Trayvon Martin Had Drugs in System, Autopsy Found
Trayvon Martin, 17, was fatally shot by neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman. (ABC News)(SANFORD, Fla.) — Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old who was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, had the drug THC in his system the night of his death, according to new information obtained by ABC News.
The revelation came as prosecutors in the case prepared to release to the public hundreds of pages of new evidence along with videos and crime scene photos.
Martin’s death sparked public outrage after police released Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman, without any criminal charges for the killing.
Zimmerman, 28, a multi-racial Hispanic man who shot the black high school junior at close range on Feb. 26, claimed self-defense, though Martin was unarmed. Zimmerman was later charged with second-degree murder, and the killing provoked widespread debate about racial profiling.
The autopsy report shows traces of the drug THC, which is found in marijuana, in Martin’s blood and urine.
The autopsy also shows that Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance of between one inch and 18 inches away, bolstering Zimmerman’s claim that he shot Martin during a struggle that landed Zimmerman on his back, Martin straddling him and banging Zimmerman’s head on the ground.
Martin’s autopsy report also revealed that there was a quarter-inch by half-inch abrasion on the left fourth finger of Martin, another indication of a possible struggle. The teen, who lived in Miami, was in Sanford while serving a suspension for a bag of marijuana being discovered in his possession.
Later Thursday, a trove of documents that are part of the discovery in Zimmerman’s trial are expected to be released on a website run by the state’s attorney, including 67 CDs’ worth of documents, video of Martin on the night of the shooting, his autopsy report and videos of Zimmerman’s questioning by police.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Justice Breyer Is Robbed Again
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has been robbed again. This time a housekeeper discovered that his Georgetown home had been burglarized while no one was home on May 4. The D.C. police is currently investigating the matter, a court spokesperson said.
It was only in February that Breyer was robbed at knifepoint in his vacation home on the Caribbean island of Nevis.
He’s not the first Supreme Court justice to become a victim of crime. In 2004, Justice David Souter was mugged while jogging, and in 1966, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had her purse snatched.
Supreme Court Justices receive government protection when outside Washington, D.C., and when traveling abroad, from the U.S. Marshals Service.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
John Edwards Was a ‘Bad Husband,’ Not a Criminal, Lawyer Argues
Sara D. Davis/Getty Images(GREENSBORO, N.C.) — John Edwards was a bad husband who cheated on his wife while she died of cancer, but he never broke the law, his lawyer said in closing arguments Thursday.
The prosecution said Edwards was more than a bad husband. The former presidential candidate was the chief architect of a criminal scheme to illegally use campaign contributions to cover up the love affair.
Edwards, 58, is on trial for allegedly using nearly $1 million in donations from wealthy donors Fred Baron and Rachel “Bunny” Mellon to keep secret his affair with mistress Rielle Hunter in order to protect his 2008 presidential ambitions and later his hopes of winning a spot as vice president or attorney general. The jury is being asked to decide whether the money was political donations used to dupe the government or gifts from friends who helped Edwards fool his wife. If convicted, Edwards could be sentenced to as much as 30 years in prison.
John Edwards remained unemotional during closing arguments, much the way he has throughout the trial, keeping his chin pressed against his crossed hands, and only occasionally looking at the jury.
Edwards never took the stand in his own defense. Nor did jurors hear directly from Rielle Hunter.
Edwards’ defense lasted just three days and consisted mostly of a forensic accounting of bank statements and phone records. That testimony contrasted sharply with three weeks of prosecution witness who detailed Edwards’ sordid affair, but never said Edwards had any direct knowledge that he was violating campaign finance laws.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
American Terrorist’s Mom Wants Him Back Home
FBI(WASHINGTON) — An Alabama mother whose son joined an al Qaeda group in Africa said she can’t turn her back on her boy even though he advocates attacking America and hasn’t been in direct contact with her in years.
“If I could touch him for five minutes, I would be thrilled,” Debra Hammami of Daphne, Ala. said of her son Omar who this week published a 127-page account of his road to terrorism from a small town in the American South.
“The silence has been devastating,” she told ABC News. “I don’t agree with the ideology of any of that, but I do love my son and I do have that motherly love.”
Her son’s account, “American Jihadist,” comes two months after he released a video online in which he said he feared for his life after a falling out with other members of the al Qaeda group, called al-Shabaab. In the document he describes the roles and deaths of numerous Americans, mostly from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, who also joined with the al Qaeda group.
“Minnesota represented!” he writes. “Those Minnesota brother have almost all left their mark on the [jihad] and most have them received martyrdom; while the rest are still waiting [sic].”
Debra Hammami said that even though she doesn’t agree with what her son has become, the memoir was something of a comfort considering it’s the fullest account yet of what her 27-year-old has been doing in the shadows for the last few years. The two have had no direct contact since he disappeared in 2006 after telling his family he was going to Dubai for work and instead headed to the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
Omar Hammami, who later took on the moniker Abu Mansoor al-Amriki or “The American,” recounts in his book his arrival in Somalia and how he fumbled his way through the city for days before meeting the militants he hoped to join.
“At any rate, I took them to the house and they told me that they were the Shabaab… and that they had come to take me to the place of the mujihadeen,” Hammami says in the book. “I was extremely excited again.”
Hammami describes the training he received, including from one instructor just called “The Spy,” and joked that the American drones buzz overhead a “racist” against the white people in Somalia.
“They just want to kill off every white [fighter] they can,” he says.
Throughout, Hammami is unrepentant for his decision to join the jihad and for his calls for violence against the West.
Amended to the book are his answers to questions posed by a journalist. When he is asked if he has any final remarks, Hammami just says, “Viva la Revolution!”
For her part, Debra Hammami said she still fears for her son’s life and wants him back home.
“It is very devastating, [but] it’s a day to day process,” she said. “But I do love my son. I have that motherly love.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Mary Richardson Kennedy’s Death Attributed to Hanging
Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) — Mary Richardson Kennedy, the wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., died of asphyxiation by hanging, according to New York’s Westchester County Medical Examiner’s office.
Mary Richardson Kennedy’s body was found Wednesday in an outbuilding on the couple’s property in Bedford, N.Y. Her death marked the final event in a life that had turned tumultuous of late and adds yet another dark moment to the Kennedy family’s history.
Kennedy, 52, had four children with her husband, the son of Robert and Ethel Kennedy, to whom she’d been married for 16 years.
