Bill Myers

Light rail vote gives heavy boost to Science City

Advocates for the so-called "Science City" project have been given a big boost by the Montgomery County Council's decision to build a light rail system along Interstate 270. Science City, a Johns Hopkins University-proposed 60,000-job complex in Gaithersburg, had been facing intense resistance from preservationists and environmentalists who say the proposal is too much development too quickly and would clog the once-bucolic region with traffic. Light rail changes everything, Science City advocates say, because it would allow commuters to jump on trolleys from the Shady Grove Metro station to Science City. The County Council on Tuesday voted to approve a light rail route through Science...

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Empty offices mar Washington landscape

The Washington area's office buildings are being abandoned in droves, with some vital business areas seeing up to one-quarter of their space empty, and experts are predicting it will be years before the market rebounds. About 15 percent of office space is vacant across the Washington area, but some major business corridors are seeing vacancies as high as 25 percent, according to analysts at the commercial real estate firm Grubb & Ellis. More than 26 percent of space in the biotech corridor in Gaithersburg and Germantown is empty, the Route 7 corridor from Alexandria to Loudoun is more than 25 percent vacant, and the information technology-heavy Herndon and Reston have 23 percent...

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Supreme Court rejects Skins logo case

Justices decline to review challenge by Indians The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned aside a challenge to the Washington Redskins' logo, refusing to hear arguments by American Indian activists who call the team's mascot an insult to their people. Without comment, the court refused to hear arguments that the Redskins' mascot violates U.S. patent laws against patently offensive logos. It's the last stop for a lawsuit filed 17 years ago by Suzan Shown Harjo, an activist who organized plaintiffs back in 1992. Many of the team's most passionate fans still don't see what all the fuss was about. "I think that a lot of noise has been made about this," said Samu Qureshi, who has...

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Skins logo survives — but for how long?

The Redskins logo survived another challenge Monday but that doesn't mean it's not a marked target. The last quarter century has seen the demise of hundreds of high school and college mascots offensive to American Indians. "It's going very well at the college levels," said John Dossett, a lawyer for the National Congress of American Indians. "The hardest nut to crack has been at the professional level. I think it's because there's so much money involved." Forbes estimated this year that the Redskins made some $148 million from "brand management," which helped make it the second most valuable franchise in the National Football League, behind the Dallas...

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Johns Hopkins: Helping hand or engulfing tentacle?

Like a good neighbor? Johns Hopkins and Montgomery County » 21 years in the county » 20,000 graduates through county campus » Partner or host to 13 biotech companies Johns Hopkins University has emerged as one of the key players in Montgomery County's development and health care industries, infusing the county with armies of researchers, doctors and lobbyists. But some residents wonder if they're being embraced or smothered. "They're everywhere," said Donna Baron, a North Potomac resident who is taking on the university over its plans for a massive biotechnology center in Gaithersburg. "They have tentacles all over the state." Johns...

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Supreme Court won't block sniper's execution

Muhammad's date with death » Greensville (Va.) Correctional Center » 9 p.m. is Virginia's mandated time for lethal injections. » Sequential intravenous injections of thipental sodium (to induce unconsciousness), pancuronium bromide (to stop breathing) and potassium chloride (to stop the heart) The Supreme Court on Monday brushed aside an appeal by convicted Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad, who is scheduled to be executed tonight by lethal injection The court didn't provide an explanation for refusing to hear Muhammad's appeal. If Muhammad is to be spared, it falls to Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to do it. Muhammad is scheduled to die at 9 p.m. Kaine's...

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Crucial I-270 proposal up for vote

The Montgomery County Council is scheduled to take a crucial vote Tuesday on the future of Interstate 270, a transit proposal that could ripple through most of the county. On Tuesday's council agenda: » Voting on whether to widen I-270 from Shady Grove Road to Frederick. » Deciding whether the Corridor Cities Transitway -- linking Clarksburg, Germantown, Gaithersburg and Rockville to Shady Grove Metro -- should be bus or light rail. » Proposal for the massive development near the White Flint Metro station » The county's "smart growth" policy A council committee has recommended that Maryland officials pave express toll lanes in each...

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Down the drain? New building puts more pressure on aging water systems

Leaders around the Washington area are worried that the region's crumbling water and sewer pipes will flush away their ambitious development plans. "We've not been making those investments for the last 20 years," said Rich Parsons, former president of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce who now consults for developers. "And there's going to be a price for that until we have the political will to step up and fund the infrastructure that we have to." From Montgomery to Prince William counties, residents are relying on water and sewer pipes that are many decades old. Some predate the Civil War. The age is already telling: Montgomery and Prince George's...

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Beltway sniper fights execution as region remembers terror

Convicted Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad is filing last-minute appeals, trying to avoid a Tuesday appointment in Virginia's death chamber. The legal scramble is reviving memories for countless in the D.C. region who lived through the three weeks in October 2002 when Muhammad and his ward, Lee Boyd Malvo, went on a rampage that terrorized the capital region. Picking out strangers at random, they opened fire from a hole cut in an old car, leaving notes behind to taunt police and to celebrate the carnage they inflicted. By the time the pair was finished, 10 were dead, three were wounded and many more who had already lived through the Pentagon attack on 9/11 and an anthrax scare were...

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Two victims, two views of sniper's death

John Allen Muhammad may not die this week. Last minute appeals can be filed, stays can be granted, the death chamber can wait. So can Bob Meyers. "One thing that's obvious is that if there ever was a capital case this would be one," said Meyers, whose brother, Dean was killed by Muhamad while gassing up in Manassas. "We certainly don't object to the sentence." The snipers' victims, Oct. 3-24, 2002 » James Martin, 55, was an analyst at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office. He was a resident of Colesville, Maryland. He was married with an 11-year-old son. » James Buchanan, 39, was an active volunteer at the local Boys and...

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Large military death tolls

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'Wild card' Cuccinelli wins attorney general's race

Virginia Sen. Ken Cuccinelli swept into the Attorney General's Office with a resounding victory over Del. Steve Shannon. With 94 percent of the precincts reporting, Cuccinelli had won 58 percent of the vote, the State Board of Elections reported. In his acceptance speech, Cuccinelli promised "to stand guard against constitutional overreach by the federal government." He referenced the current national debates over health care and so-called "card check" legislation that would make union organizing easier. "We are coming into office with a mandate from the people of Virginia," Cuccinelli told cheering supporters in Richmond. "We will be keeping a close...

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High expectations, slow start for College Park garage

A multimillion-dollar parking lot that is supposed to help rejuvenate downtown College Park has gathered about $9,000 in its first two months, officials said. The garage, across the street from City Hall, cost $9.3 million and has space for nearly 300 cars. City officials say, though, that the garage has been mostly empty since it opened in August. Authorities say they're not panicking. "It's going to take awhile," City Councilman Bob Catlin said. "It'll be fine." The city hasn't lost money on the project because local restaurants and stores are paying for the garage, instead of building their own private lots. "The parking garage was actually intended to be paid for without anybody...

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Landslide could elevate McDonnell nationally, experts say

A big win for Republican Bob McDonnell in Tuesday's Virginia gubernatorial election could revive his party and vault the former attorney general into national prominence, experts are predicting. Pundits and pollsters alike are predicting that McDonnell will win the election, but many say a big margin of victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds will not help just Republicans lower on the ballot "This will become known as the 'McDonnell model' in 2010," political scientist and "Virginia Tomorrow" Web writer Bob Holsworth said. "McDonnell has been very successful in rebranding the Republican Party. But what I think is more fascinating about it is that he's done so...

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Bike trail hits speed bumps

A proposal for a hiking and biking trail that would connect the new $4 billion National Harbor development with Fort Foote National Park has managed to upset both bikers and preservationists, who are giving the Prince George's County Council an earful. Prince George's officials have longed hoped to connect the banks of the Potomac to the Potomac Heritage Trail, which recently opened along the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, allowing commuters to bike or walk to and from the District and Virginia. But county officials bowed to pressure from landowners along the Potomac, who convinced lawmakers to rescind decades-old land easements in the county's newly revealed master plan. The easements are...

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D.C. crime lab closer to reality

The District's long-delayed $140 million crime laboratory has cleared a vital hurdle after a city appellate board turned aside a complaint by a local builder, protesting the contract to a rival. Tompkins Builders had claimed it could offer a crime lab cheaper and faster than rival Whiting-Turning Contracting Co., but D.C.'s contract appeals board ruled against it. The way is now clear for the city to break ground on its own lab. "We probably are just going to let it lie," Tompkins Vice President George Kreis told The Examiner. That doesn't mean the company is happy with the outcome. "It just doesn't seem right to award this job to an out-of-town contractor for millions of...

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MontCo tackles 'Science City' as state backs nearby bus route

Montgomery County officials are scheduled to take up the monumental "Science City" proposal on Monday, just days after both sides of the issue claimed victory in a state transportation plan calling for an express bus route alongside Interstate 270. "You get a sense of how far along they are in their thinking," said Donna Baron, president of the "Scale It Back" coalition, an organization of neighborhood groups trying to reduce the scope of the development. The planning department has approved a massive, 60,000-job biotechnology corporate and academic complex in Gaithersburg. Advocates say that development will make Montgomery County a world leader in biotech...

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Obama backing away from Deeds' campaign

President Obama appears to be backing out of Virginia less than a year after he conquered the Old Dominion in his historic election. The president is scheduled to campaign for gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds on Tuesday, but The Washington Post reported that "Democrats at the national level" are already accusing Deeds of having blown the party's chances in the Nov. 3 election. The paper quoted "senior administration officials" as saying that Deeds has ignored the White House's advice on mobilizing blacks and young professionals. One said: "Obama, [Virginia Gov. Tim] Kaine and others had drawn a road map to victory in Virginia. Deeds chose another...

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Fenty construction contracts questioned by D.C. council

Updated: 1:17 P.M. The Fenty administration has handed out construction management contracts worth tens of millions of dollars for parks and recreation projects without obtaining legislative approval, and D.C. Council members are crying foul. A partnership between Banneker Ventures LLC and Regan Associates has become the go-to manager for the Parks and Recreation Department, handling construction contracts worth some $72 million, public records show. "We are concerned that the transfer of procurement authority may circumvent District procurement laws and is significantly less transparent," members Kwame Brown, D-at large, Harry Thomas, D-Ward 5, Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3 and Marion...

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Bedroom community blues: foreclosure crisis creating suburban slums

Two years of economic collapse have pockmarked the D.C. region's affluent suburbs with blight and experts are worried that the foundering cul-de-sacs and towns are on the verge of becoming the region's next ghettoes. "What you're looking at now is a structural problem," Brookings Institute scholar Christopher Leinberger said. "We have structurally overbuilt the fringe...It ain't coming back." Consider, for instance, Prince William County's Georgetown South community. The signs there used to say, "For sale." Then they said, "foreclosed." Now they say, "For rent." ANDREW HARNIK/EXAMINER Herb Cooper-Levy runs a group home for...

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Con artists feast on suburban blight

The ghettoization of Washington's suburbs has created a special haven for that parasitic species -- the con artist. Law enforcement say they have their hands full pursuing fraudsters from Baltimore to Quantico. The highest profile scams have involved rings using so-called "straw buyers" who obtain home loans with bogus credit histories. Federal prosecutors in Maryland are wrapping up the prosecution of six friends who ran an elaborate scheme that took in some $19 million in loans. Not only would the friends obtain phony mortgages through straw buyers, but then they'd rake in hundreds of thousands in fees for fictitious renovations. Thanks to the scam, there are now 65 homes...

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Developers battle White Flint plan to require purchase of farmers' rights

Deep-pocketed developers are using the debate over White Flint's redevelopment to reopen old arguments about Montgomery County's one-of-a-kind agriculture reserve policy. Since the 1980s, county law has forbidden property owners from developing on land within the designated agriculture reserve. As compensation, the law let farmers sell their development rights — called "building lot terminations," or BLTs — to builders for projects outside the reserve. Under the plan, more than one-fourth of county's 323,000 acres have been kept lush farmland. It also has given developers the option to expand otherwise tightly zoned projects by buying farmers' rights. Now, the...

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Backroads on historic path get 'scenic' tag from feds

The Federal Highway Administration has designated 180 miles of highway between Gettysburg, Pa., and Monticello, Va., a "National Scenic Byway," a symbolic but potentially lucrative designation that could lead to millions in tourism development dollars for Maryland and Virginia. Ninety-eight other strips in the United States already have gained the "scenic byway" tag, which was created by Congress in 1991 and recognizes classic American backroads -- like Route 66 and the Las Vegas strip -- that are experiences in and of themselves. Get your kicks on... Among other National Scenic Byways » Big Sur Coast Highway, California » Marine Highway,...

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Post's Deeds endorsement energizes both sides in governor's race.

The Washington Post's enthusiastic endorsement of Democrat Creigh Deeds on Sunday was welcomed by the struggling Deeds campaign, but was also seen as an opportunity by Virginia conservatives to tie the Democrat's candidacy to a newspaper they view as liberal. "Mr. Deeds," the Post said in its endorsement, "has run an enormous and possibly fatal political risk by saying bluntly that he would support legislation to raise new taxes dedicated to transportation." That was music to the ears of many Republicans and conservatives. "It's clarifying," Republican Party of Virginia spokesman Tim Murtaugh told The Examiner. "There is no question that Creigh Deeds...

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The 3-minute interview: David Silverberg

In 2004, while the rest of the media industry was busy collapsing, David Silverberg and his friends began Homeland Security Today, a glossy magazine for those charged with our nation's defense. How's the magazine doing? Very well, I'm very pleased to say. We've been very steady, even in difficult times. We have an extremely loyal readership and the necessity for homeland security hasn't diminished, regardless of economic ups and downs. We've got a 76 percent renewal rate in our subscriptions. How did you get into this? My background was in defense journalism. I spent a number of years with a newspaper called Defense News. I was managing editor of the Hill for a couple of years. I...

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Hopkins consultant back into ring with Science City fight

Rich Parsons, a top consultant for Johns Hopkins University and its Science City plans, is a man with a resume full of accomplishments, a Rolodex full of contacts and no stranger to controversy. As the former president of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, Parsons has been the unapologetic champion of development in the county. But for many environmentalists, preservations and self-styled "smart" growth advocates, he's considered an enemy. "His willingness to say absolutely anything means it's hard for us to defend against him," said Pamela Lindstrom, a longtime leader of the local Sierra Club. Donna Baron, who has put together a neighborhood coalition against Science...

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Montgomery faces long winter of big decisions

Montgomery County leaders will take up several major development projects in a just a few scant months, intensifying already vitriolic questions over the county's long-term prosperity. Between now and April, the County Council will weigh projects ranging from the White Flint redevelopment to the widening of Interstate 270 to the so-called "Science City" project in Gaithersburg West. It's the most frenetic schedule in recent memory. As developments warrant? The Montgomery County Council will face numerous development projects in the next few months: » White Flint: A proposal to redevelop the area around the White Flint Metro station by replacing strip malls and...

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Montgomery planning chief blocked probe of computer failures

A top official in a key Montgomery County development agency tried to block an internal investigation of failures in the agency's computer security system, The Examiner has learned. Montgomery County Planning Director Rollin Stanley told his staff that a review of his agency's Internet firewall failures was "a fishing expedition" and intervened to keep investigators from interviewing his staff, internal documents reviewed by The Examiner show. The agency's firewall had problems nearly 300 times -- an average of 24 times per month -- in a little more than a year between 2008 and 2009. One Friday this spring, the entire system crashed, and officials scrambled to install a new security...

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Neighbors, council pan Fenty plan for apartments at historic school

Mayor Adrian Fenty's plan to convert a historic D.C. school for freed slaves into a luxury apartment building has run into fierce opposition from neighbors in tony Foggy Bottom and D.C. Council members. In late September, Fenty awarded a contract to Equity Residential so that the Chicago-based firm could convert the Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School into an apartment building. Many neighbors in Foggy Bottom -- many of them already angry that Fenty closed Stevens -- have erupted. "We have high expectations and we want to see a signature project there," Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Rebecca Coder said. "Rental units don't cut it." Coder and her friends have...

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Montgomery plans traffic tunnel near Bethesda Naval

Montgomery County officials are seeking millions of federal funds to build a traffic tunnel under Rockville Pike near Bethesda Naval Hospital. The plans were announced this week at a meeting that included county and state officials, U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-8th District, and invited citizens from the area. The plans were obtained by the Action Committee for Transit, a nonprofit advocacy group that posted its findings on the Greater Greater Washington Web site. Under the plans, the county would use millions in federal funds to build a zigzagging tunnel beneath Rockville Pike between the Medical Center Metro station and Bethesda Naval. The area is one of the county's most clotted,...

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'Science City' will be scaled back, council president predicts

Montgomery County Council President Phil Andrews said Monday that an ambitious plan to build a 60,000-job "Science City" in Gaithersburg would be drastically cut back before legislators finish with it. "I think it will be scaled back," the Rockville/Gaithersburg Democrat said, using the language of Science City critics. "It's a major concern of mine." The Interstate 270 corridor is already among the nation's biotech breadbaskets. Developers led by Johns Hopkins University are hoping to escalate development in the area and make "Gaithersburg West" off Route 28 a world center of biochemical research. They have been encouraged in their efforts by the billions of dollars pouring from the...

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Site struggle over proposed MontCo biotech 'city'

Twenty years ago, Liz Banks turned to Johns Hopkins University to save her family's farm. Now, her family is fighting to save the farm from Johns Hopkins. Banks had retired to her ancestral Belward Farm in Montgomery County after decades as a schoolteacher. But in 1989, she was hit with a massive property tax bill. Rather than sell the land to developers -- who were offering upward of $54 million -- Banks sold it to Johns Hopkins for $5 million. On one condition: The university would only use the 108-acre, West Gaithersburg farm for a small, "Jeffersonian" campus, nephew Tim Newell said. That was then. Now, just four years after Banks died -- still raising cattle on the land...

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Transition to taxi meters triggered corruption, feds say

D.C.'s effort to change from a taxi fare system based on zone maps to a metered system was beset with corruption from its earliest days, federal court papers show. When Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., pushed through legislation requiring the District to move from its much-derided zone map system to time and distance meters, some people saw a way to corrupt the impending change to their advantage, according to court papers. A full month before the change took effect in October, 2007, cabbies and taxi industry officials were lining up to bribe their way through, around and under the new regulations, federal officials alleged in two new indictments unsealed Friday. Thirty-six cabbies were charged...

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D.C. to consider legalizing gay marriage

Councilman Catania says he'll introduce bill Tuesday D.C. Councilman David Catania promised to introduce a bill next week that will allow same-sex couples to be married legally in the nation's capital. "We've been working hard on it, just putting one foot in front of the other," Catania, I-at large, told The Examiner on Thursday. The bill already has nine co-sponsors and will be introduced Tuesday. It follows a long battle over an earlier law -- also sponsored by Catania -- that requires D.C. to recognize gay marriages performed legally in other states. Opponents of that measure lost a drive over the summer to put the question on the ballot so city voters could weigh in. The...

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Indictments, arrests in D.C. taxi-bribery scandal

Federal officials indicted some 30 taxi industry officials Friday as part of a wide-ranging corruption investigation that has already reached the office of D.C. Councilman Jim Graham, D-Ward 1. The suspects were being rounded up Friday but the indictments were still under seal, federal law enforcement sources told The Examiner. Authorities have been investigating allegations of bribe-paying by cabbies to get new D.C. taxicab licenses and are also looking at the financing behind several taxicab companies, the sources said. More than $220,000 in bribes are believed to have changed hands, the sources said. Late last month, a federal grand jury indicted Graham's chief of staff, Ted Loza,...

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The Examiner debuts new Yeas team

Washingtonians will have two new faces greeting them on the city's premier personality, power and politics page. Nikki Schwab and Tara Palmeri are taking over as The Examiner's new Yeas & Nays team. Schwab reported for the U.S. News & World Report's widely read "Washington Whispers" column and also produced that feature on U.S. News' Web site. She will join the team in two weeks. Before joining The Examiner, Palmeri had been a news assistant at CNN, where her duties included producing a daily political podcast. Her first appearance is in Tuesday's paper. Both women are graduates of American University -- Palmeri has a bachelor's degree in communications and Schwab a...

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The 3-minute interview: Greg Bibb

Bibb is the chief operating officer of the Washington Mystics, one of the most successful franchises in the WNBA. Reports have said the league is in trouble. How have you guys managed to buck the trend? I would dispute that the league is in trouble. Anyone who wants to dispute that should look at the eight-year contract we’ve signed with ESPN. I don’t think we’re going anywhere. Our attendance is 11,658 currently. That’s league-leading. We do that through promotion, theme, initiative after initiative. You name it, we do it. We’re convinced that once someone sees the product up close and personal, they’re going to be converted to fans. Do you think the...

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Lanier loses another round of 'All Hands' litigation

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier lost another round in her battle to save her controversial "All Hands on Deck" program Monday. An arbitrator denied Lanier's motion to reconsider his original ruling striking down "All Hands" and ordering the department to pay officers overtime for this year's events. Lanier has said her "All Hands" events -- which flood city streets with thousands of cops, mostly on weekends -- is vital to protecting the public. Critics, including the police union, have said it's a publicity stunt that drains stations of manpower after the events are over. Arbitrator John Truesdale has now twice sided with the union. Attorney General Peter Nickles said he'll appeal...

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D.C.'s new co-op tax: Questions, few answers

A new law that will tax the sales of apartment co-ops is supposed to take effect this week. But few -- even among city hall officials -- seem to know what the law says. Cooperative owners and real estate experts say they're not sure what will happen when the law takes effect Thursday. "There's a dearth of guidance on this," said David Horrigan, president of the District of Columbia Cooperative Housing Coalition. Owners "haven't received any instruction on how it's supposed to be collected, how it's supposed to be remitted -- none of those things." The D.C. Council passed a final version of the tax last week but hasn't handed over the new law to the city tax office,...

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Former Graham intern to appear in court on assault charge

A former intern for D.C. Councilman Jim Graham will appear in court Monday to answer charges that he opened fire on another teen shortly after a city summer jobs orientation. Devin Black, 19, is accused of assault in a June 18 shooting outside the Columbia Heights Metro station. Prosecutors allege that he and another teenager bickered on the train on their way home from a massive orientation for youths in Mayor Adrian Fenty's summer jobs program. As they got off the train, the dispute escalated and Black opened fire before fleeing, authorities say. Last-minute motions are scheduled to be argued Monday morning and jury selection could begin that afternoon. The shooting was a mild...

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Bumped off: Area motorists besieged by 'raised potholes'

The thousands of speed bumps dotting Washington area roadways may be designed to calm traffic, but they're certainly not calming nerves. "They're raised potholes, is what they are," said AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman John Townsend. "They confound motorists, they confuse neighbors. Only an urban planner could love them." Washington area planners certainly love them: Montgomery County has nearly 1,200. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has installed more than 760 speed bumps since he took office in 2007. In Arlington, there's a speed bump for every 1.4 miles of road. Bumped off? Speed bumps have sprouted all over the region. » Montgomery County: 1,198 speed bumps for 2,400 miles of...

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Top Graham aide charged with taking bribes

D.C. Councilman Jim Graham's top aide pocketed cash-stuffed envelopes and other gifts in return for steering taxicab legislation through his boss's office, law enforcement officials alleged Thursday. Ted Giovanny Loza, 44, was arrested at his Columbia Heights home Thursday morning, shortly before FBI agents raided his office at the John A. Wilson Building. Loza, the Ward 1 councilman's chief of staff, tinyurl.com/loza-indictment, to which he pleaded not guilty during a late afternoon arraignment. He was released without having to post bail. Graham immediately placed him on administrative leave with pay. Loza is accused in the 10-page indictment of accepting "a stream of things of...

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D.C. Councilman Graham's chief of staff arrested on bribery charges

The top aide to Councilman Jim Graham was arrested Thursday morning, charged with pocketing bribes to help steer taxi cab legislation through his boss’ office. Ted Loza, Graham's chief of staff, was scheduled to appear in federal court hours later, charged with two counts of bribery. He was arrested early Thursday and his city hall office raided by federal agents. He is a longtime aide to Graham, D-Ward 1, who chairs the council’s transportation committee and who earlier this year introduced legislation that would have lifted a moratorium on expensive taxi cab licenses — called medallions — for “environmentally friendly” cabs. Graham fled from a...

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D.C. region incomes hold strong in recession, census data show

Maryland residents were the wealthiest in the nation last year as the Washington region saw its median incomes rise, even as the rest of the country faltered under the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Monday. The median household income in Maryland was nearly $71,000, slightly ahead of New Jersey. Virginia came in eighth, with a median income of about $61,000, and D.C. was 12th in median income, at nearly $58,000, the census reported in its annual American Community Survey. Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia communities bolstered their states' incomes, the census reported. Median incomes from Loudoun to Prince George's counties...

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D.C. fire system still has ways to go, inspector general says

More than two years after a prominent D.C. journalist was left on an upper Northwest sidewalk to die, the District's emergency rescue team remains woefully unprepared to deal with citizens' emergencies, an internal review has found. The D.C. inspector general reported in a recent audit, obtained by The Examiner, that the D.C. Fire and Emergency Management System, the city's main rescue service: » Hasn't established anything like a quality "medical assurance" program to protect the health and welfare of District citizens; » Still suffers from "excessive turnover in key management positions"; » And still doesn't have enough staffers to coordinate rescue services for the...

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D.C. emergency system still has ways to go, inspector general says

Audit findings: The D.C. inspector general found that the District’s fire and rescue officials still weren’t prepared to help the District’s citizens in an emergency. The Sept. 15 audit found that: » D.C. and fire employees still aren’t trained to deal with bloodborne pathogens and illnesses, as required by federal law. » The fire department still isn’t guarding ambulances to protect them from vandalism. » Vital D.C. fire engine companies still occasionally are flooded by standing water and sewage in their offices. » Some local fire offices aren’t even equipped with working smoke detectors. More than two years after a prominent...

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Libraries booming in the burbs

Area bookworms are turning their local libraries from stuffy nerd wastelands into local hot spots. The libraries in Montgomery, Arlington and Fairfax counties are reporting record numbers of guests and record circulation. Librarians are eager to embrace the hordes, brightening up the color of the places, offering free Wi-Fi and even relaxing their rules about monkish silence. "Libraries and bookstores are all evolving, physically," said Debbie King, branch coordinator for the Fairfax County Library. "We have meeting rooms and computers. We try to put our high-volume material -- the things people want when they walk in the door -- in a more prominent and nice display area....

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Michelle Obama-backed farmers market knots downtown traffic

A farmers market inspired and endorsed by first lady Michelle Obama snarled traffic Thursday in downtown Washington as commuters and pedestrians found themselves trying to navigate a security gantlet. FreshFarms Market had lobbied furiously to peddle its wares on Vermont Avenue between H and I streets NW, every Thursday for the next six weeks. Its organizers promised to bring locally grown food to Washingtonians in the shadow of the White House. They dropped the first lady's name in their conversations. The result: The market was opened to the public Thursday. It closed down Vermont Avenue. "It's a great day for farmers," said Mary Ellen Taylor of Virginia's Endless Summer...

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White House leans toward veteran trial lawyer as next U.S. Attorney

The White House is leaning toward veteran trial lawyer Ron Machen as it ponders its choice for D.C.'s next top prosecutor, The Examiner has learned. Passed over in the process is homegrown product Channing Philips, the interim U.S. attorney -- a D.C. native and son of a civil rights leader. Although President Obama has final say, tradition has always given sway to members of Congress in the selection of U.S. attorneys. Multiple sources speaking on condition of anonymity told The Examiner that D.C.'s nonvoting Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, forwarded Machen's name, along with those of former federal prosecutor and current Nixon Peabody partner Anjali Chaturvedi and former...

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3-minute interview: Steven Salzberg

Salzberg, a University of Maryland scientist, is co-founder of a new online influenza journal through the Public Library of Science. Organizers hope that the Internet format will allow scientists to share information with each other — and the public — without a delay of weeks or months on the old peer review style of preparing journals. What made you decide to get involved? David Lipman in the [National Institutes of Health] should get the most credit. David and I started talking about it *** back in the spring, when the H1N1 was turning into a pandemic. The usual suspects -- experts in influenza -- were talking amongst themselves, and then there were some other scientists...

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Suburbs not immune to homeless boom

Some of D.C.'s affluent suburbs are facing homeless crises of their own. A May study by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments found that homelessness had increased dramatically in nearly every suburb between 2005 and 2009. In Loudoun County, it spiked by more than 63 percent. In Prince William, homelessness leaped by 25 percent. In Montgomery, it increased nearly 17 percent. The only jurisdictions to see a decrease since 2005 were Alexandria and Prince George's County, the council study found. D.C. remains the capital of homelessness -- more than half of the region's 12,000-plus homeless live in the District -- but the mere fact of homelessness in otherwise wealthy...

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K Street corridor: Where homeless, business meet

An army of mentally ill homeless people have set up camp along the K Street blocks that constitute Washington's premier business district, alarming tourists and worrying business owners in the area. "We're seeing a lot more people now," said Colleen McCarthy, a volunteer with Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, a nonprofit group that provides hot meals in McPherson Square every Thursday. "Many of them are the most mentally ill." Some homeless advocates say the upsurge is an unintended consequence of Mayor Adrian Fenty's ambitious reform agenda. Last year, Fenty shut down the Franklin Shelter, the only downtown homeless refuge. He also had to back away from his ambitious...

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Lawyer has license suspended after keeping settlement secret from client

A D.C. lawyer has had his license suspended after he admitted to misappropriating money from one of his clients and missing crucial court deadlines in another client's case. The D.C. Court of Appeals ordered Ronnie Thaxton's license to practice law suspended for six months and put him on probation for another three years because he bungled two different cases. According to court papers, Thaxton admitted to legal ethics investigators that he withdrew $5,000 in fees from an escrow account that was supposed to be kept for his client, Terri Roberts. Roberts, who was injured in an accident, was threatening a lawsuit against Geico. The insurance company and Thaxton agreed to settle the case...

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Coast Guard exercise on Potomac sparks panic

A Coast Guard training exercise on the Potomac River caused a panic Friday morning after CNN broadcast the details without first checking to see whether the scenario was real. The media reports that shots had been fired on the Potomac sent law enforcement and federal agencies scrambling. The Federal Aviation Administration briefly shut down flights at Reagan National Airport, the FBI sent agents to the river, as did District police. The confusion started when CNN first reported that shots had been fired by the Coast Guard at a suspect vessel between the Memorial and 14th Street bridges, not far from the Pentagon where President Barack Obama and hundreds of others were gathered to...

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Eight years after 9/11, security experts fear complacency

Eight years after Islamic death squads slammed a hijacked plane into the Pentagon, security experts are worried that government leaders and the public are losing their focus on protecting the D.C. region from disaster. "I think there is a bit of a disruption here," said Bill Pickle, former sergeant-at-arms of the Senate. "I still think that there is some complacency not just among the bureaucrats and the politicians, but I think complacency sets in the security agencies, too." Nine months into his administration, for instance, President Obama still hasn't appointed directors of the Transportation Security Administration or the Customs and Border Patrol, Pickle...

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Arbitrator tosses overboard 'All Hands on Deck'

An arbitrator has squashed D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier's "All Hands on Deck" program, ruling that the chief's effort to flood the streets with cops violated the officers' contract. John C. Truesdale ruled Thursday that Lanier's much-ballyhooed initiative "did not honor and support" the union agreement and broke "applicable laws, rules and regulations." He ordered Lanier to cancel All Hands events for the rest of the year and to pay the union overtime for the first several events from the beginning the year. It's a crushing blow to one of the centerpieces of Lanier's regime. Lanier has given All Hands credit in helping the city curb its homicides to a decade's low. It's not clear...

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Downtown market would shut down Vermont Ave. during rush hour

Organizers have been dropping first lady Michelle Obama's name in their efforts to plop a farmers market into downtown Washington that would shut down an avenue near the White House during rush hour. In late August, staff at FreshFarm Markets sent a note to the city Department of Transportation asking if they would be so kind as to shut down Vermont Avenue between H and I streets NW every Thursday from 1 to 8 p.m. from Sept. 17 until Oct. 29. In lobbying city officials, FreshFarm staff have bragged about their talks with the first lady -- a vocal supporter of open-air markets. The city's official response? Don't bet the farm on it. "At this point, we don't consider their...

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Audits blast VA for cronyism, waste in $24M bonuses

A top official in the Department of Veterans Affairs pressured a government contractor -- and later, her own underlings -- to hire a friend, used her influenced to help hire other friends and exploited "an inappropriate personal relationship" with her boss to get a cozy office in Florida and be shuttled back and forth at taxpayers' expense, a scathing internal review has found. In a separate audit, the VA's inspector general also laid bare $24 million in "questionable" bonuses to employees, including family members and friends of one employee whom auditors accused of behaving "as if she was given a blank checkbook." The audits of the department's technology section are scathing. They...

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Former nonprofit CFO facing prison in $184K embezzlement

A former top accountant at a wildlife conservation group is facing more than two years in prison after she admitted to using the group's credit card for $184,000 in makeup, casino junkets -- and a really expensive birthday cake. Wendy Mansfield was supposed to have been sentenced by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on Wednesday, but the judge postponed Mansfield's judgment day until Sept. 17. Mansfield had been the chief financial officer of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, an international conservation group based in D.C. In February, she agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud, admitting that she helped herself to the association's credit card for more than four years, wracking...

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Montgomery College president could face vote Thursday

Montgomery College's board of trustees will meet Thursday to decide the fate of embattled college President Brian K. Johnson. Faculty and staff have revolted against Johnson, accusing him of abandoning Maryland's largest community college for lavish junkets around the world. First reported by The Washington Post on Wednesday, Johnson's enemies have stuffed a clip file of what they're calling outrageous expenses, from a $4,000-plus hotel bill in Delhi, India, to a $780 limousine ride in Boston. Since 2007, Johnson has billed the taxpayer-funded college for nearly $60,000 in expenses. The school pays him a $220,000 annual salary. Through a spokesman, Johnson declined comment Wednesday. He...

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Metro shuts National Airport station for Labor Day weekend

Thousands of holiday travelers will have to schlep their luggage onto shuttle buses this weekend or find another way to get to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as officials close the airport's Metro station for track work on the Blue and Yellow lines. Workers at the transit agency are replacing about one-third of a mile of rail and replacing four switches between the Pentagon City and Braddock Road stations from 9:30 p.m. Friday until 5 a.m. Tuesday, Metro said. At a glance Metro repairs on the Blue and Yellow lines: » Replace 2,000 feet of rail. » Install 735 new ties. » Replace four switches. » Perform concrete and deck joint...

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Grant foul-up puts jobs of three D.C. victims' advocates at risk

Botched application may leave hundreds of families without help Hundreds of homicide victims' families face losing their advocates in the D.C. police department because of a botched grant application, The Examiner has learned. Laverne Harley, Jennifer Murphy and Dawn Christie were all paid by the D.C. police department to help relatives of the District's numerous homicide victims with needs ranging from paying their bills to understanding the legal system. Their work was supported by a grant from the Department of Justice. But officials in the Fenty administration mishandled a crucial application and the feds pulled the plug on the program. Authorities are now scrambling to find new...

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Nickles’ old firm helped Pershing Park arrestees

Peter Nickles’ former law firm represented several citizens who were illegally swept up in a mass police crackdown, and attorneys for other purported victims of the sweep are raising the question of whether the city’s attorney general is compromised by a conflict of interest. Nickles was a giant in pro bono work at Covington & Burling before joining Mayor Adrian Fenty’s cabinet. Since taking over as attorney general, he has fought tooth-and-nail against lawsuits from other ordinary citizens arrested in Pershing Park when the D.C. police cracked down on anti-World Bank protesters in 2002. In a letter sent to Nickles’ city staff and included in court filings,...

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D.C. police lieutenant gets his job back

A D.C. police lieutenant has been brought back to work after six years of conflict with a department that once fired him -- for having been previously fired by them. Tim Haselden had been arranging traffic cones at the police academy and drawing his $100,000-per year salary while he fought to be sent back on the streets. On Christmas Eve 2003, he was fired following a couple of angry confrontations with his wife. The department said he was a wife-beater. Haselden appealed and an administrative law judge held that, in fact, Haselden had tried to defuse the confrontations. He was set to come back to work when a media outlet reported that rogue cops were sneaking back onto the force...

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Nickles' old firm helped Pershing Park arrestees

Peter Nickles' former law firm represented several citizens who were illegally swept up in a mass police crackdown, and attorneys for other purported victims of the sweep are raising the question of whether the city's attorney general is compromised by a conflict of interest. Nickles was a giant in pro bono work at Covington & Burling before joining Mayor Adrian Fenty's cabinet. Since taking over as attorney general, he has fought tooth-and-nail against lawsuits from other ordinary citizens arrested in Pershing Park when the D.C. police cracked down on anti-World Bank protesters in 2002. In a letter sent to Nickles' city staff and included in court filings, lawyers for four of...

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District police lieutenant wins his job back

A D.C. police lieutenant has been brought back to work after six years of conflict with a department that once fired him — for having been previously fired by it. Tim Haselden had been arranging traffic cones at the police academy and drawing his $100,000-per-year salary while he fought to be sent back to the streets. On Christmas Eve 2003, he was fired following a couple of angry confrontations with his wife. The department said he was a wife-beater. Haselden appealed and an administrative law judge held that, in fact, Haselden had tried to defuse the confrontations. He was set to come back to work when a media outlet reported that rogue cops were sneaking back onto the force...

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Houses divided: Capitol Hill quarrel leads to years of litigation

An 8.4-inch gap between two Capitol Hill homes has led to seven years of vicious litigation, with charges and counter-charges of harassment, libel, assault, tossed wine glasses, wicked hose-downs and even maliciously potty-trained cats. "It was a neighborhood squabble," said retired Georgetown professor R. Michael "Mike" Neuman, sighing as he explained his side of the lawsuits. Court records tell a more complicated story: Neuman and his wife, Delia — library science professor — have been locked in a give-no-quarter struggle with neighbor Anne Wood since 1999. It started when the Neumans, who own a town house at 121 E. St. SE, wanted to waterproof their...

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Long Kennedy goodbye to end at Arlington

Washington's elite will bid a solemn but fairly understated goodbye to Sen. Edward Kennedy this weekend with a private burial at the Republic's most hallowed ground. The biggest farewells for the long-serving Massachusetts senator will occur in his native Boston, but then he is scheduled to be flown to the capital for a private interment at Arlington National Cemetery. Some details of Saturday's burial had yet to be decided, said Col. Daniel Baggio, chief of staff for the U.S. Army Military District of Washington at Fort McNair. If the Kennedy family chooses to have a graveside eulogy or prayer, it is members of the Army's 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, or "The Old Guard," who would...

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Cool summer chilling the killers?

Homicides are down dramatically in the District and other cities across America at the same time many parts of the nation are experiencing the coolest summer in decades. That has some experts wondering if the big chill is allowing cooler heads to prevail on city streets. "The hard science is not conclusive," said George Washington University criminologist Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor. But "it's probably true that the cooler weather is responsible for the drop in violent crime. Any beat cop will tell you that a cooler summer means safer streets." Police leaders like D.C. Chief Cathy Lanier bristle at the suggestion that cool weather is chilling the bad...

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Veteran fraud prosecutors send double-killer to prison

Two lawyers accustomed to fighting white-collar crime have helped put a double-murderer behind bars. Nathaniel Waldron was sentenced Monday to 32 years in prison for the 2006 shooting deaths of Davion "Rock" Holt, 20, and 16-year-old and Michael Lucas. The sentence was part of a plea deal with veteran public corruption prosecutors Steve Durham and Michael Atkinson. Durham started his career prosecuting violent crimes, but he hadn't been "on the line" in more than 11 years. Atkinson had never prosecuted a violent crime. "It's a whole different set of challenges," Atkinson said. "Generally, witnesses in a white-collar case fear loss of job, not loss of life. It's a pretty big...

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A Shark in Lawyer's Clothing

When Mayor Fenty gets in a jam, count on Peter Nickles to be at his side, teeth bared and ready to attack Even his friends say D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles is like a shark. "He's got to keep moving forward," said longtime friend and law partner Alan Pemberton. "He can't stop or he'll die." Long regarded as one of the city's top litigators -- in a city full of great litigators -- Nickles has been swimming in dangerous waters for the past two years. As one of Adrian Fenty's oldest friends and most trusted adviser, Nickles seems to be everywhere, all the time, defending the mayor and fighting off his own tormentors. » City lawyers stand accused of...

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Combative at work, competitive in life

If Peter Nickles seems a bit macho at work, consider what he does in his off hours. He has run at least 40 marathons from New Zealand to Dublin. He's completed an additional 20 triathlons -- including Hawaii's notorious Ironman and two Ultraman races. He swims several miles per day. He has flipped his bikes at least twice and nearly drowned several times. The price of his sporting life: back surgery, the cartilage in his knees and, more times than he likes to admit, his dignity. He's not stopping, though. "It keeps you young, it keeps you alive, it keeps you focused," he said. Nickles was a literature major before he became lawyer, but few books can be found in his sunlit office...

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Ex-councilwoman accuses Nickles of deception in hog-tying probe

A former city councilwoman who led the investigation into a police crackdown on protesters that led to hundreds of innocent bystanders being hog-tied has accused D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles of misleading a federal judge on whether the city destroyed crucial evidence. In an unsolicited letter to U.S. Judge Emmet Sullivan, former Ward 3 Democrat Kathy Patterson said she was writing "to clear up any confusion that may have been created ... by erroneous statement included" in Nickles' recent affidavit. Patterson accuses Nickles of offering incorrect versions of what happened to the police department's so-called "running resume," a log of department orders...

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The 3-Minute Interview: Tim Cole

Cole is the new manager of Creighton Farms, a gated community in Loudoun County that boasts a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course. The recession has hurt sales at Creighton Farms and many other developments, but the course has been heralded in several golf magazines. Have you shot the course yet? Oh yeah. What's your handicap? Well, I'm a high handicapper. I work too hard. I'm a 19 handicap. And how is the course? The course is absolutely fabulous. It's a very challenging course. It's impeccably maintained, well groomed, greatly designed and well deserving of the recognition it has received. What's the hardest hole? That's pretty subjective. It'll depend on who you talk...

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D.C. students trail Maryland, Va., nation in ACT results

D.C. students continue to lag their peers in Maryland and Virginia and remain mostly unprepared for college courses, figures provided by a national testing service show. D.C. students' scores on the annual ACT test have risen slowly over the last five years, but they're still well below the national average -- and the average scores of students in Maryland and Virginia, ACT officials announced Wednesday. The average composite ACT for a graduating senior in the District was 19.4, below the national average of 21.1. The average Virginian scored nearly two points higher, while the average Marylander scored almost three points higher. The grades Composite ACT test results: »...

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Federal prosecutor in Md. creates team to track down dirty money

Rod Rosenstein, Maryland's top federal prosecutor, announced Monday that he's creating a new team of number crunchers to crack down on money laundering and to track the assets of bad guys. Rosenstein has asked veteran prosecutors Stefan Cassella, Richard Kay and Christen Sproule to lead the new task force. Cassella, the new chief of the section, and Kay work out of the Baltimore office; Sproule works out of Greenbelt. The team will focus on asset forfeiture and money laundering from civil and criminal cases. Rosenstein told The Examiner that he hoped the team would help him "take the profit out of crime and to help repay the victims." The collapse of the housing market taught...

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D.C. AG on controversial police lawyer: He's 'exemplary'

Three weeks before a federal judge ordered an investigation into how police department attorneys lost crucial evidence in a civil rights lawsuit, Attorney General Peter Nickles hailed a central figure in the widening scandal as "an exemplary lawyer," a letter obtained by The Examiner shows. Terry Ryan has been general counsel of the D.C. police department for more than a decade. He's under intense scrutiny after U.S. Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered a probe into how key police department records, subject to a subpoena from 400 some people suing the city, disappeared or were destroyed after being handed over to Ryan's office. Nickles has promised the judge to get to the bottom of...

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Former postal clerk pleads to stealing $682,000 in stamps

A former post office window clerk pleaded guilty to charges that he stole nearly $700,000 in stamps so that a buddy could sell them on e-Bay. Marvin Lamont Foster, of Rosedale, Md., went into federal court in Baltimore on Thursday and admitted that he stole stamps by hundreds and thousands from June 2008 until March of this year. He then handed the stamps over to his friend, Kyle Mathias, 23, of Joppa, who sold them on the online auction house. The scheme netted some $682,000, federal prosecutors say in court papers. Foster, 54, admitted that he stole "coils" -- rolls of 100 stamps valued at $42 -- and "bricks" -- 2,000 stamps valued at $840 apiece -- and handed them...

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Longtime editor leaving Washingtonian

Washingtonian magazine's Editor Jack Limpert, a living institution at one of America's most successful city glossies, is stepping aside after 40 years, the magazine announced Thursday. Limpert is making way for Garrett Graff, a 28-year-old former blogger who has been with the magazine for one-tenth of Limpert's tenure. "I've been working hard in journalism for 50 years and I think I need some time to do some thinking and read some books," Limpert told The Examiner. The move is effective Sept. 1. Limpert will stay on as "editor at large" to help the younger gun make the transition. Graff said that he is well-positioned to capture the zeitgeist. "It's clear to...

