San Francisco Poll Worker Accused of Stealing Ballots

Published November 03, 2010

| Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco police have arrested a polling inspector on suspicion of stealing up to 75 ballots, a voting roster and other election materials in a bizarre heist.

Lt. Lyn Tomioka said Wednesday that 50-year-old Karl Bradfield Nicholas was arrested around 1 a.m. She said none of the ballot items has been recovered.

Director of Elections John Arntz says a polling inspector broke into the ballot-counting machine Tuesday afternoon and took off with the ballots and a memory pack that records the information from the ballots.

Arntz says the inspector also stole the cell phone of a teenage poll worker.

Police say Nicholas was booked on three felonies, including burglary. He's being held in the county jail.

A message left at a number listed for Nicholas in voter registration records was not immediately returned.

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U.S. Men Among 3 Accused in al-Shabab Terror-Funding Plot

Published November 03, 2010

| Associated Press

ST. LOUIS -- A Missouri man and a Minnesotan are among three facing charges in a plot to funnel money to a Somalia terror group.

An indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses Mohamud Abdi Yusuf of St. Louis of providing material support to al-Shabab. Yusuf and Abdi Mahdi Hussein of Minneapolis also are accused of conspiring to structure financial transactions.

A third man, Duane Mohamed Diriye, is also charged and remains at-large.

The U.S. government alleges that from 2008 through at least July 2009, Yusuf used aliases in wiring funds to al-Shabab supporters in Somalia. Hussein allegedly worked a money-transferring businesses.

Both men made court appearances Tuesday. Yusuf's public defender declined comment, and it wasn't known if Hussein had an attorney.

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3 San Diego Men Accused of Helping Militant Group

Published November 02, 2010

| Associated Press

SAN DIEGO -- Three San Diego men have been charged with conspiring to route money to a Somalia-based militant group.

According to the federal indictment unsealed Tuesday, Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud and Issa Doreh coordinated fundraising efforts and money transfers to al-Shabab in 2007 and 2008.

Moalin also is accused of providing a house in Somalia for al-Shabab fighters. The U.S. government has declared al-Shabab a terrorist group with ties to al-Qaida.

Immigration officials arrested Moalin before he boarded a flight Sunday in San Diego. The other two were arrested Monday.

No lawyers were listed for them in the indictment, and calls to the U.S. Attorney's office were not anwered Tuesday.

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Mexico arrests man accused of detonating car bomb

MEXICO CITY –  Federal police announced Thursday that they arrested a gang member who detonated the first successful car bomb by Mexican drug cartels, an attack that killed three people in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Fernando Contreras used a cell phone to set off the bomb that killed a federal police officer and two civilians June 15, said Luis Cardenas Palomino, the regional federal police chief.

The bomb exploded after police and paramedics arrived on a street corner to help a wounded man, adding a new dimension of terror in Ciudad Juarez, which has become one of the world's deadliest cities amid a turf war between the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels.

Cardenas Palomino said that after the attack, Contreras was sent to Chihuahua city — the capital of the state by the same name — as the leader there for La Linea drug gang allied with the Juarez drug cartel.

Contreras was arrested Wednesday in Chihuahua along with 14 others, several weapons and drugs, the official said.

The arrest was announced the same day that the Chihuahua state legislature approved a bill introducing life imprisonment for certain murders, including the killing of journalists and police. Those who commit multiple murders or torure their victims before killing them also would get a life sentence under the law.

Gov. Cesar Duarte applauded the initiative. Once he signs it into law, Chihuahua will become the only Mexican state with life imprisonment. Murder in Chihuahua is currently punnishable by up to 50 years in prison.

"Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures," Duarte said. "Those who want to make a career out of victimizing citizens, innocent people, will never get out of jail."

More than 2,000 people have been killed this year in Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million across the border from El Paso, Texas. Most killings are blamed on drug gangs.

Meanwhile, officials continued to burn the 148 tons (134 metric tons) of marijuana seized in the border city of Tijuana. The 15,000 packages — Mexico's biggest pot haul on record — were set ablaze Wednesday.

Authorities announced that one of the 11 men detained during the seizure also confessed to participating in at least eight killings.

Rodolfo Campos Montejo told police he acted as a lookout during the killing of two men who were decapitated and hung by their feet from a bridge last week, according to a statement from the Baja California state attorney general's office. Campos also allegedly said he participated in the assassination of the top state police commander in the town of Rosarito.

The statement said police suspect Campos served as liaison between local Tijuana gangs and the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which investigators believe owned the seized marijuana.

In Acapulco, meanwhile, prosecutors said they are investigating whether local police were involved in the kidnapping of 20 men who disappeared while traveling together in the resort city last month.

Guerrero state Attorney General David Augusto Sotelo said prosecutors were investigating the veracity of a video that appeared this week on YouTube, showing a man who identified himself as a policeman and said he and other officers kidnapped the 20 men.

The man, who appeared to be answering questions from an interrogator, claimed he belonged to a cartel led by Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "The Barbie," a U.S.-born reputed drug lord who was recently captured outside Mexico City.

