Prosecutor in LA church abuse tries fraud tactic

LOS ANGELES – A federal prosecutor with a penchant for applying the law creatively is taking on the nation's largest Roman Catholic Archdiocese in a child molestation case that could break ground for prosecuting high-ranking church officials.
But legal experts questioned whether U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien could persuade a jury that by allowing the molestation of hundreds of children by Catholic priests church leaders violated the federal "honest services" fraud law.
The law, which makes it illegal to scheme to deprive others of their right to honest services, has most often been used to prosecute politicians and chief executive officers of corporations. It has never been used against a church.
The Los Angeles Times, citing unnamed sources, reported Thursday that O'Brien was pursuing the honest services fraud strategy.
He would have to show that parishioners were denied the honest services of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other church leaders. A federal grand jury is investigating how they handled their internal investigation of child-molest allegations brought against Catholic priests.
The Archdiocese reached a record $660 million settlement in 2007 with more than 500 alleged victims of child abuse.
Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola University Law School and a former federal prosecutor, predicted the honest services fraud would be difficult to prove because it requires evidence of "a specific intent to defraud."
"Federal statutes are designed to cover a myriad of kinds of behavior, but just because you can charge them doesn't mean the jury is going to convict," Levenson said.
Mahony said the Archdiocese was cooperating, but he thought the matter had already been laid to rest by previous state and local investigations.
"Basically we were mystified and puzzled by the whole thing," Mahony told Los Angeles radio station KNX on Thursday. "We have been through these investigations for years now."
One legal expert seemed to agree, suggesting a federal prosecution was unwarranted.
"It's outrageous that they're in it," said G. Robert Blakey, a professor who teaches federal law at Notre Dame University and who helped draft the honest services statute.
"What does this have to do with the federal government?" Blakey asked. "The state of California has prosecuted many cases. They got a huge settlement in civil cases. Why is the federal government doing it now? Doesn't he (O'Brien) have enough to do with terrorists, with financial fraud, with drug smuggling?"
The U.S. attorney's office said Thursday it would have no comment.
O'Brien gained attention last year when he stepped in after local authorities declined to prosecute a Missouri woman for allegedly causing the suicide of a teenage girl through an Internet hoax. Authorities said Lori Drew created a phony MySpace profile for a teenage boy and used it to flirt with the girl, then dump her.
O'Brien brought computer fraud charges under a law normally used in hacking and trademark infringement cases. Drew was convicted of minor charges of using computers without authorization, but she was acquitted of more serious crimes.
Advocates for victims of clergy abuse expressed joy that he was going after the Archdiocese.
"From our perspective, it's crystal clear that parishioners were deceived and defrauded. It's simply common sense," said David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Steve Rubino, a New Jersey attorney who has represented numerous priest abuse victims and attempted to bring federal conspiracy charges against church officials, said the U.S. attorney's effort "is a natural outgrowth of the whole attempt to find accountability for all of this."
But he said trying to prosecute high-level church officials could be difficult.
"Chief executives (of companies) are tried every day," he said. "Chief executives who happen to be sitting cardinals are not. It will be a political and legal test of will."
Mahony's attorney, J. Michael Hennigan, accused the government of leaking word of the investigation, adding the Archdiocese would press for an investigation.
"The Archdiocese is not aware of any fact or set of facts that would support a responsible federal investigation of the Archdiocese or of Cardinal Roger Mahony," Hennigan said in an e-mailed statement.

Ohioan gets 44 years in underwear molestation ploy

CINCINNATI – A suburban Cincinnati man convicted of sexually touching children while claiming to be a market researcher who wanted to measure their underwear has been sentenced to 44 years in prison.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman imposed the maximum sentence possible on Ben Hawkins on Thursday.
Prosecutors said the 44-year-old Hawkins targeted boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 16, and sometimes convinced parents to let him be alone with their kids.
They say he arranged to meet parents and children at schools, hospitals or their homes and told parents he needed to measure underwear for research.
Hawkins pleaded guilty in December to nine charges of importuning and three counts of gross sexual imposition.

