Honest Cabbie Returns Diamonds to Owner

Feb 7, 6:06 PM (ET)

By VERENA DOBNIK

NEW YORK (AP) - Never mind diamonds- a New York cabbie was a Texas girl's best friend. The driver returned 31 diamond rings he found in his cab after dropping off the passenger, who had left him with a 30-cent tip on a $10.70 fare.

"All my life, I tried to be honest," said Osman Chowdhury, a native of Bangladesh. "Today is no different." But the 41-year-old cabbie from Queens did have a message: "I'm proud of what I did so that people know New York taxi drivers are honest."

What he did started on Monday evening, when he picked up the woman at a hotel in midtown Manhattan and drove her to an apartment building several blocks away. She gave him $20 to pay the fare and asked for $9 back.

Hours later, at about 10 p.m., three other passengers with luggage discovered the woman's suitcase when Chowdhury popped the trunk open for them. Chowdhury first drove to the building where he had dropped off the woman. But he had no idea in which of the many apartments she might be and didn't want to cause a disruption by knocking on doors.

He took the suitcase to the Manhattan headquarters of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a drivers' advocacy group to which he belongs. He and the alliance president looked inside and found two display cases with 31 diamond rings inside.

"I saw flashing, and I said, 'Oh my God! Diamonds!'" Chowdhury recalled. "I was shocked. I was trembling."

They also found a small luggage tag with a Texas telephone number they called - the home of the woman's mother in Dallas. Meanwhile, she called the number, too. The woman, who said she was a jeweler, got back the gems on Monday when she arrived at the alliance office around midnight - incredulous at her luck. She offered Chowdhury a reward - a check for $100. "I cannot take a penny for being honest," he said, but he reluctantly accepted the money to cover the fares he lost while trying to track her down.

He said it never occurred to him to keep the diamonds. "I'm not going to take someone else's money or property to make me rich. I don't want it that way," said the soft-spoken cabbie, who was a contractor in Bangladesh until he came to the United States 15 years ago. He does not own a cab but rents one.

"I enjoy my life. I'm satisfied," said Chowdhury, who is single. He didn't even mind the meager tip. "I think some people might be broke," he said. "Or they're distracted."

The woman from Dallas asked that her name not be made public.

Lost Wallet Returned after 60 Years

Feb 7, 4:23 PM (ET) CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) - Joan Martinek Barnes never imagined she would see her wallet again after she lost it at McKinley High School 60 years ago. But the red alligator grain wallet turned up Monday when a building engineer tracked down a broken hot water pipe. It was found on top of an air duct in a basement storage room that once housed girls lockers.

Barnes, now 75 and living in San Antonio, said her wallet was lost when her coat was stolen during the winter of 1947-48.

"I don't remember all those details," Barnes said on Tuesday. "I just remember Mr. Paxson (the principal) got the coat back. I didn't have many coats." The wallet didn't have any cash in it when it was found, but did contain a $4 activity pass, a student ID card, and a membership card for the YMCA's teen club. It also contained two black-and-white photos - one of a girl who could be Barnes and another showing a young man in an Army Air Force uniform, possibly someone she was dating.

Barnes graduated from McKinley High School in 1949. The school is now a middle school.

Barnes married Alf Barnes in 1951 when he was on leave from the Navy. They settled in Texas and haven't been back to Cedar Rapids in about 15 years, she said. The school is mailing the wallet back to Barnes and she promises to return it for the school's archives.

"It was very much a surprise," she said. "Doesn't everybody remember their high school days, anyway?"

National Security Breach Traced to PA Coroner

Feb 5, 11:49 AM (ET)

By MARK SCOLFORO

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A county coroner was charged Monday with illegally giving newspaper reporters a password to access the emergency 911 system's confidential Web site.

The security breach became evident after a story about a woman's death appeared in the Intelligencer Journal of Lancaster on Aug. 22, 2005, according to a grand jury report. The story, which did not include a byline identifying the writer, attributed details about the death to the Lancaster County-Wide Communications Web site, leading reporters from the competing Lancaster New Era to inquire about getting the same information. G. Gary Kirchner, 73, was charged after six computer hard drives in the Intelligencer Journal newsroom were searched. Five reporters testified before a grand jury under protection of immunity from prosecution.

Investigators said they found 57 instances in which the 911 site was accessed from newspaper offices with Kirchner's username and password, and a few dozen unsuccessful attempts after Kirchner's password was canceled.

Kirchner, a physician, has been Lancaster County's elected coroner for three years. He faces charges of computer theft and conspiracy. He could face up to 14 years and a fine of $30,000 if convicted of both charges.

Those granted permission to use the confidential portions of the 911 center's Web site must agree not to distribute their passwords outside the agency where they work, and users are warned about possible criminal penalties for unauthorized access, the grand jury said.

Asked Monday whether he allowed reporters to improperly access the Web site, Kirchner said: "I don't think so." He referred other questions to his attorney, Emmanuel H. Dimitriou, who did not immediately return calls.

The newspaper's lawyers, George C. Werner Jr. and Bill DeStefano, said Monday they would comment after reading court documents.

Two Faced Calf Loses Battle for Life

RURAL RETREAT, Va. (AP) - Star, a calf born with two faces in December, has lost her battle to survive. Dairyman Kirk Heldreth said he found the calf's body when he went to the barn Friday morning, and presumes she died from complications related to her deformity.