The 20 men were visiting Acapulco from the city of Morelia, in neighboring Michoacan state, when they disappeared Sept. 30.

One of their companions reported the kidnapping to police, saying the men were traveling in several cars and looking for accommodations when gunmen kidnapped them. The man said he had gone to the store and when he returned, he found his companions were gone and witnesses told him about the kidnapping.

Guerrero state prosecutors have said that interviews with relatives and background checks indicated the 20 men had no criminal records. Relatives, and the man who went the police, say the men were mostly mechanics from Morelia who had saved up for a vacation together.

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Florida Girl Accused of Poisoning Adoptive Family

The Orange County Sheriff's Office is investigating an incident in which a 13-year-old girl is accused of poisoning members of her family, MyFoxOrlando.com reported.

Investigators said the girl confessed to putting roach and rodent poison, as well as dog feces, in food eaten by her adoptive mother. They also said she placed hand soap in her drinking water.

There is concern that the family's two biological children may also have been poisoned. It is believed that girl's actions began sometime in early 2009 and continued through April of 2010.

The adoptive mother told investigators that recent toxicology tests have shown traces of arsenic in her blood, and for the past year, she has seen her health deteriorate. At this point, she has refused to press charges against the girl.

Neighbors said the family provided love and a home for the girl, whom they adopted from Mexico years back, and even sent her to a private school.

"I was shocked," said an acquaintance of the family, who told MyFoxOrlando.com that she had received an e-mail from the family asking neighbors to keep them in their prayers.

The Florida Department of Children and Family Services reported that mental health services were provided months ago, when the family needed assistance.

Orange County detectives said these are acts of domestic violence and the investigation will continue before charges are sent to the State Attorney's Office.

In the meantime, the incident report states that the girl is staying at a health care facility, because she has been categorized as a threat to her family and society.

If a charge is brought against the girl, it likely would be for felony poisoning. Because she is adopted, she can not be deported.

Click here for more on this story from MyFoxOrlando.com.

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Police accused of beating AP reporters in Kashmir

SRINAGAR, India –  Two Associated Press journalists were assaulted by police Friday at a roadblock in Indian-controlled Kashmir, and one was knocked out by blows from rifle butts and batons.

Local journalists have repeatedly complained of harassment and assaults by police during turmoil in the Himalayan territory that has killed more than 100 people since June, most of them demonstrators and bystanders.

With a curfew in place, AP Television News journalists Meraj Uddin Dar and his son, Umar Dar, were stopped at a checkpoint as they drove to work Friday.

Police inspected their identity cards and curfew passes — which are given out by Indian authorities to journalists allowing them to work — and initially refused to let them pass. Officers relented after the reporters protested.

As they began to drive away, police yelled for them to stop. Umar Dar said he got out of the car to complain and a police officer slapped him. After Meraj Uddin Dar left the vehicle, officers beat him unconscious with fists, rifle butts and batons, Umar Dar said.

Another journalist at the scene called a police commander, who took the men to a hospital.

Meraj Uddin Dar was admitted with neck injuries and underwent neurological tests.

Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the incident was being investigated.

Reporters Without Borders reported in July that Indian paramilitary forces beat up 12 journalists covering a demonstration. Reporter Mark Magnier with the Los Angeles Times and Riyaz Masroor of the BBC were assaulted by security forces during a separate incident, the media rights group said.

Ghulam Hassan Kaloo, president of the Kashmir Press Association, said his group called an emergency meeting for Saturday. "The police confiscated copies of almost all newspapers early today. Now they have beaten our colleagues as well. This is alarming," he said.

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Texas Teacher Accused of Taping Sex With as Many as 70 Children

An El Paso, Texas, high school dance teacher was jailed without bond Thursday on charges of sexual exploitation of minors and possessing child pornography, allegedly including 200 videotapes of himself having sex with as many as 70 children, some of whom were elementary school age.

Federal agents testified that they found the videos in the home of 34-year-old Marco Alferez. The agents said the videos showed Alferez having sex with children as young as elementary school age, the El Paso Times reported.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Gilbert Campa testified he found 12 VHS tapes, each about four to six hours long, and 107 8-mm tapes of Alferez having sex with children. Campa said ICE agents have been able to identify 65 to 70 victims in the homemade videos, and it appeared that Alferez tried hide the camera during the sexual acts.

Officials said that in one video Alferez is seen turning on the video camera, covering it with a shirt and then leaving the room, shortly before he returned to the room with a young girl to have sex with her.

Campa also testified Alferez admitted downloading child pornography, as well as making the videos of himself with children. Alferez appeared upset, Campa said, and made statements that "his life was over," the El Paso times reported.

Agents also testified that Alferez admitted being sexually abused as a child and expressed relief at his arrest.

David Kimmelman, Alferez's attorney, did not immediately return a phone message Thursday to the Associated Press. Alferez has not yet entered a plea.

He began teaching at El Paso Irvin High School in 2008. School officials said Alferez has been placed on paid administrative leave.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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