NY madam gets 6 months in case linked to Spitzer

NEW YORK – A college student who managed the prostitution ring that brought down former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was sentenced Thursday to six months in prison.
Cecil Suwal, 24, of New York, cried as she apologized and asked for mercy from U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones.
"It is my aim to prevent others, especially young girls, from making the kind of mistakes that I have made," Suwal said.
She pleaded guilty last year to money laundering, conspiracy and conspiring to promote prostitution.
The federal probation department had recommended that Suwal receive no prison time. Prosecutors had sought roughly two years.
Suwal was 18 when she got involved with a man nearly three times her age. She was Mark Brener's "paramour, his companion and ultimately his assistant" at the Emperors Club VIP, a $5,500-an-hour escort service, said defense attorney Alberto A. Ebanks.
Ebanks said Brener's psychological domination left Suwal incapable of making independent decisions. Her attorney said she even had a tattoo on her body reading "property of Mark Brener."
But Ebanks said Suwal has "permanently severed the umbilical cord from Brener," adding that she attended college last semester, did charity work, had steady appropriate employment and had volunteered for a forensic psychological evaluation.
The federal judge credited Suwal for going to "extraordinary lengths to put her life back on track" but said it could not erase the fact that she had played a central role in the escort service.
Brener, 63, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a prostitution offense and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces between 2 and 2 1/2 years in prison.
The judge said Suwal opened bank accounts for shell businesses created to hide the true nature of the operation, paid prostitutes and arranged meetings with clients.
It was one such meeting in a Washington hotel last February that snared Spitzer and led to his March resignation as governor.
Prosecutors announced in November they would not charge Spitzer after investigators found no evidence that he misused public or campaign funds for prostitution. The federal government typically does not prosecute clients of prostitution rings.
Booking agent Tanya Robin Hollander of Rhinebeck, N.Y., pleaded guilty to a prostitution conspiracy and was sentenced to a year of probation. Another booking agent, Temeka Lewis, who is enrolled at the University of Virginia, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to promoting prostitution and money laundering.

Texas executes inmate for killing fellow prisoner

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A violent prison gang member was put to death Thursday for fatally injecting a fellow prisoner with an overdose of heroin more than 11 years ago.
Ricardo Ortiz, 46, thanked his family for their support although he had no personal witnesses in the death chamber.
He was pronounced dead nine minutes later, at 6:18 p.m.
Ortiz became the fifth condemned killer to receive lethal injection this year in the nation's most active death penalty state and the second killed this week in Texas.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal to delay the execution about two hours before he was scheduled to die. Ortiz had sought to put off the execution on the grounds that he should get federal money to pay for legal representation to file a state clemency request.
The issue is still under review by the court. Similar appeals from other condemned inmates so far have failed.
State attorneys had opposed the request, contending that even if Ortiz presented a clemency petition to the governor, it likely would fail.
Ortiz was condemned for injecting a fatal amount of heroin into 22-year-old Gerardo Garcia at the El Paso County jail. Garcia was found dead in 1997 of an injection three times more potent than the amount that could kill him.
Jail inmates testified that Ortiz obtained the drug the previous day and injected Garcia, saying his bank robbery partner had to die for implicating him. The two were being interviewed by FBI agents investigating a series of unsolved bank robberies.
Ortiz declined to speak with reporters before his execution. He had a long criminal history that included robbery, aggravated robbery, burglary and possessing deadly weapons in prison, including a homemade spear used to stab a fellow inmate.
Prosecutors said he was a high-ranking member of the Texas Syndicate prison gang.
Defense attorneys had tried to show jurors Garcia had a death wish and was considering suicide.
Evidence showed Ortiz was arrested in 1990 but never tried for the execution-style slayings of two Houston-area parolees, Anthony Rosalio Acosta, 42, and Jimmy Lopez Rangel, 29, in a desert southeast of El Paso.

