Black Legal Issues

Danziger Bridge police shootings investigator was key to conspiracy, prosecutor says

Jan-24-2012

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A federal prosecutor Monday afternoon portrayed former New Orleans homicide detective Gerard Dugue as an integral cog in a broad conspiracy to hide what happened on the Danziger Bridge in September 2005 as the trial of the last New Orleans police officer accused in the cover-up got under way. For the second time in less than a year, prosecutor Barbara "Bobbi" Bernstein stood before a federal jury and described the shootings by New Orleans police, which left two men dead and four people wounded days after Hurricane Katrina.

She described the gunfire from officers' shotguns and assault rifle, and said no evidence was ever produced to show the civilians were anything but innocent.

"There was no justification for that shooting, but for almost six years the officers got away with it," Bernstein said in her opening statement. "And that's why we are here. Because the officers almost got away with it because of this man, Gerard Dugue."

Bernstein noted that Dugue was an experienced and respected homicide detective who took over the NOPD's internal probe of the case six weeks after the storm. But instead of doing a proper investigation, he purposefully ignored information he knew to be nonsensical, she said.

Not only did he ignore the obvious inconsistencies of the NOPD officers involved in the shootings, but Dugue eventually wrote and submitted an official police report that framed two innocent men who were fired upon that day, Bernstein said.

Bernstein and Dugue's attorney, Claude Kelly, both told jurors, who were selected earlier in the day, that five other officers have already stood trial for the shooting and alleged cover-up.

All five officers were convicted, Kelly noted. Five other officers pleaded guilty and helped prosecutors build their case.

Kelly put the emphasis on those 10 officers, who, he said, began a cover-up of the shooting moments after the firing stopped. They were all members of the NOPD's eastern New Orleans 7th District, which he described as the "7th District clique." They worked together to build the conspiracy, he said.

Dugue, on the other hand, spent the days after Katrina at the Superdome. He didn't take over the case for weeks, after which time the lies of the other officers were already well put together, Kelly said.

While Bernstein lambasted Dugue's efforts as an investigator, Kelly said the work that Dugue did actually helped the federal case. His client was the first NOPD officer to order the collection of the physical evidence left at the bridge, mostly bullet casings that were eventually linked to the NOPD officers' weapons. It was Dugue who ordered that the bullets be tested, Kelly said.

Later, after the NOPD's official report on the case was turned into the Orleans Parish district attorney's office, Dugue continued to interview witnesses, including a State Police trooper who became an important prosecution witness during the first Danziger trial this past summer, Kelly emphasized.

That's "not the kind of action by someone covering it up," Kelly said.

Dugue is charged in six of the counts of the sprawling indictment handed up in 2010 by a federal grand jury. He is accused of conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy to violate the civil rights of two men by writing a false police report.

The indictment also accuses Dugue of lying to the FBI in January 2009 about the case when he said he had no reason to be concerned about the shooting. Those statements were later retracted in a meeting nine months later with FBI agents, Bernstein said, during which Dugue said he found many aspects of officers' initial story to be "fishy."

But Kelly said his client never lied to the FBI, emphasizing that he voluntarily submitted to interviews with federal agents while other cops obtained lawyers.

Much of what jurors will hear over the next two weeks will be testimony first revealed during the summer trial. Kelly asked jurors to keep an open mind as they hear admittedly emotional testimony about the shootings.

That point was underscored with the prosecution's first witness. In a replay of the first witness from the first trial, prosecutors called Susan Bartholomew, a mother of three whose arm was blown off by a high-powered rifle during the explosions of gunfire.

Bartholomew, a slight woman who had been walking across the bridge with her teenage children and husband, tearfully recounted the family's terror as they were ambushed by gunfire. At first, they had no idea who was shooting at them. Later, they figured it out it was police, she said.

Eventually, the Bartholomew family was taken to the hospital by ambulances. In the coming days, police investigators showed up at the hospital at least twice, she said. The second time, they took an intimidating posture and Bartholomew said she felt threatened.

On cross-examination, Bartholomew acknowledged that Dugue was not one of the officers who came to see her. After she was released from the hospital, her family moved out of state.

African-American cemeteries plowed over for spillway now recognized as historic

Jan-24-2012

Around 1929, two cemeteries dating to the 1800s that hold the remains of enslaved African-Americans and their close descendants, were plowed over to make way for the Bonnet Carre Spillway flood control structure in St. Charles Parish. Now those sites, which have earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places, will be commemorated with markers and other proper designation as burial sites.

Exactly what shape the memorial and signage will take has yet to be determined, and Army Corps of Engineers officials want to hear ideas from community members and those who may have relatives buried in the Kugler and Kenner cemeteries, said Christopher Brantley, project manager for the Bonnet Carre Spillway.

