(In)justice of the peace

This comes from KTSM-TV in El Paso…

A former Justice of the Peace in Culberson County is charged with money laundering and mail fraud.

The FBI arrested Oscar Espinoza, Sr. and during his initial court appearance in El Paso, bond was set at $10.000.

A grand jury indicted Espinoza on evidence that he cashed check and money orders totaling more than $1,000 and used the money for personal benefit.

Espinoza is scheduled for arraignment next week.

All that and a bag of urine

This comes to us from Ultimate Pearland…

Don’t let Pearland police find you with a kit to falsify a drug test.

Being in possession of a bladder bag and fake urine can get you charged with a Class B misdeamenor for falsification of drug test results – possession of falsification device or substance.

Separate traffic stops led to two such charges on May 6 when police say they found drug-test-cheating devices in vehicles.

At about 10 a.m. that day, an officer stopped a vehicle and arrested the 22-year-old driver on charges of driving with a suspended license and for an outstanding probation warrant, Pearland police Lt. Onesimo Lopez said.

While conducting an inventory search of the vehicle, the officer discovered a kit for falsifying drug test results consisting of a bladder bag with synthetic urine, an adjustable elastic strap and a temperature strip, police said.

The Pearland resident was then charged for possession of a drug-test falsification device, according to a police report.

At about 12:15 p.m. the same day, an officer pulled over another Pearland driver who is accused of driving with a suspended license.

Police say that a subsequent search revealed a “Number 1 Urine Substitution Kit” that contained a bladder bag with synthetic urine, an adjustable elastic strap, a temperature device, two heating pads and complete instructions.

That led to a charge against the 18-year-old suspect for possession of a drug-test falsification device.

Lopez said there have been five similar cases since 2009 in which the devices were located during traffic stops in which the suspects were arrested on another charge.

“The use of one of these devices is a serious offense, but it is also a violation of trust,” Lopez said in an e-mail. “Employers that use drug testing trust that their employee or prospective employee is going to be truthful for the test. The employers trust the results and use them as a basis for hiring or retaining employees.

“People that use a device to `beat’ a drug test are in effect lying about their drug use,” Lopez stated. “For example, in one of the 2009 cases, the suspect asked not to be arrested as he had just gotten a job as a security guard at a chemical plant. That individual had smoked marijuana earlier in the day and was also charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. How trustworthy would that person be working as a security guard?”

Out of the pan and into the fire

This comes to us from the Houston Chronicle and the AP…

DALLAS — A 22-year-old man accused of posing as a high school basketball star in West Texas was charged with sexual assault Friday after an underage girl reported having sex with him last summer when she thought he was a teenager, police said.

Guerdwich Montimer was arrested for the third time in four days, this time after a 16-year-old girl in Odessa told police and school district officials she had sex with him at a home in August when she thought he was 15-year-old Jerry Joseph, said Odessa police Cpl. Sherrie Carruth.

Officials said Montimer enrolled at a junior high school and later at Permian High School last year with a fake birth certificate from Haiti. Suspicions were raised recently after coaches at an amateur basketball tournament said they recognized Joseph as Montimer, a 2007 graduate of a Florida high school and a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti.

Montimer was being held in jail Friday on a $50,000 bond, according to a court affidavit released Friday.

Montimer was originally arrested Tuesday on a misdemeanor charge of failure to identify himself to a police officer, and school officials said he admitted that he wasn’t Joseph. He was arrested again Thursday on a third-degree felony charge of tampering with a government document.

A jail official said Friday there was no information about whether Montimer had an attorney. The sexual assault charge, a second-degree felony, carries a sentence of two to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.

Based on information provided by the girl, investigators determined Montimer “intentionally and knowingly engaged in a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old juvenile and portrayed himself to be 15 years old when he was actually 21 years of age,” Carruth, the Odessa police official, said in a statement.

Permian High School made the state basketball playoffs with Joseph helping lead the way as a sophomore star. Questions arose after the season, and Joseph was initially cleared by immigration authorities and allowed to return to the school.

The investigation continued, and a fingerprint from a passport found in his room matched one taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after the allegations surfaced, according to an affidavit. School officials said Montimer confessed after he was confronted with the new evidence.

His last name has been widely reported as Montimere, including by The Associated Press, but an affidavit released Thursday had several references to official documentation with Montimer, the spelling used by Odessa police.

What’s my name?

Sports news from the Houston Chronicle…

Faced with the reality that Permian basketball player Jerry Joseph is actually Guerdwich Montimere, the Ector County Independent School District has submitted the results of its internal investigation to the District Executive Committee for review.

ECISD athletic director Leon Fuller and executive director of athletics Todd Vesely self-reported a violation of UIL rules after Montimere’s arrest on Tuesday afternoon, Vesely said.

Because Montimere is actually a 22-year-old naturalized citizen who graduated from Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the Permian boys basketball team used an ineligible player in its fourth-place District 2-5A finish last season.

Under the circumstances, UIL assistant athletic director Peter Contreras — who was administering the Class 2A State Golf Championships in Austin on Tuesday — said he believes Permian will have to forfeit its 16 wins during the 2009-10 season.

