Free Republic

At issue: a young black woman named Heather Ellis cut in line at Wal-Mart three years ago and refused to leave eventually fighting with and assaulting the local police. She turned down a plea bargain because she would not be allowed to sue the city. Now she is facing a "maximum" of 15 years for 2 felony counts of assaulting police officers and resisting arrest. CNN and the Race Baiting Industry have descended on this small town calling it a "town known for it's racism" in their coverage and alleging that the local prosecutor has ties with the Klan. I...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom says the Board of Supervisors’ recent change to the city’s sanctuary laws is a violation of federal law and he will ignore it. The Board of Supervisors voted 8-to-2 yesterday to overturn a policy enacted last summer by Mayor Gavin Newsom that rolled back the city’s sanctuary policy as it relates to contacting immigration authorities when a juvenile is arrested on felony charges. The new rule would require the city to contact immigration authorities only after a juvenile has been convicted of a felony. In City Hall, it’s been cast as a bit of political...

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to bar law enforcement officials from handing juvenile illegal immigrants over to the federal government unless they have been convicted of a felony. Twenty years ago, San Francisco enacted a "sanctuary city" ordinance requiring, in part, that local agencies not consider immigration status when dealing with young offenders. But Mayor Gavin Newsom changed the policy in the summer of 2008, after published reports revealed that the ordinance was protecting young undocumented offenders from deportation. Afterward, all juvenile illegal immigrants charged with felonies were referred to federal officials. The June 2008 shooting deaths...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Somerset Police arrested a 16-year-old girl on charges of online harassment. She was arrested under a new law that took effect September 1. The new Texas law criminalizes online harassment on social networking sites and through e-mail or text messaging. H.B. 2003 states a person commits a third degree felony if the person posts one or more messages on a social networking site with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten another person. (Emphasis added)

James O'Keefe's foray into filmmaking may cost him a few years in the slammer. O'Keefe and fellow conservative activist/budding investigative journalist Hannah Giles were the ones who dressed up like a pimp and a prostitute, respectively (or not), and went to the offices of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in D.C. and Baltimore looking for advice on how to buy a house. The resulting video caused quite a commotion and resulted in the firing of four ACORN employees, as well as other repercussions for those who support the organization. In Maryland, it's against the law to...

<p>A Florida teenager could face felony vandalism charges for allegedly gluing posters depicting President Obama as the Joker onto public property, FOXNews.com has learned.</p> <p>Clermont, Fla., Police Capt. Eric Jensen said the state attorney will review evidence to determine whether to charge the unidentified teenager with gluing "dozens" of the posters last week to the city's light poles, public and private buildings, bridge overpasses, road signs and a mailbox.</p>

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- A man was arrested and charged with attacking his own daughter with a piece of pizza. Deputies say the 38-year-old father got into an argument with his daughter in Gainesville Friday. The man had asked his daughter to get off her computer. When she would not, he began verbally attacking her, according to deputies. The daughter called 911 when her father threw a piece of pizza that hit her in the back of the neck. The suspect was arrested and charged with felony child abuse. Deputies are not releasing the girl's age or the names of either...

Chris Brown has copped a plea in his assault case. He won't do jail time, but he will spend 6 months doing things like road cleanup. He's also been ordered to stay 50 yards clear of Rihanna.He'll spend 180 days doing community labor (8 hours a day -- 1440 hours total) -- which is, in effect, hard labor. He'll do his service in Virginia which is where Brown lives. A Virginia law enforcement officer told us Brown will be picking up trash, pulling weeds and washing fire trucks. He gets 5 years probation for FELONY assault -- he pled guilty....

Four votes. That's how many votes the Franken campaign just said they're leading Norm Coleman by, with the hand recount now officially finished. In other words, with every single precinct in Minnesota now done counting (except for the one where they're still searching for the missing votes), the Franken campaign is claiming the lead. An extremely slim lead, but a lead nonetheless. "We are not declaring victory -- we are moving into the next stage of the process," said Franken's lead recount lawyer Marc Elias, in a press briefing going on now with reporters. "But we are going into that...

