Death penalty possible in Vermont sex-kidnap

By DAVE GRAM Associated Press Writer

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - Federal prosecutors have filed kidnapping charges that carry the death penalty against a Vermont man whose 12-year-old niece was found dead near his home.

Authorities accused Michael Jacques, 42, of carefully orchestrating events and e-mails to make it appear that Brooke Bennett had gone on June 25 to see someone she had met online, according to an affidavit accompanying the charges.

Citing statements from another underage girl, prosecutors claim that Jacques tricked Brooke into thinking she was going to a party and instead took her to his home to initiate her into a child sex ring.

Michael Desautels, the federal public defender representing Jacques, did not return calls Thursday morning.

E-mails quoted in an affidavit released Thursday accuse Jacques of coercing or enlisting the second girl to participate.

The girl wrote, "yes. I will help," one e-mail said.

Jacques is charged under a federal law that provides for the death penalty in a kidnapping resulting in a child's death. Jacques has 1993 convictions for kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault.

With autopsy results still pending, prosecutors said they could not say that Brooke was murdered. If she was, U.S. Attorney Tom Anderson was asked if he would seek the death penalty.

"That determination would be made after the investigation is completed, after the case is presented to a grand jury and, ultimately, that decision is made by the attorney general of the United States of America," Anderson said.

Meantime, state charges alleging that Jacques sexually assaulted a different girl over a five-year period were dropped, but could be refiled.

Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell said there is plenty of work ahead "both in terms of investigation and prosecution."

In the affidavits, authorities accused Jacques of making a MySpace posting, purportedly from Brooke, indicating that she planned a rendezvous on June 25 with someone she had met online.

He also is charged with planting evidence, including some of Brooke's clothing and a plastic bag containing semen, to make it appear someone else had abducted the girl.

Brooke, who had just finished seventh grade at Randolph Union High School, disappeared on June 25 after being seen at a convenience store with Jacques.

After searching in and around his home across town for days, police said they found the girl's body in a spot where the earth had been disturbed.

Hedge fund scammer tells NY judge he tried suicide

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - The hedge fund cheat who faked his death before going on the lam told a Manhattan judge Thursday that he tried to kill himself with a drug overdose before he surrendered in Massachusetts.

The unsympathetic judge replied that Samuel Israel III, who scammed nearly half a billion dollars from investors, must forfeit his $500,000 bail.

Israel went on the run June 9, when he was supposed to report for a 20-year prison sentence. He abandoned his SUV on a bridge north of New York City with the phrase "Suicide is Painless" scrawled in dust on the hood.

The massive manhunt ended Wednesday, when Israel rode a scooter to surrender at a Massachusetts police station.

He could face an extra 10 years if he is convicted of a new charge of failing to report to prison.

Israel told U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon that he had decided to commit suicide on Tuesday by swallowing morphine tablets and the painkiller fentanyl.

"I ate the balance of my fentanyl patches because I thought it was better to do myself in than to turn myself in," Israel said. "I woke up battered and bruised and I realized God didn't want me to do that and I turned myself in."

"Stand up Mr. Israel," McMahon sternly told the defendant, who had abruptly sat down while she was speaking. "If you can ride a motorcycle, Mr. Israel, you can stand up in my courtroom."

Israel got the 20-year sentence in April for conspiracy and fraud. McMahon refused to refer him to the prison medical facility to which he had been assigned before he fled.

"It was thrown in my face the last time," she said. "I'm now out of it."

Brinkley says husband's affair shattered her world

By FRANK ELTMAN Associated Press Writer

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) - Christie Brinkley testified at her divorce trial Thursday that the day she learned her husband was having an affair with a teenager was the day her world was "completely shattered."

The former Sports Illustrated model took the stand in state Supreme Court, a day after testimony by her architect husband, Peter Cook, and his former mistress.

Brian Platt, a police officer and the stepfather of the 18-year-old, informed Brinkley of the affair at a 2006 graduation at Southampton High School where the model was a speaker.

He tapped her on the shoulder, she tearfully recalled, and said, "That husband of yours won't knock it off. He's having an affair with my teenage daughter."