In September 2007, the Westchester Journal News reported that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., worried about his wife’s mental state, had tried to drive her to a psychologist’s office. She resisted and ran from the car into the road, according to police reports.
The couple filed for divorce in 2010, a day after police arrived at the couple’s Bedford home in response to a “domestic incident” during which Mary Kennedy was allegedly intoxicated, according to the Journal News.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
MLK Black Face Causes Stir At School
KRDO/ABC News(DENVER) — A second grader was removed from school by his parents after the principal objected to him showing up in black face to do a presentation on the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Sean King had a vision for his project, part of “Wax Museum Day” at Meridian Ranch Elementary School in Peyton, Colo., said his mother Michelle King-Roca.
“He said, ‘Mom, I want to wear a black suit because that’s what he wore, a black tie, a white shirt and also I want to do my face black and wear a mustache,” she told ABC affiliate KRDO.
As parents and their pint-sized historical figures waited to file into a classroom on Wednesday, the principal asked King-Roca to remove her son’s make-up, she said.
Instead, she ignored the request and waited for Sean’s presentation.
King-Roca said she was then called to the principal’s office where she, her husband and Sean had a discussion with three school officials. Unsatisfied with the situation, King-Roca pulled her son out of school for the day.
School officials could not be reached for comment, but blackface has historically been used by minstrel shows and burlesque for offensive caricatures of black people.
School officials told KRDO the principal was just doing her job.
“When other students are offended by something, it is the principal’s role that the educational environment is safe for all students,” said school spokesperson Stephanie Meredith.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Historic Mining Town Forced to Evacuate as Arizona Wildfires Rage On
Hemera Technologies/Thinkstock(MAYER, Ariz.) — Firefighters in Arizona are battling a growing problem, as high winds overnight caused a handful of wildfires to nearly triple in size.
“The next three days are critical in fire weather, as far as the winds that are coming through,” said incident fire official Karen Takai. “We have a lot of concerns about how the fire is going to move and what is going to happen.”
The so-called Gladiator fire in central Arizona is being considered the most dangerous of the four fires currently burning in the state. It has consumed more than 5,400 acres and has forced the evacuation of the historic mining town of Crown King.
Fire officials told ABC News on Thursday that the fire burning near Crown King appears to be growing away from the tiny town and firefighters have become increasingly confident that they will be able to save it. Crown King is situated southwest of the fire, and the wind is currently blowing north.
But shifting 35-mile per hour winds have made the path of the fire tough to predict, officials said earlier.
“They’re still not out of the woods,” said Michelle Fiddler of the southwest incident management team. “This is still an ongoing fire and conditions change periodically.”
“At this point the fire’s progressed into more remote areas where it’s more challenging to get to,” she said.
“Our strategy all along has been to corral this fire, keep it small, put it out,” Fiddler explained. “Unfortunately the winds have really worked against us and its pretty steep, rugged terrain in there.”
About 400 firefighters are trying to contain the blaze and officials say the fire is unusually dangerous. It’s not just the smoke and heat that have officials concerned; the area is known for rattlesnakes and abandoned mines.
A much larger fire, the so-called Sunflower fire, has burned approximately 12,500 acres, but is burning in a much more remote location. That fire is 10 percent contained.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
More Minorities than Whites Having Babies in the US
Comstock Images/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — For the first time since it began keeping records, the Census Bureau reported on Thursday that more babies are being born collectively to Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed races than to white families.
During the 12-month period that ended in July 2011, births of minority babies reached 50.4 percent compared to 49.6 percent for non-Hispanic whites.
It’s expected that whites will remain the majority until mid-century. However, William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, described the ongoing shift to The New York Times as a “transformation from a mostly white baby boomer culture to the more globalized multiethnic country that we are becoming.”
Census Bureau figures reveal there are nearly 350 U.S. counties in which whites are no longer in the majority. Minorities have become the majority in four states and the District of Columbia, as well as large metro areas that include New York, Las Vegas and Memphis.
This changing face of the nation has already started a generational divide, with young minorities on one side and older white people on the other.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Counterterrorism Director Addresses Terror Threats, Media Leaks, Wiretapping
Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, broadly addressed counterterrorism issues speaking before the American Bar Association’s standing Committee on Law and National Security Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
Olsen used his speech to push for renewal of sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which will expire at the end of the year. Recently Olsen and FBI Director Robert Mueller have been saying the impact of not renewing the FISA amendments would leave the U.S. defenseless in the counterterrorism realm by not being able to intercept certain overseas communications.
Olsen said that core al Qaeda leaders are having difficulty communicating with operatives. Repeating the analysis of Mueller and other top intelligence community officials Olsen cited AQAP as the most active and dangerous of the al Qaeda affiliates.
Olsen said that the intelligence community is taking action to locate AQAP’s bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri, noting the bomb maker is “a very important person for us to find out where he is and to take appropriate action.”
On the issue of homegrown terrorism Olsen said the intelligence and law enforcement community face “real obstacles on the homegrown side,” citing the difficulty in detecting lone extremists who may not provide typical warning indicators of terrorist activity.
In a question-and-answer session, Olsen also addressed the issue of media leaks relating to the recent bomb plot and called it “devastating.” “Leaks do endanger people’s lives…that is not an exaggeration,” Olsen said.
One reporter questioned Olsen about his preference for using drones to neutralize terrorist threats, or if he favored capture and interrogation. Olsen responded saying, “I have a strong preference for gaining intelligence. That is our goal…we need to always take advantage of whatever opportunities we have to interrogate.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Pentagon Faces New Enemy: 10,000 Honey Bees?
Digital Vision/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — There were chuckles all around the Pentagon Wednesday as an alert notice appeared on computers warning building employees a swarm of bees had parked themselves outside an entrance to the building. The swarm of about 10,000 European honey bees landed on the branch of a small tree just outside the Pentagon’s Mall Entrance.
By coincidence, a short time later a fire alarm led to the evacuation of a portion of the building. On the way out of the building a Pentagon employee was overheard saying, “I wonder if it’s the swarm of bees?”
Turns out, the two events were not connected, but they piqued journalists’ interest in the “hive” of activity at the entrance.
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A short time later, another building notification told building employees that bee specialists had been called in to deal with the bee swarm at that entrance.
Some amateur beekeepers who work at the Pentagon and who, after seeing the internal alerts had shown up to assist the local beekeeper, called to resolve the situation. The beekeeper cut off a portion of the branch and placed it in a cardboard box with the expectation that most would follow their queen bee into the box.
