Man wanted by FBI gets prison in deputy shooting (AP)

NORWALK, Calif. – A man once listed among the FBI's Ten Most Wanted fugitives has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for shooting and injuring a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy.

Emigdio Preciado on Tuesday pleaded guilty to assault on a peace officer. The 41-year-old gang member had fled after the shooting in September 2000.

He was extradited last year from Mexico, where he had lived in a small town under an assumed name.

Preciado and two other men were charged in the shooting of Deputy Michael Schapp in Whittier during a traffic stop. The two others charged in the case were convicted and sentenced to prison.

Schapp was shot in the face, but his partner was not wounded.

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Prison can't give psychotropic meds to Loughner (AP)

PHOENIX – An appeals court ruled Tuesday that prison officials can't resume their forcible medication of psychotropic drugs for the suspect in the Tucson shooting rampage.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal kept in place an earlier order that temporarily stopped the involuntary medication of Jared Lee Loughner. The order will remain in effect until the court rules on an appeal by Loughner's attorneys over the larger issue of forced medication.

The appeals court ruled that Loughner's interest in not suffering the risk of side effects from powerful drugs is stronger than the government's interest in protecting Loughner and those around him in prison. But it noted that authorities can take steps to maintain the safety of prison officials, other inmates or Loughner, including forcibly giving him tranquilizers.

The court said that the federal government has kept Loughner from harming anyone in his six months of his incarceration since the shooting and that Loughner doesn't pose a danger to himself.

Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges in the Jan. 8 shooting that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

He had been forcibly medicated between June 21 and July 1 at a federal prison facility in Springfield, Mo., after prison officials determined his outbursts there posed a danger to others. While at the facility in Missouri, Loughner was given twice daily doses of Risperidone, a drug used for people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe behavior problems.

The 22-year-old has been at the Missouri facility since May 27 after mental health experts had determined he suffers from schizophrenia. U.S. District Judge Larry Burns had concluded that Loughner was mentally unfit to stand trial.

The decision to forcibly medicate Loughner on the grounds that he posed a danger was made by prison officials who held a June 14 prison administrative hearing about Loughner's medication. But the appeals court halted the medications on July 1 as it considered an appeal by Loughner's attorneys.

The court is considering the larger question of whether the decision to forcibly medicate Loughner with psychotropic drugs can be made by prison officials or a judge.

Loughner's attorneys argued that the decision to forcibly medicate their client solely on the basis of an administrative hearing by prison officials had violated his due-process rights.

Prosecutors said the appeal is without merit because Loughner's attorneys are asking the lower court judge to substitute his ruling on whether Loughner poses a danger while in prison with the conclusions of mental health professionals.

In making the decision to forcibly medicate Loughner, prison authorities cited an April 4 incident in which Loughner spat on his own attorney.

They also brought up an outburst during a March 28 interview with a mental health expert in which Loughner became enraged, cursed at her and threw a plastic chair.

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Convicted Blagojevich faces prospect of prison (AP)

By MICHAEL TARM and KAREN HAWKINS, Associated Press Michael Tarm And Karen Hawkins, Associated Press – Tue Jun 28, 6:39 am ET

CHICAGO – Stunned and nearly speechless after hearing the verdicts against him, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will wake up Tuesday to the stark reality that he is likely headed to federal prison within months, leaving behind his wife, two young daughters and comfortable home in a leafy Chicago neighborhood.

A jury convicted him Monday on 17 charges, including trying to sell or trade President Barack Obama's old Senate seat and attempting to shake down executives for campaign cash. The convictions carry a combined maximum prison sentence of around 300 years, but legal experts say a federal judge is likely to send him away for around a decade, give or take a few years.

An irrepressible Blagojevich had said before the retrial began that he refused to even contemplate the prospect of prison. But red-eyed, his face drawn and frowning, he hurried out of the courthouse after the verdict was read.

The broke and impeached ex-governor told reporters that he and his wife, Patti, "have to get home to our little girls and talk to them and explain things to them and then try to sort things out." His two daughters are 8 and 14.

Uncharacteristically, the 54-year-old Democrat had little more to say, adding only that he was stunned by the verdict.

"Well, among the many lessons I've learned from this whole experience is to try to speak a little bit less, so I'm going to keep my remarks kind of short," Blagojevich said.

He is almost certain to appeal the convictions, and his defense attorneys filed a number of motions to lay the groundwork for that.

If he does end up in prison, Blagojevich would follow a path well-trodden by Illinois governors, including Blagojevich's predecessor, former Republican Gov. George Ryan — now serving 6 1/2 years in a federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.

In Illinois's book of political infamy, though, Blagojevich's chapter may go down as the most ignominious because of the allegations he effectively tried to hock an appointment to Obama's Senate seat for campaign cash or a job.

