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12 federal agents tortured, killed in Mexico

MORELIA, Mexico - Twelve people tortured and killed in a cartel-plagued Mexican state were federal agents investigating organized crime, the government said Tuesday, marking one of the boldest attacks on federal forces since President Felipe Calderon launched his war on drugs.

Mexico's national security spokesman, Monte Alejandro Rubido, said the 11 men and one woman were off duty when they were ambushed and abducted by members of the La Familia drug cartel in Calderon's home state of Michoacan, which has been a center of his crackdown on organized crime.

Their bodies were found piled up along a mountain highway late Monday near the town of La Huacana. Michoacan state prosecutor J. Jesus Montejano initially said Tuesday that they were soldiers, but the army denied that.

Cartel chief arrested earlier
Initial reports indicated the victims were likely killed over the weekend, when federal agents arrested Arnoldo Rueda Medina, who is suspected of being chief of operations of the Michoacan-based La Familia cartel.

Police say his arrest Saturday set off a string of brazen attacks against federal forces that left six federal police officers and two soldiers dead. Gunmen threw grenades and fired on federal police stations and hotels where the agents were staying in three states.

"This marks an important change in the drug war in that they are attacking federal forces directly," said Jorge Chabat, a Mexican drug expert. "It also suggests the capture of this person has affected the operations of the cartel. It was a major blow and this is a reaction out of weakness not strength."

Federal forces arrested politicians in several Michoacan cities, including La Huacana, during an unprecedented sweep in May against local officials believed to be cooperating with drug traffickers. Seven mayors, one former mayor and the state prosecutor remain jailed on charges of protecting the La Familia cartel.

 

 

Since Calderon took office in December 2006, he has sent more than 45,000 troops to drug hot spots. More than 11,000 people have been killed in drug violence.

 

Michoacan, located on Mexico's western coast, has been wracked by a wave of killings and arrests in recent weeks. Federal forces there are fighting La Familia, which is locked in a battle with the Zetas drug hit men, who form a branch of the Gulf cartel. On Tuesday, three bodies were found in the town of Nuevo Urecho.

Mayor killed
In the northern state of Chihuahua, meanwhile, gunmen killed the mayor of the town of Namiquipa, officials said.

 

Hector Mixueiro was driving his pickup truck near Namiquipa when gunmen opened fire Tuesday. A message left on a Ciudad Juarez bridge hours earlier threatened Mixueiro saying he had helped soldiers arrest 25 gunmen last month in the town of Nicolas Bravo, said state prosecutors spokesman Fidel Banuelos.

 

In neighboring Coahuila state, four police officers in the border city of Piedras Negras were kidnapped hours after the police chief was pulled from his patrol car, Piedras Negras' Public Safety Director Jose Castillo said Tuesday.

 

Gunmen kidnapped Piedras Negras Police Chief Rogelio Ramos on Monday morning.

 

 

Effects of militarizing police force
Officials said the kidnappings could be related to efforts to curb corruption by militarizing the police force in Piedras Negras, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. The city is one of many in Mexico that have turned to the armed forces for help controlling cross-border drug trafficking.

 

Castillo's predecessor, army Col. Arturo Navarro, was shot and killed in April — less than three weeks after he took over the local force with the aim of purging alleged corruption.

 

Also Tuesday, soldiers detained 19 police officers from the wealthy Monterrey suburb of San Pedro who are suspected of links with organized crime, authorities said.

 

The San Pedro officers were detained Monday evening and Tuesday morning, said a spokesman for the state attorney general's office on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to give his name.

 

The detentions follow the June 26 capture of a Beltran Leyva cartel operative in San Pedro who police said was carrying a list with the names of San Pedro police officers.

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Honduran minister who insulted Obama quits

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – The Honduran minister who called U.S. President Barack Obama "that little black guy" quit the country's post-coup interim government on Tuesday, citing U.S. Embassy "pressures."

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman denied the United States was exerting any pressure, saying the embassy had no contact with a government it did not recognize.

Enrique Ortez's resignation comes just days after he was moved from the post of foreign minister to minister of government and justice in the wake of his comment about Obama. The interim government had previously apologized to the United States.

A government spokesman said interim President Roberto Micheletti had accepted the resignation.

Ortez handed out a written statement to journalists that cited "direct and indirect pressures from the United States embassy on our people and government."

Obama has called the coup illegal and his administration has demanded the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, canceled $16.5 million in military aid to Honduras and threatened to cut off $180 million more in civilian aid.

"A true friend is one who likes you despite your achievements."