“Every game he played, they’re going to have to forfeit,” Contreras said. “That’s the minimum penalty for playing an ineligible player.”

Contreras has not seen the case.

In his opinion, though, Montimere’s scam may not result in further penalties for Permian or Panthers boys basketball coach Danny Wright.

“Usually, there are ramifications for both the school and the coach,” Contreras said. “But it’s pretty obvious that this guy falsified all kinds of documents. I think, in the end, it will be very easy to prove that the school did their due diligence.”

When Montimere arrived at Permian in the spring of 2009, he presented a Haitian birth certificate for Jerry Joseph with a birthdate of Jan. 1, 1994.

Permian officials checked the birth certificate — Vesely said the birth certificate was compared with other Haitian birth certificates to verify its authenticity — and enrolled Joseph as a homeless student.

To qualify as homeless, a prospective student must pass an examination by Student Assistance Services, Permian principal Roy Garcia said.

“Normally, an SAS officer goes out, physically checks where they are living, and then they pass the information on to us,” Garcia said.

Living as Joseph, Montimere was taken in by Wright and his family.

Using the information presented to them by the school, ECISD athletic officials submitted Joseph’s case to the District Executive Committee, which cleared Joseph to appeal and submit a waiver request to the UIL to play basketball last season.

The UIL granted the request.

“Our hope is that the UIL is going to recognize our due diligence in presenting this case, because the school based all of this on a false document,” Vesely said.

When a pair of AAU basketball coaches from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., tipped off Permian officials Joseph might actually be Montimere two weeks ago, Permian principal Roy Garcia notified both the District 2-5A executive committee and the District 3-5A executive committee, which will be the Panthers’ district next year.

And after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials originally cleared Joseph of being Montimere, Garcia turned over the investigation to the ECISD athletic department.

“Todd and Leon kept in touch with the UIL the whole way,” ECISD spokesman Mike Adkins said.

Before they could submit the case to the UIL, Fuller and Vesely needed concrete evidence, Vesely said.

Montimere’s arrest provided that evidence.

“We turned in the self-report when we had accurate evidence that he was not Jerry Joseph, that he was not 16 years old,” Vesely said.

None of the school officials contacted could put a timetable on the UIL’s official decision.

“I had no reason to believe that he was none other than another ninth grader from one of my feeder schools,” Wright said. “I treated him like any other kid.”

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Montimere has been released from jail.

Ector County sheriff’s Sgt. Debbie Bruce said Montimere posted $500 bond Wednesday on a charge of failure to identify himself to a peace officer.

If convicted of the misdemeanor, Montimere could face up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500. Bruce said there was no record of an attorney for Montimere.

The player known as Jerry Joseph, who was 6-foot-5, was named newcomer of the year.

Woman goes to jail for planting rat in dinner

Foodie news from the Appleton (WI) Post-Crescent

APPLETON — An Appleton woman’s attempt to extort $500,000 from an upscale Grand Chute restaurant was “crazy and outlandish,” her defense attorney said Friday at her sentencing.

Debbie Miller will spend nine months in jail and four years on probation instead of collecting hush money after planting a rat in her lunch.

Miller, 43, was sentenced in Outagamie County Court for the 2008 incident at The Seasons.

She pleaded no contest in January to a felony extortion charge and a misdemeanor for obstructing police. She planted the dead animal in her food April 17, 2008, before asking for the money in exchange for keeping quiet about the incident. She threatened to alert the media if the money wasn’t paid.

Police arrested Miller nearly three months later after an investigation conducted by the restaurant’s insurance company.

Defense attorney Edmund Jelinski said the amount Miller tried to extort shows she has mental problems caused by a life of suffering from abuse.

“Five hundred thousand dollars isn’t trying to get a quick buck,” he said. “Five hundred thousand dollars is a delusion of grandeur.”

At the urging of one of their cooks, restaurant owners Bob and Jessica Doller kept the rat after the extortion attempt. Insurance investigators sent it for testing and determined that it was a domestic white rat that had been cooked in a microwave. The restaurant doesn’t use microwaves.

Police determined that Miller purchased the rat days before the incident.

The Dollers declined to address the court at Friday’s sentencing.

Dist. Atty. Carrie Schneider said the crime brought unbelievable stress not only to the Dollers, but also their employees. It caused financial hardship, and to this day, people still connect the rat incident with the restaurant, Schneider said.

The impact is “very significant and severe,” she said.

Schneider also acknowledged Miller’s ongoing therapy needs. Judge Dee Dyer’s sentence matched the prosecution’s request.

Dyer structured the sentence so he can reconsider a prison sentence should Miller fail to abide by rules during probation. The jail sentence will allow her release for treatment, education and work.

Dyer scheduled a May 20 hearing to address restitution. The Dollers are requesting $31,000 based on factors including lost business.

Jelinski, who plans to contest the amount, asked for probation in part to allow for Miller to earn money so she can begin repaying the Dollers.

“I don’t think Miss Miller is a hardened criminal,” he said. “I think Miss Miller is broken.”