Plans to manage the cemeteries will be discussed by the corps at a public hearing on Feb. 8 at Destrehan Plantation.

The Kenner and Kugler cemeteries are now grass-covered fields, Brantley said. The road to the Kenner cemetery is unpaved and does not have parking. The Kugler cemetery, located off SC12 or Spillway Road, is paved, but it does not have parking, he said.

Part of the plan includes adding signs near the sites, and adding markers, trees and landscaping. The corps also would pave the roads leading to each cemetery and build a parking lot.

The Kugler and Kenner cemeteries, named for the property owners and located about a mile apart in the Bonnet Carre Spillway on land purchased by the federal government, were rediscovered in 1986.

The Army Corps of Engineers created the spillway after the 1927 Mississippi River flood, which killed hundreds of people in New Orleans and surrounding communities. With two levees, the corps enclosed 7,600 acres and built a control structure to divert high river water away from the city.

Corps officials have estimated that 250 to 300 African-Americans, many of whom were enslaved on nearby plantations, were interred in grassy plots in the spillway from the late 19th century until about 1929.

Margie Richard of Destrehan, who grew up in Norco, said her paternal and maternal grandmothers and great-grandparents were buried in the cemeteries. She said the corps project is “long overdue.”

“I think it’s good,’’ she said. “The corps should do something rather than just let it stay there. We are looking at a part of history that would die. I think it’s been overlooked too long.”

With a consultant’s help, the corps has tracked down 130 known descendants, officials said, who have been sent postcards informing them about the public hearing.

“The corps intends to preserve and interpret these historic properties as well as improve public access to the sites,” Brantley said. “This public meeting will provide a venue for open communication between the corps and key stakeholders, including the descendants of those buried in the cemeteries.”

The corps’ long-term plans call for the reburial of remains that were disinterred from Kenner Cemetery during a spillway opening in 1975, officials said.

Two say they got paid to protest, back closing Chicago schools

Jan-24-2012

Always contentious hearings on whether to close failing Chicago schools have taken a bizarre twist this year with charges that cash-strapped residents were hired as “rent-a-protesters” and given pre-made signs and pre-crafted scripts to support school shakeups.

Two men told the Chicago Sun-Times they showed up to apply for financial help with their energy bills at the Englewood office of the HOPE Organization headed by Rev. Roosevelt Watkins III, only to be offered money to attend school-related “rallies” held Jan. 6. Watkins denies they were paid to protest, saying money paid was for training.

Both protesters said they didn’t realize until the last minute that they were supposed to support school closings. One said he was promised $50 to speak at a rally “for schools,” but was stiffed $25 after Watkins complained he had publicly revealed at the hearing he was “compensated” for speaking.

“I don’t want the $25 he owes me,” Thaddeus Scott, 35, told the Sun-Times. “He can keep his dirty money. You can quote that.

“Why am I speaking out? Because I am in support of Crane [the high school whose closure he says he was supposed to support]. . . .

“They thought for a few dollars they could get us to say whatever they want. . . . We were preyed upon.”

Stipends for ‘training’

Watkins, pastor of Bethlehem Star M.B. Church and founder of Pastors United for Change, acknowledged he organized busloads of people to attend the Jan. 6 school closing hearings.

Yellow buses delivered people from 69th and Halsted, where HOPE’s Englewood office is, to at least three closing hearings on that date. The hearings concerned Crane High, Guggenheim Elementary and Reed Elementary, hearing participants told the Sun-Times.

Scott said he was offered $50 to speak at a hearing from what turned out to be scripted remarks.

But Watkins said protesters were supposed to be paid to attend “training” first on “community organizing” and how “to be aware of what’s taking place in the community.”

“What we do — so you can hear it from the horse’s mouth — we provide training because we engage community activists to participate in things such as health care, affordable housing, education, safety. Those things. So we do training on community organizing,” Watkins said.

A “small stipend” helps “offset their car fare” or “babysitting,” Watkins said.

Of the Jan. 6 protesters, Watkins said, “Those that did not receive the training should not have received a stipend.”

A day after the Sun-Times asked Watkins about the payments, at least one protester said he received a call from organizers asking him to attend a meeting first if he wanted to attend the next rally.

Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey called the busloads of hearing participants “rent-a-protesters.” He likened them to “paid stooges” who “make a mockery of what public participation is about.”

Said Sharkey: “It’s a new low.”