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Mortgage attorney stripped of law license after $90k 'misappropriation'

A veteran mortgage and bankruptcy lawyer has been stripped of his D.C. law license after he was accused of helping himself to $90,000 in client funds. Nathan Wasser had been a licensed lawyer for more than 40 years, practicing mostly out of his Cumberland office. But in early February, he had to surrender his Maryland law license after ethics investigators accused him of having taken some $90,000 from client escrow funds and used them for undisclosed business and personal expenses. He has since been disbarred by Virginia and, last week, the D.C. Court of Appeals stripped him of his District license. The move was expected — D.C.'s ethics rules favor "reciprocal...

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Lawyers for D.C. special-needs kids bringing city back to court

Lawyers for thousands of special-needs children in the District of Columbia are taking the city back to court, alleging the Fenty administration is routinely violating their federal rights to a quality education. In a letter to D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles, the lawyers say they're going to ask U.S. Judge Paul Friedman to sanction the city for routinely violating federal deadlines on testing, treating and caring for children in the $300 million special education system. Mayor Adrian Fenty has said publicly that he would risk "everything" to fix the city's $1 billion school system. He has laid his bet on schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her pledge to bring...

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Naval Academy officials had warned staff to look out for von Brunn

Accused Holocaust Museum gunman James von Brunn was put on a watch list after a rambling meeting with officials at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis two weeks before the fatal shooting of a museum security guard, documents obtained by The Examiner show. Von Brunn is charged with first-degree murder in the June 10 shooting death of guard Stephen Tyrone Johns. On May 29, von Brunn went to the Naval Academy in his hometown of Annapolis to complain about the academy's affirmative action policies. Cmdr. Mike Fulkerson met with von Brunn and told his superiors afterward that what he initially thought was "an amusing story" had more ominous overtones. "Turns out he was not just the...

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Navy Yard rookie cop killed in Fairfax crash

A rookie police officer with the U.S. Navy Yard was killed in a one-car accident, apparently falling asleep at the wheel after working double shifts for at least three days. Travis Harris, 27, died early Sunday morning in Fairfax County when his 2003 Ford Explorer veered off the road near the intersection of Sherwood Hall and Evening lanes in Mount Vernon and struck a tree. He had graduated from the police academy in March and was working as an officer at the Navy Yard. "He was a great, great officer," said Harris' supervisor, Lt. Bobby Eason. "He was a big guy, but he just laughed everything off." Harris had started off as a young crossing guard in Fairfax County...

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Nickles wants new shot at selling neighborhood quarantines

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles is asking a federal appellate court for another chance to prove that his neighborhood barricades are constitutional. In an appeal filed Monday, Nickles says he wants the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to hear arguments in defense of his much-criticized neighborhood safety zones. Nickles' appeal says that the court "should hold that a properly tailored checkpoint may be reasonable, and hence Constitutional, in at least some circumstances when federal or District authorities act in response to specific, credible threats of imminent violence." Nickles and D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier erected the checkpoints last...

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After 'Nine Lives,' Barry gets a 10th tonight on national TV

"The Nine Lives of Marion Barry" » Directed by Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer » Premiering Monday on HBO at 9 p.m. » Re-running on HBO Aug. 13 at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., Aug. 16 at 10:30 a.m., Aug. 22 at 3 p.m. and Aug. 31 at 6:10 a.m. » Also rebroadcast on HBO 2 on Aug. 12 at 8 p.m., Aug. 18 at 5 p.m., Aug. 24 at 2 a.m. and Aug. 29, 7:45 a.m. Marion Barry will get another close-up Monday evening as HBO broadcasts a documentary on D.C.'s mercurial "mayor for life." "The Nine Lives of Marion Barry" makes its prime-time debut at 9 p.m., just as the Ward 8 councilman is facing a new round of investigations into his...

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Auditor accuses Nickles of hindering probe of development agencies

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles is being accused of obstructing a probe into hundreds of millions of public dollars' worth of development and construction projects, documents obtained by The Examiner show. City Auditor Deborah Nichols says she wants a look at the last few years of books of the Anacostia Waterfront Commission and the National Capital Revitalization Corp. but that Nickles is invoking attorney-client privilege to prevent access to important records. "It's quite clear that the [Attorney General's Office] is inexplicably attempting to subvert the auditor's authority,Ó Nichols wrote in a July 2 letter obtained by The Examiner. Nichols called the attorney...

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Judge rejects Baumann's efforts to stop investigation

Police union Chairman Kris Baumann once again has been turned aside in his efforts to stop the D.C. police department from investigating him over the leak of information related to a controversial barricade incident. Baumann says he is being illegally targeted by an internal affairs investigation into how the media obtained a recording of police conversations during a May 30 standoff with a gunman. The conversations lended credence to accusations that Mayor Adrian Fenty meddled in the standoff, and Baumann says in court documents he released the tape to expose government wrongdoing. But Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that Bauman's motion for an injunction was premature. It is the...

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Feds sue body armor company over defective vests

The Justice Department has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against a body armor manufacturer, accusing the company and its president of ignoring warnings that their vests were breaking down and endangering the lives of thousands of federal, state and local police officers. Justice Department lawyers say in court filings that First Choice Armor founder Edward Dovner knew his company's vests tended to break down in high heat and humidity but continued to sell thousands of the vests around the country. The suit, filed Monday, seeks unspecified millions in recovery under the False Claims Act. It's part of a wide-ranging Justice Department effort to crack down on body armor companies...

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Mendelson joins call for A.G.'s head

D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson Monday joined calls for D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles to resign amid allegations that city lawyers destroyed evidence in the controversial mass arrests of hundreds of people caught up in anti-globalization protests. "He shouldn't have been appointed in the first place," said Mendelson, D-at large, who chairs the council's Judiciary Committee. "It was my view then, and it continues to be my view." Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, has publicly called for Nickles, Mayor Adrian Fenty's most trusted and powerful adviser, to go. Nickles is under pressure after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered an inquiry into how evidence related to...

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Man who once promised to ‘lock up’ Jesus confronts very mortal Marion Barry

Marion Barry has taken on federal and local law enforcement officials several times in his long career. He’s still undefeated. But in Bob Bennett, D.C.’s “mayor for life” meets an entirely different adversary. After all, not many prosecutors can claim to have jailed Jesus. In his 2008 memoir, Bennett details his time as a junior prosecutor. One afternoon in 1967, a haggard woman “came to the office and complained that there was a serious problem in her neighborhood and that no one would help her or even talk to her about it.” “Mr. Bennett,” the woman said, “I am a God-fearing woman but I must tell you that Jesus has been causing a...

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A Brawler in the Courtroom

As a law student, Bob Bennett took a job at a moving company to help pay the bills. His older co-workers, full of resentment at the college boy in their midst, picked on him relentlessly. One day he had enough and, as he recalled in his 2008 book, “In The Ring,” “foolishly stood up to” Joe, the biggest of the bunch, “a real animal.” When Joe “charged like a raging bull,” Bennett said he grabbed a two-by-four board and smacked Joe across the face with it. Joe “fell to the ground, blood pouring from his nose and mouth,” Bennett recounted. “He gave me a toothless smile and said, ‘Kid, you’re OK.’...

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Federal judge wants probe of missing police records

A federal judge has called for an investigation into the D.C. police department after officials there destroyed key evidence related to a controversial mass arrest of anti-globalization protesters in 2002. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said Wednesday he wanted to get to the bottom of the disappearance of police records of the orders and movements of police officers in a massive crackdown of protesters rallying against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Hundreds of innocent bystanders in Pershing Park were swept up by the police dragnet. Some 400 people have filed a class-action civil rights lawsuit. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, then a deputy, ordered those arrested to be "hog...

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Barry aide to meet with investigators; FBI reached out to whistle-blower

Investigators will sit down with a key aide to ex-D.C. Mayor Marion Barry as they try to ferret out whether he broke the law when he lavished a contract on a girlfriend and public grants to a series of questionable nonprofit groups, The Examiner has learned. Brenda Richardson was the driving force behind several nonprofit groups in Barry’s poverty-stricken Ward 8, sources said. She’s scheduled to meet with staff from the inspector general’s office this week, said a source familiar with the ongoing investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity. Richardson formerly worked for Barry and the nonprofit groups she ran shared the same addresses as Barry’s...

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People v. Barry? Ex-mayor’s long battles with law enforcement

Marion Barry has been tracked by law enforcement for decades. But for just as long, he has slipped from the grasp of federal prosecutors. He is most famous, or infamous, for his 1990 arrest at the Vista International Hotel, when he was captured on videotape with an ex-girlfriend and charged with smoking crack. Barry was indicted on 14 counts of wrongdoing, including perjury, but he and his lawyers were able to spin the arrest as a case of the white establishment striking back at a black champion of the poor and oppressed. He was convicted of misdemeanor possession charges — and capitalizing on the unpopularity of the Vista raid, soon recaptured the mayor’s seat. The Vista...

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Federal prosecutors, FBI start probe into Barry’s contracting

Federal prosecutors and FBI agents have opened a wide-ranging investigation into whether former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry broke federal laws by lavishing contracts on a girlfriend and on a host of questionable nonprofit groups, The Examiner has learned. Barry, 73, was arrested by U.S. Park Police earlier this month on stalking charges after a confrontation with estranged girlfriend Donna Watts-Brighthaupt. It later emerged that Barry had given Watts-Brighthaupt a $5,000-per-month city contract shortly after they began dating. The Watts-Brighthaupt scandal led to further revelations that Barry had steered even more taxpayer dollars into dubious nonprofit groups operating in his stricken...

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Boilermaker's widow gets new shot at asbestos suit

The widow of a retired D.C. maintenance man will get a new chance to claim that she is owed compensation as a result of her husband's death after the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that a lower judge improperly tossed her asbestos suit. Plummer Debnam died of lung cancer and asbestos exposure in early 2004, after filing a lawsuit against several manufacturers, including Crane Co. He argued that the Stamford, Conn.-based engineering firm was at least partially liable for his asbestos-related illness because it took over the company that had originally manufactured the boilers on which he had spent his career working. After Debnam's death, his wife, Mildred, continued the litigation. Judge...

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Cheh calls for moratorium on earmarks

Examiner Exclusive D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh said her colleagues should go on an anti-pork diet, calling publicly Thursday for a moratorium on city earmarks. "We will be looking at them very, very closely. And they may not survive," Cheh told The Washington Examiner in a phone interview. "Certainly I think they should end until we're satisfied that there will be no misallocation." The council will meet Friday for the first time since one of their number, Ward 8 Democrat Marion Barry, was accused of steering lucrative public funds to a woman with whom he was romantically involved. Every council member has tagged taxpayers' dollars for favored charities and...

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Watergate Hotel draws no bids at auction

Singing the Blues Bad news for D.C. hotels is bad news for D.C.'s economy: » About 28,000 employees work in city hotels. » Second largest employer, behind government » Nearly $5.5 billion in revenue Source: Hotel Association of Washington, D.C. No bidders stepped in to buy the iconic Watergate Hotel at auction Tuesday, leaving a New York mortgage company holding on to one of D.C.'s biggest white elephants. About 10 bidders paid $1 million each for the opportunity to bid on the Watergate, which has sat empty since 2007, but none was willing to go above lender PB Capital Corp.'s $25 million opening bid. The hotel is part of the legendary complex on...

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Justice's training grounds heading to South Carolina

The Justice Department is moving 250 jobs in its main legal training center from Washington to South Carolina, officials announced. The department has signed a 20-year lease with the University of South Carolina in Columbia and will move staff from current headquarters in D.C. farther south, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden announced. The government needs some four years to renovate the newly leased space. The deal, announced Monday, expands Justice's $20 million National Advocacy Center, main training ground for the government's lawyers. Employees won't be forced to make the move, spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said. "No one is losing their jobs," she told The Examiner....

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Officer in SWAT standoff dispute asks for transfer

The D.C. police lieutenant at the center of a controversy over whether Mayor Adrian Fenty meddled in a tense standoff with a wounded gunman has asked to be relieved of his command, The Examiner has learned. “… I have encountered some issues with team moral [sic] which have influenced my abilities to effectively lead,” Lt. Scott Dignan wrote in a memo to Police Chief Cathy Lanier. “At this point and with the recent false allegations, with regret I feel I am no longer in a capacity to lead this team of officers.” Dignan was a leader in the department’s Emergency Response Team, D.C.’s version of a SWAT team. He was the point man in a May 30...

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Appeals court disallows D.C. police checkpoints

A U.S. appeals court has slapped the District of Columbia with a restraining order forbidding Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier from erecting any more police barricades to prevent violence. Last summer after a spate of shootings in the Trinidad neighborhood, Fenty and Lanier tried to quarantine the neighborhood. They threw up checkpoints to stop motorists, check IDs, and turn back anyone without "legitimate business" in Trinidad. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the quarantine violated the Constitution. "The harm to the rights of appellants is apparent," Chief Judge David B. Sentelle wrote for the panel, referring to...

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Fenty team posts new rules for private clinics, schools

The Fenty administration is issuing sweeping new rules governing the pricey private clinics and schools where thousands of mentally ill or disabled D.C. children have been sent for decades. Proposed new special ed regulations » Require schools and clinics to be certified every three years » Require staff at clinics and schools to be certified by state and federal officials » Give the city the right to surprise inspections » Forbid restraints and solitary confinement unless it’s an emergency » Forbid schools and clinics from hiring or partnering with lawyers who have represented parents in special ed litigation The new rules, posted on the city’s...

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Big business law firm hit with malpractice suit

A Catholic broadcasting company has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against one of D.C.’s biggest business law firms, alleging that its lawyers botched a television licensing deal, costing the company untold millions. The North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation Inc. says that Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice and its former partner, Howard J. Barr, blew the deadline for filing an appeal with the Federal Communications Commission, which “injured” the foundation “and caused it to suffer millions of dollars in damages.” The federal lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in D.C., also claims unspecified “other errors” by Barr...

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Washington Post sells access, White House denies involvement

The Washington Post has long prided itself on its access to the capital's elite. Now, it appears, the paper is willing to sell that access. In a flier circulated to Beltway lobbyists, the Post touted a "salon" program which gives "exclusive access" to "Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds" for between $25,000 and $250,000. (View an image of the flier.) White House officials said privately Thursday that the administration had no idea that the Post was peddling access to its officials. The first event, entitled "Health-Care Reform: Better or Worse for Americans" is scheduled for...

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NTSB: Part replaced before Metro crash failed

A part of the track circuit that lost contact with a Metro train moments before it slammed into an idling train last week had been replaced five days earlier and "periodically lost its ability to detect trains" after the repair, federal investigators said Wednesday. Records reviewed by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that Metro engineers replaced part of the track circuit June 17, five days before the crash between the Takoma and Fort Totten stations that killed nine and injured more than 70 riders. It was the worst accident in Metrorail's 33-year history. The circuit, which helps keep track of trains on the rail system, is emerging as the most likely culprit...

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Fenty interfered in standoff with gunman, records show

An investigation of the District’s top police union official grew out of a dispute in which police officers who coaxed a gunman out of a barricaded home accused Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier of improperly meddling in the negotiations, according to police records. Union Chairman Kris Baumann filed a federal lawsuit this week, accusing Lanier of illegally targeting him in an investigation of rank-and-file complaints stemming from a May 30 standoff with Terrence Moore. The internal investigation commenced after The Examiner made inquiries into whether members of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Emergency Response Team were ordered to lob tear gas into the...

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Mother, daughter, file $100M suit in fatal Metro crash

Two women who claimed to have been injured in the deadly June 22 Metro crash filed a $100 million lawsuit against the transit agency Monday, alleging that rail officials ignored a deteriorating system. Ivey Epps and her mother, Bernea Bell, say they were on the Red Line train 112 when it rammed into a waiting train June 22. They claim to have suffered "severe and painful injuries" and are blaming Metro officials for not inspecting the system's brakes and not replacing the 1000 Series car that crumpled upon impact, killing nine and injuring up to 80 others. The suit was brought by Florida attorney Willie Gary, whom the Wall Street Journal once dubbed "flamboyant" for...

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Fenty administration routinely destroyed government e-mails

The Fenty administration routinely destroyed official e-mails, throwing thousands of public records into the electronic garbage pile even as the city council was drafting legislation that would have prevented it, a top city official has admitted under oath. In late 2007, Mayor Adrian Fenty tried to give himself the authority to destroy electronic records every eight weeks. After hearing months of outrage from government watchdog groups and facing emergency legislation that would have forbidden the practice, Fenty announced that he was withdrawing the proposal early last year. But the administration was destroying the records every two months until at least May 2008, Office of the Chief...

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Court puts pot conviction on hold for hearing on police bias

A man convicted of stashing marijuana in his jacket will get a new chance to interrogate one of the officers who arrested him after the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the officer might have been trying to curry favor with prosecutors to ward off a brutality investigation. Ricardo Cunningham was arrested in 2005 and later convicted of felony possession of marijuana. He served 60 days in jail. At trial, though, prosecutors admitted that they were investigating Officer Kevin Whaley for excessive force in another case. Cunningham wanted to cross-examine Whaley about the investigation. He wanted to suggest that Whaley was biased by the investigation and had a reason to curry favor with...

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Commuters frustrated over ‘chaotic’ aftermath of fatal crash

This week’s deadly Metro crash wreaked havoc with rush hour commutes, leaving travelers stuck on buses and trains for hours at a time while dealing with a tangle of contradictory instructions on how best to reach their destinations. Part of the Red Line remained blocked through Wednesday, two days after two densely packed commuter trains collided, killing nine and injuring at least 70. Commuters were forced to take shuttles around the Takoma station. It wasn’t going well for many. “It was just chaotic,” said Amanda Nicholas, 23, of Oxon Hill. After taking the Green Line from home to Fort Totten, Nicholas said, she sat and waited on a bus. Then she was ordered off...

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Metro crash victim: Mandy Doolittle, 59

Mandy Doolittle, 59, was on her way home from her job at the American Nurses’ Association in Silver Spring when the crash occurred. “She was a bright spot in everybody’s day,” her boss, Jeanne Floyd, told The Examiner. “She was just attuned to everyone around her. Her day was, ‘What can I do for you?’” Doolittle was originally from Texas and loved traveling out West. She and Floyd, another Westerner, called each other, “cowgirl.” Doolittle and her partner were planning on a trip next month, Floyd recalled. Jada Leng, another coworker of Doolittle’s, had been on an earlier train back to the District and saw the...

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$207 million drug charges dropped by feds

One of the most ballyhooed cases in drug enforcement history fizzled Monday when prosecutors announced they were backing away from charges against a man arrested in suburban Maryland they once claimed was one of the world’s leading drug dealers. Zhenli Ye Gon was arrested at a Chinese restaurant in Wheaton in July 2007 after disappearing from Mexico. Authorities recovered some $207 million in crisp $100 bills from his home in Mexico City and accused him of being a key supplier of the raw materials for a methamphetamine cartel. In U.S. court and in its papers, though, authorities said that one of their witnesses had recanted and another had refused to testify. “The...

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Who watches the watchers?

The D.C. police department has never been subject to an independent audit. Now its executives are scrambling to account for missing money from fines that was supposed to help victims of serious crimes in the District. The District’s finances are reviewed annually in the legally mandated Comprehensive Annual Financial Review. That’s the same audit that missed the $48 million property tax scam organized by Harriette Walters, a multimillion-dollar bid-rigging scandal in the technology office, and millions in fraud and waste in the city’s public schools. Some are wondering whether there ought to be forensic audits for individual agencies. Forensic audits are focused on...

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Thousands in fines go missing in D.C.

D.C. police officials can’t account for thousands of dollars in cash or receipts from nearly 200 misdemeanor cases that were supposed to help support the city’s victims compensation fund, The Examiner has learned. City officials have opened an internal investigation to determine what happened to the money, Attorney General Peter Nickles confirmed. “At a minimum, it certainly raises questions about their bookkeeping and accounting practices,” said Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3. “And we’ve got to get to the bottom of it.” People who are arrested for minor crimes, like drinking in public or having expired license plates, can pay small fines and...

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Accused Holocaust museum gunman to appear in federal court

Accused Holocaust museum gunman James von Brunn is scheduled to appear in federal court Monday on charges of first-degree murder in the shooting death of guard Stephen Johns. Von Brunn has been hospitalized since a brief but furious gun battle at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on June 10. He was scheduled to be in court last week, but a judge ruled he was not healthy enough to do so. Federal officials said his condition has approved marginally, and the judge may rule differently today. Prosecutors say von Brunn walked up to the museum and, as Johns held the door, pulled an antique rifle from under his trench coat and shot Johns in the chest. Johns’ colleagues opened...

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Voting nonprofit sues former worker

Project Vote, the nonprofit group that helped sweep then-Sen. Barack Obama into the White House, has filed a federal lawsuit against a former employee who has accused the group of illegally colluding with Obama’s campaign for its get-out-the-vote drive.

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Training backlog taking D.C. police off the streets

Nearly one out of every five D.C. police officers hasn’t been through legally mandated training in basic lifesaving skills, The Examiner has learned. City law requires every officer to attend three days of training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and basic first aid every calendar year, but about 680 officers still haven’t been trained from 2008, internal documents obtained by The Examiner show. That’s about 17 percent of the force. Inspector Victor Brito, who heads the D.C. police academy, acknowledged “A little bit more than 600 officers ... haven’t completed training. “We’ve had for many years [where] there have been training delays,”...

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Exclusive: Museum guard 'held door' for killer

Holocaust Museum security guard Stephen Johns held the door open for his alleged killer. Johns, 39, died Wednesday after being shot in the chest at the entrance to the Holocaust Museum. Authorities are preparing charges against an 89-year-old self-admitted white supremacist, James von Brunn. Von Brunn was himself wounded in a brief but furious gun battle with Johns’ colleagues. The gunfight was captured on the museum’s security cameras, a federal law enforcement source said. The source, who viewed the tapes, spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The source said the tapes show Johns holding the door open as von Brunn enters. Von Brunn then...

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Guard killed at Holocaust Museum; accused gunman in critical condition

A man who authorities said had ties to hate groups walked into the Holocaust Museum Wednesday afternoon and opened fire with a .22 caliber rifle, killing a security guard before he was shot by two other guards. Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, who worked at the museum for six years, died after being taken to George Washington University Hospital. Another security guard was mildly injured by flying glass. Police sources identified the attacker as James W. von Brunn, 88, from Maryland. He has ties to white supremacist groups and was on a U.S. Secret Service watch list, sources said. He was in critical condition last night at George Washington hospital. Police said they found a notebook in von...

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D.C. would have fared poorly in personal freedoms study, advocates say

The District of Columbia wasn’t included in the study of personal freedoms by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. That’s a good thing for D.C. leaders, human rights advocates and libertarians say. “If the District had been included in this study, we probably would have ranked 85th out of 51,” said Kris Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police union. “Just look at the Byzantine level of regulation and laws that govern every aspect of the District’s life.” In the last two years, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration has handed out automatic rifles to police officers, sanctioned warrantless door-to-door searches, tried to give...

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No. 2 internal affairs cop shifted to 3rd District after overtime flap

A top official in the D.C. police department’s internal affairs division has been transferred, barely two months after his agency was accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in the city’s court overtime program. Inspector Jacob Kishter was transferred into the police’s 3rd District last week from internal affairs, where he was the second-highest ranking officer, the department announced on a neighborhood Web site. Kishter replaces former Inspector Edward Delgado, who ran afoul of city Attorney General Peter Nickles last year when he urged neighbors in the gentrifying Columbia Heights neighborhood to lobby Nickles for a tougher stance on juvenile crime. Delgado was...

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Teen's escape raises questions about new youth jail

A teenager was able to scramble away from a brand-new $45 million juvenile detention home in part because authorities didn’t believe any child was capable of climbing the fence. The escape, coming the day after the facility officially opened, has raised questions among D.C. Council members about the management of D.C.’s youth offender program. The boy, whose name The Examiner is withholding, climbed a few feet up a pole near the sliding gate at the New Beginnings Center in unincorporated Laurel, scrambled onto a nearby roof and then jumped to the ground and freedom, according to Councilman Tommy Wells. “I think they did not believe a kid could shimmy up there,”...

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Juvenile facility flooded days before opening

Barely two days before officials cut the ribbon on the District’s $45 million New Beginnings juvenile hall, the campus was flooded by last week’s rainstorms, The Examiner has learned. City officials blamed clogged drains for the deluge at the new juvenile hall and promised that the problem would be remedied. Pictures obtained by The Examiner show the campus was under several inches of brackish water, which flooded staff cars in a nearby lot. “I don’t know how they’re going to fix it,” said Tasha Williams, chairwoman of the corrections officers union at New Beginnings. “I’m not sure it’s going to be resolvable.” At least three...

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Act proves lucrative to trial lawyers

The False Claims Act has been very good to some trial lawyers. Firms such as D.C.’s Phillips & Cohen have won billions since the mid-1980s by bringing whistle-blower suits against government contractors. “A lot more has been saved in deterrence,” Phillips & Cohen lawyer Peter Chatfield said. Some law firms have carved out niches by bringing False Claims Act cases in single government agencies. Take Ashcraft & Gerel, a D.C. personal injury firm that has cornered the market on fraud litigation stemming from General Services Administration contracts. In March, the firm obtained a record $128 million settlement from Network Appliance Inc. John Boese, a...

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Blowing whistle pays off big for fortunate few

For the fortunate few, exposing corruption can be their winning lottery ticket. Since 1986, more than $20 billion has been paid out in fraud lawsuits brought by whistleblowers. It has made some midlevel bureaucrats very rich. “I admit it: The money also did help,” said John Schilling, an accountant cum government witness who helped expose massive Medicare fraud by the hospital chain Columbia HCA. Schilling and another whistleblower shared a $100 million reward for their efforts. “I can also be proud to my own family — my own kids — and show that I didn’t succumb to peer pressure,” he said. “I did the right thing.” On Friday,...

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Pizza parlors targeted in crime crackdown

D.C. Councilman Jim Graham says he has found the culprit behind D.C.’s persistent crime problems: pizza. The former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren says pizza parlors in the hip Adams Morgan neighborhood are becoming breeding grounds for mischief because they stay open too late. He’s drafting legislation that will crack down on the walk-off eateries. “Behaving the way they do in terms of music, in terms of letting people hang out and also in terms of tolerating a certain level of violence,” the Ward 1 Democrat listed among his concerns to WJLA-TV in an interview. Adams Morgan, which Graham represents, is one of D.C.’s few night spots, but...

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Hardships plague area jails

The capital region’s jails have been marred by trouble for years. Both the Justice Department and the Prince George’s County state’s attorney continue to investigate the case of prisoner Ronnie White, found dead in his cell after being charged with killing a Prince George’s County cop. The county medical examiner has determined that White was strangled and his death was a homicide. In the last month, at least two Prince George’s Correctional officers have been put on leave — one a supervisor who was suspended amid allegations that she had a sexual relationship with one of her wards, another a guard accused of forging a boss’ signature so he...

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Cops decry parking tickets during court visits

The D.C. police department’s crackdown on parking scofflaws in Judiciary Square has uncovered an unlikely culprit: D.C. police officers. “My God, it’s crazy,” said Detective Mary Bonaccorsy, who says she’s getting about $80 in parking tickets per week. “We’re fighting a no-win battle.” The evidence is anecdotal — D.C. police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump didn’t respond to requests for statistical information — but several cops interviewed by The Examiner say that they’re getting tagged by their fellow officers as they try to get work done in headquarters, appear before grand juries or testify in court. “I just...

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D.C. lawyer disbarred after admitting to dodging taxes

A criminal defense lawyer has been stripped of his law license for two years after he pleaded guilty to dodging his taxes. Navron Ponds was disbarred Thursday in a terse, one-page order by the D.C. Court of Appeals. He had already been disbarred in Maryland. Thursday’s order winds up nearly a decade of litigation surrounding Ponds, who went from criminal defense lawyer to criminal defendant after the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged him with ducking his taxes in 1988, 1990 to 1994, and again from 1996 to 1999. The case began after Ponds was accused of taking a luxury automobile from a drug dealer and helping his client hide the vehicle from the government. After an 11-day...

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Examiner takes home honor for D.C local news coverage

The Washington Examiner has been given top journalism honors by a coalition of local good government advocates. The Federation of Citizens Associations of the District of Columbia feted The Examiner on Tuesday night at its 99th anniversary gala at Fort McNair. The Examiner was given the group’s Fourth Estate award for its commitment to covering — and uncovering — local news in the nation’s capital. “During the current demise of media giants and the diminishing coverage of local news, The Washington Examiner newspaper has chosen a path less traveled in serving the reading public,” the group said in its citation. “The Washington Examiner has...

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Effort to stop police barricades back in court

Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s plan to quarantine violent neighborhoods will have another day in court Friday as a civil liberties group tries to keep the District from throwing up any more barricades. A three-judge panel will hear the appeal from Partnership for Civil Justice, a nonprofit group that sued the city after Lanier sealed off the violent Trinidad neighborhood last summer. The 15-year-old civil rights group tried to obtain a preliminary injunction while it litigates a class-action civil rights suit against the city. Its efforts were turned aside by a lower court judge late last year. The partnership has appealed, and on Friday, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals...

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D.C. attorney general bars officials' testimony in firetruck probe

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles will refuse to let city officials testify before a council panel investigating the widening scandal surrounding the donation of city rescue vehicles to a Caribbean beach town. Council members Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, and Phil Mendelson, D-at large, have subpoenaed contracting official Robin Booth and Deputy Fire Chief Ronald Gill in hopes of finding out how the city came to donate a used firetruck and an ambulance to the city of Sosua, Dominican Republic. In a letter to the officials sent late Tuesday, Nickles said he wouldn’t make Booth or Gill available unless Cheh and Mendelson secure private lawyers for the pair. “There are bar ethics...

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Report: Child welfare agency still inadequate

D.C. officials have stabilized the city’s child welfare bureaucracy from last year’s collapse, but thousands of children are still languishing in a backward system, federal court monitors have concluded. In January 2008, the public learned that welfare bureaucrats had ignored desperate calls to help Banita Jacks’ four daughters, whose bodies were later found on the floor of their ramshackle squatters’ home in Southeast. After that, the backlog of abuse and neglect cases swelled to more than 1,800. The backlog has now closed to about 30, federally appointed monitors at the Center for the Study of Social Policy have written in a new report. But the system...

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Key councilman takes D.C. attorney general to task

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles’ crusade against special education lawyers and his hardball negotiations with the city’s unions are drawing fire from the chairman of the D.C. Council’s judiciary committee. In a recent letter to Nickles, Phil Mendelson, D-at large, says Nickles is “embarrassing” the city by bringing lawsuits against special-ed lawyers and by not paying the city’s dues in arbitration cases with the city’s employees unions. Mendelson says the attorney general is trying to intimidate victims of city incompetence by driving up their court costs. “Public sector stands on the dual pillars of finding justice and serving...

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CDC: Schools can reopen despite flu

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after weeks of hysterical coverage on the swine flu, on Tuesday encouraged schools and businesses to reopen after deciding that the virus isn’t as dangerous as once thought. Back to school Schools reopening in the area: » Rockville High School » Vansville Elementary (Beltsville) » University Park Elementary (Hyattsville) » Montpelier Elementary (Laurel) Still closed: » Our Lady of Victory (D.C.) About 500 schools had been shuttered around the country, four of them in Washington’s Maryland suburbs and one in the District. “The overall conclusion, having studied very carefully...

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Zoo shuts panda exhibit down during pregnancy watch

National Zoo officials have shut down their panda exhibit, hoping that their star, Mei Xiang, is in a family way. Zoo officials told The Examiner on Monday that Mei Xiang, a 10-year-old giant panda, has been “denning,” pulling bamboo to the quiet nooks of her cage, eating less and cradling food and other objects. “For us, it’s part of the waiting game,” primates and pandas curator Lisa Stevens said. Evolution has conspired against pandas and makes conception a touch-and-go matter. “It’s difficult because female pandas only ovulate once a year,” she said. Male pandas are, um, hard to motivate, too: The zoo attempted artificial...

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‘Automated’ radar racked up $74M in police OT

The D.C. police department has spent nearly $74 million in overtime payments to have officers sit in cars monitoring the city’s “automated” photo radar guns, records show. The money spent represents almost four-fifths of the revenues earned from the tickets the radar guns are issuing, records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show. Washington is one of several cities to use photo radar. The cameras are hooked up to radar guns, which are placed in squad cars. Whenever a car exceeds the speed limit, the radar gun is supposed to activate the camera. Photos are then taken, license plates are analyzed and tickets mailed to the car owners’ homes. The...

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On the brink? Not just yet

The swine flu might be spreading around the world quickly, and CNN has been running screen captions like “DEADLY FLU” and “ON THE BRINK OF PANDEMIC.” But doctors say that doesn’t mean the end is near just yet. “Natural selection is on our side,” said University of Maryland scientist Steven Salzberg. “It may mutate into something that’s not so infectious and go away on its own.” Salzberg said Thursday that a virus has a better evolutionary advantage when it doesn’t lay waste to its hosts. “The most effective way to be a virus is to have its victims walking around, spreading it,” he said. In fact, pandemics...

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Swine flu hits World Bank, White House

The swine flu came to Washington’s corridors of power, with new cases reported Thursday at the World Bank and White House. Probable cases of the illness were detected for the first time in Virginia, and the number of Maryland residents believed to have the flu virus rose to eight, including a probable case in Montgomery County. Federal and state officials have identified more than 130 cases in 17 states. On Thursday, the White House confirmed that a member of President Barack Obama’s government entourage on the recent trip to Mexico came down with flulike symptoms and that he passed them on to his family in Anne Arundel County — three of whom tested...

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Study gave addicts morphine, then cut them off to see effects

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent at least $7.8 million in a secretive experiment to determine whether drug addicts become hyperactive when they suddenly lose access to morphine, documents obtained by The Examiner show. The VA recruited 69 heroin addicts and began giving them regular doses of morphine. The scientists then cut off the morphine doses at intervals to see what would happen, internal reports show. The decade-old study, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, offers the fullest picture yet of widespread government trials that gave hard-core drugs to addicts. Patients in the 1994-95 study suffered 787 “adverse events” from constipation to heart...

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Government injecting veterans with cocaine for drug addiction research

Drug-addicted veterans are being injected with cocaine by researchers at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in taxpayer-funded studies, The Examiner has learned. The study subjects are being given the injections as part of a search for medicines that researchers hope will block cocaine absorption in the body, said Timothy O’Leary, the VA’s acting director of research and development. All the subjects were recruited because they were addicted to cocaine, O’Leary said. About 40 volunteers — most of them veterans — are being given injections at VA labs in Kansas City and San Antonio, he added. Hundreds of veterans have apparently been used as human...

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D.C. lawyer suspended as ethics probe is pending

The D.C. Court of Appeals suspended a lawyer as the District’s legal ethics board investigates charges that she tried to inflate her winnings from a lawsuit. A three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals ordered Terri Lea to be suspended Thursday for at least 30 days and ordered her to cooperate with an ongoing ethics investigation, alleging that she tried to increase a lawsuit award from $13,500 to $50,000. The discipline stems from a 1999 lawsuit in which Lea was a plaintiff against a real estate company. After winning the case, she and her lawyer claimed that she was entitled to $50,000 and that her demand for $13,500 was “a typo.” The judge in her lawsuit was...

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Mother, daughter accused of stealing from program that help D.C.’s blind

A mother and daughter have been charged with stealing more than $280,000 that was supposed to be used to help some of the District’s blind residents get a chance to earn a living. Barbara Stevenson-Jones, 70, and her daughter, Pamela R. Stevenson, 51, owned Wellness, a city contractor given hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to recruit, train and support blind people who had obtained food vending licenses. Prosecutors charged in an indictment unsealed Friday that the pair instead diverted money into their own accounts and used it on themselves. The money included funds given to them by the blind vendors that was supposed to be used to repair and maintain equipment,...

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Mother, daughter stole from program that help D.C.’s blind

A mother and daughter were indicted Friday on charges that they stole more than $100,000 that was supposed to be used to help some of the District’s blind residents get a chance to earn a living. Barbara Stevenson-Jones and her daughter, Pamela R. Stevenson owned Wellness, a city contractor given hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to recruit, train and support blind people who had obtained food vending machine licenses. Prosecutors allege in an indictment unsealed Friday that the pair instead diverted money into their own accounts and used it on...

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Troubled Freddie Mac expected to announce ‘terrible’ earnings

Freddie Mac’s top financial officer apparently committed suicide just weeks before the mortgage company was scheduled to release its latest financial statement. David Kellermann reportedly was found hanging in the basement of his Vienna home early Wednesday. The company, formally named the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., is scheduled to release its first-quarter results May 14. “Their earnings are going to be terrible,” Morningstar analyst Matthew Warren said. Like its bigger sister company, Fannie Mae — or the Federal National Mortgage Association — Freddie was founded to insure long-term, cheap home mortgages. The McLean company currently backs about...

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Recent suicides linked to financial woes

Adolf Merckle — German billionaire jumped in front of a train in January after losing hundreds of millions in the markets. Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet — French nobleman and financier slashed his wrists two days before Christmas 2008. Steven L. Good — Chicago real estate executive shot himself in the head in January after publicly worrying about the collapsing market. Dr. Daniel Z. Lieberman, a George Washington University professor of psychiatry, said suicides can be triggered by reports of related suicides. “Whenever somebody commits suicide, it increases the risks for anybody who will be exposed to it,” he said. Lieberman said there was no...

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Freddie Mac CFO found dead in apparent suicide

The acting chief financial officer for Freddie Mac was found dead in his Vienna home early Tuesday in an apparent suicide, according to Fairfax County police. David Kellermann, 41, had served as the top financial officer for the government-run mortgage insurer since the government take over in September. Police said there were no signs of foul play. The McLean-based Federal Home Mortgage Corp. has lost billions. It received nearly $60 billion in government bailout funds. Susan Unger, who lives across the street from the Kellermanns in the tree-lined Hunter Mills Estate, was awakened about 4:30 a.m. by a fire truck, an ambulance and five police cars outside her home. "I would...

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Freddie Mac CFO found dead in apparent suicide

The acting chief financial officer for Freddie Mac was found dead in his Vienna home early Tuesday in an apparent suicide, according to Fairfax County police. David Kellermann, 41, had served as the top financial officer for the government-run mortgage insurer since the government take over in September. Police said there were no signs of foul play. The McLean-based Federal Home Mortgage Corp. has lost billions. It received nearly $60 billion in government bailout funds. Susan Unger, who lives across the street from the Kellermanns in the tree-lined Hunter Mills Estate, was awakened about 4:30 a.m. by a fire truck, an ambulance and five police cars outside her home. "I would...

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Both sides still claim gains from landmark gun case

The Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller was the biggest victory for gun rights advocates in the modern era. Last year, the court ruled for the first time in history that Americans have an inalienable right to own firearms — and to use them to protect themselves. So why don’t firearms advocates feel better? “I’m guessing that a lot of the increase [in gun sales] is due to hysteria promoted by gun-rights groups and the gun industry,” Johns Hopkins sociologist Daniel Webster told The Examiner in an e-mail. “It’s not a very rational argument. ... The Heller decision clearly indicates that you can’t institute broad-scale gun...

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Gun sales jump in D.C. area

Gun sales are skyrocketing in the capital region. Fears that a changing political climate will lead to gun control and a Supreme Court decision striking down D.C.’s firearm laws are combining to create a run on local weapons sales, experts said. “Business is great,” said Bill Kelley, own of The Gun Center of Frederick. “The gun industry, like everything else, was going into a recession. All of the sudden, after November, the entire country decided they had to have [guns] and have them now.” In Virginia, the state police had 60 percent more requests for firearms background checks in November compared with the year before, records obtained by The Examiner...

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Live digital TV to debut on area cell phones, laptops

Washington will be the nation’s first television market to test free digital television broadcasts to cellular phones, laptops and car entertainment systems, broadcast officials announced Monday. Hold the phone? D.C.-area stations testing the new technology (and their corporate parents): » WPXW, Channel 66 (Ion) » WRC, Channel 4 (NBC) » WETA, Channel 26 (PBS) » WUSA, Channel 9 (Gannett) » WTTG, Channel 5 (Fox) Many cell phone companies already offer paid subscription services, giving customers access to their favorite television shows — but not live broadcasts. But Monday’s announcement, made at a national broadcasters convention in Las...

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Murder convictions overturned for 3 gang members

Three gang members who were found guilty in the beating death of a theology student had their first-degree murder convictions overturned because the judge gave improper instructions to the jury. Warren Helm died in the street outside the Diversite night club in Northwest, an innocent victim of a vicious gang fight that had started inside the club. After Helm jumped out of his friend’s car to help a homeless man being beaten and kicked by the gang members, the gang members turned on him. He was chased down, stabbed and slashed repeatedly, and beaten. Five men, all members of the Mara R street gang, were convicted of first-degree murder in Helm’s death in 1999. But a...

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Ex-official defends federal program to give crack, other drugs to addicts

As questions mount over the federal government’s approval and production of cocaine and other hard-core drugs for testing on addicts, a former top Washington official defended the research as necessary for the greater good. “It’s an important ethical issue and I’m glad you raise it, but holy cow, there’s so much more important stuff to focus on,” Bertha K. Madras said in a phone interview from her Harvard office Friday. “Twenty-three percent of people who show up in health care settings are in need of an [anti-drug] intervention. We need a strategic plan for that.” Madras was President George W. Bush’s deputy director for demand...

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DC city workers blocked from Washington Examiner's Web site

D.C. workers trying to log on to The Examiner's Web site for local news Friday morning got a note from the city technology office saying that "Access to this web page has been restricted." Access to Web sites of rival news organizations, including the Washington Post, was free and clear. The D.C. technology office is in turmoil with the arrests of three former employees all charged with bribery in a phony invoice/timesheet scandal. The Examiner was the first to report that accused ringleader Yusuf Acar talked about how open corruption was in the technology office. Told about the restricted site, Fenty spokeswoman Mafara Hobson logged onto her computer to confirm she didn't...

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Federal programs gave addicts street drugs

The federal government is giving crack and powder cocaine, morphine, and other hard-core drugs to taxpayer-funded researchers for testing on addicts, The Examiner has learned. For decades, the government has authorized, funded and lobbied for studies in which otherwise illegal drugs were given to addicts in cities such as Washington, Bethesda, Baltimore, New York, Minneapolis and San Antonio. The studies continue today and have an array of aims, from documenting the ways cocaine warps the brain to the intensity of pain from morphine withdrawal. Government records obtained by The Examiner show that the researchers gave test subjects: - Morphine at the Veterans Administration in...

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Subjects’ choice: Cocaine or cash

Dr. Herbert Kleber used to help the government fight drug abuse. Now he’s using the government to give drugs to addicts. Government Drug Experiments - Federal programs gave addicts street drugs - Subjects’ choice: Cocaine or cash - Clinical notes: Doctors describe drug experiments A former top anti-drug official during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, Kleber is now at New York’s Columbia University and is one of the nation’s leaders in cocaine research. His late wife, Marian Fischman, was the...

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D.C. tech office scandal widens with new arrest

Federal authorities have brought new charges in the widening D.C. technology office scandal, accusing another city employee of bilking taxpayers through phony invoices and time sheets. Farrukh Awan was arrested Thursday on allegations that he asked government contractor Sushil Bansal for cash so he would approve workers at Bansal’s company for employment with the technology office. Awan is also charged with hiding his role in a company called Network Osiris, which billed taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars for city contracts. Awan joins his former boss, Yusuf Acar, and Bansal behind bars in the scandal. Awan was fired Wednesday along with 22 other contract and full-time...

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Former top Bush aide sentenced to 30 months for embezzlement

A former top aide to then-President George W. Bush was sentenced to nearly 30 months in prison Wednesday after he admitted to embezzling hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars while leading a pro-Cuban-democracy group. Felipe Sixto will also serve three years of probation and pay $10,000 in fines. He resigned as the White House’s special assistant for intergovernmental affairs last year after the Center for a Free Cuba accused him of stealing about $579,000 in government grants on puffed-up purchase orders. Sixto accepted a government plea deal late last year. The investigation began shortly after Sixto left his job as chief of staff at the not-for-profit center in January...

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D.C. police commander warns officers about overtime abuse

A police commander in D.C.’s most violent district is warning his officers not to make arrests late in their shifts because he’s worried about overtime abuse, The Examiner has learned. “[Y]ou should not be attempting to make late arrest solely to make overtime,” 7th District Cmdr. Joel Maupin writes in an e-mail, addressed to subordinate officers and obtained by The Examiner. More than half of the city’s 24 homicides this year have occurred in Maupin’s district east of the Anacostia River, D.C. police statistics show. Homicides have leapt 86 percent in “7D” since last year, statistics show. For decades, the district has led the city in...

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Fenty gives police power to deputize citizens

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has given Police Chief Cathy Lanier sweeping new authority to appoint ordinary citizens as “volunteer” police officers, The Examiner has learned. Under an order signed by Fenty, Lanier and “her subordinate officials” are allowed to appoint “special privates” during an “emergency.” The unpaid citizen-cops “shall possess all the powers and privileges and perform all the duties of the privates of the standing police force of the District,” the order states. The mayor signed the order Jan. 16, and it took effect immediately. It wasn’t posted on the city’s Web site until earlier this month. D.C....

