Tattoo parlor owner linked with Ohio State scandal pleads guilty (Reuters)

COLUMBUS (Reuters) – A tattoo parlor owner whose arrest on marijuana trafficking charges helped lead to the downfall of a top U.S. college football coach pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a federal court in Columbus, attorneys said.

During a search of the suburban Columbus home of the defendant, Edward Rife, local and federal agents discovered Ohio State University football memorabilia. While that memorabilia did not involve the drug charges, it did lead to an NCAA investigation.

Five players on OSU Coach Jim Tressel's 2010 team traded memorabilia, including championship rings and uniforms, for cash in violation of strict rules governing college sports.

Tressel, who was informed of the violations months before the case became publicly known and did not tell university officials, was given a five-game suspension, to match the punishment of the players. He quit last month.

Tuesday, Rife pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute more than 200 pounds of marijuana, as part of a plea bargain.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Kelley said there was no evidence any Ohio State players were involved in the marijuana operation. Rife's attorney, Stephen Palmer, said the memorabilia was the only link between Rife and OSU.

(Reporting by Jim Leckrone; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Jerry Norton)

View the original article here

Don't retry ex-New York state senate leader: lawyer (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – There is insufficient evidence against former New York Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno to allow for a second trial against him, Bruno's lawyer told a U.S. appeals court on Friday.

Bruno, 82, was sentenced to two years in prison last May by a federal judge in Albany after being convicted on two corruption charges.

For decades, Bruno was one of the state's most powerful Republicans, and one of the three most important politicians in the state, along with the governor and speaker.

The senate leader's conviction was almost immediately put into question after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last June that the "honest services" law that Bruno was convicted of breaking was too vague to be constitutional.

New York state's government has suffered a series of corruption scandals in recent years. The current governor, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, has tried to banish corruption with a new ethics bill though its critics say it is flawed.

On Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Coombe told the three-judge panel at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Bruno should be re-tried based on a fresh indictment, agreeing with the defense that his conviction on the two counts should be tossed in light of the Supreme court decision.

"The appropriate remedy here is remand," Coombe said, adding "we believe that the evidence is sufficient."

Bruno's lawyer, however, argued against any new trial and said the government should be stopped from bringing a new indictment because they had insufficient evidence.

"The only grounds on which the case cannot be re-brought is on sufficiency grounds," lawyer Abbe Lowell told the judges.

Lowell, who once helped former U.S. President Bill Clinton defend against impeachment proceedings, seemed to earn the sympathy of Judge Barrington Parker, one of the three judges.

"You have a 30-page kitchen sink indictment with facts about this and facts about that," Parker said, grilling prosecutor Coombe.

"You took direction A and it failed, and now you want to shift gears and put this man through another six-week horrendous experience of a criminal trial?"

"I do not think it is unfair to Senator Bruno," Coombe responded.

The judges will issue a ruling in the coming weeks.

Bruno was charged with eight counts, including mail and wire fraud, linked to his obtaining brokerage business for unions and failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of payments and gifts. Many of the indictment's charges alleged that Bruno exploited his powerful public position for personal gain, depriving the state of his "honest services."

The case is U.S. v Joseph Bruno, U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 09-291.

For Bruno: Abbe Lowell of Chadbourne and Parke LLP

For the government: Elizabeth Coombe of the U.S. Attorney's

Office for the Northern District of New York.

(Additional writing by Joan Gralla)

(Reporting by Basil Katz)

View the original article here

Ex-Alaska officer pleads guilty to state charges (AP)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A former Anchorage police officer accused of being an illegal immigrant living under a stolen identity has pleaded guilty to a separate charge that he illegally collected thousands of dollars in dividends from Alaska's oil-rich savings account available only to legitimate residents.

Rafael Mora-Lopez made the plea in Anchorage Superior Court Friday on the felony count of unsworn falsification. Prosecutors say the charge applies to someone who knowingly submits a false application for dividends from the Alaska Permanent Fund.

Prosecutors say he handed over a cashier's check for more than $27,000 to revenue officials before Friday's hearing. Sentencing in the case is set for Sept. 16.

Mora-Lopez lived in Alaska more than two decades as Rafael Alberto Espinoza, a U.S. citizen who lives in Mexico. Earlier this month, he pleaded guilty to federal counts of passport fraud and false claim of U.S. citizenship.

View the original article here

State Department computer error halts immigration lottery

Tens of thousands of would-be immigrants may be unable to move legally to the United States after the State Department said Friday that a computer glitch is forcing them to scrap the results of an annual worldwide lottery for U.S. visas.

More than 14 million applicants entered a lottery last fall for one of 50,000 visas distributed as part of the annual Diversity Visa Lottery, designed for people who would otherwise have little chance of legally entering the country. The program doesn’t require applicants to have a family or employer as a sponsor.

Each year the State Department selects about 90,000 applicants and trims the list to 50,000 through an extensive series of interviews, background checks and medical exams.

The lottery has been conducted by computer since its inception in 1994, according to State Department officials.

David Donahue, deputy assistant secretary of state for visa services, said the glitch discovered earlier this month prompted the computer program to unfairly select people who submitted applications in the first two days of the 30-day application process that ended Nov. 3.

“These results are not valid because they did not represent a fair, random selection of the entrants as required by U.S. law,” Donahue said in a video statement posted on the State Department Web site. (Watch it above or here.)

“We sincerely regret any inconvenience or disappointment this might have caused,” he said.

Officials discovered the problem May 5 around the time that entrants were checking their status. An in-house software coding error has been fixed, according to officials who were not authorized to speak on the record.

The State Department will hold a new lottery with the existing pool of applicants and announce the winners by July 15, Donahue said. Applicants do not need to re-enter to be eligible, and no new applications will be accepted.

Winners of the erroneous lottery who aren’t selected again will be able to reapply next fall or in subsequent years, officials said.

Congress established the lottery program to attract immigrants from countries with lower rates of immigration to the United States. Residents of countries with larger rates of U.S. immigration — including China, El Salvador, Haiti, India and Mexico — are not eligible for the program.

Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

???initialComments:true! pubdate:05/13/2011 16:00 EDT! commentPeriod:3! commentEndDate:5/16/11 4:0 EDT! currentDate:5/14/11 10:54 EDT! allowComments:true! displayComments:false!

View the original article here