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Saturday, 29 September 2012

Chemistry lab scandal could affect thousands of cases

By DENISE LAVOIEBOSTON -- A chemist accused of lying about drug samples she tested at a state lab could face additional charges as prosecutors and defense attorneys sift through thousands of criminal cases that could be upended by her actions.

Annie Dookhan, 34, of Franklin, was arrested Friday in a burgeoning investigation that has already led to the shutdown of the lab, the resignation of the state's public health commissioner and the release of more than a dozen drug defendants.

Many more defendants are expected to be released. Authorities say more than 1,100 inmates are serving time in cases in which Dookhan was the primary or secondary chemist.

"Annie Dookhan's alleged actions corrupted the integrity of the entire criminal justice system," state Attorney General Martha Coakley said during a news conference after Dookhan's arrest. "There are many victims as a result of this."

Dookhan faces more than 20 years in prison on charges of obstruction of justice and falsely pretending to hold a degree from a college or university. She testified under oath that she holds a master's degree in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts, but school officials say they have no record of her receiving an advanced degree or taking graduate courses there.

State police say Dookhan tested more than 60,000 drug samples involving 34,000 defendants during her nine years at the Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Boston. Defense lawyers and prosecutors are scrambling to figure out how to deal with the fallout.

Assistant Attorney General John Verner called the charges against Dookhan "preliminary" and said a "much broader" investigation is being conducted.

Verner said state police learned of Dookhan's alleged actions in July after they interviewed a chemist at the lab who said he had observed "many irregularities" in Dookhan's work.

Verner said Dookhan later acknowledged to state police that she sometimes would take 15 to 25 samples and instead of testing them all, she would test only five of them, then list them all as positive. She said that sometimes, if a sample tested negative, she would take known cocaine from another sample and add it to the negative sample to make it test positive for cocaine, Verner said.

Dookhan pleaded not guilty and was later released on $10,000 bail. She was ordered to turn over her passport, submit to GPS monitoring, and not have contact with any former or current employees of the lab.

Dookhan's relatives and attorney declined to comment after the brief hearing in Boston Municipal Court. Her next court date is Dec. 3.

The obstruction charges accuse Dookhan of lying about drug samples she analyzed at the lab in March 2011 for a Suffolk County case, and for testifying under oath in August 2010 that she had an advanced degree from the University of Massachusetts, Attorney General Martha Coakley said at a news conference.

In one of the cases, Boston police had tested a substance as negative for cocaine, but when Dookhan tested it, she reported it as positive. Investigators later retested the cample and it came back negative, Verner said.

The only motive authorities have found so far is that Dookhan wanted to be seen as a good worker, Coakley said.

According to a state police report in August, Dookhan said she just wanted to get the work done and never meant to hurt anyone.

"I screwed up big-time," she is quoted as saying. "I messed up bad; it's my fault. I don't want the lab to get in trouble."

Dookhan's supervisors have faced harsh criticism for not removing her from lab duties after suspicions about her were first raised by her co-workers and for not alerting prosecutors and police. However, Coakley said, there is no indication so far of criminal activity by anyone else at the lab.

Co-workers began expressing concern about Dookhan's work habits several years ago, but her supervisors allowed her to continue working. Dookhan was the most productive chemist in the lab, routinely testing more than 500 samples a month, while others tested 50 to 150.

One co-worker told state police he never saw Dookhan in front of a microscope. A lab employee saw Dookhan weighing drug samples without doing a balance check on her scale.

In an interview with state police late last month, Dookhan acknowledged faking test results for two to three years. She told police she identified some drug samples as narcotics simply by looking at them instead of testing them, a process known as dry labbing. She also said she forged the initials of colleagues and deliberately turned a negative sample into a positive for narcotics a few times.

"I hope the system isn't treating the evidence against her the way she treated the evidence against several thousand defendants," said defense attorney John T. Martin, who has a client who was allowed to withdraw his guilty plea based on concerns over Dookhan's work.

Dookhan was suspended from lab duties after getting caught forging a colleague's initials on paperwork in June 2011. She resigned in March as the Department of Public Health investigated. The lab was run by the department until July 1, when state police took over as part of a state budget directive.