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Alleged mastermind in scandal to stay in lockup

The accused mastermind of a multimillion-dollar D.C. embezzlement scandal will remain locked up while he awaits trial. Yusuf Acar was ordered held without bond Tuesday on conspiracy charges. He and former co-worker Sushil Bansal are charged with filing phony invoices and time sheets with the city’s technology office and splitting the proceeds among several unindicted co-conspirators. Bansal remains free pending trial, but U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola said he was shocked by an FBI tape of Acar bragging about how he would flee to his native Turkey if the scandal was ever uncovered. The scandal has buffeted Acar’s former boss, Vivek Kundra, now the nation’s first...

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3 Minute Interview-Cozier

Nicole Cozier works for the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, which gives out about $1 million in grants each year to area nonprofit groups that help women and girls. The foundation recently announced 10 $10,000 awards to small focus groups on women’s health. The public is asked to vote online (at thewomensfoundation.org) for their favorite of the grantees; the winner will get an additional $5,000. How are women’s groups handling the bad economy? I think different groups are feeling it in different ways. Certainly, there’s an increased demand in services. Folks are starting to feel it, but there’s probably going to be more of an impact as we move along....

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Obama tech aide on leave after subordinate charged with fraud

President Barack Obama’s chief technology officer is on leave from the White House after FBI agents Thursday raided the District office that he previously led. Vivek Kundra was the head of the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer until earlier this month, when he was tapped by Obama for a similar role in the administration. Kundra’s former office was raided by federal law enforcement officers and D.C. police as part of a major fraud investigation Thursday morning. A top aide to Kundra, Yusuf Acar, was charged with bilking taxpayers out of millions of dollars through a scam involving phony work orders and bogus employees. Acar, 40, was arrested in an early morning...

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D.C. auditor sentenced for seeking bribe for tax fraud

A former auditor in the troubled D.C. tax office is off to prison after he admitted to shaking down a local business to reduce its sales tax bill. El-Hadj Drame was sentenced Wednesday to four months behind bars, plus four months of home detention and two years of probation. He admitted that he accepted $6,000 in cash from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for reducing the tax bill of a D.C. business. Drame, 36, of Silver Spring, was assigned to audit the business and told the company that he could reduce its bill for cash. The company’s owner called in the feds. The business was not identified in court papers. The FBI taped the money exchange, and Drame was arrested Nov. 14,...

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Fraud trial for retired naval officer set to begin

Opening statements are scheduled to begin Tuesday in the case of a retired Navy commander who is accused of faking an injury in the Sept. 11, attacks on the Pentagon in order to take in more than $300,000 from the federal victims’ compensation fund. Charles Coughlin was given a Purple Heart and a Meritorious Service Medal after he claimed that he was hit by falling debris as he raced back into the Pentagon to help his stricken comrades. He claimed that the neck and back injuries he suffered for his heroism “changed substantially” his life and left him unable to clean his own home or run marathons. It was all a lie, federal prosecutors have alleged. In fact, Coughlin...

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Ways to guard against fraud

Identity theft is rampant, but that doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. “We don’t have to hide from it,” said Tempe, Ariz.-based security consultant Todd Davis, “unless you’re literally going to go live in a cave and kill your food.” Experts interviewed by The Examiner say that consumers can stick up for themselves with a few steps, ranging from the high tech to the low: Credit “freezes”: The three big credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — allow consumers to freeze their credit. It prevents any new accounts from being opened on your credit line. “It’s the most effective way to lock down your...

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Identity theft swells in District, nation as economy plummets

Identity theft is soaring in the region and in the nation, leaving thousands of people to contend with the nightmare of stolen money, ruined credit and scrambled records, a new federal report has found. Experts blame the souring economy for the spike. They say identity theft is relatively easy for criminals to commit, but it leaves victims with months’ and sometimes years’ worth of headaches. You don’t have to look far to find a victim. “They hacked into my bank account and took about $200, $300,” said Hilda Cain, who sells legal ads for The Examiner. “It wasn’t a lot, but it was all I had to live on at the time.” Cain’s account...

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Space tourist’s lawsuit moves forward

A Virginia judge has given the go-ahead to a $21 million lawsuit filed by a high-flying Japanese businessman who claims a local company unfairly clipped his wings and kept him from traveling in space. Daisuke Enomoto says Vienna, Va.-based Space Adventures took his millions and promised him a trip to outer space — compliments of the Russian space agency — without ever having permission from Russian officials to do so. His suit was approved by U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris, who turned aside Space Adventures’ motion to dismiss in a memorandum opinion published late Friday. Enomoto, an Internet mogul, had hoped to become the world’s fourth space tourist and...

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Putting hands in pockets isn’t grounds for arrest, judges rule

A former Metrobus driver put her hands in her pockets — and it landed her in jail. Ava Howard had been convicted of “assaulting, resisting or interfering with a police office” after Metro Police Officer Rashad Watson ordered her to keep her hands out of her pockets while he tried to referee a dispute between Howard and another woman in late 2007 at the Minnesota Avenue Metro station. Howard testified that she turned her pockets inside out just to show there was nothing inside them and then put her hands back inside to warm them. The confrontation between Howard and Watson escalated, and Howard ended up in handcuffs. In court documents, Watson said Howard swore and...

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Fiery federal prosecutor back on center stage with Levy case

The Chandra Levy case puts federal prosecutor Amanda Haines back in the public spotlight. Haines was one of the lead investigators who on Tuesday sought an arrest warrant for illegal immigrant Ingmar Guandique. Haines and others say in court papers that Guandique admitted to cell mates in numerous conversations, and to a girlfriend in a letter, that he raped and killed Levy in 2001. He’ll now be brought back to D.C. from California, where he has been in a federal prison for two unrelated attacks on women in Rock Creek Park. In 2007, Haines helped resurrect the dormant Levy investigation. She has incredible drive, her boss, Glenn Kirschner, told The Examiner. “She is really...

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Chandra Levy suspect’s own words are key

Eight years after Chandra Levy’s disappearance, prosecutors are hoping that an illegal immigrant’s own words will haunt him. Authorities are relying on jail house informants and a letter Ingmar Guandique allegedly wrote, bragging about killing Levy. It’s a risky strategy, some defense lawyers say. “Those are not always very strong cases,” said Bill Moffitt, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “Those kinds of cases have severe deficiencies because those witnesses are being given something.” Former prosecutor and Senate adviser Andy Fois agreed with Moffitt, but said that juries can still be swayed by...

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Prosecutors: Suspect’s own words are key

Eight years after Chandra Levy’s disappearance, prosecutors are hoping that an illegal immigrant’s own words will haunt him. Authorities are relying on jailhouse informants and a letter Ingmar Guandique allegedly wrote, bragging about killing Levy. It’s a risky strategy, some defense lawyers say. “Those are not always very strong cases,” said Bill Moffitt, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “Those kinds of cases have severe deficiencies because those witnesses are being given something.” Former prosecutor and Senate adviser Andy Fois agreed with Moffitt, but said that juries could still be swayed by...

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Early suspect now charged with murder in Levy slaying

Nearly eight years after the disappearance of Congressional intern Chandra Levy dominated national headlines, D.C. authorities charged with murder an illegal immigrant who had been questioned in the early stages of the investigation. Ingmar Guandique, 27, who is serving time in a California prison for attacking two other women in Rock Creek Park not far from where Levy's body was found, is expected to be returned to D.C. within the next 45 to 60 days, authorities said. He will then be arraigned on charges of first degree murder in the 24-year-old’s death. If convicted, he faces a sentence of between 30 and 60 years in prison. The long-dormant case took a turn a few weeks ago...

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U.S. widened anti-terror focus after Sept. 11

The United States has broadened its anti-terror focus beyond Muslim groups since Sept. 11, 2001, most experts agree. Now, overseas groups from Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Mumbai, India, are getting attention from Washington’s counterterrorism forces. “I think the Bush administration very quickly after 9/11 adopted the policy ... that there’s no such thing as a good terrorist,” said Daniel Marcus, former general counsel to the 9/11 Commission and a law professor at George Washington University. Groups such as the Tamil Tigers might not be immediate threats to the United States. Then again, neither were Islamic warlords in Afghanistan 20 years ago. There are...

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Experts: D.C. ‘fertile ground’ for financing of terrorism

Dr. Nagaratnam Ranjithan has spent decades building a thriving medical practice in Maryland as a kidney specialist. Federal authorities say he has also helped finance Asian death squads. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of Ranjithan’s Tamil Foundation, alleging that the money he has raised for Sri Lanka has actually gone to help the Tamil Tigers, a group that the State Department says is a terrorist organization. The Tigers have been blamed for thousands of civilian deaths. Ranjithan says his group is suffering from guilt by association. “Even the federal government hasn’t accused me of directly supporting the Tigers,” Ranjithan said...

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Nickles takes on top firm in special-ed suits

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles has taken his special education reform crusade directly to the law firm that has turned a quiet practice area into a multimillion-dollar litigation industry. Nickles is now suing Brown & Associates, the giant of special-ed litigation in the District. Using federal laws that allow parents to recoup legal fees in special-ed cases, the firm has billed D.C. taxpayers at least $15 million since 2001, according to city records. In his lawsuit, Nickles claims that Brown & Associates lawyers are wasting the city’s time and the taxpayers’ money. It cites a single case brought by two firm lawyers on behalf of “A.C.,” a mentally...

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Three-minute interview: Cate Magennis Wyatt

In 2005, Cate Magennis Wyatt incorporated the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership, a nonprofit group that links local community heritage groups from Gettysburg through Northern Virginia. The partnership works to raise awareness about the rich history of the corridor. In January, the partnership handed out scholarships to several Loudoun County teachers for advanced history training. Why did you incorporate the partnership? What was abundantly clear was that each community took pride in the cultural heritage and history of their own backyard. We had an opportunity to truly create a national treasure. What makes it possible to discuss this is that the entire strip is basically...

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Lanier doles out medals for concierge, tour guide work

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has bestowed medals on 18 D.C. police officers or staff who checked coats, acted as concierges and escorted out-of-town dignitaries for a national police conference. The Major Cities Chiefs and Sheriffs conference was held at the JW Marriott hotel last month. Dozens of D.C. police officers and staff were ordered to work the event on assignments from “gift bags” and “concierge desk” to “companion tours.” According to the police department’s newsletter, nine of the officers or staff have been given commendations. Nine others have been given achievement medals. “Their dedication and teamwork ensured all of the...

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Advocacy groups vocal over Fenty’s Dubai trip

Government reform and Israeli rights advocates lined up Tuesday to ask D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty what he was thinking when he accepted a junket from the government of the United Arab Emirates. “It raises at least the appearance of corruption, of conflict of interest,” said Gary Imhoff, co-founder of D.C. Watch, a nonprofit local government reform group. “If the mayor were to accept a physical gift of several thousand dollars from a foreign country, he wouldn’t keep it.” The mayor and his family spent last week in Dubai as guests of the United Arab Emirates. The trip wasn’t announced and was not on his public schedule. The mayor’s ticket and...

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3-Minute Interview: Tripp Jones

Tripp Jones is the archivist of The Church of the Epiphany, one of D.C.’s oldest and most prestigious Episcopal churches. The downtown Washington church was founded in 1847 and has been the spiritual home of dozens of major figures in American history, from Confederate President Jefferson Davis to newspaper baron Joseph Pulitzer. How did you become the archivist? I certainly have a great interest in history, and the preceding one was getting elderly and couldn’t do it. He stood up one morning and announced that he was quitting and he was looking for volunteers. I said, “Here I am, Lord, let’s do it.” What does your job entail? Heinz 57. Right now,...

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Figures hazy on unsolved slayings

The District has about 3,400 unsolved homicides on its books. The unsolved slayings date back to 1968. It’s difficult, though, to get more specific than that. D.C. police officials say they have solved nearly three-quarters of last year’s homicides. But that figure includes long-open cases that were closed in 2008. “It’s the same as when someone is assaulted in one year, but they expire later,” police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said Monday. “That’s part of the next year’s homicide rate.” The D.C. police department also often closes cases “administratively.” That is, a case is consider solved even though no one has been...

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News in Levy case affects survivors of victims in less-publicized killings

The news that local authorities may have solved the Chandra Levy killing triggered complex emotions among survivors of some of the hundreds of other homicide victims in the city that received much less public — or police — attention. “It is a source of pain for a lot of victims,” said Jeff Dion of the National Center for Victims of Crime, a Washington-based nonprofit group that advocates for victims’ rights. “There’s a real frustration among victims if they feel that their case isn’t given the respect or importance that it deserved.” A top law enforcement source told The Examiner on Monday that authorities were still weeks away from...

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D.C. education officials looking to start residency checks early

D.C. education authorities are cracking down on residency fraud in the schools by trying to start conducting their investigations one month earlier. Schools are slated to check students’ addresses in May and will hand over their information in the fall. If State Superintendent Deborah Gist has her way, though, schools will open their investigations April 1. “Moving up the date would give the schools more time between when they start collecting documentation for their students and when the annual enrollment audit is conducted in the fall,” wrote Gist’s spokeswoman, Nicole Shaffer, in an e-mail to The Examiner. “This would provide the schools more time to...

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D.C. judge issues stricter rules for special-education lawyers

D.C.’s chief judge has issued strict new rules governing the conduct of lawyers who handle cases involving special-needs kids in the city’s schools. Under Chief Judge Lee Satterfield’s regulations, lawyers will have to complete at least 16 hours of specialized training, prove that they’re in good standing with the D.C. Bar, submit to continuing education seminars and follow a rigid code of conduct on topics ranging from case management to ensuring that the children’s parents, not the lawyers, make decisions affecting a child’s education. The rules are the first of their kind in the District governing special-education lawyers, who have turned what in...

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Nickles demands D.C. Council rewrite law on prisoner release

Tired of paying out tens of millions of dollars in civil rights litigation, D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles is demanding the D.C. Council rework a law that keeps the jail from releasing its prisoners in the middle of the night. D.C. passed a law in 2003 forbidding the jail from releasing inmates after 10 p.m. and before 7 a.m. after neighbors in the gentrifying Hill East community voiced anxieties about having ex-prisoners roaming their streets in the middle of the night. Nickles told The Examiner that the law has cost the city millions in civil rights lawsuits. When a judge orders an inmate freed, the paperwork takes a while to catch up. Under current law, inmates spend another night...

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Fenty withdraws contract with embattled Fla. brain injury clinic

Mayor Adrian Fenty has withdrawn a proposed $2.3 million contract with a Florida brain injury clinic that’s been the subject of hundreds of abuse and neglect complaints and was once accused of treating its D.C. patients “like garbage.” Fenty’s attorney general, Peter Nickles, told The Examiner on Tuesday that the city wanted to “tailor” short-term, individual contracts for each of the 19 District residents in the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation. All city residents will be out of the clinic by September, Nickles said. The new proposal is a victory for Council Chairman Vince Gray, who balked at giving a full-year contract to the Florida...

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D.C. attorney general sues lawyer over ‘frivolous’ special-ed suits

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles has filed a federal lawsuit accusing a fellow lawyer of filing “frivolous” claims in order to exploit the city’s troubled special education system. Nickles’ alleges that Hyattsville-based Chike Ijeabuonwu continued to press the city in a due process lawsuit even after school officials had given his client, “K.J.,” everything he had asked for. Federal law requires local schools to provide services to help children overcome disabilities with minimal disruption to their education. But the District routinely has violated that law, and tens of millions of public dollars have gone to private attorneys who have sued the...

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Gray aims to end city contract with Florida brain rehab center

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray is trying to stop the District from renewing a multimillion-dollar contract with a Florida brain injury clinic that has been the focus of hundreds of abuse and neglect allegations. Dozens of District residents have been sent to the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation for years for treatment of their injuries. Nineteen currently live there. The Wauchula, Fla.-based clinic has been the subject of abuse and neglect complaints for years, including a report from a congressionally appointed D.C. monitor that accused clinic officials of treating its D.C. wards “like garbage.” That hasn’t stopped the Fenty administration from...

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Councilman urges panel to ‘rethink’ D.C.’s real estate appeals board

D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson wants to scrap the city’s real estate appeals board in the wake of an ex-board member’s accusations that the reigning chairwoman has “politicized” the body. “Frankly, I think we need to rethink the board,” Mendelson, D-at large, told The Examiner. “The board has been struggling for years and it’s obviously gotten worse.” Mendelson said it’s time to bring in real estate professionals to hear property appeals. His comments were in reaction to a letter of resignation from real estate board member Lawrence Smith that was circulated among council members. In it, Smith blasted Mayor Adrian...

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3 Minute Interview-Berk

\Sally Berk, 63, is a longtime preservationist in the District. She has spent most of her life trying to save the capital’s architectural gems from the wrecking ball. She recently gave a presentation to the Federal City Council, titled “A Tour of My Losses.” Afterwards, she spoke with The Examiner. How did you get into preservation? When I was in architecture school, what interested me the most was not designing new buildings, but architectural history. I was most enamored of old buildings. What do you like about it? I love courtroom drama. I love writing testimony, waiting to see what the decision will be. What’s your best moment? One project was saving the...

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Legal mistake costs Metro worker benefits

An injured Metro worker will lose his full disability payments because a city hearing board misread the law, the D.C. Court of Appeals has ruled. Keith Boyd injured his left knee while working as a landscaper for the transit agency in 2002. As he recovered from his first surgery, Metro agreed to pay him his full, but temporary disability benefits and medical expenses. He was given “a schedule award” — in essence, a workers’ comp boost based on the loss of a limb — in 2004. He underwent another round of surgery and was given another round of full, but temporary disability compensation. He and Metro agreed that the accident left him partially disabled but he...

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Fenty, council fight on over subpoena power

Mayor Adrian Fenty has rescinded an order giving broad subpoena power to his police chief, instead giving the authority to his attorney general. Fenty signed an executive order in November giving police Chief Cathy Lanier authority to subpoena records and witnesses “in any municipal matter,” but the city council balked. After Phil Mendelson, D-At Large, passed emergency legislation ordering the mayor to suspend the order, the mayor scrapped it. He shortly issued a new directive, giving subpoena power to his attorney general, Peter Nickles. In the new version, Nickles’ deputies have to review requests for subpoenas before signing off on them. At an oft-contentious...

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Killings spiked in SE D.C. during inauguration week

As tens of thousands partied at inaugural balls across Washington on the night of Jan. 20, Terrance Johnson was shot dead for his shoes. The 26-year-old died in a parking lot near his apartment in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. His home, the Meadowbrook Apartments, a high-rise building in the 3500 block of Sixth Street SE, typically has off-duty police officers patrolling the grounds. “The night of the homicide we had no off-duty officers working due to the inauguration,” property manager Cynthia Bertolotti told police Assistant Chief Diane Groomes in a Feb. 2 e-mail obtained by The Examiner. Every police officer in the city was ordered to work 12-hour shifts...

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Six area nonprofits get $50,000 grants

Six D.C.-area nonprofit groups are getting an infusion of cash to help poor kids receive early education and care, thanks to the Washington Area Women’s Foundation. The foundation announced six grants, totaling $300,000, to D.C. Appleseed, CentroNia of Maryland, Empower D.C., Fairfax Futures, Hopkins House and Voices for Virginia’s Children. The money is designed to help give poor families a break with childcare and early education. “Investments such as these are a win-win for the community,” Craig Pascal, a PNC Bank vice president and member of the grant collaborative, said Tuesday. Child care experts say infants and toddlers are most receptive to early...

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D.C. real estate board member quits, blasts Fenty appointee

A member of D.C.’s powerful real estate board has resigned in protest, claiming the board is becoming too politicized. In a letter addressed to Mayor Adrian Fenty and Council Chairman Vincent Gray, Lawrence Smith said he could no longer serve on the board because Fenty’s appointee, Towanda Paul-Bryant, “seems bent on precipitating its destruction.” About one-quarter of the city’s total tax base comes from real estate taxes, and the Board of Real Property Assessments and Appeals is responsible for handling appeals on about $5 billion worth of property every year. Smith, a transactions lawyer who has served on the board for six years, said Paul-Bryant...

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Public defender stayed silent after client escaped

A public defender kept quiet after his client, an alleged gunman in a near-fatal shooting, slipped from his custody and fled to avoid trial, The Examiner has learned. Public Defender Chris Roberts agreed to take custody of his client, William Brice, so that Brice could attend the funeral of his father on April 18. Roberts promised Superior Court Judge Robert Richter that Roberts would call “the minute there was any trouble,” according to a transcript obtained by The Examiner. Brice was being jailed without bond. But once at the funeral, he slipped away. Brice has stayed on the run, and last week the U.S. Marshals Service put him on their most-wanted list. Authorities...

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Daschle's timeline

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., withdrew from consideration as President Obama’s health and human services secretary Tuesday. It was a quick reversal of fortune for one of Obama’s top allies: » Nov. 22, 2008: Obama nominates Daschle; he’s just the third nominee named and many view it as a sign that Obama wants to take a serious run at health care reform. » Jan. 2, 2009: Daschle files “amended” taxes for three years that he used a Cadillac and a chauffeur provided by a wealthy Democratic donor. He pays more than $140,000. » Jan. 4: Daschle tells the Obama team about the back taxes. » Jan. 30: With word of...

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D.C. juvenile arrests soar, data show

D.C.’s juvenile arrests have skyrocketed in the last year, The Examiner has learned. There were about 3,500 kids arrested in 2007. In 2008, nearly 4,500 kids were arrested, for crimes ranging from public urination (two cases) to felony murder (three cases), statistics kept by the city show. Children under 18 have to be tried as children for most crimes. They’re then handed over to the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. Department Director Vincent Schiraldi has come under heavy fire for his emphasis on social work over punishment for kids who’ve run afoul of the law. Dozens of children have absconded from Schiraldi’s custody, city records...

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Daschle’s rise to power in D.C.

Tom Daschle came to Washington four decades ago as a lowly Senate aide, but today reigns as one of the city’s most powerful figures. A former aide to South Dakota Sen. James Abourezk, Daschle won election, after a recount, to the House of Representatives in 1978 by 110 votes. He emerged from obscurity in that race after running a poorly funded, door-to-door campaign that barely warranted a footnote in national coverage of the election. The Washington Post incorrectly reported that he had been declared the loser. Daschle came to Washington as a champion of South Dakota farmers. One of his earliest speeches was given in support of “gasohol” research, and he became one of...

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Finance chief scraps $120M tax computer system

D.C. Chief Financial Office Natwar Gandhi is scrapping his beleaguered $120 million automated tax system more than a year after a blistering audit blamed the computer system for costing District taxpayers millions and leaving them vulnerable to fraud, The Examiner has learned. The finance office had relied on Accenture LLP to build and run its automated tax system for more than a decade. In a memo dated last week, Councilman Jack Evans, D-Ward 2, introduced emergency legislation to replace Accenture with Pembroke, Mass.-based Revenue Solutions Inc. “I am moving this proposed contract on behalf of the chief financial officer,” Evans wrote. The contract will pay Revenue...

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Ex-Interior official pleads guilty to bribery scheme

A former Interior Department official is facing up to 18 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to taking a $15,000 in bribes to help his friends win government contracts in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Edgar Johnson, 59, was the director of the Technical Assistance Division of the Office of Insular Affairs, giving him broad authority over the money flowing into U.S. possessions and territories. Prosecutors alleged, and Johnson admitted in court Friday, that he took cash to introduce his old fraternity brother and other friends to top officials in the U.S. Virgin Islands. His fraternity brother was running an insurance company and wanted to pitch his business to Virgin Islands...

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Four men plead not guilty on cocaine charges

Four men have pleaded innocent to charges that they ran a drug ring that moved cocaine by the pound in Montgomery County. Elias Flores, Samuel Chavez Lopez, Carlos Gonzalez and Eduardo Reyes-Sotero formally entered their not guilty plea in federal court earlier this month. They’re charged with felony possession charges in a case that stemmed from an ordinary traffic stop. According to court papers, Reyes-Sotero was pulled over on Interstate 270 while driving a Dodge Dakota with expired Maryland plates. A search of the truck uncovered a parcel of more than 10 pounds of cocaine. Authorities then obtained a search warrant for a car owned by Reyes-Sotero’s friend Flores. A few...

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Fishermen charged with illegally harvesting endangered bass

Five commercial fishermen, a fish wholesaler and his son have been charged with illegally harvesting hundreds of thousands of pounds of the endangered striped bass from the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River. Fishermen Thomas Crowder, John Dean, Charles Quade, Thomas Hallock and Keith Collins, and wholesalers Robert Moore Sr. and Robert Moore Jr., have been charged by information with poaching and fabricating fishing records. It’s an indication that the men have reached a plea agreement, because a defendant can only be charged by information if he waives his right to appear before a grand jury. They follow into court two other fishermen, father and son Joseph Peter Nelson Sr. and Jr....

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Party time!

Washington area readies for Sunday’s annual gridiron get-together When the Kansas City Chiefs met the Green Bay Packers for the first-ever “Super Bowl,” the event was a flop. It remains the only Super Bowl not to have sold out and local newspapers in Los Angeles complained about the “outrageous” $12 ticket price. Forty-two Roman numerals later, the Super Bowl is a secular holiday. Experts expect the game to generate $10 billion in gambling revenues — legal or otherwise. In Washington, it’s one of the biggest partying days on the calendar. Bars, restaurants and clubs are dusting off their big-screen TVs and cleaning the lines to their...

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Dozens of local police officers assigned to concierge duties

Local police departments assigned dozens of their officers and staff to work as concierges, drivers and security for a national law enforcement conference this week in the District. Officers from D.C., along with Fairfax, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties were assigned to work the Major Cities Chiefs and Sheriffs conference at the JW Marriott Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Most of the officers came from the District. D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier wrote in a command memo obtained by The Examiner that she wanted “to ensure a safe and productive legislative conference.” The D.C. officers’ and staffers’ assignments were “concierge desk,”...

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DMV order lets judges keep home-state licenses

The D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles has issued an emergency order exempting federal judges and their spouses from a rule that requires drivers to surrender their home state licenses when they register their cars in the District. The order, which is scheduled to take effect next month, gives the exemption to “members of the judicial branch of the federal government” and is signed by DMV Director Lucinda M. Babers. “This emergency action is based on the immediate need to permit members of the federal judiciary who hold non-District driver’s licenses at the time they register a motor vehicle in the District to be able to continue to operate motor vehicles in...

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Detroit hires ex-D.C. official to fix public schools’ deficit

Former D.C. school board president and city Administrator Robert Bobb is taking over finances for the troubled Detroit public schools. He’ll be the new emergency finance chief for Detroit’s school system, Bobb told The Examiner on Monday. Bobb will continue living in the District, to which he moved in 1999 when he became city administrator. “It’s a year-one, very aggressive appointment, but my home is in the District,” Bobb said. In 2006, Bobb won the election to become the last president of an independent D.C. school board. He brought in the accounting firm of Alvarez & Marsal to give the school system its first-ever forensic audit. But he lost a turf...

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St. Elizabeths pays over $6.3M in overtime while facing probe, suit

St. Elizabeths, the District’s mental hospital, racked up more than $6.3 million in overtime bills as the hospital was fending off a federal fraud investigation and a civil suit claiming that its low staffing was endangering its patients, The Examiner has learned. St. E’s staff averaged at least 52,700 overtime hours for fiscal 2006, 2007 and 2008, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show. The actual figures are likely much higher because the city only made results for the top 50 overtime earners available. Federal authorities alleged that hospital authorities routinely defrauded the government out of Medicare reimbursements. Last year, St. E’s...

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More than a thousand women were forced into sex slavery, Justice Department reports

More than 1,000 mostly young women in the United States were forced into sexual slavery last year, an alarming new Justice Department report has found. The Bureau of Justice Statistics analyzed thousands of cases of alleged human trafficking. It found that the sex trade accounted for more than three out of every four human trafficking cases tracked by the Justice Department. Anytime anyone is forced into prostitution, they are considered “trafficked,” according to the Justice Department. Children 17 or under who are in prostitution are considered trafficked whether they were coerced or not. According to the report, about a quarter of the nation’s sex slaves were under...

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Police union seeks extra money due to conflict over scheduling

The District might have to dish out hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra police pay for the inauguration because of a dispute over the work schedules of hundreds of officers. The city’s contract with the officers’ union requires the bosses to give two weeks’ notice before changing an officer’s schedule. A new schedule was posted for the nearly 300 officers in the 5th District on Jan. 8, 10 days before the schedule took effect. The union has filed a grievance and is demanding time-and-a-half for each officer’s regular work shift from Saturday through Wednesday. “The department is not permitted to change tours of duties outside of the processes in...

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Freezing temperatures greet inauguration crowd

Mother Nature tried unsuccessfully to dampen inaugural spirits Tuesday, with temperatures plunging to below freezing as hundreds of thousands flocked to the National Mall. Temperature hit about 22 degrees around 9:30 a.m. and the National Weather Service predicted a high of 32 degrees for the day, with a low reaching down to 17 degrees. Forecasts included the chance of snow flurries. People were lining up in the bitter cold at entrances to the National Mall as early as 3 a.m., which resulted in a few cases of hypothermia. "We have had a handful of cases down on the mall, but nothing real serious," Alan Etter, spokesman for the D.C. Fire Department. The average temperature for...

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Fenty to persist with plans for public-private library

Mayor Adrian Fenty is refusing to budge and says he will push forward a multimillion-dollar library and housing complex in Tenleytown. Fenty wants to build a new library branch across from the Tenleytown Metro station and allow a developer to build a high-rise apartment building atop the new library. He has encountered fierce resistance from the D.C. Public Library board and D.C. Council members Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, and Kwame Brown, D-at large, who say the project will line a private developer’s pocket at public expense and slash into needed “green space” at the adjacent Janney Elementary School. Cheh, Brown and the library board have called for the library to be built...

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Obamas observe King’s birthday by volunteering

President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, joined hundreds of ordinary Washingtonians — and a few trucked-in celebrities — in a day of service Monday. The Obamas started their Martin Luther King Jr. holiday at Walter Reed Army Hospital, where they visited sick and wounded members of the armed forces. They were joined by King’s son, Martin III. The next stop for the soon-to-be first couple was the Sasha Bruce House, an emergency shelter for homeless kids. Obama, a former community organizer, stripped off his jacket and helped volunteers paint a wall at the shelter. “We can’t allow any idle hands,” Obama said. “Everybody has to be...

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Chicago-like freezing weather expected to hit Tuesday

Whatever other changes he’s bringing to D.C., Barack Obama is bringing Chicago-style weather with him. The National Weather Service is predicting freezing or near-freezing weather throughout the inaugural, and there is a possibility of snow. AccuWeather.com is predicting that today’s slightly higher temperatures will dip this afternoon amid a blast of wind and snow, with accumulations of up to an inch. Temperatures are to be bitterly low overnight, with howling winds. There will be little relief Tuesday morning. Forecasters predict that amid partly cloudy skies, temperatures will struggle to get to 32 degrees, but gusts of wind will leave inauguration celebrants feeling much...

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Mendelson seeks Rhee’s plans on firing ‘underperforming’ teachers

D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson says he’s worried that schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is trying to get rid of veteran educators and is asking Rhee to detail her plan to weed out “underperforming” teachers. “While we share the goal of ensuring that all DCPS students get the highest level of classroom instruction,” Mendelson wrote in a Jan. 8 letter, “I am troubled by reports that the 90-day plan may be disproportionately administered to senior teachers.” Rhee hasn’t explained her proposal yet, but says she wants to put failing teachers in a 90-day mentoring program. Those who don’t improve would be fired or reassigned. The teachers...

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Bitter cold predicted for Inauguration Day

Weather forecasters are predicting bitter cold and winds for the area through early next week and the possibility of a snowfall over the weekend that could dampen the spirits of millions flocking to the capital for President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration. Accuweather.com on Thursday released a forecast that had D.C.’s high temperature at 20 degrees today — the lowest in more than a decade. The weather is expected to be about 10 degrees colder than average through the inauguration with biting winds making it feel even colder. Accuweather experts are also monitoring a snowstorm that could dump on the capital late Sunday and into early Monday. The District’s...

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D.C. to probe whether hospitals failed to report medical errors

The District government will investigate city hospitals and clinics to determine whether they are withholding reports of medical errors that killed, injured or sickened patients, a top city official testified Wednesday. “Unless we improve the reporting technology ... the process will not serve to improve either the analysis or the feedback to the reporting health care facility,” Department of Health executive Feseha Woldu told a D.C. Council hearing called to examine “adverse events” in hospitals and clinics. An Examiner story Tuesday said there were 529 reported incidents in D.C. in the 12 months ending in June 2008. The human toll: at least 14 people dead and...

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Migrant who bought fake D.C. driver’s license gets probation

A 42-year-old hotel cook who was one of hundreds of immigrants who paid bribes to get fraudulently issued D.C. driver’s licenses was sentenced to one year of probation Tuesday. Antonio Contreras, originally of El Salvador, and hundreds of other immigrants paid $1,000 to $1,800 to buy their licenses from convicted former D.C. motor vehicles clerk Patricia Gonzalez. Contreras has already pleaded guilty to bribery charges and assisted in the investigation that put Gonzalez and two of her friends behind bars. But the search continues for others like him. Many of the bribers, who came from all over the D.C. region, gave fake addresses for their bogus licenses, and now authorities...

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529 medical errors reported during 12-month period in D.C.

D.C. doctors sliced open the wrong breast on a cancer patient, operated on the wrong part of a patient’s spine, sewed up patients with needles and sponges still inside and tried to revive a stricken patient with a broken ventilator, a new city report has found. There were at least 529 “adverse events” in District hospitals and clinics in the 12 months between July 2007 and June 2008, the city Department of Health’s annual report has found. At least 14 of these errors cost a patient his or her life, the report found. More than 1 million people are killed or injured by medical errors in the United States every year. In 2006, D.C.’s council required the...

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With inauguration one week away, early arrivals begin to pack D.C.

Donna Robinson is on her way to Washington from Anniston, Ala., with 15 friends and relatives packed into a rented recreational vehicle, fulfilling a promise she made to herself during the presidential campaign. “I said, ‘If Barack wins, we’re going to Washington,’ ” she told The Examiner in a phone interview. “I want [my] boys to learn. Look how Barack walks. Look at the way he speaks. Look at the way he carries himself. He doesn’t let his pants droop.” Robinson, 43, will be among millions coming to the nation’s capital to see the first African-American take the oath of office as president of the United States. New York college...

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Buzz for Obama echoes around globe

D.C. is not the only major city in a frenzy for Barack Obama. In London, an Internet site dedicated to Obama fans has sprung up. Tickets to the inaugural are being offered for up to 2,000 pounds apiece. There’s messages and chat rooms in Bangalore, India and Singapore. On Craigslist in Johannesburg, Obama “framed art collections” are for sale at up to $20,000 each. Student Mbhekwa Dlamini, 29, a native of Swaziland, is making his first trip to D.C. He’s studying in Atlanta for two years but won a scholarship to study the presidency just in time for the inauguration. “It shows you that in this world, things do not remain the same,” Dlamini said of...

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UDC offering to take over Southeastern U., source says

The University of the District of Columbia has made a takeover offer for D.C.’s Southeastern University, The Examiner has learned. UDC’s new president, Allen Sessoms, and its board chair, Jim Dyke, met with Southeastern’s board chair, J.R. Clark, about a month ago and offered to absorb Southeastern, a source with intimate knowledge of the talks told The Examiner. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. Sessoms has said publicly that he wants to create a community college program in the District. Southeastern offers a two-year associate’s degree but is losing money; the school announced last year that it was interested in...

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D.C. judges deny a new trial for convicted rapist

A convicted rapist won’t get a new trial even though his judge gave incorrect jury instructions because he didn’t raise the issue when it mattered, the D.C. Court of Appeals has ruled. Raymond Mozee tried to argue at his trial that his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend had consensual sex with him in the summer of 2000 and that he only struck her after she flew into a jealous rage because another girl called. Trial judge Shellie Bowers told jurors, however, that they shouldn’t “get into this business of consent” until they decided that prosecutors had otherwise proven their case. Mozee argued that this was plain wrong, that the law says a jury can weigh affirmative...

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3 Minute Interview-Fleshner

Bob Fleshner, 53, is a former health care executive who became a personal trainer and founder of the American Odyssey Relay, a 200-mile race from Gettysburg, Pa., to West Potomac Park. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Wellness Community, a Washington-area charity that helps cancer patients and their families. Why did you start it? I ran in three of these relays with my relay team and never had so much fun. It was a complete blast. How long did it take you to get this organized? It takes a while to get all the permitting and stuff in place. But we spaced it out by about 18 months because we wanted to make sure we did it really right. When does it kick off officially? April 24....

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Lanier bringing back All Hands on Deck for ’09

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier will expand her much-publicized All Hands on Deck program, flooding the city’s streets with extra officers and cadets at least eight times in the coming year. In a memo Tuesday to her staff obtained by The Examiner, Lanier said she was bringing All Hands back because of “last year’s successes.” “The purpose of the ... initiative is to have positive interactions with citizens, address community concerns, provide a physical presence in neighborhoods throughout the city, arrest offenders of the law, and to reduce crime and the fear of crime,” Lanier wrote in the memo. It’s the third year that Lanier will flood the...

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Study names Brookings Institution industry’s most influential think tank

The Brookings Institution has been named America’s most influential think tank in the first-ever comprehensive study of the industry. The University of Pennsylvania’s James McGann analyzed about 5,500 think tanks around the world. He sent out surveys to thousands of scholars and experts and asked them to evaluate think tanks based on their ability to shape or drive public policy questions in their home countries and regions. The United States, home to more than one-third of the globe’s think tanks, got its own category for top tanks. Brookings was listed first, followed by New York’s Council on Foreign Relations, D.C.’s Carnegie Endowment for International...

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Tax scam launderer gets nearly 7 years

The self-confessed money launderer of the worst public corruption scandal in the District’s history was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison. Former Bank of America manager Walter Jones will spend the next 78 months in a federal penitentiary. He was sentenced in a Greenbelt courtroom Monday, months after he admitted that he helped former D.C. tax officer Harriette Walters launder $18 million in bogus property tax refunds. Jones, of Essex, Md., was a key figure in the decades-old conspiracy. For four years between 2002 and 2006, Jones agreed to run six-figure checks through his bank and to help keep regulators from asking questions. After Jones was fired by Bank of America for...

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D.C. councilwoman pushes to allow interns to sue

D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh is sponsoring legislation that will allow interns to sue for harassment or discrimination. “Washington, D.C. is the best internship city in the country,” Cheh said in a news release. “It boggles the mind that interns have been denied these basic legal protections.” The bill, to be introduced at today’s council session, closes what Cheh is calling “a loophole” in D.C. law that says only paid employees can sue if they suffer discrimination or sexual harassment. The loophole was exposed in November, when a federal judge tossed out a suit filed by college student Jamie Evans. Evans alleged she had been groped and...

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Mendelson seeks halt to controversial order signed by Fenty

D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson is trying to stop Police Chief Cathy Lanier from issuing subpoenas under a controversial order signed by the mayor that became public last month. In his first official act of the new year, Mendelson, D-at large and chairman of the city’s judiciary committee, has introduced emergency legislation that would suspend Mayor Adrian Fenty’s program until the council can weigh the issue. “This new authority is broad,” Mendelson said in a memo to council Chairman Vincent Gray. The council needs “a chance to look at the issue.” The Examiner reported last month that Fenty had given the police department the right to issue subpoenas...

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Hoping for a better year in 2009

The Chinese supposedly have a curse: May you live in interesting times. By that measure, 2008 might have been one of the most accursed years in memory. Americans discovered that their once-dominant economy was based on the Wall Street equivalent of magic beans; they endured the longest and most expensive presidential race in history; they saw again that their political capitals were sometimes run like Mel Brooks’ governor’s mansion in “Blazing Saddles” — where the most important motivation was “to protect our phony baloney jobs here, gentlemen!” It wasn’t all bleak times, though. Barack Obama became the first African-American in history to...

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Judge: Ex-corrections officer can’t get job back

A federal appeals court has ruled that a former juvenile corrections officer for the District who was fired after three kids escaped her custody can’t have her job back because she didn’t follow the rules for appealing her firing. Sallie Johnson was fired from Oak Hill Youth Center after three juvenile offenders snuck away in November 2001. A city judge, however, ruled that she should get a second chance because of her 13 years of service. She sued to get her job back, claiming that the city was ignoring her union contract requiring it to arbitrate her case. But in a decision dated last week, U.S. Appeals Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson ruled that Johnson’s suit was...

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Comments invited on 26 vying for D.C. Superior Court spot

More than two dozen lawyers are being considered to become D.C.’s next Superior Court judge. The list includes at least 10 who already are serving as administrative or warrant judges in the city. At least eight others work for the government. At least five are in private practice, two are law professors and one works for a charity. They’re all vying to replace Linda D. Turner, who is stepping down. Unlike most major cities, D.C. doesn’t choose its own judges. The finalists are selected by the Judicial Nomination Commission, headed by federal Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, and their names are forwarded onto the president. They have to be confirmed by the Senate. Sullivan and...

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Economic downturn ensnares area think tanks

The reeling national economy is taking a heavy toll on the Washington area’s 340 think tanks. The Council of Foundations estimates that endowments, the key funding source for think tanks, lost more than $200 billion in assets in the last few months of 2008. “The [think tank] funding streams are very dependent on foundations in particular,” said R. Kent Weaver, a Georgetown professor and Brookings Institution scholar who studies think tanks. “It’s a big hit.” Think tanks employ thousands of people and generate tens of millions for the local economy. The grand old names — such as the Brookings Institution and American Enterprise Institute —...

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Charitable endowments shrink as economy falters

Think tanks might be in trouble, but it’s only one index of a larger crisis in the nonprofit world, experts say. The average endowment has lost between 30 and 35 percent of its funds because of the poor economy, according to estimates by The Council on Foundations. This is happening just as the same poor economic conditions cause donors to cut back on charitable giving. For example, the collapse of mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae has deprived anti-homeless charities of $47 million in foundation grants, said Steve Gunderson, the council’s president and chief executive officer. “That’s a real challenge in this area.” Donors are also becoming more...

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Former Va. prof disbarred over bad business dealings

A soured romance and a soured business deal have left a former Virginia professor stripped of his law license and accused of “blatant dishonesty” and criminal conduct. The D.C. Court of Appeals has ordered Bruce Pelkey disbarred after years of litigation involving his ex-girlfriend and a group of companies the two ran in the mid-1990s. Pelkey got Linda Cavalli to contribute about $32,000 of her own money to international companies, according to court papers. After they broke up and the couple entered extensive litigation, Pelkey denied that he’d been in business or romantically involved with her, court papers state. He then filed numerous appeals and lawsuits. A...

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Study: Female partners in D.C. law firms take more part-time hours than male counterparts

Female partners in D.C. law firms are taking part-time hours at nearly three times the rate that men are, a new study has found. There are nearly 6,000 partners in 131 big law firm offices in Washington, the nation’s second-largest law market. Less than 5 percent of the partners are part-timers, but women make up nearly three-quarters of the part-time ranks, according to a new study published by the National Association for Law Placement, a D.C.-based nonprofit group that examines hiring trends in the legal profession. D.C.’s part-time figures are slightly below the national average, NALP found, but they are still higher than those of New York — the nation’s...

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Conviction upheld in Blackmond murder case

The D.C. Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a woman in the beating death of her 23-month-old goddaughter despite accusations that a key prosecution witness offered bogus evidence. Angela O’Brien argued that she should get a new trial in part because prosecutors relied on the testimony of Saami Shaibani, a self-described expert on “injury mechanism analysis” who falsely claimed to be a member of Temple University’s physics department. Shaibani’s testimony has been tossed out of court in North Carolina, and Wisconsin prosecutors are investigating Shaibani for perjury in a murder case that was overturned. But a three-judge panel of the D.C....

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Ruling keeps some bars from staying open later

Bars in the District that made previous agreements with their neighborhoods will have to close at their regular time despite a City Council law allowing pubs and clubs to stay open extra late for next month’s inaugural, Attorney General Peter Nickles has decided. Nickles’ ruling affects at least 300 bars, restaurants and clubs in the city. The owners of the bars struck deals with their neighborhoods, promising to limit their hours or to close at the time alcohol sales must cease — 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, 3 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. The deals were made before the City Council voted to extend the city’s bar hours until 4 a.m. for the week of President-elect...

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Cops to close embattled station

Violent crimes are rising in D.C.’s 6th District, but the police department is shutting down a key outpost there. The district’s substation on Pennsylvania Avenue is scheduled to be shut down at the end of next year, police officials announced Monday after weeks of swirling rumors. Sixth District Cmdr. Robert Contee broke the news in a hearing before the D.C. City Council’s Judiciary and Public Safety Committee. He said that the lease for the outpost had become too expensive and that the substation “does not add patrol presence to the community.” “We understand the concern that the closure of the substation may result in a loss of police presence in...