- Arnold Bennett -

Prosecutors claim evangelist 'married' 8-year-old

TEXARKANA, Ark. – Evangelist Tony Alamo preyed on his loyal followers' young daughters, once taking a girl as young as 8 as his bride and repeatedly sexually assaulting her, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Fowlkes said that girl's story and others unwound an "elaborate facade" Alamo wove around himself. Lawyers for the 74-year-old Alamo, who is charged with taking underage girls across state lines for sex, argued that the alleged victims traveled across the country to further the outreach and business interests of a "bona fide religious group" that the government targeted out of its own prejudices.

U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes swore in a jury of nine men and three women on Tuesday. They include a jobless personnel employee, a worker for a local construction company and an airport finance director who lives in Fouke, the location of Alamo's 15-acre complex that authorities raided Sept. 20.

Fowlkes told jurors that a 15-year-old girl who left the Alamo ministries in 2006 told the FBI that Alamo married her at age 8. The girl told agents Alamo exchanged wedding vows and rings with her and first sexually assaulted her before she turned 10, Fowlkes said.

Alamo summoned another 15-year-old girl to his home in 1994 by telephone, authorities said, then telling her parents that God instructed him to marry her. Fowlkes said the parents consented and Alamo repeatedly sexually assaulted the girl, taking her on trips to West Virginia and Tennessee as he prepared for a trial on federal tax-evasion charges.

Another similar call came in 1998, when Alamo married a 14-year-old girl, Fowlkes said. In 2002, Alamo summoned three underage girls into his bedroom and shut the door, telling them God wanted him to marry two of them, Fowlkes said. Alamo later sexually assaulted two of those girls he married, one 11, the other 14, the prosecutor said.

Those girls also traveled on Alamo's orders to other states, Fowlkes said.

One of those girl's parents encouraged her to marry Alamo, saying his home had access to better food, television privileges, movies and a swimming pool, Fowlkes said. But the evangelist controlled every aspect of the girls' lives from what they ate to who spoke with them, the prosecutor said.

"When the FBI began to pull on that thread, it began to unravel the elaborate facade the defendant had carefully woven around himself," Fowlkes said.

Don Ervin, who is leading Alamo's defense team, told jurors to focus on the facts. He said all the girls' travel came as part of the ministry's efforts to give people "decent lives for themselves."

"This investigation, this prosecution was fueled by prejudice the government and law enforcement have against Tony Alamo's church because of its practices," Ervin said.

A federal judge revoked the tax-exempt status for Alamo's ministries in the 1980s after investigations by the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Labor Department. After the hearing, Ervin said the government couldn't decide what represented a real church.

"They've done a lot of good for people," Ervin said. "The IRS doesn't control who is a bona fide church, they just control who has to pay taxes and who doesn't."

Alamo, whose ministry grew into a multimillion industry on the backs of his followers, was convicted of tax evasion charges in 1994. He served four years in prison after the IRS said he owed the government $7.9 million. The evangelist has blamed the recent charges against him as the work of a Vatican-led conspiracy.

In 1991, Alamo was acquitted of threatening a federal judge — a case that fueled an extraordinary increase in security efforts for Alamo's current trial. Uniformed U.S. Homeland Security officers walked outside around the courthouse, while U.S. marshals filled the hallways and manned two metal detectors.

Alamo, gaunt and pale, sat quietly for much of the hearing, wearing a grey suit and dark sunglasses. He could be heard correcting his lawyer's summary of the ministry's history during opening arguments.

Alamo faces a 10-count federal indictment. If convicted, he faces 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count. He remains held without bond until the end of his trial, scheduled to last two weeks.

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Madoff admitted to North Carolina prison

WASHINGTON - Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff arrived Tuesday at a federal prison in North Carolina to begin serving a 150-year sentence for what is believed to be the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Linda Thomas said Madoff arrived at the Butner, N.C., facility after leaving federal jail in New York City on Monday.

Madoff has a projected release date of November 14, 2139, assuming he gets early release credit for good behavior while in prison. He is listed in Bureau of Prisons records as prisoner number 61727-054.

The 71-year-old Madoff pleaded guilty in March to charges that his investment advisory business was a multibillion-dollar scheme that wiped out thousands of investors and ruined charities.

Ponzi schemes are nothing new, but Madoff’s was stunning for its size and duration. In a Ponzi scheme, early investors are paid by diverting money from new investors. When the flow of new money dries up, the scheme collapses and the fraud is exposed.

Authorities said Madoff had carried out the fraud for at least two decades before confessing to his sons in December that his investment business was a fraud and that he had lost as much as $50 billion.