Dyer said the presentence report was among the most bizarre he’s seen while a judge. The jail sentence, he said, should serve to assure the community that scheme’s like Miller’s will be punished severely.

“It’s heinous,” he said.

It’s good (k)night, sir

A wave of the hand to the Houston Chronicle…

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua — Disgraced Texas financier R. Allen Stanford is being stripped of his knighthood in the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, the head of the government panel that approves the awards said Monday.

The National Honors Committee voted unanimously to revoke Stanford’s title for embarrassing the nation by running an alleged Ponzi scheme out of his Antigua-based offshore bank, Chairwoman Jacqui Quinn-Leandro said.

Stanford, once a benefactor of the Antiguan government, is in jail in Texas awaiting charges for allegedly defrauding some 28,000 investors out of $7 billion by selling them what U.S. authorities say were bogus certificates of deposits.

“It’s not that we’re saying he’s guilty, but it’s the honor that has been brought into disrepute,” said Quinn-Leandro, also a member of Parliament.

Stanford received his knighthood in 2006 from the governor general — the representative of Queen Elizabeth II in the country — and was widely known as “Sir Allen” in the Caribbean nation. Critics have alleged he used the title’s prestige to help lure investors to buy CDs from his offshore bank while promising rates of return that were consistently higher than most financial institutions.

A group of investors has filed a lawsuit against Antigua and Barbuda alleging that local authorities failed to adequately monitor Stanford International Bank Ltd. and profited from the fraud. The financier provided loans to the government and became the country’s largest private employer, with businesses that included a development company, cricket stadium, newspaper, an airline and two restaurants.

Quinn-Leandro said the six-member honors committee, made up of senators and members of Parliament, voted last month and formally informed Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer of its decision in an Oct. 26 letter, but did not make a public announcement.

All that is required next is for Spencer to forward the decision to the country’s governor general for a signature, but that is considered a formality.

Stanford, who was nominated for his knighthood by the opposition Antigua Labor Party, was cheered and booed when he received the award, according to newspaper accounts from the time. Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, who still holds the post, remained seated as he shook the financier’s hand during the ceremony and called the honor “most unfortunate.”

As a member of the British Commonwealth, Antigua and Barbuda can propose its own knighthoods to the Queen through the governor general, though the honor is considered a local one.

Actor pleads guilty to selling Social Security numbers

Thanks to the AP…

NEW YORK — “One Tree Hill” actor Antwon Tanner has pleaded guilty to selling more than a dozen Social Security numbers for $10,000.

Tanner told a federal judge in Brooklyn on Friday that he was a middleman, selling numbers someone else provided. He and his lawyer didn’t comment on how he got involved in the scheme.

Tanner is expected to get as much as a year in prison at his sentencing, set for Nov. 20.

The 34-year-old actor was charged in April with selling 16 Social Security numbers and three bogus Social Security cards.

Tanner plays the character Skills in the CW series. Representatives for the network didn’t immediately return a telephone call Saturday.

Tanner also appeared in the 2005 movie “Coach Carter,” starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Do I know why I pulled you over?

Where would we be without the AP?

OAKLAND, California (AP) — Oakland police say a man impersonating a police officer tried to pull over a real undercover officer and was arrested.

Police say 21-year-old Antonio Fernandez Martinez of Oakland was arrested Wednesday in the Fruitvale district after trying to pull over an unmarked police vehicle. Martinez was driving a Ford Crown Victoria outfitted with flashing lights, a microphone and speakers.

Martinez, a convicted car thief, will have his felony probation revoked and could face a prison term.

The officer, Jim Beere, says Martinez probably thought he’d be an easy mark to rob.

What about “inorganic Christians?”

This comes to us courtesy of the Sacramento Business Journal andLowell Steiger…

A federal jury on Thursday convicted two Northern California residents in connection with a long-running money laundering and fraudulent insurance scheme.

The self-avowed “sovereign citizens” claimed that the U.S. and state governments had no authority over them as “organic Christian people.”

James Kalfsbeek, 71, of Arbuckle, and Donna Jean Rowe, 58, of Lodi, were convicted Thursday in federal court in Sacramento, said a release from acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence Brown.

Amy Lynn Polnoff, 51, of Lathrop, and Kurt Lakota, 61, of Galt, had previously entered guilty pleas related to the scheme.

Kalfsbeek was the founder and president of Puget’s Sound Agricultural Society Ltd., which was in operation between 1996 and 2002 offering auto insurance for a one-time $500 membership fee and an additional fee of $250 per vehicle.

Several states, including California, and even two Canadian provinces issued the company cease and desist orders for illegally operating as an insurance company. The company paid off small insurance claims, but it did not pay large claims or settlements.

The company refused to make payments if alcohol was involved in an accident, which is against the law.

And it also refused to pay for “pain and suffering” caused by accidents, calling that part of “God’s plan.”

Eventually, the company was forced to pay a $25 million claim, which it paid with a bogus document. The jury found the two guilty of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

The case was investigated by the California Department of Insurance and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.