50-year sentence in $200M swindle 50-year sentence in $200M swindle ADVERTISING INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana financier and former chief executive of National Lampoon convicted of swindling investors out of about $200 million was sentenced Friday to 50 years in
50-year sentence in $200M swindle
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana financier and former chief executive of National Lampoon convicted of swindling investors out of about $200 million was sentenced Friday to 50 years in prison by a judge who told him his “deceit, greed and arrogance” had cost many of his victims their life savings and dreams of a comfortable retirement.
U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson said Timothy Durham had violated the trust of thousands of small investors from the American Heartland who had been careful with their money and invested it with him in hopes of traveling in their retirement, paying off their mortgages and perhaps buying a small home in Florida.
She told the court Durham had plundered their money so he could live a luxurious lifestyle.
“We drive Chevys and Buicks and Ford, not Ducatis. That’s how most of us roll,” Magnus-Stinson said. “When they’re defrauded, it is the most serious offense because it undermines the fabric of this country.”
Durham said he felt “badly” for all the families who lost their savings, but never admitted any wrongdoing.
“Of course I feel terrible they lost all their money. My family has lost all of its investments,” he said. “I feel very badly for all the people, especially the people here today.”
Advanced-degree visas supported
WASHINGTON (AP) — Testing the waters of what is expected to be a turbulent battle over immigration policy next year, the House voted Friday to make green cards accessible to foreign students graduating with advanced science and math degrees from U.S. universities.
But even this limited step, strongly backed by the high-tech industry and enjoying some bipartisan support, is unlikely to go anywhere this session of Congress, dramatizing how difficult it will be to find lasting solutions to the nation’s much-maligned immigration system.
A more sweeping bill presumably would deal not only with legal residents but also the estimated 11 million people here illegally.
Republicans largely shunned by Hispanic voters and other minorities in the November elections used Friday’s 245-139 vote for the STEM Jobs Act to show they have softened their hardline immigration policies and are ready to work for more comprehensive legislation.
GOP leaders also added a provision making it easier for immigrants working in the country legally to bring their spouses and children to the United States while they wait for their visa applications to be approved.
Growth rings show lobster age
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — For the first time, scientists have figured out how to determine the age of a lobster — by counting its rings, like a tree.
Nobody knows how old lobsters can live to be; some people estimate they live to more than 100.
But knowing — rather than simply guessing — their age and that of other shellfish could help scientists better understand the population and assist regulators of the lucrative industry, said Raouf Kilada, a research associate at the University of New Brunswick who was the lead author of a scientific paper documenting the process.
Before now, scientists deduced a lobster’s age judging by size and other variables.
But it’s now known that lobsters and other crustaceans, such as crabs and shrimp, grow one ring per year in hidden-away internal spots, Kilada said.
More early prison
releases backed
NEW YORK (AP) — For humanitarian and economic reasons, the federal Bureau of Prisons should grant more early releases to incapacitated and terminally ill prisoners, two advocacy groups say in a report depicting current policies as sometimes “cruel as well as senseless.”
The report, issued Friday by Human Rights Watch and Families Against Mandatory Minimums, says the Bureau of Prisons oversees more than 218,000 inmates, yet has recommended an average of only two dozen compassionate releases a year since 1992.
Human Rights Watch senior adviser Jamie Fellner, a co-author of the report, said Congress in 1984 granted federal courts the authority to reduce sentences under “extraordinary and compelling” circumstances.
However, the report says federal prisoners can’t seek such a sentence reduction from the courts on their own; only the BOP has the authority to file a motion requesting judicial consideration of early release.
“Justice sometimes requires compassion, even for people who have broken the law,” Fellner said. “But prison officials prevent judges from deciding when compassion requires a sentence reduction. This is unfair to the prisoners and costly to the country.”
Responding by email, the BOP said it reviews each early-release request on a case-by-case basis and also takes into consideration information provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“It is the bureau’s responsibility to consider public safety” when determining whether to pursue these motions, the BOP statement said.
Though the new report is generally critical of BOP policies, it cites some “promising signs” — including formation of a BOP working group to look at the compassionate release program. It said the BOP’s new director, Charles Samuels, has expressed interest in reforming the program and noted that the number of release cases forwarded to the courts had risen slightly under his leadership, to 37 between Jan. 1 and Nov. 15 of this year.
The report urges Congress to change the existing law, which gives prisoners no right to challenge BOP decisions in court. It also says the BOP should bring compassionate release motions to court whenever a prisoner presents compelling arguments, regardless of whether prison officials believe early release is warranted.
The BOP’s budget is more than $6 billion, and care of ailing and aging prisoners is a major factor in rising expenses. The report says one way to curb these costs would be increased use of compassionate release for prisoners posing minimal risk to public safety.
The report says the BOP does not keep an overall count of prisoners who seek compassionate release, but provided a breakdown for the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., which houses nearly 1,000 inmates with medical problems. During 2011, the report says, the warden made decisions on 147 requests for compassionate release and approved 12 of them.
Based in 2010 figures, the per capita cost of caring for a prisoner in a medical center such as Butner was $40,760, compared to the BOP’s overall per capita cost of $25,627, the report said.
The BOP requires prisoners to be within 12 months of death or profoundly and irrevocably incapacitated to be eligible for compassionate release consideration. It generally does not make motions to the courts on non-medical grounds, though the report says this could be done — for example, for prisoners seeking early release to care for dying family members.
The report acknowledges that many Americans oppose early release, especially for offenders who inflicted serious harm on victims. But it argues that a prison sentence that initially seemed justified may become disproportionately severe due to changed circumstances, such as grave illness.
“Keeping a prisoner behind bars when it no longer meaningfully serves any legitimate purpose cannot be squared with human dignity and may be cruel as well as senseless,” the report says.
Mai Fernandez, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, offered this advice to the BOP: “We hope that, in fairness to victims, any compassionate release process provides notice to victims and the opportunity for them to be heard.”
Many states have laws permitting early release for medical or other reasons, but Fellner said these provisions were “greatly underutilized” in most states.
The report cites several examples of inmates who unsuccessfully sought to have early-release requests considered by the courts.
Among them is a 73-year-old inmate at the Butner medical center who has served half of a 20-year federal sentence for sexually touching a child, taking lewd pictures and possessing child pornography. Because of a spinal condition, the inmate is now permanently paralyzed below his upper chest and will require skilled nursing care until he dies, according to the report.
The report says Butner’s warden rejected his bid to be considered for early release, contending that he was still deemed a threat to society who deserved to stay imprisoned out of deference to his victim.