Cash-filled envelopes

Scott and a second man, a Guggenheim Elementary alum, said they were paid after the Jan. 6 hearings at the HOPE Englewood office by a woman who pulled envelopes holding $25 in cash from a container full of envelopes. Scott said Watkins was in the room when the woman told him he had done them a “disservice” and handed him half the promised amount, but Watkins insisted he was not there. Watkins also denied he ever chided anyone for using the word “compensated” at the hearings.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “There are people saying we pay them. We provide training. We’ve always done this. And they receive a stipend for their time.”

Watkins said he used neither church nor HOPE funds for the stipends. The money came from a “coalition of clergy” who have “money set aside for outreach

Lottery winner in need of a kidney nearly didn't claim $14.3 million

Jan-24-2012

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A military veteran in need of a kidney transplant had $14.3 million sitting on a table in his house and didn't know it.

Military vet Napolean Elvord, left, poses at the Madison, Wis. Mobil station where he purchased the lottery ticket worth $14.3 million.

For three days after it was announced that the winning Megabucks ticket from the Jan. 14 drawing had been sold at a Wisconsin Mobil station, Napolean Elvord had no idea a life-changing sum of money was right at his fingertips. The clerks at the Madison store that Elvord visits daily asked him if he was the one who bought the winning ticket. But he said it wasn’t him — and as the days passed, no one came forward to claim the prize.

Then the store manager, Corky Wunderlin, asked him again, and it dawned on Elvord: He had mixed up the drawing days that produced the Megabucks winner. Elvord still didn’t believe it when he found the winning $1 ticket sitting on a table at home, so he took it to the Wisconsin Lottery office, which validated that he was about to become a multi-millionaire. He got a lump-sum payment of $10.2 million, which computes to $6.87 million after taxes, overcoming one in seven million odds.

“It’s still going through my head,’’ Elvord told the Wisconsin State Journal.

Elvord, who is in his late 50s, had the state lottery officials scratching their heads when he came forward with his ticket. Most people who come to redeem their prize already know they have the winning ticket, whereas Elvord still wasn’t sure, lottery director Michael Edmonds told the paper.

“The first thing they asked me was, ‘Did you make up the ticket?’’’ Elvord said.

Elvord comes to the Mobil station multiple times per day to buy coffee and lottery tickets, and on the day he won, he let another customer go ahead of him before playing the winning numbers. His picks — 17, 26, 27, 28, 37 and 42 — were computer-generated, and the fact that he bought the ticket at all may have been an accident.

“I think it was a mistake because I was trying to play the Powerball,’’ he told the Wisconsin State Journal.

Elvord’s windfall was also a jackpot for the Mobil station, as the owners earned a $100,000 commission from the lottery for selling the winning ticket.

A semi-retired construction worker, Elvord plans on returning to his native Texas and putting the money toward health insurance. He has received regular kidney dialysis for the last five years.

"I hadn't really made any plans yet, but I do look at the economy and think about the people that have lost homes that had homes and had jobs," he told NBC 15 in Madison. "And I'm into construction. I like remodeling, fixing up things, and I'm looking at possibly doing something in that area to re-sell homes and bring people back into their housing area."

Elvord is the 71st Megabucks winner since the game began in 1992 and the first since a woman won $3.1 million in October 2010. The game is played only in Wisconsin.

Evicted woman, 101, can't go home as promised

Jan-22-2012

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The federal government now says a 101-year-old Detroit woman it promised could move back into her foreclosed home four months ago can't return because the building's unsanitary and unsafe.

Texana Hollis was evicted Sept. 12 and her belongings placed outside after her 65-year-old son failed to pay property taxes linked to a reverse mortgage, The Detroit News reported Sunday. Two days later, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said she could return.

But now, HUD said it won't let Hollis move back in because of the house's condition. She had lived there about 60 years.

"Here I am, 100 years old, and don't have a home," Hollis said, rounding off her age. "Oh Lord, help me."

Department spokesman Brian Sullivan told The Detroit News that an inspection determined the house "was completely unsuitable for a person to live in."

"We can't allow someone to live in that (atmosphere) now that we are essentially the owners of the property," Sullivan said. "The home isn't safe; it's not sanitary. It's certainly not suitable for anyone to live in, especially not a 101-year-old mother."

HUD doesn't want to pay to fix up the house, but Sullivan said the department's seeking other agencies that might help with the work and get Hollis back into her home.

"We're not giving up," Sullivan said. "We're talking with anybody and everybody about solutions to this situation, but the condition of the property is a challenge."

After hearing about her longtime friend's eviction, Pollian Cheeks, 68, offered Hollis a room at her home within a mile of Hollis' house. Hollis, who once taught Cheeks in Sunday school at St. Philip's Lutheran Church, agreed to the invitation and has been staying at Cheeks' house in the meantime.