Blagojevich will probably receive around 10 years in prison, with little chance he would get more than 15, said former Chicago-based federal prosecutor Jeff Cramer said. Another former prosecutor, Phil Turner, said Judge James Zagel might look to Ryan's sentence and mete out a similar one for Blagojevich.

Zagel did not set a sentencing date, but Gal Pissetzky, a Chicago attorney who defends clients in federal court, said it's likely Blagojevich would be sentenced late this year. When he is, Pissetzky said there is a chance he could end up serving in the same prison as George Ryan.

The verdict, coming after his first trial ended last year with the jury deadlocked on most charges, was a bitter defeat for Blagojevich, who spent 2 1/2 years professing his innocence on reality TV shows and later on the witness stand. His defense team insisted that hours of FBI wiretap recordings were just the ramblings of a politician who liked to think out loud.

After hearing the verdict, Blagojevich turned to defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky and asked "What happened?" His wife, Patti, slumped against her brother, then rushed into her husband's arms.

Before the decision was read, the couple looked flushed, and the former governor blew his wife a kiss across the courtroom, then stood expressionless, with his hands clasped tightly.

The verdict capped a long-running spectacle in which Blagojevich became famous for blurting on a recorded phone call that his ability to appoint Obama's successor to the Senate was "f---ing golden" and that he wouldn't let it go "for f---ing nothing."

The case exploded into scandal when Blagojevich was awakened by federal agents on Dec. 9, 2008, at his Chicago home and was led away in handcuffs. Federal prosecutors had been investigating his administration for years, and some of his closest cronies had already been convicted.

Blagojevich was swiftly impeached and removed from office.

The verdict provided affirmation to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, one of the nation's most prominent prosecutors, who, after the governor's arrest, had condemned Blagojevich's dealings as a "political corruption crime spree."

The key question for the jury was whether to accept the defense suggestion that Blagojevich's activities amounted to "the kind of political wheeling and dealing that is common in Illinois and around the country."

"That," said Fitzgerald, his voice rising, "couldn't be any further from the truth. ... Selling a Senate seat, shaking down a children's hospital and squeezing a person to give money before you sign a bill that benefits them is not a gray area. It's a crime."

Fitzgerald pledged to retry the governor after the first jury failed to reach a decision on all but the least serious of 24 charges against him.

The jury voted to convict on 17 of 20 counts after deliberating nine days heading into Monday. Blagojevich also faces up to five additional years in prison for his previous conviction of lying to the FBI; Pissetzky said Zagel would almost certainly sentence Zagel for all the convictions at once.

Judges have enormous discretion in sentencing and can factor in a host of variables, including whether a defendant took the stand and lied. Prosecutors have said that Blagojevich did just that.

Blagojevich was acquitted of soliciting bribes in the alleged shakedown of a road-building executive. The jury deadlocked on two charges of attempted extortion related to that executive and funding for a school.

Zagel has barred Blagojevich from traveling outside the area without permission. A status hearing to discuss sentencing was set for Aug. 1.

All 12 jurors — 11 women and one man — spoke to reporters after the verdict, identifying themselves only by juror numbers. Their full names were to be released Tuesday.

Jurors said the evidence that Blagojevich tried to secure a high-paying, high-powered position in exchange for the appointment of Obama's successor in the Senate was the clearest in the case.

"There was so much more evidence to go on," said Juror No. 140. Jury members said they listened and re-listened to recordings of Blagojevich's phone conversations with aides. They also acknowledged finding the former governor likable.

"He was personable," Juror No. 103 said. "It made it hard to separate what we actively had to do as jurors."

Richard Kling, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law who watched much of the trial, said the defense had no choice but to put Blagojevich on the stand, even though doing so was risky.

"The problem was with some of his explanations," Kling said. "It reminded me of a little kid who gets his hand caught in a cookie jar. He says, `Mommy I wasn't taking the cookies. I was just trying to protect them and to count them.'"

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Associated Press Writer Don Babwin contributed to this report.

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Dodger Stadium beating suspect sent back to prison (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An ex-convict arrested in the severe beating of a San Francisco Giants fan at Dodger Stadium was found in violation of his parole on Monday and ordered returned to prison for 10 months.

A California parole commissioner ruled that Giovanni Ramirez, 31, had violated his parole by having access to a weapon, which police say they found at his home when he was taken into custody for the Opening Day attack.

The Board of Parole Hearings had previously found that the state lacked evidence to revoke Ramirez's parole in connection with the March 31 assault on Bryan Stow, which left 42-year-old paramedic and father of two in a coma.

Despite a May 23 press conference by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and police chief Charlie Beck trumpeting the arrest of Ramirez as a breakthrough in the case, the 31-year-old reputed gang member has not been formally charged.

Ramirez's family says he is innocent and was not at Dodger Stadium at the time of the beating, which touched off a furor in Los Angeles over what critics say was a failure by city and team officials to provide adequate stadium security.

