Confessing to a murder or rape you did not commit is unthinkable.
But as DNA testing continues to exonerate convicted murderers and rapists, new research shows that nearly 20 percent of those innocent inmates falsely confessed to the crimes that sent them to prison.
More than 250 convicts nationwide have been cleared by DNA testing. University of Virginia law school Professor Brandon L. Garrett’s study found that more than 40 of them confessed falsely, and seeks to explain why.
How this happens is a question that haunts the state of Florida.
Hardly anyone noticed last month when Independence Day arrived for the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Broward’s powerful but obscure transportation agency.
No politicians made speeches; no one marched in a parade. But it turns out that there were plenty of fireworks behind the scenes at the agency that largely decides what county roads get built or improved.
As the MPO was breaking away last spring, county employees filed a pair of whistleblower complaints accusing top MPO officials of mismanagement, unprofessionalism and cronyism.
A federal jury on Long Island today found former Broward body armor tycoon David H. Brooks guilty of looting his former company, Point Blank Solutions, and defrauding its shareholders.
Brooks was convicted on all 17 counts of conspiracy and fraud in the $200 million corporate theft. Sandra Hatfield, Point Blank’s former chief operating officer, was convicted of 14 related criminal counts.
The trial began in January. The jury deliberated two weeks.
Brooks’ attorney, Kenneth Ravenell of Baltimore, Md., said Tuesday evening that he would not comment on the verdict.
Ravenell said, however, that the jury still has work to do deciding how much Brooks must forfeit to the government.
“It’s not over yet,” he said.
[Please scroll down to read Broward Bulldog’s July 8 story about the trial]
David H. Brooks
By Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org
The embattled founder of financially-hobbled Pompano Beach body armor maker Point Bank Solutions refers to himself on his foundation’s website as a “Living Lifesaving Legend.”
But federal prosecutors say former Broward mogul David H. Brooks is a world-class crook responsible for an audacious $200 million corporate theft.
Brooks, forced out as CEO a year before his 2007 arrest, has been on trial for nearly six months in Central Islip, N.Y. on federal fraud and conspiracy charges. A writer for Vanity Fair has called it “the year’s most entertaining trial you’ve probably never heard of.”
The grand jury’s 61-page indictment describes a corporate chieftain gone wild. It boils down to this: Brooks looted his publicly traded company and burned through its cash like it was Monopoly money.
Point Blank, once known as DHB Industries, is a leading manufacturer of “bullet, fragmentation and stab resistant apparel and related ballistic accessories.” Its products are used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as federal and state agents and local police.
In the middle of the trial, Point Blank filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Wilmington, Delaware claiming assets of $64 million and debts of $68.5 million. The company blamed the filing on tight credit and “legal issues from former management” that it said were costing it $600,000 a month in legal fees.
Point Blank, which once employed about 1,500 people, had 920 employees at the end of last year. Its stock, which once traded as high as $20 on the American Stock Exchange, now sells for 25 cents on the pink sheets. You can see Point Blank’s website here.
Impeccably dressed and unfailingly polite, Fort Lauderdale cardiologist and master Republican fundraiser Dr. Zachariah P. Zachariah testified at his insider trading trial last week about what it’s like to make and lose a fortune on Wall Street.
“I made millions of dollars in the market, and I lost millions of dollars in the market,” Zachariah told a Securities and Exchange Commission attorney. “One time I took a portfolio from $40 million up to $60 million in two months. You’d think I was a mini-Warren Buffet. Now, you think I’m a fool.”
The SEC has accused Zachariah of using nonpublic information to make nearly $1 million in illegal profits in 2005 trading the stock of two Florida companies.
If U.S. Magistrate Judge Linnea R. Johnson decides that Zachariah committed civil fraud she could impose a large fine, order him to pay back the money he made with interest, and ban him from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company.
“Vigilante trappers” and pet activists have improperly stuck Broward taxpayers with the tab to sterilize feral and stray cats.
An internal county report says Broward’s Stop Pet Overpopulation Together (S.P.O.T.) program was misused by animal rescue groups to have wild cats spayed and neutered at local clinics in violation of program rules.
No allegations of wrongdoing were leveled at any specific animal rescue group or clinic, but reports by Broward’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Professional Standards recommended better verification of pet ownership before S.P.O.T. sterilization vouchers are issued.
By Dan Christensen