"Polly's just as nice to me as anybody could be. She goes out of her way to help me," Hollis said, holding back tears. "It's just like living at home, but it's not my home."

4 Florida A&M band members arrested, accused of hazing

Jan-22-2012

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Four members of Florida A&M University's fabled Marching 100 band have been arrested on hazing charges, a spokeswoman for the Tallahassee college said Friday.

The charges are unrelated to the November hazing death of drum major Robert Champion.

FAMU police arrested three of the students Thursday night; the fourth turned himself in Friday morning, said Sharon Saunders, the FAMU spokeswoman.

The students -- Hakeem Birch, Brandon Benson, Anthony Mingo and Denise Bailey -- were charged with hazing five Marching 100 band members who wanted to join a group in the clarinet section known as the "Clones."

The five told police they were made to line up according to height at the start of each meeting. Then they were punched, slapped and paddled, according to the arrest warrant.

One of the students, who quit the pledging process after the first meeting, took a digital photo of the bruising on her body.

The initiation meetings, which began last September, took place at the home of Birch and Benson, the warrant said.

Champion's death prompted FAMU's board of trustees to approve a three-part plan to tackle the issue of hazing on campus. The plan includes an independent blue-ribbon panel of experts to investigate.

Trustee Belinda Reed Shannon told board members the panel would take a "forward-looking" approach at hazing on campus, and would not conflict with any current investigations into the Marching 100 band.

Champion, 26, collapsed in Orlando on a bus carrying members of the band after a November football game that included a halftime performance by the group.

Christopher Chestnut, a lawyer for Champion's family, has charged that Champion died after receiving "some dramatic blows, perhaps (having an) elevated heart rate" tied to "a hazing ritual" that took place on the bus.

Some band members have said Champion died after taking part in a rite of passage called "crossing Bus C." One member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained that students "walk from the front of the bus to the back of the bus backward while the bus is full of other band members, and you get beaten until you get to the back."

No one has been charged in Champion's death; the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Orange County Sheriff's Office are investigating the case.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement also launched a separate investigation into band employees, who were allegedly engaged in financial fraud.

The medical examiner's office has said Champion "collapsed and died within an hour of a hazing incident during which he suffered multiple blunt trauma blows to his body."

An autopsy conducted after his death found "extensive contusions of his chest, arms, shoulder and back," as well as "evidence of crushing of areas of subcutaneous fat," which is the fatty tissue directly under a person's skin.

An attorney for the band's director, on paid administrative leave since shortly after Champion's death, said his client issued letters of suspension and withheld scholarships "of all students whose names were provided to him once the incident was reported."

Julian White also informed campus police, attorney Chuck Hobbs said in a written statement.

"Dr. White applauds the efforts of law enforcement to arrest individuals that he suspended for hazing and hopes that they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," according to the statement. "Dr. White has been the leading anti-hazing advocate on the FAMU campus for years and his legal team continues to call upon President James Ammons to fully reinstate him to his position since the original reason for termination -- failure to report hazing -- is clearly unfounded by the record evidence."

White originally had been suspended with termination scheduled for December 22, but he was subsequently placed on leave until completion of the investigation into Champion's death.

DA drops effort to get $100 million restitution from Conrad Murray

alan duke Jan-22-2012

The prosecution's effort to force Dr. Conrad Murray to pay Michael Jackson's family $100 million in restitution for the singer's death has been dropped, a court spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.

Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney David Walgren told the court Wednesday that he was ending the restitution request after talking with Jackson's parents and lawyers for his estate.

California law allows for restitution claims by victims' families.

Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter last year for Jackson's death.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor had set a hearing for Thursday to consider the restitution.

When Murray was sentenced to four years in prison in November, Walgren argued the doctor should also pay Jackson's children and parents $100 million, the amount Jackson could have earned if he had survived to complete his planned "This Is It" concerts in London.

Jackson died on June 25, 2009, in his Los Angeles home, two weeks before those shows were to begin.

His death was caused by an overdose of the surgical anesthetic propofol and sedatives, according to testimony in Murray's trial last year.

Singing legend Etta James dies at 73

Jan-20-2012

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Etta James, whose assertive, earthy voice lit up such hits as "The Wallflower," "Something's Got a Hold on Me" and the wedding favorite "At Last," has died, according to her longtime friend and manager, Lupe De Leon. She was 73.

She died from complications from leukemia with her husband, Artis Mills, and her sons by her side, De Leon said.

She was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010, and also suffered from dementia and hepatitis C. James died at a hospital in Riverside, California. She would have turned 74 Wednesday.

