US: Plenty of sex and romance in Madoff NY offices

LARRY NEUMEISTER 20 hours agoSocietyBernard Madoff

NEW YORK (AP) — Sex and romance flourished in the offices of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff even if real investing did not, the government has revealed, disclosing among other revelations that even the Ponzi king himself was involved in a love triangle with a subordinate now facing trial.

But the government's foray into sharing bedroom secrets was just a tiptoe, as prosecutors refused to get into the details or identities of those involved in the dalliances without the blessing of a federal judge.

Five of Madoff's former employees pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in Manhattan to the latest indictment in the case. Their trial is due to start Oct. 7.

One defendant was in a love triangle with Madoff, and four of the five defendants were among those involved romantically or sexually, authorities said. The government said even investors got involved.

Madoff was arrested in December 2008 and later admitted to a multi-decade fraud that cost thousands of investors about $20 billion. He is serving a 150-year prison sentence.

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FILE - In this March 10, 2009 file photo, Bernard Madoff exits Manhattan federal court in New York. …

Though prosecutors noted the various personal relationships among Madoff employees and customers, they asked U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain to exclude evidence of them from the trial, saying it was "unduly prejudicial."

"Because of the inflammatory nature of this evidence, we do not catalog it here, although the government certainly can at the court's request," prosecutors wrote.

"Suffice it to say that the government's investigation has revealed that, over the course of the multi-decade fraud alleged in the indictment, a number of Madoff Securities employees and customers — including expected witnesses, defendants, and others — were engaged in romantic or sexual relationships," they added.

Defense lawyers and prosecutors declined to comment on the submission Friday.

Attorney Maurice Sercarz, who represents Annette Bongiorno, Madoff's former longtime secretary, said in an email that it would be irresponsible to comment until he knows who is making the allegation and precisely what is being alleged.

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FILE- In this Dec. 12, 2008 file photo, the building where Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities L …

"I assume we will find out in due course," he said.

The revelations came just before defense lawyers asked Swain at a hearing Friday to delay the trial, saying a rewritten indictment by prosecutors made claims for the first time that some defendants were told to create false documents, suggesting they knew about the fraud.

"I was rather shocked," said attorney Larry Krantz, representing computer programmer George Perez. He said it represented "a significant ratcheting up of the language" and created "a far more inflammatory document."

He said the rewritten indictment also newly alleges that defendants knew funds were not being invested as promised to investors and that some defendants misappropriated funds.

Attorney Andrew Frisch, representing Daniel Bonventre, Madoff's director of operations for investments, agreed, saying the rewritten indictment for the first time alleges that his client knew Madoff was misappropriating investor money and claimed Bonventre was converting it for his own use.

"It's a sea change and it's a large one," said attorney Eric R. Breslin, representing Madoff back office worker JoAnn Crupi.

He called it a "massive rewrite" of the indictment that will cost defendants a small fortune as their attorneys adjust the defense.

The judge refused to delay the trial, saying prosecutors had not added charges or defendants. And a prosecutor said the government was not making new allegations.

Michigan College President Calls Minorities “Dark Ones”

The Common Core State Standards, intended to provide a set of uniform standards for reading, writing and math in schools across the U.S., tend to stir up fierce debate around the country. However, the argument about Michigan’s adoption of Common Core got even fiercer than usual after Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn used the term “dark ones” in reference to minority students.

Arnn, who is adamantly opposed to the adoption of Common Core in Michigan, was making an opening statement before a legislative subcommittee in Lansing. He was discussing a letter he received from Michigan Department of Education officials shortly after becoming head of the college in 2000.

The letter apparently indicated the department had concerns about racial diversity at the institution.

From MLive.com:

“They said we violated the standards for diversity because we didn’t have enough dark ones, I guess is what they meant,” Arnn said.

And again:

“The state of Michigan sent a group of people down to my campus, with clipboards … to look at the colors of people’s faces and write down what they saw,” Arnn explained. “We don’t keep records of that information. What were they looking for besides dark ones?”

Dark ones? I was immediately thrown back to England in the 60′s and 70′s, where I grew up, when anyone who was not pure Anglo was referred to as a “darky.” Mercifully, the term has since disappeared from common usage in the U.K., unless you count Michael Coleman, a member of the British Nationalist Party, who was recently given a suspended jail sentence for using the term.

Some Democrats told Arnn during the subcommittee meeting that they were offended by his comments.

From SFGate:

“You’re the president of a college. I would expect better out of you,” said Rep. David Knezek, D-Dearborn Heights.

Rep. Tim Greimel of Auburn Hills, leader of the House’s Democratic minority, said he was “extremely disappointed” by what he called “Arnn’s racist remarks.”

“It’s shocking that a supposedly educated individual from an institute of higher learning would repeatedly use inflammatory and bigoted rhetoric,” Greimel said in a statement.

Later the same afternoon, Hillsdale College issued an apology: “No offense was intended by the use of that term except to the offending bureaucrats, and Dr. Arnn is sorry if such offense was honestly taken,” the college said in the statement.

