Lawyer: Hungarian sludge firm CEO faces no charges

VESZPREM, Hungary –  A judge on Wednesday dismissed prosecution demands that the head of a metals company linked to Hungary's devastating red sludge spill be charged with negligence and he has been released from police custody, his lawyer said.

Appearing after the closed court hearing reviewing the case, Zoltani Bakonyi's lawyer, Janos Banati, said the judge ruled in his favor after finding that prosecutors couldn't substantiate their argument that Bakonyi did not sufficiently prepare emergency warning and rescue plans in case of accidents like the sludge spill.

Banati said prosecutors were preparing an appeal.

The decision was sure to embitter hundreds of villagers who blame the management of MAL Rt. for the deaths of nine people, the hundreds of homes left uninhabitable and the poisoning of local waterways. Some 700,000 cubic meters (184 million gallons) of caustic sludge and water burst from a storage pool of a metals plant Oct. 4, inundating three western Hungarian towns and spilling into the Danube.

"Life won't be returning to normal for a very very long time," said Devecser Mayor Tamas Toldi, whose town was one those swamped by the toxic slurry.

In a bit of good news, authorities said that cracks in the wall of the broken reservoir appear not to have grown wider, calming some fears that further collapse would release a second flood of sludge.

One village remained evacuated Wednesday and residents in Devecser were ready to leave on short notice. But Toldi said he hoped the state of alert could be called off later in the day once a protective wall in neighboring Kolontar meant to contain any new spill had been completed.

The National Disaster Management Directorate, meanwhile, said that the death toll had risen to nine after an elderly man died overnight. Of the more than 100 hurt by the caustic slurry, around 50 people remained hospitalized.

Banati said Wednesday's ruling reflected defense arguments that the company had emergency plans that had been approved by government authorities and that did not need updating when Bakonyi took over two years ago. He also said he knew of no incriminating testimony against Bakonyi from employees of his firm.

Bakonyi is the managing director of MAL Rt., or the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company, which owned the reservoir, part of the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant in Ajka, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Budapest.

The red sludge that spilled after a part of the reservoir wall partially collapsed is a highly caustic byproduct of alumina production which is used to make aluminum.

The government took over the company on Tuesday, and said the Ajka subsidiary of MAL could restart production by the end of the week under its supervision.

While some local waterways were declared dead in the wake of the spill, the Danube appeared to be suffering little immediate ecological damage due to its massive volume.

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Associated Press writer George Jahn contributed to this report from Vienna.

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Lawyer: Authorities botched shooting investigation

JOLIET, Ill. –  While a small-town police officer is free after being wrongly jailed for a shooting spree along the Illinois-Indiana border that left one dead, prosecutors and defense attorneys are at odds over what went wrong.

Attorney Dave Carlson said Wednesday that Lynwood police Officer Brian Dorian is the victim of a botched investigation. It is not the first time that accusation has been made against the Will County state's attorney's office.

"They were trying to put pieces of a puzzle together that didn't fit," Carlson said of the case against Dorian. "Their mindset was very close-minded. They thought he did this and they were going to do whatever it took to get him."

In wasting time on Dorian, Carlson said, authorities also gave area residents a false sense of security.

"Four days (during Dorian's detention) the killer is out there and nobody looking for him," he said.

Dorian was arrested Friday at his home in Crete after a search for someone who allegedly asked his victims about honeybees or construction material before pulling a gun. Dorian is an officer with the Lynwood Police Department, 30 miles south of Chicago, not far from where the shootings took place.

Chuck Pelkie, a spokesman for State's Attorney James Glasgow's office, said a witness had identified Dorian as the shooter and Dorian's vehicle matched the gunman's.

But Pelkie said evidence shows Dorian was on his computer until 11 a.m. the day of the shootings. The first shooting happened at 10:30 a.m. at a work site in Illinois. Ballistics from the gun in both shootings matched, meaning Dorian could not have been involved in the later one, Pelkie said.

Both Carlson and another Dorian attorney, Bob O'Dekirk, lashed out at Glasgow, saying he was responsible for bungling the investigation and then tried to claim credit for freeing a falsely accused man.

"You can't make the problem, clean it up and then act like a hero," Carlson said.

Pelkie adamantly defended his boss and the work of investigators on Wednesday. He said they remained open-minded about Dorian's guilt or innocence and focused solely on where the evidence appeared to take them.

"All of the evidence at the time of the arrest pointed to this individual," Pelkie said. "Authorities were compelled to make the arrest."