Air Force Lt. Col. Craig Bucher was one of the amateur beekeepers who had arrived to help. With the bees safely in the box, he planned to take them home and share them with fellow bee enthusiasts.
“Now that we have the hive,” Bucher said, “I’m in touch with others in the area who would really jump at the opportunity to incorporate it in their home.
“I’m going to take this hive home with me and then put the word out to someone who can hopefully give them a good home,” he said.
Bucher explained that the swarm of bees had likely split off from another hive and followed a new queen bee to look for a new home. He said that typically a mature hive would have between 30,000 to 50,000 bees so the Pentagon swarm might have numbered 10,000.
He estimated that the bees who’d landed on the tree “had stopped to rest” there as they were looking for a new home.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Estranged Wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, Dead
Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s estranged wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, has died at age 52, apparently committing suicide by hanging herself, multiple sources told ABC News.
“We deeply regret the death of our beloved sister Mary, whose radiant and creative spirit will be sorely missed by those who loved her,” Mary Kennedy’s family said in a statement released through her lawyer. “Our heart goes out to her children who she loved without reservation.”
Bedford, N.Y., police responded to the Kennedy home in Mount Kisco, N.Y., at 1:36 p.m. Wednesday to investigate a “possible unattended death,” according a news release. While police would not identify the person who died, the house is listed under the names of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mary Kennedy on property reports.
“Responding officers confirm that a deceased individual has been located inside an out building on that property,” the statement said. “At this time, the Bedford Police Department is not releasing the identity of that individual until notification to family members has been made.”
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The incident is under investigation by the Bedford Police Department with assistance from the Westchester County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Mary Kennedy appeared to have hung herself, a family member told ABC News.
Mary Kennedy was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s second wife and the couple had four children together. The couple was married for 16 years before a divorce filing in 2010.
“Mary inspired our family with her kindness, her love, her gentle soul and generous spirit,” Kennedy Jr.’s family said in a prepared statement. “Mary was a genius at friendship, a tremendously gifted architect and a pioneer and relentless advocate of green design who enhanced her cutting edge, energy efficient creations with exquisite taste and style. She applied her talent, energy and passion which were both brilliant and abundant, to advocacy for treatment and finding a cure for food allergies and asthma. She was an instrumental co-founder and driving force of the Food Allergy Initiative to which contributions may be made in her name.”
Kennedy Jr. is the son of former Sen. Robert Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
In 2010, Kennedy Jr. filed for divorce, according to the Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., a day after Bedford police responded to the Kennedy home for a “domestic incident” during which Mary Kennedy allegedly was intoxicated.
Three days later, Mary Kennedy was stopped outside of a school after she steered her Volvo station wagon over a curb, according to the Journal News. She was charged with driving while intoxicated after her blood alcohol level was reported to be 0.11 percent, above the legal limit of 0.08 percent. She pleaded guilty to driving while impaired, the paper reported, and her license was suspended.
The next month, August 2010, she was arrested again for driving under the influence of drugs.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Annular Solar Eclipse 2012: Visible in West on Sunday
PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Enjoy the sun. If you live along a narrow band across the southwestern United States, Sunday afternoon will bring the rare treat of an annular solar eclipse — a ring of sunlight as the new moon, passing between Earth and the Sun, blocks most, but not all, of the Sun’s disc.
Mind you, this is not the kind of eclipse of which you usually see pictures — the moon blocking the sun completely, creating a few moments of near-night in the middle of the day, with only the sun’s ethereal corona visible around the moon’s edges. The sky will darken a bit, but there will still be a blindingly bright ring (an “annulus” in Latin) of sun, and it’s dangerous to look directly at it.
Still, there will be a striking sight to see, if you look at a heavily-filtered image projected onto a screen through binoculars or a small telescope, or protect your eyes with No. 14 arcwelders glass (not something found at most hardware stores).
The ring will be visible Sunday afternoon in a strip that begins on the California-Oregon coast and stretches southeastward across Reno, Nev., the Grand Canyon, and Albuquerque, N.M., and ends at sunset near Lubbock, Texas.
Why this rare annular eclipse? Because the moon, constant in size as it appears, does not move in a perfect circle around us. Its orbit is slightly elliptical. On average, it’s about 239,000 miles away, but at its closest it comes within about 225,000 miles of us. At its farthest — as it will be Sunday — it’s a little more than 250,000 miles away. It’s just enough of a difference so that the moon will only cover 88 percent of the sun.
The Interior Department points out that a number of national parks — Redwoods and Lassen in California, Zion in Utah, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona, Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico — will all be at the center of the eclipse path.
But if you’re in the eclipse path, you really just need a place with a good clear view westward. You may want to go to a local observatory or planetarium, where viewing parties are likely.
And if you don’t feel like investing in welder’s glasses, you may be happy — seriously — with a piece of paper, or leafy trees around you. Prick a small hole in the paper and it will act as a tiny lens, projecting a miniscule image of the sun onto the pavement. Likewise, take advantage of the natural pinholes in many leaves. As the eclipse approaches maximum, look down, not up. If you’re lucky, you’ll see hundreds of little eclipse images dancing on the ground beneath your feet.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
John Edwards Defense Dealt a Blow By Judge’s Ruling
Sketch by Christine Cornell(GREENSBORO, N.C.) — John Edwards rested his case Wednesday, but his defense was dealt a blow when the federal judge said she will set a lower bar than Edwards’ legal team had sought for convicting the former presidential candidate of violating the federal campaign finance law.
The judge’s decision about how she will instruct the jury came just hours after Edwards’ lawyers ended their case, not with the bang of the candidate and his mistress testifying, but with a series of bank statements, phone records and Federal Election Commission memos and a final shot at the credibility of Edwards’ chief accuser.
Edwards is on trial for allegedly using nearly $1 million in donations from wealthy backers Fred Baron and Rachel “Bunny” Mellon to keep his affair with mistress Rielle Hunter secret in order to protect his presidential ambitions and later his hopes of winning a spot as vice president or attorney general. If convicted, Edwards could be sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Edwards’ lawyers hoped the case would rest in part on Judge Catherine Eagles’ interpretation of the word “the.” The statute governing illegal receipt of campaign contributions “means any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money… for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office.” The words “the purpose” suggests that in order for a conviction, the sole reason for the money would have to be to finance a presidential campaign.
Edwards’ legal team argued that his main reason for hiding his mistress was to keep the secret from his wife, Elizabeth, who was dying of breast cancer. The judge, however, decided the government will not have to prove that the sole and only purpose of the hush money was to influence the election. It could be to keep it from his wife and to influence his political chances.