Teen Pees In Teacher's Drink, Police SayUPDATED: 5:16 pm PDT September 23, 2008 CASTLE ROCK, Wash. -- Police in Washington said they've arrested a teenager for urinating in his teacher's drink. Investigators said officers arrested the 13-year-old at Castle Rock Middle School on Friday, and he's now facing a felony charge. Castle Rock police said the victim was a woman who was teaching four eighth-grade boys Friday when one of them peed in her drink. The teacher walked into her class just in time to catch the boy zipping up and discovered urine in her plastic drink bottle, officers said....

BERKELEY - -- A woman was arrested today after she ran over a Berkeley police officer's foot when she tried to leave while being cited for a parking violation, authorities said. . . . Berkeley police Officer Griselda Ferrera stopped the motorist near the corner and told her to wait while the ticket was being written, authorities said. Instead, Markeysha Bilal-Fields, 47, of Richmond tried to leave the scene in her black Mazda, police said. The car ran over Ferrera's foot, authorities said.

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) _ A judge has decided the best punishment for a man found guilty of stealing should be to take his son's words to heart — and wear them on his sleeve.

A 9-year-old Edgemoor Gardens, Delaware boy was arrested on Friday and charged with setting a kitten on fire. According to New Castle County Police the 9-year-old was among a group of boys who poured lighter fluid on the kitten and then set it ablaze. Now the young boy is facing a felony count of cruelty to animals because the kitten died. Police are still looking for the other boys involved in the incident.

“Can’t we all just get along?” I hear my father ask at the breakfast table to no one in particular. He’s deep into a story about kidnapping, extortion and grand theft. Must be he’s reading the Wall Street Journal again, right? Not so, this story is out of Palm Beach and involves a cat, a dog and two humans. (A woman from Wellington and a man from Greenacres have been going at it like cats and dogs. Now the man from Greenacres has both the cat and the dog, and the woman from Wellington has been charged with grand theft...

DETROIT (AP/WXYZ) - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will be conspicuously absent when Barack Obama makes his first campaign stop in the city since effectively wrapping up the Democratic presidential nomination. The embattled mayor, facing criminal charges and public scrutiny in an embarrassing text-messaging sex scandal, has decided not to attend Monday night's rally at Joe Louis Arena.

The businessman was meeting with clients for lunch at Mimi's Café when he noticed the woman. Sitting a few tables over with her 4-year-old boy, she seemed groggy — yet she was drinking a mimosa. It got worse. The woman ordered a glass of white wine, then another. She was so out of it, the businessman would later write in a statement to police, that she looked ready to fall asleep at the table. When the woman paid her bill and left the restaurant, the businessman was right behind her, cell phone in hand. When she ran a stop sign...

FORMER LAPD VETERAN CHARGED WITH POSSESSION OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY AND CHILD ANNOYANCE AFTER TAKING SEXUAL PICTURES OF YOUNG GIRLS AT 2007 STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL GARDEN GROVE – A former Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) veteran was arrested and charged today with felony possession of child pornography and multiple counts of child annoyance following an extensive joint investigation by the Orange County District Attorney (OCDA) and Garden Grove Police Department (GGPD). Ralph Cameron Lakin, 53, La Palma, was charged with one count of felony possession of child pornography involving Jane Doe #10, eight counts of misdemeanor child annoyance involving Jane Does #1...

DETROIT -- Newly released text messages in the City Hall scandal surrounding Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick show that the mayor had handpicked and promoted the head of Internal Affairs, the guy who would be in charge of investigating him if corruption charges ever surfaced.

Dr. Paul has praised non-violent civil disobedience as an honorable and effective means of dealing with runaway federal power, including taxation. You should, nevertheless, know what you're doing and count the cost before you begin. Taxpayer or Non-Taxpayer? Has such a question ever even occurred to you? Have you even heard of a "nontaxpayer" before? Wouldn't it be unpatriotic not to "pay your taxes" like everyone else? Taxpayer? Nontaxpayer? Which are you? Is there an unequivocal reason that you "voluntarily comply" with the world's most obscure, deceptive, and fraudulently administered tax law, Title 26 of the US Code? Are YOU...

