Nation roundup for Aug. 31

99-year sentence for raping girl

LIBERTY, Texas (AP) — Jurors on Thursday convicted a man of taking part in the repeated sexual assault of a Texas middle school student and sentenced him to 99 years in prison.

Eric McGowen wasn’t in court when jurors found him guilty of aggravated sexual assault of a child or later when they returned with the sentence, which also included a $10,000 fine. The 20-year-old had been free on bail and he skipped out during a break in proceedings Wednesday, the first day of testimony.

The judge issued an arrest warrant for McGowen Wednesday and allowed testimony to resume Thursday. Jurors returned with the guilty verdict after deliberating for about 20 minutes. Then, after brief court proceedings on his punishment, they decided his sentence in less than 30 minutes.

Prosecutors say the girl, who was 11 years old at the time, was sexually assaulted on at least five occasions from mid-September through early December of 2010 by 20 men and boys from her town, Cleveland, which is about 45 miles northeast of Houston. Police began investigating after one of the girl’s classmates told a teacher he saw video of her being sexually assaulted in an abandoned trailer.

All six of the juveniles and two of the 14 adults charged in the case pleaded guilty.

NASA launches twin satellites

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Twin satellites rocketed into orbit Thursday on a quest to explore Earth’s treacherous radiation belts and protect the planet from solar outbursts. NASA launched the science probes before dawn, sending them skyward aboard an unmanned rocket.

“They’re now at home in the Van Allen belts where they belong,” said Nicola Fox, the deputy project scientist for the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

It’s the first time two spacecraft are flying in tandem amid the punishing radiation belts of Earth, brimming with highly charged particles capable of wrecking satellites. These new satellites — shielded with thick aluminum — are designed to withstand an onslaught of cosmic rays for the next two years.

“We’re going to a place that other missions try to avoid and we need to live there for two years. That’s one of our biggest challenges,” said Richard Fitzgerald, project manager for Johns Hopkins.

U. of Iowa feared shooting suspect

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The University of Iowa rejected the suspect in the Colorado movie theater shooting rampage from a graduate neuroscience program last year after he visited campus for an interview and left the program director bluntly warning colleagues: “Do NOT offer admission under any circumstances.”

James Holmes applied to the Iowa program in late 2010 and was given an interview on Jan. 28, 2011, according to records released by the university.

Holmes wrote in his application that he was passionate about neuroscience and would bring “my strong moral upbringing” to the program. He painted himself as a bright student interested in improving himself and helping the world with a career in scientific research.

But two days after Holmes’ interview, neuroscience program director Daniel Tranel wrote a strongly worded email urging the admissions committee not to accept him to the school.

CIA off the hook for interrogations

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department announced Thursday it has ended its investigation into CIA interrogations of terrorist detainees without bringing criminal charges.

Thursday’s decision in the probes of the deaths of two terrorist suspects marks the end of a wide-ranging criminal investigation by federal prosecutor John Durham into interrogation practices during the presidency of George W. Bush.

In the past three years, Durham has looked into the treatment of 101 detainees in U.S. custody since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Durham’s probe into another episode involving the CIA began in January 2008 when the Justice Department chose him to conduct a criminal investigation into the agency’s destruction of videotapes it had made of its interrogations of terror suspects.

In August 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder expanded Durham’s mandate to include a preliminary review of the CIA’s interrogation of specific detainees overseas. In June 2011, Holder approved Durham’s request to move into a full criminal investigation of the two deaths.

In regard to the just-completed probe of the two detainees’ deaths, Holder said that “based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.”

In a message to employees Thursday, CIA Director David Petraeus said that “as intelligence officers, our inclination, of course, is to look ahead to the challenges of the future rather than backwards at those of the past. Nonetheless, it was very important that we supported fully the Justice Department in its efforts” and “I would like to thank everyone who played a role” in doing so.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said he was “heartened that the investigation is complete, and I’m heartened by the results. I had great confidence in Mr. Durham. I just regret that many CIA officers had to go through yet another review of these activities.”

Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the outcome of the investigation “nothing short of a scandal.”

“Continuing impunity threatens to undermine the universally recognized prohibition on torture and other abusive treatment,” Jaffer said.