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Friday, 28 September 2012

Teacher in group sex scandal says she is victim

It was perhaps the most salacious part of one of the most scandalous student-teacher affair stories in history: a video, taken by a cellphone camera, of then-Texas high school teacher Brittni Colleps having group sex with four 18- and 19-year-old students at her suburban home.

But Colleps, who is 28 and the mother of three young children, says that video -- taken by one of the students -- makes her a victim.

"I felt like I was victimized in that video, because I did not, I never gave my consent for it," Colleps told "20/20" correspondent Deborah Roberts in an exclusive jailhouse interview airing tonight on "20/20." Roberts also spoke exclusively to Colleps' husband, Christopher, who explained why he is standing by his wife.

PHOTOS: Teachers Accused of Sex With Students

In August, a jury convicted Colleps on 16 counts of having improper relationships with students. Though the students with whom she had sex -- there were five -- were all older than the minimum age of consent in Texas, state law prohibits any educator in a primary or secondary school from having sex with any enrolled student, no matter their age.

Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Beach prosecuted Colleps' case and defended the law in an interview with "20/20."

"Who has more power in the classroom?" she asked. "Does the teacher have more power or does the students have more power? The teacher has more power. And so the teacher can use that power to sexually exploit students in the classroom, even if those students are 18 years old."

The story of how Colleps went from popular teacher to convicted felon begins with a seemingly innocent text message -- one sent by Colleps to a school athlete asking what time a baseball game was starting.

But in the weeks that followed, as court documents would show, Colleps exchanged 300 pages worth of text messages with the student, most of which were sexual in nature.

"Sitting in the classroom, she goes into these very specific sexual text messages about the things she wants him to do to her body," Beach said. The texts included messages like "I'm an anything goes in sex kinda girl" and "I like pullin' hair, bitin', scratchin', spanking, I even like being choked."

In April 2011, Colleps invited the athlete to her home to watch a movie. They ended up having sex, and the student reportedly returned to her home at least four more times.

The following May, he brought three friends -- all football players -- to Colleps' home for dinner.

But prosecutors say the students got more than just a home-cooked meal. Colleps reportedly put on lingerie, brought out sex toys and led the four young men to her bedroom.

"And she's performing one sex act on one student, and she is simultaneously performing another sex act on another student, and she has farmed out her kids for the night so that she can have four students in, and engage in what is more or less an orgy," Beach said.

That was when one of the students captured the trysts on a cellphone camera, and he didn't keep it to himself. It soon became fodder for hallway gossip that spread to administrators at Colleps' school. Colleps was called to the principal's office and, five days later, arrested.

Last month, before the jury convicted her, it heard explicit and damning testimony.

"She said that she craved...that I had something she wanted," one of Colleps' teenage sex partners testified.

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Friday, 18 May 2012

MTA workers in fake inspection scandal to surrender

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Eight MTA workers and their supervisors are expected to surrender Friday to face charges that they filed reports for subway signal inspections that they never conducted.

The workers claim that the MTA knew exactly what they were doing, because they were overworked. All along, rider safety was being compromised.

It's being called "signal gate," in which the eight workers and their two supervisors are accused of faking inspections of subway signals. Those are the lights inside the tunnels that let the subway conductors know it is safe to proceed.

The signals have bar codes that workers simply swipe during the inspection. In this case, the codes had been duplicated onto paper, and the codes were swiped even though the signals had gone unchecked.

Union officials say the practice has gone on for awhile.

"What has gone on over the last several years is that they've been short 400-500 signal maintainers," Transit Workers' Union president John Samuelson said. "And the company's response to that has not been to hire signal maintainers to perform the inspections, but to pressure frontline supervisors and signal maintainers to submit fraudulent inspections."

The union says it will stand by its workers. All 10 are expected to turn themselves in Friday morning and be in court Friday afternoon.

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Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Syracuse's Boeheim could speak on scandal Tuesday

By JOHN KEKISSYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse men's basketball coach Jim Boeheim could speak out about the sex abuse allegations surrounding his former assistant coach after a home game scheduled for Tuesday night.