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Lexington eighth-grader has been charged with wanton endangerment after allegedly putting crumbled peanut butter cookies in the lunchbox of another student with a severe allergy to peanuts. The allergic student, also an eighth-grader, did not eat the cookies and did not suffer a reaction. Fayette County schools spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall says the incident occurred Thursday on the Morton Middle School running track, where students had gone to eat lunch and enjoy the warm weather. She says it was well known the other student suffered from severe peanut allergies. She says there was no known history of...

Some are calling it a big waste of Detroit tax dollars. FOX 2 cameras were rolling as city employees went door-to-door escorted by a fire engine and a police car. As Brad Edwards explains, they weren't fighting crime or a fire. Instead, they were working for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=6317458&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.2.1

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick did not attend Easter services at his church this morning.

Will Rezko Blow Up Obama?By Larry Johnson on January 28, 2008 at 7:53 PM in Current Affairs Today’s arrest of slumlord Tony Rezko could be very bad news for Barack Obama’s presidential ambitions. Rezko was arrested because he lied to the Feds–he claimed in November 2006 he had no assets and was virtually broke, but in April 2007 he received $3.5 million from a company owned by an Iraqi billionaire who also happens to be a convicted felon . The man’s name? Nadhmi Auchi. So what does this have to do with Obama? Well, buried in a footnote in the...

'HOT TOPIC': Performing the procedure would become a felony. JUNEAU -- A House committee approved a proposal Monday that would make a medical procedure widely known as a "partial birth abortion" a felony in Alaska. The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill to revise the current law so it conforms to federal standards. A floor vote -- and a spirited debate -- is expected later in the legislative session. No one spoke out against the bill during a brief public comment period.

CONNELLSVILLE, Pa. -- Police said a Fayette County man claimed he sexually assaulted a 5-year-old by accident.

A veteran political activist is facing 10 years in prison and a hefty fine for attempting to petition government for redress of grievances. The latest news from Pakistan? No, this is happening in Oklahoma. Last month Paul Jacob, the former head of U.S. Term Limits and current head of Citizens in Charge, was led out of an Oklahoma City courtroom in handcuffs after pleading not guilty to charges that he conspired to defraud the state. Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who's overseeing this bizarre prosecution, has accused Mr. Jacob and two fellow petition organizers--Rick Carpenter of Oklahomans in Action and...

After King Middle School moves to offer birth control, the District Attorney says schools must report anyone under age 14 who's having sex. Portland's school-based health centers have not been reporting all illegal sexual activity involving minors as required by law, but they will from now on, city officials said Thursday. Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson questioned the health centers' reporting practices after the Portland School Committee decided last week to offer prescription birth control at the King Middle School health center. The King Student Health Center has offered comprehensive reproductive health care, including providing condoms and testing for...

If Sen. Hillary Clinton is to chart her own course independent of her husband, why did she choose Sandy Berger to give her advice on foreign policy? This suggests reunion time for cronies. In 2003, Mr. Berger took several highly classified documents about the Clinton-era Millennium terror plot from the National Archives while "aiding" the September 11 commission. Mr. Berger successfully negotiated a plea bargain and received only two years probation, along with a security-clearance suspension and a $50,000 fine. Were he anything less than a member of the permanent Clinton establishment, he would be in sitting in a prison...

LAS VEGAS (AP) - O.J. Simpson was arrested Sunday and faces multiple felony charges in an alleged armed robbery of collectors involving the former football great's sports memorabilia, authorities said.