 

The Butner Federal Correctional Complex, located about 45 miles northwest of Raleigh, includes two medium-security facilities, a low-security facility and a hospital, according to the Bureau of Prisons Web site. Within the federal prison system, it is perhaps best known for its hospital facility to treat elderly or ill prisoners.

Among the well-known criminals being held at Butner are:

• John Rigas, founder of Adelphia Communications, and his son, Tim, the company’s chief financial officer. They were convicted on multiple charges of securities fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bank fraud.
• Jonathan Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel more than two decades ago.
• Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the blind sheik, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 for his role in a plot to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and blow up New York City landmarks, including the United Nations. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 and moved to Butner in 2007.

Monday, July 13, 2009
Police: Gatti strangled while he slept

---

Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Police investigating the death of former boxing champion Arturo Gatti are working on the assumption his wife strangled him with her purse strap while he drunkenly slept.

 

While cautioning that nothing is being ruled out, lead investigator Moises Teixeira told The Associated Press on Monday he is certain the woman acted alone.

 

 

"It was technically impossible for a third person to have been in the flat" where Gatti was found dead early Saturday, Teixeira said. "The investigation isn't finished, but we continue to think she did this alone."

 

Gatti's 23-year-old Brazilian wife, Amanda Rodrigues, told investigators she awoke Saturday about 6 a.m. to find her husband's body in the apartment they rented in Porto de Galinhas, a seaside resort in northeastern Pernambuco state.

 

Rodrigues told police she had a fight with Gatti after dinner Friday night and he pushed her to the ground, resulting in minor injuries to her elbow and chin. Witnesses also reported to police the couple fought and that Gatti was drunk.

 

Rodrigues told police the 37-year-old former junior welterweight champion then got into a cab with their son and returned to their rented apartment, leaving her alone downtown.

 

Teixeira said witnesses told police Gatti left his son to sleep in the apartment, then returned to the city center to find his wife. She arrived at the apartment before he did and waited for him. They then both went upstairs together.

 

Rodrigues told police she slept on the second floor of the apartment with her son, while Gatti slept on the first floor. She told police she awoke at 6 a.m. to feed her son and discovered her husband's body. Police say he most likely had been killed at least four hours before that.

 

Teixeira said police do not think anyone else entered the apartment and killed Gatti -- he said there were no signs of forced entry and electronic locks indicated nobody else had entered the room aside from Rodrigues and Gatti.

 

The investigator said Rodrigues told them she thought her husband had committed suicide or that someone had entered the apartment and killed him. Teixeira ruled out both scenarios.

 

Rodrigues' sister, Flavia, told the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo there is "no way she could have strangled a man of that size."

 

Rodrigues' attorney, Celio Avelino, told the AP he agreed with Flavia's conclusion and he would request Amanda be freed from jail Tuesday pending the conclusion of the investigation.

 

"She is fragile, young and skinny -- how could she kill a boxing champion?" Avelino said. "When she awoke, she presumed he had committed suicide. But she had nothing to do with it."

 

Flavia Rodrigues said her sister told her she thought Gatti had committed suicide -- though she said he knew of no reason the boxer would kill himself or why the pair fought the night before his death.

 

"Sure, they had fights," Flavia said. "But he was crazy about her."

 

The sister told Recife's TV Jornal news station that "Amanda told us she didn't kill Arturo, and we believe her."

 

"My sister, like us, is very religious and would be incapable of killing anyone," Flavia said. "She found him already dead. It's up to the police to discover what happened in the flat."

 

The pair married in 2007 and according to Rodrigues had a rocky relationship. Authorities were told the couple was extremely jealous of each other and that Gatti constantly complained about her clothing when she traveled to Brazil, police spokeswoman Milena Saraiva said.

 

According to Brazilian law, police accuse a person of a crime but it is up to the prosecutor to formally file a charge. Teixeira said police have until July 22 to deliver their findings to the prosecutor's office, but he hoped the investigation would be completed before then.

 

Rodrigues was accused of the crime Sunday and taken into police custody. She has been transferred to a woman's prison in the state capital Recife. She maintains her innocence.

 

Gatti, Rodrigues and their 10-month-old son arrived in Brazil on Friday for what they told a local real estate agent was a second honeymoon. The baby, who was unhurt, is now with Rodrigues' family in Brazil.

 

Gatti, a Canadian, fought an epic trilogy with Micky Ward that branded him one of the most exciting fighters of his generation. He retired in 2007 with a career record of 40-9 and 31 knockouts.

 

Known for his straightforward punching and granitelike chin, Gatti captured the super featherweight title in 1995, when he defeated Tracy Harris Patterson at Madison Square Garden. He won the junior welterweight title in 2004.

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"I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

- Booker Washington -

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