| Blog and Media Roundup - Sunday, June 28, 2009; News Roundup | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 28 2009, 04:59 AM (254 Views) | |
| abb | Jun 28 2009, 04:59 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/story/1586620.html Published: Jun 28, 2009 04:42 AM Modified: Jun 28, 2009 04:42 AM Christian Laettner is Blue Devil's money man. Brian Davis functions asthe salesman. Davis and Laettner took part in such Duke basketball triumphs as the defeat of Georgia Tech on March 14, 1992. The financial plight of Blue Devil Ventures has raised questions about the completion of Durham's West Village. Business lawsuits vex ex-hoops stars BY ANNE BLYTHE AND JACKHAGEL, Staff writers DURHAM - For college basketball fans, Christian Laettner and Brian Davis are glorified chapters in Duke University sports history -- teammates who won back-to-back championships in a record four consecutive trips to the Final Four. When Laettner sank his famous 17-foot buzzer-beater, propelling the Blue Devils over Kentucky on their way to the 1992 championship, Davis was cheering on the sidelines. The two have since teamed up in the business arena. And although that college success has opened doors for the former Duke stars as they look for good fortune off the court, the tandem's long shots at development and professional sports team ownership rattle the rim. The duo, which led a $170million effort to convert an abandoned tobacco factory into a thriving mix of restaurants and offices and apartments in the heart of the Bull City, faces at least five lawsuits for failing to pay more than $6million to friends and associates. Their financial straits have prompted questions about the anticipated completion of that project, West Village. Now, efforts to test the model in other parts of the country are on ice. Their journey from the hard court to the boardroom to the courtroom, detailed in interviews with former business partners and in lawsuits filed during the past 15 years, give a glimpse of the big money, big egos and big-time successes and failures of professional athletes who try to make it big in the business world. "The whole confidence factor with athletes, it is at a very high level. And their greatest strengths become their greatest weaknesses if they're not careful," said Anthony Dilweg, a former Duke quarterback who, after leaving the NFL, formed a successful Durham development firm. "They think they can pull things off. And a lot of times people like to bet against them." The triumphs and tribulations of the high-profile players also provide insight into the free flow of money, ideas and ambitious real estate during the mid-2000s, when dollars for developers oozed from every pore of the economy. And they underscore the challenges and obstacles of building in these dire economic times. Their struggles are not unique. As lenders have tightened credit, the lifeblood of commercial real estate, some of the most seasoned developers have been forced to bench projects. These were not seasoned developers. Instead, they were just a couple of guys who aimed high in life, expecting success. "There's been three steps forward, one step back, five steps forward, one step back," Laettner said in an interview Friday. "You win some championships, you lose some games. But you keep trying to win." Financing the ideas Laettner and Davis reached the pinnacle of their sport. Both played in the NBA after Duke. Laettner played for 13 years on various teams; Davis for one. Armed with a sense of accomplishment, they tried to beat the odds with an ambitious plan near their alma mater. Davis and Laettner hooked up with Tom Niemann, a Duke business school grad. They formed Blue Devil Ventures in 1995, and drew up plans to renovate factories abandoned by the tobacco companies that made the city hum for generations. The kind of project they envisioned -- renovating historic buildings for new uses -- is considered one of the most difficult to pull off, even for the most talented developers. And being in what at the time was a burnt-out downtown, the plan didn't get much support from investors and lenders, Davis recalled in a recent interview. So they poured their own money into the project, and turned to friends for more. During the course of his NBA career, Laettner's total contracts were worth at least $60 million. Laettner and Davis, whose professional careers included a year in France and one with Laettner on the Minnesota Timberwolves, credit their legacy at Duke with their ability to get the project off the ground. It gave them a foot in a door that likely would have been closed to lesser-known developers. "Without it," Davis said, "it would have been impossible." Once complete in 2000, the apartments carved out of those brick husks were snapped up by graduate students and employees in downtown and nearby Research Triangle Park who were willing to pay hefty rates. "It proved two major things," said Bill Kalkhof, president of Downtown Durham Inc., a nonprofit liaison between developers and city officials. "One, that people would live downtown and really enjoy it, and secondly, that you could do a very big project in downtown and be profitable." Riding the success of that project, Laettner, Davis and Niemann embarked on a major expansion of West Village, including 366 apartments, and 234,000 square feet of offices, labs, restaurants and shops. In 2004, they were able to lure dollars from Wall Street investors including Rhahime Bell, the best man at Davis' wedding. By then, their roles were established. Laettner was the main money man. Niemann was the on-the-ground manager. And Davis, although he doesn't like the description, was the affable salesman for the vision. But their ideas about the direction of the company differed. Buoyed by initial success in Durham and an increasingly fluid lending environment, Laettner and Davis shifted their gaze to restoring crumbling buildings in the blighted parts of other inner cities, rather than focusing on finishing in Durham first. They bought sites in Baltimore, and near Temple University in Philadelphia, and had designs on many more cities. Davis talked up plans for a hotel in Miami, and had "visions of being 'the black [Donald] Trump,'" according to a company history distributed by a New York publicist in 2005, as Blue Devil started to break ground on the second phase of West Village. Along the way, though, Laettner and Davis frustrated partners with their lack of focus. With ambitious real estate projects already under way, Laettner and Davis sought to invest in sports teams with an eye toward developing near their stadiums. The duo bought a small stake in the D.C. United Major League Soccer team. But other efforts did not gain serious traction. Plans for the second phase of West Village were delayed until late 2006. About that time, the two had agreed to a combined $40million to buy the Memphis Grizzlies, with Davis pledging to put in more than half to become the youngest majority partner in an NBA ownership. NBA displeased Later that month, when Davis was still trying to pull together the money, a reporter from The Commercial Appeal, a Memphis newspaper, asked the player about his net worth for an article on Oct. 8, 2006. "Between a dollar and 50million," Davis answered. By that time, though, big players in the sports business were wondering whether the bid was just smoke blowing from Tobacco Road. Davis reportedly needed to produce about $31million in cash to close the sale. When the pair couldn't deliver, the deal fell apart with NBA executives issuing stern words about the stumble. Their desire to be big players in various arenas off the court appear to have clashed with Niemann's desire to focus on the niche of historic renovation. "Brian has a lot of ideas, and he may get tired of people not executing them," said Eddie Belk, a Durham architect who worked on the early stages of the West Village project. He