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9/11 families to meet with Holder on Murdoch scandal

July 27, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder has agreed to meet Aug. 24 with some of the 9/11 family members regarding the FBI inquiry into the allegations surrounding Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, a lawyer said Wednesday.

According to a London tabloid’s story based on unnamed sources, a former New York police officer-turned-private investigator said he’d been contacted by journalists from Murdoch’s News of the World who offered to pay him to retrieve private phone records of Sept. 11 victims in the United States. The story said the investigator turned down the proposal.

The U.S.-based parent company of Murdoch’s operations, News Corp., has said that “we have not seen any evidence to suggest there was any hacking of 9/11 victim’s phones, nor has anybody corroborated what are clearly very serious allegations.

“The story arose when an unidentified person speculated to the Daily Mirror about whether it happened. That paper printed the anonymous speculation, which has since mushroomed in the broader media with no substantiation.”

New York attorney Norman Siegel said that he and about 20 family members he represents will make some recommendations to the Justice Department regarding possible actions the government could take to investigate the story.

Article: USA Today

Woman’s hanging investigated in Coronado, Calif.

LOS ANGELES — Rebecca Zahau, the Burmese woman whose body was found hanging nude at a historic oceanfront mansion, has been laid to rest by her family and millionaire boyfriend as the mystery over her death remains unresolved.

Investigators with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, who are probing the suspicious death in Coronado this month, await toxicology results from Zahau’s autopsy. Sgt. Roy Frank of the department’s homicide unit said, “We’re still weeks out” from concluding whether Zahau committed suicide or was murdered.

He said they are also looking into any connection to the death of her boyfriend’s 6-year-old son after an accident in the same home two days earlier.

“I’ve really got an open mind,” Frank said of Zahau’s death. “It’s either going to be suicide or homicide.”

Zahau’s sister, Mary Zahau-Loehner, 33, said Monday she doesn’t believe her sister killed herself.

“I still believe my sister didn’t take her life,” Zahau-Loehner said in an interview.

She issued a written statement on behalf of the Zahau family saying, “Rebecca valued her life and lived her life to its fullest. Rebecca loved God, her family and life.”

Zahau-Loenher said she and other members of her family are grief-stricken and don’t know what to think about how Zahau died.

Zahau, 32, who came to the USA a little over a decade ago, was buried Saturday by her family in Saint Joseph, Mo., where her parents and other family members live.

Article: USA Today

Attorneys to argue about evidence in Warren Jeffs sexual assault trial

San Angelo, Texas (CNN) — Attorneys are scheduled to be in court Wednesday to argue a motion to suppress evidence, a day after jury selection in the sexual assault trial of polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs.

It’s unclear when the jury of 10 women and two men will hear opening statements.

The jury selection Tuesday followed a full day of questioning. At one point, nearly half of 207 potential jurors raised their hands when asked by defense attorney Deric Walpole “if you do not presume my client to be innocent.”

Jeffs is charged with two counts of sexual assault on a child and one count of bigamy stemming from a 2008 raid on a ranch operated by his church.

Authorities raided the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado, Texas, and removed 400 children who they feared had been sexually abused.

Some of the men at the ranch were charged with sexual abuse and most of the children were later returned to their families.

The ranch is operated by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an offshoot sect of the mainstream Mormon Church.

Walpole said he needs more time to present a defense, but Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the defense has had sufficient time to prepare.

Article: CNN

Jared Loughner to be forced to take anti-psychotic medication

(CNN) — Bizarre and suicidal actions of Arizona shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner have pushed a federal appeals panel to reverse an earlier decision and allow authorities to force him to take anti-psychotic medication.

The three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco had ruled on July 12 that Loughner can refuse anti-psychotic medication.

But since that ruling, Loughner, who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic, has deteriorated, prosecutors said.

He’s had screaming and crying fits that last hours, he has harmed himself and claims that the radio was inserting thoughts into his head, prosecutors said.

Loughner has also expressed “regret for the circumstances that led to his arrest,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.

When asked whether he had thoughts of harming himself, Loughner said: “I want to die. Give me the injection. Kill me now,” court documents said.

Article: CNN

Attorneys to argue about evidence in Warren Jeffs sexual assault trial

San Angelo, Texas (CNN) — Attorneys are scheduled to be in court Wednesday to argue a motion to suppress evidence, a day after jury selection in the sexual assault trial of polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs.

It’s unclear when the jury of 10 women and two men will hear opening statements.

The jury selection Tuesday followed a full day of questioning. At one point, nearly half of 207 potential jurors raised their hands when asked by defense attorney Deric Walpole “if you do not presume my client to be innocent.”

Jeffs is charged with two counts of sexual assault on a child and one count of bigamy stemming from a 2008 raid on a ranch operated by his church.

Authorities raided the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado, Texas, and removed 400 children who they feared had been sexually abused.

Article: CNN

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