Presumably, everyone is supposed to hug each other and move on now, but that’s not how it works.

In Arnn’s mind, and in the mind of many like him, he belongs to one superior group, and anyone who doesn’t look like him belongs to another inferior group: us and them, the light and the dark.

I write as a white woman who has suffered from sexism, but never from racism. I don’t know what that feels like, but I am grateful to President Obama for his very personal speech on July 19, in the wake of the Trayvon Martin case.

Obama spoke in very personal terms, for the first time ever, as he explained how he, like many African American young men, had been followed in department stores, seen people lock their cars when he crossed the streets and watched as women clutched their handbags during an elevator ride with him.

“Those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida,” Obama added. “And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.”

Later in his speech he said, “I think it’s going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching.”

We can’t legislate racism out of existence, but we can and must talk openly about our feelings around race, if we are to move on. However uncomfortable, we must be ready to dig into our hearts and share what we feel about our diverse society.

Arnn’s comments remind us again that racism is alive and well in the U.S.

He will continue in his efforts to slow down the adoption of Common Core State Standards in Michigan, but I hope he will take this opportunity to understand what a pompous and egregious remark he made, and to do his own soul-searching by examining his own views on race. As we all should.

Read more: dark ones, david knezek, hillsdale college, lansing, larry arnn, michael coleman, michigan, president obama, racism, tim greimel, trayvon martin

Photo Credit: Thinkstock

For all their efforts to enroll more minority students, U.S. colleges and universities are becoming more polarized in terms of race and ethnicity according to a just-published report from Georgetown University. That is, our current higher education system is not, as so often said, a pathway to the middle class for students. It is rather reinforcing existing distinctions of race, ethnicity and class.

The report, entitled “Separate and Unequal: How Higher Education Reinforces the Intergenerational Reproduction of White Racial Privilege,” describes U.S. higher education as

…a system in which elite selective colleges enroll predominantly white students while black and Hispanic students, even high-achieving ones, largely attend open-access institutions. Because the latter group of colleges spends less on instruction and sees lower shares of students through to graduation, higher education has thus become a “passive agent” in perpetuating white privilege.

College enrollment has increased for minority students: from 1995 to 2009, freshman enrollments for African-American students rose by 73 percent and, for Hispanic students, by 107 percent. Freshman enrollment for white students only rose by 15 percent, though one should take into account that a larger proportion of white students have been attending college all along.

In the time period (1995-2009) studied, most minority students ended up at “open-access” institutions with far less selective criteria for admission and, in many cases, far fewer resources, says the report:

…among white freshmen during that time, 82 percent of new enrollments were at the most selective four-year institutions, whereas most of the new freshman enrollments for Hispanic and African-American students—72 percent and 68 percent, respectively—were at open-access two- and four-year institutions.

Minority students who attend open-access institutions are only half as likely to attend more selective ones, the report found.

Other facts including low income and low parental education also play a part in why minority students are not finishing college, says Anthony P. Carnevale, the Georgetown center’s director and a co-author of the report. But he underscored that “race is an added vulnerability.”

How Do We End Inequality in U.S. Colleges?

Disparities in college graduate rates based on students’ race and economic backgrounds are not exactly news. “Stratification has been apparent for decades and has only gotten worse,” Michael A. Olivas, director of the Institute of Higher Education Law and Governance at the University of Houston, comments in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Olivas underscored the need for “more examination of legislative and legal solutions, and greater attention to the plight of immigrant students.”

To get more African-American and Hispanic students to apply to more selective institutions, Deborah A. Santiago, co-founder and vice president for policy and research at Excelencia in Education, an advocacy group for Latino students, suggests that such schools need to go beyond the usual admission events (college fairs at high schools). Schools need to reach out to students via their communities, by establishing partnerships with churches and other local organizations.

How About Offering Open-Access Schools More Support?

I’d also suggest that we acknowledge that just because a school is selective and has a worldwide reputation for education excellence does not mean it is the best school for everyone. While the graduation rate for students at open-access colleges is lower, there are still strategies that such schools can offer to more selective ones.

For the past eight years, I’ve taught at the sort of open-access school (whose students are predominantly African-American, Asian and Hispanic) that the Georgetown report refers to. I attended more selective schools for my own education and almost all of the students at my graduation were the same ones with whom I had started college four years earlier.

At the small university I teach at, it’s often the case that students take at least five years to graduate; more than a few withdraw and then return after some time (sometimes, quite a few years) has passed. All of my students have stories about financial setbacks and family and personal realities that meant their path to a college degree was not straightforward. Hearing these makes me think that, while there are certainly benefits to attending selective schools, there are advantages to attending open-access ones, where a student can live at or near home and have access to a network of family, friends and community organizations for support.

At a time when the word “debt” has become near synonymous with “a college education,” students who attend local schools often face lower rates for tuition, no extra costs for living in dormitories and paying for cafeteria contracts and can still work to help pay for the education. Accommodating for these realities — by having classes in the evening, for instance, or online — can play a small but significant role in ensuring a student stays in school and earns a degree.