said dealing with the partners wasn't easy. At the time, "Christian was very actively playing basketball and wasn't there a lot, so in that sense, he was the easiest." Frustration between Davis and Niemann came to a head in June 2006 at a lunch meeting in a downtown seafood restaurant. The partners had begun closing on properties for the second phase of West Village that day. Harsh words led to a scuffle, which was neutralized after Davis, who is 6-foot-7, picked up all 5 feet 8 inches of Niemann. Niemann dismisses the incident as "boys being boys," adding that the two made up soon after. But he called it a critical moment in their relationship. Soon after, Niemann began investing in renovation projects in small towns along the East Coast, without Davis and Laettner. Davis formed Blue Devil Partners, an entity that excluded Niemann. Davis said that the partnership -- "51 percent me, 49 percent Christian" -- was an effort "to keep it simple." But what has come since forming Blue Devil Partners has not been simple -- despite early success at West Village. Ninety-nine percent of the 455 apartments are full and fetching high rents, and 80 percent of the offices are leased. But plans to renovate the six-story Art Deco Chesterfield building with 157 apartments, almost 70,000 square feet of offices and ground-floor shops, are delayed. City leaders and residents, meanwhile, are crossing their fingers for a completed connection between the city center and an established downtown entertainment hub, Brightleaf Square. The city committed $2.9million in economic incentives to the project. But it has doled out only $222,690 thus far, and won't give away more unless certain deadlines are met. "If we get two out of three with this dynamic trio, with the personalities involved and the economy the way it is, that's fine," said Eugene Brown, a Durham city council member. But lenders and associates want their money back -- and have gone to court to recoup more than $6million. And that could complicate the completion of their Durham project. Lawsuits In April, Chevron sued in federal court, alleging that Blue Devil Ventures had not repaid $1.5million lent to redevelop the Chesterfield Building. Chevron lawyers declined to comment. In a separate suit, a Maryland company led by Shawne Merriman, a Pro Bowl linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, accuses Laettner and Davis of failing to abide by terms of a $3million loan and a settlement reached last year in federal court. "While Shawne would have preferred these matters to have been resolved amicably, the lawsuit has been brought to protect Shawne's business interests and the interests of his company," Merriman's lawyers said in a statement. On May 14, a federal judge in Washington ordered Ball Street Ventures, another development company Davis and Laettner are associated with, to pay $687,230 plus interest to Bryan K. Simms. Simms claimed he was owed the money as compensation. Davis, court documents say, persuaded Simms, an associate of the two from Duke, to leave his job as a vice president at Lehman Brothers to take a seven-figure job at Ball Street. Simms declined to comment. In 2007, two other investments groups sued the two, complaining of abandoned loan settlements. 'Do it great' Davis says he can't discuss the lawsuits in detail. He says he was surprised by a few of them, perhaps hurt. "Friends in business sometimes doesn't always work out as it should," he said. All the claims have been addressed, he said, adding that "a couple have actually been settled, and we're taking care of everything in terms of no litigation, no courtrooms, and paying everything in full." Davis seems to have learned from the experience, or rather he has learned to apply to business a lesson he learned from coach Mike Krzyzewski in the locker room at Duke: Keep it simple. He doesn't speak as easily about chasing sports teams and other deals in other cities, as he did in 2006, when he was in town to kick off the second phase of West Village. He says he wants to finish up in Durham, and then move on to Baltimore when the time is right. "Understand that we can't do everything," he said "If you're going to do it, do it great. But don't do too much. And that's what I'm trying to do. "We actually have said 'no' to a lot of things," he continued. "But we've said 'yes' to things that we love. And we're going to continue doing that. The lesson is, 'keep it simple, and just work.'" anne.blythe@newsobserver.com or 919-932-8741 |
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| abb | Jun 28 2009, 05:00 AM Post #2 |
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http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1586614.html Published: Jun 28, 2009 04:44 AM Modified: Jun 28, 2009 04:45 AM Gov. Beverly Perdue, right, greets Linda Karolak at the N.C. Federation of Business and Professional Women. Gov. Beverly Perdue with guests at the N.C. Federation of Business and Professional Women conference. Gov. Beverly Perdue speaks with her press secretary, Chrissy Pearson, before a speech. Perdue has been more visible lately, trying to explain the state's economic predicament to constituents. SHAWN ROCCO, Staff photos by Shawn Rocco Hard times, tough luck for Perdue The governor's approval plummets as the state's economy worsens and she proposes raising taxes. BY ROB CHRISTENSEN, Staff Writer RALEIGH - Nearly six months after taking office, Gov. Beverly Perdue's political honeymoon is over. Perdue has been politically whipsawed from the left and the right. Teachers, state employees and advocates for the poor have taken to the streets, upset about state budget cuts and furloughs. Conservatives, outraged over her proposal to raise taxes by $1.5 billion, have taken up protest signs. Their anger has taken a toll on Perdue, to the point that she is now among the nation's most unpopular governors. Comparing polls assessing the performance of governors is imprecise at best, but apparently only three governors -- Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, David Paterson of New York and Jim Gibbons of Nevada -- have lower job-approval ratings than Perdue. In response, Perdue has hit the campaign trail again, hoping to revive an administration that has been battered by the state's worst fiscal crisis in generations. In rallies across the state in recent days, Perdue has called for tax increases to avoid deep cuts to public schools. She has also sought to reinvigorate North Carolina's progressive spirit, reminding voters just how far the state has come from its humble roots. At times, she compares herself to former Gov. Terry Sanford, an icon for Tar Heel liberals, who raised taxes to improve public education. She said criticisms of her leadership should be viewed in the context of the times. "The economy has collapsed around our people," Perdue said in an interview. "I've been governor for five and half months. I've had furloughs. I've had to do things no other governor has done before to pay the bills. It is what it is. There will be better days." It is unclear how Perdue's call for sacrifice will play with an increasingly surly public, angry over an 11.1 percent unemployment rate, a record $4.7 billion budget shortfall and a raft of investigations of Democrats in the state capital (none of them involving Perdue's administration). Perdue has taken a series of austerity measures to keep state government operating for the year ending June 30. And she has proposed some tough medicine to help close a shortfall for the fiscal year that begins Wednesday. Most governors across the country have sharply dropped in popularity after making politically difficult choices to cut government programs, lay off state employees or raise taxes. But few have fallen as far as Perdue. Perdue's job approval rating since she took office in January has fallen from 60 percent to 30 percent, according to Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm based in Raleigh. The poll found that 54 percent disapproved of the job she was doing, while 17 percent had no opinion. Other recent polls have shown her approval rating only slightly higher. At former Gov. Mike Easley's lowest ebb during the 2002 recession, he dropped to a 40 percent approval rating. But the 2002 recession was not as deep as the current economic crisis, and the budget measures Easley took were not as severe. "She faced a deficit in our state that is unheard of,'' said Senate leader Marc Basnight, a Democratic ally. "She had to make reductions that were very, very unpopular. She knew when she talked to me that this was going to cause a great deal of pain for people who are now employed in this state, particularly the teachers." Perdue, who was elected governor with the strong support of the N.C. Association of Educators, the influential teachers' advocacy group, has seen her biggest falloff in support among teacher and state employees. The decision to cut a half percent of pay for teachers at the end of the school year hit a political nerve - partly because it was delivered at the last moment by a political ally. Her support among self-described liberals has dropped from 66 percent to 46 percent, said Tom Jensen, a Democratic pollster. She is the only governor in the country for whom a majority of voters of her own party do not approve of the job she is doing, Jensen said. "Our members have been very angry about that and many continue to be angry about that," said Sheri Strickland, president of the state's largest teachers organization. "They felt like the governor is someone we worked very hard to elect.'' Perdue has sought to remedy that in recent days by holding rallies in Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, Asheville, Wilmington and Greenville to garner support for a $1.5 billion tax increase, which she argues is needed to prevent teacher layoffs and not increase the number of children in each classroom. The rallies were mainly attended by teachers, but their reaction was often subdued. "I think she's just trying to make sure we're not totally mad at her," Bonnie Stebnicki, a preschool teacher, said at a rally in Greenville. "Teachers are the ones who stood out in the rain for her for all those hours [at the polls]." Conservative critics, meanwhile, say Perdue's proposal for new taxes is the wrong medicine in a struggling economy. They say that Perdue sometimes acts as if she is, in the words of state GOP chairman Tom Fetzer, politically "tone-deaf.'' "It is hard to believe Governor Perdue is serious about cutting wasteful state spending when she jets off on a taxpayer-funded, five-city 'Tax Hike Tour' in a state airplane,'' Senate Republican leader Phil Berger, an Eden lawyer, said at a news conference last week. Perdue dismissed the criticism as routine politics. "One day I was criticized for not doing anything and the next day I was criticized for doing too much," Perdue said. "It just doesn't matter. "What matters to me is that we move this state forward. I didn't run to have political battles. At the end of the day, I'm going to stand up for kids." Mac McCorkle, a 2008 Perdue campaign adviser, said Perdue's problems must be viewed in the context of governors getting hammered across the country. If Perdue's numbers are worse, McCorkle said, it is only because she is a new governor. "I think she is being punished for things largely beyond her control," he said. "She couldn't raise taxes in this fiscal year. She didn't have that option. When people start seeing her values and priorities, I think you see some of the base voters come back." Perdue took office in January with a flurry of activity and a new openness that stood in marked contrast to her predecessor, fellow Democrat Mike Easley, who was secretive and kept public appearances at a minimum. "I think she is doing a good job," said Dana Cope, executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina. "As long as she shows up and makes public appearances and is engaged with taxpayers, that is about 70 percent more than Governor Easley did." Perdue seemed less visible as the budget debate shifted to the legislature during the spring. When Perdue made the news, it was usually to announce another belt-tightening measure. "When she goes out and plants the flag, my perception is she does pretty well,'' said Gary Pearce, a veteran Democratic strategist in Raleigh. "But she had this mystifying period when she was off the radar screen.'' Adding to Perdue's problems is that she entered office without a strong mandate. During a Democratic landslide year, she struggled to defeat Republican Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory. "She won in large part because of a big Obama turnout," Pearce said. "She does not have the personal popularity that President Obama has. Her popularity is much more related to her policies and budget situation.'' Perdue remains optimistic about the state, describing the current economic crisis as a speed bump on the road to prosperity. But some say North Carolina's image has suffered, with the state now struggling with an unemployment rate that is more akin to the Midwestern Rust Belt states such as Michigan. "There is a widespread perception of a sudden and massive reversal of fortunes," said John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank in Raleigh. "To be confronted with the realization that we have one of the worst-performing economies in the country has probably come as a shock." Hood said Perdue is also suffering from the multiple investigations into Easley, a former Democratic governor, and his use of free cars, a favorable real estate deal and the hiring of his wife by N.C. State University. "Is it entirely fair to hold the current governor responsible for the misdeeds of the past governor?" Hood asked. "No. But it's very common. She is governor at a time when the previous Democratic governor seems to be taking a PR hit every morning. I do not think she had done nearly enough to separate herself from the previous one.'' Senate Democratic leader Tony Rand of Fayetteville warns against reading too much into Perdue's predicament. When the economy is going badly, she gets disproportionate blame, he said, and when it turns around she will get disproportionate credit. "The lesson,'' Rand said, "is don't get elected when the bottom is falling out.'' Staff writer Kevin Kiley contributed to this report. robc@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4532 |
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| abb | Jun 28 2009, 05:05 AM Post #3 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1176112.cfm District 1 welcomes police return By Neil Offen : The Herald-Sun noffen@heraldsun.com Jun 28, 2009 Bookmark and Share DURHAM -- The huge sign hanging from the loading dock overhang read, "Welcome Back," and Angeloe [cq] Burch was glad they were back. "It's good to have them here again," Burch said. "We need them in the neighborhood. We need them in the community." The Durham Police Department officially returned to District 1 Saturday with an open house and community day for its new substation off Hollway Street. Until staff moved in on June 1, the district had been without a substation since March 2008 when the old location in the Joyland Shopping Center had to close because of mold and ventilation problems. The community day included tours of the 16,000-square-foot facility, entertainment, a moonwalk for the kids, hot dogs and burgers for everyone on a big outdoor grill, a few speeches and some information booths. But to Burch, more important than the food and fun was that the cops were back. He pointed across the substation's broiling parking lot, past the moonwalk, down Calvin Street. "My cousin was shot on the street, right down there," Burch said. "At the end of Calvin. My nephew" -- he turned to his right, pointing in the other