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Md. man pleads guilty to seeking millions in phony tax rebates

A Maryland man is facing 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to trying to bilk the federal government out of more than $4 million in fuel tax rebates. June Leftwich, also known as “Yahaya Allah,” admitted that he and his friends filed 154 tax returns between 2005 and 2008. They were filed on behalf of companies that Leftwich, 34, and his friends owned or claimed to own and asked the government for millions in fuel tax refunds. The returns were filed under his name and his alias, his friends’ names, and dozens of towing, trucking, retail and charter bus companies. It’s not clear whether those companies actually existed or whether Leftwich invented them...

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D.C. looks for funds to pay police overtime during inaugural week

District police officers and firemen will be wracking up thousands of hours of overtime during the upcoming inauguration week and city officials are scrambling to find a way to pay for it. Under executive orders signed by Chief Cathy Lanier earlier this month, all 4,000 D.C. police officers will work 12-hour shifts on six days during the week surrounding President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing in. Firefighters and paramedics will have their regularly scheduled days off revoked, spokesman Alan Etter told The Examiner. Under their union contract, police officers and firefighters must be paid time-and-a-half for overtime. But they’ll also be working weekends and the inaugural is...

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Nickles defends subpoena power for police

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles on Thursday tried to tamp down the controversy over the police department’s newly granted subpoena power. He was less than successful. “To me, it’s no big deal,” Nickles said, referring to a mayoral order giving Police Chief Cathy Lanier and her officers the power to issue subpoenas in “any municipal matter.” “We’ve got to close down those murder cases,” Nickles said. Nickles’ comments fly in the face of an agreement made between the city and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, according to sources familiar with those discussions. Prosecutors agreed not to challenge the policy, sources said, as...

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Cheh questions subpoena power Fenty gave to police chief

A key D.C. councilwoman expressed concern Wednesday about a new executive order from Mayor Adrian Fenty that appears to grant Police Chief Cathy Lanier broad authority to issue subpoenas. The order, signed quietly by Fenty last month and posted on the city’s Web site last week, gives the chief the power to probe “any municipal matter” and allows Lanier to delegate her subpoena power “to her subordinates.” Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, a constitutional law professor and former prosecutor, wrote a letter Wednesday to Fenty, asking him to explain the order. “I have grave concerns over the prospect that this authority may serve as an attempt to make an...

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District homicide count rises to 183, surpassing last year’s

The District’s homicide count eclipsed last year’s toll of 181 Tuesday, marking the first time since the early 1990s that the number of killings in the city rose for two straight years. Early Tuesday, police found the bullet-riddled body of 35-year-old Durval Martins lying in the street on the 1600 block of 11th Street Northwest. That homicide, along with the death of a child last week that police reclassified as a homicide Tuesday, raised the 2008 total to 183. The city hasn’t had back-to-back increases since 1989 to 1991, when D.C. was “Murder Capital” of the nation. Since 1991, when homicides peaked at 479, killings have trended down. In 2006, they...

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Report urges independent, anti-corruption post

The District needs an anti-corruption top cop to prevent runaway fraud, a scathing recap of the city’s worst ever public corruption scandal has recommended. Disparate agencies caught glimpses of what would eventually emerge as a $48 million rip-off in the city’s tax office, but none of them was working together, auditors at WilmerHale reported in their long-awaited report on the Harriette Walters tax scam. Among the 123-page report’s recommendations was the creation of an independent oversight committee. “The [committee] should ensure that the three audit agencies address fraud risk on a District-wide level,” the auditors wrote in Monday’s report,...

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Siemens to plead guilty, pay $800M fine

International engineering giant Siemens AG will plead guilty today to U.S. charges it handed out more than $1 billion in bribes to foreign officials around the world — including to members of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist government — in an effort to land lucrative contracts. Authorities have been in negotiations with the Munich-based conglomerate, which has offices in the United States, for more than a year. Under an agreement reached with prosecutors, Siemens will pay $800 million to settle the bribery charges, a law enforcement source said. Under the deal, first reported by Bloomberg news service, the company will hand over $450 million in fines and another $350 million...

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3 Minute Interview-Grant

Annette Gantt is the new president and chief executive of the Earth Conservation Corps. The corps, founded in 1989, is a nonprofit group that trains troubled youth in environmental recovery for the Anacostia River and their neighborhoods. The group has recently been given a $25,000 grant for environmental leadership by Ronald McDonald House Charities to celebrate World for Children’s Day. How important is the grant? It’s very important because we can extend more of the services to young people who live in the area. Where do the kids come from? They come from Wards 6, 7 and 8. How do you find them? Sometimes they’re referred to us — schools, other...

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Real estate scheme adds 17 years to career con man's time in prison

A longtime con man will serve 17 years in federal prison in a real estate scheme — once he gets out of state prison for running yet another scheme. Robert Miller has amassed a remarkable criminal resume: He has been arrested 57 times and convicted 17 times, on charges from impersonating a lawyer to operating a boat while intoxicated. The 54-year-old has spent nearly 5,000 days in jail. On Wednesday, federal Judge Richard Leon sentenced the smooth-talking Miller to prison for a real estate swindle in the Washington area that took in almost $500,000 from its victims. Prosecutors had sought 130 years in jail, citing Miller’s long career as a con man. “Like the calculation...

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Ex-Library of Congress worker charged with using records for shopping spree

A former Library of Congress personnel executive and his cousin have been charged with using information from employee records to finance a personal shopping binge, authorities announced Wednesday. William Sinclair and Labiska Gibbs are facing up to 20 years and 37 years in prison, respectively, on charges that they accessed library personnel files and applied for lines of credit. Gibbs, 35, was indicted Tuesday. Sinclair, 27, was charged by information — an indication that he has worked out a deal with prosecutors. Court papers also state that Sinclair is talking with prosecutors. According to court documents, Sinclair was one of the few library employees who had access to the...

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Extra police for Fenty’s bike rides costing D.C. taxpayers

D.C. taxpayers have paid for many man-hours for an extra police escort to accompany Mayor Fenty on his bike rides, according to records obtained by The Examiner. Between January 2007 and June 2008, District police officers were paid for at least 178 man-hours to follow Adrian Fenty on his bike rides, departmental records show. The records are incomplete — some of the data is illegible and at least two months of data are missing — so it is likely that the total hours are much more. Time sheets obtain by The Examiner show that dozens of officers were paid for a full day for following the mayor’s two-hour rides. The protection is in addition to the full-time officers who...

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Scandal brings Rezko back into public spotlight

The arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has dragged presidential friend Antoin “Tony” Rezko back into the public spotlight. Rezko, a convicted fixer for Blagojevich, entered the national political spotlight last year when it emerged that he had helped broker a sweetheart real estate deal for Barack Obama’s stately home on Chicago’s South Side. Rezko’s name is prominent in charging documents filed in the Blagojevich case Monday. Relying on the public record from his trial and statements Rezko made in a furious attempt to shave his upcoming sentence, prosecutors describe Rezko as Blagojevich’s key crony, shaking down high-dollar donors and making...

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Ex-agent admits hacking into FBI to help actress

A former FBI agent pleaded guilty Monday to charges that he hacked into his agency’s computer to help his girlfriend, actress Linda Fiorentino, obtain key information on the federal case against a Hollywood private investigator. Mark Rossini walked into D.C. federal court Monday and admitted that he’d acted as a mole for Fiorentino, who was a friend of Anthony Pellicano. Rossini said in court documents that he had hacked into bureau computers five times in the first half of 2007. A law enforcement source told The Examiner that among the documents Rossini accessed was a confidential FBI memo on the Pellicano case. The document became a surprise in the already bizarre case that...

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Couple sentenced to prison for aiding tax scam

A disgraced former Internal Revenue Service manager and his estranged wife were sent to prison Monday for their part in the largest taxpayer rip-off in District history. Robert Steven was sentenced to 46 months in prison and his wife, Patricia, was given 70 months in prison for helping their friend, self-confessed tax scam mastermind Harriette Walters, pilfer more than $48 million through a series of phony property tax refunds. The Stevens — Robert, 55, and Patricia, 73 — also were ordered to pay back more than $8.8 million by federal Judge Alexander Williams in his courtroom in Maryland. The couple were key players in the tax scandal. The Stevens were decades-long friends...

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Group sues feds to release info on phone use in traffic deaths

A consumer group founded by Ralph Nader is suing the federal government to force officials to release a study on whether cell phone use was causing traffic deaths. In a lawsuit filed last week in D.C. federal court, the Center for Auto Safety is accusing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of illegally withholding data on the number of traffic deaths linked to cell phone use. The agency conducted a worldwide review of driver distraction in 2003 and found that cell phones were a factor in at least 955 road deaths the previous year. The report has never been made public. After some of the information from the study was leaked earlier this year, the center filed a Freedom of...

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Ex-FEMA official gets five years for stealing from disaster victims

A former emergency management official will spend the next five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to swiping the personal information of hundreds of disaster victims to go on a six-figure shopping spree. Robert Davis got 64 months in prison and was ordered to pay nearly $50,000 in restitution Friday. Davis pleaded guilty to wire fraud earlier this year, admitting that he took Social Security numbers and other personal details from the files of more than 200 people who had filed for disaster relief with FEMA between 2003 and 2007. He used the information to open lines of credit with the Home Shopping Network, Ginny’s Inc., Shop NBC and QVC. He treated himself to jewelry, vacuum...

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E-mails show infighting over police barricades

When violent crime spiked in the dangerous 7th Police District this summer, D.C. officials tried to increase police presence. But authorities quickly discovered that every available officer had been sent to man Chief Cathy Lanier’s neighborhood barricades on the other side of the city, e-mails obtained by The Examiner show. “I wanted to hold pst over in 7d and now finding out not one pst was deployed???” Assistant Chief Diane Groomes wrote to a district commander on June 12, adding that four people had just been shot. “PST” stands for “patrol support team.” District Cmdr. Willie Dandridge replied a few moments later. He said another assistant...

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3 Minute Interview-Callaghan

St. John’s College High School junior Christine Callaghan had watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on television for years. But now she has appeared in the parade for the second year in a row. The 16-year-old from Annandale was asked to join the parade’s prestigious “All-American Band” as a clarinetist. How long have you playing the clarinet? Since fourth grade. Do you enjoy it? It’s my passion. Classical or jazz? Classical. I do play tenor sax in a jazz ensemble at school, but my main focus is classical. Who’s your favorite composer? John Williams. I love all his music he’s done for the movies. It really gives you a sense of the...

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Judge reinstates D.C. police lieutenant

A D.C. police lieutenant is back on the job after an administrative law judge reinstated him and slammed law enforcement authorities for firing the officer — because he had been fired. Tim Haselden was forced to turn in his badge and gun and was facing termination after Attorney General Peter Nickles decided that previous wife-beating accusations against Haselden — true or not — had damaged the 18-year veteran’s credibility. While fighting his firing, Haselden, 41, spent his days at the police academy, rearranging traffic cones for the police motorcycle course. He continued to draw his $100,000 annual salary. In a decision dated just before Thanksgiving, city...

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Paramedics criticize plan to consolidate fire, EMS

Mayor Adrian Fenty is facing a fight on his plan to consolidate the D.C. fire department and ambulance service, a plan critics say is a back-door attempt to bust a troublesome union. Fenty has introduced legislation that he says will close the wage and pension gap between firefighters and paramedics. But the bill would require paramedics to train as firefighters, too. The paramedics union is crying foul. “If passed, it will result in busting the union,” union leader Ken Lyons told The Examiner. “There’s no doubt.” The fire and emergency management system has promised the public that every new employee will be trained as both firefighter and paramedic. About...

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Budget ‘screwup’ leaves vendors unpaid and city facing contempt

D.C. school officials have mishandled their budget, leaving dozens of vendors unpaid and putting the District at risk of being found in contempt of federal court. City and school officials told The Examiner that the fiscal 2009 budget wasn’t properly “loaded,” meaning the correct amounts of money weren’t placed in the proper accounts. As a result, payments to numerous private companies and schools that provide services to special education students weren’t made for more than a month. This week, city officials scrambled to make good on hundreds of thousands of dollars in past due bills. The District is under a federal consent decree stemming from a...

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Ex-Interior exec pleads guilty to credit-card misuse

A former executive for the Department of the Interior is facing 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he used his government-issued credit card to go on a shopping spree. Jamoya Mobutu was an anti-discrimination officer for the agency. He pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to using his government credit card to buy nearly $5,000 worth of computers, briefcases and cameras. A law enforcement official told The Examiner that Mobutu also was encouraging his underlings to use their government credit cards for similar purposes when he was arrested. Mobutu was arrested in late June. He pleaded guilty to theft charges, which carry a maximum of 10 years in prison. He also...

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Accountant gets 2-plus years in prison for phony tax returns

A Virginia accountant will spend the next two-plus years in prison after he was convicted of filing bogus tax returns for his business. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema sentenced Henry Omozee to 27 months in prison and one year of probation, and ordered him to pay more than $82,000 in retribution for defrauding the government through a series of phony tax returns. An Alexandria jury in August convicted Omozee of three counts of filing false tax returns. Omozee was a certified public accountant with offices in Alexandria and Woodbridge. He popped up on federal radar screens when, as he filed returns under his brother’s name, agents noticed that he had an unusually high number...

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Counseling work for troubled children may have lead to couple’s death in D.C.

A distinguished D.C. psychiatrist and his wife are dead and police are worried that the doctor’s commitment to troubled kids may have cost the couple their lives. The bodies of Michael Spevak and his wife, Ginny, were found in their home in upper Northwest late Saturday, police said. Their car was discovered burning on a side street across town a few hours later. Investigators are working from the theory the couple was killed by one of the youngsters Michael Spevak frequently counseled, an official with intimate knowledge of the unfolding case told The Examiner. Police were trying to keep a lid on the investigation, refusing to say how the Spevaks were killed or describe the state...

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D.C. owes feds tens of millions for Medicare mismanagement

The District will have to give tens of millions of dollars, and possibly hundreds of millions, back to the federal government after an audit discovered widespread mismanagement in the city’s Medicaid program. Officials in the school system and the child welfare agency routinely approved payments without checking invoices and disbursed taxpayer dollars without proper documents, Mayor Adrian Fenty said Friday. The mayor and his aides refused to say how much money was at stake, but said that the mismanagement occurred between at least 2003 and 2006. “I can’t really give you the numbers. They’re all over the lot,” Attorney General Peter Nickles told The Examiner....

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3 Minute Interview — Andrea Powell

Andrea Powell is the executive director and co-founder of FAIR Fund, an anti-human trafficking group in Washington that helps rescue children from international flesh peddlers. The privately funded group was founded in 2003. With an annual budget of about $250,000 and a staff of six, FAIR Fund fans out all over the capital region, racing to help rescued girls and trying to keep local children from having to be rescued. Why do we need an anti-trafficking group in D.C.? The District of Columbia is listed as one of the top 10 places for trafficking in the United States. International trafficking is a major problem here. We’ve seen several major cases in the region. There are up to 25...

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Federal workers await word on day off

Hundreds of thousands of federal employees around the Washington area are waiting for President George Bush to decide whether to give them off the day after Christmas. The calendar has conspired against federal workers this season — the days after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day are all Fridays. That means employees are facing the prospect of self-restraint at the holiday table or using a vacation day to recover from their feasting. “They’re regularly scheduled workdays,” Office of Personal Management spokesman Peter Graves told The Examiner. “We need an executive order.” Well, Mr. President? “I don’t know if we’re...

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Experts say Fenty baby’s crib could be hazardous to health

A published profile with photographs of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s family nursery adorned with toys and pillows has worried child safety experts, who say the arrangement could be dangerous for a baby. “A crib that’s safe for a baby to sleep is empty except for a firm mattress,” said Laura Reno, an executive with Baltimore-based First Candle, a nonprofit group that helps spread the word about infant deaths. “Any time you put any of that fluffy stuff in there, it can get in the way of the oxygen they need.” Reno and others are stirred up over photos of Michelle Cross Fenty that ran in the Washington Post’s Home Section last week. The pictures show a crib...

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D.C. toddler beaten to death; man arrested

Detectives on Wednesday afternoon arrested a man in connection with the beating death of a toddler, D.C. police said. Twenty-one-month-old Ronjai Butler, of the 1200 block of North Capitol Street NW, was taken to Howard University on Sunday and was pronounced dead. Police on Wednesday night had not released the identity of the suspect, but a department spokesman said the man lived in the same residence as Ronjai. Ronjai’s family was known to child welfare bureaucrats. His half-sister was the subject of a neglect complaint that was later closed, Councilman Tommy Wells, D-Ward 6, told The Examiner. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call police at 202-727-9099.

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Metro mechanic fired for telling dirty jokes

A veteran Metro mechanic has been fired, and three top executives suspended, after the mechanic told a dirty joke to a crowd at a departmental awards ceremony, The Examiner has learned. Gene Garritt volunteered to emcee a banquet in Prince George’s County for elevator and escalator apprentices Sept. 17. Taking the microphone, he told dirty jokes. The humor was lost on someone in his audience, who reported Garritt to Metro authorities. After a three-month investigation, Metro officials fired him, agency spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein confirmed to The Examiner on Monday. “It was determined that the remarks made by the employee on Sept. 17 were so egregious that he was...

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Fenty shutters used car dealers

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s crackdown on used car dealerships continued Monday, with the mayor announcing that he had ordered 23 more lots shuttered in Northeast Washington. Fenty says he wants to close 100 dealerships for a variety of offenses, ranging from environmental violations to building code problems. The Fenty regime zeroed in last year on the dealers, most of them along Bladensburg Avenue. Squads of inspectors have fanned out through Northeast, rifling papers, reviewing licenses and checking equipment. Fifty-one businesses have been closed, 68 vehicles towed off lots and $22,500 in fines issued, according to the city. But the sweeps have caused problems of their own. The...

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Jury convicts ex-D.C. city clerk on bribery charges

A federal jury on Friday convicted a former D.C. clerk of shaking down city business owners to clear up fines and licenses. Jurors deliberated less than two hours before finding Ikela Dean guilty of two counts of bribery. She was convicted of taking cash in exchange for erasing “late fees” levied against downtown hotels for their elevator inspections. She was arrested in September 2007 after a yearlong investigation and indicted on 14 counts of bribery, but U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton threw out 12 of the counts on Thursday, ruling that prosecutors hadn’t proved their case. Dean was fired from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, and officials are...

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Examiner editorial cartoonist wins prominent national award

Nate Beeler, The Examiner’s editorial cartoonist, has joined the elite of his profession with an award from the National Press Foundation. Beeler was given the 2009 Clifford K. & James T. Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons, it was announced today. Past winners include Steve Breen, Ann Telnaes, Signe Wilkinson, Stuart Carlson, Jim Morin and David Horsey -- all Pulitzer Prize winners. “Not only is Nate a fine draftsman and a natural wit, he’s also a first-rate journalist,” said Stephen G. Smith, executive editor of The Washington Examiner. “He has a sharp eye for incompetence and hypocrisy in government, and his cartoons draw attention to these failings...

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Federal contractor convicted of lying about conducting background checks

A former federal contractor is facing five years in prison after a D.C. jury convicted him Wednesday lying about doing background checks on Pentagon and federal workers seeking top-secret clearance. George Abraham was convicted on six counts of lying to investigators. He was supposed to have interviewed associates of seven key government employees who were seeking top-secret clearance in sensitive positions in the Pentagon and Treasury Department. Instead, he didn’t conduct the interviews, or he cut them short and then lied to authorities about it, prosecutors charged. All of the employees were given clearance. “This case is important because of the implications for national...

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Assistant police chief named to head academy

D.C. police Assistant Chief Winston Robinson has been on the job for nearly 40 years. His behavior has caused him trouble for nearly as long. Now his boss, Chief Cathy Lanier, wants him to train D.C.’s finest. In a memo Friday obtained by The Examiner, she appointed Robinson as top officer for the department’s academy. In 1985, Robinson tried to flee D.C. police after a car crash. Officers at the scene said Robinson struggled with them and then gave a false name. In 2004, the police union accused Robinson of falsifying crime figures in the dangerous 7th District. An inspector general’s report on the allegations said there had been unintentional errors and blamed the...

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Father’s rage toward alleged abuser to be considered

A convicted murderer will get a new trial because jurors were not allowed to consider whether he was driven to his homicidal rage by the suspicion his daughter had been molested. Maurice Lee was convicted of second-degree murder in the July 24, 2002 stabbing death of Melvin Hairston. But a three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals has tossed Lee’s conviction because, the judges said, the jurors were given the wrong instructions. Numerous witnesses — including Lee’s 11-year-old son — testified that they saw Lee kill Hairston. But Lee stabbed Hairston after Lee’s daughter accused Hairston of sexually abusing her. Jurors should have been given a chance to...

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D.C. college students waiting on overdue tuition grants

Thousands of D.C. college students have had their semester thrown into turmoil because city officials stalled on getting the paperwork done for federally funded grants, The Examiner has learned. The District of Columbia’s Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership is a $4 million matching grants program that’s designed to help D.C. high school grads afford pricey out-of-state tuition around the country. More than 2,500 students who’ve been awarded the grants are still waiting for their money. “There was a delay this fall in dispersing payments,” state superintendent’s office spokeswoman Nicole Shaffer told The Examiner in an e-mail exchange....

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Gray seeks to revive city’s rainy day fund

D.C. Council Chairman Vince Gray is behind a council attempt to resurrect the city’s defunct rainy day fund, The Examiner has learned. Under legislation still being drafted, Gray would require the administration to set aside $50 million in this fiscal year’s budget – just in case. D.C. is facing a $131 million budget gap for fiscal 2009 but Gray has told colleagues he’s worried things might get worse. The council will hold hearings Monday on Mayor Adrian Fenty’s budget. The money would come by slashing cash from Fenty’s proposed new expenditures. The measure apparently has broad support from the council. “We feel we have to be prepared,”...

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Contractor failed to perform key background checks, prosecutors say

Numerous federal employees may have been given key government positions without background checks, and prosecutors are blaming a contractor they say scammed the government by pocketing a fee without doing the work. George Abraham is charged with lying to federal authorities when he claimed that he checked on numerous federal employees in various agencies. He’s on trial in federal court this week. The case could have significant implications for national security, prosecutors said in court. Abraham was paid by two different government contractors to conduct background interviews on candidates who were slated to get top-secret security clearance in the military and investigative...

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D.C. police lieutenant fights for his career

A veteran D.C. police lieutenant is fighting for his career after his bosses, having lost a court battle to fire him, are trying to re-fire him — because the court battle damaged his credibility. The department fired Tim Haselden in 2005 after police were called to two off-duty confrontations between him and his wife. He was never charged with wrongdoing, but internal D.C. investigators alleged that he was drunk and had attacked his wife. An administrative hearing judge disagreed, ruling that Haselden had been sober and had tried to defuse the confrontations. The judge ordered Haselden, an 18-year veteran, put back on the job earlier this year. But after published reports claimed...

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Tax scam mastermind’s brother gets 4 years in prison for role

The younger brother of self-confessed D.C. tax scam mastermind Harriette Walters is off to prison, having pleaded guilty to helping his big sister siphon off millions in the city’s largest-ever public corruption scandal. U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. sentenced Richard Walters to more than four years behind bars and three years of probation for his role in the $48 million, decades-long scam. Under a deal reached in the summer, Richard Walters, 49, agreed to plead guilty and to testify against Harriette Walters, a former D.C. tax office bureaucrat who bilked the public out of millions through hundreds of phony property tax refunds. Shortly after Richard Walters’...

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Foggy Bottom residents angry at transfer of popular cop

Neighbors in Foggy Bottom are outraged that they’re losing a popular police lieutenant who they say is being punished for his good deeds. Lt. Phil Lanciano has been a fixture in the upscale neighborhood for years but he was recently — and suddenly — transferred to the ultraviolent 6th District, east of the Anacostia River. It’s a move that’s outraged neighbors, who say that police Chief Cathy Lanier and Mayor Adrian Fenty are asset-stripping their neighborhood. “Another Fenty hatchet job,” resident Marilyn Rubin told The Examiner. “The neighborhood is shocked and outraged.” Lanier announced the transfer in an internal memo that went...

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D.C. deputy police chief demoted

A former top aide to D.C. Chief of Police Cathy Lanier has been demoted for the second time in his career. Josh Ederheimer had risen to become deputy chief under Lanier, but an order obtained by The Examiner shows he has been reduced in rank to captain at the end of October and moved out of his key position. Lanier brought Ederheimer back to the department from the Police Executive Research Forum, a D.C. think tank that hired him after he was demoted from commander by Lanier’s predecessor, Charles Ramsey. Ederheimer was instrumental in helping the department get out from under onerous Justice Department monitoring of police violence. His steady demeanor and rigid professionalism...

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Officials at D.C. agencies routinely overspend by millions, review finds

District of Columbia officials routinely violated city spending laws, burning through tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and raising disturbing questions about whether the public’s purse is being carefully watched. The D.C. Anti-Deficiency Act sets strict limits on agency spending. City officials racked up more than 400 violations of the law between fiscal 2005 and 2007, internal reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show. Agencies exceeded their budgets by at least $1 million nearly 100 times in fiscal 2006 and 2007, the reports of the Anti-Deficiency Act board show. The worst offenders were the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration,...

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D.C. court backs police barricades

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s controversial neighborhood barricades cleared a major hurdle Thursday when a federal judge ruled that the public has “an overwhelming need” to be protected from violence. “Suffice it to say that the public’s interest in deterring violent crime of this type through a checkpoint program this carefully crafted is overwhelming,” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon wrote, in denying a legal petition that sought to prevent the city from using the checkpoints until a lawsuit challenging their constitutionality could be heard. “Simply put, to take this arrow out of [D.C. police’s] quiver on such a weak showing as to its...

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3 Minute Interview - Heidi M. Pasichow

Heidi M. Pasichow, 54, will be formally sworn in this afternoon as the newest associate judge in D.C. Superior Court. A longtime area resident, she earned her bachelor’s degree from George Washington University and her law degree at American University. She’ll serve a 15-year term after two decades as a D.C. prosecutor. Are you having a good time? I am having a good time. It is a real welcome challenge. What was it like to put on the robes the first time and walk into your courtroom, having everybody stand? I felt, and I continue to feel, honored and humbled by the experience. I’ve wanted to do this for a while. I was really hoping that the moment would come that I...

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Former government contractor faces prison time for role in kickback scheme

A former government contractor faces prison this week after admitting he concealed income from a kickback scheme that cheated taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Charles Anthony “Tony” Wehausen was indicted last year on charges that he and several of his friends doctored work orders and invoices on machinery contracts for a U.S. Health and Human Services building on Independence Avenue and a Social Security Administration building on C Street Southwest. The subcontractors who were paid under the phony invoices then shipped money back to Wehausen, according to court documents. The scheme netted nearly $375,000 from the U.S. General Services Administration between...

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Nearly a dozen area cops enter online ‘Finest Ms. Officer’ contest

Photos of at least 10 local police officers in various states of undress popped up on a radio station’s Web site, where visitors are being urged to vote for the area’s “Finest Ms. Officer.” The contest is sponsored by hip-hop and R&B station WKYS-FM. It was inspired by rap star Lil Wayne’s runaway hit, “Mrs. Officer,” wherein the crooner declares his lust for a female cop. “We decided to pay tribute to female officers all across our area,” WKYS program director Al Payne told The Examiner. The contestants apparently didn’t violate any department rules, local police officials told The Examiner. This was in part because, in the...

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Lanier boots 2nd District commander after less than a year

Months after denying reports of a shake-up in a Northwest police district, Chief Cathy Lanier has replaced the commander with her agency’s former internal affairs leader. Mark Carter had served as commander of the 2nd District for less than a year. He’ll be replaced by Inspector Matthew Klein, who was demoted from the head of internal affairs this summer. “I’m acting commander as of Sunday,” Klein told The Examiner. He declined further comment. The Examiner reported in July that Carter was on his way out. He had struggled in his relations with neighbors and anti-crime activists, who said he was aloof and often detached from day-to-day life in the wealthy...

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D.C. forced to pay back $11M in federal education grants

D.C.’s failing school system has handed back more than $11 million to the federal government after an internal investigation determined that officials had illegally overdrawn their federal accounts, The Examiner has learned. The money, coming from 24 separate grants and including interest, was wired back to the U.S. Department of Education last week, finance office e-mails obtained by The Examiner show. The millions represent dollars that were spent beyond grant limits set by the federal government. The overdrafts weren’t discovered until this summer, shortly after State Superintendent Deborah Gist took over the grants office from the public schools and began checking accounts,...

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‘Ringer’ of a lawyer wins millions

Con artists hoping to hustle a fast buck from the federal government quickly learn that Paul Mussenden is a marathoner. Mussenden is an assistant U.S. attorney who concentrates on civil litigation. In three months this summer, he and his team helped taxpayers recoup nearly $16 million in fraud settlements. Nearly $11 million came from D.C. in a settlement over St. Elizabeths Hospital, which is set to be taken over by the feds under the deal Mussenden worked out. The 39-year-old has accomplished all of this without raising his voice, friends and colleagues say. “He just works his tail off,” said Rudy Contreras, chief of the U.S. attorney’s civil division. “He...

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Auditor: Tax office failed to do backgrounds checks

D.C.’s finance office did not check the backgrounds of job applicants who later stole from taxpayers, a new report by the D.C. auditor has concluded. Finance officials under city Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi failed to screen applicants and never checked employees’ backgrounds after they were hired, Deborah Nichols wrote in a report dated Friday. Without “pre-employment background checks, an employee with significant financial problems may be placed in a position of trust where temptation is rigorously tested, the internal control environment is weak and internal controls are nonexistent, inadequate, or function poorly,” Nichols wrote. Friday’s...

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Man’s squalid death spurs vow for agency reform

The squalid end of an elderly, mentally retarded man has forced the Fenty administration into another round of promised reforms of city services. But the administration has refused to bow to public calls for an outside investigation of the man’s awful last days. The 65-year-old, identified only as “Mr. Johnson” in a watchdog agency’s report, slipped into a diabetic coma in a cockroach-and-feces infested apartment in D.C. on Feb. 23. He died, congressionally mandated monitor University Legal Services claimed in its report released last week, because city officials used bureaucratic rules to refuse to admit him into a group home for people with his...

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Sources: D.C. finance workers given ultimatum

At least a dozen D.C. finance office workers have been given an ultimatum — resign or be fired — because their names appeared on checks written by the woman who masterminded the $48 million theft from the office, The Examiner has learned. The employees received money between 2002 and 2007 from Harriette Walters, 51, who is sitting in a federal jail awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to leading the city’s largest public corruption scam, sources said. The city employees’ names were handed over to the finance office by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, according to sources. Their names all appeared on checks written by Walters in those five years, the sources...

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Study: Minority female lawyers hit glass ceiling

Although more than 20 percent of Washington-area law partners are female, only 2 percent of partners are black, Hispanic or Asian women, a new study of law firm hiring practices has found. Minority women continue to struggle to make it to the elite ranks of the legal profession not just in Washington, but nationwide, the National Association for Law Placement found in its annual survey. NALP is a D.C.-based nonprofit group that studies hiring trends in the legal profession. It has been studying the status of minority women in law firms for 16 years. Their percentages have risen slightly, but very slowly, NALP reports. D.C.’s figure is better than the national average —...

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Alexander will break tied Nickles confirmation vote

Yvette Alexander, a once-obscure city bureaucrat and now freshman D.C. councilwoman, represents a key vote over whether to confirm Mayor Adrian Fenty’s controversial attorney general nominee. Alexander, D-Ward 7, is apparently the only undecided vote on the five-member Public Safety and Judiciary Committee on whether Peter Nickles should be the city’s full-time attorney general. The other four members have split. “Everybody wants to talk to me,” she said, sighing before a sometimes contentious public hearing over Nickles on Friday. “I guess I’m the one who gets to decide.” It is a critical vote in Alexander’s young political career. Nickles...

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Police biggest target in Fenty’s $30M budget cuts

Mayor Adrian Fenty on Thursday dropped the ax on dozens of key District of Columbia agencies, including the police department, promising that he would rescue the city from its $131 million budget crisis without disrupting services. In a hastily called news conference one day before the D.C. Council meets to discuss ways to save money, Fenty said his administration would trim more than $30 million by shaving from the budgets of dozens of city agencies, including the police and fire departments, the finance office and the departments of parks and health. The ax falls hardest on the cops, who are losing nearly $4 million under Fenty’s plan. “We want to make sure we live within...

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Amid budget storm, no more “rainy day” fund

The District’s $131-million fiscal wound is partially self-inflicted, after the city eliminated a once-mandatory rainy day fund. In his Thursday proposal to trim the city’s budget, Mayor Adrian Fenty acknowledged that D.C. no longer was setting aside money in a so-called operating cash reserve. For years, Congress required the District to set aside tens of millions in case of economic crisis. The mandate was lifted for this fiscal year and the fund merged into the city’s lawsuit judgments and settlements fund and no new funds were added, Fenty’s budget proposal states. Asked about the rainy day fund at Thursday’s news conference, city administrator Dan...

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Everything you wanted to know about Peter Nickels

Everything you wanted to know about Peter Nickles (but were afraid to ask): * Met his wife, Maria, at lasagna dinner at Harvard. On first date, took her to his criminal law class. * Father, Greek immigrant John Nickles (nee Nikolaides), wanted him to be a doctor. “They had Cadillacs and dressed well,” Peter Nickles recalled. But premed studies “interfered with baseball practice.” * Baseball? Really? “I was a catcher. I was a pitcher, too, but I hit a lot of people. I had a very strong arm but I was a little wild.” * One of his first cases at Covington & Burling involved litigation over land taken by Fidel Castro after the Cuban revolution. *...

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Fenty’s lightning-rod attorney general nominee tackles tasks head-on

Peter Nickles says he has mellowed with age. Critics say they would hate to have met him in his caustic days. Nickles, 70, will face the public this week, asking to be confirmed as the District of Columbia’s attorney general. More than anyone else in the administration, Nickles has shouldered the responsibility for carrying out what he thinks of as Fenty’s revolution. The Nickles-Fenty partnership was formed before Fenty was born. Nickles befriended Fenty’s parents while vacationing in Maine and has been an unofficial member of the family ever since. He was one of the first people Fenty turned to after winning his historic election in 2006. First, Nickles was a Fenty...

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Convicted career con man facing 130 years buys a little more time

The resume Robert Miller has offered to the public shows that he is a lawyer, a banker and a real estate tycoon. The 54-year-old’s real resume, prosecutors allege, is that of a career con man. He has been arrested 57 times and has been convicted 17 times, on charges ranging from impersonating a lawyer to operating a boat while intoxicated. He has spent nearly 5,000 days in jail. Law enforcement sources grumbled privately Thursday that the smooth-talking Miller might have pulled another fast one. Facing 130 years in prison for bilking hundreds of Baltimore- and Washington-area residents out of nearly $500,000 in a real-estate scam, Miller filed a last-minute, hand-written,...

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City Council calls for outside review of D.C. voting system

District officials should bring in a team of outside experts to conduct “a forensic” review of the city’s antiquated computerized voting system, a D.C. Council report stated Wednesday. “At this stage in the investigation, it is clear that a substantial number of problems exist and that the election process in the District is in need of comprehensive reform,” Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, wrote in her report on the ongoing investigation of the Sept. 9 primary chaos. “In the committee’s opinion, the mistakes of the September primary election brought to the fore larger, systemic deficiencies in the operation of the District’s...

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Walters to meet auditors, tell how she took $50 miliion

Harriette Walters, the self-confessed mastermind of D.C.’s largest-ever public corruption scandal, will meet with private auditors next week to help explain how she and a few friends managed to bilk the public out of nearly $50 million, The Examiner has learned. Walters, 51, has already pleaded guilty to organizing her friends and family in a conspiracy that took tens of millions of dollars through decades’ worth of phony property tax returns. She’ll sit down with lawyers and accountants from WilmerHale, the law firm that has agreed to investigate the scandal for the city council, sources familiar with the investigation told The Examiner. Details of the meeting are still...

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Man sentenced for making teen girl a slave in Germantown

A Nigerian man was sentenced to more than eight years in prison Tuesday on charges that he smuggled a teen into the country so that he and his wife could use the girl as their slave. George Udeozor, 52, had fled to his native Nigeria after police raided his Germantown home in 2001, authorities said. He and his wife, Adaobi Stella Udeozor, a Montgomery County physician, were accused of smuggling the girl in from their native country by using their daughter’s passport in 1996. They told the girl that they planned to adopt her. Instead, they held her as a slave, prosecutors charged. She was ordered to cook and clean and to baby-sit for the Udeozors’ six children. The girl also...

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D.C.’s indigent lack lawyers in civil court, study says

Despite millions pouring in from public and private donations and a city chock-full of lawyers, the District’s poor typically don’t have legal representation when they go into civil court, a new study has found. “Low-income residents face tremendous obstacles in the civil legal system,” D.C.’s publicly appointed Access to Justice Commission reported. “The consequences of unaddressed civil legal problems can be devastating and spill over into other aspects of life.” The commission’s findings, titled “Justice for All?” will be released today. It serves as a kind of report card for how D.C. — with more than 80,000 licensed...

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Computer troubles add to special ed problems

A multimillion-dollar computer system brought in to help save D.C.’s failing special education program doesn’t work with existing school software, and city officials are scrambling to account for thousands of vital records ahead of a crucial audit, The Examiner has learned. Earlier this year, the District signed a $4.2 million contract with the Public Consulting Group for help in organizing thousands of chaotically stored special education files and tracking federal deadlines for updating those files. But e-mails obtained by The Examiner show that the group’s computer tracking system isn’t compatible with the system’s enrollment database. This means officials...

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D.C. officials ‘ineffectively managed’ Eastern Market, audit finds

D.C. officials have “ineffectively managed” the city’s historic Eastern Market, exposing the public’s money to “a total lack of financial and management accountability,” a new audit has found. City council auditor Deborah Nichols reviewed five years of deals at the market and found that city authorities and executives at Eastern Market Ventures, the private nonprofit company asked to run the grand old farm stand, routinely broke rules and laws on contracting and financial management. Conditions may have worsened after the August, 2007 fire that decimated the market, Nichols found. Mayor Adrian Fenty promised to get the market rebuilt better than ever...

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D.C. residents still in shock treatment center

Seven months after D.C. officials promised to have gotten the District’s disabled and mentally ill citizens out of a Massachusetts shock-therapy clinic, three of them still are confined in the school, The Examiner has learned. The Judge Rotenberg Center is one of the only clinics in the country authorized to use electroshock and other “aversive” therapies on its wards. D.C. officials said they were horrified to discover that that the city was paying to house at least 10 mentally ill or disabled children and adults at Rotenberg. Peter Nickles, the city’s interim attorney general, promised to have every D.C. resident out of Rotenberg by March. Yet the clinic...

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Auditor rips ex-head of D.C. property tax board

The chairman of the District’s property tax appeals board led without competence, ignored regulations and accepted ethically questionable campaign donations from people whose appeals were before him, a city auditor charged in a blunt public rebuke. D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols blasted Paul Strauss, a real estate lawyer whose term as head of the Board of Real Property Assessments and Appeals ended last month, for providing “dubious levels of service to residents and businesses.” His failed leadership, Nichols concluded in an audit released Thursday, jeopardized the integrity of the board “and diminish[ed] public trust and confidence” in the board’s...

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Audit blasts D.C. officials’ conduct on funds for teacher training

D.C. school and financial officials broke conflict-of-interest, procurement and federal spending rules to steer $6.2 million to a teachers’ training program, a new city audit has found. The Teachers’ Institute was founded by former Horace Mann Elementary principal Sheila Ford just as she was retiring. It was designed to support D.C.’s beleaguered educators with intense, on-the-job training. But a review by the D.C. inspector general found that Ford inappropriately pitched her services to D.C. officials while still an active employee. Other school officials ignored procurement laws by handing over millions of dollars without a contract before the institute had begun work....

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Call from wife led authorities to crime scene

After Victor Papagno Jr. was arrested on a domestic violence charge in August 2007, his wife, Andrea, told his bosses at the Naval Research Laboratory that she wanted his work stuff out of the house, federal sources said. Navy officials didn’t know what she was talking about. When they showed up at the Papagno’s Calvert County home, authorities found a crime scene: 19,709 pieces of stolen computer equipment from the Navy lab – hard drives, CDs, zip drives, floppy disks – worth up to $1.6 million, according to court documents and Navy officials. Papagno, 40, the computer administrator for the Navy research lab, had accumulated so much hardware that some of the...

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City Paper’s parent files for bankruptcy

The parent company of D.C.’s City Paper filed for bankruptcy Monday, casting a pall over the alternative weekly’s staff and its future. Creative Loafing Inc. is seeking Chapter 11 protection so that it can keep its lenders from carving the company up. “This is something of a shocker,” City Paper Editor Erik Wemple told The Examiner. “But if they can use the reorganization laws under Chapter 11 to give us some breathing room, that’d be great.” Executives stressed the positives Monday, saying that bankruptcy was the best choice for the company. “The company owed more money than it can pay back right now,” Chief Executive Officer Ben...

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Extra money couldn’t prevent D.C.’s vote-counting trouble

Months before phantom ballots wrought havoc with the District’s primary elections, the Fenty administration was warned that the city’s election agency was critically low on funds to handle the polling, The Examiner has learned. Documents and e-mails obtained by The Examiner also show that the Board of Election and Ethics spent six figures beyond its more than $6 million annual budget even though official requests for it had been denied. The board still is trying to account for its handling of the Sept. 9 primary debacle, in which an election machine counted thousands of votes that hadn’t been cast. Officials are worried that the city will be overwhelmed by the expected...

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Mendelson: What’s the holdup on District’s DNA lab?

The Fenty administration is wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars per month and jeopardizing public safety by dragging its feet on building a DNA laboratory, a key D.C. councilman will charge today. Phil Mendelson, one of team Fenty’s most outspoken critics, is scheduled to open hearings today into progress on building the city’s crime lab, a massive public project that has dragged on for years. “It’s not just bricks for bureaucrats,” Mendelson, D-at large, told The Examiner ahead of today’s hearing. “This is about public safety.” D.C. has set aside tens of millions of federal and local dollars to build itself what officials are...

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Rhee stays close to home for special ed chief

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has turned to a long-time loyalist to help her rescue the city’s failing $300 million special education system. Richard Nyankori has been appointed deputy chancellor for special education, Rhee spokeswoman Dena Iverson told The Examiner. He replaces Phyllis Harris, whom Rhee appointed as her $200,000-per year special ed “czar” and who is now on medical leave as she receives treatment for cancer, Iverson said in an e-mail exchange. Nyankori, a former administrator in the Baltimore public schools, is Rhee’s third special ed chieftain in the past 15 months. Rhee demoted then-director Marla Oakes to make room from Harris, whom she...

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3 Minute Interview-Ruttenberg

Daniel Ruttenberg is a partner at the Vienna law firm of Smolen, Plevy. He’s also a vice president of Devotion to Children (devotiontochildren.org), a nonprofit group founded in 1994. Its mission is to help poor families obtain child care and early education. How did you get involved? The co-founder, Rosemary Lauer, told me she really wanted me to come. She told me it would be once a quarter. I’d just have to come to a meeting and give advice. Now I’m vice president, and it’s at least twice a month. What appealed to you about the work? It was a mission I could really get behind. The mission of the charity is to provide child care to these families that otherwise...

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Firing of D.C. rent control boss is hot topic

Landlords and tenants will face off today as the D.C. Council convenes hearings on whether Mayor Adrian Fenty yielded to business interests when he fired the city’s top rent official. Grayce Wiggins was dropped as the city’s rent administrator last month. The Fenty administration has cited its executive privilege — and employee privacy rules — in refusing to discuss the dismissal. Tenants and renters advocates say Wiggins was let go because she sided with the little guys against big developers. The city’s rent administrator has broad authority over thousands of rent-controlled apartments. D.C. law sets strict rules for raising rents in rent-controlled...

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Blue crab disaster declaration will bring federal aid

The federal government is bailing out hard-pressed watermen with a disaster declaration for the region’s collapsing blue crab industry. Maryland lawmakers led by Sen. Barbara Mikulski had sought the declaration by the Commerce Department since May, after Virginia posted a record-low harvest for the delectable crustaceans and Maryland had its lowest catch since 1945. Watermen have chafed under restrictions that cut the numbers of female crabs harvested and also shortened the season. The declaration makes watermen eligible for federal funding to help ease the pressure. Mikulski spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz told The Associated Press that lawmakers must still line up funding —...

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Hundreds of hydrants need repairs or replacement

Hundreds of D.C. fire hydrants remain out of order more than a year after faulty hydrants contributed to a blaze that gutted one of the city’s grand old libraries, The Examiner has learned. At least 208 fire hydrants have quit altogether, D.C. Water and Sewer Authority spokeswoman Pamela Mooring confirmed in an e-mail to The Examiner on Tuesday. Hundreds more are ringed with “maintenance” tags, meaning they need fundamental repairs. The city water agency has spent at least $25 million since 2006 to replace or repair nearly 40 percent of D.C.’s fire hydrants. The problem was highlighted last year by a fire at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library. Firefighters were...