It wasn't until investigators fully analyzed Dorian's computer on Tuesday that they concluded it was impossible for him to have been the shooter, Pelkie said.

Despite defense attorney claims, Pelkie also said Dorian did not immediately provide the level of detail about his whereabouts on the day of the shootings that might have led investigators to quickly rule him out.

"Mr. Dorian provided some general information," Pelkie said, speaking outside of the courthouse after Wednesday's hearing where a murder charge against Dorian was officially dropped. "Had he provided more specific information, we might not be here."

Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez said Wednesday he wasn't surprised the charges were dropped, saying information clearing a suspect is always possible. He said his department kept investigating the case even after Dorian was arrested and noted investigators in Illinois and Indiana have different evidence and witnesses to consider, despite forensic evidence showing the victims were shot with the same weapon.

"We believe it's one person," he said.

Dominguez said his department is waiting for results of tests on evidence it submitted to Indiana State Police.

He said detectives talked again Tuesday to one of the two wounded victims, Lowell farmer Keith Dahl, 64.

"We're hoping as he's able to recuperate he has an increased or better memory," Dominguez said. "We're taking it slow with him."

Dorian's release is another blow to the Will County State's Attorney's Office, which has suffered a number setbacks in high-profile cases.

Glasgow has been on the defensive throughout the case of Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson. When he and other authorities announced that Peterson was a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, and that he was reopening the investigation into Kathleen Savio's death, originally ruled an accident, he repeated a number of times that he was not state's attorney when she died and suggested that any mistakes were not his fault.

Glasgow also inherited the Riley Fox case. The 3-year-old girl was raped and murdered in 2004 and her father was charged with murder. But after DNA tests revealed he was not the killer, Glasgow cleared him of the slaying — and in May announced his office was charging an imprisoned sex offender with the crime.

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Associated Press Writer Tom Coyne in South Bend, Ind., contributed to this report.

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Mental exam for Ft. Hood suspect blocked by lawyer

FORT WORTH, Texas –  A defense attorney on Thursday blocked a mental evaluation for the Army psychiatrist accused in last year's shooting rampage at Fort Hood, saying it should not be conducted before a hearing to determine whether his client will stand trial.

John Galligan, the lead defense attorney for Maj. Nidal Hasan, said Thursday that he gave a three-member military mental health panel written objections about the exam.

The panel must determine whether Hasan is competent to stand trial, and also will determine Hasan's mental status the day of the Nov. 5 shooting that left 13 dead and nearly three dozen wounded on the Texas Army post.

Galligan said after he gave the panel his objections, they went inside the jail to see Hasan, who signed a document that said: "I do not wish to voluntarily participate in this exam under the current conditions and time frame." The panel signed the document and left, Galligan said.

Col. Morgan Lamb, a Fort Hood brigade commander appointed to oversee judicial matters in Hasan's case, on Monday ordered that the evaluation be done before next week's Article 32 hearing. The hearing will be held to determine whether Hasan will stand trial on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.

The mental exam had been set for later this year or early next year at Galligan's request.

At the Article 32 hearing, expected to last several weeks, the injured victims will testify about what happened that day. The hearing is similar to a grand jury proceeding, and the mental panel's exam and findings are a separate issue.

Fort Hood officials did not immediately return calls to The Associated Press seeking comment about when the mental evaluation might take place or if Lamb could force Hasan to comply now.

The panel's job is to determine whether Hasan had a severe mental illness at the time of the shooting, and if so, whether such a condition prevented him from knowing at the time that his alleged actions were wrong. They also must assess if he is competent to stand trial, based on military law.

Hasan, 40, has been in custody since the shootings, first in a San Antonio military hospital for treatment of gunshot wounds that left him paralyzed. Since April he has been in the nearby Bell County Jail, which houses military suspects for Fort Hood, about 120 miles south of Fort Worth. The military justice system does not have bail for defendants.

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Pa. lawyer found guilty in Russian child-sex case

Published October 01, 2010

| Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA –  A suburban Philadelphia lawyer has been convicted of sexually abusing a Russian ballet dancer he helped support.

Kenneth Schneider of Berwyn was found guilty Friday of sex tourism.

Prosecutors say Schneider began a long relationship with a 12-year-old Russian boy in 1998. They say he paid for the boy's ballet school and had him move in to his Moscow apartment.

The 45-year-old Schneider founded the Apogee Foundation, a New York-based arts group. He took the stand this week and denied the charges.