direction -- was shot and left on Holloway and Hyde Park. Just left on the side of the road." His nephew survived; his cousin didn't. "We've got some problems here in this neighborhood," Burch acknowledged, "and [having the substation at its new location] puts the police right in the thick of things. It'll help them do their jobs." That's the idea, said police Capt. Winslow Forbes, the commander of the new substation. "I think being out here, we'll be able to build a better bond with the community," said Forbes, sharp in his dress whites despite the brutal mid-day heat. "We'll be able to do more community outreach. That's all hard to do when you're not actually in the district." For the last 16 months, administrative staff and officers have worked out of temporary offices at Police Headquarters. "To be honest, we weren't party of the community then," Forbes said. "Now we are. They're part of our family and we're part of theirs." And practically speaking, having the substation in the old home of Wright Machinery Co. also will help the police answer calls in the neighborhood more quickly, the captain said. That's a good thing, too, said Elizabeth Armstrong, who had come Saturday to check out the new location. "I want the police as close as they can be," said Armstrong. "That way the whole area will become a lot safer." |
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| abb | Jun 28 2009, 05:09 AM Post #4 |
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http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/opinion/columnists/guests/68-1176129.cfm William V. "Bill" Bell: Citizens helped shape budget : Guest columnist Jun 28, 2009 Bookmark and Share Earlier this year, in addition to being ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top 10 best cities in 2009 to live, Durham received yet another national recognition that likely went unnoticed by most people. In an article, "O Citizen, Where Art Thou," April's Governing magazine recognized Durham as the "exception to the rule," for "engaging in regular efforts at bringing citizens into the budgeting process through everything from customer satisfaction surveys to small-scale community/city council meetings." At no time was that more evident than this year, as your City Council, city manager and staff developed and approved a no-frills budget in perhaps the toughest economy in recent memory. For that, I say "Thank you Durham." For without your engagement and your input to set spending priorities, a key piece of a challenging budget puzzle would have been missing. Given our economic realities, we all knew from the very beginning, with declining revenue and without a tax increase that this budget was not going to be typical. We were all going to have to make sacrifices that would affect services and programs we've come to expect. How to do that was the challenge, even with best of suggestions, wants and needs from citizens at Coffees with Council and other meetings. Together, I believe we have met the challenge: Crafting a budget that meets what you, Durham residents, said should be the city's highest priorities -- public safety, core services such as garbage collection, roads, water services, youth programs, job development, improving infrastructure and delivering capital projects on time and on budget. While the 2010 budget is nearly $10 million less than last year's budget, city staff is challenged to continue to provide quality services and programs that you've come to expect. And to do it with fewer resources -- people and finances. As many of you know by now, and as many local businesses are experiencing, the city eliminated 113 positions, and though the large majority were vacant, about 31 employees are affected. At this time, about 18 of those employees have been placed in other vacant city positions, and we are continuing to work to find other suitable positions when possible. Here are some highlights of the Fiscal Year 2010 budget: - Public Safety needs continue to be met, with overtime funds budgeted for targeted enforcement activities; new Fire Station 15 is appropriately staffed; and police and fire pay plans are funded. - A Teen Center opens in September, and other youth programs are strengthened through the Mayor's Summer Youth Works Program; the Junior Fire Marshal, the Youth Employed and Succeeding Programs, Wall Town Recreation Center reconstruction and various Durham Parks and Recreation programs. - Holton Career and Resource Center will open in August to meet the health, career planning and recreation needs of Northeast Central Durham residents. - Housing Code Enforcement is strengthened to continue eliminating vacant and boarded-up houses. - The Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization fund is increased by $250,000 to enhance the tax base, create jobs for Durham residents and reduce poverty and crime. - Solid Waste Management begins collecting recycling every other week starting July 13, saving money by using city staff and using larger bins, rather than contracted vendors. - An enhanced focus on protecting our environment and reducing energy consumption continues, with the purchase of 20 new hybrid buses and funding for the city-county sustainability officer. - Monthly water and sewer rates increased about 9.3 percent, raising $3.3 million for construction needs. Tier 1 or lowest water users will not be affected. For more details, please log onto the city's Web site at www.durhamnc.gov/citybudget. The challenge now is executing this very austere budget without any significant problems, and keeping in mind that the city will be as flexible as our current economic roller coaster dictates. As I write this, fuel costs are increasing weekly. Indeed, next year's budget leaves little margin for extras. With that said, now's the time to start thinking about coming years, and to plan in longer-term increments with our budget in mind. What are this city's priorities over the next three years? What is a reasonable and doable six-year capital project plan? How do we pay for increasing costs for transit services? How do we budget for maintenance projects, including streets, and plan bigger bond projects? How do we incorporate "green" into our building and into existing facilities? Those are just a few of the questions on our radar, as we continue to provide for our citizens and maintain a distinction only 21 of about 22,500 cities across the country enjoy -- a triple A bond rating by all three ratings agencies. As those around the nation constantly tell us what we already know, Durham is "where great things happen." And it's all because of you, Durham residents. William V. "Bill" Bell is mayor of the city of Durham. |
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| abb | Jun 28 2009, 05:15 AM Post #5 |