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Tracking bracelet leads to shooting suspect

A court-monitoring ankle bracelet has led authorities to charge a Northwest teenager in the near-fatal shooting of a retired D.C. police officer, The Examiner has learned. Lenny Webb, 18, of the 1300 block of Taylor Street Northwest, is charged as an accessory to the early Tuesday robbery and shooting of John Timbers. Timbers, who had recently retired from a long career in the third police district, was enjoying a cigarette in front of his home on the 5900 block of 13th Street Northwest when he was approached by two young men. One of the youths held up a handgun and said, “You know what time it is, don’t you?” a police source told The Examiner. Timbers reached for his...

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School officials revise grievance process on special ed

Stung by a series of reversals in the troubled special education system, school officials are revising the standards and rules for the officials who hear grievances of special ed parents, internal documents show. Under new rules proposed by State Superintendent Deborah Gist, special ed hearing officers will have to have at least five years of legal experience and can’t work for any school while they perform their duties, according to a memo obtained by The Examiner. Gist is proposing to relax rules, however, that require officers to be members of the D.C. Bar. Instead, they can be members of other state bars who have applied to the D.C. Bar. Hearing officers have broad authority...

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3 Minute Interview Katia Garrett

Katia Garrett is executive director of the D.C. Bar Foundation, the largest private funder of civil legal services in D.C. The foundation gave out about $5 million in grants last year to help aid groups give free legal representation to the poor. The foundation recently announced that it had teamed up with BB&T bank to create a program that will let Washington-area lawyers donate the interest generated by their clients’ escrow accounts to legal aid agencies. It’s the sixth such bank partnership for the foundation. How is the program with BB&T going to help? These funds are one of the primary sources of funds for legal aid groups. When I started here it was $600,00 per...

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D.C.’s ‘unstable’ child welfare system under fire

D.C.’s child welfare agency has become “unstable,” endangering not only children who may be neglected or abused, but harming countless others who rely on the city to help them find caring families, a federal court-appointed monitor has concluded. “Since January, child welfare system performance has suffered across the board,” Judith Meltzer wrote in a Sept. 15 letter to federal Judge Thomas Hogan, who appointed Meltzer and the Center for the Study of Social Policy to monitor D.C.’s failing child protective services. Worse, Meltzer concluded, “there was little evidence of decisive action by the District to stem the protective services crisis and...

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Alleged leader of D.C. tax thefts to plead guilty today

The woman dubbed the mastermind of D.C.’s biggest rip-off ever has agreed to plead guilty to bilking the public out of more than $48 million through three decades of phony property tax refunds, The Examiner has learned. Harriette Walters will plead guilty in federal court today to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of income tax evasion, admitting that she used her position as a midlevel bureaucrat in the city’s tax office to finance a lavish lifestyle that included furs, jewelry, designer handbags, beach mansions in the Caribbean, luxury cars and wild weekends in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, sources told The Examiner. Under the terms of the plea...

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Key player in District tax scam to plead guilty

Harriette Walters, the alleged mastermind behind D.C.’s largest-ever public corruption scandal, has agreed to plea guilty, The Examiner has learned. Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed, but Walters, 51, was charged by information in court papers Monday morning. Defendants can only be charged by information if they waive their right to appear before a grand jury, which is an indication that a plea deal has been worked out. As a mid-level bureaucrat in D.C.’s tax office, Walters is said to have stolen $48 million in public funds through a series of phony property-tax refunds. The scam lasted decades and at its peak was pulling in millions of dollars per month....

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D.C. to pay $1.7M to feds to settle fraud case

District of Columbia officials agreed to pay more than $1.7 million to the federal government to settle claims that city school officials bilked the feds out of millions in grants to help students who didn’t exist. School officials took in millions of public dollars from grants designed to help the children of migrant farmers and fishers over decades. The problem was that a 2005 audit revealed that there were no such children in the school system. The settlement filed Friday allows the District to pay off the federal government without admitting any wrongdoing. It closes one sordid chapter for the city’s troubled $1 billion school system, but it may not be the end of the...

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Broken safes stop officers from arming themselves during Capitol panic

When a man drove up to a Capitol Hill barricade carrying a rifle and live hand grenades last week, dozens of officers were ordered to the 1st District to be armed with newly bought AR-15 assault rifles, just in case. But the safe where the rifles were kept was broken, defying efforts to equip officers with the extra firepower, according to an internal e-mail and police sources. “It appears that our safe became inopperable [sic],” 1st District Cmdr. David Kamperin told his officers in a Sept. 6 e-mail obtained by The Examiner. “As such we will have to suspend deployment of the weapons until the armorers [sic] office can respond out Monday morning and repair.” A week later, the...

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Are we safer?

Since the terrorist attacks of seven years ago today, nearly a half billion dollars in grants have poured into the region to upgrade security while new bureaucracies have emerged with the mandate to make us safe. But has it worked? On one hand, most experts agree that the D.C. area is safer than it was on Sept. 10, 2001. It’s certainly better prepared for a disaster. And yet a sense of unease still exists among security experts, partly because response to some recent episodes has been far from flawless. Last week, after an alert went out that a man had driven up to the Capitol with live hand grenades and a rifle in his car, it took the D.C. police department three hours to dispatch...

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MPD’s internal affairs chief shifted to research job

The head of the D.C. police department’s internal affairs division has been shifted to a research bureau, an internal police memo obtained by The Examiner shows. Inspector Matthew Klein has been in charge of the department’s internal reviews for years. But the department has been shaken by revelations that nearly two dozen officers fired for misconduct had to be reinstated because the department routinely violated their due process rights. Those officers have since been re-fired and are suing the city for tens of millions of dollars, alleging that Chief Cathy Lanier reneged on lawsuit settlements to re-sack them. Though not officially a demotion, Klein is losing a job with...

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Examiner Exclusive: Hundreds of police reports missing

D.C. police have mislaid hundreds of reports from some of the city's most violent neighborhoods and officers are feverishly trying to reproduce them, internal documents show and a police source said. The reports document police actions in response to emergency calls. At least 389 emergency calls, logged between January and May in Ward 8 and ranging from “sounds of gunshots” to sexual assault, have yet to be reconciled with detailed police reports, according to department documents. A police source said department brass had ordered officers to start from scratch and to rewrite the reports from memory. The missing reports, detailed in an Aug. 11 police memo, raise disturbing...

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Report: Fenty team has failed to help the mentally retarded

The Fenty administration has failed in its promises to protect and improve the lives of the city’s mentally retarded and disabled, two federal court monitors determined in a new report. The District has been the defendant in a massive class-action lawsuit alleging that it was indifferent to the mistreatment of its mentally retarded and disabled wards since 1976. Two years into the Fenty regime, court-appointed monitors Clarence Sundram and Margaret G. Farrell found that “the end result is substantially the same as it has been in the past.” The report was the latest in a series of scathing reviews of Fenty’s reforms this summer. Two weeks ago, a separate court...

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2 cops who killed boy return to work

D.C. officers spent nearly a year on paid leave during shooting probe Two D.C. police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy that divided the city and drove a wedge between city cops and the Fenty administration have been ordered back on the job, The Examiner has learned. Officers James Haskel and Anthony Clay spent nearly a year on paid leave while authorities investigated their off-duty shooting of DeOnte Rawlings in an alley in Southeast. The men were cleared of criminal wrongdoing earlier this year and now have been ordered back on the job — Haskel without discipline and Clay with an official reprimand for having used the wrong kind of ammunition in his...

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Report: $2.3M spent on ineffective firm

Private contract meant to revolutionize special ed system lasted just months D.C. school officials gave $2.3 million to a Pennsylvania firm to help the schools fight their special education crisis, only to scrap the contract within months, The Examiner has learned. The city’s contract with Columbus Educational Services was supposed to help D.C. rehabilitate its $300 million-plus education system by bringing in an outside consulting firm that would rapidly respond to the needs of disabled or ill children. But Columbus “never hired the number of staff anticipated,” suffered from “internal management shortcomings” and was subject to “inadequate management...

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Appeals court revives stuck pedestrian’s decade-old suit against D.C.

A D.C. man suing over an accident with a District police vehicle will get another chance in court after the city’s highest court of appeals ruled the jury was given faulty instructions. Joseph Juvenalis will receive a new trial more than a decade after he lost his first personal injury claim against the city, thanks to a three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals. Juvenalis was more than three times over the legal limit for drunkenness when he wandered into the middle of U Street and was struck by a speeding D.C. police van in 1998. He was tossed several feet into the air and landed on the hood of another passing car. The jury determined the officer driving the van, Wayne...

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Court rules energy revenues need not be revealed

What do power companies earn from customers in the D.C. region? None of your business, the companies say — and they’ve got D.C.’s appellate court to back them up. The Office of the People’s Counsel, a utility watchdog, had sued to force the D.C. Public Service Commission to publish the locally generated revenues of such mega-firms as Verizon, PEPCO and Washington Gas Light Company. The commission has broad authority over energy companies doing business in the city. The people’s counsel wanted to determine whether the public was entitled to a rebate under local laws regulating fees. But the commission denied the request — saying that revenue data can be...

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Court monitor: D.C. officials fudge numbers about failing schools

More than a year after Mayor Adrian Fenty took over the city’s crumbling school system, D.C. continues to fail disabled and ill students in their care, a federal court monitor has concluded in a scathing new report. D.C. promised to meet federal deadlines for testing or treating special education students in 90 percent of its cases by June. But a report by federal court monitor Amy Totenberg finds that the city has “not come close.” “It is clear that creative and ambitious plans, talented staff and new resources are not enough,” Totenberg wrote, blasting a “failure” to plan ahead, “confusing lines of authority and responsibility, a lack of...

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Report finds charter schools lag in aiding ill, disabled students

D.C.’s charter schools are faring even worse than the public schools in getting help for disabled and ill students, a federal court monitor is reporting. Federal law requires children with special needs to be tested and served on tight deadlines. But charter school officials routinely miss the deadlines, court monitor Amy Totenberg reported in court papers filed last week. The charters are testing children on time less than 30 percent of the time and providing education plans on time barely 10 percent of the time, Totenberg reported. The blown deadlines leave children with disabilities from verbal tics to Down syndrome without critical care required by federal law. It also drives up...

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Fenty freezes hiring, cuts budget of committee to prevent child deaths

Mayor Adrian Fenty has instituted a hiring freeze and is slashing the budget of the city agency charged with making recommendations to prevent children’s deaths in D.C., The Examiner has learned. The Child Fatality Review Committee looks over every child’s death in D.C. and compiles an annual report designed to help city leaders shape policies to protect kids. In February. Fenty froze its staff, leaving the committee with several unfilled positions, including a key coordinator. Last month, Fenty slashed the committee’s budget by $800,000, saying that the Fire Department needed the money because it had run over its budget for medical supplies. The...

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Parents ask judge to hold DC in contempt

Parents taking on D.C.’s beleaguered child welfare system have lost faith in Mayor Adrian Fenty’s reform efforts and are asking a federal judge to hold the city in contempt, according to court documents obtained by The Examiner. D.C. has been subjected to class-action litigation over its troubled child welfare bureaucracy for more than two decades. Modest progress had been made, advocates said, but parents in the class-action suit said in court papers that Fenty “has allowed the child welfare system to return to a dysfunctional state.” “Given ... the deteriorating performance of the child welfare system, plaintiffs can no longer rely on District government to...

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The 3-Minute Interview: Matt Fraidin

Matt Fraidin, 42, is an associate professor at the University of the District of Columbia’s law school. He just won a $75,000 grant from the D.C. Superior Court to run a legal aid clinic that will help poor parents take on D.C.’s child welfare bureaucracy. It’s the first of its kind in the Washington area and the fourth such clinic in the U.S. Why does D.C. need a child welfare clinic? Because too many children are unnecessarily separated from their families, and giving parents a real voice is the best way to protect children and strengthen families. You’ll agree, though, that some parents can’t raise kids, right? How do you tell the difference? Interesting....

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Disproportionate number of black children removed by child-welfare officials, study shows

Black children in Maryland are being removed from their homes by child-welfare officials at five times the rate of white children, a new study by a nonprofit child advocacy organization has found. Black kids make up about one-third of Maryland’s child population, yet nearly 75 percent of children pulled from their homes by the state are black, according to an August study by Advocates for Youth & Children, a Silver Spring-based nonprofit group that studies the child welfare bureaucracy. The racial disparity in Maryland is nearly 50 percent higher than the nation’s overall racial disparity, Advocates reports in its latest newsletter. The Examiner has written extensively on...

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Chevy Chase residents demanding Fenty intervene, stop road plans

Frustrated with the city’s handling of a $3 million federally funded road project, neighbors in the upscale Chevy Chase neighborhood have asked Mayor Adrian Fenty to intervene. Neighbors say they were ambushed and then shut out by the District Department of Transportation’s decision to tear up a stretch of Nebraska Avenue between Utah and Oregon streets Northwest. They held a stormy meeting with D.C. Councilwoman Muriel Bowser last week but didn’t get the answers they wanted. Now they’ve taken their case to Fenty. “Please help us to protect the environment, improve safety and calm traffic,” Diana and Tom Bulger wrote to the mayor in the letter....

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The 3-minute interview: E. Faye Williams

E. Faye Williams is the chair of the National Congress of Black Women, a nonprofit group founded in 1984. It claims 20,000 members nationwide, mostly professional black women. Williams, a law school graduate who also has a doctorate and serves as a health care company executive, is leading her group in a campaign to have a statue of famed abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth placed in the U.S. Capitol.Why do we need another statue on Capitol Hill?We need role models for our young children. We try to raise......

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The 3-minute interview: Toni Goodman

Toni Goodman is chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington.The center, located in Montgomery County, offers fitness and continuing education classes, and serves as a preschool and camp open to all children. The center served more than 25,000 hot lunches to the poor last year. How long have you been on the job?I’ve been in this job for a little more than two years, but I started at the JCC in 1972. I was a nursery school teacher.Where are you from?If I keep talking, you’ll hear......

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The 3-minute interview: Justin Chittams

Justin Chittams, 18, of Southeast, recently won a scholarship to the University of Hawaii to study marine biology. He has been fascinated by sharks since he first turned on the Discovery Channel at age 4. He also is a longtime tour guide at the Holocaust Museum, and a......

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The 3-minute interview: Bob Beaulieu

For 32 years, owner Bob Beaulieu has presided over the dark wood, dim light, heavy drinks and purple haze at the Post Pub in downtown D.C., one of the last respectable newsies’ joints on the Eastern Seaboard.Why did you buy the pub?My brother asked me if I wanted to get into a bar with him. I said, "Sure, let’s give it a try." I don’t even know why. I was just young. Why have you been able to hang on so long?I didn’t get to the point where I was......

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The 3-minute interview: Erica Anderson

Erica Anderson, 23, was recently appointed MTV’s District of Columbia correspondent, reporting on D.C. affairs for the music network as it covers the national elections and tries to get young people out to vote.What are you going to do that’s different from what previous [MTV] correspondents have done?I come from the Midwest, so I bring that perspective. I think......

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The 3-minute interview: Charles Fishman

Charles Fishman, 66, is D.C.’s jazz man. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Fishman retired from managing such legends as Dizzy Gillespie a few years ago and helped found D.C.’s annual Duke Ellington Jazz Festival. Now 66, Fishman lives in Adams Morgan.......

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The 3-minute interview: Frank Haendler

The U.S. Geological Survey recently announced that the old Fort Reno in Tenleytown is D.C.’s highest elevation point. Among those celebrating the designation over the weekend was Frank Haendler, 77, a retired civil servant and Tenleytown’s unofficial historian. What is the high-point celebration?There’s some disagreement as to where the high point in the Continued...

 

The 3-minute interview: Peter Nickles

Published: Dec 28, 2007

Peter Nickles, 69, is the District of Columbia’s next acting attorney general. He has already been the lead lawyer on a host of litigation involving special education, juvenile justice and mental health services. You’ve talked about Adrian Fenty bringing "competence." But didn’t your client campaign on a promise of excellence? The mayor campaigned on a platform of excellence.......

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Duo’s letter cites ‘major concerns’ on Nebraska Avenue project

Published: Aug 07, 2008

Neighbors in the chic Chevy Chase-D.C. neighborhood are being spurred to action by a massive road project that they say threatens the local environment. Millions of taxpayer dollars have poured in from the federal government to help D.C. rebuild Nebraska Avenue between Utah and Oregon streets Northwest. But at a neighborhood meeting this week, city roads officials conceded that they hadn’t yet conducted an environmental impact study. That has angered engineer James R. Collier and local environmentalist Beth Mullin. The two are drafting a letter to city officials saying they have “major concerns” about the Nebraska Avenue project, most stemming from the city’s...

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Many cops on brutality watch list work in most violent D.C. districts

Published: Jul 24, 2008

Dozens of police officers in D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods are getting red flags on their files and being referred to a special department program that aims to prevent brutality before it happens, internal police documents show.Eighty-four officers in the 5th, 6th and 7th police districts have been referred to the department’s "supervisory support program" because the bosses are worried that they are too aggressive, a July 13 internal police report obtained by The Examiner shows. That’s nearly 40 percent of the total officers on the watch list, according to the......

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District mulls stop to detaining youth offenders alongside adults

Published: Jul 17, 2008

The District of Columbia is considering a bill that would keep youthful suspects out of grown-up jails while they await trial. Legislation introduced by Democratic Councilmen Phil Mendelson and Tommy Wells would allow children charged as adults to petition the city’s courts so that they can stay out of adult jail. Wells and Mendelson say that nearly half of teenagers charged as adults in crimes are never convicted. But their time in adult jails brutalizes them and serves as a kind of boot camp for future felons, the councilmen claim.......

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Violence continues to plague D.C. schools, monitor reports

Published: Jul 14, 2008

Violence against city schoolchildren continues to bedevil D.C. parents, a top school monitor has reported. Tonya Kinlow, D.C.’s school ombudsman, filed long-overdue activity reports for March, April and May last week. Of the hundreds of parents who have come to her for help negotiating the $1 billion school bureaucracy, nearly one out of every five is worried about the safety of his or her children, Kinlow found. Worse, Kinlow wrote, school officials have often blamed the victims.  "For example, if the......

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Councilman urges gun law passage

Published: Jul 09, 2008

D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson is brushing aside warnings from Adrian Fenty’s administration to back away from gun-control legislation, and is urging his colleagues to adopt emergency laws next week.Mendelson, D-at large, told fellow council members that they should pass a new law before they recess for the summer on July 16. The District has only a few days left to comply with the Supreme Court’s monumental ruling that struck down D.C.’s restrictive......

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Beautician to testify against accused tax scam mastermind

Published: Jul 08, 2008

A Southeast beautician has agreed to turn evidence against his longtime friend and accused tax scam mastermind Harriette Walters, The Examiner has learned. Samuel Earl Pope helped Walters launder $1.6 million in stolen bogus tax refunds through a beauty salon he ran, according to court documents. In federal court today, he will plead guilty to conspiracy and mail fraud. He will also agree to testify against Walters, whom he met when she came to the salon to have her hair and......

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Reinstated cops to sue D.C. for $140M

Published: Jul 08, 2008

Nearly two dozen D.C. police officers who were fired for misconduct but were reinstated after a court found the police department violated their due process rights are suing the city for a total of $140 million, according to court documents.The officers charge that Chief Cathy Lanier went back on agreements to bring them back to work, according to the lawsuit filed earlier this month. The 20 officers were all fired over the course of several years for a variety of causes.......

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D.C. police chiefreshuffling brass, replacing two high-level officers

Published: Jul 07, 2008

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier is shaking up her command staff again, dropping her top anti-terrorism officer and replacing a commander whom she elevated barely three months ago, The Examiner has learned. The overhaul, expected to be announced later this week, removes Robert Crane, commander of special operations and homeland security. Also being replaced is Mark Carter of the 2nd Police District, who......

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Inmate back in custody after being mistakenly released

Published: Jul 05, 2008

Maryland prison officials released a manconvicted of attempted murderer one day after he was found guilty of a host of felonies, state corrections officials have acknowledged. Calvin Boswell was convicted in April of several charges, including attempted murder, and was supposed to be held in jail until his June sentencing. He’s back in custody now, but jail officials released Boswell on April 22. State officials are blaming the error on an antiquated records......

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Nickles asks council to hold off on revising gun rules

Published: Jul 03, 2008

An attempt to redraft D.C.’s gun laws in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling misfired Wednesday when Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration boycotted a council hearing and asked a councilman via letter to put the legislation on hold.The council’s Judiciary Committee took up a bill that proponents say would comply with the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in D.C. v. Heller, which struck down D.C.’s ban on handguns, while......

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D.C. schools crack down on enrollment

Published: Jul 03, 2008

D.C. school officials may soon be making house calls.In enrollment packets being sent to parents around the city, families are being asked to sign waivers to allow school officials to come to a student’s home to verify residency. Jennifer Calloway, spokeswoman for schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, said the waiver stems from a long-ignored law that requires the school system to make sure every child is a D.C. resident. "We only ask parents......

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African Americans in D.C. bear burden of subprime mortgage crisis, report finds

Published: Jul 01, 2008

African-Americans in Washington are living on the knife’s edge of the subprime mortgage crisis, a city government study has found. Nearly seven out of every 10 of the loans in D.C. have gone to African Americans, most of them poor or lower middle class, the city’s Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking report found Monday. And, experts say, the bill is coming due: Foreclosures in D.C. have doubled between 2005 and 2007 and have continued to rise through the first quarter of......

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Suspect in death of cop dies in custody

Published: Jun 30, 2008

Two days after asking the public’s help to catch a cop killer, Prince George’s County officials were asking the public’s indulgence as they investigate how the suspect in that case died in their care. Ronnie L. White was foundsitting on the floor of his cell late Sunday morning, slumped against his bunk and unresponsive. He had been charged with first-degree murder in the ramming death of veteran Prince George’s officer Continued...

 

Lanier lied about training of checkpoint officers, union says

Published: Jun 24, 2008

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier gave "demonstrably false" testimony when she denied reports that untrained officers were dispatched to her controversial neighborhood barricades, a union representing D.C.’s rank-and-file police officers charged Monday. Requesting a formal inspector general’s investigation into Lanier’s testimony on her neighborhood quarantine program, Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Kristopher Baumann said Lanier "may have provided misleading and inaccurate information" to the D.C. Council. At the......

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Contract dispute stalls senior center

Published: Jun 23, 2008

Construction on an $8 million senior center in Northwest has ground to a halt in a dispute over late payments, chaotic city management and a favored plumbing contractor, The Examiner has learned. After 11 months of fighting, D.C. has terminated Garcete Construction Co.’s contract for the wellness center on the 3500 block of Georgia Avenue Northwest. The dispute, which is now headed for litigation, has stalled a decade-long plan for the facility. "Here we go again," said District Continued...

 

Teen sues D.C. for $10M, saying city put her in clinic where she was raped

Published: Jun 19, 2008

A D.C. teen has filed a $10 million lawsuit against the city, alleging that child welfare bureaucrats negligently consigned her to a Pennsylvania clinic where she was raped by a trusted counselor.The federal lawsuit also names KidsPeace Corporation, the nonprofit group that runs the clinic where the girl was raped in 2005. KidsPeace counselor Jerry McChristian......

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Storms cause widespread outages, minor injuries

Published: Jun 17, 2008

Mother Nature gave the D.C. region a thrashing late Monday, cutting off power to tens of thousands, snarling the evening commute and injuring tourists on the National Mall. Heavy rains lashed out from darkened skies in the late afternoon. Three adults and seven juveniles were rushed to hospitals for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries after a tent collapsed on the Mall, according to the U.S. Park Police. Authorities had to slash the......

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Memos defend legality of checkpoints amid criticism

Published: Jun 16, 2008

City lawyers scrambled to recast legal justifications for Mayor Adrian Fenty’s controversial neighborhood anti-crime program within a week of throwing up police checkpoints and limiting entrance to the violence-wracked Trinidad neighborhood, internal documents obtained by The Examiner show. On June 4, the day Fenty announced his no-go zones, Deputy Attorney General Wayne C. Witkowski wrote a memo in defense of the roadblocks. Witkowksi relied on a Continued...

 

Court nixed neighborhood checkpoint in the ’90s

Published: Jun 11, 2008

Nearly two decades before Mayor Adrian Fenty’s attempt to quarantine dangerous neighborhoods, D.C.’s appellate court said no way to a police cordon planned for the same area. In a 1991 decision, the D.C. Court of Appeals — the highest court of review for local government — ruled that a checkpoint on Montello Avenue violated the civil rights of two men who were arrested at barricades. "The purported deterrence rationale......

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Reston firm fined for shipping prohibited parts to China

Published: Jun 07, 2008

A Reston company was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine Friday for shipping high-tech parts to China without permission from the U.S. government. Wavelab Inc., had already pleaded guilty to violating U.S. trade law when it shipped power amplifiers to China and agreed to forfeit some $85,000 in profits from the deal. The company's lawyer, Alan Yamamoto, downplayed Friday's sentencing as a paperwork error. "There was a mistake in how they interpreted a regulation," he said. "They immediately ceased production and have applied for and are awaiting a license from......

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Constitutional scholars pan plan to seal zones

Published: Jun 05, 2008

Constitutional scholars threw cold water on Mayor Adrian Fenty’s plan to quarantine violent neighborhoods, warning that the effort to establish sealed off zones may well be headed for court. "It’s still a free country," said District Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University. "You can travel where you want and not have to explain......

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D.C. tax official, boyfriend charged in new scam

Published: Jun 04, 2008

Federal authorities have charged a D.C. tax official and her boyfriend with running a phony refund scheme at the same time a different group was ripping off the city, The Examiner has learned. Jacqueline Wright and Michael Clark stole nearly $185,000 in a series of phony income tax returns, documents filed in federal court show. The two have waived their rights to appear before the grand jury and are engaged in plea......

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After 4 girls’ slayings, welfare agency floods family court with abuse cases

Published: Jun 03, 2008

Stung by revelations that they may have abandoned four girls to the mercy of a deranged mother, D.C. child welfare bureaucrats have flooded the city courts with abuse and neglect cases, an Examiner analysis found. In the first quarter of the year, the Child and Family Services Agency brought 257 abuse or neglect complaints to D.C. family court, records show. That’s nearly a 60 percent increase from the same time last year. In nearly nine out of 10 of those cases, officials have taken children out of their homes while......

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Yearbook salesman gets two years for scam

Published: May 31, 2008

A former yearbook salesman will spend the next two-plus years behind bars after he admitted to gouging area colleges and schools and skimming off the top. Joseph Wenzl also was ordered to hand over $550,000 in restitution as part of a plea deal. A former regional sales representative for a Taylor Publishing, a Texas-based yearbook company, Wenzl, 41, admitted that he got his......

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Alleged ringleader’s brother admits to role in D.C. tax theft

Published: May 30, 2008

The ground beneath D.C.’s alleged tax scam ringleader Harriette Walters became more unstable Thursday when her baby brother agreed to testify against her in the District’s largest ever public corruption scandal. Speaking in a rich baritone, Richard J. Walters admitted in federal court in Greenbelt that he helped his sister kite phony tax refund checks through his plumbing company. Walters, 49, will be sentenced in the late summer or early fall.The bag......

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Alleged theft mastermind’s brother may plead guilty

Published: May 29, 2008

The younger brother of alleged D.C. tax scam mastermind Harriette Walters is expected to plead guilty to his role in the city’s largest ever public corruption scandal, The Examiner has learned. Richard Walters, 49, is scheduled to appear in federal court in Greenbelt today. According to court records obtained by The Examiner and sources close to the ongoing investigation, the junior Walters will admit that he helped his sister cash and distribute......

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D.C. finance office workers took thousands in funds, report says

Published: May 26, 2008

Employees in D.C.’s finance office helped themselves to thousands of dollars from an emergency cash fund that was supposed to help city workers, The Examiner has learned. Three employees, including a high-ranking finance official, have been fired in the wake of the scandal, sources familiar with an ongoing investigation said.Employees were helping themselves to petty cash from boxes around the city, the sources said. They were also keeping cash and checks from payments back into the fund to cover themselves in case their drawers were short, the sources said. The......

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Police union chief blasts Lanier over defense of embattled deputy

Published: May 24, 2008

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier's devotion to a controversial deputy belies her claim to want to clean up the force, the police's union leader said Friday.Assistant Chief Winston Robinson has thrived for two decades in the department despite a history that includes an off-duty run-in with other police officers and beingdisciplined last year for taking an off-the-books consulting job in South America."I find it hard to understand how you can have officials......

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Computer glitch rectified; catch-up tax bills mailed

Published: May 21, 2008

A computer glitch in the troubled D.C. property tax office gave free passes to hundreds of city residents for several months, but they are now getting whopping catch-up bills in the mail. Finance office spokesman David Umansky blamed the goof on the computer consultant paid to handle online property tax payments. He said that at least 300 taxpayers were given double credits for single payments in the spring of 2007. "They figured out what was wrong with the problem and it’s......

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Report: Clinic treats brain-damaged patients ‘like garbage’

Published: May 20, 2008

Brain-damaged D.C. kids and adults are being "treated like garbage" in a Florida clinic that takes in tens of millions of public dollars, a scathing new report found.The University Legal Services report paints a grim picture of the lives of D.C. residents shipped off to the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation. Patients there showed scars from "horseplay" with staff, are routinely slammed to the ground by staff, locked away in......

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Park Service defends actions after finding arsenic at Fort Reno

Published: May 15, 2008

The National Park Service was fending off uncomfortable questions Wednesday after it waited 14 hours to tell the public that one of Northwest’s most popular parks was potentially tainted with poison. The Park Service and U.S. Park Police swooped into Fort Reno Park early Wednesday, moving out pedestrians and throwing up storm fences. Officials said satellite pictures from the Continued...

 

Bill could give federal oversight to private clinics for children and would require FDA inspections

Published: May 15, 2008

In a move that could have implications for D.C.’s troubled special education system, a panel of lawmakers Wednesday passed sweeping legislation that gives federal authorities the right to inspect private children’s clinics and schools. The bill would require the federal Department of Health and Human Services to inspect therapeutic schools, clinics, camps and ranches every two years and to fine or shut down any outfit that fails minimum standards for safety and care. It passed the......

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Caribbean casino firm has eyes on District’s lottery contract

Published: May 14, 2008

A Caribbean casino company with ties to two of Washington’s high-profile businessmen is vying for control of the city’s lucrative lottery contract, The Examiner has learned.The company, which calls itself Caribbean Gaming, has already started lobbying city officials, sources told The Examiner. Robert Johnson, billionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television, and Continued...

 

Lottery contract on D.C. Council agenda

Published: May 13, 2008

In a surprising reversal, D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray has agreed to put a contentious lottery contract on today’s voting agenda. Gray had resisted pressure to the put the $120 million contract up for a vote, but the matter was quietly slipped on the council’s calendar Monday afternoon. If ratified, the deal would sever the city’s 25-year relationship with Lottery Technology Enterprises and its president, Continued...

 

D.C. Council to decide today on $120 million lottery contract

Published: May 13, 2008

In a surprising reversal, D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray has agreed to put a contentious lottery contract on today’s voting agenda. Gray had resisted pressure to put the $120 million contract up for a vote, but the matter was quietly slipped on the council’s calendar Monday afternoon. If ratified, the deal would sever the city’s 25-year relationship with Lottery Technology Enterprises and its president, Continued...

 

Police told of monitoring problems in cell before suicide

Published: May 10, 2008

 Five months before a woman hanged herself in a D.C. police cell this week, an internal review warned authorities that the cell blocks weren't properly staffed and monitored, The Examiner has learned. In a memo dated Jan. 14 and labeled "Station Deficiencies," Sgt. Miriam D. Rayfield warned her superiors that the cell block in the Fourth District police station suffered from "inadequate staffing," poor training and a broken-down camera system. "The cameras in cell block #2, 4, 5 and 7 are......

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D.C. police group disinvites Fenty over treatment of cops in shooting

Published: May 09, 2008

Outraged over Mayor Adrian Fenty’s treatment of police officers involved in the  fatal shooting of a District youth, a lodge for D.C.’s rank-and-file police has told the mayor he’s not welcome at an annual ceremony for slain officers.The Fraternal Order of Police’s lodge sent a letter Thursday saying a previous invitation to the mayor was being rescinded. It cited Fenty’s response to the shooting death of DeOnte Rawlings, 14, in a Southeast......

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D.C. finds attempt to access lottery system

Published: May 08, 2008

D.C. officials flagged a "suspicious" attempt to log on to the city’s lottery system, and District officials are worried that, two years after the network was gamed by hackers, the system may still be vulnerable, The Examiner has learned. According to "incident reports" generated by the D.C. lottery board, Lottery Technology Enterprises told the city that someone made several attempts to log on to a lottery machine that was already in use. LTE has told the city that the March 5 incident was an isolated glitch, but city finance officials......

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Glitch in lottery machines left $2.5M in flux, director says

Published: May 07, 2008

The failure of 17 lottery machines in D.C. last week left officials scrambling to account for $2.5 million in revenue, District officials told The Examiner. Jay Young, chief operating officer for the city’s lottery board, said the glitch automatically invalidated dozens of scratch-off lottery tickets. At least 25 people with winning tickets worth relatively small amounts couldn’t redeem them, Young said. The city is looking into the complaints.It also knocked out the lottery’s automated accounting system, forcing officials to add the......

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Finance office to scrap tax system hit in audit

Published: May 06, 2008

The District of Columbia’s finance office will scrap a $120 million computerized tax system that has been the subject of a lacerating audit, The Examiner has learned. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi told D.C. Council members Monday morning that the system will be put out to bid. Stephen M.......

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Guilty plea in D.C. tax office case

Published: May 03, 2008

The man charged with laundering the stolen money in D.C.'s biggest public corruption case has agreed to plead guilty and now faces more than seven years in prison, authorities announced Friday. Ricardo Walters was accused of moving nearly $5 million stolen with fraudulent property tax refund checks through his bank accounts, spending it lavishly on a high-rolling lifestyle and doling out millions to friends and co-defendants. He is the first person to plead guilty in the scandal. Under the plea deal......

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Fenty says no apology to officers over teen's killing

Published: May 03, 2008

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty refused to apologize Friday for his handling of the police-involved fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy. One day after federal prosecutors cleared veteran officers James Haskel and Anthony Clay in the Sept. 17 shooting death of DeOnte Rawlings, Fenty was asked to respond for the officers' demand for an apology.......

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Pricey tax credit program falls far short of job-creation goal

Published: May 01, 2008

A multimillion-dollar tax credit program that was supposed to create more than 3,000 new jobs for District residents has fallen far short of that goal, and two D.C. Council members are calling for an audit, The Examiner has learned. The Certified Capital Companies Act set aside $50 million in 2003 to create more than 3,000 new jobs by subsidizing insurance companies that did business in and from D.C. But internal figures obtained by The Examiner show that......

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Failure to deport arrested illegals cited as cause behind continued crime woes

Published: Apr 30, 2008

Federal immigration officials failed to deport an illegal immigrant facing gang-related charges who is now charged with murdering a rival in a Springfield Mall parking lot.Rafael "Cheve" Parada-Mendoza was supposed to be deported by the Department of Homeland Security in 2006. Instead, he stayed in the United States and, according to a federal indictment unsealed in Arlington last week, fatally shot......

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Company with family ties nets more than $30M in contracts

Published: Apr 29, 2008

The top contracting adviser to D.C. school construction czar Allen Lew is the son-in-law of an executive whose company has netted tens of millions in contracts from Lew’s agency, The Examiner has learned. As the leading procurement consultant in Lew’s agency, Thomas D. Bridenbaugh has broad authority over lucrative deals in the $2 billion-plus school facilities agency. He is also the husband to Continued...

 

Two alleged MS-13 members indicted on murder charges

Published: Apr 26, 2008

TwoVirginia men have been indicted on murder and racketeering charges, accused of gunning down a rival gang member in a Springfield parking lot so that they could improve their profile in the notorious MS-13 street gang. Federal prosecutors allege in documents unsealed Friday that Rafael "Cheve" Parada-Mendoza and Gabriel "Dandy" Hosman Perez-Amaya executed Christian Argueta in the parking lot outside the Cerro Grande restaurant a few weeks before Christmas. The......

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Panel to probe marketing of controversial kids programs

Published: Apr 24, 2008

In hearings that could have far-reaching implications for D.C.’s troubled special education system, a congressional committee will hear testimony today on the marketing practices of private residential schools and boot camps. The House Education and Labor Committee has heard from families of children who died or allegedly suffered abuse in camps, ranches and clinics around the country. Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., said in a statement he wants "a better overall understanding ofthe industry in which these types of abuses have......

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Schools look for hundreds of truants

Published: Apr 23, 2008

A city investigation spurred by the deaths of four young girls earlier this year found that the D.C. school system can’t account for hundreds of students who were cut from attendance rolls late last year, The Examiner has learned.E-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that 745 children withdrew or were deleted from their schools’ rolls between Nov. 15 and Dec. 15.Officials weren’t sure what happened to the children, and are scrambling to find them, according to the e-mails and city sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.......

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D.C. to pay $1.75M to prevent lawsuit over alleged schools fraud

Published: Apr 22, 2008

The District of Columbia has agreed to pay $1.75 million to head off a lawsuit alleging that the city bilked the federal government out of money to educate children who didn’t exist, The Examiner has learned. For decades, District schools took in millions of dollars in grants to educate the children of migrant farmworkers and fishermen. But, as first reported by The Examiner in August, a 2005 audit discovered there were no such children in the system. The federal Continued...

 

D.C. to pay feds $1.75M to prevent lawsuit into alleged schools fraud

Published: Apr 22, 2008

The District of Columbia has agreed to pay $1.75 million to head off a lawsuit alleging that the city bilked the federal government out of money to educate children who didn’t exist, The Examiner has learned. For decades, District schools took in millions of dollars in grants to educate the children of migrant farmworkers and fishermen. But, as first reported by The Examiner in August, a 2005 audit discovered there were no such children in the system. The federal Continued...

 

Lanier recruiting former Metro police chief

Published: Apr 19, 2008

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier is recruiting a former top Metro police officer to join her command staff, The Examiner has learned. Lanier is negotiating with former Metro Police Chief Polly Hanson, who retired last month after nearly 30 years with the transit police, according to D.C. police sources. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are supposed to be secret. Hanson, 52, would serve as another deputy chief,......

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Fenty fires veteran from youth advisory council

Published: Apr 15, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty has sacked a veteran employee of his $300,000 per year youth council after leading members of the group complained that they were being used as propaganda by the mayor, The Examiner has learned.Janice Ferebee was fired as director of the D.C. Youth Advisory Council and replaced by Sean Gough.......

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Councilman: Accounting failures threaten District budget reforms

Published: Apr 09, 2008

Grim reviews from outside auditors and "gimmickry" in D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s budget are posing a threat to the city’s fiscal independence, a D.C. Council member warned Tuesday. "I’m not worried about Wall Street yet, but we’ve been told for years and years that we were climbing out of the morass," Continued...

 

D.C. says it won’t meet special-ed commitment

Published: Apr 08, 2008

D.C. education officials will once again fail to meet their promises to follow federal deadlines for testing and helping mentally ill and disabled children, city leaders admitted in federal court Monday. Under a consent decree D.C. signed to get out of a decade-long class-action suit stemming from the collapse of special education, city officials promised to meet federal deadlines in at least 65 percent of its special education cases by June. But Attorney General Peter Nickles said Monday the......

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DCPS scraps special-ed database after spending millions on system

Published: Mar 31, 2008

District of Columbia education officials have abandoned an elaborate, multimillion-dollar computer database that was supposed to help it tackle its special education crisis. D.C. bought a software package called Encore and spent tens of millions of dollars in training, updates and maintenance on it. Encore was supposed to allow education officials to use a few keystrokes to record key information on children in special education services and then access it easily. But in a report to the Continued...

 

Welfare agency rated itself as ‘acceptable’ before deaths

Published: Mar 31, 2008

Weeks before the badly decomposed bodies of four girls were found in a Southeast D.C. row house, the same child welfare agency that missed desperate calls seeking help for the girls gave itself high marks for service. The Child and Family Service Agency’s annual Quality Service Review for 2007 gave itself "acceptable" ratings for its handling of child welfare cases. A few weeks after the report was finished — but before it was released to the public — Continued...

 

DEA missing 200 laptops, 91 weapons

Published: Mar 29, 2008

Drug Enforcement Agents lost — or had stolen from them — more than 200 laptops and couldn't say whether the computers contained sensitive or secret information, a Justice Department review found. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine also reported Friday that the drug agency wasn't reporting missing or stolen weapons and computers fast enough, making it harder to recover them. Drug agents lost 91 weapons — including 69 stolen......

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D.C. to pay $2.5M to build levee

Published: Mar 27, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration has agreed to pay $2.5 million to accelerate construction of the 17th Street levee, it was announced Wednesday. Fenty hopes the plan will keep downtown insurance premiums from spiking in the wake of a new federal plan that drastically widened D.C.’s flood plain. In a news release, Fenty couched the public funding as "a partnership" with the Army Corps of Engineers and the......

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Relations between police chief, union take a hit

Published: Mar 25, 2008

Relations between D.C. police Chief Cathy Lanier and the union representing rank-and-file officers have deteriorated over charges that internal investigators tried to force their way into a wounded officer’s hospital room, critics said Monday.Ivory Smith was wounded after her gun discharged as she tried to arrest three suspects in a gas station robbery. While she was awaiting surgery, investigators demanded she give a taped statement, her union steward, Continued...

 

Privacy advocates pan bill to open records to child-welfare officials

Published: Mar 24, 2008

A D.C. bill that would give sweeping power to child welfare bureaucrats to view private records of children and families is encountering fierce resistance from privacy and juvenile-rights advocates. The legislation, pending before the D.C. Council, would allow agents from the Child and Family Services Agency to demand access to medical, school and other records if they suspected a child was being abused or neglected. Advocates of the measure say the bureaucracy is stymied by privacy......

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Mayor’s budget funds 150 percent boost in District’s education staff

Published: Mar 21, 2008

Mayor Adrian Fenty plans to increase the size of the state superintendent’s office by more than 150 percent, despite concerns from elected officials that the bureaucracy there is already bloated. Fenty’s fiscal 2009 budget, released publicly Thursday, gives Deborah Gist a staff of more than 400 full-time employees, nearly 250 more from fiscal 2008 and more than five times the staff in fiscal 2007. Gist’s office must enforce federal......

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Parents stymie efforts to pull kids from clinic

Published: Mar 05, 2008

The District of Columbia’s efforts to pull its children from a Massachusetts shock-therapy clinic have been stymied by recalcitrant parents who don’t trust school officials’ intentions, the city’s top lawyer told The Examiner on Tuesday. Peter Nickles, the city’s acting attorney general, had promised publicly to have all 10 of the District’s children pulled out of the Continued...

 

Schools CFO Graham resigns

Published: Mar 04, 2008

Embattled D.C. schools’ Chief Financial Officer Pamela Graham has resigned, The Examiner has learned. She will be replaced by Noah Wepman, an aide to city Administrator Dan Tangherlini, sources told The Examiner.Graham was the top financial official for the schools for just under two years. She struggled to bring the $1 billion school system’s accounts under control. Last summer, schools......

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Federal judge orders retrial in Iranian business case

Published: Mar 04, 2008

Citing "grave concerns" over prosecutors’ conduct, a federal judge in D.C. has ordered a new trial for a Kentucky business executive convicted of breaking the United States’ embargo on Iran.Robert E. Quinn was convicted in late 2005 of selling heavy machinery to the Iranians through a third-party company in the Continued...

 

District schools' CFO Graham resigns

Published: Mar 03, 2008

Embattled D.C. schools' chief financial officer Pamela Graham has resigned, The Examiner has learned. She will be replaced by Noah Wepman, an aide to city Administrator Dan Tangherlini. Graham was the top financial official for the schools for just under two years. She struggled to bring the $1 billion school system's accounts under control. Like most city agencies, the schools......

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Critics: $300K youth advisory council 'just PR'

Published: Mar 01, 2008

A publicly funded youth group that was supposed to help turn D.C.'s young people into the next generation of city leaders has been turned into a public relations arm of Mayor Adrian Fenty's administration, group leaders charged. The D.C. Youth Advisory Council was founded in 2002 under then-Mayor Anthony A. Williams. New members of the council say that they......

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400 D.C. child abuse, neglect cases pass legal time limit

Published: Feb 28, 2008

More than 400 cases involving charges of abuse and neglect of city children have remained open longer than the law allows, The Examiner has learned. Child protection officials are required to close investigations within 30 days, but the agency has been swamped with cases since the discovery of the bodies of four girls in a Southeast row house. All told, there are more than 1,200 active abuse and neglect cases in D.C., according to records kept by a federal court-appointed monitor of the city’s failing child welfare system.Calls to the......

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Prominent consultant to help D.C. cut special-ed backlog

Published: Feb 27, 2008

D.C. school officials have turned to a familiar face to help rescue them from their special education crisis. Statistician and arts patron Rebecca Klemm is a longtime consultant with the public schools who has spent the past decade as part of a court-appointed monitoring team overseeing the city’s failing, $306 million special education system. Her company will now be paid $100,000 per month for six months and another $167,000 in expenses to help reduce the backlog of children waiting to......