At a New York restaurant overlooking Central Park in April 2006, the governor of Pennsylvania sat down to dinner with about a dozen Democratic supporters. The 10-course meal in a private room at Per Se, including dishes like Nova Scotia Lobster Tail "Cuite Sous Vide," cost about $18,000, says a diner who was there. The host, Norman Hsu, was a businessman that the crowd admired but knew little about. In the past few weeks, much more has become known about Mr. Hsu: That he had filed for bankruptcy twice, including a time in 1990 when he said he had no...

• He's charged, too: Police say she was seeking revenge after he abused her A West Dundee woman faces felony charges in Kane County after attacking her husband's pet lizards, killing one and severely injuring the other, authorities said Friday. A grand jury this week indicted Sara Tinsley, 37, of the 500 block of South Second Street, with one count each of cruelty to animals and aggravated cruelty to animals for allegedly throwing one of the reptiles against the wall and stabbing the other with a butcher knife. Authorities say it was an act of vengeance against her husband, who...

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson is turning up the rhetoric in a fight with Lansing over a proposal to reclassify 200 felonies as misdemeanors. If it happens, he says, "everybody should go out and buy a gun. I recommend an Uzi."

A major pro-gun group took aim at award-winning Boston Globe business columnist Steve Bailey yesterday, saying he violated federal law while researching a 2005 anti-gun column and should be fired. The Second Amendment Foundation, which is based in Bellevue, Wash., said it sent a letter to Globe Editor Martin Baron yesterday citing previously undisclosed details about the column, which described a gun purchase. Bailey provided new details of the purchase Tuesday on former House Speaker Tom Finneran’s WRKO AM-680 radio show. Bailey said he gave a New Hampshire man money to buy a gun at a gun show and expensed...

SPECIAL REPORT: Judge Reminds PETA That Dognapping Is A Felony June 27, 2007 Yesterday, the latest People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) employee to run afoul of the law made her get-out-of-jail-free arguments before a Virginia judge. It didn’t go too well. At the end of a 90-minute “probable cause” hearing in the aptly named town of Courtland, Virginia, PETA worker Andrea Florence Benoit stood charged with the October 2006 felony theft of a hunting dog. And we learned a great deal more about this disturbing case, and just how far PETA will go to substitute its judgment...

THIS TAPE IS EVIDENCE OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE FRAUD Clear evidence is now available for all to see. Hillary Clinton and her agents solicited, participated, and coordinated an illegal hard money, in-kind, $1.6 million donation from Peter Paul. For six years, her attorney, spokesholes, and hired political thugs have denied that she did anything wrong. David Kendall has been saying she fully cooperated. That is simply not true. To the best of our knowledge neither she nor Kelly Craighead has testified before the FEC. Neither of them was called in the David Rosen criminal case. That case was a sham...

Handing out anti-gay fliers is apparently a risky act in Crystal Lake, Illinois. A 16-year-old girl who did so was charged with a felony hate crime and held without bail at a juvenile detention center for more than two weeks. Then the judge relented and let her go home. But the girl is being treated like a dangerous mafia chieftain: she was brought to court in leg shackles, she wears an electronic ankle device, and her phone calls and Internet use are being monitored. Her trial starts on Tuesday, June 5. One of her friends, also 16, will be tried...

The visit to the Middle East, and to Syria in particular, by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has provoked mixed reactions in the Arab world. Some wrote that Pelosi's visit challenged the foreign policy of the Bush administration, and that it had improved the U.S.'s image in the Arab and Muslim world. Others took a more skeptical approach, denying that the visit had made any major change. Still others were highly critical, and accused Pelosi of damaging the cause of democracy in Syria. Syrian Journalist: Pelosi Has Opened the Door to a Syria-U.S. Dialogue Pelosi's visit was well received in...

“I come back thinking, all right, we will get through their tantrum,” Ms. Pelosi said, in a reference to the administration, “but the fact is, we accomplished what we set out to do. I think we improved the understanding among the different parties.”

The two 14-year-old Meridian High School students are charged as adults in connection with the attack of a 14-year-old classmate last month.

Excerpt - NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and two other prominent Democrats have failed to disclose they are officers of family charities, in violation of a law requiring members of Congress to report non-profit leadership roles, USA Today reported in its Monday editions. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, and Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana also did not report they serve as family foundation directors, according to financial disclosure reports examined by USA TODAY. All three foundations are funded and controlled by the lawmakers and their spouses, and do not solicit donations from...

DETROIT — In a ruling sure to make philandering spouses squirm, Michigan's second-highest court has said anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.

Former national security adviser Sandy Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector general reported Wednesday. The report was issued more than a year after Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removal of the documents. Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he said it was possible he threw them in his office trash. The report said that when Archives employees first suspected that Berger _ who had been President Clinton's national security adviser _...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Two Florida fraternity brothers were convicted of felony hazing Friday in a trial seen as a test of a new law restricting the practice, but jurors were unable to reach a verdict on three other defendants. The five Kappa Alpha Psi brothers at Florida A&M University, the first people charged under the anti-hazing law, were accused of punching an aspiring member, Marcus Jones, 20, of Decatur, Ga., and beating his buttocks with canes during an initiation, or aiding those who did. Jurors found former chapter president Michael Morton, 23, and Jason Harris, 23, guilty of breaking a...

October 7, 2006 New York -- Six officials of the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club stole $1.2 million from the group, money meant for needy kids and seniors, a city probe has found. Investigations Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn calls it "disgusting" - the worst case of wrongdoing by a non-profit contractor she's seen since taking office. Thank goodness the thieves will be going to jail for a very long time - and paying back every cent, and then some. Well, actually, that's not quite true. In fact, nobody is going to jail. Not even for a single day. And...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - A California court issued arrest warrants Wednesday for former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, former senior counsel Kevin Hunsaker and three private investigators tied to the technology giant's pretexting scandal after they were charged with felonies in connection with the H-P boardroom leak scandal. The five are charged with fraudulent wire communications, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft and conspiracy. ~ snip ~

See for example this thread first. Two men jailed for beating a duck A clear case of "On Stupid--Stuck!" The bird met its fate For stealing their bait ...but really, who gives a ...cluck.

Around here, Democrats will make a statement about their attitudes on ethics and law and order. Local activist liberals recruited Donovan Riley to run against incumbent Democrat State Senator Jeff Plale because Plale is insufficiently red-meat: he supports school choice, is pro-life, and supports allowing law-abiding citizens to apply for conceal carry permits. For these outrageous positions, the left has targeted Plale for defeat. Two problems: Riley didn’t live in the district (which includes the East Side and South Side suburbs); and apparently engaged in voter fraud. He is running on the slogan “A Democrat who will vote like one,”...

Just a question for knowledgable Freepers. A few years ago I was arrested for driving with a suspended license. When all was said and done, and fines paid, my lawyer said I'd have a (?) felony on my record. Before this, all I ever had for a record were some speeding tickets and an accident all many years past. There were no other extenuating circumstances. No DUI, or drug possesion. I had a head light out, and the cop pulled me over. During the background check, it was discovered I had a suspended license. Which I didn't know about. It...

Jose Lazo overcame a childhood as an illegal immigrant, an education in alternative schools and the collapse of Enron Corp. But Lazo, 21, a nationally known spokesman for displaced Enron workers, may not be able to overcome a specter from his past. After rising from a life of poverty to a $40,000-a-year job straight out of high school, Lazo now faces deportation back to his native El Salvador because he impregnated a 13-year-old fellow student when he was 17. The girl insisted the sex was consensual, and the two are now married, but that did not prevent him from being...

Many gun owners fear that Ohio's open carry requirements in a car are going to get someone killed one day. Just last week, another incident played out that demonstrates just how dangerous the mindset of "man with a gun equals criminal" could be for law abiding gun owners. Recently, a concealed handgun license holder was pulled over in Oregon, Ohio (near Toledo) after leaving a gas station. He was ordered out of his vehicle by police conducting a "felony traffic stop", eventually had to crawl out of his window (his doors were locked and he was ordered to keep his...