Defense lawyer Joseph Green Jr. calls the verdict disappointing and says he will weigh all options for an appeal.

Schneider faces up to 25 years in prison at his Jan. 12 sentencing. He remains in custody.

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NY lawyer convicted in Dead Sea Scrolls case

NEW YORK –  A scholar's son was convicted Thursday of using online aliases to harass and discredit his father's detractors in a heated academic debate over the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A Manhattan jury found Raphael Golb guilty of about 30 counts against him, including identity theft, forgery and harassment. He was acquitted of one count of criminal impersonation.

Golb didn't react as he heard the verdict in the unusual criminal trial over claims of Internet impersonation — even more unusual because of its arcane subject. He said outside court he wasn't surprised by the verdict, because he felt the judge's instructions to the jury were biased. He planned to appeal. As he sat on a bench, he said: "I'm stoic."

"I'm looking forward to the appeal," he said. "But not with joy, just because that is what happens next."

Prosecutors said Golb, 50, used fake e-mail accounts and wrote blog posts under assumed names to take his father's side in an obscure but sharp-elbowed scholarly dispute over the scrolls' origins. Golb acknowledged on the stand that he crafted the e-mails and blog posts, but said the writings amounted to academic whistle-blowing and blogosphere banter — not crime. He said he was using irony, satire and parody to expose a plagiarist.

Defense Attorney Ron Kuby said the case was a clear violation of the First Amendment.

"Today what happened was the District Attorney of New York County and the trial court made hurting somebody's feelings a criminal act," he said. "And in New York, hurting people's feelings or being annoying is not a crime, we call that Monday."

The jury deliberated about five hours. Golb was acquitted of impersonating one scholar, but convicted of identity theft, harassment and criminal impersonation of Dr. Lawrence Schiffman, a longtime rival of his father's whom he said plagiarized research and was never punished. Schiffman took the case to authorities.

Golb's father and Schiffman, who is chairman of New York University's Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies have long disagreed on the origins of the texts. Schiffman says they were assembled by a sect known as the Essenes. Norman Golb, a University of Chicago professor, believes the writings to be the work of a range of Jewish groups and communities.

Scholars are split on the debate; there are supporters of both arguments.

Raphael Golb, a linguistics scholar and lawyer with degrees from Oberlin College, Harvard University and NYU, said he was angry the plagiarism accusations were never brought to light and that his father's theory was being smeared online.

Golb created an account under Schiffman's name and sent messages from it to Schiffman's students and colleagues. They pointed to blog posts about the plagiarism allegation and asked the recipients to help keep it quiet. "This is my career at stake," some of the e-mails said.

The blog posts, too, were Raphael Golb's work under other names, prosecutors said. They said he also opened up e-mail accounts in the names of other scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Schiffman denies copying Norman Golb's work and says he's never had a personal problem with the Chicago historian.

He said in a statement Thursday that he was appreciative of the work on the case.

"Let us hope that the field of Dead Sea Scrolls research can get back to its real business — interpreting the ancient scrolls and explaining their significance for the history of Judaism and the background of early Christianity," he said.

Jurors left without speaking to reporters. During the three-week trial, they were given a history lesson on the more than 2,000-year-old documents, found in caves in Israel in the 1940s by a Bedouin shepherd searching for a lost goat. The texts contain the earliest known versions of portions of the Hebrew Bible and have provided important insight into the history of Judaism and the beginnings of Christianity.

Access to the scrolls was tightly controlled by a group known as the monopoly. Jewish scholars — including Norman Golb — were not allowed to evaluate them. The controlled access to the scrolls continues, Golb argued during his testimony. He said his father was excluded from participating in workshops and museum exhibits on the texts while other more popular scholars were invited.

District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance said stealing money isn't the only type of identity fraud.

"Using fictitious identities to impersonate victims is not what open academic debate seeks to foster," he said.

Golb faces at least four years in prison on the top charge when he is sentenced Nov. 18. He is free until then.

While Internet impersonation claims have generated lawsuits, prosecutions are rare unless phony identities are used to steal money, experts say.

In one high-profile prosecution, Missouri mother Lori Drew was accused of helping her daughter and a friend pose as a teen boy on MySpace to send hurtful messages to a 13-year-old neighbor girl. The girl committed suicide.

A federal jury in California, where MySpace has its servers, convicted Drew of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization. A judge overturned the verdict and acquitted her.

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Associated Press Writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

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