Closing arguments are set to begin Thursday morning and Edwards’ lawyers will likely use them to take aim at the credibility of Edwards’ primary accuser, Andrew Young.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
40 Years Late, Vietnam Hero Leslie Sabo Gets Medal of Honor
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Forty-two years after his selfless act of heroism during the Vietnam War saved the lives of his fellow soldiers, Army Specialist Leslie H. Sabo Jr. posthumously received the Medal of Honor Wednesday.
“This Medal of Honor is bestowed on a single soldier for his singular courage. But it speaks to the service of an entire generation, and to the sacrifice of so many military families,” President Obama said in a White House ceremony before presenting the nation’s highest decoration for valor to Sabo’s widow and brother.
Sabo, then 22, died on May 10, 1970, as his patrol was ambushed near a remote border area of Cambodia. The attack by North Vietnamese troops killed seven of Sabo’s fellow soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division and would come to be known as the “Mother’s Day ambush.”
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“Les was in the rear — and he could have stayed there. But those fighters were unloading on his brothers,” Obama said. “So Les charged forward and took several of those fighters out.”
When an enemy grenade landed near a wounded comrade, Sabo used his body to shield the soldier from the blast as he tossed the grenade out of the way. Even though he had been wounded by automatic weapons fire, Sabo “did something extraordinary,” Obama said. “He began to crawl straight toward an enemy bunker, its machine guns blazing.”
“Les kept crawling, kept pulling himself along, closer to that bunker, even as the bullets hit the ground all around him. And then, he grabbed a grenade and he pulled the pin. It’s said he held that grenade and didn’t throw it until the last possible moment, knowing it would take his own life, but knowing he could silence that bunker. And he did. He saved his comrades, who meant more to him than life,” Obama said.
Sabo’s commanders nominated him for the Medal of Honor, but the request was somehow lost. “Four decades after Leslie’s sacrifice, we can set the record straight,” Obama said Wednesday.
“Leslie Sabo left behind a wife who adored him, a brother who loved him, parents who cherished him, and family and friends who admired him. But they never knew. For decades, they never knew their Les had died a hero. The fog of war, and paperwork that seemed to get lost in the shuffle, meant this story was almost lost to history,” the president said.
A campaign to correct the oversight began in 1999 when Tony Mabb, a researcher for the 101st Airborne Division Association’s magazine, came across a thick file of Sabo’s paperwork in the National Archives. Mabb contacted members of Congress, who worked to extend the statute of limitations for nominations for the Medal of Honor so Sabo’s case could be reviewed. Nominations for the medal usually had to be made within three years of the incident.
After legislation was passed in 2008 that eliminated that hurdle, the Army’s recommendation that Sabo should receive the Medal of Honor was forwarded to the White House in 2010. The White House announced in April that President Obama would posthumously award Sabo the medal.
The president Wednesday personally thanked Mabb for his determination to “right this wrong.”
Sabo emigrated with his family from Austria as a toddler. He met Rose Mary Brown at a high school football game. They dated for two years and were married in 1969, after he received his draft notice.
The 30 days of Army leave he took before being deployed overseas were the only time he and his wife would spend together as a married couple before he was killed in action the following May.
Brown was visibly shaken Wednesday as the president, standing with his arm around her, presented her with her husband’s Medal of Honor. As she wiped away tears, Obama leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Afterwards, an emotional Brown told reporters, “I know a piece of cloth and a medal won’t bring him back, but my heart beats with pride for Leslie.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
FBI Investigates Media Leaks in Yemen Bomb Plot
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — FBI director Robert S. Mueller III Wednesday disclosed that the FBI is investigating leaks to the news media about the recently disrupted plot by al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate to smuggle a bomb designed to be concealed in underwear onto a U.S.-bound jet.
A day after the plot was first reported, it was revealed that the individual at the center of the plot was a double agent working for Britain’s MI-6 secret intelligence service and the CIA along with Saudi Arabian intelligence assets.
“We have initiated an investigation into this leak,” Mueller testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. “Leaks such as this threaten ongoing operations, puts at risk the lives of sources, makes it much more difficult to recruit sources, and damages our relationships with our foreign partners.”
“Leaks such as this have a — I don’t want to overuse the word ‘devastating’ — but have a huge impact on our ability to do our business, not just on a particular source and the threat to the particular source, but your ability to recruit sources is severely hampered,” Mueller said, describing the implications of the leak of sensitive national security information.
Mueller continued, “In cases such as this, your — the relationship with your counterparts overseas are damaged [sic] which means that an inhibition in the willingness of others to share information with us where they don’t think that information will remain secure. So it also has some long-term effects, which is why it is so important to make certain that the persons who are responsible for the leak are brought to justice.”
The investigation is likely being run by the Justice Department’s counterespionage section and agents from the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
Justice Department officials and an FBI spokesman declined to comment on the nature of the investigation. The CIA also declined comment.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is also conducting a review with the DNI’s general counsel to see if the leaks originated in any of the 16 agencies that DNI director James Clapper oversees.
Earlier in the day Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, addressed the issue of media leaks relating to the plot and called it “devastating.”
“Leaks do endanger people’s lives…that is not an exaggeration,” Olsen said, speaking before the American Bar Association’s standing Committee on Law and National Security, in Washington, D.C.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Two Years Later, Hole-In-One Contest Winner Still Waiting for Money
Troy Peissig taking the ball out of the hole after his hole-in-one shot for charity. (Courtesy of Troy Peissig)(HELENA, Mont) — Troy Peissig remembers the “second of disbelief” when he realized he had won $18,000 at a charity hole-in-one event. Two years later, the Montana man said he is in disbelief for another reason — he hasn’t been paid.
“We’ve been through two years of headaches trying to deal with a company that hasn’t called us back and when they did call us they weren’t nice people. You could tell something was going on,” Peissig, 30, a former golf teacher, told ABC News.
State authorities took the unusual step last week of issuing a warrant for Kevin Kolenda, the operator of Hole-In-Won.com, the golf insurance site that promised the payout. Kolenda is wanted on charges of felony insurance fraud and misdemeanor selling insurance without a license.
Kolenda has been sanctioned in Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina and Washington. In 2009, he was fined $5.9 million by Connecticut regulators.
ABC News tried multiple times to reach Kolenda for comment. He did not respond.