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Principal shrugged off in reporting alleged molestation

Published: Feb 27, 2008

A D.C. elementary school principal who was desperately trying to get help for a girl whom she believed was being molested was rebuffed by a child-welfare worker, delaying intervention for the child who prosecutors say was being assaulted.Cristina Encinas of the Latin American Montessori Bilingual School was told by the case worker that she didn’t have enough expertise to judge the situation and that she should go......

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Analyst: D.C. schools’ budget would cut spending on special education services

Published: Feb 19, 2008

D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s budget would slash spending on the city’s already-troubled special education services by two-thirds, according to documents.Rhee also plans to farm out nearly two-thirds of the school systems’ jobs to private contractors if her budget is approved, an independent analyst has concluded. Mary Levy, a schools and budget expert at the Washington......

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While they’re young: How the District is failing its special needs children

Published: Feb 18, 2008

Monica Davey, a federal lawyer, has struggled for two years to get health and education services for her son, Caleb.Now 6, Caleb is very bright but has a lot of physical problems, Davey said. He has enough trouble with other students in his preschool classes, but his teacher was even worse."She would say, ‘Eww, Caleb, why are you always drooling?’ " Davey recalled. "She created a nickname of him for his stuttering. She had the other kids call him by......

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Experts: Preschooling aid saves money in long run

Published: Feb 18, 2008

It costs a lot to help disabled infants and toddlers.But it costs a lot more not to help them, experts say."The earlier you work with them, the less intervention you’re going to need over time," said Kathy Patterson, a former D.C. Council member who now lobbies to get preschooling help for children. "Any jurisdiction that doesn’t do early intervention will have higher costs."Some critics draw a......

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Education advocates urge Rhee to reveal budget plan

Published: Feb 12, 2008

Education advocates, worried that Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration is breaking its own reform laws, are pushing D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to disclose her budget plans for next year, The Examiner has learned.A public hearing on the nearly $1 billion school system will be held next week, but top aides to Rhee have said publicly that her proposed budget won’t be available for public comment until late February or early......

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Police commander ousts chief of DNA lab efforts

Published: Feb 12, 2008

The D.C. police commander overseeing the city’s long-stalled efforts to establish a DNA laboratory has been stripped of his authority over the lab’s technicians, The Examiner has learned. As commander of the D.C. police mobile crime unit, Christopher M. LoJacono was responsible for recruiting, training and supervising DNA scientists. In an official communique from police Chief Cathy Lanier, marked "Not for Press" and sent out over the weekend, the scientists were transferred to the supervision of Continued...

 

Schools probing whether D.C. special-ed officials deceived parents over treatment plan meetings

Published: Feb 11, 2008

Internal investigators in the District of Columbia public schools are probing allegations that special education officials created false accounts of helping mentally ill or disabled children to comply with federal rules, The Examiner has learned. The investigation began after eight parents of children at Kramer Middle School in Southeastcomplained that school officials hadn’t convened federally required meetings to map out treatment plans for their children, according to a source familiar with the investigation and internal school documents obtained by The Examiner. When officials at Kramer showed the parents copies of......

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Judge sentences man to 35 years for murder

Published: Feb 09, 2008

Anthony Boone had a nice jacket. It cost him his life. On Friday, almost three years after Boone was shot through the eye and left for dead, a D.C. Superior Court Judge sentenced the man convicted of killing him to 35 years in prison. Robert McMillan, 33, was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder last October.......

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D.C. schools facing backlog of special education cases

Published: Feb 08, 2008

The federally mandated education plans of thousands of ill and disabled District of Columbia children are about to lapse, leaving officials scrambling to close the gap and keep the city’s special education crisis from worsening, The Examiner has learned. Internal school documents obtained by The Examiner show that 2,019 special education students will have to be re-evaluated between Feb. 4 and April 30. Federal law requires that every special education student be given an "individual education plan," or IEP and that......

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Fenty, Nickles promise push on child-welfare reforms

Published: Feb 08, 2008

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty will haul top child-welfare officials into an executive meeting next month and grill them on the pace of reforms within the dysfunctional bureaucracy, Fenty’s lieutenant testified Thursday. Peter Nickles, acting attorney general and Fenty’s trusted adviser, assured a joint committee of the D.C. Council on Thursday that he and the mayor were serious about fixing......

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Howard University analyst accused of stealing funds

Published: Feb 07, 2008

A Howard University bureaucrat stole nearly $34,000 in federal funds that were supposed to go to injured workers, according to federal court documents.Christina Bell, a former analyst at Howard’s workers’ compensation office, was charged with theft from a program receiving federal funds in a federal criminal information filed in Continued...

 

Mayor rejects request for data on top aides’ computer use

Published: Feb 05, 2008

Two weeks after revealing that city employees were using their computers to visit pornographic Web sites, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s regime has refused a request to explain what top aides to the mayor are doing with their computers. The Examiner filed a Freedom of Information Act request Jan. 14, asking the city to explain what Web sites its top officials were visiting on their government-issued computers. Nine days later, Fenty called a news conference to announce he had fired nine employees......

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Judge says D.C. officials ignored special-ed crisis

Published: Feb 05, 2008

A federal judge Monday rebuked District of Columbia education officials for ducking their responsibilities to pull themselves out of the city’s special education crisis.Speaking in a crowded courtroom, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman was briefed on the city’s $7 million to $8 million plan to hire consultants to reduce the schools’ monstrous backlog of special education cases. City officials told Friedman that they will hire Continued...

 

Va. state trooper helps break up gun-smuggling operation

Published: Jan 31, 2008

A Virginia state trooper’s speed gun has helped federal investigators unravel a firearms smuggling ring with a pipeline to the District of Columbia’s street gangs, authorities told The Examiner. Michael "White Boy" Lewis and Troy Burke were indicted on federal conspiracy and weapons charges earlier this month, court papers show. They are accused of stealing at least 60 guns from Virginia gun shops and selling them to couriers, who in turn sold them on D.C.’s streets. "It was a very active group," said Edgar A. Domenech, special agent in charge......

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Obama generates buzz at American U.

Published: Jan 29, 2008

A political speech took on the dimensions of a rock concert Monday as thousands crammed into an American University auditorium to cheer on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as he accepted the blessings of Sen. Edward Kennedy and members of his family. The crowd, mostly students on the upper Northwest campus, began lining up in the wee hours of the morning and emerged from the hour long spectacle exuberant. "We had lines all across campus," said political history professor Allan Lichtman. "This was like rock-concert levels." Obama, the first-term senator......

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Report: Many youth die horrific deaths

Published: Jan 28, 2008

Nearly two-fifths of the young people who died in the District of Columbia were from families already known to the city’s child welfare system, a new government report has found.The Child Fatality Review Committee reviewed each of the 157 deaths of people 22 years old or younger in 2006 and its report, published earlier this month, provides often horrifying glimpses into the squalid ends of some of D.C.’s children. Fifty-nine of the dead children were from families that had already been reported to child welfare agencies for abuse or neglect.......

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Ballpark workers find noose at construction site

Published: Jan 25, 2008

Workers at the District of Columbia’s baseball stadium have reported finding a noose on the site, potentially worsening already tense racial relations on the project. The noose was discovered Tuesday afternoon, said Courtland Cox, an official with the D.C. sports commission, the semi-public group that is monitoring construction of the $670 million stadium. The noose was put together by a white electrician from Continued...

 

Teen shocked 24 times

Published: Jan 24, 2008

An Alexandria teen confined to a Massachusetts shock-therapy clinic was a victim of a cruel practical joke that left him hooked up to electro-shock machines in the middle of the night, The Examiner has learned. The boy, 16, whose identity was protected by state and federal privacy laws, was a ward of Alexandria’s social services agency and his plight has raised disturbing questions for the city’s child welfare officials. He was pulled from his bed in the Judge Rotenberg Center in the middle of the night last summer after a......

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Superintendent tries to assuage special education fears

Published: Jan 23, 2008

State Superintendent Deborah Gist tried to reassure an anxious D.C. Council Tuesday that she is prepared to deal with the city’s collapsing special education system. "There is no question that over the last several decades, we have failed to provide appropriate services," Gist told the council, reading from prepared testimony. "I am here to report to you that the days of standing by and watching......

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Hearings begin on special ed.

Published: Jan 22, 2008

The public will get a glimpse at what has gone wrong with the District of Columbia’s crumbling special education system today when the D.C. Council opens hearings into a system that many say has failed thousands of children. D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz, R-at large, has sponsored legislation that would require education officials to review the education plans of about 10,000 mentally ill and disabled children in D.C.’s school system. But some are hoping that today’s hearings will become an open forum on what’s gone wrong with the $210 million-plus......

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Superintendent briefs Gray on plans to inspect D.C.’s 420 private schools

Published: Jan 18, 2008

State Superintendent of Education Deborah Gist briefed D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray on Thursday on her plans to inspect each of the 420 private schools in an effort to salvage the city’s special education system from decades of abuse and neglect. Gist has recently hired a team of inspectors to pore over records and to make site visits for the scattered schools and clinics where about 2,400 mentally......

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Taxes hurt O’Malley’s popularity

Published: Jan 14, 2008

Gov. Martin O’Malley’s tax increases have eroded his popularity statewide and are having a significant political effect in Montgomery County, officials said Sunday.Democrats in the county, which bears the heaviest burden under the new revenue-raising measures, say they will push for savings and cuts as a way to offset the impression that the state is trying to tax itself out of a budget hole. "We’re not going to be able......

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Murders may lead to overhaul

Published: Jan 14, 2008

District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty will announce a reorganization of the city’s beleaguered social services today in the wake of the deaths of four young sisters that exposed gaping holes in the city’s safety net.The mayor is expected to announce firings of bureaucrats that failed the girls, and a task force to streamline and integrate city social services.Fenty huddled with acting Attorney General Peter Nickles and City Administrator Dan Tangherlini over the weekend, discussing ways to fulfill his Friday promise to hold "accountable" those who ignored signs that Banita......

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Numerous "touches" with city officials preceded four girls' deaths

Published: Jan 12, 2008

On July 12, 2006, a nurse at George Washington hospital told a social worker at the District's Child and Family Services Agency that Banita Jacks and four girls were living in a van in D.C., and in growing jeopardy. Jacks and her husband, Nathaniel Fogle, were using drugs, and Fogle, who was dying from leukemia, was leaving George Washington even......

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D.C. teen kept a ward of shock clinic for months by Massachusetts court

Published: Jan 09, 2008

A District of Columbia teenager was consigned to months in a Massachusetts shock-therapy clinic after officials there went to a Bay State court and had him declared unfit to conduct his own affairs, The Examiner has learned.The unusual legal action put Donnell Childs, a D.C. public school student, into the custody of the Judge Rotenberg Center inContinued...

 

Councilman demands explanation for firing of veteran D.C. litigator

Published: Jan 04, 2008

D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council’s Judiciary Committee, has demanded that Mayor Adrian Fenty’s top adviser explain why he fired a veteran litigator who was supposed to defend the District’s gun ban before the nation’s highest court. In a letter to Peter Nickles, Mendelson......

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Fenty deputy quits

Published: Jan 04, 2008

Neil Richardson, deputy chief of staff to Mayor Adrian Fenty and one of the mayor’s oldest political allies, left the administration Thursday after several months of growing disenchantment with the mayor’s management style, sources said. Richardson, who had helped Fenty mount a historic door-to-door campaign that made him the District of Columbia’s youngest mayor, confirmed his resignation to The Examiner. He said it was effective immediately."Right now, my relationship with the mayor isn’t particularly strong," Richardson told The Examiner. "But I want him to be successful. I......

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Nickles fires lawyer in gun-ban case

Published: Jan 03, 2008

Peter Nickles, the District of Columbia’s acting attorney general, has summarily fired the lawyer who was supposed to defend D.C.’s controversial gun-control laws before the U.S. Supreme Court this spring. One of Nickles’ underlings sent Alan Morrison an e-mail Dec. 28, telling him to have his desk cleaned out by next Monday. Morrison, who has argued before the Supreme Court in several precedent-setting constitutional cases, was brought in last fall when then-Attorney General Linda Singer decided to appeal a lower court’s ruling that struck down D.C.’s gun laws. Oral arguments......

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Inmate quarters get $3 million

Published: Jan 01, 2008

Congress has injected nearly $3 million into long-stalled efforts to improve conditions in the dilapidated inmate pens behind the District of Columbia’s Superior Court. The money, set aside in an earmark that was signed into law by President Bush last week, is only a fraction of the $43 million that the court and the U.S. Marshals Service have said they need to bring the cells up to code. But the earmark’s as-yet unidentified author hopes it will help the two agencies "address substandard health and security conditions" in the cells.......

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D.C. special ed chief ousted

Published: Dec 29, 2007

Marla Oakes, the director of the District of Columbia's troubled special education system, has been relieved of her duties and transferred to another department, The Examiner has learned. Oakes will now run a "student support team" in the nearly $1 billion school system, said Peter Nickles, top adviser to Mayor......

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Literacy runs deep in D.C.

Published: Dec 29, 2007

Voracious newspaper and magazine readers in the nation's capital have made the District of Columbia the fifth most literate city in the nation, an annual survey has found. Jack Miller of Central Connecticut State University crunched numbers including library resources, newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, adult education level and the size of the periodical industry in 69 cities......

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Task force targets school corruption

Published: Dec 28, 2007

U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor has convened a "working group" of anti-fraud investigators from federal and local agencies tasked with rooting out endemic corruption in the District of Columbia’s education system.The new task force began work in the shadow of a string of high-profile fraud and abuse cases within the city’s schools."Instead of trying to pick up the pieces after the damage has been done, we’re out there in the schools meeting key people and getting the word out that we’re there to help," Taylor told The Examiner. "We want......

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City threatens school's funds

Published: Dec 27, 2007

The District of Columbia may head to court to cut off funds for a Massachusetts shock-therapy school, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s top adviser told The Examiner on Wednesday.Peter Nickles, D.C.’s next acting attorney general and the leading member of Fenty’s kitchen cabinet, has already promised to transfer 10 District children out of the Judge Rotenberg Center by March.But lawyers at Brown & Associates, who represent parents of nine of the 10 children, have balked at the suggestion. They’ve told city officials not to have any more contact with their clients, according......

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D.C.’s special education in distress, official says

Published: Dec 20, 2007

District of Columbia special education officials have failed to protect D.C.’s children and Mayor Adrian Fenty’s credibility should rest on whether he can reverse the abuse, the mayor’s top adviser said Wednesday. "What we have now is a system where we don’t even know where the kids are," said Peter Nickles, general counsel for Fenty. "I mean, kids move from......

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Shock-therapy school defends practices

Published: Dec 19, 2007

Facing mounting pressure and at least one criminal investigation over its use of shock therapy on its wards, a Massachusetts clinic that is home to several District of Columbia students has gone on the defensive, saying that it is the last best hope for many otherwise lost children. "Most of the students at the Judge Rotenberg Center have been......

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Aide: Kids will leave shock-therapy clinic

Published: Dec 17, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration will get nine local children out of a Massachusetts shock-therapy clinic "within 90 days," the mayor’s top adviser told The Examiner. "It is unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable to have our kids at that school," said Peter Nickles, Fenty’s legal adviser, referring to the Judge Rotenberg Center. "We are taking steps right now so that within 90 days, those kids will be out of the Rotenberg school."As reported by The Examiner, dozens of mentally disabled children from the District of Columbia have been farmed out to Rotenberg for......

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Therapists petition for no electroshock

Published: Dec 17, 2007

Advocates for the mentally disabled are lobbying the world’s largest psychologists’ group to ban the practice of electroshock therapy that is currently being used on D.C. children in a Massachusetts clinic, The Examiner has learned. Since October, more than 250 therapists and activists have signed an online petition asking the D.C.-based American Psychological Association to condemn the shock therapy and other "aversive" treatments used on autistic and other disabled patients......

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Students shocked in prank

Published: Dec 14, 2007

Three students at a controversial Massachusetts clinic where D.C. special education students have been farmed out for years were mistakenly subjected to electric shock treatments as part of a prank, The Examiner has learned.The episode is part of a state criminal investigation focused on the Judge Rotenberg Center, said officials close to the case. Nine D.C. students are housed at the clinic, to the distress of some city officials."I’m just appalled," said D.C. Council Member Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3. "I just don’t understand how we can let our children be......

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D.C. agrees to $10M agreement

Published: Dec 12, 2007

District of Columbia education officials unveiled a nearly $10 million agreement that they hope will help them claw their way out of the city’s special education crisis. The deal, reached with plaintiff lawyers in a class-action suit and announced in a federal court hearing Tuesday, requires the District to set aside some $3.5 million for new mental health services for children, another $3 million to overhaul special education case management and another $3.5 million to recruit new staff to carry out the reform. City officials hailed the deal as the......

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Ex-auditor for D.C. schools pleads guilty to theft

Published: Dec 11, 2007

A former top auditor for the District of Columbia schools admitted Monday that he helped himself to tens of thousands of public dollars from a failed charter school.Eugene P. Smith’s voice was husky in U.S. District court Monday, but he answered questions succinctly as he formally pleaded guilty to one count of theft, admitting that he swiped nearly $50,000 from a charter school account he was supposed to hand back......

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Gray blasts use of special ed. school

Published: Dec 11, 2007

District Council Chair Vincent C. Gray expressed anger that the city’s special education system continued to send children to a Massachusetts school that uses electric shocks as a form of discipline. The Examiner reported Monday that city lawyers and bureaucrats referred two special education students to the Judge Rotenberg Center two weeks after schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee ordered the center cut off. Told of the referrals, Gray said, "It is an outrage.""This would not be tolerated in a program in the city," Gray told The Examiner in an e-mail. "So......

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Students sent to troubled Mass. school

Published: Dec 10, 2007

District of Columbia school officials continued to send students to a troubled Massachusetts special education clinic weeks after schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee ordered her agency to cut ties with the center, documents obtained by The Examiner show.The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass., specializes in "aversive" therapy for troubled youngsters like electric shock. It has been the home to dozens of District children for more than a decade, charging D.C. more than $227,000 per child per year. On Aug. 31, after news reports documented allegations of abuse and neglect at......

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Mismanagement of Medicaid funding by officials cost public tens of millions

Published: Dec 06, 2007

District of Columbia school officials have botched years of paperwork and missed countless deadlines that would have won federal reimbursements for services to poor students, costing the public tens of millions of dollars per year, documents show.In fiscal 2003, D.C. schools recouped $25 million in Medicaid funds. By fiscal 2007, the figure had shrunk by nearly half, to $13.4 million, according to internal school data obtained by The Examiner. Medicaid is......

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Official retires in aftermath of tax scandal

Published: Dec 05, 2007

Sebastian "Ben" Lorigo, the trusted lieutenant of D.C.’s embattled chief financial officer, announced his retirement Tuesday, less than a month after a massive corruption scandal exposed gaping holes in the city’s fiscal system. Lorigo said in a statement sent Tuesday that he’d been planning his retirement "for quite some time." But he was scalded by widening investigations of the tax office, where two employees allegedly bilked the public out of tens of millions of dollars. Lorigo, a former Internal Revenue Service executive who started his D.C. career in the tax......

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Gandhi lieutenant to retire

Published: Dec 04, 2007

Sebastian "Ben" Lorigo, Natwar Gandhi's trusted lieutenant, will announce today plans to retire early next year, The Examiner has learned. Lorigo, the Finance Office's top auditor, was the man Gandhi tapped to resurrect the tax office after a multimillion-dollar public corruption scandal. But Lorigo struggled from the outset, downplaying the scandal to District Council members and stumbling for an......

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Tax official gets one day of immunity

Published: Dec 03, 2007

A former tax office employee has been offered one day of immunity to tell prosecutors what she knows about the largest corruption scandal in D.C. history. Diane Gustus is facing up to 100 years in prison on charges that she helped co-worker Harriette Walters siphon off tens ofmillions of dollars through a series of phony tax refunds and dummy companies. But authorities have given her limited immunity for a meeting this week in the hope that she can help unravel the conspiracy and help the government track down the stolen......

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Diane Gustus fights for her job

Published: Dec 01, 2007

The alleged accomplice in the biggest corruption scandal in D.C. history is fighting to get her job back, The Examiner has learned. Diane Gustus was immediately fired after being charged with helping fellow tax office employee Harriette Walters steal millions from the public through a series of dummy companies. But in a Nov. 27 letter addressed to Paul Lundquist, director of the office of management and administration, Gustus, 54, says that "there is substantial evidence that I am not guilty" and that her firing is "unjust." "Due to confusion, misunderstanding......

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Ex-schools executive gets 35 months in jail for theft

Published: Nov 30, 2007

A career that began on Sesame Street will end in prison early next year, as disgraced former school executive Brenda Belton was sentenced to 35 months in jail and an additional two years of probation for pilfering hundreds of thousands of dollars from the schools she was supposed to help. "What you did was to further damage an already crippled system," federal Judge Ricardo M. Urbina told Belton, 61, as she wiped away tears and squeezed a tissue. "This city deserves better." In June, Belton agreed to plead guilty to......

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Bills pile up; aid to kids delayed

Published: Nov 29, 2007

Endless rounds of tests and meetings ordered by city hearing officers are blocking special education students from needed help and costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, The Examiner has learned.About 1,400 children asked the hearing officers for help getting services for their disabilities between November 2006 and October 2007, according to a court-appointed monitor’s analysis obtained by The Examiner. But in 72 percent of those cases, school hearing officers putoff a decision and instead ordered new rounds of tests or meetings, the analysis showed.The delays dragged out conflicts over......

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Miami police turn to public for help solving Taylor case

Published: Nov 28, 2007

Miami-Dade police reached out to the public Tuesday for help in solving the shooting death of Washington Redskins star Sean Taylor. Taylor was shot in his suburban Miami home early Monday and died a day later, after doctors furiously scrambled to repair a severed femoral artery from a single gunshot wound. He was 24. Miami-Dade police, who remained close-lipped about the incident through Tuesday, asked anyone with information to call an area hotline with tips. It remained unclear whether Taylor’s shooting was a random act or a byproduct of his......

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Fat paychecks under Fenty's watch

Published: Nov 27, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration has more than tripled the number of public employees making $175,000 or more, figures obtained by The Examiner show. As of Oct. 1 at least 25 city employees were making $175,000 or more, finance office and public school records show. Five city employees, including the mayor, make at least $200,000. At the same time last year, only eight employees were paid $175,000 or more, the records show. Therewere three employees who made at least $200,000. One of them, former University of the District of Columbia President......

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Gandhi seeks to salvage reputation

Published: Nov 27, 2007

D.C.’s embattled Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi made the rounds among the D.C. Council on Monday in an effort to reclaim his reputation from a widening public corruption scandal in his office. Gandhi met with at least two council members, including Chairman Vincent C. Gray and Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, and had set appointments through the week, sources told The Examiner. "He’s done great things for the city," Cheh said. "That plays out two ways. One, he should have a chance to fix things. And two, it means that he......

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Redskins’ Taylor fights for life after shooting in Fla. home

Published: Nov 27, 2007

Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor fought to survive after being shot early Monday, and investigators were trying to piece together what happened inside the talented but troubled football star’s South Florida home.Taylor, 24, was at his $900,000 suburban Miami house with his girlfriend and their child when the shooting occurred, Miami-Dade police said. His girlfriend called police about 1:45 a.m. to say that he’d been shot in his lower body. He spent most of Monday in surgery.His former lawyer, Richard Sharpstein, told The Associated Press that a bullet had damaged......

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D.C. Council’s UDC hearings to begin today

Published: Nov 27, 2007

The public will get a glimpse into the turbulence at the University of the District of Columbia today when the District Council opens hearings on the troubled city college.University of the District of Columbia acting President Stanley Jackson will focus on his reform efforts at the school, but he told The Examiner Monday that "there’s been some challenges." "It’s going to take months to reconstruct," he said. The university, which has an annual budget of $63.5 million, is in the middle of at least two widening investigations into how it......

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Investigators comb records

Published: Nov 26, 2007

Investigators have begun poring over decades of city tax records, an indication that federal authorities are following the trail of the largest public corruption scandal in D.C.’s history even further back than previously acknowledged, The Examiner has learned. Prosecutors have accused property tax office bureaucrats Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus of embezzling tens of millions of dollars through phony tax refunds since at least 2001. The Examiner has uncovered suspect payments dating to mid-1999, but a law enforcement source with intimate knowledge of the widening investigation said authorities still haven’t......

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Vincent Gray: Investigate Medicaid

Published: Nov 23, 2007

District Council Chairman Vincent Gray is calling for a review of the city's troubled Medicaid program, which auditors say costs the city tens of millions in wasted dollars and threatens D.C.'s fiscal health. In an exclusive interview with The Examiner, Gray said he wanted the city's health care bureaucracy thoroughly examined by investigators to determine exactly where the waste, fraud and abuse lie. "This may be a wonderful opportunity for some kind of forensic audit," said Gray, who used to run the city's human services department. "Let's look at everything......

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Accused leader was warned

Published: Nov 21, 2007

Harriette Walters, the accused mastermind of the largest public corruption scandal in D.C. history, was warned by her bosses a few months before her arrest to stop lavishing gifts on her co-workers and superiors, The Examiner has learned. Walters and fellow ex-tax office employee Diane Gustus are charged with stealing tens of millions of dollars through a phony refund scam.The 51-year-old Walters was known as "Mother Harriette" in her office — the woman to see for emergency loans, designer clothes and accessories, even floor-level Wizards tickets, three sources with direct......

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Key D.C. Council members want reviews of agencies

Published: Nov 20, 2007

In the wake of a scathing audit that exposed widespread mishandling by city officials of federal grant dollars, key members of the D.C. Council said they wanted top-to-bottom reviews of public agencies.Council member Tommy Wells, D-Ward 6, said he’s asked the city auditor to review the child-welfare agencies he supervises because he suspects that officials are routinely ducking contracting laws by re-christening multimillion-dollar deals as "human service agreements."City law requires contracts to be approved by the council. Wells said the foster-care agency routinely sends out millions under the "agreements" without......

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Audit: Fed money mishandled

Published: Nov 19, 2007

District of Columbia officials mishandled millions of dollars in cash, didn’t properly screen contractors and subcontractors, and otherwise misused grants in more than 70 federally funded programs, a new audit has found. The federal government gave the District more than $1.8 billion in 2006 to aid programs from HIV prevention to counterterrorism. In an overwhelming majority of cases, the handling of federal money in those programs violated local and federal regulations, private audit firm BDO Seidman LLP reported. Two areas of city government, the public schools and its Medicaid reimbursement......

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D.C. loses track of 1,300 students

Published: Nov 13, 2007

District of Columbia school officials have let the federally mandated education plans of nearly 1,300 students expire, exposing the besieged D.C. education system to even more litigation, The Examiner has learned.Federal law requires schools to draft plans for their disabled students and to update them yearly. Yet thousands of students’ plans have been allowed to lapse, according to a source within the special education department. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of a fear of retribution. The expired plans come on top of a backlog of hundreds of......

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Tax thefts could date to 1990s

Published: Nov 13, 2007

D.C. tax office officials as far back as 1999 approved six-figure checks to an apparently bogus company whose name has surfaced in a widening corruption probe, records obtained by The Examiner show.Eight checks made out to or put in the care of a company called "Bellarmine" totaling more than $2.4 million suggest that an alleged scam by tax office employees date the growing scandal to a time when the Office of Tax and Revenue was overseen by Natwar Gandhi, who is now the city’s chief financial officer.There are no records......

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Missing tax dollars raise eyebrows

Published: Nov 09, 2007

The $20 million federal investigators say was ripped off from the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue accounted for more than one refund dollar out of every five distributed between 2003 and 2007, raising questions about how it could possibly have gone undetected."Didn’t anybody notice?" asked Mary Levy, a schools and budget expert for the Washington Lawyers Committee. "Obviously, the higher-ups weren’t paying attention." On Thursday, tax office employees Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus appeared in federal court to answer to the fraud charges. Prosecutors said in charging documents that......

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A.G.'s absence questioned

Published: Nov 07, 2007

A series of courtroom setbacks, a rash of high-level defections and the growing influence of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s legal counsel over the District’s legal affairs have some city officials asking, whatever happened to D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer?Singer, 41, is responsible for a 660-person, $87 million agency that is supposed to defend the city from litigation, enforce its child-support laws, argue for wards of the court and protect consumers.But Fenty’s counsel, Peter Nickles, has become the face of the city’s legal team. He has taken over at least two major......

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Federal judge rebukes officials on pace of special-ed reform

Published: Nov 06, 2007

A federal judge Monday warned D.C.’s top education officials that hundreds of special education children need immediate help and can’t wait for ambitious reform plans to take root. At least 440 children have been waiting for months beyond federal deadlines to be tested, or receive services, for their disabilities, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman was told Monday. "I’ve been saying for seven, eight years that the system is broken. But behind these numbers are people," Friedman said. "Let’s not lose sight of the trees for the forest."Friedman said he......

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Judge sets deadline for special ed plan

Published: Nov 01, 2007

Furious over the city’s "stunning ignorance" of the crisis facing its special-education system, a federal judge has given the District of Columbia one week to come up with a cost-fixing schedule — or face contempt charges. In an unusually caustic order, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman has ordered State Superintendent Deborah L. Gist and schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to come up with a policy for setting rates with the thousands of private schools and vendors with which it does business. Saying that he has "even more concern that......

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Special ed. crisis looming in D.C.

Published: Oct 31, 2007

Despite promising to address the needs of its special education students within federally mandated deadlines, the District of Columbia has allowed its backlog of unserved children to grow by more than 200 in three months, The Examiner has learned. Federal law requires that students be evaluated for special education needs within 60 days of a request and that children get services within 45 days of an evaluation. An analysis written by a committee of public school and private experts has found that there are 935 students in the D.C. public......

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D.C. hands money to company tied to fraud scandal

Published: Oct 30, 2007

The District of Columbia has extended the contract of a Reston firm that paid millions of dollars this summer to settle allegations it helped bilk the government by submitting phony bills. Maximus Inc. will be paid $1.9 million through next year as a management consultant to the Department of Human Services because "critical services were still required," said Briant Coleman, spokesman for the city contracting department. The extension was ratified Oct. 12 — apparently on "passive review," which allows contracts to take effect automatically if no one on the......

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UDC leaders request staff shake-up

Published: Oct 29, 2007

Top leaders of the beleaguered University of the District of Columbia requested staff changes in the city’s budget agency as part of an effort to clean up years of mismanagement and abuse at the university.In an exclusive interview with The Examiner, acting university President Stanley Jackson and board of trustees Chairman James Dyke Jr. said the 5,700-student, $63.5 million college will undergo a top-to-bottom review."I'm embarrassed to say to you that people have gone for years without beingappraised," Jackson said. "We have to all understand that we’re here for the......

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D.C. charter school may go bust

Published: Oct 27, 2007

A charter school whose leaders have been in the prosecution of a former top D.C. school official may be on its way out of business. Young America Works Public Charter School was opened in 2004 thanks to lobbying by former Board of Education Charter School Executive Director Brenda Belton. Belton has since pleaded guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars and steering hundreds of thousands more in deals to her friends -- including Brenda Williams, Young America's founder, and Nadine Evans, Young America's principal. With Belton on her way......

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Stiff penalty urged for stealing from charter school

Published: Oct 26, 2007

Prosecutors are demanding a harsh punishment for a former top school administrator who has admitted to plundering hundreds of thousands of dollars from D.C. charter schools. Brenda Belton used her position as executive director of the Board of Education charter schools to siphon off money for herself, her friends and her family, according to her guilty plea earlier this year. Now, prosecutors want her to do hard time. In a sentencing recommendation filed late Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy G. Lynch called Belton "a worm in a rotten apple," whose......

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Source: Top UDC official mishandled millions

Published: Oct 24, 2007

A top official at the University of the District of Columbia mishandled a $3.6 million job-training grant, allowed underlings to pay themselves for training programs with no students and sat on millions in federal funds until they had to be given back, investigators have been told. As provost of the university, Wilhemina Reuben-Cooke has nearly unlimited authority over millions of dollars in academic programs and grants. She has become the focal point of federal and local investigations into mismanagement at the 5,700-student college, sources told The Examiner. Reuben-Cooke did not......

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D.C. hospital doles out $3.2M to executives

Published: Oct 24, 2007

A cash-strapped hospital that was supposed to serve D.C.’s poorest residents doled out more than $3.2 million to its top 17 executives last year, documents obtained by The Examiner show. Greater Southeast Hospital also paid more than $633,000 in bonuses to employees even as it was fending off angry creditors in bankruptcy court and asking the District government to intervene. The 17 executives were paid at least $153,000 each. Nine staffers at the hospital were paid at least $208,000, including Chief Executive Officer Cyril A. Allen, who was paid an......

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Three arrested on drug charges at home of D.C. cop

Published: Oct 24, 2007

A D.C. police sergeant has been relieved of her duties after the vice squad raided her home and arrested three people on drug charges.Fourth District desk Sgt. Angela Sanders is on administrative leave, with pay, but faces discipline following a raid on her home on the 5600 block of Ninth Street Northwest, police sources said. The vice squad arrested Tommy Lee McCoy, Tiara Monique Pinckney and Anthony Thompson on Oct. 10 on the front porch of Sanders’ home, court records show. Authorities dropped charges against Pinckney, 22, but charged Thompson,......

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D.C. sent kids to private school even after terminating contract

Published: Oct 22, 2007

The District of Columbia continued to send children to a controversial private school months after the city canceled its contract — and then defaulted on its payments, The Examiner has learned. School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey canceled the contract with the D.C. Alternative Learning Academy in February, after years of complaints about its shoddy staff and crumbling buildings. Officials were still sending public school children there through June without paying for the services, sources told The Examiner. On Oct. 10, after months of negotiations, the city agreed to pay the......

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UDC to return $18M in unused funds to District

Published: Oct 22, 2007

The troubled University of the District of Columbia is preparing to return up to $18 million in unused funds to the city, The Examiner has learned. Officials discovered the idle funds after reviewing their expenses for fiscal 2007, sources said. The university is raising students’ tuition by 40 percent in part because it claimed it was cash-strapped. University spokesman J. Michael Andrews said officials were still reviewing the fiscal 2007 budget. "We’re not finished yet," he said. "But it looks, preliminarily, like there may be some underspending."The university was chartered......

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Children sent to controversial school after contract cancelled

Published: Oct 20, 2007

The District of Columbia continued to send children to a controversial private school months after the city canceled its contract - and then defaulted on its payments, The Examiner has learned. School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey canceled the contract with the D.C. Alternative Learning Academy in February, after years of complaints about its shoddy staff and crumbling buildings. Officials were still sending public school children there through June without paying for the services, sources told The Examiner. On Oct. 10, after months of negotiations, the city agreed to pay the......

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E-mail plan could lead to corruption, council member says

Published: Oct 17, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposal to delete government e-mails after just six months flies in the face of open government and will make it easier for corruption to fester, District Council Member Phil Mendelson, D-at large, told The Examiner Tuesday. "It’s incompatible with open and honest government," Mendelson said. "It has a very negative effect on the District’s ability to fight public corruption."Mendelson is chair of the Council’s Judiciary Committee and his comments represent the first challenge from an elected official to Fenty’s proposal since it was quietly offered up earlier......

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Panel: Lawyer can’t collect from ex-judge’s estate

Published: Oct 17, 2007

A District of Columbia lawyer has been barred from taking legal fees from a former D.C. judge’s estate as he defends himself against a lawsuit brought by the judge’s children. Robert Alvord claimed that he had a right to dip into the former estate of Gerard Reilly after Reilly’s grown children, John and Margaret Reilly Heffern, sued him as executor of the estate. But a three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals disagreed and ordered the estate’s funds frozen while the contentious lawsuit is pending. According to the appellate......

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D.C. police officers rake in big overtime dollars

Published: Oct 16, 2007

The District of Columbia Police Department gave more than $2.8 million in overtime to 50 officers in fiscal 2007, records obtained by The Examiner show. The department authorized nearly 71,000 hours in overtime for the 50 officers, most of them rank-and-file. The leaders of the pack, officers Frank Buentello and Carlton C. Poles, averaged more than 43 hours of overtime per week for the year. Buentello more than doubled his base $76,494 salary to almost $170,000, earning $92,794.50 in overtime. Poles brought in $87,542.92 in overtime; his base salary was......

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Union: Officer who ticketed Fenty aide ordered to drop it

Published: Oct 15, 2007

A District of Columbia police commander heatedly ordered one of his officers to "take back" a ticket he had written to an aide to Mayor Adrian Fenty, the officer’s union has claimed in a complaint. After Seventh District officer Kevin Dean cited Isha Foster Lee for driving while talking on her cell phone, Cmdr. Joel Maupin called Dean on a cell phone and told him, "Dean, you are going to take that ticket back and that’s all there is to it," according to the complaint, lodged on Dean’s behalf by......

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D.C. special-ed program soars $59M over budget

Published: Oct 15, 2007

The District of Columbia’s troubled "nonpublic" tuition program overspent its budget by 70 percent — paying out $59 million more than expected in fiscal 2007 — and city officials are scrambling to pull money from other programs to close the gap, The Examiner has learned. Then-schools chief Clifford B. Janey Jr. budgeted $86 million to send special education students to outside schools in fiscal 2007. According to budget records, officials actually spent $145 million.The city has plundered tens of millions of dollars from other programs to keep up with the......

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Fenty administration drops $2.2M bill to man who gouged out his own eyes

Published: Oct 11, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration has backed away from a $2.2 million bill it submitted to a mentally ill man who plucked out his own eyes and has agreed under pressure to pay the man $685,000 for the city’s negligence. Frank Harris, a schizophrenic who had been committed to St. Elizabeths in the 1970s, blinded himself in a delusional fit in early 2003. He had told staff that he was hearing voices that told him his eyes were misleading him and making him see evil things. An overworked orderly loosened Harris’......

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Fenty aide calls commander, gets out of ticket

Published: Oct 06, 2007

A District of Columbia police commander pulled a traffic ticket barely an hour after it was issued to an official in Mayor Adrian Fenty's administration, The Examiner has learned. Seventh District police Cmdr. Joel Maupin confirmed to The Examiner Friday that he ordered a ticket that had been issued to Isha Foster Lee brought to him Thursday night. He said he wanted to "review" it for irregularity. Police general orders state that officers aren't supposed to turn in traffic tickets until the end of their shift. They are put into......

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Rhee tells staff to stop referring kids to Pa. school under inquiry

Published: Oct 05, 2007

District of Columbia schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has ordered her agency to stop referring children to a Pennsylvania school that is the focus of an in-state investigation into the injury of several students, The Examiner learned Thursday. KidsPeace in Allentown, Pa. is the subject of a formal inquiry from the state Department of Public Welfare after seven children suffered broken limbs between March and August. Pennsylvania officials said they suspected the injuries were the results of being restrained by the center’s staff. The school is a private, nonprofit center that......

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Top special ed officials placed on leave after rise in criticism

Published: Oct 04, 2007

Two top officials in a beleaguered District of Columbia special education program have been relieved of their duties and could face firing after a deluge of negative publicity about the treatment of some of D.C.’s most vulnerable children, education sources said Wednesday. Ruth Blake, the executive director of the nonpublic tuition program, and Rexie Yancey, the interim executive director of the student hearing office, have both been placed on administrative leave, with pay, the sources said. Blake is paid $98,550 per year, and Yancey is paid $106,090, according to city......

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Schools reform effort failing, says watchdog group

Published: Oct 03, 2007

District of Columbia officials have fumbled the latest attempt at reforming the city’s troubled special education system, putting city taxpayers at risk of waste and fraud, a court-appointed watchdog has charged. The abysmal effort" and "lack of focus" of top education officials exposes the District to corrupt private school operators and further litigation, special master Elise T. Baach told U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman in a report dated Monday. The report was the first issued since Mayor Adrian Fenty took over the city’s school system in June. It had......

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Rhee to ask for an $75M to fix D.C. schools

Published: Oct 03, 2007

Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee will ask city officials for an extra $75 million to help her right the city schools, top education sources told The Examiner. Rhee and Mayor Adrian Fenty are scheduled to address the media at 2 p.m. today.The sources said they will announce that the schools need the extra money to get atop of a special education system in crisis. When he was lobbying to take over the $1 billion school system, Fenty said he wouldn't need any more money because the problems in the schools stemmed......

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Rhee to ask for an additional $81M to fix D.C. schools

Published: Oct 03, 2007

Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee will ask city officials for an extra $81 million to help her right the city schools, top education sources told The Examiner. The sources said they will announce that the schools need the extra money to get atop of a special education system in crisis. When he was lobbying to take over the $1 billion school system, Fenty said he wouldn't need any more money because the problems in the schools stemmed from mismanagement, not lack of funds.District Council Chair Vincent C. Gray has said privately......

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Supporters of historic Sears house decry city’s attempt to cash in on land

Published: Sep 28, 2007

The District of Columbia has a message for fans of a historic Sears & Roebuck home in upper Northwest: Move it or lose it. The home at 5136 Sherrier Place NW was bought from the famous catalog company by plumber John Baltimore in 1938, but has sat boarded up for decades. Manyresidents of the tony Palisades neighborhood have complained for years that the place is an eyesore that threatens their property values. D.C. officials estimate the land on which the home sits is worth more than $800,000, according to records.......

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Schools finance office seeks SOS for budget paperwork

Published: Sep 28, 2007

The District of Columbia’s schools finance office, charged with monitoring the $1 billion school budget, will have to pay an outside consulting firm to finish off its own accounting paperwork. The fiscal year officially ends Sunday, and staff members at the finance office have been working all hours to account for every penny of the schools’ massive budget. But their efforts have been crippled by a mass defection of staff — more than two dozen employees have left the office in the last six months.The schools finance officers are paid......

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D.C. disputes $1.8 million in legal fees from special ed suit

Published: Sep 26, 2007

The District of Columbia may be on the hook for more than $1.8 million in legal fees stemming from a class-action lawsuit over its disastrous special education system, court records show. Attorneys for students who sued the city are contesting the city’s interpretation of a federal law that capped legal fees in special ed litigation. The city has conceded after protracted negotiations that the students’ lawyers would ordinarily be entitled to fees growing out of a decade of class-action litigation. But the District maintains that the caps require it to......

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DNA lab still out of reach for police

Published: Sep 25, 2007

The sweeping changes announced by D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier on Monday failed to address the city’s ill-fated efforts to get its own crime laboratory at a time when critics fear the crucial project is off the rails. While several top police officials were moved or will retire, Mobile Crime Lab Cmdr. Christopher Lojacono was not replaced or moved. Lojacono has been the District’s point man in the years-running effort to build a DNA lab."That effort has really moved far, far too slowly," former District Council Member Kathy Patterson told......

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Top D.C. Council members eye hearings on special ed system

Published: Sep 25, 2007

Leading members of the D.C. Council on Monday expressed outrage over the state of the Dictrict’s special education system, with the members hinting that public hearings may be necessary to help root out the rot in the system. "We’re wasting money, our children are being harmed and now we have lawyers who have gone on to exploit our incompetence," said Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3. "Unless I see some quick action from the school system, I think we should find out what it is we’re paying and whether our children are......

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'Long few years' end in victory over schools for woman, godson

Published: Sep 24, 2007

A Northeast woman’s decade-long struggle against the District of Columbia schools has come to an end, with school officials finally agreeing to send her 14-year-old godson to a private school. Evelyn Sykes has struggled for years to get help for her foster child, Daron Brown. Born to a drug-addicted mother, Daron and his little brother, Kasim, were given to Sykes in 2001 after years of abuse and neglect. Both boys struggled with learning disabilities and emotional problems, and Sykes, 69, a retired postal worker, begged school officials for help.Instead, she......

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Special ed is bane to children, boon to lawyers

Published: Sep 24, 2007

What D.C. officials have acknowledged is a dangerous and deteriorating special education system has meant big paydays for the lawyers of James E. Brown & Associates. Since 2001, D.C. has paid nearly $15.5 million to the law firm for representing parents who sue the city schools over the special education system, city records show.The firm is by far the biggest player in the lucrative field of special education litigation. But others also profit. From fiscal 2001 until 2006, D.C. paid more than $52 million to private lawyers who sued the......

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Report: D.C. may be overspending on unneeded special-ed services

Published: Sep 21, 2007

The District of Columbia will spend nearly $137 million in fiscal 2008 to send about 2,000 children to outside schools for special education services they may not need, a scathing draft report by an independent research group has determined. When the high cost of transporting the children is factored in, D.C. will spend about $82,000 per child, an "especially excessive" amount onits face, the American Institutes for Research concluded in its study of D.C.’s stricken special education system. A draft of the report, which won’t be made public until later......

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D.C. students sent to schools facing abuse claims

Published: Sep 20, 2007

Dozens of the District of Columbia’s most vulnerable students have been farmed out to two schools that have been the subject of numerous allegations of abuse and neglect, an Examiner investigation found. The schools send about 2,000 special education students every year to outside facilities from Colorado to Florida, as well as several private schools in the District.An Examiner investigation of two of those schools — Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass., and the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation Inc. in Wauchula, Fla. — revealed a disturbing pattern of incidents......