" This is a tremendous loss for the family, her friends and fans around the world," De Leon said. "She was a true original who could sing it all -- her music defied category.

"I worked with Etta for over 30 years. She was my friend and I will miss her always."

Throughout her career, James overcame a heroin addiction, opened for the Rolling Stones, won six Grammys and was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Despite her ups and downs -- including a number of health problems -- she maintained an optimistic attitude.

"Most of the songs I sing, they have that blue feeling to it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about," she told CNN's Denise Quan in 2002. "I don't!"

Through it all, she was a spitfire beloved by contemporaries and young up-and-comers.

"Etta James is unmanageable, and I'm the closest thing she's ever had to a manager," Lupe DeLeon, her manager of 30-plus years, told CNN in admiration.

British songstress Adele named James as one of her favorite singers, along with Aretha Franklin.

"If you were to look up the word singer in the dictionary, you'd see their names," Adele said in an interview.

Etta James was born Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles to a teen mother and unknown father. (She suspected her father was the pool player Minnesota Fats.)

Her birth mother initially took little responsibility and James was raised by a series of people, notably a pair of boardinghouse owners. But she was recognized from a young age for her booming voice, showcased in a South Central Los Angeles church.

In 1950, her mother took her to San Francisco, where James formed a group called the Peaches. Singer Johnny Otis, best known for "Willie and the Hand Jive," discovered her and had her sing a song he wrote using Ballard's tune as a model. "The Wallflower," with responses from "Louie Louie" songwriter Richard Berry, made James an R&B star.

Her signing to Chess introduced her to a broader audience, as the record label's co-owner, Leonard Chess, believed she should do pop hits. Among her recordings were "Stormy Weather," the Lena Horne classic originally from 1933; "A Sunday Kind of Love," which dates from 1946; and most notably, "At Last," a 1941 number that was originally a hit for Glenn Miller.

James' version of "At Last" starts out with swooning strings and the singer enters with confident gusto, dazzlingly maintaining a mood of joy and romance. Though the song failed to make the Top 40 upon its 1961 release -- though it did hit the R&B Top 10 -- its emotional punch has long made it a favorite at weddings.

James' career suffered in the mid-'60s when the British Invasion took over the pop charts and as she fought some personal demons. But she got a boost when she started recording at Rick Hall's FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Her hits included the brassy "Tell Mama" and the raw "I'd Rather Go Blind," the latter later notably covered by Rod Stewart.

She entered rehab in the 1970s for her drug problem but re-established herself with live performances and an album produced by noted R&B mastermind Jerry Wexler. After another stint in rehab -- this time at the Betty Ford Clinic -- she made a comeback album, "Seven Year Itch," in 1988.

James mastered a range of styles -- from R&B and soul to jazz and blues -- but she was always one step behind the popular genre of the day, said Michael Coyle, a Colgate University professor who has written about jazz and R&B and reviews records for Cadence Magazine.

"She never really got her moment in the sun," Coyle said.

But James soldiered on, and by the end of her life she had made so much meaningful music that she was considered a living legend. "By the mid-'90s, she's survived so long that people start to look up to her," Coyle said.

James was portrayed by pop star Beyonce in the 2008 film "Cadillac Records," about Chess. After Beyonce sang "At Last" at one of President Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural balls, James lashed out: "I can't stand Beyonce. She had no business up there singing my song that I've been singing forever." She later told the New York Daily News she was joking.

Earlier this year, news reports revealed that the singer's estate was being contested in a legal struggle between her husband, Artis Mills, and son Donto James. (Donto and her other son, Sametto, both played in her band.)

Over the years, James had her share of health problems. In the late 1990s she reportedly weighed more than 400 pounds and required a scooter to get around. In 2003 she had gastric bypass surgery and dropped more than half the weight, according to People magazine.

However, until her latest issues, James maintained a steady touring schedule and appeared full of energy even when sitting down -- as she sometimes did on stage, due to bad knees and her weight battles.

Even while sitting down, James gave it her all on stage, singing as though possessed, caressing every note like a long-lost love. If that seemed a little much to critics, well, the legendary singer had a show to put on, she told Quan.

"They said that Etta James is still vulgar," she said in the 2002 interview. "I said, 'Oh, how dare 'em say I'm still real vulgar! I'm vulgar because I dance in the chair?' What would they want me to do? Want me to just be still or something like that?

"I gotta do something."

Child slavery and Chocolate; all too easy to find

David McKenzie and Brent Swails, CNN Jan-20-2012

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Chocolate’s billion-dollar industry starts with workers like Abdul. He squats with a gang of a dozen harvesters on an Ivory Coast farm.