Boeheim ran a closed practice Monday as sex abuse victims' advocates questioned whether he should still coach following the firing of Bernie Fine, who has been accused of molestation by three men.

As criticism swirled about Boeheim's initial support of Fine and his verbal attacks on the accusers, the coach kept a low profile, seeking refuge in his office on the second floor of the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center.

Boeheim, who had been sharply critical of the accusers, has softened his stance 10 days after an impassioned defense of Fine, who spent 35 seasons on the bench next to Boeheim and was fired Sunday.

The Rev. Robert Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery, a group that supports victims of sexual abuse, said the dismissal of Bernie Fine was appropriate but didn't go far enough.

"I think Jim Boeheim should be fired or resign as well," Hoatson said Monday. "These boys were members of the basketball program. Jim Boeheim's responsibility is to oversee that program, and the children were not safe on his watch."

Two former Syracuse ball boys were the first to accuse Fine, who has called the allegations "patently false." And a third man came forward last week, accusing Fine of molesting him nine years ago.

Bobby Davis, now 39, told ESPN that Fine molested him beginning in 1984 and that the sexual contact continued until he was around 27. A ball boy for six years, Davis told ESPN that the abuse occurred at Fine's home, at Syracuse basketball facilities and on team road trips, including the 1987 Final Four. His stepbrother, Mike Lang, 45, who also was a ball boy, told ESPN that Fine began molesting him while he was in fifth or sixth grade.

Zach Tomaselli, 23, of Lewiston, Maine, said Sunday he told police that Fine molested him in 2002 in a Pittsburgh hotel room.

Tomaselli, who faces sexual assault charges in Maine involving a 14-year-old boy, said Fine touched him "multiple" times in that one incident. During a telephone interview with The Associated Press, he said he signed an affidavit accusing Fine following a meeting with Syracuse police last week in Albany.

As supporters of victims of sex abuse called for Boeheim to be fired, university trustees were largely silent.

"I don't have anything to say about this," said trustee H. Douglas Barclay, who earned his law degree from Syracuse in 1961 and was a New York state senator for 20 years.

Reached in Naples, Fla., trustee Marvin Lender, class of 1963, referred all calls to Chancellor Nancy Cantor.

"It's a policy, and I want to adhere to it," he said.

The allegations against Fine surfaced a week after Penn State school trustees fired Joe Paterno in the aftermath of child sex abuse charges against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who is accused in a grand jury indictment of sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year period.

Amid that child sex-abuse scandal, Penn State's trustees ousted Paterno and university President Graham Spanier. The trustees said Spanier and Paterno, who is not the target of any criminal investigation, failed to act after a graduate assistant claimed he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in a campus shower in 2002. And two school administrators were charged with not properly alerting authorities to suspected abuse and with perjury. They maintain their innocence.

When the allegations against Fine first became public Nov. 17, Boeheim adamantly defended his longtime assistant and attacked the accusers, saying he suspected they were trying get money.

"It is a bunch of a thousand lies that he has told," Boeheim told ESPN, referring to Bobby Davis. "You don't think it is a little funny that his cousin (relative) is coming forward?"

Those comments prompted a swift backlash from victims' advocates, who were outraged by Boeheim's attitude.

Ten days later, his stance had changed considerably.

In a statement released Sunday night after Fine's firing, Boeheim expressed regret for his initial statements that might have been "insensitive to victims of abuse."

"What is most important is that this matter be fully investigated and that anyone with information be supported to come forward so that the truth can be found," Boeheim said in a statement released by the school. "I deeply regret any statements I made that might have inhibited that from occurring or been insensitive to victims of abuse."

That apology did not appease all his critics.

Richard Tollner, a member of the New York Coalition to Protect Children, said even if the investigation finds Boeheim didn't know anything before, during or after any abuses occurred, he should at least offer to quit. Tollner and other victims' advocates have been sharply critical of comments Boeheim made when the scandal broke in which he said the accusers were lying to get money.

"We think he should offer his resignation to the Syracuse University Board and the let the board decide with a vote of confidence whether he should continue on or not," said Tollner.

"Mr. Boeheim has a responsibility," Tollner said. "He's a leader. Kids follow what Jim Boeheim says these days. In that light, he should have been more responsible in his remarks."