Seven months after scoring an ace, Peissig thought he’d finally receive his payout. He said he was contacted by a woman named Amanda from Hole-In-One.com, who said his check was on the way.
Instead, when Peissig opened his mailbox he found a denial letter from the company.
The golf insurance operator claimed hole 12 at the Missoula Country Club, where Peissig scored his hole-in-one, fell short of the 165-yard minimum required in the policy contract, a claim refuted by investigators who determined the club had lengthened its typically 130-yard hole to meet Kolenda’s requirement.
That beautiful swing on a par-three hole at the Missoula Country Club was a moment Peissig will never forget, even if it has been soured.
“I teed the ball up and took a really good swing at it. It was a blast. It was incredible. I was with my dad that day, which was cool,” he said.
Peissig said finally receiving the winnings would be huge, since he just became a new father.
“It would be great. We just had our first child last year so starting a new family it would really help out. For a young family $18,000 is a game changer in Montana,” he said. “But then you look at the reports on this guy and I think it would be great for him not to be able to not do this to anyone else.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Steven Powell Found Guilty of Voyeurism Charges
ABC News(TACOMA, Wash.) — Steven Powell, the father-in-law of missing woman Susan Powell, was found guilty of voyeurism in a Washington court Wednesday for taking inappropriate images of neighborhood girls using the bathroom and showering.
The Pierce County, Wash., jury found Powell guilty of all 14 counts of voyeurism after only six and a half hours of deliberations.
He could be sentenced to nearly five years on each of the 14 counts. If he got the maximum, he could go to prison for 70 years. Prosecutors said they will seek an “exceptional” sentence for Powell.
Powell, 67, was arrested in November 2011 after Utah police searched the home he shared with his son, Josh, and grandchildren, as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Josh’s wife, Susan Cox Powell.
Josh was the only named person of interest in the investigation, sparking a two-year war of the words between Josh and his father, Steven, and Susan’s parents and the police that investigated the case.
Steven and Josh publicly threatened to post Susan’s girlhood diaries to a website, sparking the police raid on the house in September 2011 to obtain the diaries. The search yielded dozens of computer disks that contained images of women and young girls that focused on their private parts, according to prosecutors.
Following Steven Powell’s arrest, Josh Powell lost custody of his two sons and later killed the boys and himself in a fiery explosion at his home during a supervised visit.
During the trial, the jury saw images of two neighborhood girls, ages 8 and 10, that Powell was alleged to have taken from his bedroom window, which faced the bathroom of the girls’ home in back of his home. They were also shown pictures of Powell engaged in sexual activity, and read a journal entry in which Powell disclosed his interest in taking pictures of women.
Powell wrote that he enjoyed “taking video shots of pretty girls in shorts and skirts of every age,” but enjoyed images of Susan Powell the most.
Images of Susan Powell were also found on Steven Powell’s computer disks, but they were not admitted into evidence because the charges focused on the invasion of privacy of the two neighborhood girls.
Investigators working on the Susan Powell case asked to talk to Steven Powell about the case following Josh’s death, but he has denied those requests.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, Dead
Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s estranged wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, is dead, sources told ABC News. The cause of death is unknown.
The couple was married for 16 years before Kennedy Jr. filed for divorce in 2010.
Mary Kennedy, 52, was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s second wife and the couple has four children together.
Kennedy Jr. is the son of former Sen. Robert Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
Bedford, N.Y., police announced an “unattended death,” but did not release the identity of the person who died, saying it still had to notify family members.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Police On Alert After Man Points Gun at Children Boarding School Bus
File photo. iStockphoto/Thinkstock(ATLANTA) — Roughly 150 police officers in an Atlanta suburb are on full alert after witnesses say they saw a man pointing a rifle at school children boarding buses on Monday.
Clayton County School spokesman David Waller says the incident occurred around 7 a.m. when two neighbors saw a man lying on the ground next to a bus stop, wearing a ski mask and holding a rifle.
“The suspect raised the rifle to his shoulder as if he were preparing to shoot, and one of the men yelled out at him,” Waller said. “While one man yelled and called police, the other man ran after him.”
That’s when the suspect pulled out a handgun and fired at the man running toward him.
“He stopped, and the suspect dropped his rifle and took off,” Waller said.
When police arrived on the scene, they found the loaded rifle along with a notebook filled with numbers.
Waller believes the groups of numbers in the notebook coincide with school buses that move through the area.
“It is a worry,” said Waller. “We certainly don’t want anybody to panic. But when somebody points a loaded rifle at a school bus, it’s always a cause for great concern.”
Police are now riding school buses and guarding each stop.
Clayton County Police Officer Phong Nguyen says the suspect has been described as between 18 and 25 years of age.
“We don’t know who the subject is right now, so we don’t know motives and intentions,” Nguyen said. “A witness stated that’s what he saw and that’s what we’re going by.”
Police are currently canvassing the neighborhood and escorting school buses. They will continue to do so until the end of the day on Friday, which also happens to be the end of the school year.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Controversial Teacher and Student Appear in Court Together
ABC News(MODESTO, Calif.) — The California high school teacher and student who left their families to date one another have appeared side-by-side in court for a hearing on sex abuse charges filed against the teacher.
James Hooker, 41, and his girlfriend Jordan Powers, 18, were photographed holding hands as they entered and left the Modesto, Calif., courtroom Tuesday where a hearing was held for Hooker on charges that he sexually assaulted another student 14 years ago.
The couple had reportedly separated after Hooker was arrested April 6 after police discovered he had an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student in 1998.
“He called me from jail and yes, I told him that we’re done,” Powers told ABC News in an exclusive interview the day after his arrest. “I lost everything for this guy. I lost my senior year. I gave up all my friends at high school because they didn’t agree with me.”
Just a few weeks later, however, on April 17 Powers told a Sacramento TV reporter who knocked on the door at Hooker’s apartment that the couple was back together.
Hooker is also under investigation for his involvement with Powers, his former business class student.
It was Powers’ mother, Tammie Powers, who reported an alleged inappropriate relationship between them, citing phone records showing long, late-night phone calls and more than 8,000 text messages between the couple, which began before her daughter turned 18.
The couple drew national attention after appearing on national TV programs earlier in March to profess their love, days after Hooker quit his job as a teacher at Enochs High School in order to move into an apartment with Powers the same day. Hooker left his wife and children, including a 17-year-old daughter who also attends Enoch High School, in order to date Powers.
The couple has said that their relationship evolved over time and did not become romantic until Powers turned 18.