"She was just laying there like she was sound asleep," he said. "It broke our hearts." Heldreth didn't expect the calf to live long after her birth Dec. 27, but he and his family grew attached to her as she struggled to live. Despite a malformed mouth with one upper jaw and two lower jaws, Star was able to feed from a bottle. She had reached 80 pounds, and had seemed in good health in the days before her death, Heldreth said.

The farmer had been accommodating dozens of visitors daily who came to see the calf, prompting him to name her Star. While he didn't want to put the calf on display while she was alive, Heldreth shipped the body by truck Monday to an upstate New York taxidermist to prepare it for display in one of the Ripley's Believe It or Not museums.

Ripley's will pay for the shipping, but Heldreth said he wasn't asking for any other financial compensation. "If I had wanted to do that, I would have sold her to the circus a long time ago," he said.

A Ripley's spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

"Veg Head" Wins Snow Sculpture Contest

Feb 5, 7:26 AM (ET) LAKE GENEVA, Wis. (AP) - When people look at a mound of snow, they don't often think of vegetables. Then again, they're not brothers David and Chris Andrews, or Scott Pauli, their cousin.

The three men took the gold medal over the weekend at the United States National Snow Sculpting Championships and the People's Choice Award, besting 14 other sculptures. Their 10-foot sculpture, called "Veg-Head," had cherry tomato eyes, a peapod grin, bell pepper ears, a jalapeno nose, and a pumpkin-like top.

"Veg-head" took 30 hours to carve, Chris Andrews said. David came up with idea, Pauli said. As the team tried to decide what to carve, Pauli said David wondered aloud that, "If you looked at it for a while, you might see a face in the vegetables. That's basically how we came up with it," he said.

Despite the subzero temperatures Saturday, the sculptors said they enjoyed the camaraderie and enthusiasm of the crowd.

"I heard about last year," Chris Andrews said, referring to unseasonably warm temperatures in 2006 that caused some sculptures to disintegrate before the judging took place. "The freezing weather, this was perfect."

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/472/police_drug_corruption

Ah, the drug war -- what a cornucopia of corruption it generates. Week in, week out, law enforcement officers fall prey to temptation. This week is no different. Let's get to it:

In New York City, a former NYPD officer was sentenced to 15 years in prison for plotting to rob a drug dealer of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Former officer Porfirio Mejia, 31, was part of a six-man group who planned to rob a man they thought was a Colombian dealer in the Bronx of 10 kilograms of heroin and $450,000 in cash. At the time of the planned robbery, Mejia was in uniform. Mejia and the others were arrested by members of the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force. He was sentenced January 31.

In Roanoke, Virginia, the Henry County Sheriff's Department implosion into corruption-related scandal continues to work its way through the courts. In the latest news, a former department dog handler and two civilians charged in the case pleaded guilty to taking part in a scheme involving the sheriff and 11 deputies to re-sell drugs seized from dealers. That makes 13 out of 20 defendants who have now copped pleas in a case where deputies are charged with peddling tens of thousands of dollars worth of seized drugs, along with stolen guns and other evidence. Department dog handler Walter Hairston pleaded guilty February 2 to one count of racketeering conspiracy. He was accused of passing along drugs he used for drug dog training to deputies who would then resell them. Former Sheriff H. Franklin Cassell, who is charged with covering up his deputies' misdeeds, is seeking to have his trial moved outside the Roanoke area.

In Youngstown, Ohio, a former Mahoning County sheriff's deputy pleaded guilty last Friday to three counts of drug trafficking and three counts of drug possession. Michael "Beef" Terlecky, 51, was caught peddling Oxycontin tablets along US Highway 224 by undercover agents, and the cops found more Oxycontin and Valium at his home. Terlecky is in ill health and had been taking post-surgery pain medications, which prosecutors said could have affected his judgment. Prosecutors will recommend a two-year prison stretch at his March 29 sentencing. His defense attorney, who argued that Terlecky sold some of the drugs to pay his medical expenses, is urging probation.

In Saranac Lake, New York, a state prison guard pleaded guilty last Friday to trying to smuggle heroin into the prison where he worked. Michael Bradish, 34, pleaded guilty to attempted promoting prison contraband and attempted criminal possession of controlled substance, plus misdemeanor official misconduct. Bradish, who worked at Bare Hill Correctional Facility in Malone, is being held without bail at Franklin County Jail. He could receive up to four years in state prison when he's sentenced in March. He was caught on videotape in September being handed 37 bundles of heroin as part of an investigation into prison contraband by the state police, the state Department of Corrections, the Inspector General, and the Franklin County District Attorney's office. Police stopped Bradish on his way to work the next day and found the drugs. Two other prison guards, Lt. Timothy Flint, 40, and Daniel Oakes, 32, face criminal charges in the probe. An unknown number of other guards have quit or been fired.

In Council Bluffs, Iowa, a prosecutor has been fired after evidence from a drug case was "mishandled." Assistant Pottawattamie County Attorney Jeff TeKippe was put on paid leave last week, but got the ax this week as an investigation by the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation gets underway. They were called in by Council Bluffs police and County Attorney Matt Wilber after "they discovered evidence from a narcotics case appeared to have been mishandled," a terse DCI statement said. TeKippe was a 10-year veteran of the prosecutors office who handled primarily drug cases.

In Greenville, South Carolina, a former Anderson police officer has been charged with misconduct in office after making off with the evidence in drug cases. Former officer Clint Fuller, 31, was arrested Saturday for failing to log in evidence from twelve 2006 arrests he made where he seized "a green leafy substance believed to be marijuana." Some of Fuller's cases have been dismissed because of lack of evidence, others because he failed to show up for court, the department said. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.