Iceland to appoint gay woman minister to PM post

REYKJAVIK, Iceland – Iceland's next leader will be an openly gay former flight attendant who parlayed her experience as a union organizer into a decades-long political career.
Both parties forming Iceland's new coalition government support the appointment of Johanna Sigurdardottir, the island nation's 66-year-old social affairs minister, as Iceland's interim prime minister.
"Now we need a strong government that works with the people," Sigurdardottir told reporters Wednesday, adding that a new administration will likely be installed Saturday.
Sigurdardottir will lead until new elections are held, likely in May. But analysts say she's unlikely to remain in office — chiefly because her center-left Social Democratic Alliance isn't expected to rank among the major parties after the election.
In opinion polls, it trails the Left-Green movement, a junior partner in the new coalition.
Iceland's previous conservative-led government failed Monday after the country's banks collapsed last fall under the weight of huge debts amassed during years of rapid economic growth. The country's currency has since plummeted, while inflation and unemployment are soaring.
Former Prime Minister Geir Haarde won't lead his Independence Party into the new elections because he needs treatment for throat cancer.
While Haarde endured angry protests for months and had his limousine pelted with eggs, polling company Capacent Gallup said Sigurdardottir was Iceland's most popular politician in November, with an approval rating of 73 percent.
She was the only minister to see her rating improve on the previous year's score, Capacent Gallup said Wednesday. The poll of 2,000 people had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
"It's a question of trust, people believe that she actually cares about people," said Olafur Hardarson, a political scientist at the University of Iceland.
Sigurdardottir is seen by many as a salve to the bubbling tensions in Iceland. Thousands have joined anti-government protests recently. Last week, police used tear gas for the first time in about 50 years to disperse crowds.
"She is a senior parliamentarian, she is respected and loved by all of Iceland," said Environment Minister Thorunn Sveinbjarnardottir, a fellow Alliance party member.
The new leader is known for allocating generous amounts of public funding to help the disabled, the elderly and organizations tackling domestic violence.
But conservative critics say Sigurdardottir's leftist leanings and lack of business experience won't help her fix the economy. "Johanna is a very good woman — but she likes public spending, she is a tax raiser," Haarde said.
Iceland has negotiated about $10 billion in bailout loans from the International Monetary Fund and individual countries. The loans are currently being held as foreign currency reserves.
Banks that were nationalized last year are once again open and trading — but Iceland still owes millions of dollars to foreign depositors.
After acting as a labor organizer when she worked as a flight attendant for Loftleidir Airlines — now Icelandair — in the 1960s and 1970s, Sigurdardottir was elected to Iceland's parliament in 1978. She served as social affairs minister from 1987-1994 and from 2007.
"If there's anyone who can restore trust in the political system it's her," said Eyvindur Karlsson, a 27-year-old translator from Reykjavik. "People respect her because she's never been afraid of standing up to her own party. They see her as someone who isn't tainted by the economic crisis."
In 1995, Sigurdardottir quit the party and formed her own, which won four parliamentary seats in a national election. Several years later, she rejoined her old party when it merged with three other center-left groups.
While a woman has served in the largely symbolic role of president, Sigurdardottir will be Iceland's first female prime minister.
She lives with journalist Jonina Leosdottir, who became her civil partner in 2002, and has two sons from a previous marriage.
Sigurdardottir is best known for her reaction to a failed bid to lead her party in 1994. "My time will come," she predicted in her concession speech.

Obama signs workforce anti-discrimination law

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama signed his first bill into law on Thursday, handing his labor and women's rights backers a victory by reversing a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that made it harder to sue for pay discrimination.
With the woman for whom the law was named at his side, Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act at a White House ceremony. The Democratic-led Congress passed the measure this week.
Pay equity was a sensitive issue during the presidential election campaign last year, especially among labor unions and women voters. On average, women in the United States are paid 23 percent less than men, while minority women receive even less.
"In signing this bill today, I intend to send a clear message -- that making our economy work means making sure it works for everyone, that there are no second class citizens in our workplaces," said the Democratic president, who is in his second week in office.
Ledbetter is an Alabama woman who discovered after 19 years on the job at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. that she was the lowest-paid supervisor at her plant despite having more experience than several male co-workers.
A jury found she was the victim of discrimination. But during the Bush administration, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision reversed what critics described as decades of legal precedent by declaring that discrimination claims must be filed within 180 days of the first offense.
The court rejected the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's contention that each new discriminatory paycheck triggers a new 180-day statute of limitations.
The law signed by Obama amended the 1964 Civil Rights Act to put the old EEOC standard into law, and covers pay discrimination based on gender, race, national origin, religion, age and disabilities.
Some Republicans and business leaders have expressed concern the measure could trigger an explosion of lawsuits based on old claims, discourage employers from hiring women and undermine efforts to stem the recession.