In court on Tuesday to face the 1998 charges, Hooker, switched his representation from a public defender to a private attorney, Mary Lynn Belsher, which will lead to a delay in the case, according to local ABC affiliate, News 10.
The judge agreed to Belsher’s request that the trial be moved back to allow her time to prepare the case. Hooker, who remains free on bail, will next appear in court on June 5.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Controversial Teacher and Student Appear in Court Together
ABC News(MODESTO, Calif.) — The California high school teacher and student who left their families to date one another have appeared side-by-side in court for a hearing on sex abuse charges filed against the teacher.
James Hooker, 41, and his girlfriend Jordan Powers, 18, were photographed holding hands as they entered and left the Modesto, Calif., courtroom Tuesday where a hearing was held for Hooker on charges that he sexually assaulted another student 14 years ago.
The couple had reportedly separated after Hooker was arrested April 6 after police discovered he had an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student in 1998.
“He called me from jail and yes, I told him that we’re done,” Powers told ABC News in an exclusive interview the day after his arrest. “I lost everything for this guy. I lost my senior year. I gave up all my friends at high school because they didn’t agree with me.”
Just a few weeks later, however, on April 17 Powers told a Sacramento TV reporter who knocked on the door at Hooker’s apartment that the couple was back together.
Hooker is also under investigation for his involvement with Powers, his former business class student.
It was Powers’ mother, Tammie Powers, who reported an alleged inappropriate relationship between them, citing phone records showing long, late-night phone calls and more than 8,000 text messages between the couple, which began before her daughter turned 18.
The couple drew national attention after appearing on national TV programs earlier in March to profess their love, days after Hooker quit his job as a teacher at Enochs High School in order to move into an apartment with Powers the same day. Hooker left his wife and children, including a 17-year-old daughter who also attends Enoch High School, in order to date Powers.
The couple has said that their relationship evolved over time and did not become romantic until Powers turned 18.
In court on Tuesday to face the 1998 charges, Hooker, switched his representation from a public defender to a private attorney, Mary Lynn Belsher, which will lead to a delay in the case, according to local ABC affiliate, News 10.
The judge agreed to Belsher’s request that the trial be moved back to allow her time to prepare the case. Hooker, who remains free on bail, will next appear in court on June 5.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Pennsylvania Couple Tired of Cars Crashing Into Home
File Photo. iStockphoto/Thinkstock(EASTON, Pa.) — A Pennsylvania couple has found themselves in an all-too-familiar situation this week when a car crashed into their home for the fourth time, the third time in the past six months.
Sonya and Wade Schenewolf, of Easton, Pa., were getting ready for their day on Tuesday morning when they heard a loud booming sound from outside. Unfortunately, they knew what it was before going outside. A car had hit their house, again — the third time that’s happened in just the last six months.
“My house got hit in December, my house got hit in March and my house got hit in May,” Sonya Schenewolf said with disbelief. “And a year before that, my car and my garage got hit.”
She has had serious damage to her garage, car and front porch from the various accidents.
“This is a 30 miles per hour zone. We do live on a curve and our house is close to the road, but, recently, the township put in a two-lane bridge directly across from my house,” she said. “If you come across that bridge and you don’t stop, you’re in my house.”
Schenewolf said Tuesday’s accident was caused by a speeding driver. She believes he was going approximately 65 mph in the 30 mph zone.
The couple has wanted to put a boulder in front of their house to prevent accidents from damaging their home, but they said they have been told that such an obstacle would make them liable for any damage to a rogue driver.
Tuesday’s accident happened just 15 minutes before Wade Schenewolf was about to head to his car in the driveway to leave for work.
“If we would have been in his vehicle, he would have been killed,” his wife said.
She estimates that she has $40,000 in property damages and the man who hit the house has $5,000 in property damage coverage.
The couple plans to go to township officials to fight for a boulder.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Pennsylvania Couple Tired of Cars Crashing Into Home
File Photo. iStockphoto/Thinkstock(EASTON, Pa.) — A Pennsylvania couple has found themselves in an all-too-familiar situation this week when a car crashed into their home for the fourth time, the third time in the past six months.
Sonya and Wade Schenewolf, of Easton, Pa., were getting ready for their day on Tuesday morning when they heard a loud booming sound from outside. Unfortunately, they knew what it was before going outside. A car had hit their house, again — the third time that’s happened in just the last six months.
“My house got hit in December, my house got hit in March and my house got hit in May,” Sonya Schenewolf said with disbelief. “And a year before that, my car and my garage got hit.”
She has had serious damage to her garage, car and front porch from the various accidents.
“This is a 30 miles per hour zone. We do live on a curve and our house is close to the road, but, recently, the township put in a two-lane bridge directly across from my house,” she said. “If you come across that bridge and you don’t stop, you’re in my house.”
Schenewolf said Tuesday’s accident was caused by a speeding driver. She believes he was going approximately 65 mph in the 30 mph zone.
The couple has wanted to put a boulder in front of their house to prevent accidents from damaging their home, but they said they have been told that such an obstacle would make them liable for any damage to a rogue driver.
Tuesday’s accident happened just 15 minutes before Wade Schenewolf was about to head to his car in the driveway to leave for work.
“If we would have been in his vehicle, he would have been killed,” his wife said.
She estimates that she has $40,000 in property damages and the man who hit the house has $5,000 in property damage coverage.
The couple plans to go to township officials to fight for a boulder.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
John Edwards Rests His Case Without Mistress’ Testimony
Sara D. Davis/Getty Images(GREENSBORO, N.C.) — John Edwards’ lawyers abruptly ended his defense Wednesday without hearing from the former presidential candidate or the mistress with whom he carried on an affair.
Lawyers for Edwards ended their case with a series of bank statements, phone records and Federal Election Commission memos and a final shot against the credibility of Edwards’ primary accuser, Andrew Young.
Edwards’ attorney Abbe Lowell reminded the jury that Young and his wife Cheri considered selling a sex tape they found that had been made by Edwards and his mistress Rielle Hunter.
They “had in their possession a private video of Rielle Hunter and John Edwards. They considered selling the private video,” Lowell read into the court record.
Lowell had to be asked by the court to also read the part of the statement that said the Youngs “did not sell” the tape.
Introducing the Youngs’ talk of selling the sex tape was apparently meant to leave the jury with the impression that Young, who is key to the prosecution’s case, was not a credible person.
