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Erin Andrews' Accused Stalker's Criminal Charges

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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.

Barzee Pleads Guilty in Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping Case

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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:

A federal judge in Utah ruled that a defendant accused of tampering and falsely bidding upon oil and gas leases offered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management cannot present a 'necessity defense' a/k/a 'lesser of two evils defense' at trial.

Timothy DeChristopher sought to argue that his submission of winning auction bids on BLM federal oil and gas leases that he never intended to honor was justified because, he maintained, extracting oil and gas from federal lands would exacerbate global warming and climate change.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ('KSM'), the reputed al Qaeda plotter of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, will be put on trial in federal court in Manhattan, one site of the Sept. 11th attacks, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced this morning.

Four other Guantanamo Bay detainees -- Walid Muhammed Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi -- will also be tried in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Not only will KSM still face prosecution in the SDNY for his reputed role in the 9/11 attacks, but he is likely to also face outstanding charges in a secret 1996 indictment for his alleged role in the 1994 'Bojinka' plot -- described by the 9/11 Commission as "the intended bombing of 12 U.S. commercial jumbo jets over the Pacific during a two-day span."

Prosecutors are likely to face defense challenges over KSM's waterboarding while he is was in U.S. Custody. But according to National Public Radio's Dina Temple-Raston, "he actually admitted before being tortured that he was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks."

Bernard Kerik, Ex-NYPD Commissioner, Pleads Guilty

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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:

In another win for interactive service providers under the Communications Decency Act, a federal judge in Illinois has granted Craigslist's motion for a judgment on the pleadings in a suit over the website's former "erotic services" listings.

In the lawsuit, Thomas Dart, the sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, alleged that Craigslist's erotic service category facilitated prostitution and constituted a public nuisance.  Dart asked for an injunction prohibiting Craigslist from publishing erotic services listings, and sought to recover the money that his office has spent investigating prostitution occurring on the site.

Delta Air Lines hacked e-mails of airline passenger rights advocate Kathleen 'Kate' Hanni, USA Today reporter Gary Stoller, and freelance travel writer and reporter Susan Stellin, according to an affidavit in a new lawsuit filed today by Hanni, the founder of Coalition for An Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights a/k/a Flyersrights.org.

Why was Delta accused of hacking into e-mails, and who is the source of the information about the alleged hacks -- a potential criminal offense?

Federal Judge Resigns, Says He Needs More Money

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U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson has announced that he's stepping down from the federal bench because he's not making enough money to support his family, which includes seven children all under the age of 18.

Larson's announcement on Tuesday that he would leave his seat in the Central District of California has reignited the ongoing debate on judicial salaries and their effect (or lack of effect) on the federal judiciary. 

Chief Justice John Roberts of the US Supreme Court stated in 2006 that the low judicial salaries have "now reached a level of constitutional crisis." 
President Obama gave a speech marking the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Bros. collapse in Lower Manhattan today and expressed his desire for stricter regulation of the financial industry. 

Just up Broadway Ave., at the District Court for the Southern District of New York, however, Judge Jed Rakoff rejected a proposed settlement agreement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Bank of America, and upbraided the SEC for its "cynical" handling of the case. 
We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
-- Thomas Jefferson

In addition to being an inventor, philosopher, author of the Declaration of Independence, and President of the United States (as well as, let's be honest, a salacious slave-owner), it turns out that Thomas Jefferson was rather prescient when it came to environmental litigation.

The words that Jefferson wrote two hundred years ago neatly summarize a lawsuit challenging the removal of the Rocky Mountain gray wolf from the endangered species list currently pending before District Court Judge Donald Molloy of the District of Montana.