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http://townhall.com/columnists/MikeAdams/2009/06/28/little_boy_blue_devil&Comments=true Little Boy Blue Devil Mike Adams Sunday, June 28, 2009 It looks like Duke University has another rape case on its hands. This one may hurt the university nearly as much as the one that rocked its campus back in 2006. Unlike the previous case, this one appears to involve a credible confession of sexual abuse. Like the previous case, crucial facts are already being filtered through the prism of identity politics. Frank Lombard is the associate director of Duke’s Center for Health Policy. The university administrator was recently arrested by the FBI and charged with offering up his adopted 5-year-old son for sex. I tried to contact Frank Lombard over the weekend to probe his expertise regarding the health benefits of raping small children. So far, he’s declined to comment. University administrator Lombard is accused of logging on to a chat room online and describing himself as a “perv dad for fun.” The detective who wisely looked into the suspicious screen name says that Lombard admitted to molesting his own adopted son. All this was before allegedly inviting a stranger to travel to North Carolina from another state to statutorily rape his already-molested adopted son. If Lombard is convicted, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. His arrest comes about a year after the Court decided that child rapists cannot be executed because “society” has “evolved” to the point where such executions would be “indecent.” If this case goes to trial, it could be an interesting one to watch. But it will be just as interesting to watch the Duke faculty respond to these allegations. It didn’t take them long to respond when several white Duke Lacrosse players were accused of raping a black stripper. A whopping 88 professors signed a statement accusing the players of both racism and rape. Such was their regard for the presumption of innocence. Perhaps even more stunning was the response of some professors after it became apparent that the white lacrosse players were innocent. After that became so obvious the school had to readmit the students, Professor Kate Holloway resigned her committee assignments in protest. By the way, the most common form of faculty protest these days is to refuse to work. Most people think this kind of protest is caused by arrogance. But the actual cause is a thing called “tenure.” So it will be interesting to see how Duke faculty members respond to Frank Lombard. Because he is white, Lombard is fair game at Duke, isn’t he? But Lombard is also gay, so will that complicate things? Unfortunately for Frank Lombard, the affidavit in support of his arrest warrant shows that this second Duke rape case will also have a strong racial component. According to a confidential source (CS) a man using the user name “cooper2” or “cooperse” logged onto an internet-based video chat room. CS saw him perform oral sex on an African-American child under the age of ten. He also performed other acts on the child, which are too obscene to be described in this column. The user name “cooper2” has now been linked to Frank Lombard, the associate director Duke University’s Center for Health Policy. A second source has now alleged that “cooper2” has confessed to being “into incest” and that he has adopted two African American children. The only good news coming out of this story is about Frank Lombard’s live-in homosexual partner. The affidavit in support of Lombard’s arrest warrant shows that he made special arrangements when molesting the child – sometimes even by drugging the child – to make sure his partner did not find out. Records also indicate that Frank Lombard made a contribution to the Genesis Home in 2003. The Genesis Home is an organization that assists needy families in making a transition out of homelessness, in part by maintaining a child care center. The organization’s website features numerous photographs of African-American children under the age of ten. The Associate Press (AP) did not mention the fact that the five-year old offered up for molestation was black. Bringing that fact to light might be damaging to the political coalition that exists between blacks and gays. Nor did the AP mention that the adopted child is being raised by a homosexual couple. Bringing that fact to light might harm the gay adoption movement. I wrote this column because I believe that certain coalitions must be broken. And certain movements must be harmed. Let the political fallout begin. |
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| abb | Jun 28 2009, 05:19 AM Post #6 |
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http://bbvm.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/the-atlantic-interviews-radley-balko/ The Atlantic Interviews Radley Balko Posted on 2009 June 27 by BBVM Radley Balko is a senior editor at Reason Magazine whose award-winning investigative work focuses on criminal justice and civil liberties. His blog, The Agitator, is one of the most carefully curated resources for stories on the same subject. Q. In your work, you’ve frequently reported on police abuses and the appropriate role of law enforcement in a free society. Though you’re often writing in regard to specific controversies, I wonder if you have any general criticisms of the American criminal justice system. What’s wrong about where we’re at? What are the most urgent improvements you would recommend? I think the main problem is too much attention to numbers and statistics, which I think has been largely driven by the 40 years of “get tough on crime” rhetoric and slogan-based crime policy we’ve been getting from politicians. Everyone wants to boast about declines in crime statistics. But the focus on raw numbers has created some perverse incentives, from beat cops through mayors and police chiefs. Ed Burns, the former Baltimore narcotics cop and co-creator of the HBO series The Wire talks about this often. Drug cops are evaluated based on how many people they arrest, and what quantity of drugs they seize. Take what was saw in Atlanta after the Katherine Johnston case–the 92-year-old woman who was killed in a botched drug raid. Drug cops in Atlanta had quotas of drug arrests and seizures they had to meet each month. So there was a rush to meet the quota. If you got a tip about a big drug stash somewhere, there was pressure to get there quickly before it was moved, even if you had to take shortcuts in the warrant process. If you’re evaluated solely on raw arrest numbers, why take six months to build a case against a mid- or high-level drug distributor when you can get ten times the credit for arresting 10 street-level guys? Why not take shortcuts if you can get away with it? Prosecutors get re-elected or move on to higher office when they put lots of people in prison. They rarely get credit for choosing not to prosecute someone in the interest of justice. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen. But there’s rarely any professional reward for doing so. In fact, they usually get flack for it, particularly in high-profile cases. Prosecutors are also rarely sanctioned for bending or breaking the rules. They’re virtually immune from lawsuits, even if they convict the wrong person, and even if prosecutorial misconduct was a major factor in the conviction. So you have all this pressure on winning convictions, with little sanction for going too far. Federal criminal justice grants, asset forfeiture, promotions, higher office — all of these rewards are based on arrests and convictions, not necessarily a fair administration of justice. The other problem I think is a more general tendency in America toward criminalizing bad behavior. We seem to be unable to accept the idea that sometimes, bad things just happen. We want someone to be punished. If there’s no law on the books, we demand our politicians pass one. Take the case of Lori Drew, the Missouri woman who used a fake MySpace account to taunt once of her daughter’s peers until the young girl committed suicide. It’s an awful case, and Lori Drew acted despicably. But federal prosecutors in Los Angeles went after her based on a ridiculously broad interpretation of hacking laws. Now Congress is looking at overly broad, almost certainly unconstitutional legislation aimed at criminalizing online “harassment.” Here’s a pretty good rule of thumb: If you’re naming a piece of crime legislation after a crime victim, it’s probably a bad law. It means you’re legislating out of anger, or in reaction to public anger over a specific incident. That’s generally not how good policy is made. We have way too many laws, many that are too broadly written, and too many incentives nudging the state toward putting too many people in prison for as long as possible. You’ve criticized the militarization of law enforcement. It’s a topic The Atlantic covered in the aftermath of the Columbine shooting, when police departments all over America began encouraging a SWAT team mentality among regular officers. Why