Abdul holds the yellow cocoa pod lengthwise and gives it two quick cracks, snapping it open to reveal milky white cocoa beans. He dumps the beans on a growing pile.

Abdul is 10 years old, a three-year veteran of the job.

He has never tasted chocolate.

During the course of an investigation for CNN’s Freedom Project initiative - an investigation that went deep into the cocoa fields of Ivory Coast - a team of CNN journalists found that child labor, trafficking and slavery are rife in an industry that produces some of the world’s best-known brands.

It was not supposed to be this way.

After a series of news reports surfaced in 2001 about gross violations in the cocoa industry, lawmakers in the United States put immense pressure on the industry to change.

“We felt like the public ought to know about it, and we ought to take some action to try to stop it,” said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who, together with Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, spearheaded the response. “How many people in America know that all this chocolate they are eating - candies and all of those wonderful chocolates - is being produced by terrible child labor?”

But after intense lobbying by the cocoa industry, lawmakers weren’t able to push through a law. What they got was a voluntary protocol, signed by the heads of the chocolate industry, to stop the worst forms of child labor “as a matter of urgency.” One of the key goals was to certify the cocoa trade as child-labor free.

“It was meant to achieve the end of child slave labor in cocoa fields,” Engel said.

It didn’t.

UNICEF estimates that nearly a half-million children work on farms across Ivory Coast, which produces nearly 40% of the world’s supply of cocoa. The agency says hundreds of thousands of children, many of them trafficked across borders, are engaged in the worst forms of child labor.

A recent study by Tulane University says the industry’s efforts to stop child labor are “uneven” and “incomplete” and that 97% of Ivory Coast’s farmers had not been reached. But the industry’s main representative in the country disagrees with the assessment.

“I think the situation has improved exponentially,” said Rabola Kagohi, country director for the International Cocoa Initiative, the chocolate industry’s answer to fighting child labor and trafficking. “Today, the message is physically getting through.”

Kagohi works out of a basement office with one other permanent employee.

“There are some results,” he said. “I wish that you had spoken to some planters.”

None of the farmers CNN spoke to in the heart of the cocoa production region said they had ever been reached by the International Cocoa Initiative, the government or chocolate companies about child trafficking.

Children such as Abdul don’t know anything about protocols or certification. All they know is work.

When Abdul’s mother died, a stranger brought him across the border to the farm. Abdul says all he’s given is a little food, the torn clothes on his back, and an occasional tip from the farmer. Abdul is a modern child slave.

And he is not the only youngster working in his group.

Yacou insisted he is 16, but his face looks far younger.

“My mother brought me from Burkina Faso when my father died,” he said.

Scars crisscross Yacou’s legs from a machete. He can’t clear grass in the cocoa fields without cutting himself. During harvest season, he works day after day hacking the cocoa pods.

The emotional scars run much deeper.

“I wish I could go to school. I want to read and write,” he said. But Yacou hasn’t spent a single day in school, and he has no idea how to leave the farm.

“It makes me angry,” Engel said. As far as he’s concerned, the chocolate companies haven't done enough.

“They are working with us, and we are glad that they are working with us. But they could do better.”

One of the major players in the Ivory Coast cocoa trade is, not surprisingly, the Ivorian government. Although the country has cornered a vast chunk of a lucrative market, it is considered one of the world’s poorest by any measure.

But the government leadership blames politics and war for the problems in the cocoa industry.

“Thirty years of political instability caused a lot of damage to our economy generally, and to the agricultural sector particularly, and more specifically to the cocoa industry,” said Ivory Coast’s minister of agriculture, Sangafowa Coulibaly. “Unfortunately, these years have been lost.”

After an attempted coup in 2002, the country was split in half and kept from all-out civil war by the United Nations. There was protracted violence after the last disputed presidential elections, when then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede.

With the new government of Alassane Ouattara in charge, the government says it can now put much-needed reforms in place.

“Things can only get better,” Coulibaly said. “The main reason is that today, the political crisis is behind us, the armed conflict is behind us.”

But many observers believe that a new government won’t make it a priority to stop slavery in the cocoa fields.

And with peace, traffickers are free to do their work again. U.N. officials told CNN that the Ivory Coast conflict actually helped slow down trafficking because people were too afraid to move across borders.

Terrell Owens signs with an Indoor Football League team

Jan-19-2012

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Terrell Owens return to the Dallas area won't be as triumphant as he hoped. The former NFL star announced Wednesday that he signed to play for an Indoor Football League team in the Dallas suburb of Allen.