Analysis: GOP gambles in opposing Obama stimulus

WASHINGTON (AP — Eight days after Barack Obama took office as a "change" president, House Republicans have made a huge political gamble that could set the tone for the next election cycle.
In unanimously opposing the massive spending bill that Obama says is crucial to reviving the economy, they signaled they are not cowed by his November win or his calls for a new era of bipartisanship. Obama's popularity will slacken, they say, and even it doesn't voters will reward a party that makes principled stands for restrained spending and bigger tax cuts.
Democratic officials think Republicans are misreading Americans' hunger for action. And if they are right, the GOP could face a third round of election setbacks next year.
Eyebrows were raised on both sides by Wednesday night's 244-188 House vote, in which not a single Republican supported the stimulus package.
Passage was never in doubt, even when 11 Democrats joined the Republicans in voting nay. And the Democratic-controlled Congress is almost certain to enact some version of the measure soon, after senators make changes and work out the differences with the House.
Many congressional insiders, however, thought a dozen or more GOP House members would back the bill this week, especially after Obama met separately Tuesday with House and Senate Republicans in a rare presidential visit to the Capitol's two wings. The House vote makes it easier for Democrats to portray the entire Republican Party as a do-nothing, head-in-the-sand group, though GOP officials call that unfair.
"I think the Republicans have painted themselves into a box," said David DiMartino, a former Senate Democratic staffer now in public relations. "If the stimulus package works, they were wrong. For them to be right, the economy has to tank. They seem to be rooting for a bad economy."
Democratic strategists also think Republicans blundered by unanimously opposing Obama just after he made a high-profile show of bipartisanship. Not only was there his visit to the Capitol, but he agreed to drop two items from the bill that drew particular GOP fire: money to resod the National Mall in Washington and to expand family planning programs.
Republicans began pushing back Thursday. The two concessions were mighty small, they said, and Democrats ignored the GOP's alternative package that included more tax cuts and less spending, especially for programs with no obvious promise for stimulating the economy quickly.
Having Congress do nothing is not an option, "although sometimes our Democratic friends would like to present the false choice," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., told reporters.
If a Democratic measure fails to improve the economy, Kyl said, then in about six months Republicans will "be in the position to say, 'We didn't have the input into this that we needed, and that's why it hasn't worked.'"
For now, at least, White House aides see Obama's outreach to Republicans as a win-win for him, no matter where the House and Senate votes end up. They calculate that Americans will give him credit for trying to win Republicans over, even if he fails.
Liberal groups and labor unions turned up the heat Thursday. They announced a TV ad campaign meant to pressure moderate GOP senators to back the stimulus bill. The ad, by MoveOn.org and other groups, targets Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama will continue to meet with Republicans and make changes to the bill in response to their concerns. However, Gibbs suggested in an interview, GOP lawmakers will pay a political price if they ultimately stand in the bill's way.
"There will be people in districts all over the country who will wonder why, when there's a good bill to get the economy moving, why we still are playing gotcha," he said.
Both parties point to polls that they say show support for their respective viewpoints. White House chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told House Republican moderates this week that surveys find about 80 percent support for the stimulus legislation.
House GOP leaders, meanwhile, cited a poll Thursday in which most respondents said the stimulus bill is too expensive. It also found, they said, that 71 percent think it's unfair to give refund checks to people who do not pay federal income taxes.
Many low-income workers already receive some benefits through the Earned Income Tax Credit, but the stimulus bill would expand refunds to help offset payroll taxes that these workers pay.
Republicans' biggest complaint is that the package is loaded with items that they say seem more likely to promote liberal agendas than to stimulate the economy in the short run. They include $1 billion for the Census Bureau and money to combat Avian flu and help people stop smoking.
With such items being highlighted, "it's becoming an easier 'no' vote for all us," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an interview Thursday.
Many Republican lawmakers feel they were stampeded into voting last fall for a $700 billion financial bailout measure that proved unpopular with voters and of questionable benefit, Graham said. They worry that the stimulus bill might have a similar fate.
"Who wants to own an $850 billion increase in the national debt," Graham said, "not knowing whether it will work?"
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EDITOR'S NOTE — Charles Babington and Liz Sidoti cover Washington for The Associated Press. AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.