is this war mentality a bad thing? Aren’t there heavily armed bad guys who are literally causing war-like casualties in urban neighborhoods? The military is trained to kill people and break things — to annihilate a foreign enemy. The police are charged with protecting our rights while securing the peace. Those are two very different missions, and it’s dangerous to conflate them. But that seems to be what’s happening. I documented this rise of militarism in a 2006 paper I wrote for the Cato Institute. In addition to the dramatic rise in SWAT teams in this country (about a 1,500 percent increase in the last 30 years), there’s also an increasingly militaristic mindset taking hold in many police departments–an “us versus them” kind of mentality that pits cops against the neighborhoods they control. We’re dressing police officers in military attire, giving them military-grade weaponry, training them in military tactics, then sending them into American cities and neighborhoods and telling them they’re fighting a war–be it the war on drugs, or a more generic war on crime. That’s not a healthy development for a free society. People who live in high-crime areas are still American citizens with rights. They aren’t the foreign residents of an enemy nation. The argument that we need to arm cops like soldiers because the modern criminal is increasingly well-armed is appealing, but doesn’t seem to be backed by much evidence. The idea seems to be driven by a couple of high-profile but largely anomalous incidents, most notably the 1997 North Hollywood shootout. But in 2004, the National Institute for Justice released a study showing that assault weapons are rarely used in actual crimes, and it’s even rarer to find one used in the shooting of a police officer. This jibes with a study from the 1990s by gun researcher Dave Kopel. In the Cato paper, I also document several media surveys showing that SWAT and no-knock raids very rarely turn up high-powered weaponry, even though the possibility of big guns is often the justification given for their use. Most of the narcotics cops I’ve talked to over the years say drug dealers tend to prefer small, easy-to-conceal handguns. Q. You mentioned no-knock raids — can you explain what those are, and why you object to them so regularly on your blog? No-knock raids are when police force entry into a home without knocking or announcing themselves first. The Supreme Court has recognized that requiring the state to knock and announce before entering a home is part of the Fourth Amendment — part of the “Castle Doctrine” that extends back into English common law. The problem is that in the same opinion (Wilson v. Arkansas), the Court carved out enough exceptions to overwhelm the rule. Police can now enter your home unannounced if they believe that knocking would endanger their safety, or if they believe it would give you time to destroy evidence, which in most cases means the time you would need to flush your drug stash down the toilet. The problem with no-knock raids is that they’re extremely volatile, confrontational, and leave very little margin for error. They might make sense when you’re trying to defuse an already-violent situation — say to apprehend a dangerous escaped fugitive, or to end a hostage standoff. But most no-knocks today are conducted for the routine service of drug warrants. So they aren’t defusing an already violent situation, they’re creating violence where the was none before. When you break into someone’s home, particularly while they’re sleeping, you invoke a primitive, defensive response in them. It’s a particularly dangerous tactic in a country with a history and tradition of gun ownership. I should also note here that while the law distinguishes a no-knock warrant from a knock-and-announce warrant, I’m not sure there’s much practical difference. The real issue here is forced entry — sending armed, heavily armored cops barreling into private homes. Whether they knock and announce themselves in the seconds before they take the down the door probably isn’t going to make much difference in how you interpret the threat and how you react, particularly if you’re sleeping. Even if police always got the right house and every raid were performed flawlessly (and that’s obviously not the case), the image of police dressed as soldiers routinely breaking into private homes to serve warrants for non-violent crimes is one we ought to find disturbing. At one time we did. There’s an old Cold War saying, “Democracy means that when there’s a knock at the door at 3am, it’s probably the milkman.” Masked government agents dressed in black barging into private homes in the middle of the night was once an image we associated with totalitarian states. We seem to be troublingly comfortable with it, now. Q. Perhaps the most significant story you’ve covered lately involved prosecutors using the services of a bite mark expert, though evidence suggests he is no expert at all. Can you briefly describe that case, reflect more generally on the idea of expert witnesses in our criminal justice system, and explain why you think the status quo is problematic? In the 1990s, a Mississippi dentist named Michael West became a popular expert witness for prosecutors because he claimed to be a bite mark expert who could find and identify tooth impressions in human skin that no other expert could see. He was eventually exposed as a fraud by 60 Minutes and other media outlets, though he continued to testify in Mississippi, and there are still people in prison who were convicted primarily because of his testimony. West got on my radar as I’ve reported on the problems with the forensics system–particularly in Mississippi, where until last year, one doctor who colleagues say is sloppy and disreputable has done 80-90 percent of that state’s criminal autopsies for the last 20 years. That doctor, Steven Hayne, and West were the primary reason two men were convicted of the rape and murder of two little girls in the early 1990s in Mississippi. DNA testing exonerated both men last year. Earlier this year, I wrote about another case in which the two men may have fabricated bite mark evidence in a murder case, and another in which a defense attorney conducted an amusing sting to expose West’s charlatanism. Fraudulent experts like West and Hayne have been able to thrive because of some pretty significant flaws in how forensic evidence is used in the criminal justice system. The main problem is that it’s presented as science, but isn’t really subject to the sort of rigorous testing and peer review that other fields of science undergo. Bite mark evidence, for example, should never be used in a court room. There’s no legitimate scientific literature to back up the idea that you can trace tooth imprints on human skin to a single suspect. But the National Academy of the Sciences warned in a big report earlier this year that even areas of forensics we once thought infallible, such as fingerprint evidence, are subject to error, whether it be malicious misconduct, or less nefarious bias and innocent mistakes. The certainty of DNA testing has exposed the flaws in how we’ve traditionally dealth with forensic evidence. Juries tend to put a great deal of faith in witnesses that judges certify as experts. The problem is that judges haven’t adequately performed their duty as gatekeeper, both at keeping frauds out of the courtroom and preventing legitimate experts from testifying beyond their expertise or exaggerating the certainty of their conclusions. Q. Having run through a fair number of problems, let’s turn our attention to solutions. What are your top 5 ideas for reforming the criminal justice system? What are the most significant obstacles preventing them? 1. Changing the federal government’s role in the criminal justice system. The federal government has a legitimate function in investigating and prosecuting some crimes, such as crimes related to national security. But we’ve federalized far too many crimes, and federal crimes like racketeering, conspiracy, and money laundering have been interpreted far too broadly. The Constitution lays out three federal crimes. We now have thousands. Federal crime-fighting grants like the Byrne Grant also distort the priorities of local police departments, incentivizing them to expend more resources on consensual drug crimes than violent crime. Since the late 1980s, the feds have also been giving local police departments surplus military equipment, which has reinforced the problem of creeping militarization. On the other hand, the Department of Justice needs to get more involved in enforcing civil rights and investigating corruption and abuse in the criminal justice system at the state and local level. 