Brinkley said she looked at Cook, sitting in the front row of the graduation ceremony, and when he shook his head in denial, she thought: "My God, it's true. He did do that."

"That was also the day that my world was completely shattered," said Brinkley.

During his testimony Wednesday, Cook said he had given his mistress, Diana Bianchi, a $300,000 payoff, had extramarital trysts in his office and Brinkley's Hamptons homes, and spent thousands of dollars on online porn.

Brinkley said she told Cook to give her his computer passwords "if you've got nothing to hide." She found e-mails there from Bianchi and the porn sites Cook visited.

"I know a lot of men look" at pornographic sites, she said. But, in Cook's case, she said, he was trying "to connect with people" in their neighborhood.

"It was not a voyeur site. It was a meeting site," she said. "It was more than I could bear."

Cook had testified that he and Brinkley used pornography "to get the mood going."

Bianchi, who also testified Wednesday, said Cook also hid cash for her under a rock and gave her $15,000 to help her buy a Nissan Maxima in 2005.

Cook met Bianchi while she was working at a Hamptons toy store in 2004. He testified that he soon hired her to work at his Hamptons architecture firm, paying her $20,000 to type magazine articles onto the company's Web site.

Before long, he seduced her while they were working together in the office, she testified.

Brinkley, 54, and Cook, 49, wed in 1996. She filed for divorce a decade later, amid the public scandal over the affair.

Brinkley fought a bid by her children's legal guardian to close the trial to the public. Cook's lawyer said that made the model partly to blame for an unseemly spectacle.

Tenn. inmate released after 22 years on death row

By ROSE FRENCH Associated Press Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A former death row inmate has been freed from a Nashville prison for the first time in nearly 23 years after an anonymous donor paid his bail.

Paul House was released Wednesday to await retrial in the 1985 slaying of Carolyn Muncey. Two years ago the U.S. Supreme Court concluded he would not have been convicted based on DNA evidence that emerged years after his trial.

The 46-year-old House, who has multiple sclerosis and cannot walk, left the prison in the back of a white sport utility vehicle accompanied by his mother.

Under the conditions of his release, House can't leave his mother's home and must be monitored 24 hours a day.

House maintains he did not kill Muncey. Prosecutors are no longer seeking the death penalty.

High court affirms gun rights in historic decision

By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Silent on central questions of gun control for two centuries, the Supreme Court found its voice Thursday in a decision affirming the right to have guns for self-defense in the home and addressing a constitutional riddle almost as old as the republic over what it means to say the people may keep and bear arms.

The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns and imperiled similar prohibitions in other cities, Chicago and San Francisco among them. Federal gun restrictions, however, were expected to remain largely intact.

The court's historic awakening on the meaning of the Second Amendment brought a curiously mixed response, muted in some unexpected places.

The reaction broke less along party lines than along the divide between cities wracked with gun violence and rural areas where gun ownership is embedded in daily life. Democrats have all but abandoned their long push for stricter gun laws at the national level after deciding it's a losing issue for them. Republicans welcomed what they called a powerful precedent.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, straddling both sides of the issue, said merely that the court did not find an unfettered right to bear arms and that the ruling "will provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country." But another Chicagoan, Democratic Mayor Richard Daley, called the ruling "very frightening" and predicted more violence and higher taxes to pay for extra police if his city's gun restrictions are lost.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain welcomed the ruling as "a landmark victory for Second Amendment freedom."

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia, a once-vital, now-archaic grouping of citizens. That's been the heart of the gun control debate for decades.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said an individual right to bear arms exists and is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

President Bush said: "I applaud the Supreme Court's historic decision today confirming what has always been clear in the Constitution: the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear firearms."

The full implications of the decision, however, are not sorted out. Still to be seen, for example, is the extent to which the right to have a gun for protection in the home may extend outside the home.

Scalia said the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home." The court also struck down D.C. requirements that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns. The district allows shotguns and rifles to be kept in homes if they are registered, kept unloaded and taken apart or equipped with trigger locks.

Scalia noted that the handgun is Americans' preferred weapon of self-defense in part because "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police."

But he said nothing in the ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."