T.O. posted a brief message on Twitter in which he said he'll be a co-owner and player for the Allen Wranglers and -- whoa, hold up. The Wranglers? The Wranglers? If Brett Favre doesn't come back to play quarterback for this team, then all those "this is our country" commercials will have been aired in vain. It's a perfect opportunity. That could be his teammate. That could be his quarterback.

That's not happening, of course, because, uh, how do I put this nicely without insulting the fine folks in Allen, Texas, and at the IFL? Let's just say that playing against teams like the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks and Colorado Ice is a brief step down from where T.O. had hoped to be this season. Following a 72-catch campaign for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2010, Owens suffered an ACL injury in the offseason. He held a workout in October that no NFL team attended.

This caused T.O. to look for work opportunities elsewhere. He found it in Allen. ESPN Dallas reports that Wranglers GM and former Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson helped lure T.O. to the team.

"I want to make the Allen Wranglers the No. 1 attraction in Collin County," owner Jon Frankel said of Owens in one of the most "Texas" statements of all time.

The Wranglers' schedule begins Feb. 25. Calvin Watkins reports that Owens has yet to decide whether he'll play in all games or just ones at home.

Maybe this is another stop in Owens' path to the NFL or maybe it's rock bottom. I'm leaning toward the latter, mainly because of this ominous line from that ESPN Dallas article: "Owens' agent, Drew Rosenhaus, didn't return a call seeking comment."

When Drew Rosenhaus passes up a chance to say something -- anything -- about Terrell Owens, that ain't good.

Jury finds former SU AD not guilty of prostitution

Jan-18-2012

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A jury found former Southern University athletic director Greg LaFleur not guilty on a charge of prostitution.

The jury of six reached its decision Tuesday night, said a spokeswoman for the Harris County District Attorney's office in Houston.

LaFleur was arrested in April 2011. According to the police report, LaFleur, 52, was arrested on Main Street in Houston for alleged solicitation of a prostitute. LaFleur denied the allegation.

LaFleur, who was fired from Southern University after his arrest, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Southern.

"This should have never happened," LaFleur said Wednesday. "The chick solicited me. I have lived with this for a year. I'm more pissed off than happy."

Southern spokesman Ed Pratt said the university had no comment at this time.

At the time of his arrest, the prosecutor's office in Harris County characterized the case as "straight sex for pay." According to the police report, LaFleur was accused of picking up an undercover police officer posing as a prostitute.

The former LSU and NFL football player was booked on a misdemeanor charge by the Houston Police Department.

LaFleur was in Houston for the 2011 Final Four matchup.

He had been athletic director at Southern for almost six years, taking over for Floyd Kerr in 2005.

Lawsuit demands Non-Jewish black woman be exhumed from Jewish cemetery

Rose Marie Arce and Susan Candiotti Jan-17-2012

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Juliet Steer was dying of lymphoma when she told her brother Paul she wanted to be buried just like Jesus, following Jewish customs. Even though she’s a black Christian, she chose a plot in the secluded interfaith section of this quiet town's Jewish Ahvath Achim Cemetery.

“She felt like it was a nice and peaceful place,” Paul Steer said. Juliet liked the quiet. When she died, Paul had her buried in the plot, hopeful that she’d finally rest in peace.

But this Jewish cemetery in Colchester, Connecticut, has been anything but peaceful since one of its board members sued Paul Steer. It’s now the center of a legal fight tinged with allegations of racial and religious prejudices.

Maria Balaban, a cemetery board member who has relatives buried there, is demanding Paul remove Juliet’s remains from the cemetery because she is not Jewish and has no ties to anyone in the Jewish section. Paul Steer believes part of the reason Balaban wants his sister's remains removed is because she was African-American.

“Her lawyer said ‘My client don’t believe your sister accepted the faith and she has to be exhumed.' I said, ‘What are you talking about?' 'Your sister don’t (sic) belong there, the cemetery is only for Jews,'” remembers Paul, whose family is of Jamaican descent. “I said, ‘Man, get out of here.’”

Balaban owns empty plots in the cemetery’s Jewish section, near those of her relatives. She is also suing her own congregation because it allowed a non-Jew to be buried on the other side of the property. She says the interfaith section was only supposed to allow non-Jews with ties to Judiasm or members of Congregation Ahvath Achim, a conservative synagogue whose name means "brotherly love."

“She’s not supposed to be there,” Balaban said of Juliet Steer. “She is not Jewish. I had no idea what she was. I didn’t know where she came from, there was never anything said.”

The dispute has upset members of the congregation, whose board - including Balaban - voted in 2009 to allow people of any faith to be buried in the interfaith section.