2. Ensure that scientific evidence in the courtroom is actually scientific. The forensic science community needs more peer review. Crime lab technicians and forensic scientists should be independent of the prosecutors who hire them, to prevent unintentional bias–they should report to someone other than a DA or state attorney general. Ideally, forensic analysis would be sent to multiple private labs. Occasionally, evidence would be sent to multiple labs for double-checking. Right now, there’s too much pressure–subtle and overt–on state crime labs to produce results favorable to prosecutors. Using several private labs would put the incentive back on accuracy. Technicians would be rewarded for getting things right and for catching other labs’ mistakes, not necessarily for confirming or bolstering the state’s case. Farleigh Dickinson University economist Roger Koppl has some other innovative suggestions (PDF) on how we can improve the quality of the science used in the courtroom. 3. Community policing. Community policing is a broad term generally meaning an approach to law enforcement that’s proactive instead of reactive. Cops walk beats, and become more of a part of the communities they serve. It focuses more on prevention than confrontation and aggression. If you’re a fan of The Wire, think Lt. Carver in season four as the good example. Think of Officer Herc as what we want to avoid. That said, it needs to happen at the local level. The federal COPS program started by President Clinton was problematic because police department budgets are fungible, and it’s hard to monitor what happens to a federal grant once it leaves Washington. For example, in 2001 the Madison Times found that many police departments in Wisconsin were using COPS grants to form SWAT teams. That’s pretty much the opposite of what community policing is all about. 4. More liability for police and prosecutors who misbehave. Currently, it’s very difficult to sue a police officer who violates your civil rights. The doctrine of qualified immunity sets the bar way too high, particularly given the power and authority with which cops are entrusted. And it’s basically impossible to sue a prosecutor. The Supreme Court has ruled that even if a prosecutor intentionally withholds exculpatory evidence that results in a wrongful conviction, the defendant can’t sue. Prosecutors have almost complete immunity. There are allegedly professional sanctions for misconduct, but that’s pretty rare. This isn’t to say all or even most cops and prosecutors are corrupt or vindictive or evil. It is to say that we know that human beings are fallible. And we know the corruptive effects of power. Yet we’ve created a criminal justice system that puts enormous pressure on police and prosecutors to rack up arrest and conviction statistics, but that provides very little or no accountability when they overstep their authority. 5. End the drug war. At least at the federal level. The war on drugs the single most destructive domestic government policy in American history. The biggest obstacle to these or any sensible criminal justice reform is political will. The people victimized by the criminal justice system tend to be the more vulnerable and powerless. So little real pressure for reform. The Duke Lacrosse case was an excellent example of the exception that proves the rule. Here you had three white, wealthy, sympathetic guys who were very clearly wronged by the criminal justice system. When their innocence became clear, there was widespread anger and outrage. Not only were the charges dropped, but the players were officially declared innocent, won settlements, and prosecutor Mike Nifong was actually criminally charged. Contrast that to the vast majority of the DNA exonerations over the years. The Innocence Project estimates that about half of them involved some sort of prosecutorial misconduct. In some cases, wrongly convicted people can’t even get compensated for the time they served in prison. The prosecutors who put them prison are rarely sanctioned. And even in the face of the 300+ exonerations, states like California and Texas still can’t even pass basic, sensible criminal justice reforms, such as changing how witness lineups are conducted to make eyewitness testimony less prone to error. The right is too wed to its traditional law and order traditions to support reform, and the left is bound by its traditional support from police unions and the fear of appearing soft on crime. Witness Vice President Biden just recently, when he told law enforcement organizations that Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor “has your back,” a remarkably stupid thing (though probably true) to say about a potential Supreme Court justice whose primary responsibility is to ensure that the government isn’t violating our constitutional rights. And this came from the mouth of the number two man in the party that has traditionally been more willing to support the rights of the accused. That says quite a bit about how far we are from any real reform. |
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| abb | Jun 28 2009, 05:22 AM Post #7 |
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http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/23600/ Greg Griffith DioNC: Vestryman Charged with Molesting 5-Year Old Son, Offering Him to Strangers for Sex Saturday, June 27, 2009 • 8:29 am There is a Frank Lombard, with a Duke email address, on the vestry of the Episcopal Church of the Advocate in nearby Carrboro, North Carolina (listed here as a "gay friendly" church)... who is involved in anti-racism efforts. UPDATE: Episcopal Church of the Advocate pulls Lombard's name from vestry page, PDF from server. UPDATE: Photo of Lombard in church newsletter? snip |
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| striker | Jun 28 2009, 06:30 AM Post #8 |
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For the dynamic duo who we all remember poked fun at the press by pretending to be gay many years ago are both not yet 40. Money is not available for commercial projects, putting the squeeze on them bigtime. I will bet that both will get out of this financial slump and go on to be big successes. |
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| striker | Jun 28 2009, 06:48 AM Post #9 |
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ABB If Lombard was hetero, married, and somehow involved with athletics the media and Duke's faculty would be exploding. If a gay gets randomly attacked in a Durham parking lot then the attack is about his/her gayness. If the attackers are black then the attack is your garden variety assult. If the attackers are white then the assult get elavated to "hate crime" status. You can see a flow chart with all the different combinations on the wall of the DA's office to determine severity of attack. My white daughter's life and liberty are worth less than someone in the protected class. If my daughter get brutally raped and beaten there is no hate crime because she is white. Will Lombard be charged with hate crimes. After all he adopted the black children with the sole purpose of having sex with or someone else having sex with black children specifically? The answer would be no because he is protected by his gayness. |