In a concluding paragraph to the 64-page opinion, Scalia said the justices in the majority "are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country" and believe the Constitution "leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns."

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty responded with a plan to require residents to register their handguns. "More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence," Fenty said.

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."

He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, "In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas."

Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. The other dissenters were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.

Gun rights advocates praised the decision. "I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom," said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.

The NRA will file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several Chicago suburbs challenging handgun restrictions there based on Thursday's outcome.

Some Democrats also welcomed the ruling.

"This opinion should usher in a new era in which the constitutionality of government regulations of firearms are reviewed against the backdrop of this important right," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

The capital's gun law was among the nation's strictest.

Dick Anthony Heller, 66, an armed security guard, sued the district after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his Capitol Hill home a short distance from the Supreme Court.

"I'm thrilled I am now able to defend myself and my household in my home," Heller said shortly after the opinion was announced.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Heller's favor and struck down the district's handgun ban, saying the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to own guns and a total prohibition on handguns is not compatible with that right.

The issue caused a split within the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney supported the appeals court ruling, but others in the administration feared it could lead to the undoing of other gun regulations, including a federal law restricting sales of machine guns. Other laws keep felons from buying guns and provide for an instant background check.

The last Supreme Court ruling on the matter came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.

The case is District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290.

Justices add 2 cases to docket, break for summer

By PETE YOST Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court agreed Friday to step into an environmental dispute over a gold mining operation near Juneau, Alaska and a California criminal case in which a convicted killer was granted a new trial.

The decisions to hear the cases were among the last actions by the Supreme Court before its lengthy summer break. The term that began in October featured major rulings striking down the handgun ban in the District of Columbia, slashing by 80 percent a punitive damages award for victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and granting prisoners at Guantanamo Bay access to U.S. civilian courts.

In the Alaska case that the court will hear next winter, a mining company and the state of Alaska are fending off a challenge by environmentalists to the planned dumping of tailings from gold mining into 23-acre Lower Slate Lake in the Tongass National Forest.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit for the dumping after the corps and the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to a regulatory change in 2002. The rule defines "fill" as "tailings or similar mining-related materials."

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco invalidated the permit, saying the dumping is barred by stringent EPA pollution-control requirements under the Clean Water Act of 1972.

Dumping the tailings would kill all the fish and nearly all aquatic life and deposit potentially hazardous materials including aluminum, copper, lead and mercury, the appeals court said.

It has been illegal since 1982 for new gold mines using a particular mining process to discharge waste into lakes or rivers. The corps permit would allow the discharge.

The corps has often issued permits in situations that create tailing ponds. Environmentalists say the current permit is the first to authorize the discharge of mining process wastewater into a navigable waterway.

The case is Coeur Alaska Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, 07-984; State of Alaska v. SACC, 07-990.

In the criminal case in California, the justices agreed to review another ruling by the federal appeals court in San Francisco, this one in favor of a man who was convicted of fatally stabbing and shooting his cousin in Los Angeles.

The appeals court said Alexandre Mirzayance is entitled to a new trial because his lawyer persuaded him not to pursue an insanity defense. A jury convicted Mirzayance of first-degree murder, although the lawyer had sought lesser charges.

The high court will consider whether the appeals court should have deferred to state court rulings that affirmed the conviction.

The case is Knowles v. Mirzayance, 07-1315.

Separately, despite the urging of the Bush administration, the court refused to hear the case of a widow denied $426,000 in life insurance benefits on grounds that a federal retirement law does not entitle her to sue for compensation. Lawyers for the Houston-area woman asked the court to intervene in the dispute, in which Melissa Amschwand accuses her late husband's employer of breach of fiduciary duty in connection with the life insurance policy.

Aetna denied benefits because Amschwand's ailing husband never returned to work for at least a day, a requirement for triggering the life insurance coverage.

The case is Amschwand v. Spherion, 07-841.

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On the Net:

U.S. Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov

Teen's death leads to sign change at Ga. Six Flags

AUSTELL, Ga. (AP) - State regulators say Six Flags Over Georgia must increase the size and number of warning signs near a popular roller coaster that hit and killed a teen.