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Mendelson asks police to justify canceling test

Published: Sep 13, 2007

The District Council member who oversees the police has asked the department to explain why it canceled a vital accreditation test after spending thousands of public dollars and nearly a decade preparing for the inspection. Phil Mendelson, D-at large, dispatched a letter to police Chief Cathy L. Lanier Wednesday, asking her to explain why she peremptorily scuttled a long-scheduled visit by agents from the Commission on the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies in April. CALEA accreditation had been a long-standing goal of the D.C. Police Department, but D.C. police officers......

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D.C. police botch paperwork, pull plug on pricey accreditation test

Published: Sep 12, 2007

The District of Columbia’s police department spent tens of thousands of public dollars and countless hours readying itself for a critical outside accreditation — only to ­pull the plug at the last minute because the department failed to adequately prepare for the review. Accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies Inc. had been the decades-long goal of police leadership. But when the commission sent staff to inspect the police department in late March — after years of meetings, test runs and policy changes from within the police......

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Council rebukes D.C. Mayor for billing man who gouged out own eyes

Published: Sep 12, 2007

 Six District of Columbia Council members Wednesday accused Mayor Adrian Fenty's administration of "embarrassing" the city by sending a $2.2 million bill to a mental patient who gouged his own eyes out while he was supposed to be monitored byD.C. officials. The letter, dated Wednesday, is addressed to Peter J. Nickles, Fenty's general counsel. It says that the council members are "both disappointed and alarmed" by the city's treatment of Frank Harris, Jr. Harris, a schizophrenic, ripped out his own eyes in early 2003, after spending nearly three decades in......

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No room for youth awaiting trial at city rehab shelters

Published: Sep 11, 2007

The city’s shelters for youth awaiting trial have reached a point of dangerous overcrowding, officials agree, but those city leaders continue to wrestle over who is to blame for the appalling conditions and how to resolve the worsening problem.The District runs 11 youth shelters for children awaiting trial. All of them are full, and the Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services — the agency charged with guarding youthful offenders — has said in court that it can’t squeeze in any more children.A juvenile court judge has held the city in contempt......

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Embattled schools contractor at center of fraud probe says it has nothing to hide

Published: Sep 10, 2007

The leader of an embattled schools contractor at the center of a District of Columbia fraud probe has issued a defiant letter, claiming her group will be vindicated by an investigation demanded by new schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.Teachers Institute Executive Director Sheila M. Ford dispatched a letter to the D.C. Inspector General’s Office last week, saying, "I am confident that the Teachers Institute’s records and practices will be seen to be above reproach." "I would greatly appreciate it if this work can commence and be completed as soon as possible......

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Top officials ask for probe into consulting group

Published: Sep 04, 2007

Top school officials have asked the District of Columbia to investigate allegations of fraud leveled against a private consulting group paid millions of dollars to train young teachers in the city’s schools. On Friday, a special assistant to new schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee asked the city’s inspector general to investigate The Teachers Institute, according to a memo obtained by The Examiner. The institute has a $3.1 million "professional development" contract with the D.C. schools that goes back to 2004, records show."The allegations against Teachers Institute ... include: misuse of......

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Violent weekend in D.C. leaves four people dead

Published: Sep 04, 2007

The summer closed on a grim note during the weekend, with at least four more people killed in violent encounters in the District of Columbia, police reported. Shortly after midnight Saturday, police were called to the 300 block of Kentucky Avenue SE, where they found a 33-year-old man lying on the ground, suffering from stab wounds. Three hours later, police found the gunshot-riddled body of Terry Baltimore, 41, in his home in the 5000 block of Hanna Place, SE.Just before 11 a.m. Saturday, police came to what they thought was......

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Sources: Audit urges Gandhi to reduce hold on school funds

Published: Aug 31, 2007

The independent auditing firm hired to pore over D.C. Public Schools will tell Mayor Adrian Fenty that city Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi should relinquish control of the schools’ stricken finances, City Hall sources told The Examiner. Alvarez & Marsal gave the schools their first top-to-bottom review. The firm is scheduled to brief new schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee today. Sources told The Examiner that Alvarez & Marsal’s top recommendation will be to give Rhee her own budget authority. The schools’ finances have been controlled by Gandhi’s office for more than......

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New era for D.C. Schools starts today

Published: Aug 27, 2007

Some 70,000 children head to school in the District of Columbia today and the city’s political leadership hopes they will get the first proper welcome they’ve had in decades. Mayor Adrian Fenty and his new school chancellor, Michelle Rhee, are scheduled to address the media this morning at 7 a.m. to give a forecast on the first day of classes. Rhee spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said Sunday that 96 percent of textbooks were in place. On Saturday about 1,600 volunteers helped touch up the schools — painting, gardening, picking up litter......

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Police bill Gay Pride festival $36,000

Published: Aug 23, 2007

The District of Columbia police department’s decision to slap a $36,000 bill on a gay festival has raised eyebrows on the District Council. D.C. police and the Emergency Management Agency said they need the money to pay for the overtime and other costs for security on the June Gay Pride parade and festival. Phil Mendelson, D-at large, has written a pair of letters challenging the bill — in part because the agencies waived fees last year and because the department did not charge fees for the annual Eastern Market Day......

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Red tape chokes schools’ $2.2M mentoring program

Published: Aug 22, 2007

An ambitious $2.2 million project designed to help rookie educators survive their first year in the District of Columbia’s schools was severely undermined because officials didn’t disburse the funds and didn’t tell many school principals it was available for new teachers.The New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz, offered to set up a mentoring program for hundreds of new teachers entering the D.C. schools, center Executive Director Ellen Moir said. In 2005, the center received a $750,000 grant from the Wachovia Foundation, and the D.C. schools committed......

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Firm auditing D.C. schools found liable in lawsuit

Published: Aug 21, 2007

The accounting company hired by the city to help straighten out the books for its troubled school system last week found itself on the wrong side of a half billion dollar negligence verdict.But the company insisted Monday that decision will not impede its ability to monitor the finances of the District schools and other city agencies. BDO Seidman was found guilty of negligence in a fraud suit brought by a Portuguese bank called Banco Espirito Santo earlier this month. The federal civil jury in Miami ordered BDO to pay Banco......

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Teacher’s aide part of schools payroll scandal, documents show

Published: Aug 20, 2007

An employee in the District of Columbia’s beleaguered special education system was paid as a school employee at the same time he drew salaries from outside companies paid by the schools, documents obtained by The Examiner show.Teacher’s aide Roy Holbrook signed four years’ worth of time sheets for Alternatives Unlimited Inc. at the same time he claimed he was working for the special education department, according to internal school documents .After leaving Alternatives Unlimited, Holbrook then began filing time sheets for another school contractor, Integrated Urban Solutions, documents show. Holbrook......

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Two-third of D.C. public schools fail federal standards

Published: Aug 18, 2007

Two-thirds of the District of Columbia's public schools have failed basic federal standards in reading, math and other core educational areas, new data released by the schools Friday showed. Seventy-four of 105 charter and traditional public elementary schools were failing national standards in reading, math or both this year -- 18 more than the year before. High schools did slightly better this year than last; only 47 high schools were on the failing list this year, compared to 49 the year before.All told, less than 48 percent of......

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School founder sentenced for buying stolen computers

Published: Aug 17, 2007

Choking back tears and sobbing into his hands, a founder of a publicly funded school for some of D.C.’s most vulnerable students apologized for his role in a computer-theft ring and begged for mercy moments before being sent to prison for a year. Charles Emor asked for a five-minute recess before telling U.S. District Judge James Robertson that he regretted buying dozens of computers stolen from a Gateway loading dock in Hampton, Va. "I apologize to the community," Emor said. "I knew better."Emor said he was hoping to avoid prison......

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Report: D.C. public schools fail federal standards in reading and math

Published: Aug 17, 2007

Nearly three-fifths of the District of Columbia's public schools have failed basic federal standards in reading, math and other core areas, new data released by the schools Friday showed.Of the city's 213 traditional and charter schools, 123 were put on the failing schools list this year.All told, less than 48 percent of elementary school children and less than 44 percent of high schoolers tested "proficient" in reading; less than 41 percent of elementary and high school children were proficient in math, the data showed.Here are some of the results, school......

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School founder faces two years in prison in computer-theft ring

Published: Aug 16, 2007

The founder of a publicly funded school for some of D.C.’s most vulnerable students faces up to two years in prison for his role in a computer-theft ring. Charles Emor is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court this morning. He was convicted last year of conspiracy charges after a jury found that he had bought computers stolen by his friends from the loading dock at the Gateway computer plant in Hampton, Va. Emor, 46, is the founder of SunRise Academy, a private school in D.C. that takes in learning-disabled......

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Schools ‘misused’ fed grants for migrant education

Published: Aug 14, 2007

District of Columbia Public Schools officials "misused" federal grants designed to help the children of migrant workers, and the city will now cooperate with an ongoing federal investigation, a spokeswoman for the D.C. attorney general told The Examiner on Monday. "We have investigated this issue and believe that over the past few years, DCPS misused these federal grants funds," spokeswoman Melissa Merz said in an e-mail. "We are working with the Justice Department and DCPS to resolve this issue and ensure that it does not happen again."The Examiner reported Friday......

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D.C. official suspended, source says

Published: Aug 14, 2007

A top official who supervises key library and police projects for the District of Columbia’s troubled contracting office has been suspended, a source told The Examiner. Karen Hester, a commodity manager in the Office of Contracting and Procurement, was relieved of her duties last week after a meeting with Assistant Director Esther M. Scarborough, a source in the office told The Examiner. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of a fear of retribution from supervisors.Hester, who supervises millions in contracts for the city libraries and police department, couldn’t......

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Feds probing D.C.’s migrant education grants

Published: Aug 10, 2007

The federal government is threatening to bring a False Claims Act lawsuit against the city to recoup millions of dollars spent on a District of Columbia public schools program aimed at educating migrant children, according to sources.At the heart of the controversy, which sources said could eventually yield criminal charges, is money the city accepted over nearly three decades to teach the children of migrant farm workers and fishermen.The problem for city officials attempting to justify the money spent: A 2005 audit found there were no such children in the......

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Ex-charter schools exec to plead guilty to corruption charges

Published: Aug 09, 2007

Brenda L. Belton’s signature once dispatched millions of dollars and affected the education of thousands of children in District of Columbia charter schools. This afternoon, Belton is expected to put her signature on another government document — this time, a guilty plea.Belton, 61, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court at 3 p.m. today to admit that she used her position as Board of Education charter school director to bilk the D.C. and federal governments out of hundreds of thousands of dollars that went to her cronies, her daughter......

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Whistle-blower breaks silence

Published: Aug 09, 2007

Steve Kapani’s good deed didn’t go unpunished. After Kapani, 36, told city officials that he suspected charter school executive Brenda L. Belton was siphoning public money for herself and her friends, Kapani was labeled "disgruntled" by Board of Education President Peggy Cooper Cafritz and relieved of his duties.He was on paid administrative leave for more than a year, until he hired prominent whistle-blowing attorney Mona Lyons and threatened to sue. He settled for an undisclosed sum and resigned.Kapani was the key witness against Belton, and the documents he provided to......

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Two top deputies resign after less than a month on the job in D.C. school finance office

Published: Aug 06, 2007

Two top officials in the District of Columbia’s school finance office have walked off the job, less than a month after they were appointed to lead efforts to pull the schools out of their financial and political chaos.Cornelia Kent and Patricia Davis were appointed deputy chief finance officers last month and asked to lead a mad-dash reform effort to get the schools off the federal "high risk" list. They submitted their resignations last week, schools spokeswoman Mafara Hobson told The Examiner.The Department of Education attached the "high risk" label last......

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FDIC makes no comments on Va. nude golf incident

Published: Aug 03, 2007

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has circled its wagons after a nude golf outing scandalized the nation’s bank guarantor. "The FDIC is prohibited under this law from divulging information about the circumstances of the incident, the investigation and the disciplinary process," FDIC spokesman Andrew Gray said in an e-mail statement. "These are not public officials, and each of these individuals has due process rights."Gray’s "no comment" came more than two months after the FDIC promised to take swift action against anyone involved with the May 22 revelry at Penderbrook......

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Schools grants executive ousted

Published: Aug 03, 2007

The city official in charge of D.C. Public Schools’ heavily criticized efforts to obtain and manage hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants wasremoved from his job Thursday by the city’s top education officials.Victor Vyfhuis, the executive director of the schools’ federal grants office, was put on administrative leave, school spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said. She declined to elaborate, citing employee privacy laws. The $1 billion-plus school system has been rated "high risk" for federal funds because of years of neglect, mismanagement and corruption.Vyfhuis could not be reached for comment......

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District schools are in danger of losing federal funds over violation, report says

Published: Aug 02, 2007

D.C. Public Schools officials diverted funds from a vocational education grant to build and rehabilitate its crumbling buildings, a "direct violation" of federal law and one of the reasons the schools are now in danger of losing their federal funding, an internal schools report found.The grants were supposed to train students in practical job skills so they could pull themselves out of the pervasive poverty that afflicts D.C.’s 51,000-plus public school students.Instead, the D.C. schools’ "High Risk Corrective Action Plan" found that the money went to construction and renovation work,......

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Library patrons indignant at Southeast Library's lack of classic titles

Published: Aug 02, 2007

D.C. Public Library officials say they're reinventing the neighborhood libraryby culling their shelves, restocking with popular titles and focusing on digital media and self-help books. But some activists say the library is dumbing down its collection in a city where cultural standards and literacy rates are already shameful."It's condescending," Hill East neighborhood activist Bryce Suderow said. "It's making an assumption that we're incapable of reading better books.Loriene Roy, the president of the American Library Association, said that libraries have been moving toward the "bookstore" model for more than 20 years."If......

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City unprepared on fire and paramedic negotiations, union says

Published: Aug 01, 2007

Eight months after the District avoided a multimillion-dollar lawsuit following the death of a prominent journalist by promising a dramatic reform of the city’s crumbling rescue services, city officials still haven’t opened crucial negotiations with the fire and rescue union.The current contract expires in October, leaving the city little time to negotiate key reform proposals to avoid a major lawsuit from the family of slain journalist David Rosenbaum.The family has urged the city to cut red tape preventing firefighters and paramedics who endanger people from being disciplined or thrown......

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Contractor scorched other greens, too

Published: Jul 27, 2007

The government contractor who scorched the greens at Hains Point also destroyed the grass at Rock Creek golf course, and District duffers are teeing off on the National Park Service for its stewardship of D.C.’s public courses.Michael Williams, spokesman for Golf Course Specialist Inc., said Thursday that the same employee who confused herbicide with fertilizer at Hains Point last month also sprayed the lethal compound on the greens at Rock Creek Park around the same time. Williams attributed the gaffe to "human error."The courses remain open. Fees at Rock Creek......

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Report: More D.C. schools fall short of math, reading standards

Published: Jul 27, 2007

Significantly more of the District of Columbia’s public schools have failed federal standards on teaching math and reading than a year ago, an internal schools report obtained by The Examiner found. Seventy-two of the District’s 142 schools fell below federal standards in one or more categories measured by the federal government under the No Child Left Behind Act, according to an internal report by new schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. That would mark an increase of 26 percent from last year, when 57 schools tested below federal standards, records show. The......

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Reports show D.C. schools failing federal education standards

Published: Jul 27, 2007

According to an internal schools report obtained by The Examiner, 72 D.C. public schools are failing federal standards in reading, math and other basic education goals. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, schools in the District of Columbia are required to meet strict standards in reading, math and even attendance.Those schools that fall short of standards two years in a row are labeled "In Need of Improvement -- Year 1"; those that fail three years in a row are "In Need of Improvement -- Year 2" and those......

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Rhee commits $1.6M in funds to pay her top aides

Published: Jul 26, 2007

D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has committed nearly $1.6 million in public funds for 13 of her top aides, according to figures obtained by The Examiner.Rhee, who is paid more than $275,000 per year to run the city’s stricken schools, pays an average of $122,000 to each aide, according to a salary chart provided by Rhee spokeswoman Mafara Hobson. The top salaries include Lisa Ruda, Rhee’s chief of staff, and Kaya Henderson, deputychancellor, who each are paid $200,000 — as much as their boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty, makes.Jesus Aguirre,......

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Council member challenges judge over female held in men’s jail

Published: Jul 26, 2007

A mix-up at the District of Columbia courts that led to a woman being held in the men’s side of a jail for two days has led a District Council member to challenge the chief judge of the Superior Court. Phil Mendelson, D-at large, chair of the council’s judiciary committee, sent a letter to Judge Rufus King asking King to explain how authorities didn’t realize that Virginia Grace wasn’t a man until she was strip-searched at the D.C. Jail two days after her arrest on drug charges on July 14."I......

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Contractor scorches greens at Hains Point golf course

Published: Jul 26, 2007

A government contractor mistook a herbicide for fertilizer and scorched 36 putting greens at Hains Point, one of the nation’s busiest golf courses and one of the few public tracks in the District of Columbia. Groundskeepers for Golf Course Specialist Inc. killed the grass on all the greens at the course in East Potomac Park, according to National Park Service spokesman Bill Line and Golf Course Specialist spokesman Michael Williams. "It was human error," Williams said.Line said the grass had already been re-sodded and was growing lushly on the 36-hole......

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Fenty slips in library contracts without approval

Published: Jul 25, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty slipped through nearly $5 million in library design contracts without the approval of the D.C. Council, documents obtained by The Examiner showed.The contracts would pay architectural firms Davis, Brody, Bond, Aedas more than $2.4 million and the Freelon Group more than $2.5 million to design neighborhood libraries in Tenleytown, Shaw, Anacostia and Benning. The contracts will be announced at a news conference today.The council is required to approve any contract worth more than $1 million, but the contracts take effect automatically if the council doesn’t act within......

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Reputed drug lord nabbed by feds, arraigned in D.C.

Published: Jul 25, 2007

An accused drug trafficker whose Mexican mansion recently yielded the largest cash haul in history was traced to a Silver Spring grill through his cell phone calls, where federal agents busted him as he sought legal advice, according to his lawyer and court documents. Zhenli Ye Gon was arraigned in U.S. District Court in D.C. on Tuesday, where he was ordered held without bail. He is charged with possession with intent to distribute illegal narcotics.Wearing khaki pants and a striped short-sleeve T-shirt, his thinning hair tousled and his shoulders hunched......

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City finance office asks for an extension on audit

Published: Jul 20, 2007

The District of Columbia’s finance office has asked to extend the deadline on a crucial audit of city agencies used by the federal government in determining the city’s worthiness for multimillion-dollar grants. Finance office spokeswoman Maryann Young downplayed the request to file the so-called single audit on Sept. 30, saying that D.C. traditionally doesn’t file the report until the fall.But one of the reasons that the federal Department of Education designated the city’s stricken schools "high risk" for government money was its inability to file mandated reports and audits on......

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Fenty’s aides: $200M for D.C. schools isn’t enough

Published: Jul 18, 2007

Barely a month after promising a swift, low-cost fix of the city’s stricken schools, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration is quietly conceding it may take tens of millions of dollars more than initially projected to rescue the system from decades of neglect.Allen Lew, the mayor’s school construction czar, is scheduled to hold a news conference next week and will announce that the $200 million budgeted for school reconstruction over the next two years won’t be enough, two top aides to Fenty told The Examiner. The aides also said that Chancellor Michelle......

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D.C. to pay more than federal standard for library designs

Published: Jul 18, 2007

Having already wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on an aborted construction project, District of Columbia contracting officers have agreed to pay two design firms at more than twice the federal standard to salvage four neighborhood libraries, documents obtained by The Examiner show. The Freelon Group Inc. and Davis, Brody, Bond LLP each will receive more than $3.1 million to design the public libraries if the contracts are approved by the D.C. Council. The council has been given the contracts for ratification, D.C. contracting official Karen Hester said in a......

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Workers, Capitol architect settle asbestos claims

Published: Jul 17, 2007

Workers in the U.S. Capitol who say they were exposed to dangerous levels of asbestos in the tunnels under Congress have settled whistle-blower claims against the architect of the Capitol. The settlement was announced Monday by both sides, but the amount of monetary compensation received by the workers was not disclosed. The 10 steamfitters had claimed they were harassed by the then-architect of the Capitol, Alan Hantman, and his staff after they complained about the asbestos in the tunnels. The workers say they already show signs of deteriorating health from......

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Mendelson questions Fenty’s delay in appointment

Published: Jul 11, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty stalled for two months before formally signing paperwork that appoints Dennis Rubin the District of Columbia’s fire chief.Fenty signed Rubin’s confirmation papers Tuesday after receiving a note from D.C. Council Member Phil Mendelson asking him to explain what was happening."Swift passage of the nomination served to demonstrate our confidence in the appointment," Mendelson wrote in a letter obtained by The Examiner. "The unnecessary delay in issuing the mayor’s order of appointment has the opposite effect."Fenty lobbied the council to approve Rubin’s nomination quickly because the fire department......

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Equipment abandoned in shut D.C. school

Published: Jul 10, 2007

A communications breakdown caused boxes of sporting goods, computers and other essential equipment to be left padlocked in a shuttered District of Columbia junior high school for almost an entire year while a neighboring school was starved for supplies, a city consultant told The Examiner.A team from Alvarez & Marsal LLC discovered the equipment, much of it still in boxes, in Terrell Junior High School following a search for missing supplies that was initiated last month."We were a bit surprised by the amount of equipment in the building," said Scott......

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Fenty’s sports job pick was wife’s colleague

Published: Jul 06, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s choice to run the District of Columbia Sports and Entertainment Commission once worked at the same consulting firm that employed the mayor’s wife. Gregory A. O’Dell is a former executive at BearingPoint, a consulting firm where Michelle Fenty worked as a general counsel. The two were employed by BearingPoint when the company was consulting on a $24 million renovation of RFK Stadium that made the facility ready to host baseball in 2005. O’Dell and Michelle Fenty knew each other at BearingPoint, but "they worked in separate parts......

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Fenty warned against picking strong schools chief

Published: Jul 05, 2007

A key political fundraiser lobbied the Fenty administration to pick a schools chancellor who wouldn’t overshadow the mayor and would help isolate Board of Education President Robert Bobb, e-mails obtained by The Examiner show. "I would make absolutely sure that anyone who is brought here is Mayor Fenty’s and your person," Marie Drissel wrote to Deputy Mayor Victor Reinoso on May 23, "and not indirectly Robert Bobb’s person." She warned against picking as chancellor Miami-Dade Superintendent Rudy Crew, a nationally known educator, suggesting someone more compliant should be tapped. Crew......

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Stray backpack panics Georgetown

Published: Jul 02, 2007

A stray backpack locked down a chunk of Georgetown over the weekend, leading to forced evacuations of restaurants and the cordoning off of several key streets. Firefighters were passing by the Georgetown Park mall about 9 p.m. Saturday when they saw the abandoned pack on the sidewalk outside of an H & M clothing store. They called police, who called in the bomb squad. The bomb squad ordered M Street closed, but it took them more than an hour to choke off traffic in every direction. M Street was shut......

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FDIC golfers tipped women to bare tops

Published: Jun 30, 2007

The government’s banking insurance agency promised Friday to take "appropriate disciplinary action" after a golf outing that purportedly featured drunken bureaucrats inducing women to bare their breasts and provide lap dances.Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. spokesman David Barr released a statement Friday saying that FDIC investigators had finished interviewing staff from the agency’s 274-member information technology section and would discipline offenders "consistent with law and established procedures.""Nothing has been done [yet] because the investigation is continuing," Barr told The Examiner in a telephone interview.Several top officials took the day off May......

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FDIC investigates topless golf outing

Published: Jun 29, 2007

The federal agency insuring bank depositors has opened an internal investigation after receiving complaints that senior staff induced women to remove their blouses at a recent golf outing.Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. spokesman David Barr told The Examiner Thursday that the investigation was still open, despite earlier promises to finish "within a week.""These things take time to conduct and are hard to predict when they'll be finished," Barr said in an e-mail.The investigation stems from a May 22 outing at the Penderbrook Golf Club in Fairfax. Though not officially sanctioned by......

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Rhee tries to win over District Council chairman

Published: Jun 26, 2007

Michelle Rhee, the newly nominated city schools chancellor, met with District Council Chair Vincent Gray on Monday, hoping to calm fears about her ability to run the city’s stricken schools.She was accompanied by JoAnne Ginsberg, a former Board of Education member who is now Mayor Adrian Fenty’s top lobbyist.Gray has been an outspoken critic of the secrecy surrounding Rhee’s selection. Her nomination was scheduled for a hearing today, but Gray rescheduled it for July 2. The law that allowed Fenty to take control of the $1.3 billion school system requires......

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Top D.C. property official tied to real estate firm

Published: Jun 22, 2007

A top official in the District of Columbia's troubled property management office has continued to serve as partner in a real estate development firm that does millions of dollars of business in the city.Richard "Rick" Gersten, deputy director of the Office of Property Management, is responsible for managing the leases of more than 3 million square feet of city offices and buildings.When he announced Gersten's appointment in April, property office director Lars Etzkor said his new deputy "was the cofounder and managing partner of FreemanGersten Partners LLC, a 12-year-old District......

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Fenty pushes hard for Rhee’s confirmation

Published: Jun 22, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee have been making the rounds in city hall this week, hoping to repair a breach caused by Fenty’s secrecy in nominating her to run D.C.’s schools.Fenty met with D.C. Council Members Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, and Harry "Tommy" Thomas, D-Ward 5, on Wednesday. Rhee called on Marion Barry, D-Ward 8. Some city hall sources said Fenty was lobbying council members hard to approve her nomination, hoping to prevent the first crisis of his administration, but Fenty spokeswoman Carrie Brooks said the mayor was only......

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D.C. special ed. can't account for millions

Published: Jun 12, 2007

The District of Columbia’s special education department paid $160 million in 16 months to send some 2,000 children to outside schools. But don’t expect school officials to be able to give a full account of where the money went.More than a year after the Department of Education threatened to cut off federal funds to the schools because of shoddy accounting practices, the schools and the city finance office continue to mismanage their dollars.In fiscal 2006, the legislated budget was $82 million for the education of the 2,000-plus children attending facilities......

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List of groups paid by D.C. to teach special ed.

Published: Jun 12, 2007

» SunRise Academy, which runs two private schools in Northwest Washington, has been paid more than $7.5 million since fiscal 2006. The school’s founder, Charles Emor, is awaiting sentencing after being convicted for participating in a stolen computer ring.» Just A Mite, Inc., a Christian special education center in Southeast, was paid nearly $1.6 million in the past 16 months. According to a school attendance audit, Just A Mite enrolled two students last year. Just A Mite Director Morris Dickerson said enrollment fluctuates and that he has "probably 13" children......

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Jail guards sue director

Published: Jun 11, 2007

Eight District of Columbia Jail guards who are fighting for their jobs in the wake of a daring escape have taken their case to court, accusing D.C. Jail Director Devon Brown of ignoring systemic problems and scapegoating officers when things went badly. The lawsuit, filed Friday in D.C. Superior Court, alleges that Brown and other top jail officials conspired to violate the officers’ rights when they summarily fired the officers soon after the June 3, 2006, escape of inmates Ricardo Jones and Joseph Leaks. "The only reason the jail is......

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Former executive reaches plea deal

Published: Jun 05, 2007

A former charter school executive who once was responsible for the education of thousands of District children apparently has agreed to plead guilty to theft and fraud charges more than a year after being accused of using her position to make money for herself, her friends and her family.The terms of Brenda Belton’s plea agreement were not disclosed in the charging documents filed Friday and obtained by The Examiner. Belton was "charged by information" — an indication that a plea has been worked out, because a person can be charged......

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District schools comptroller calls it quits

Published: Jun 05, 2007

A top financial official in the District of Columbia’s schools has resigned, leaving the stricken school system without a comptroller as it attempts to pull itself off of a federal "high risk" list. Abinet Belachew tendered his resignation last week. He is at least the 16th official to leave the schools finance office in the last six months. The federal government has rated D.C. schools "high risk" for federal funds.Finance office spokeswoman Maryann Young did not respond to requests for comment. But Belachew, the only certified public accountant and fraud......

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$30M construction deal spirals out of control

Published: Jun 05, 2007

Top officials for the District of Columbia sent out under- or unqualified inspectors to monitor construction contracts and left key inspecting positions vacant for months at a time, allowing costs to spiral out of control and quality to lapse, inspector general memos The Examiner has obtained state. Left unchecked, the lack of control in key city agencies will expose millions of public dollars "to unnecessary risks" of waste or abuse, inspector general auditors concluded.The auditors’ comments were written in draft memos prepared for, but not sent to, the heads of......

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Year later, questions linger in daring jailbreak

Published: Jun 04, 2007

The escape of two dangerous inmates from the District of Columbia Jail last June raised disturbing questions about incompetence and corruption in an agency assigned to protect the public from criminals. One year later, those questions remain unanswered. "To this day, I don’t know who did it, how it happened, or why," said Neil Glick, the advisory neighborhood commissioner for the Hill East neighborhood that borders the jail. "I don’t remember seeing a letter from any city agency explaining what’s been done to protect the neighborhood."Ricardo Jones and Joseph "Poindexter"......

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The story behind the D.C. jailbreak

Published: Jun 04, 2007

Around 7 a.m. on June 3, 2006, District of Columbia Jail Corporal Herbert Douglas gathered 15 prisoners for their Saturday morning work detail. Douglas had been with the Department of Corrections for 15 years, first at the Lorton lockup and then at the Central Detention Facility in the Hill East neighborhood. Before that, he had spent 35 years in several state and federal agencies. He’d received outstanding performance reviews for his work in D.C. Douglas escorted the group through the jail, leaving them at various spots to clean and do......

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D.C. investigates credit cards issued to staff

Published: May 31, 2007

The investigative arm of the District of Columbia’s finance office is probing the city’s multimillion dollar credit card program, a few months after the federal government audit blasted the District’s chaotic procurement process, a top official acknowledged Wednesday. D.C. officials spent at least $17.4 million on their government-issued credit cards between 2005 and 2007, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show. But details on the expenditures were sketchy, in part because key records were subject to a citywide investigation by internal inspectors in the finance office, Office......

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Janey to meet with worried parents about principal

Published: May 30, 2007

District of Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Clifford Janey will meet with a group of parents demanding the firing of a junior high principal today — but the group’s leaders said they have promised that they won’t relent on their demands whatever the superintendent says.A handful of parents have picketed outside Alice Deal Junior High since last month in an attempt to show their commitment to their cause. The parents claim that they have evidence that principal Melissa Kim has emotionally and physically abused their children for years. "Melissa Kim is......

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Congressional Black Caucus co-founder Parren Mitchell dies

Published: May 30, 2007

When he ran for Congress in 1970, Parren J. Mitchell won the Democratic primary by 38 votes. By the time he retired from Congress in 1986, Mitchell was winning 90 percent of the votes. After a long decline, Mitchell died on Memorial Day in an intensive care unit in Baltimore. He was 85. For many, Mitchell’s life and career were exemplary of the promises of the civil rights era. He was a decorated veteran, the University of Maryland’s first black graduate student, Maryland’s first black member of Congress and one......

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Office of Campaign Finance investigating deputy mayor

Published: May 29, 2007

The Office of Campaign Finance has opened an internal review of Deputy Mayor Neil Albert’s meetings on behalf of a company he founded — a company that has since won preliminary approval for a $57 million city construction contract, the office’s top lawyer told The Examiner.Kathy Williams, general counsel to the office, would not comment further, except to say that the inquiry was prompted by reports in The Examiner.The Campaign Finance Office is the chief monitor of elected and appointed officials in the District of Columbia. Its agents enforce rules......

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String of robberies unsettles neighbors in upscale Hill East

Published: May 23, 2007

A rash of daring robberies in the upscale Hill East neighborhood has put neighbors on edge just as the summer begins. There were 15 robberies last weekend and five two weeks before, D.C. police Cmdr. Diane Groomes told Hill East residents in a posting on a neighborhood Web site. "I’m getting many e-mails," Groomes said in her Web posting.The end of the school year and the summer’s warm weather typically combine to increase street crime. Wealthy professionals from Capitol Hill have moved east and created a colony of affluence on......

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Watchdog questions top-ranking District official’s lobbying efforts

Published: May 21, 2007

A top-ranking District of Columbia official’s decision to lobby for a company that he founded is emblematic of a city administration that is out of its depths, a D.C. watchdog said. Neil Albert, the deputy mayor for planning and economic development, told The Examiner last week that he spoke up for EdBuild, a company that he founded, which was vying for a $57 million city contract, in a meeting with District Council Chair Vincent Gray earlier this month. D.C. employee rules forbid any city officials from lobbying for their......

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Sources: Mayor already reaching out for school czar

Published: May 14, 2007

Aides to Mayor Adrian Fenty have reached out to prospective superintendents — but insist the mayor hasn’t committed to firing current Superintendent Clifford B. Janey Jr. Victor Reinoso, Fenty’s deputy mayor for education, has already spoken with Miami-Dade Superintendent Rudy Crew and Philadelphia schools’ Chief Operating Officer Tom Brady, sources told The Examiner on condition of anonymity because the discussions are supposed to be secret. Brady had been Janey’s top aide, but he walked away in disgust late last year. He has said Janey was detached from the myriad......

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D.C. finance office paid auditor despite objections

Published: May 10, 2007

The private auditing firm that gave the D.C. finance office a sparkling review in January has been granted thousands of extra dollars — over the objections of a top finance official in the city's stricken public schools, a top school source said. BDO Seidman LLC was paid to complete the city’s comprehensive audit. It has since billed the city’s schools for $180,000 in extra work, but schools comptroller Abinet Belachew refused to release the money, the source said. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of a fear of......

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Police chief under fire for demoting commander

Published: May 04, 2007

Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier’s decision to demote a controversial police commander in an East-of-the-River district has quickly become one of the pressing political questions in the city. Lanier demoted Robin Hoey to captain and transferred him out of the 6th Police District late last month. Since then, residents in the Northeast neighborhoods where Hoey’s team patrolled have increased their demands for an explanation. Residents on Thursday rallied outside the 6th District station on 42nd Street Northeast and also sat in on a town meeting Lanier held in Northwest to......

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Teachers union vows organization on charters

Published: May 03, 2007

The American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation’s most aggressive unions, promised to revive its efforts to organize staff in the nation’s charter schools — a decision that could make D.C. a union battleground for years to come. The District of Columbia-based AFT promised to "intensify" its efforts in the burgeoning charter schools. "They want to have a voice and a fair salary and benefits and ways to improve the teaching and instruction," AFT spokeswoman Janet Bass said. Bass refused to say whether her union was organizing......

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Police lose track of 1,500 open records requests

Published: Apr 27, 2007

The District of Columbia police department allowed more than 1,500 open records requests to "slip through the cracks" — an unacceptable record that flies in the face of D.C.’s open government laws, a leading D.C. Council member said. Phil Mendelson, D-at large, sent a letter to newly confirmed police Chief Cathy Lanier, demanding that her department account for its handling of Freedom of Information Act requests. According to the police department’s own records, officials lost track of some 1,500 requests in fiscal 2005 and 2006. The department replied to less......

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Prosecutors let Webb aide off the hook

Published: Apr 27, 2007

Prosecutors dismissed charges against an aide to Virginia Sen. Jim Webb who carried a loaded handgun into a Senate office building. Phillip Thompson was arrested March 26 after he put a bag on an X-ray belt at the Russell Senate Office building. The X-ray showed that the bag held a loaded pistol and two fully loaded magazines.In an e-mail released late Friday, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said that his officer wouldn't pursue charges against Thompson."After reviewing and analyzing all of the evidence," the e-mail said, "we do not believe the......

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Clinton names Mikulski co-chair of her campaign

Published: Apr 25, 2007

Hoping to firm up her support among women and hard-core liberals, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., announced Tuesday that Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland will be co-chair of her presidential campaign with Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. "She has literally paved the way for me and countless other women who now serve in the Congress," Clinton said of Mikulski in an e-mail statement.Mikulski’s support will help Clinton reach out to pro-abortion rights women in the Democratic primaries, Washington political consultant Rosemary Reed said. "She’s sort of the dean of pro-choice women in......

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Traffic agency stalls on placing stop signs in wake of girl’s death

Published: Apr 25, 2007

D.C. traffic officials stalled on a promise to post temporary stop signs at an intersection where a little girl was killed in a hit-and-run accident, a D.C. Council member said Tuesday. After a green sport utility vehicle struck and killed Crysta Marie Spencer near the intersection of Sixth Street and Orleans Place Northeast, Department of Transportation officials promised to post stop signs to slow traffic down, Tommy Wells said in an e-mail his spokesman sent.Wells, D-Ward 6, said traffic officials hadn’t put the signs up Tuesday morning and it was......

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Young girl killed on way to church service in Northeast

Published: Apr 24, 2007

A young girl was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Northeast Monday afternoon, police said.The 6-year-old was headed to a church service with several other children when she dashed into traffic on Sixth Street, near Orleans, police spokeswoman Traci L. Hughes said. A sport utility vehicle struck her and then continued on, Hughes said.The girl, whose identity hadn’t been confirmed Monday evening, was pronounced dead on the scene. Witness descriptions of the hit-and-run vehicle were sketchy. It was described only as dark-colored, with tinted windows. It may have had Maryland......

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D.C. Chief Lanier demotes commander

Published: Apr 23, 2007

Police Chief Cathy Lanier, fresh from her confirmation as the first woman to head District of Columbia's police, demoted a police commander who has been named in several sexual harassment complaints.Commander Robin Hoey of the Sixth District in Northeast was demoted to captain and transferred to the police department's central cell block, according to an internal memorandum obtained by The Examiner.Hoey's demotion was one of several changes announced Friday, just a couple of weeks after Lanier was confirmed as chief by the D.C. Council.Former subordinates of Hoey accused him of......

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Gunman wrote violent stories one year ago

Published: Apr 17, 2007

The man who police say massacred at least 30 people at Virginia Tech Monday had written violent stories a year before his rampage, according to the graduate director of the Virginia Tech English Department.Carolyn Rude said she did not have an exact timeline of when Cho Seung-Hui wrote the stories, which were written in creative-writing classes. Cho was pursuing a degree in English.

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Charter school exec’s past raises concerns

Published: Apr 11, 2007

Cheryl Edwards’ resume says she obtained a law degree from Syracuse University in 1980. It doesn’t say she was disbarred in 1996 for using a client’s escrow account to pay her office’s rent.Her resume, which details a career in the District of Columbia government from the finance office to the department of health, was strong enough for her to obtain a job in the scandal-stricken charter school system.It doesn’t say that she is the niece of Rollie and Gwendolyn Kimbrough, who founded Jos-Arz Therapeutic Public Charter School. Jos-Arz was shut......

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Charter school employee back on the job at board

Published: Apr 10, 2007

A woman who fabricated a memo demanding payment for suspect school contractors has been brought back to her job at the D.C. Board of Education.Mary Bunn was put on administrative leave last October after she admitted to pasting school board Vice President Carolyn Graham’s signature on a memo to the school finance offices. The memo demanded payments for a series of contractors who are now at the center of a grand jury investigation of the school board’s charter school offices and its former executive director, Brenda Belton. School board President......

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Schools finance office failed to check bills

Published: Apr 10, 2007

Finance officials in D.C.’s troubled public schools neglected to file crucial reports to Congress that would have explained whether lawyers who billed the schools were doing the work they were paid for, e-mails obtained by The Examiner show. The District of Columbia public schools are already rated "high risk" for federal funds because of shoddy accounting practices. One of the reasons for the high-risk tag was that schools missed deadlines for filing financial reports.E-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that finance officials were caught off-guard when told......

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School board member: Parents left out of talks regarding lead

Published: Apr 05, 2007

District of Columbia public school officials left parents out of critical discussions over the amount of lead in the water of their children’s schools, a Board of Education member said Wednesday. Nearly three-quarters of the District’s schools have had a sink, fountain or water cooler test positive for high amounts of lead. Parents weren’t told about the test results, board member Lisa Raymond told The Examiner. "I’m very frustrated," Raymond said. "Those results should have been posted on the Web." It took school officials nearly a year to test 18......

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Nationals fans remain optimistic in spite of team’s loss to Florida Marlins

Published: Apr 03, 2007

Tens of thousands of people crowded into Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium on Monday to reacquaint themselves with an old Washington tradition.The Nationals were shelled by the Florida Marlins in their opening day debut, 9-2, and if baseball pundits are correct, Monday was the last time this year the team will have a break-even record.Despite the on-the-field shellacking, fans were in high spirits. "I’d like to see the Nats do a little hitting," said Kenny Campbell Jr., 51, who brought his son, Kenny Campbell III, to opening day. "But I......

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Nats fans unfazed by team’s long odds

Published: Apr 02, 2007

The weather is warmer, the days longer, the cherry blossoms have bloomed and the parkas are in the closet. But for Collin Mills and thousands of others in the national capital area, spring won’t have begun until he hears two words: Play ball. "An evening at the ballpark is better than an evening everywhere else," he said in a recent phone interview. "I am a baseball nut."The 28-year-old Reston resident is president of Nats Fanatics, the unofficial fan club of the Washington Nationals. The Nats open their third season in......

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Female prisoner kills herself in D.C. Jail

Published: Apr 02, 2007

A D.C. Jail prisoner killed herself over the weekend, the second suicide at the jail in less than four months. D.C. Jail officials were tight-lipped about the incident, except to say that Alicia Edwards killed herself in the eight minutes between the time jail guards last saw her alive and then found her body Saturday afternoon. Jail spokeswoman Beverly Young declined to say how Edwards killed herself. Edwards, 32, was put in a cell in the jail’s mental health unit, where a doctor or nurse was supposed to monitor her......

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Teacher fired for questioning charter school

Published: Mar 30, 2007

For more than two decades, Gerald Norde has taught in high schools from Dayton, Ohio, to the District of Columbia.His past employers remembered him as "a good teacher" with a wry, quiet manner who worked hard and kept himself out of controversy. Norde, 60, was hired last fall to teach high school Spanish to the students at Young America Works Public Charter School, one of Washington’s newest charter schools. Day after day, he noticed the attendance sheets in his classes listed students he’d never seen — or who had long......

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Fenty wants to fund traditional schools like charter schools

Published: Mar 30, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s first budget would fund traditional public schools based on their projected attendance, as the city has been doing with charter schools.It’s a plan that’s raised the hackles of critics such as Mary Levy, staff attorney for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, who say that the change could wreak havoc for the District of Columbia’s budget. "It will be interesting to watch him trying to cut millions of dollars out of a budget at the last minute," Levy said of Fenty.The District’s 55 charter schools......

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Charter funding system invites fraud and abuse

Published: Mar 30, 2007

The District of Columbia’s $300 million-a-year charter school funding formula has been a dangerous enticement to fraud and waste for years, a school advocate claimed in an interview."I’m not totally opposed to all charter schools," said Gina Arlotto of the Save Our Schools Coalition, a nonprofit group that advocates for traditional public schools. "But the reality is that some of these charter school operators are hustlers, quite a few of them are outright criminals and a lot of them are doing a big bait-and-switch."There are some 55 charter schools in......

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Bobb calls for forensic audit of teetering schools

Published: Mar 21, 2007

The District of Columbia’s failing schools will be subject to an audit designed to find possible criminal activity, Board of Education President Robert Bobb told The Examiner. Bobb said that he is already vetting forensic accountants to tackle the job. It will be the first time in memory that the District of Columbia’s failing schools will have been investigated by accountants and auditors trained to look for criminal enterprises in a bureaucracy. "It needs to be done and done quickly by outside, independent minds," Bobb told The Examiner in a......

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Prosecutor: Grand jury examining school

Published: Mar 21, 2007

A District of Columbia school for disabled students and its founder are the subject of a federal grand jury investigation, a prosecutor announced Tuesday. SunRise Academy founder Charles Emor already has earned a conspiracy conviction for his role in a computer theft ring. Assistant U.S. Attorney Roy Austin told a federal judge Tuesday that Emor and SunRise are being investigated for using public dollars to pay for the stolen computers.Austin made the admission — a rare public revelation of an open investigation — to buttress his claim that Emor ought......

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Bobb breaks silence on charter whistle-blower

Published: Mar 20, 2007

A whistle-blower who was put on administrative leave in the wake of the District of Columbia charter school scandal either should be brought back or fired, Board of Education President Robert Bobb told The Examiner. Financial analyst Steve Kapani has drawn his government paycheck since June. He was put on leave after he accused his then-boss, Brenda Belton, of using contracts with companies to line her pockets and those of her family and friends. Kapani has threatened to sue the board for violating D.C.’s whistle-blower laws.Bobb ended two months of......

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Fenty to meet with District auditor over charter schools

Published: Mar 19, 2007

Mayor Adrian Fenty will call the District of Columbia’s auditor into a meeting to ask about her progress investigating the multimillion-dollar charter school, an aide to the mayor told The Examiner. D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols has had a draft report on the charter school scandal at least since the late summer, sources on Nichols’ staff said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been made public. Nichols has not published her findings, saying that she has to get reactions from school officials. An aide to the......

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Montgomery County to honor police and firefighters

Published: Mar 19, 2007

Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett and other top officials will celebrate more than two dozen police and firefighters on Thursday at a gala banquet in honor of those who protect and serve. Seventeen officers and 14 firefighters, along with a police dog, will be feted at the North Bethesda Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. Awardees have not been announced, but Leggett will hand out the Gold Medal of Valor, the county’s top honor for a public safety official.......