“That’s the troubling thing about the case for us, we really don’t understand the motivation, we really sure wish it had been raised at the creation of the interfaith section back on November 1 of 2009,” said George Purtil, a lawyer for the congregation. “We wouldn’t be in the pickle that we’re in right now if somebody, if she had just spoken up.”

Her lawyer, Martin Rutchik, said Balaban’s wishes are consistent with the rules governing most Jewish cemeteries. “There has been a violation of the sanctity and the respect of cemetery grounds that were created for Jews, who after centuries of running around went to Colchester and created a home of their own,” he said.

Arthur Liverant, another board member, showed reporters the two sections, divided by a road and some fencing. Juliet, an African-American, is the only person to be buried in the interfaith section so far, he said, although four other plots are reserved and paid for.

The other four plots are for white people and Balaban has not objected to those, which has brought the issue of race into the debate at the synagogue. “They are white, but it makes no different to us,” Arthur said. "Anybody is allowed to be buried there.”

Balaban, who was born in Cuba, says race has nothing to do with her objections to Juliet Steer’s remains. She says the other four plots were bought by people associated to members of the congregation. As a social worker who devoted years of her life to working with black teenagers, she said she's stung by any implication this dispute is about race.

“I do not want to hurt the poor Julia who is buried there that she thought was going to be buried in a peaceful place,” Balaban said. “It’s not my intention. I would not want to hurt anyone. I’m fighting those who approved that. I’m not fighting her. I’m not fighting the family.”

But the family is now fighting, saying they have no intention of moving Juliet’s body. Her brother says he believes Balaban voted to have an interfaith section with no restrictions, but changed her mind when she discovered Juliet is black.

“God knows if she is a racist or not, but I know I think so,” Steer said. “I could be wrong, but from what is going on and from a statement she made … that if she was buried at the back of the cemetery she would accept it more. Only a racist would say something like that.”

Balaban cringes at any suggestions race played a motive in her lawsuit. She says she mentioned moving the body to the back of the cemetery because that space belonged to a congregation that merged with her synagogue. They were more open to allowing people of other faiths. Her comment had nothing to do with wanting a black woman placed in the back of anything, she insisted.

The discussion in the temple to allow non-Jews into the cemetery began a few years ago, because so many Jews had intermarried or had non-Jewish relatives. The final decision was to permit everyone since people had different connections to Judaism, including civil unions and friendships.

The current debate has created bitterness on all sides, prompting Balaban and her lawyer to throw out a potential compromise. “I would suggest that the grave site of Juliet Steer not be disturbed and be surrounded by shrubbery,” says an October letter from Balaban’s lawyer.

George Purtill, the lawyer for the congregation, said that was completely unacceptable to the congregation. “That’s gross,” he said. “My client, the board of directors, was absolutely disgusted by that suggestion.”

A judge will weigh in next month, when a temporary injunction to exhume Steer’s body and move her remains elsewhere is scheduled to be heard. The congregation says it will never allow the body to be taken out. But Maria Balaban will have her day in court, facing her own congregation and Juliet Steer’s family, which also vows to keep her in the resting place she chose.

Holder vows to protect voting rights at MLK event in South Carolina

Terry Frieden Jan-17-2012

Attorney General Eric Holder joined NAACP leaders on the steps of the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia on Monday, with the Confederate flag fluttering overhead, to promise he will aggressively protect federal voting rights for minorities.

NAACP National President Ben Jealous said he had chosen to be at the Columbia ceremonies honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., declaring South Carolina is "ground zero" in the battle for African-American voting rights.

As the NAACP speakers denounced the banner of stars and bars that the state continues to display, Holder focused on defending provisions of the Voting Rights Act that he claims are under assault by South Carolina.

The Justice Department has refused to grant the needed approval of a law passed by the legislature requiring most voters to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls.

"After a thorough and fair review, we concluded that the state had failed to meet its burden of proving that the voting change would not have a racially discriminatory effect," Holder said.

The Justice Department has also sued South Carolina, challenging its law designed to curtail illegal immigration in the state. The government has moved to block laws in six states, including Arizona, which has taken the issue to the Supreme Court. The ruling expected by this summer will likely affect South Carolina.

Holder said the Justice Department is continuing to review proposed redrawing of congressional and legislative districts in South Carolina.

The Columbia rally Monday featuring Democrats was a rare aside from the Republican pre-primary fever gripping South Carolina, which has grabbed virtually all of the media attention as the presidential candidates jockey in advance of Saturday's primary. Five GOP candidates remain in the running, with four of them hoping to catch leading candidate Mitt Romney in the final days of the campaign.

There is no Democratic primary election.

Holder made no mention of the GOP race, but drew applause from the largely African-American crowd when he invoked the name of his boss, President Barack Obama.

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