Police say 17-year-old Asia LeeShawn Ferguson IV of Columbia, S.C. scaled two fences and wandered into a restricted area where he was decapitated by the roller coaster.

The Batman ride reopened Wednesday following the Saturday accident. But State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond says the park must make signs bigger, post more of them and add the words "extreme danger" within 10 days.

Thurmond says the park met all other safety standards.

W.Va. Gov. seeks review of $400M DuPont case

By LAWRENCE MESSINA Associated Press Writer

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Gov. Joe Manchin has urged the West Virginia Supreme Court to clarify whether DuPont has a right to have an appeal heard on $196.2 million in punitive damages, about half of a jury settlement awarded last year in a civil suit claiming health threats at a former zinc smelting plant.

The jury in Harrison County Circuit Court had awarded damages totaling nearly $400 million to residents living near the former plant in Spelter. Plaintiffs alleged that the chemical giant spent decades downplaying and lying about health threats from arsenic, cadmium and lead that contaminated air, soil and water.

The jury said it awarded $196.2 million in punitive damages to deter future misconduct, saying DuPont had engaged in wanton, willful and reckless conduct in its operation of the smelter. Non-punitive damages included $130 million to fund a 40-year health screening plan to monitor plaintiffs for any ailments related to exposure to chemicals.

Last week, Dupont filed an appeal of the entire verdict, arguing it has been unfairly punished for doing the right thing at the site and for the community. The state Supreme Court, which is in summer recess, has not yet indicated whether the appeal will be heard.

In a "friend of the court" brief filed last week, Manchin urged the justices to clarify what sort of appellate review is afforded the company under its constitutional right to due process. His lawyers cited a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision to argue that the 14th Amendment guarantees appeals of punitive damages.

"Ensuring that West Virginia courts provide the appropriate level of appellate review to (DuPont), as well as all other parties seeking review of punitive damages awards, is an issue of vital public importance," the brief argued.

DuPont spokesman Anthony Farina said Wednesday the company was pleased with Manchin's intercession. He urged the court "to conduct a detailed and exacting review of the award."

The plaintiffs, however, contend DuPont can make any further legal arguments in a petition, without need of a court appearance.

Brian Barr, a plaintiff's attorney, said he hadn't seen Manchin's brief. But he said Circuit Judge Thomas Bedell, who presided over the jury trial, already reviewed the punitive damages for propriety during and after trial.

Had Bedell found the amount excessive or unfounded, "The court could have taken the punitive damages away," Barr said.

"The whole idea that DuPont has not had a review at all is senseless," Barr added, accusing DuPont of stalling. "All DuPont is trying to do right now is protect its money."

Separately, West Virginia's sole appellate court recently refused to consider appeals in two unrelated cases involving a combined $664 million in damages.

Only West Virginia and Virginia give their appeals courts complete discretion on whether to hear most civil cases, the governor's brief argued, adding the rest grant the kind of automatic appeals that West Virginia lacks.

Manchin's filing comes a month after the governor said companies doing business in West Virginia deserve to their fair day in court. The comments came after the court unanimously refused to to hear a $404 million verdict against NiSource and Chesapeake Energy.

Chesapeake has since blamed the rejection of its case, a class-action lawsuit filed by thousands of gas royalty holders, for its scuttling of plans to build a $35 million regional headquarters in Charleston.

Earlier the court refused to consider Massey Energy's appeal of a $260 million verdict.

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Associated Press writer Vicki Smith in Morgantown contributed to this report.

Judge in Ky. gives panel 1 day in fen-phen trial

COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) - Jurors in northern Kentucky are expected to continue deliberations Thursday in the federal case of two lawyers charged with defrauding their clients out of $65 million in a diet-drug settlement.

It comes a day after U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman told attorneys he anticipates either a verdict or a deadlocked panel before dismissing the jury for the July 4 holiday.

Jurors in the case of suspended lawyers William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. have deliberated for about 48 hours over seven days, after hearing more than six weeks of testimony.

The case has been closely watched in the horse racing industry because Gallion and Cunningham are part-owners of 2007's Horse of the Year, Curlin.