Michael David Barrett, the accused stalker and criminal voyeur of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews will be arraigned in federal court on Monday, November 23, 2009.

The latest in a series of sordid charges against the 48-year-old Chicago-area Combined Insurance employee suggests that the nude videos Barrett secretly record of Andrews in hotel rooms where not simply a one-time occurrence,

Rather, it now appears that Barrett relentlessly stalked Andrews for more than a year.

Wanda Barzee, a co-defendant in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case, pleaded guilty to several criminal charges in federal court today in exchange for a reduced prison sentence recommendation and her cooperation with prosecutors in the kidnapping, sexual assault, and violence case when Smart was 14-years-old.

Instead of life in prison, Barzee will receive a 15-year (180-month) federal prison sentence, and plead guilty to Utah state kidnapping charges.

Here is what Barzee admitted to in U.S. District Court:

Former NYPD Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik pleaded guilty today in a federal court in a case accusing him of criminal conspiracy, tax fraud, making a host of false statements to both federal agents and New York City investigators, and lying on a loan application for his New York City apartment.  According to his plea agreement, Kerik could get from 27 to 33 months in federal prison under sentencing guidelines.

The disgraced former N.Y.C. top cop was accused of making multiple false statements to White House and other federal officials when he applied for an advisor position to former President Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Council and in connection with his nomination to be Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security.

He was also charged with illegally receiving $255,000 in renovation work to his apartment from a contractor who wanted to do business with the City government, falsely telling regulators that the company did not have ties to organized crime, and failing to disclose these six-figure benefits in his financial disclosure forms.

Read Kerik's plea agreement here:

Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the reputed head of the Masjid al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, Michigan, was killed in a firefight with FBI agents yesterday after federal law enforcement officials converged upon a warehouse to arrest Abdullah and his followers on criminal conspiracy charges following a two-year long investigation

According to the criminal complaint in the case (see below), Abdullah and his "group of mostly African-American converts to Islam [sought] to establish a separate Sharia-law governed state within the United States."

The criminal charges against Abdullah, a previously convicted felon, charged that he discussed an attack on SuperBowl XL, blowing himself up if confronted by law enforcement, and dealt in stolen merchandise. "Abdullah and his followers have trained regularly in the use of firearms and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting," an FBI agent alleged after receiving information from at least three (3) FBI informants during the investigation.

Patrick Nayyar, a man living in Queens, New York allegedly as an illegal immigrant, and Conrad Stanisclaus Mulholland, were charged in a federal indictment with conspiring to supply guns, ammunition, bulletproof vests, night vision goggles, and vehicles to the Hezbollah a/k/a Hizbollah , the Shi'ite Iranian-backed U.S.-designated terrorist group based in Lebanon.

According to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, a confidential informant for the FBI told Nayyar and Mulholland that he was working for Hizbollah. In a series of meetings the two defendants allegedly agreed to sell him guns, ammunition, vehicles, bulletproof vests, and night vision goggles for the terrorist group, all in violation of federal law that outlaws providing material support to designated terrorist groups.

Tarek Mehanna, a Sudbury, Massachusetts man, was charged with conspiring with others in a terror plot to attack U.S. shopping malls in furtherance of violent jihad.

The charges allege that in 2003 Mehanna (inset) sought with others "to obtain automatic weapons, go to a shopping mall, and randomly shoot people," having allegedly been inspired by the Washington, D.C. area sniper attacks in the fall of 2002.

Federal authorities maintain that Mehanna conspired with two others, including a confidential witness and a man named Ahmed Abousamra, to plan and discuss carrying out an attack on a U.S. shopping mall, including the types of weapons needed.

According to an FBI affidavit, the 27-year-old Mehanna allegedly flew with Abousamra and the confidential witness to the United Arab Emirates, and then went on to Yemen with the intent of receiving military and terrorist training in furtherance of jihad, a holy war.

Medical marijuana use and sales won't be prosecuted by the federal government, according to a new Justice Department memo from Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden (inset, right).

But there's a catch: the federal directive only applies in states that have laws authorizing medical marijuana usage.

The DOJ also made clear that this new policy cannot be used as a 'get out of jail free card' by drug traffickers or those who grow pot on federal land.

Following his arrest on federal criminal charges by the U.S. Attorney last week in New Jersey's epic corruption scandal, Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, III -- a former election and politics lawyer in private practice -- resigned from office today.

His official web page and bio are gone, replaced by a notice that Dawn Zimmer, Hoboken City Council President and former mayoral candidate, is now Acting Mayor.

In what may be his last offical act on mayoral letterhead, Cammarano wrote Hoboken's City Clerk that he was resigning from office at 12 p.m. on Friday, July 31, 2009.

 

Peter Cammarano, III, the Hoboken, New Jersey Mayor (inset, left and center), and Dennis Elwell, Mayor of Secaucus, New Jersey (inset, right), face high-level political corruption charges, along with more than 40 other people who were also charged with crimes ranging from corruption, extortion, money laundering, illegal money transmitting, to conspiracy to transport human organs.

Cammarano was allegedly caught by the FBI on tape in June telling a government cooperating witness, Solomon Dwek, "I stopped being a lawyer last month, um, hopefully for good." The FBI allegedly recorded a conversation that the Hoboken Mayor had with Dwek in a Hoboken diner where Cammarano is said to have conspired to extort $5,000 from Dwek, and bragged before his election that "[r]ight now, the Italians, the Hispanics, the seniors are locked down. Nothing can change that now. . . . I could be, uh, indicted, and I'm still gonna win 85 to 95 percent of those populations."

In a brief filed with the Supreme Court in the case of Montejo v. Louisiana, the Obama Justice Department has requested that the US Supreme Court overrule a 23 year-old decision that prohibited police from initiating a questioning of a suspect when the suspect's lawyer isn't present.

Civil rights and civil liberty groups were not pleased.  It's the latest in a series of moves by the Obama administration that has upset people on the left, and it reveals an increasing tension between President Obama's campaign rhetoric and the realities of being the nation's top executive.

While President Obama has removed many of the Bush policies hated by the left, he has also come under fire for invoking the "state secrets" doctrine as a justification for withholding documents at trial, imprisoning enemy combatants without trial in Afghanistan and limiting the rights of defendants to test DNA evidence against them.

Obama seems to be finding it harder to speak out against the powers that be now that he holds the power.