The courtroom had been braced for blockbuster testimony from Edwards’ mistress Rielle Hunter, Edwards’s daughter Cate, or Edwards himself.
All three were on a list of possible witnesses for Wednesday, but the defense rested without calling any of them.
The evidence presented by the defense contrasts starkly with the dramatic and often emotional testimony of presented by the prosecution detailing Edwards’ attempt to keep his affair and the birth of their baby a secret, huge amounts of money spent to keep the secret hidden, his distraught wife’s discovery of the continuing affair, and the unhappy last days of Elizabeth Edwards.
The prosecution called no rebuttal witnesses, setting the stage for lawyers to make their closing arguments beginning Thursday.
Edwards is on trial for allegedly using nearly $1 million in donations from wealthy backers Fred Baron and Rachel “Bunny” Mellon to keep his affair secret to protect his presidential ambitions and later his hopes of winning a spot as vice president or attorney general.
The nearly $1 million in donations used to hide Edwards’ mistress and love child were not campaign contributions, the Federal Election Commission concluded, according to documents his defense team filed late Tuesday.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Husband of Slain Bathtub Bride on the Run in a Maserati
Joseph Devenney/Getty Images(CHICAGO) — The husband of a bride found stabbed to death in a bathtub still wearing her wedding dress is on the run from police in a 2006 Maserati, police said Wednesday.
Arnoldo Jiminez, 30, of Chicago, is wanted for the murder of his 26-year-old bride Estrella Carrera. Police believe she was killed just hours after a Friday afternoon civil ceremony at the Cook County Courthouse.
Jiminez is believed to have stabbed Carrera to death after she failed to keep the marriage a secret from her family, police said.
Carrera’s body was found Sunday afternoon by police after her family alerted authorities that she had not picked up her children on time from her sister’s house. She had multiple stab wounds and was found in a silver sequined cocktail dress in the dry bathtub, police said.
A manhunt is now under way for the 6-foot, 220-pound Jiminez, who was last known to be driving a 2006 black Maserati. Burbank police said they have no record of employment for Jiminez, and have no idea how he got a $120,000 car.
“It definitely raises questions,” said Capt. Joe Ford. “We can’t find any employment (record). It’s a very expensive car and he has no record of income.”
Ford said that it’s likely Jiminez has ditched the car in an effort to escape police, but authorities are still interested in locating the vehicle. They have received tips from people in nearby states reporting that they had spotted a black Maserati, but none of the leads have yielded Jiminez, Ford said.
Carrera worked as a translator at a social welfare agency, Ford said. The couple married Friday after a two-year relationship during which they had a child a together, a 2-year-old boy. Carrera also had an 8-year-old girl from a previous relationship.
The newlyweds went out to dinner and a club in Chicago to celebrate after the nuptials. Still, just hours later, Jiminez is believed to have stabbed Carrera to death for failing to keep the wedding a secret, according to police.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Four Decades Later, Vietnam War Hero to Receive Medal of Honor
ABC News(WASHINGTON) — Forty-two years after his selfless act of heroism during the Vietnam war saved the lives of his fellow soldiers, Army Specialist Leslie H. Sabo, Jr. will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony on Wednesday.
President Obama will present the nation’s highest decoration for valor to Sabo’s widow, Rose Mary Brown, and brother, George Sabo.
The then 22-year-old Sabo died on May 10, 1970 as his patrol was ambushed near a remote border area of Cambodia. The attack by North Vietnamese troops killed seven of Sabo’s fellow soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division and would come to be known as the “Mother’s Day ambush.”
A White House statement announcing Sabo’s receipt of the Medal of Honor in April described how Sabo gave his life that day to silence the enemy fire.
According to the release, Sabo charged enemy positions and killed several North Vietnamese fighters while drawing fire away from his unit.
Later, Sabo used his body to shield a wounded soldier from the blast of a tossed grenade. Wounded by automatic weapons fire, he crawled towards an enemy bunker and dropped a grenade that “silenced the enemy fire, but also ended Specialist Sabo’s life.”
The statement said Sabo’s “indomitable courage and complete disregard for his own safety saved the lives of many of his platoon members.”
Sabo’s commanders nominated him for the Medal of Honor, but the request may not have been properly processed and was subsequently lost.
A campaign to correct the oversight began in 1999 when Tony Mabb, a researcher for the 101st Airborne Division Association’s magazine, came across a thick file of Sabo’s paperwork in the National Archives.
Mabb contacted members of Congress who worked to extend the statute of limitations for nominations for the Medal of Honor so Sabo’s case could be reviewed. Nominations for the Medal have to be made within three years after the incident.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
John Edwards Trial Gets Documents While Awaiting Rielle Hunter
Sara D. Davis/Getty Images(GREENSBORO, N.C.) — The nearly $1 million in donations used to hide John Edwards’ mistress and love child were not campaign contributions, the Federal Election Commission concluded, according to documents filed in Edwards’ trial.
The FEC audit of Edwards’ 2008 presidential campaign was submitted to the court by Edwards’ defense team on Tuesday.
Edwards is on trial for allegedly using nearly $1 million in donations from wealthy backers Fred Baron and Rachel “Bunny” Mellon to keep his affair secret to protect his presidential ambitions and later his hopes of winning a spot as vice president or attorney general.
Edwards’ lawyers are asking the judge to admit an audio recording of the July 2011 FEC meeting when the audit was closed.
Defense lawyers say the recording shows Commissioner Donald McGahn stating, “It’s odd for me to say that the transaction is a campaign transaction” and “I’m not sure that [the monies paid by Mellon and Baron are] a reportable. Actually I can say [the monies are] not a report, in my view, not reportable.”
The commission voted unanimously to close the audit.
One of those commissioners, Scott Thomas, was on the witness stand at Edwards’ trial Tuesday morning. However, U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles would not allow Thomas to tell jurors his view on how the law applied to what Edwards’ allegedly did in 2007 and 2008. Eagles has said the jury should decide, without guidance from experts, what the purpose of the gifts were.
Attention in the courtroom on Wednesday, however, will not be on documents. Observers will be holding their breath to see if Edwards’ mistress Rielle Hunter, or even John Edwards himself, takes the stand.
Both are on the defense team’s list of possible witnesses for Wednesday, although experts are skeptical that Edwards’ lawyers are willing to put the unpredictable Hunter on the stand or would allow Edwards to be subjected to cross examination by prosecutors.
One person likely to take the stand before the defense wraps up its case this week is Edwards’ daughter Cate.