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| Jack Wade | Jun 28 2009, 12:23 PM Post #10 |
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124602796930461013.html Business Capitalizes on Ruling in Political Case By KRISTINA PETERSON A U.S. Supreme Court ruling focused on national security may end up as the most significant decision for business in the court's about-to-conclude 2008-2009 term. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, released in May, will make it harder to bring a lawsuit without specific factual evidence, raising the threshold for moving a case into expensive litigation and possibly saving companies millions of dollars in legal fees. The case was overshadowed by other business rulings on consumer lawsuits, environmental and employment law and other matters in a term set to end Monday, but legal experts said it may be the most important. "It's the case that will be cited more than any other by a factor of 100," said Tom Goldstein, partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and founder of the Scotusblog Web site. He called the ruling "an unexpected gift for the business community." In the case, a Pakistani named Javaid Iqbal sued government officials over his detainment after Sept. 11, 2001. The Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Iqbal didn't have sufficient factual evidence to proceed with his discrimination claims. "While legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual allegations," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the 5-4 opinion. He cited the 2007 decision in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, an antitrust case that outlined what plaintiffs must assert to make it through initial court proceedings. As a result of the Iqbal ruling, businesses may find it easier to fend off lawsuits by persuading courts to dismiss complaints early in litigation. "Lawyers were citing it within days and putting it in their motions to dismiss," said Jane Willis, partner with Ropes & Gray LLP. "Everyone saw it's a new touchstone." The decision translates most easily to business cases that list not only a single company, but also its parent company and affiliates, Ms. Willis said. The court didn't allow Mr. Iqbal to assert that government officials had "supervisory liability" for the orders that resulted in his arrest. More broadly, the opinion clarifies that the Twombly ruling applies beyond antitrust cases. It also makes it harder to press a lawsuit without making more substantive, factual allegations. Businesses will face the same hurdles if they choose to file a lawsuit, said Robin Conrad, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's litigation center. "It puts the burden on the person filing the complaint, and that applies to businesses, too," she said. Notable in the Iqbal case was a dissent by Justice David Souter, who wrote for the 7-2 majority in the Twombly opinion. Justice Souter said the Twombly decision didn't require the court to decide early on if the facts are true, as was decided in Iqbal. "We made it clear, on the contrary, that a court must take the allegations as true, no matter how skeptical the court may be," he said in the dissent. Other notable business developments from the term include: The court -- in cases involving Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris unit and Wyeth -- made it easier for consumers to sue companies over drug labeling and tobacco advertising in a pair of split opinions that said federal laws don't prevent those lawsuits in state courts. Businesses have used a legal argument known as preemption -- that federal statute trumps a state-level proceeding -- to beat back consumer lawsuits. The court Monday will release the outcome of a third preemption case involving New York authorities trying to investigate mortgage lending at national banks. On the employment-law front, the court recently gave businesses a stronger hand in deflecting claims from older workers who allege they were discriminated against because of age. Other opinions upheld Federal Communications Commission rules that punish broadcasters for airing obscene language and rejected claims by Internet-service providers that sued a unit of AT&T Inc. over the wholesale prices it was charging for access to the company's phone networks. Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@dowjones.com Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A2 |
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| Kerri P. | Jun 28 2009, 03:12 PM Post #11 |
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http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/5458063/ Police: Armed men robbed five in Raleigh home Posted: Today at 3:09 p.m. Updated: 37 minutes ago Raleigh, N.C. — Two armed men burst into a Raleigh home occupied by five people – including two children – overnight Saturday, robbed and assaulted the residents, according to arrest warrants. Joshua Nathaniel Ross, 18, of 708 Hanska Way, was charged with four counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of second-degree kidnapping, first-degree burglary and conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon. Wake County Jail officials said that Clovis Lester Douglas faces the same charges in the case and an additional charge of assault on a female. According to arrest warrants, two men armed with handguns forced their way into a townhome at 101 Beachpointe Ave. between midnight Saturday and 1 a.m. Sunday. Ross hit the two men on the face and head and forced one to show him where valuables were in the house, the warrant says. Douglas is accused of assaulting the one woman in the house. snip... |
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| Kerri P. | Jun 28 2009, 03:13 PM Post #12 |
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http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5456751/ Bear spotted at Durham hospital Posted: Today at 8:39 a.m. Updated: 46 minutes ago Durham, N.C. — A man says that he and his wife had a close encounter with a bear while taking their newborn baby home from Durham Regional Hospital shortly before midnight Friday. The sightings came as Durham animal control officers, police officials and residents have reported seeing a bear wandering around neighborhoods and near stores since Thursday. Steve Jones, a Triangle blogger, shared a picture he took Saturday night of a bear in a wooded area Edison Johnson Rec Center, on Murray Avenue, and the hospital, at 3643 N. Roxboro St. Jim Yuill said that his family had just gotten into their vehicle Friday night when they saw what he thought was a person in a bear suit bounding towards them in the hospital parking lot. As it moved closer, Yuill said, he quickly realized it was a real bear. snip... |
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| Kerri P. | Jun 28 2009, 03:15 PM Post #13 |
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http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5455879/ Raleigh woman crowned new Miss North Carolina Posted: Jun. 27 10:22 p.m. Updated: Today at 11:17 a.m. Raleigh, N.C. — A Raleigh woman who has battled scoliosis to become an accomplished dancer was crowned Miss North Carolina Saturday night at Raleigh's Meymandi Concert Hall. Miss Raleigh Katherine Elizabeth Southard accepted the crown from another Wake County woman, 2008 Miss North Carolina and Miss Garner Amanda Lauren Watson. [Watch Video] snip... |
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| DMom | Jun 28 2009, 08:41 PM Post #14 |
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Jack Wade, This is important. Please post more about this as you can -- Edited by DMom, Jun 28 2009, 09:44 PM.
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10:20 AM Nov 25