Many have been questioning the value of a college degree as reports of students graduating with huge debts and minimal job prospects circulate. What about providing more resources for open-access schools or creating partnerships between such schools and selective ones? We only reinforce white privilege by assuming that selective schools hold the answers for helping every student.

Read more: college, college debt, college student, minorities, minority students, racism, university, white privilege

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U.S. angry over release of Mexican drug lord

ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and MARK STEVENSON 15 hours agoSocietyRafael Caro QuinteroUnited StatesMexico

The undated file photo distributed by the Mexican government shows Rafael Caro Quintero, considered the grandfather of Mexican drug trafficking. A Mexican court has ordered the release of Caro Quintero after 28 years in prison for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena, a brutal murder that marked a low-point in U.S.-Mexico relations. (AP Photo/File)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — U.S. law enforcement officials expressed outrage over the release from prison of Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero and vowed to continue efforts to bring to justice the man who ordered the killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Caro Quintero was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of DEA agent Enrique Camarena but a Mexican federal court ordered his release this week saying he had been improperly tried in a federal court for state crimes.

The 60-year-old walked out of a prison in the western state of Jalisco early Friday after serving 28 years of his sentence.

The U.S. Department of Justice said it found the court's decision "deeply troubling."

"The Department of Justice, and especially the Drug Enforcement Administration, is extremely disappointed with this result," it said in a statement.

The Association of Former Federal Narcotics Agents in the United States said it was "outraged" by Caro Quintero's early release and it blamed corruption within Mexico's justice system for his early release.

"The release of this violent butcher is but another example of how good faith efforts by the U.S. to work with the Mexican government can be frustrated by those powerful dark forces that work in the shadows of the Mexican 'justice' system," the organization said in a statement.

The DEA, meanwhile, said it "will vigorously continue its efforts to ensure Caro-Quintero faces charges in the United States for the crimes he committed."

But experts say the case against Caro Quintero was flawed from the beginning and his release is the result of a stronger federal justice system in Mexico, and it's not likely to have an impact in U.S.-Mexico relations.

Caro Quintero was a founding member of one of Mexico's earliest and biggest drug cartels. He helped establish a powerful cartel based in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa that later split into some of Mexico's largest cartels, including the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels.

But he wasn't tried for drug trafficking, a federal crime in Mexico. Instead, Mexican federal prosecutors, under intense pressure from the United States, hastily put together a case against him for Camarena's kidnapping and killing, both state crimes.

"What we are seeing here is a contradiction between the need of the government to keep dangerous criminals behind bars and its respect of due process," said Raul Benitez, a security expert at Mexico's National Autonomous University.

"The United States wants Mexico to comply with due process but it is likely that due process was not followed when many criminals were caught 10 or 15 years."

Mexican courts and prosecutors have long tolerated illicit evidence such as forced confessions and have frequently based cases on questionable testimony or hearsay. Such practices have been banned by recent judicial reforms, but past cases, including those against high-level drug traffickers, are often rife with such legal violations.

Mexico's relations with Washington were badly damaged when Caro Quintero ordered Camarena kidnapped, tortured and killed, purportedly because he was angry about a raid on a 220-acre (89-hectare) marijuana plantation in central Mexico named "Rancho Bufalo" — Buffalo Ranch — that was seized by Mexican authorities at Camarena's insistence.

Camarena was kidnapped in Guadalajara, a major drug trafficking center at the time. His body and that of his Mexican pilot, both showing signs of torture, were found a month later, buried in shallow graves. American officials accused their Mexican counterparts of letting Camarena's killers get away. Caro Quintero was eventually hunted down in Costa Rica.

Times have changed since then, and cooperation has strengthened and this is likely to have little impact on the overall relationship between Mexico and the United States, said Tony Payan, an expert on U.S.-Mexico relations at the University of Texas-El Paso.

The U.S. and Mexico "will scramble for a bit, but in the end they will understand this is a very complex relationship and nothing is going to happen," Payan said. "They are not going to jeopardize the overall relationship over this."

Caro Quintero still faces charges in the United States, but Mexico's Attorney General's Office said it was unclear whether there was a current extradition request.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam later said in a statement that his office is analyzing whether there are any charges pending against Caro Quintero.

The U.S. Department of Justice said it "has continued to make clear to Mexican authorities the continued interest of the United States in securing Caro Quintero's extradition so that he might face justice in the United States."

Samuel Gonzalez, Mexico's former top anti-drug prosecutor, said the U.S. government itself has been promoting, and partly financing, judicial reforms in Mexico aimed at respecting procedural guarantees for suspects, an approach Gonzalez feels has weighted the balance too far against prosecutors and victims.

"This is all thanks to the excessive focus on procedural guarantees supported by the U.S. government itself," Gonzalez said. "I warned them (U.S. officials) that they were going to get out, and they are all going to get out," he said referring to long-imprisoned drug lords such as Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, who is also serving a sentence related to the Camarena case.

U.S. angry over release of Mexican drug lord

Rafael Caro Quintero, imprisoned for the killing of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, walked free on Friday.

Why he was freed