Cate Edwards, 30, has sat behind her father through almost every day of testimony leaving only when a witness described her mother Elizabeth’s emotional anguish at discovering Edwards’ illicit affair and illegitimate child.
Cate may corroborate her father’s story that the financial donations were meant as gifts to enable Edwards to hide the affair from his wife, Elizabeth, who was dying of cancer.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
More F-22 Fighter Pilots Concerned About Their Safety: Congressmen
U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Kasey Close(WASHINGTON) — Several more pilots have come forward to say they too are concerned about the oxygen problems plaguing America’s most expensive fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor, according to lawmakers.
On the same day that the Pentagon announced the Air Force had been directed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to add new safety measures to F-22 missions, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D.-Va.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R.-Ill.) told reporters that a total of nine people involved in the F-22 program — a majority of them pilots — have now contacted them directly about the troubled plane.
Kinzinger was on hand when two F-22 pilots, Josh Wilson and Jeremy Gordon, spoke out about their fears flying the F-22 in a CBS News’ 60 Minutes interview earlier this month.
As a recent ABC News investigation found, for more than four years pilots in the F-22 Raptors, which cost more than an estimated $420 million each, have reported at least 25 instances of experiencing “hypoxia-like symptoms” in mid-air. In one instance, a pilot became so disoriented by an apparent lack of oxygen that his plane dipped down and skimmed treetops before he managed to save himself, an Air Force spokesperson told ABC News.
Despite investigating the source of the problem for years — and even grounding the full fleet for nearly five months last year — the Air Force still does not know what is wrong with the planes. The service also does not know what caused the malfunction that contributed to the death of F-22 pilot Capt. Jeff Haney in November 2010.
The Air Force has said that any pilots that request not to fly the plane will not be punished, and the Virginia Air National Guard, for whom Wilson and Gordon fly, told ABC News the command would “not consider using disciplinary action as a means of reprisal” against them.
However, the congressmen and an attorney for the pilots said that Wilson still has a letter of reprimand from the Guard and could face a flying evaluation board.
“If a pilot feels uncomfortable flying this aircraft, they shouldn’t be forced to,” said Kinzinger, a veteran fighter pilot himself.
Both Kinzinger and Warner said they wanted to create a space where concerned pilots and others in the program could come forward without fear of professional reprisal.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Adam Kaufman Trial: Wife Claimed No Heath Issues, Doctor Says
ABC News(MIAMI, Fla.) — The jury hearing testimony in the murder trial of Adam Kaufman, the Florida real estate developer accused of strangling his wife to death in 2007, learned from a doctor who performed the woman’s breast augmentation months before her death that she had cited no potential medical problems, including the congestive heart failure the defense claims killed her.
Eleonora “Lina” Kaufman was found on the bathroom floor of her and her husband’s south Florida home in the early morning of Nov. 7, 2007. The prosecution alleges that the frantic 911 call placed by Adam happened moments after he strangled his wife to death. His defense attorneys say that Eleonora’s death was not murder, but a medical condition that suddenly turned deadly.
“Eleonora Kaufman did not suffer from congestive heart failure,” Dr. Tracey Baker, the plastic surgeon who performed breast augmentation on her, went on the record saying in court Tuesday.
Baker also said that he and his nurses and anestheologist did not find any cardiovascular problems while examining the 33-year-old mother of two. When asked about at any point before during or after the surgery whether there was anything unusual about the functioning of Eleonora’s heart, he testified, “she was normal.”
But when Adam Kaufman’s defense attorney, Albert Milian, cross-examined Baker, he asked whether it was possible that patients lie about their past medical conditions on paperwork at plastic surgeon offices in order to get the surgery. The doctor said that it could be possible.
Prosecutor Joe Mansfield went on to point out a long list of injuries on Eleonora’s body when she was found, which included injuries on the upper-back muscles, abrasions on and below her chin, neck, left shoulder and chest, and hemorrhages in several strap muscles in the interior of her neck.
Mansfield asked Dr. Chester Gwen, the former Miami-Dade County associate medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Eleonora Kaufman, whether such deep injuries would be anywhere near where intubation performed by medical technicians who arrived on the scene would be preformed. Gwen testified that no, the injuries would not be related.
Defense attorneys argue that many of the injuries found on Eleonora’s body were the result of her hitting her neck on a magazine rack as she fell to the bathroom floor after suffering a heart attack.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
Videos Show Susan Powell with Father-in-Law Before Disappearance
Courtesy of the Powell Family(NEW YORK) — Susan Cox Powell was pleasant and warm toward her father-in-law Steven Powell before she disappeared in 2009, in contrast to allegations that she was very wary of him, according to a new website featuring home videos and songs of the Powell family.
The website, titled West Valley and Pierce County Malfeasance, was released on Tuesday exclusively to ABC News by Steven Powell’s daughter, Alina Powell.
It was unveiled on the same day that her father’s trial on voyeurism charges went to the jury. Steven Powell is accused of filming and photographing two girls, ages 8 and 10, as they used the bathroom in the home behind Steven’s house.
The site aims to show the Powells’ side of a two-and-a-half year feud with Susan’s parents, as well as between the Powells and the police departments that investigated Susan’s disappearance.
Alina Powell said that the videos on the new website won’t affect the outcome of her father’s case, but are intended to begin offering another side of the Susan Powell story to those who are interested.
“The trial will conclude [today] one way or another,” she said. “I waited to put things out so as not to interfere with dad’s case, but I’ve long been tired of seeing people say things they don’t really know anything about. (The website) is just kind of to start putting the truth and balance into this stuff.”
Steven Powell was arrested in 2011 on charges of voyeurism and child pornography after a police search of his home yielded dozens of computer disks with images of naked women and girls.
His son, Josh Powell, who was the only named person of interest in Susan’s disappearance, later killed himself and his two sons in a fiery home explosion. The videos released on Tuesday show a rare glimpse of the boys, who were kept out of the public eye while they were alive, laughing and playing with their parents.
Among the images found in Steven Powell’s home were voyeuristic pictures of Susan that he had allegedly taken without her knowledge, although those pictures are not included in the charges. Steve Powell claimed he had a flirtatious relationship before she disappeared.
Members of Susan’s family and friends, as well as an estranged daughter of Steven Powell, have said that Susan was “repulsed” by her father-in-law and wanted Josh to sever ties with him.
The Powells’ new website, however, claims that Susan was in fact comfortable around Steven, and shows home videos of the family together to prove it.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio