage, Ramirez said. The extent of the injury is not yet known because Zatkow is still recovering, he said.

Koppenhaver, 26, of Simi Valley, is skilled in mixed martial arts, according to his profile on the Ultimate Fighting Championship Web site, and also is a resident trainer for San Diego's Undisputed club.

Last week, he won with a technical knockout against Jared Rollins in the third round of Spike TV's Ultimate Fighter Finale held in Nevada.

Judge Frank Brown said the change in plea could result in a misdemeanor punishment. Zatkow told the court he thought a reduced punishment was OK because he believed a felony conviction would destroy Koppenhaver's career.

“I'm not interested in destroying somebody's life,” Zatkow said, noting that fighting should stay in the ring.



U.S. court turns down cemetery appeal
Court Watch | 2007/12/14 03:31
Bensenville’s last chance for a favorable ruling regarding the removal or graves at a local cemetery to make way for O’Hare International Airport expansion may lie with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The United States 7th Circuit Court of Appeals last week denied the village and St. John’s United Church of Christ, which owns the cemetery adjacent to O’Hare, the opportunity to review a case challenging the constitutionality of removing graves under the First Amendment.

Last September, the court ruled in favor of the city of Chicago that the graves can be moved.

Joe Karaganis, an attorney for the village of Bensenville and the church, said the petition to rehear the case was “a longshot,” because the court rarely re-hears cases. However, he said he felt there was some merit to the request.

In the request, the village and church pointed out that one of the three judges offered a dissenting opinion in their favor in the original decision, which Karaganis said gave the appeals more weight.

Bensenville and St. John’s maintain that relocating the graves from land owned by the church is a violation of the Illinois Religious Freedom of Restoration Act and First Amendment religious protection rights.

The next step, Karaganis said, is to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

“While this a petition also has long odds of getting accepted, we believe that the First Amendment issue raised by the decision, especially as set forth in the dissent, has a worthwhile chance of being granted,” he said.

While the church and village have promised to take the fight to the Supreme Court, Chicago is using the latest court rulings to move forward with the purchase of both the cemetery and other properties needed under the plan.

“We are pleased with the court’s order in this regard,” said Rosemarie S. Andolino, executive director of Chicago’s O’Hare Modernization Program. “We will continue to move forward with the acquisition process for St. Johannes Cemetery, and welcome the opportunity to work with church officials during this process.”

Chicago offered $630,000 to buy St. Johannes Cemetery in March 2006. That offer was rejected, and in October, the city filed a complaint for condemnation to acquire the cemetery in the circuit court of DuPage County. That case is still pending.

While the court fight over the cemetery continues, the city of Chicago continues to purchase properties in the village needed as part of the airport expansion.

The city has already acquired 533 of the 611 parcels needed in the village of Bensenville. Of those, 473 parcels are vacant and the owners have relocated.


Court upholds California bid to slash auto emissions
Court Watch | 2007/12/13 05:39

In a major environmental victory for California and 16 other states, a federal court in Fresno on Wednesday upheld a bid to slash auto emissions to combat global warming, a move fiercely opposed by automakers and the Bush administration.

The fight now shifts to Washington.

A Senate vote might come as soon as today on an energy bill that says cars and trucks must meet a fleet fuel-economy average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. That's compared with 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.2 mpg for trucks today. The House approved the fuel-mileage increase last week.

Wednesday's ruling that California has the authority to impose greenhouse-gas-emission-related mileage standards on cars and trucks - a plan that would cut emissions from vehicles 30 percent by 2016 - increases pressure on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to give the state a waiver to do that.

The state requested a waiver in late 2005, and California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued the EPA in November over its two-year refusal to say yes or no. The agency has said it will issue a decision on California's waiver by year's end.

Wednesday's 57-page opinion by U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii follows three other court losses this year by the auto industry and the administration.

Ishii's ruling and a similar decision by a federal judge in Vermont three months ago stem from a major Supreme Court ruling in April that the EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions under the Clean Air Act - and can grant waivers to California to enforce its own regulations.



Nazi Era Picasso's Prompt Legal Battle
Court Watch | 2007/12/12 11:32
The Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation asked a court yesterday to declare them the rightful owners of two Picasso paintings that a Jewish scholar claims were the rightful property of a relative persecuted in Nazi Germany.

The two institutions said they took the step to fend off an expected lawsuit from Julius H. Schoeps, a German who has been waging a legal fight to recover artwork and property once owned by his great uncle.

Schoeps demanded on Nov. 1 that the museums hand over both works, "Boy Leading a Horse," which is in MoMA's collection, and "Le Moulin de la Galette," in the Guggenheim's collection.

MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry and Guggenheim Foundation director Thomas Krens said in a joint statement they are confident the paintings were not obtained under Nazi duress.

"The Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum take the issue of restitution very seriously," they said. "Evidence from our extensive research makes clear the museums' ownership of these works and also makes clear that Mr. Schoeps has no basis for his claim."

Schoeps' lawyer, John J. Byrne, declined to comment on the museums' suit, filed in US District Court in Manhattan.

Both paintings were originally owned by Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, an aristocratic German banker and descendent of composer Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy died in 1935, two years after Adolf Hitler came to power.

At the time of his death, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy had been engaged in a series of maneuvers that Schoeps said were intended to protect his estate and an incredible art collection that also included nine paintings by Vincent van Gogh.

The family sold the two paintings, now owned by the museums, in 1934 or 1935 to Jewish art dealer Justin Thannhauser, who himself fled Germany and spent much of the war in Switzerland. Thannhauser kept "Le Moulin de la Galette" until 1963, when he gave it to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. He sold "Boy Leading a Horse" to former MoMA chairman William Paley in 1936.

In a recent lawsuit involving a third Picasso, Schoeps argued that his great uncle only parted with the paintings because he expected his estate to be plundered by the Nazis.

Schoeps is the director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam in Germany.

Over the years, he has also battled to recover the family's estate in Germany.


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