Durham’s review examined whether CIA interrogators used any unauthorized interrogation techniques, and if so, whether the techniques could constitute violations of the torture statute or any other laws. The approach taken in the probe was not to prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.

Thursday’s announcement came in the deaths of Gul Rahman and Manadel al-Jamadi.

Rahman died in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002, after being shackled to a cold concrete wall in a secret CIA prison in northern Kabul, Afghanistan, known as the Salt Pit. He was suspected of links to the terrorist group al-Qaida. Rahman is the only detainee known to have died in a CIA-run prison.

Before Durham looked into Rahman’s death, two other federal prosecutors conducted separate reviews and could not prove the CIA officer running the Salt Pit had intended to harm the detainee — a point made in a government document that has been released publicly.

Al-Jamadi died in 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A military autopsy declared al-Jamadi’s death a homicide.

At Abu Ghraib prison, instead of turning al-Jamadi over to the Army, CIA officers took him to a shower stall. They put a sandbag over his head, cuffed his hands behind his back and chained his arms to a barred window. When he leaned forward, his arms stretched painfully behind and above his back.

Within an hour, he was dead.

At least three CIA employees came under scrutiny, including a paramilitary officer who ran what was known as the detainee exploitation cell at Abu Ghraib.

The officer was on the raid when a group of Navy SEALs captured al-Jamadi. He processed al-Jamadi into the prison but he was not in the shower room when al-Jamadi died.

The officer failed to have a doctor supervise al-Jamadi before he was processed into the prison, violating agency procedures. The officer, who was reprimanded over the incident, now works for a defense contractor.

NY AG: Janssen pays $181M over drug marketing

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. and parent company Johnson & Johnson on Thursday announced a $181 million settlement with 36 states and the District of Columbia over charges of marketing anti-psychotic drugs for non-approved uses.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, representing one of the states involved, claimed in a court filing that Janssen engaged in deceptive practices from 1998 to at least 2004 in the marketing of the drugs Risperdal, Risperdal Consta, Risperdal M-Tab and Invega. The multistate settlement comes amid a similar federal case that is still pending.

Schneiderman said the company promoted “off-label” uses of the drugs not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. For instance, Janssen is accused of promoting Risperdal, which is used to treat schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, for non-approved uses including dementia, anger management and anxiety. Janssen rewarded doctors who prescribed and promoted Risperdal for unapproved uses with lucrative consulting agreements, according to Schneiderman’s complaint.

“This landmark settlement holds the companies accountable for practices that put patients in danger, and serves as a warning to other pharmaceutical giants that they must play by one set of rules. It goes further by ensuring that the corporations stop rewarding doctors for prescribing certain drugs or presenting scientifically-suspect studies as sound,” Schneiderman said in a statement.

Janssen did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement, under which it agreed it would not promote the drugs for off-label uses or make misleading claims. The Titusville, N.J.-based company said it wanted to avoid unnecessary expenses and a prolonged legal process.

“We have chosen this path to achieve a prompt and full resolution of these state claims and to ensure we continue to focus on our mission of providing medicines to meet the significant unmet needs of many people who suffer from mental illness,” Janssen President Michael Yang said in a statement.

Janssen said the multistate settlement is separate from the disclosure made earlier this month by Johnson & Johnson concerning an agreement in principle with the Department of Justice to settle three pending civil matters regarding the sales and marketing of Risperdal and Invega, the sales and marketing of the respiratory drug Natrecor and allegations that the drug dispensing company Omnicare Inc. of Kentucky was provided with rebates regarding Risperdal and other products.

The company said there are still unresolved issues with federal justice officials.

Omnicare agreed to pay $90 million in 2009 to resolve an inquiry into its actions. The government said Johnson & Johnson made illegal payments to Omnicare between 1999 and 2004, and Omnicare’s annual sales of Risperdal nearly tripled to $280 million over that period.

Schneiderman called Thursday’s action the largest-ever multistate consumer protection-based pharmaceutical settlement. New York will receive $9 million under the settlement.

In addition to New York, the District of Columbia and lead state Florida, other states involved in the settlement are: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.