Stow drove more than 300 miles from his home in Santa Cruz to attend Opening Day at Dodger Stadium and was set upon by two men in the parking lot following the game, apparently because he wore Giants garb.

The attack comes at a bad time for McCourt, who is fighting his ex-wife and Major League Baseball to retain control of the troubled franchise.

Major League Baseball, in an extraordinary move, took over day-to-day control of the Dodgers in April over what Commissioner Bud Selig said were concerns over the club's finances.

And on Monday, Selig refused to approve a massive TV deal between the Dodgers and Fox that would have given the financially strapped team an instant injection of cash.

That decision by Selig appears to scupper a divorce settlement between Frank and Jamie McCourt that was contingent on the TV contract winning MLB approval.

(Editing by Greg McCune)

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Figure in Haiti quake kidnapping case gets prison (AP)

BURLINGTON, Vt. – A man who acted as an adviser to a group of missionaries charged with taking children out of Haiti after the 2010 earthquake is going to federal prison after being convicted of smuggling immigrants into the United States through unguarded back roads in Vermont.

Jorge Torres, 33, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Burlington to three years and one month in prison on charges that dated to 2002.

"I want to change. I want to be a different person," Torres said during a sentencing hearing before Judge William Sessions.

Torres eluded federal authorities from 2004 until last year when he was arrested in the Dominican Republican and brought back to the United States last September.

Torres was born in New York and has dual citizenship between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.

He became the target of an international manhunt after being identified as a man wanted in the U.S. and in El Salvador, where he allegedly led a prostitution ring. Prosecutors say Torres disappeared after being put on supervised release following a 1999 federal fraud conviction in Pennsylvania.

The Vermont case dates to 2002, when he allegedly organized illegal border crossings in which illegal immigrants from Costa Rica and other Central and South American nations were driven across the U.S.-Canada border at unguarded rural locations.

He moved to Canada and took the name George Simard before he was indicted in Vermont in 2003. The U.S. started proceedings to extradite him from Canada, but he fled again and his whereabouts were unknown until he surfaced in Haiti.

After the Haiti earthquake Torres acted as a lawyer and spokesman for 10 Baptists from Idaho who were detained on child kidnapping charges. The missionaries were later released.

The Burlington Free Press says Torres will receive credit for time served in Canada, the Dominican Republic and the U.S. He likely will be released from jail in about eight months.

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Information from: The Burlington Free Press, http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_us/storytext/us_haiti_americans/41867838/SIG=1149n092f/*http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com

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Jaycee Dugard kidnapper gets life in prison (Reuters)

PLACERVILLE, Calif (Reuters) – The California man who abducted 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard in 1991 and held her captive for 18 years was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison.

Phillip Garrido, 60, bowed his head but showed little reaction as he was sentenced following an emotional hearing in which Dugard's tearful mother read a statement from her now-31-year-old daughter.

In the statement, Dugard said that Garrido had stolen her life and that of her family.

Garrido was sentenced by El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Douglas Phimister to 431 years to life in prison. Phimister sentenced Nancy Garrido to 36 years to life in prison.

Phillip Garrido pleaded guilty on April 28 to kidnapping and multiple counts of sexual assault. Nancy Garrido, 55, pleaded guilty to one count each of kidnapping and rape by force.

Nancy Garrido's defense attorney, Stephen Tapson, addressed the court on his client's behalf, apologizing for her role in the case.

"I told Jaycee that my client stole her life," Tapson said in a telephone interview following the hearing.

"Every time she looks in the mirror she doesn't like what she sees because she committed such an evil act," he said. "Words cannot properly express how she feels and obviously she would take it back if she could."

Tapson said that his client was under the hold of Phillip Garrido, which he likened to Stockholm Syndrome.

"Your readers have to understand that she loved these kids like they were her own, both Jaycee and (Jaycee's) kids," Tapson said.

"They had a family relationship at the end there, Jaycee was working in the business (that Garrido ran)," he said. "There was a loving relationship between Jaycee and her kids and Mr. and Mrs. Garrido."

Dugard was snatched from a street near her South Lake Tahoe home on June 10, 1991, as she walked to a school bus stop and not seen or heard from for nearly two decades before she was discovered living with the Garridos in 2009.

Her stunning rescue in 2009, at the age of 29, made international headlines.

Prosecutors say Phillip Garrido kept Dugard hidden for much of that time in a squalid compound of tents and sheds behind his Northern California home, fathering two girls with her when she was still a teen.

They were rescued after Phillip Garrido aroused suspicions while proselytizing with Dugard's daughters on the University of California, Berkeley campus.

Dugard's family received a $20 million settlement in 2009 through a state victims' compensation fund.

The California inspector general found that state officials failed to properly supervise Garrido after his release from a 10-year prison term for a 1976 rape, overlooking a series of parole violations that should have led to his earlier capture.

(Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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