A former Manhattan Beach police sergeant has been found guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Las Vegas.

Shawn Michael Shelton, 40, once the fastest-rising officer in his department, could face the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison following the Clark County District Court jury’s decision, reached Friday night after two hours of deliberations.
 
Following two days of testimony, jurors concluded that Shelton was guilty of first-degree kidnapping, sexual assault with a minor under 16 years old, battery with intent to commit sexual assault with a minor under 16 years old, and use of a minor in pornography, court information officer Michael Sommermeyer said.

Jurors acquitted Shelton of one count of robbery. A charge of transmission of the AIDS virus previously was dropped. Shelton is HIV positive.

The guilty verdicts came after jurors listened to the boy, now 15, describe how he was sitting at a bus bench outside a mall May 21, 2006 , when Shelton pulled up, displayed a badge and told him he was a police officer. He persuaded the boy to get into his Hummer.

The boy told jurors that Shelton said he was investigating a homicide, handcuffed him, drove him into the desert and forced him to perform oral sex in the back seat, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

During his testimony, the boy described the .50-caliber bullet hanging on Shelton’s key chain and the brand of cigarettes Shelton smoked. Police found the cigarettes in Shelton’s Hummer when they arrested him May 26 in Corona, the newspaper reported. Besides the identification, prosecutors had key forensic evidence to pin the crime on Shelton, who had been an experienced detective. Following the oral sex, the boy wiped his mouth with his T-shirt. The act absorbed Shelton’s DNA into the cloth, the newspaper said.

US citizen Christopher Paul pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he conspired to assist terrorists and to bomb European tourist sites and US military and government facilities overseas. Paul, from Columbus, OH, did not request to be released on bond during his arraignment in the US Southern District of Ohio.

Paul pleaded not guilty to all three counts of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists, conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, and providing material support and resources to terrorists. Paul is allegedly connected to two other men from Columbus who have also been indicted on terrorism charges. Iyman Faris, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, attended the same mosque and became friends with Paul. Nuradin Abdi, a Somali awaiting trial on 2004 charges that he plotted with other al Qaeda operatives to blow up a Columbus-area shopping mall, used Paul as a reference on a government employment application. Officials also found evidence in Paul's apartment that will be used against Abdi at trial.

According to investigators, Paul traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the early 1990s to receive military training at an al Qaeda training camp and, upon his return to the US, continued to funnel money and other resources to al Qaeda. The indictment also alleges that Paul provided explosives training to co-conspirators in Germany to carry out future attacks on European and United States targets. If convicted of all charges, Paul could receive a maximum penalty of life in prison.

The court issued the injunction after it found that Baisden had promoted a plan which encourages and assists customers to create corporations into which they allegedly had their incomes deposited for the primary purpose of decreasing their tax liability.

Several of Baisden's customers are physicians and nurse anesthetists from North Platte, Neb., many of whom have not filed past-due tax returns. According to Baisden's plan, the customers created real estate and forestry corporations, but almost all of the income reported by the corporations was derived from the customers' income from their jobs in the medical profession. Baisden reported deductions for the corporations for customers' lawn care expenses, expenses related to their personal residences, car expenses, and for one customer, the purchase cost and storage fees for an airplane. Baisden also prepared tax returns in California which characterized wages as rent, which is not subject to self-employment or employment taxes.

The court found that Baisden prepared tax returns that identified customers as investors when they were actually physicians or nurses and claimed business deductions for non-deductible personal expenses of customers or for which he and his customers did not provide supporting documentation. The tax returns he prepared also failed to report a reasonable compensation to owners of such corporations and otherwise mischaracterized their income. Finally, the court found that Baisden engaged in misconduct related to his representation of customers by falsely advising them not to comply with IRS document and meeting requests, filing meritless requests to delay civil audits, advising clients to make insufficient estimated tax payments, and advising customers not to file lawfully due returns.  More information about this case is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv06670.htm.

USDOJ

As part of a deal Cox struck with the government, prosecutors have agreed to recommend that U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten sentence Cox at the low end of federal guidelines. The exact range has not been determined.

Cox pleaded guilty to six charges that were leveled in Georgia, Florida and Tennessee: bank fraud, identity theft, passport fraud, two counts of mortgage fraud conspiracy, and violating his probation for a previous mortgage fraud conviction.

Forty-one other counts against him in Georgia will be dropped as part of his plea agreement.

Prosecutors say Cox and Rebecca Marie Hauck rented properties, fraudulently erased mortgage liens on the properties and then stole the owners’ identities and fraudulently took out multiple new mortgage loans.

They also used stolen identities to obtain driver’s licenses, purchase vehicles, lease mail drops, rent apartments and open bank accounts to receive proceeds from their schemes in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina, authorities said.

Zak, owner of the Mohawk Trout Hatchery, had pleaded guilty on March 26 to two counts of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and one count of conspiracy.

His attorney, Vincent Bongiorni, said then his client was not willing to accept a guilty plea for the eagle charge.

"There was a factual basis to support those two counts and our claim is that it doesn't support the bald eagle count," he said.

Zak's employee, Timothy Lloyd, 30, of Easthampton, pleaded guilty March 23 to two counts of violating the migratory bird act and one count of conspiracy.

Federal investigators said they found more than 250 great blue heron carcasses, as well as carcasses of ospreys and a bald eagle on hatchery property. Tests showed the birds were killed by gunshots.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents say they staked out the hatchery periodically and saw Zak shoot at a heron with a scoped rifle and Lloyd shoot and kill an osprey.

The men are to be sentenced on June 27. Zak faces up to three years in prison and Lloyd faces up to 18 months.

A 2006 US Department of Justice report said that sexual violence in US prisons, perpetrated by both inmates and prison staff, often goes unreported because abused inmates fear a reprisal. Last month, Texas Gov. Rick Perry appointed a commission to review the records of approximately 90 percent of the state's juvenile inmates following allegations by families and community activists that prison officials extended sentences in retaliation for inmates filing grievances. Staff-initiated sexual misconduct constituted 38 percent of allegations. The authors of the report also warned against placing juvenile inmates with the adult prison population, finding that the incidents of rape and abuse are five times higher against juveniles. The report, which was the second in an annual series required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, showed a marked improvement over staff sexual misconduct and harassment since the initial 2004 study.