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Lawyer wants Janey held in contempt for bus supervisors

Published: Mar 19, 2007

A lawyer for two District of Columbia school employees who were fired but then won their jobs back return court today to argue that D.C. school Superintendent Clifford B. Janey should be jailed for not reinstating the two men. Alfred Richards and Stephonos Ulis were fired from their jobs as school bus supervisors in April 2004. Last month, an administrative law judge ordered Janey and the schools to pay the pair nearly $400,000 in back pay and to put them back to work by March 15. Their lawyer, Stewart Fried,......

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Veteran official to run system, for now

Published: Mar 16, 2007

The D.C. Board of Education has hired a veteran District official to run its chaotic charter school system — a job that won’t exist in a matter of months. Cheryl Edwards started her $81,000-plus job last week. Until last week, she served as chief of staff of the D.C. Department of Health. She once was a top aide to D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi. She now oversees 18 charter schools that enroll some 4,000 students. The last charter school executive, Brenda Belton, was fired in October after being accused......

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Scandal-plagued official to now run DC schools

Published: Mar 13, 2007

A former District of Columbia official who resigned amid a $1.5 million campaign finance scandal has been assigned to clean up the District’s failing public schools. Abdusalam Omer was Mayor Anthony Williams’ chief of staff until he resigned in 2001, just before he was mentioned in a D.C. inspector general’s report.The report found that Omer and his deputy, Mark Jones, used nonprofit groups to raise $1.5 million to pay for Williams’ campaign and mayoral events. Much of the fundraising was done on the public’s time, a violation of the D.C.......

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‘Just us girls’: The charter schools saga

Published: Mar 12, 2007

Several years ago, educational consultant Gloria Donoghue walked into the Blue Nile bookshop on Georgia Avenue, Northwest. She was in town on business from Long Island, N.Y., where she had spent two decades working in special education."They had some wonderful books, jewelry and other wonderful things," Donoghue recalled in a recent interview with The Examiner, sitting in an office in upper Northwest, drumming her long, lacquered nails on a dark wood desk.Browsing the knickknacks at the Blue Nile that day, Donoghue struck up a conversation with the shop’s proprietor, Brenda......

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Jim Webb to grill Condoleezza Rice on plans for Iran

Published: Mar 08, 2007

Senate Democrats will question Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today on whether the United States’ war on terrorism will include a war against Iran.Virginia Democrat Jim Webb is outraged that the State Department hasn’t answered his questions on the Bush administration’s plans for Iran, his spokeswoman, Jessica Smith, told The Examiner Wednesday. Iran continues to flout international pressure to scrap its nuclear program, which the Bush administration and other world leaders fear is part of a nuclear weapons program. Bush also blames the theocracy in Tehren for sectarian violence in......

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School whistle-blower barred from council

Published: Mar 05, 2007

A whistle-blower whose allegations sparked a federal investigation of the District of Columbia’s charter school program has been barred from volunteering at the D.C. Council while he sits at home on leave. The Board of Education put Steve Kapani on administrative leave in June after federal authorities raided the board’s charter school offices and the home of then-charter school executive Brenda Belton. Tommy Wells, formerly of the School Board and now the Democratic District Council member for Ward 6, called Kapani last week and asked him to come in as......

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D.C. officials refuse to approve audit report

Published: Feb 27, 2007

Two top officials in the District of Columbia’s finance office have refused to sign off on a private consultant’s audit that gave their office a clean bill of fiscal health, according to a school source and government documents.Pamela Graham, the financial officer assigned to the District’s troubled school system, and Abinet Belachew, the schools’ comptroller, are balking because of their concern that the consultant failed to criticize the finance office while lambasting the schools, the school source said.The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of a fear of retribution......

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Woman killed Saturday was Metrobus' third victim

Published: Feb 19, 2007

D.C. Metro officials spent their Sunday trying to reassure a nervous public that safety matters after a Metrobus struck and killed a 21-year-old District woman as she carried groceries to her home. Angel Walters had just parked her car in the 1300 block of Congress Place Southeast when a Metrobus slammed into her late Saturday night. She was the third bus fatality of the week and the 10th person killed by Metro trains and buses in 18 months. Led by Mayor Adrian Fenty, Metro hastily called a news conference Sunday.......

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Unsafe at any speed? Metro’s grim season

Published: Feb 19, 2007

Angel Walters’ name was added to a grim list over the weekend. The 21-year-old Southeast District resident was struck and killed late Saturday by a bus as she tried to carry groceries into her home. As the victims of Metro crashes mount, authorities have promised to overhaul their safety system. It has been a harsh season for Metro, though. In the past three months, five people have died and dozens have been injured in bus and train crashes, including:» Sally McGee and Martha S. Schoenborn. The two women were walking......

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House Democrats OK nonbinding measure on Iraq strategy

Published: Feb 17, 2007

House Democrats passed a nonbinding resolution Friday condemning President Bush’s plan to send 21,500 combat soldiers and Marines to Iraq.After three days of often somber debate, 17 Republicans joined the Democratic majority to condemn the proposed use of the troops to try to stabilize Baghdad.The Senate will meet in a special session today. Democrats there hope they can break a Republican-led filibuster that has kept a similarly symbolic resolution from coming up for a vote. The resolution is nonbinding, but the Democrats hope they can retire some of their debt......

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House Democrats to pass a symbolic resolution on troop surge

Published: Feb 16, 2007

House Democrats will pass a symbolic resolution today condemning the Bush administration’s "surge" of U.S. forces in Iraq, but both parties face tougher decisions in the weeks ahead on how to refocus American policy in the Middle East. For most of the week, the House has debated a resolution condemning Bush’s proposal to send 21,500 more combat soldiers into Iraq. A similar measure was derailed in the Senate just as debate began in the House. The House’s nonbinding resolution will pass easily, its supporters say. Several Republicans have split from......

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D.C. schools can fix money woes: Gandhi

Published: Feb 15, 2007

Officials from the District of Columbia’s finance office and its failing schools are huddling together to find ways to keep the schools’ chaotic finances from dragging down the city’s bond rating, Chief Finance Officer Natwar Gandhi told a D.C. Council panel Wednesday. But Gandhi continued to insist that school officials have to solve the schools’ problems themselves. "I’m confident that this can be done," Gandhi told the Committee on Finance and Revenue. "But, still, the actual work of doing it has to be done over at the schools. My role......

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Gandhi: The many faces of ‘Dr. No’

Published: Feb 13, 2007

At a public hearing earlier this month, District Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi was asked why he didn’t do more to fight corruption and waste in the city agencies he monitors.As he has done so often, Gandhi said his job is to balance the budget, not run the city agencies. "I’m just a bean counter," he said. That wasn’t the metaphor Gandhi used when he called a meeting with his staff in the city’s failing schools last fall. According to someone who attended and who spoke on the condition of......

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FBI: 160 laptops, 160 weapons missing

Published: Feb 12, 2007

An FBI staffer in the Washington field office lost a laptop in May 2004. To this day, the FBI doesn't know what was on the computer and whether the information was classified. Another FBI laptop, reported stolen from the FBI's laboratory at Quantico in July, 2002, contained the names, addresses and phone numbers of FBI employees. These were just two examples of 160 FBI laptops lost or stolen in less than four years and documented in a report released by the Department of Justice's Inspector General Monday. In......

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Ex-D.C. Police Chief Ramsey to work for Congress

Published: Feb 10, 2007

Former D.C. police Chief Charles Ramsey will sign on as a security consultant to Congress in what may be the first step on his road to a top security job at the Capitol. Ramsey, 56, will be a contract consultant to his old friend Terrance Gainer, the Senate sergeant at arms. "The Capitol community is indeed fortunate to have captured some of Chief Ramsey’s time and expertise," Gainer said in an e-mail to The Examiner. "He’s a pro and a friend and those are good things." The two......

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Top security job on Capitol Hill for Ramsey

Published: Feb 09, 2007

Former D.C. police Chief Charles Ramsey will sign on as a security consultant to Congress in what may be the first step on his road to a top security job at the Capitol.  Ramsey, 56, will be a contract consultant to his old friend Terrance W. Gainer, the Senate sergeant at arms.  "The Capitol  community is indeed fortunate to have captured some of Chief Ramsey's time and expertise," Gainer said in an e-mail to The Examiner. "He's a pro and a friend and those are good things."Continued...

 

Contractors’ families: ‘They left them to die’

Published: Feb 08, 2007

Their voices quavering, a widow, daughter and mothers of four defense contractors who were lynched in Iraq blasted the company they say left their men to die. Military veterans Wesley Batalona, Scott Helventson, Michael Teague and Jerry Zovka were new to Iraq when their company, Blackwater USA, assigned them to escort a convoy designated to pick up kitchen equipment in March 2004. They got lost and were mobbed in Fallujah. They were shot, dragged through the dusty streets and set afire, and their bodies were dangled from a suspension bridge......

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Blackwater e-mails: Vehicles ‘in bad shape’

Published: Feb 08, 2007

The night before four Blackwater USA contractors were lynched in Iraq, their boss was desperately writing to the company, begging for equipment that might have saved their lives. "Guys this [is] reality," Blackwater USA’s Baghdad chief, Tom Powell, wrote to his superiors on March 30, 2004. "I have vehicles that I have sent to Jordan for a pickup that are suspect. The ones going to Kuwait are in bad shape. The Baghdad ones ... [have] bearing and wheel problems [and] one is overheating."Worse, Powell said, the vehicles lacked armor —......

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Dems open hearings on Iraq occupation

Published: Feb 07, 2007

House Democrats opened hearings Tuesday on the bungled occupation of Iraq, bringing Iraq’s former top administrator, L. Paul Bremer to Capitol Hill in what Democrats described as the beginning of a long line of attacks on the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. Democrats asked Bremer about the $12 billion in cash that was sent on wooden pallets to Iraq and doled out from the backs of pickup trucks. They asked about the $8.8 billion that neither the U.S. nor the Iraqis can account for. They asked about the contractors hired,......

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More delays for Capitol Visitor Center

Published: Feb 07, 2007

The Capitol Visitor Center is almost three years past its original deadline and more than $335 million over its original budget. Now, an expired contract may leave taxpayers deeper in debt.Architect of the Capitol Alan Hantman and Providence, R.I.-based Gilbane Building Company are in negotiations to see who will pay for the delays. Gilbane, a construction manager, has the responsibility of pushing the other contractors to finish their work on time and under budget. Gilbane’s contract expired Sept. 15. The center was supposed to be a museum dedicated to the......

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Fed employees to get 3 percent raise in Bush budget

Published: Feb 06, 2007

Federal employees will get a pay raise if President Bush’s budget passes Congress. Bush’s budget proposal, released Monday, calls for a 3 percent raise for the nation’s civil servants. Last year, Bush was criticized for offering only a 2 percent increase. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees live in the D.C. area. The federal government is the region’s top employer. The federal pay raise drew compliments from congressional Democrats, who otherwisewere critical of the president’s budget. "We face serious budgetary pressures this year due to the Iraq war and the......

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FOIA suits cost taxpayers nearly $160,000

Published: Feb 06, 2007

The District’s refusal to respond to open-records requests cost taxpayers nearly $160,000 in litigation during the last two years, records obtained by The Examiner show.Since fiscal 2005, the D.C. government has defended 13 lawsuits filed under the Freedom of Information Act. It has lost or settled five of them for tens of thousands of dollars at a time, records kept by the D.C. Attorney General’s Office show. D.C.’s open records law was intended to keep citizens informed about public expenditures. The law provides penalties for agencies that flout requests. In......

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Cardin endorses bill to outlaw dirty campaign tricks

Published: Feb 02, 2007

Still smarting from what he considered as a dirty trick orchestrated by his campaign opponents, Sen. Ben Cardin has joined two Democratic heavyweights to back legislation that would outlaw deceptive campaign practices. Cardin, D-Md., easily defeated then-Lt. Gov. Michael Steele in last November’s election. But he became outraged when he learned that homeless men — bused in from Philadelphia — handed out flyers that showed prominent Maryland Democrats backing Steele. "It was a blatant strategy to deceive voters and suppress minority turnout," Cardin told The Examiner in an e-mail Thursday.......

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Missing in America: 8,000 immigrant children

Published: Feb 01, 2007

Sixteen-year-old Juan Pablo Lopez’s trip to the United States began in a semi-trailer, packed with 150 human beings. He thought it would end for him alone in a cramped cell at the Juvenile Detention Center in Globe, Ariz. "I was thinking, ‘What are these people going to do to me?’" Lopez said at a recent interview in the District of Columbia. "I didn’t speak English and the guards didn’t speak Spanish. My family thought I was dead. I thought I was going to die." It was not the first time......

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Jose X: Desperate and young on the run

Published: Feb 01, 2007

When he was brought to the juvenile immigrants’ shelter near Phoenix a few weeks ago, Jose was still bleeding from his suicide attempt.He’d spent weeks in an adult jail, vainly trying to convince immigration officials that he was only 17 and didn’t belong there. Officials didn’t act until he took a disposable razor and slashed his wrists.Attorney Aryah Somers was one of the first people to talk to Jose when he came to the juvenile shelter."He said, ‘Get me out of here. I just want to be out,’ " Somers......

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Controversial Capitol Police lawyer lands job at House’s top security post

Published: Jan 30, 2007

A Capitol Police lawyer who retired last year amid controversy over his declining to submit to a background check has been given a top job on the staff of the House sergeant-at-arms.John Caulfield retired late last year after more than two decades as the top lawyer to the Capitol Police Department. He now is on the staff of House Sergeant-at-Arms Wilson "Bill" Livingood. "He’s doing some legal stuff for the office," Livingood told The Examiner in a phone interview Monday. The sergeants-at-arms in the House and Senate are charged with......

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Survey: Park cops under-equipped, understaffed, ill-prepared

Published: Jan 30, 2007

Rank-and-file members of the U.S. Park Police feel they are understaffed, under-equipped and under-funded in their efforts to protect some of the most visible symbols of American democracy, a new survey found. The Fraternal Order of Police surveyed 179 Park Police officers. It found that more than 90 percent of those officers think they don’t have enough staff, equipment or funds to do their jobs appropriately. Asked whether they had enough equipment to handle a terrorist attack, 96 percent of the officers said they did not, according to the survey.......

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Grand jury examining D.C.’s $21M investment

Published: Jan 29, 2007

A grand jury is investigating whether top officials in the District of Columbia broke federal law when they signed a $21 million deal with an investment firm that is now the center of a fraud investigation, sources told The Examiner. No current or former city official has been targeted by the grand jury, but several have become "people of interest," sources said, on condition of anonymity because grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret. The District still is trying to recover millions that its charter school program invested in......

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Burst pipes lead to unisex bathrooms at Union Station

Published: Jan 27, 2007

The freezing weather forced a cease fire in the battle of the sexes at Union Station Friday. City pipes burst early Friday, shutting down water on the west side of the station. Several food stands were closed as was the only men’s room in the station.To compensate, officials turned the women’s room near Gate G into a unisex room. Yellow cones divided the two sides and men were routed to one side, women to the other. Officials at the station said the pipes burst about 4 a.m. It was unclear......

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District school officials seek money to get handle on finances

Published: Jan 25, 2007

Top school officials in the District are scrambling to find money that will bring order to the chaotic finances of the failing system, Board of Education President Robert Bobb said Wednesday. The schools have set aside $1 million in the 2008 budget to automate the schools’ finances and set up a system of checks and balances. Bobb said Wednesday he wanted to find money for automation in this year’s budget. "No system can operate well unless they have financial controls," Bobb said. "The schools’ finances have to be above reproach."The......

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House Democrats consider floor vote for D.C., territories

Published: Jan 24, 2007

House Democrats will take up a bill today that would give the District of Columbia and four territorial delegates a vote in the chamber, but some critics worry that the bill will diffuse momentum to get full voting rights for D.C. Republicans called the measure "a greedy power grab." Four of the five delegates — including the District of Columbia’s Eleanor Holmes Norton — are Democrats. Some critics also worry that the bill runs against D.C.’s voting rights movement. "It’s counterproductive for those of us who are pushing for full......

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Report: FBI should have followed up

Published: Jan 23, 2007

The FBI should have followed up after it received a series of troubling e-mails from U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and a former House page, a Justice Department internal review found. Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine also found that the FBI made "inaccurate" statements to the media about the e-mails it received in July, a full three months before Foley’s lurid messages to ex-pages were made public. The FBI shelved an investigation after receiving a series of e-mails from Foley to an ex-page. Despite being told by the ex-page that......

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Finally: D.C. area gets first snowfall of the season

Published: Jan 22, 2007

Days of frigid temperatures finally gave way to the region’s first measurable snowfall of the season, but area police reported late Sunday that Washingtonians were handling themselves well so far. The National Weather Service called a winter weather advisory from central Maryland through the District of Columbia. It was to last through early this morning. The service predicted up to 2 inches of snow would cover the region. Maryland and D.C. police reported minor crashes on the freezing interstates and roads through late Sunday, and the Virginia State Police also......

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Dems to begin inquiry into handling of Iraq

Published: Jan 17, 2007

Congressional Democrats begin today to investigate how the Bush administration handled the business end of the Iraq war. The question of whether the investigations will be enough to satisfy the anti-war critics who gave the Democrats their majority is still to be answered.Senate Democrats opened hearings last week on the war strategy. But what Republicans sneered at as "government by investigation" begins today, when the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee convenes a closed-door meeting to examine war contracts."There’s a lot of contractor malfeasance that we’ve been told about," said Virginia Democrat......

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House Dems wrapping up ‘100 hours’

Published: Jan 17, 2007

House Democrats wrap up their "first 100 hours" in power this week, assuring the public they’ve kept their campaign promises and changed the way Washington goes about its work. The Democrats promised a parcel of legislation that would make it easier to pay for college and health care, take America’s energy policy out of the hands of foreign potentates, overhaul Congressional ethics and adopt all of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Versions of all those bills had passed or were ready to pass by Tuesday. Democratic leaders said they......

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Official for charter schools was paid $19,000 after termination

Published: Jan 17, 2007

Charter school executive Brenda L. Belton was fired amid allegations that she lavished hundreds of thousands of public dollars on herself, her friends and her family — but she didn’t leave empty-handed. Belton was paid nearly $19,000 for "accrued leave," a top school source told The Examiner. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of retribution. Belton is the central figure in an ongoing grand jury investigation into how she ran the District of Columbia Board of Education’s charter schools program. The grand jury has been told......

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Payroll scandal haunts D.C.’s special education office

Published: Jan 16, 2007

Supervisors in the District of Columbia’s troubled special education office continued signing time sheets for their ex-employees long after they left, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, school records and e-mails obtained by The Examiner show. According to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, five ex-employees — three teachers, a teacher’s aide and a special education executive — were each paid for at least a month after they left the office. One teacher who retired on Dec. 31, 2004, was paid her $71,116 salary through June......

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$1.5B funding bill reintroduced

Published: Jan 13, 2007

The capital region’s congressional delegation Thursday took another crack at obtaining $1.5 billion for Metro funding. "You can’t have a healthy national capital region without a healthy Metro," Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said in a news release. Davis and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., co-sponsored the bill, which would provide $1.5 billion in federal funds during the next 10 years for the mass-transit system. The District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia would have to come up with their own funds under the legislation.The bill is identical to one......

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GOP staff severance shot down — by GOP

Published: Jan 12, 2007

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to give a soft landing to hundreds of soon-to-be-unemployed Republican staffers, but her efforts were torpedoed by conservative Republicans.Pelosi, D-Calif., soon after her party’s victories at the polls, introduced a resolution on Dec. 8 — the last day of the previous congressional session. According to the congressional record, the measure would have given two months’ pay and benefits to outgoing committee and leadership staff.By congressional rules, the majority party can hire up to two-thirds of a committee’s staff. The Democrats formerly began governing this week;......

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President Bush’s words fail to trigger support from congressional Democrats

Published: Jan 11, 2007

Congressional Democrats were not swayed by President Bush’s impassioned call for a bigger U.S. force to quash sectarian violence and to bring stability to Iraq. Democrats had been dismissive since last weekend, when the president first mentioned plans for a "surge" of forces. "I am not confident that a troop buildup of perhaps any size that is doable will have the effect of stabilizing the situation that now exists in Iraq," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told the media at a briefing on Tuesday. "America cannot solve a civil......

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House legislation gives airport security staff the right to unionize

Published: Jan 11, 2007

House Democrats have discharged a political debt and given thousands of airport security staff the right to unionize.Democrats repealed a footnote in previous legislation that prevents employeesof the Transportation Security Administration from organizing into unions or using whistle-blower protection laws.The repeal was a victory for the American Federation of Government Employees, which has tried to organize airport security officers since the TSA was created in 2002. "This is a great day for working people everywhere," AFGE president John Gage said Wednesday during a conference call at the union’s D.C. offices.......

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Dems to introduce anti-terrorism package

Published: Jan 09, 2007

House Democrats will introduce legislation today that they say will protect Americans from terrorism — and make sure the White House does the same. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., briefed the media Monday, saying the legislation will require all cargo coming into the nation’s ports be checked for radiation, appropriate anti-terrorism money to cities and states based on the risk they face, and consolidate operational and budgetary control over U.S. intelligence agencies so that Congress can have a greater say in how the nation defends itself."It will provide the budget......

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Drug agents mishandled seized cash, audit finds

Published: Jan 06, 2007

Drug Enforcement Administration agents routinely disregarded agency rules on the handling of seized cash, jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars taken in drug raids, a Justice Department review found.In an audit published Friday, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine examined thousands of seizures between October 2003 and November 2005.Fine's report states that drug agents rarely counted the cash they took, often didn't provide receipts for seized money, rarely recorded the seizures in agency ledgers and often didn't ask their colleagues to witness their counting and handling of the money.DEA......

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Pelosi makes history, promises progress

Published: Jan 05, 2007

Having made history as the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi took office Thursday promising to "make progress for our new America."Pelosi and the rest of the 110th Congress were sworn in on the floor of the House. The first Californian to serve as speaker, she is now third in line to become president.In a prepared speech that invoked President Gerald Ford and St. Francis of Assisi, Pelosi, 66, once again called for "a new direction" in the war in Iraq and for sweeping ethics reform.Her......

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Van Hollen gains House Ways and Means seat

Published: Jan 05, 2007

U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a rising star in the Democratic firmament who helped organize his party’s victory in the last election, has been rewarded with an assignment on the House Ways and Means Committee.Van Hollen, 47, helped recruit and raise funds for Democratic candidates. The Democrats retook Congress in November in what President Bush called "a thumpin’."The three-term Maryland Democrat was assigned to the vital House Ways and Means Committee. Ways and Means has jurisdiction over the U.S. tax code, Social Security and trade. Van Hollen told The Examiner......

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Steny Hoyer becomes House majorityleader

Published: Jan 04, 2007

Steny Hoyer will raise his right hand today and become the highest ranking congressman in Maryland’s history. Hoyer, 67, easily beat back a challenge from U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., last month to become House majority leader. Only former Maryland Gov. Spiro Agnew obtained higher political office when he became vice president in 1969. Hoyer was born in New York City but came of age in Maryland. By his own admission, he was a lackluster student at the University of Maryland. But, he said, he decided to go into politics......

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Source: D.C. paid actor $150,000 to market schools

Published: Jan 04, 2007

An obscure character actor has been paid six figures to help District of Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Clifford B. Janey "market and brand" the city’s failing schools. Lawrence Kopp is paid $150,000 as a public relations consultant to Janey, sources who spoke anonymously told The Examiner. Kopp is an actor who has played bit roles in television episodes of "Law & Order" and "Homicide" and in two films — "Dumb & Dumber" and "Alien Nation."He helped write Janey’s $30,000-plus "State of the Schools" speech, sources said. Kopp did not......

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Dignitaries bid farewell to former President Ford

Published: Jan 03, 2007

Thousands of dignitaries gathered into the National Cathedral Tuesday for the last rites of former President Gerald R. Ford. Official mourners included former President George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President George W. Bush.All remembered Ford as a decent, genial man of quiet integrity and deep commitment to public service. Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw delivered a eulogy, calling Ford "a champion of Main Street values" who wasn’t haunted by "demons" and didn’t come to the White House with "a hit list."President George W. Bush walked......

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Regrets, recriminations remain in charter scandals

Published: Jan 02, 2007

Charter schools were supposed to redeem public education by introducing innovative outsiders into the school system. But after a year of alleged scandal and corruption, even die-hard supporters of charter schools can be forgiven if their faith is wavering. There are now at least two grand jury investigations of charter schools and the agencies that are supposed to regulate them. Grand jurors are probing fraud allegations around two defunct charterschools: The New School for Enterprise and Development and the Jos-Arz Therapeutic Public Charter School. Both schools had their charters pulled......

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Bush to deliver Ford’s eulogy

Published: Jan 02, 2007

Washington will lay its last honors at the feet of Gerald Ford today before sending the former president’s body to Michigan for burial. President Bush is scheduled to deliver Ford’s eulogy today at the National Cathedral in upper Northwest. Ford died the day after Christmas. He was 93. The former president is the only president never to have won a national election. His flag-draped casket, guarded by a member of each branch of the military, has spent the last three days lying in state at the U.S. Capitol, where Ford......

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Gandhi defends agency from critics

Published: Jan 01, 2007

District of Columbia Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi leapt to the defense of his agency after weeks of criticism that his employees aren’t doing enough to fight corruption and waste in the city’s failing school system. In an e-mail to The Examiner sent through his spokeswoman, Maryann Young, Gandhi said his agency lacks the legal authority to take on the fraud, waste and abuse that have plagued the city’s schools. "We do not have complete financial oversight in schools or in other District government agencies," Gandhi wrote. "And this is......

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Security officials hash out details

Published: Dec 29, 2006

Top executives of law enforcement and security agencies worked together Thursday to plan the District’s first state funeral since 2004. Former President Gerald Ford died on Tuesday night at age 93. He is scheduled to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol from Saturday until Tuesday. His funeral — the first state funeral in D.C. since Ronald Reagan’s in 2004 — is expected to draw thousands to the Capitol rotunda. The security requirements brought in hundreds of officers from dozens of agencies, including the Secret Service, the Capitol Police, the......

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Secret Service steps in to take charge of funeral

Published: Dec 29, 2006

The U.S. Secret Service has designated the state funeral of former President Gerald Ford a "National Special Security Event." The designation, usually reserved for presidential inaugurations, State of the Union speeches and other high-profile events in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, effectively puts the Secret Service in charge of security for the city while the funeral progresses. "The goal of such an operation is to prevent terrorist attacks and criminal acts," the Secret Service said in a news release. The Secret Service already has "partnerships" with federal and local......

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Former V.P. Agnew’s resignation paved the way for Ford’s success

Published: Dec 28, 2006

Gerald R. Ford may be best remembered for pardoning Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, but Ford owed his national prominence to the corruption of former Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew.Agnew resigned as Nixon’s vice president in 1973 after authorities learned he had taken bribes and kickbacks — including free groceries — dating back to his years in Annapolis. He was only the second vice president in history to resign."I think there’s an irony that Nixon brought Ford in to replace a criminal vice president," said George Washington University law......

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City schools can keep records private

Published: Dec 28, 2006

The D.C. city government has rejected an appeal to release information on how the public schools are spending money from a fund created by private donations.In an e-mail dated Tuesday, administrative hearings officer Len Becker said the schools have a right to deny a request, made by The Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act, to disclose expenditures from the schools’ Central Investment Fund. "We recognize the important interests served by the media’s investigation and disclosure of potential wrongdoing on the part of government employees," Becker wrote. "Nonetheless, the timing......

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Hearing probes defunct charter schools

Published: Dec 27, 2006

A former executive of the defunct New School for Enterprise and Development charter school has been targeted by a federal grand jury probing allegations of fraud, a law enforcement source said. The grand jury is also investigating fraud allegations surrounding the Jos-Arz Therapeutic Public Charter School, which was shut down earlier this year, according to a letter from the U.S. Attorney’sOffice. Former New School president Charles Tate and at least one other former executive have been notified that they are targets of the grand jury investigation, the source said.......

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School founder guilty in computer theft ring

Published: Dec 22, 2006

The founder of a publicly funded District school for mentally disabled children was convicted Thursday of plotting to steal top-of-the-line computers — some of which went to his school. A federal jury took barely five hours to convict Charles Emor of conspiracy to commit mail fraud for his role in the theft of computers from the Gateway Computers plant in Hampton, Va. Assistant U.S. Attorney Roy Austin alleged during the four-day trial that Emor, 46, conspired with former D.C. child welfare official Orlando Marshall and at least four......

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D.C. finance office lets FOIA request deadline pass

Published: Dec 21, 2006

The District of Columbia’s finance office has let a legal deadline expire on a request to explain how many executives it has hired or promoted.The Examiner filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act on Nov. 27 asking the finance office to explain how many officials it had hired or promoted to executive level since fiscal 2000. It also asked the office to explain how many of those executives were given bonuses.The finance office is a multi-billion-dollar agency charged with balancing the District’s budget and fighting waste, fraud and......

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Fired Prince George’s finance officer given six-figure job in D.C. schools

Published: Dec 21, 2006

A woman who was forced out of her job as top finance officer for Prince George’s County schools after a $1 million payroll scandal has been given a six-figure job to help repair the District’s public schools. Wynette Wilkins was fired from Prince George’s County schools in October 2005 after an audit discovered that employees had been overpaid by more than $1 million. She is now the accounting systems manager for the D.C. finance office, assigned to the D.C. Public Schools, said Maryann Young, spokeswoman for the D.C. finance office.......

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District schools spend $18.5 million in two days to save two federal grants

Published: Dec 20, 2006

Officials in the District of Columbia school system spent $18.5 million in two days to keep from losing two federal grants, school sources told The Examiner. On Sept. 28 — two days before the close of the fiscal year — grants officer Karin Davis sent an e-mail to top school officials, the sources said. It warned that the two federal grants were about to lapse because they hadn’t been used. Officials found a way to keep the grants — in two days. "We haven’t lapsed any grants," Davis told The......

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Schools can’t explain hefty car benefits

Published: Dec 19, 2006

Fifty-four D.C. Public Schools employees were paid $300,000 to drive their cars in the past three years, but school officials are hard-pressed to explain why those employees got the money.Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show employees from midlevel staffers to top executives being paid on seemingly random scales, with large spikes in payments."I have more questions than answers," said Mary Levy, a staff attorney and schools expert at the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.At least one top official within the school system said that many employees......

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District school board could be reduced to advisory board

Published: Dec 18, 2006

Washingtonians cast their ballots last month for a new School Board. As the new year draws near, voters might wonder whether they’ve cast those ballots for the last time. Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty has floated the idea of taking over the city’s stricken schools, reducing the Board of Education to an advisory body. Fentywill meet resistance from board President-elect Robert Bobb."I didn’t spend all this time, effort and energy running for president of the School Board to head the school system here in the District of Columbia as an advisory board......

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FDA withheld critical data on charges

Published: Dec 15, 2006

The Food and Drug Administration withheld vital information on an anti-pneumonia drug from one of the agency’s own advisory panels, a U.S. senator charged. "The Foodand Drug Administration can’t be in the business of misleading the public and hiding the truth," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a news release. Grassley said that the FDA withheld negative information about Ketek, an antibiotic designed to treat pneumonia. Grassley raised his concerns in a letter addressed to new FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach. The FDA will meet today to reconsider the drug.......

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Fired jail officers ordered back on the job, union says

Published: Dec 15, 2006

D.C.’s troubled jail has been ordered to reinstate the 11 officers fired in the wake of a daring escape.The jail was ordered to reinstate the officers after administrative law judges ruled — in separate decisions that began coming down last week — officials had violated the officers’ due process rights, said Cpl. Nila Ritenour, chair of the officers’ union."We’ve won them all," she told The Examiner.The jail fired the group after inmates Joseph Leaks and Ricardo Jones — supposed to be locked up as they awaited trial in a homicide......

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Housing inspector accused of extortion

Published: Dec 15, 2006

As an FBI agent assigned to investigate gangs and drugs, Kevin Humphreys worked on his share of criminal cases.This time, Humphreys claimed in an affidavit, the case came to him.Humphreys, his wife, Vanessa, and his friend Todd Zirkle, have signed the affidavit, accusing a top D.C. housing inspector of extorting bribes to lift a stop-work order placed on a condominium the group was rehabilitating. Kevin Humphreys refused comment for this story."The undersigned witnesses believe there is probable cause that [Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs] Chief Inspector Juan......

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Source: Grand jury looking at evidence that Belton hijacked legitimate name

Published: Dec 14, 2006

Former charter schools executive Brenda Belton commandeered the name of a legitimate school vendor to shuffle money to herself, her friends and her family, a grand jury has been told.Grand jurors are looking at evidence that Belton took the name of a previously approved school vendor called Equal Access, sources familiar with the investigation said. Belton was fired in October after spending three years as head of the Board of Education’s charter schools. She is the target of a grand jury investigation.The sources spoke anonymously because grand jury proceedings are......

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Cold case investigators develop new theory about teen’s death

Published: Dec 13, 2006

Three decades after a Hyattsville teenager was strangled and her body dumped into a D.C. alley, authorities are looking into the possibility she knew her killer and that her death was the result of consensual sex gone wrong. Eileen Kelly was a bright, pretty 18-year-old woman when she disappeared on Dec. 13, 1974.She was supposed to get on a bus to her parents’ home to sign loan papers for an AMC Gremlin automobile.Her partially clad body was found in a District alley two weeks later. Until last month, authorities assumed......

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Congress demands briefing on unresolved anthrax attacks

Published: Dec 13, 2006

Three dozen members of Congress demanded that the FBI brief them on the still-unsolved 2001 anthrax attacks.The members, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., sent the letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Monday. It demands an updateon the attacks that killed five people, including two D.C.-area postal workers, and sickened dozens.The anthrax attacks came barely a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It’s been years since Congress was briefed on the FBI’s investigation, which has been code-named "Amerithrax." In a letter to Holt in......

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District schools still haven’t recouped mistake

Published: Dec 13, 2006

A contractor for D.C.’s public schools was paid twice for the same job and the schools have not recouped their loss one year later, the contractor told The Examiner. The Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Institute was paid an extra $233,000 last year, institute spokeswoman Carol Shannon said. The institute discovered the overpayment in late September, after an audit, Shannon said. On Oct. 4, the institute called schools comptroller Abinet Belachew to report the error. A week later, it was agreed that the school system would deduct the overpayment from the......

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Post office named for fallen Iraq vets

Published: Dec 08, 2006

A Vienna post office will bear the names of two of the town’s fallen sons. Army officers Christopher Petty and William F. Hecker III were killed in Iraq Jan. 5 after a roadside bomb exploded near their Humvee. They were traveling from Baghdad to Najaf to help rebuild schools. A resolution sponsored by U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., renames the post office on 200 Lawyers Road in their honor. Davis said he hopes the post office will "be a reminder to those who knew them" and to others about their......

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Gandhi says Graham ordered approval of payment to a suspect contractor

Published: Dec 08, 2006

D.C.’s top finance officer has passed blame for his office’s role in the charter school scandal to Board of Education Vice President Carolyn Graham. In a Nov. 14 letter to District Council Member Kathy Patterson, D-Ward 3, Natwar Gandhi said his office approved a $15,000-plus payment to a suspect contractor because Graham ordered his staff to do so. "The D.C. Board of Education has oversight responsibility and authority to certify the delivery of goods and services," Gandhi said in the letter. The letter refers to payments to Equal Access in......

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Fannie Mae comes clean on $8 billion accounting scandal

Published: Dec 07, 2006

Home mortgage giant FannieMae admitted Wednesday it had overstated earnings by nearly $8 billion, two years after an accounting scandal forced the company to review nearly a decade’s worth of annual earnings statements. The company has scheduled a 1 p.m. conference call today to explain its restatement. The restatement — the first filing of the company’s earnings since an accounting scandal erupted in late 2004 — was posted on the Securities and Exchange Commission Web site. Fannie Mae is publicly funded and publicly traded. Nearly 5,000 people in the Washington......

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District voting rights bill fizzles

Published: Dec 06, 2006

The Republican Congress’ lame-duck leadership rejected a last-minute push from D.C. voting rights advocates Tuesday, denying the historic bill a chance for a vote until at least the next legislative session. Advocates for the bill promised to continue lobbying until Congress officially ends later this week, but their chances are slim. Outgoing House Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio decided not to call the bill for a vote in the last week of Congress. Boehner rejected the bill after a meeting with Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the bill’s champion. Under......

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Whistle-blower to sue city

Published: Dec 02, 2006

The whistle-blower whose allegations of wrongdoing in the D.C. Board of Education’s charter schools office sparked a grand jury investigation announced Friday that he will sue the city — a suit that could cost the city millions.Steve Kapani was put on administrative leave after federal authorities raided the offices of his boss, Brenda Belton. His lawyer, Mona Lyons, says the decision to put him on administrative leave violated D.C.’s whistle-blower protection laws. She also says that then-Board of Education President Peggy Cooper Cafritz and then-Board Vice President Carolyn Graham defamed......

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Janey’s meal reimbursements come under investigation

Published: Nov 29, 2006

D.C.’s finance office is investigating why funds donated to help the District’s neediest school children paid for lavish meals for Superintendent Clifford Janey. "This issue is currently under review and no comments [will be made] until the review is completed," finance office spokeswoman Maryann Young wrotein an e-mail to The Examiner.The finance office has frozen all payments out of the fund while the investigation is pending, schools’ lawyer Karen Jones Herbert said.The investigation began after The Examiner reported that Janey had been reimbursed for thousands of dollars at D.C.......

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Capitol Police’s top lawyer declines to take background check

Published: Nov 27, 2006

The Capitol Police department is about to confront its top lawyer for his refusal to submit to a background check. John Caulfield says that he could "easily" pass a background check, but he refuses to submit to one as a matter of principle. "It’s essentially a change in the condition of my job after 20-plus years," he told The Examiner. "And I don’t believe there’s any demonstrated need for it."Caulfield is the general counsel to the Capitol Police. His job is to give legal advice to a 1,300-member police agency......

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Capitol out of tickets

Published: Nov 25, 2006

Tourists hoping to get a look at the Capitol Friday morning were disappointed when Capitol Police announced that they had run out of tickets. Despite Congressional promises to keep the "people’s house" open, tours of the Capitol are restricted to those who can get tickets. The tickets are given out first come, first served. Officials told visitors Friday that the tickets ran out earlier this week and that the rationing was a security measure for the tourists’ own good. That was cold comfort to many."I’m keenly disappointed," said David L.......

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New chief getting lots of new officers

Published: Nov 25, 2006

Thanks to legislation passed by the D.C. Council this summer, thousands of new officers will swell the ranks of the department in the next few months to its largest level since the early 1970s. Recruiting is already under way, and the first class of officers should be on the streets within weeks. The infusion gives newly appointed chief Commander Cathy Lanier an unprecedented opportunity to shape the department in her image. But some observers hope that all the new blood won’t also create bad blood. "We all remember what happened......

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Officials impatient with charter school inquiry

Published: Nov 24, 2006

Eight months after hearing allegations of malfeasance in the D.C. Board of Education’s charter school office, the city Inspector General’s Office has not yet released a report on its findings. Staff at the agency have told city officials that the I.G. is waiting for a federal grand jury to finish its criminal investigation, but some officials are growing impatient. "Having the Inspector General’s report sooner rather than later helps the Board [of Education] think through the next steps," said Board Member Victor Reinoso, who has been nominated to become......

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Voyages smooth as travelers fly through region’s airports

Published: Nov 23, 2006

Hundreds of thousands of travelers poured through the gates of the region’s airports Wednesday but lines were short and security delays limited.The reason for the quick trip to the gate? People have been timing their departures to avoid the Wednesday rush, said Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spokeswoman Courtney Prebich — easing the crush at airport counters and security checkpoints. "It’s been steady all week," Prebich said. "People are spacing out their trips more."Reagan National and Dulles International airports expected to have more than 136,000 passengers taking off and landing......

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Attack on Capitol inevitable, Senate’s top security chief says

Published: Nov 22, 2006

A terrorist attack on the Capitol is inevitable and probably can’t be prevented as long as Congress insists on keeping it open to the public, the Senate’s top security official said Tuesday. "You can’t keep buildings open to the public and have the security that I think is necessary," outgoing Senate sergeant-at-arms William Pickle told The Examiner in his offices overlooking the Mall. "It’s almost an impossible task."Pickle is leaving after more than three years on the job. Prior to taking on the Senate’s top security job, he spent nearly......

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General Dynamics wins $7M White House contract

Published: Nov 21, 2006

Falls Church-based General Dynamics won a $7 million contract to move the White House to an Internet-based communications system. "This is another phase in the upgrade of the infrastructure," company spokesman Mark Meudt said. Like many defense contractors, General Dynamics wants to look beyond tanks and ships for growth. The contract is another boost to the company’s efforts to focus on information technology and follows an earlier award to the firm to evaluate the White House’s communications. "It’s kind of work that a lot of agencies are looking for," Federal......

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Three D.C.-area students win Rhodes scholarships

Published: Nov 20, 2006

Three D.C.-area residents were named Rhodes Scholars on Sunday. Georgetown graduate Maria Repnikova, the U.S. Naval Academy’s Sean Genis, and Ginger Turner, an employee of the World Bank, all are off to Oxford University after being awarded the prestigious scholarship. Repnikovaarrived in America from Latvia at 14 without knowing English but immersed herself in language classes and graduated this year from Georgetown University."Migration turned my life around," Repnikova said in a university statement. "I intend to be someone who makes comparable opportunity securely available to the millions of people who......

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Capitol Visitors Center contractor defends company

Published: Nov 18, 2006

The Capitol Visitors Center project is way overdue and overbudget because Congress keeps tacking on jobs without awarding extra time, the project’s chief contractor said Friday. "The contract has grown by about 80 percent. The contract period that they’re requesting has grown by zero percent," said Ted Baker, vice president of Manhattan Construction Co., which was awarded the $200 million-plus contract. "Everybody is working awfully hard down there."Government Accountability Office Director Bernard Ungar has blamed Manhattan for most of the project’s woes. The center is supposed to protect the Capitol......

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Expert says D.C. schools’ finance office faced with old software, high turnover

Published: Nov 18, 2006

The D.C. finance office hasn’t monitored the city’s failed schools properly because the schools have not automated their budget and the finance staff keeps turning over, an expert told the District Council Friday. "I’m surprised they do as well as they do," Mary Levy told the Council’s Education Committee. Levy is a member of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. She testified as part of a hearing on who should govern the city’s schools. The primary problem is that the schools are still using antiquated accounting software, Levy said.......

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Hoyer trounces Murtha in leadership elections

Published: Nov 17, 2006

Democrats chose Nancy Pelosi as the first woman speaker of the House Thursday, but handed her the first loss of her tenure moments later when they rejected John Murtha as majority leader. Pelosi, D-Calif., had backed her old friend against Steny Hoyer, D-Md. She said that Murtha’s call for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq was a galvanizing moment for her party that helped give Congress back to the Democrats. But Murtha, D-Pa., was trounced in Thursday’s leadership elections. Hoyer won, 149 to 86. It was the only contested......

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Dems: D.C. voting rights won’t be lost in reshuffle

Published: Nov 17, 2006

House Democrats recommitted to D.C. voting rights Thursday as they chose their leaders for the next Congress. A bill is pending in the House Judiciary Committee that would give D.C. one vote in the House. It would also give Utah an additional vote — providing that state’s legislature agrees to a redistricting. Bringing Utah in on the bill was a twofold compromise. It assuaged Republican fears that giving D.C. a vote would give the Democrats more power. It also was designed to soothe Utah’s feelings after that state was......

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Capitol center $335M over budget

Published: Nov 16, 2006

Construction on the Capitol Visitors Center has been hobbled by "a lack of management focus" and "a lack of accountability" and will come in at least 2 1/2 years behind schedule and more than $335 million over budget, a Government Accountability Office executive told a Senate hearing Wednesday. Ground was broken on the center in 2002. It was supposed to be finished by January, 2005 and it was supposed to cost $265 million.Thanks to a host of missed deadlines and mistakes, the center won’t be finished until early 2008 at......

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Republican loss might be Rep. Tom Davis’ gain

Published: Nov 15, 2006

Last week’s elections might not be a total loss for U.S. Rep. Tom Davis. Now in the minority, Davis, R-Va., will have free time to campaign for the U.S. Senate, sources close to the veteran congressman told The Examiner. Officially, Davis and his staff are saying that they hope current Republican Sen. John Warner, 79, runs for his sixth term. But those close to Davis, 57, say that he will spend his newly acquired free time traveling Virginia, letting local Republicans know that he’s interested in the job if Warner......

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Sen. Mary Landrieu joins Homeland Security committee

Published: Nov 15, 2006

Sen. Mary Landrieu on Tuesday announced that she will join the Homeland Security Committee, which will make the Louisiana Democrat a key figure on upcoming investigations into the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Landrieu already is the ranking member of the subcommittee that controls D.C.’s budget. Her statement Tuesday announcing her appointment to Homeland Security Committee said that she will remain on her other committees, but it’s not clear whether the Homeland Security role will keep her from chairing the D.C. subcommittee. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. said......