New York state Assemblywoman Margaret Markey, a Queens Democrat who has passed legislation increasing the age from 23 to 28 to bring a claim of sexual abuse, said if an investigation shows Boeheim was aware of the allegations against Fine and did nothing, he should be removed.

"But if he wasn't aware of it, and there was no way of him knowing about it, that's a different set of circumstances," Markey said.

On Sunday, ESPN also played an audiotape, obtained and recorded by Davis, of an October 2002 telephone conversation between him and Fine's wife, Laurie.

Davis told ESPN he made the recording, which also has been given to Syracuse police, without her knowledge because he knew he needed proof for the police to believe his accusations. ESPN said it hired a voice recognition expert to verify the voice on the tape and the network said it was determined to be that of Laurie Fine.

During the call to the woman, Davis repeatedly asks her what she knew about the alleged molestation.

"Do you think I'm the only one that he's ever done that to?" Davis asked.

"No ... I think there might have been others but it was geared to ... there was something about you," the woman on the tape said.

On the tape, she also says she knew "everything that went on."

"Bernie has issues, maybe that he's not aware of, but he has issues. ... And you trusted somebody you shouldn't have trusted ...

" Federal authorities investigating Fine are not hampered by a statute of limitations should they turn up evidence Fine molested Tomaselli in Pittsburgh.

Under federal law passed in 2002, prosecutions for the sexual or physical abuse or kidnapping of a child under 18 can continue until the victim turned 25. Subsequent amendments changed that to the life of the child or 10 years after the offense, whichever is longer.

On Sunday, Tomaselli's father said he was lying.

In a phone interview with the AP, Fred Tomaselli said: "I'm 100 percent sure that Bernie Fine was never in contact with Zach. He never went to Pittsburgh to a game, never been to that arena."

Zach Tomaselli's friend, Rose Ryan of Lewiston, Maine, defended him Monday against his father's claim that he made up the story about being molested by Fine.

"He's not lying," said Ryan, who said Tomaselli provided detailed descriptions to police of the Pittsburgh hotel and of the interior of Fine's home.

Ryan, who's 31, said Tomaselli worked as a camp counselor and a baseball umpire but is currently unemployed and having difficulty finding work because of sex charges pending against him in Maine.

Tomaselli was arrested in April on 11 warrants charging gross sexual assault, tampering with a victim, two counts of unlawful sexual contact, five counts of visual sexual aggression against a child and unlawful sexual touching and unlawful sexual contact, Lewiston police said. They did not say what led to the charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

John Duncan, executive assistant U.S. attorney in Syracuse, said a search warrant was executed Friday by the U.S. Secret Service at Fine's residence. He declined to say Monday what was sought or found, saying it remains under seal. "His home was searched," he said.

U.S. Secret Service agent Tim Kirk in Syracuse declined to comment and referred questions to Duncan.

Lee Kindlon, a criminal defense attorney who practices in state and federal courts in upstate New York, said while the statute of limitations won't bar federal prosecutors at this point, they have other issues including the credibility of the accuser and lack of physical proof.

"But these allegations are serious and I think the feds are doing the right thing and looking for proof to back up the accusations," he said.

Also Monday, the Syracuse Police Department said it will provide details of its investigation to the Onondaga County District Attorney's Office on Tuesday, heading off a court appearance that was scheduled for Tuesday morning. DA William Fitzpatrick had complained that the police were not sharing details and accused the police chief and others of leaking information to the media, a claim the police denied.

A two-paragraph statement from the city police noted that the case had entered a "new phase" with the U.S. Attorney and Secret Service taking the lead.

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AP Writers Mike Virtanen, Mary Esch and Rik Stevens in Albany, Ben Dobbin in Rochester and David Sharp in Portland, Maine contributed to this report.

syracuse university, sex scandal, sports

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Friday, 8 July 2011

Ex-Cameron aide arrested in UK hacking scandal

By ROBERT BARRLONDON -- London police on Friday arrested Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor who also served as the prime minister's former communications chief, in relation to Britain's tabloid phone-hacking scandal.

London police said a 43-year-old man was arrested Friday morning over allegations of phone hacking and police bribery and was in custody at a London police station. They did not name him but offered the information when asked about Coulson.

The Murdoch media empire on Thursday shut down the 168-year-old muckraking tabloid. The paper has been engulfed by allegations its journalists paid police for information and hacked into the phone messages of celebrities, young murder victims and the grieving families of dead soldiers.

It comes just as media baron Rupert Murdoch is seeking U.K.

government clearance for a euro12 billion ($19 billion) bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting, a prize far more valuable than his British stable of newspapers.

Earlier Friday, Prime Minister David Cameron admitted that British politicians and the press had become too cozy and promised to hold two full investigations into activities at the News of the World tabloid and into future media regulation.

Cameron said press self-regulation had failed and a new body, independent of the media and the government, was needed to properly enforce standards "The truth is, we've all been in this together," Cameron said at a news conference a day after the announcement that the News of the World was closing down. "Party leaders were so keen to win the support of newspapers that we turned a blind eye to the need to sort this issue. The people in power knew things weren't right but they didn't do enough quickly enough."

Cameron said his friend Rebekah Brooks, a former editor of the tabloid, should have resigned as chief executive of News International, the British unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.. He also said there were questions to be answered by James Murdoch, the heir-apparent to his father's media empire.

"I want everyone to be clear: Everything that has happened is going to be investigated," Cameron said.

He said a judge will be appointed to lead a thorough investigation of what went wrong at the News of the World, including alleged bribery of police officers, and a second inquiry to find a new way of regulating the press.

Two employees of the tabloid were sent to prison in 2007 after being convicted of hacking into royal telephones, but the police investigation of the activity at the time has been slammed as incomplete or compromised by new bribery allegations.

Cameron also suggested that a decision on Murdoch's BSkyB takeover is likely to be delayed.

"Given the events of recent days, this will take some time," Cameron said.

The prime minister refused to apologize for hiring Coulson as his spokesman, a move that opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband described Friday as an "appalling error of judgment."

Cameron said Coulson, who resigned from his government post in January, remained a friend.

The prime minister referred to reports that Brooks had offered her resignation. "In this situation I would have taken it," Cameron said.

A reporter asked whether James Murdoch was a fit and proper person to run a company, following his admission on Thursday that regretted authorizing out-of-court payments to some hacking victims.

Murdoch's statement "raises lots of questions that need to be answered," Cameron said.

The scandal exploded this week after it was reported that the News of the World had hacked the mobile phone of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler in 2002 while her family and police were desperately searching for her. News of the World operatives reportedly deleted some messages from the phone's voicemail, giving the girl's parents false hope that she was still alive.

That ignited public outrage far beyond any previous reaction to press intrusion into the lives of celebrities, which the paper had previously acknowledged and for which it paid compensation.

Dozens of companies pulled their advertising from the paper this week, fearing they would be tainted by association. James Murdoch then announced Thursday that this Sunday's edition of the tabloid would be its last and all revenue from the final issue, which will carry no ads, would go to "good causes."

News International, the British unit of Murdoch's News Corp., has not said whether it will move quickly to put another paper into the Sunday market which had been dominated for decades by News of the World. But according to online records, an unnamed U.K.

individual on Tuesday bought up the rights to the domain name "sunonsunday.co.uk."

Shares in BSkyB, which have fallen all week because of doubts whether the takeover will go ahead, were down more than 4 percent Friday in London trading at 779 pence ($12.40).

Shares in News Corp. rose 1.6 percent on the Nasdaq index in New York after Thursday's announcement.

The British government on June 30 already gave its qualified approval allowing News Corp. to purchase the 61 percent of British Sky Broadcasting that it doesn't already own, on the condition it spins off Sky News as a separate company. News Corp. made an initial offer of 700 pence per share, valuing BSkyB at 12.3 billion pounds ($19.8 billion). Analysts believe News Corp. may have to go as high as 900 pence per share to persuade shareholders to sell out.

Analyst expect the BSkyB deal approval to be delayed now until at least September.

Despite the public outcry, many analysts think Britain will still sanction the takeover, since officials have already said that threats to competition will be resolved with Sky News' spin-off.

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