North Country Gazette

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

All Rights Reserved

You’ve heard of Harry Houdini, the master magician who could escape from anything?

How about Mafia mob boss John Gotti who was known as the Teflon Don because the majority of attempts to convict him resulted in either a hung jury or an acquittal thus no criminal charges would “stick” to him. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

He’s a hollow man, too scripted, wavering whichever way he perceives the political winds are blowing, charismatic but yet empty and insincere. Some call Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist the man in the empty suit.

Charlie’s swaying like the palm trees again, commenting on issues in whatever manner he thinks will curry him the most favor—-and votes. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FLA—The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Department of Corrections have been advised by Missouri authorities that Oscar Richardson, 61, was taken into custody again Friday afternoon by the Taney County Sheriff’s Department.  (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FLA—After initially rejecting Gov. Charlie Crist’s petition to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate public corruption on Monday, the Florida Supreme Court has reversed itself after Crist submitted an amended petition Tuesday. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY, FLA—Why is Bernie McCabe still the state attorney in the Florida counties of Pinellas and Pasco? (Read more…)

ORANGE PARK, FLA—Investigators searching for missing seven-year-old Somer Thompson from Orange Park, Fla., have found a body of a young white child in a landfill in Folkston, Georgia but the body has yet to be identified. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TALLAHASSEE, FLA—For years as Florida’s Attorney General, the man who flunked the bar examination twice, shut down any and all investigations involving Terri Schindler Schiavo despite evidence of abuse and other wrongdoing and potential corruption in the matter. (Read more…)

ORLANDO, FLA – Gov. Charlie Crist and Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey announced Wednesday that crime in Florida is down 7.9 percent for the first half of 2009.  (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FLA – Gov. Charlie Crist was joined by Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp, Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Commissioner Gerald Bailey and hundreds of children, parents, educators, law enforcement personnel and public officials Monday for the 2009 Florida Missing Children’s Day ceremony.  (Read more…)

EXCLUSIVE

© By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY, FLA–Q:  Do you know who killed Shawn McMillen?

A:  I refuse to answer, Fifth Amendment. (Read more…)

FULTON COUNTY—State Police made five arrests Friday night as the result of an underage drinking initiative in Fulton County. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FLA–The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) has released the Florida Medical Examiners Commission Report on Drugs Identified in Deceased Persons.  (Read more…)

EXCLUSIVE

A NORTH COUNTRY GAZETTE INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

© By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY, FLA—Michael Jackson is dead.

So’s Joey Turner.

Preliminary reports indicate that Michael Jackson died of a heart attack, that he was ingesting a dangerous daily cocktail of prescription drugs including the anti-depressant Paxil. (Read more…)

EXCLUSIVE

© By June Maxam

MIAMI, FLA—Miami political consultant Derek Newton has reached a tenative plea deal in a three-year long election fraud investigation involving the 2006 campaign for State Representative District 108 when authorities say he tried to sabotage a candidate running against his client. (Read more…)

EXCLUSIVE

AN NCG INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

© By June Maxam

Teams of criminal scene investigators are depicted on CSI: New York and CSI: Miami.

And then there’s CSI: Pinellas except they don’t have their own TV show. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

CAPE MAY, NJ—The Cape May prosecutors office may want to consider finding themselves a new “expert” witness, one who doesn’t have serious credibility issues. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

An In-Depth NCG Investigative Report

© By June Maxam

You’ve heard of the Blue Code of Silence?

Just how far will a police officer go to protect another law enforcement officer, even if the other officer is not a patrol officer or detective but rather just a corrections officer?

Would they go so far as to cover-up a homicide? (Read more…)

MARIANNA, FLA—An investigation conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has found no evidence that there was any criminal wrongdoing involved in the deaths of individuals buried in more than 30 unidentified grave sites at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

TALLAHASSEE—Under a bill sent to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist on Friday, state employees will no longer be able to collect a paycheck and a pension from the same agency. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FLA—The issue in Florida has become Crist and Christ.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida is squaring off against Gov. Charlie Crist in connection with two new license plates being considered by the Florida Legislature images of which are attached here in PDF. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY, FLA—Shouldn’t Jack Helinger, defense attorney for the man who killed Heather Whalley in St. Pete Beach last year, have disclosed the fact that he was also the personal attorney for the county medical examiner who conducted the toxicology tests that claimed Helinger’s client wasn’t impaired at the time of the accident? (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

When the chief deputy director of the internal audit division of clerk of Pinellas County Circuit court tried to open the guardianship process in Pinellas County, Florida, to public review and address guardianship reform, he told Florida legislators he was being “stonewalled” in his attempts. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY—A year after the untimely and tragic death of Heather Whalley, double standards are still an issue in Pinellas County, Florida. (Read more…)

SOUTH GLENS FALLS — Adelinde “Lindi” Britton, 74, originally born in Czechoslovakia and presently from Marine Drive, South Glens Falls, passed away at her home, surrounded by her loving family on March 25, 2009. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

The North Country Gazette and its publisher have been detrimentally affected by the economic downturn like everyone else and can no longer justify the hours and labor needed in the absence of advertising and subscriber support to produce a daily online news publication. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

The North Country Gazette and its publisher have been detrimentally affected by the economic downturn like everyone else and can no longer justify the hours and labor needed in the absence of advertising and subscriber support to produce a daily online news publication. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

Steven T. Rondos, the Brooklyn attorney accused of raiding guardianship accounts of $4 million, didn’t file the required guardianship reports for 2004, 2005 and 2006, a court appointed examiner says. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Senate has confirmed two of President Obama’s controversial nominations to the U.S. Justice Department, one who helped to represent America’s most infamous wife killer, Michael Schiavo in the euthanasia of his wife Terri Schiavo, and the other who has represented pornography clients. (Read more…)

OKALOOSA COUNTY, FLA—The sheriff of Okaloosa County and his director of administration and finance have been arrested for money laundering and thefts from federally funded programs. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY, FLA—Subpoenas apparently mean something in the state of Alaska. 

It’s already been proven that they don’t in Florida where certain individuals in Pinellas County, namely Judge George Greer and Michael Schiavo, have yet to be held accountable for the barbaric and inhumane death of a disabled woman although it’s still unknown why these individuals can act above the law—especially in the case of human life. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

Time and time again, it’s been shown that Pinellas County, Florida where the state attorney is Bernie McCabe is the place to murder or seriously incapacitate someone and get away with it. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

Why is Aaron Rimar being allowed to get away with murder?

Why are Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist, Pinellas County State Attorney Bernie McCabe and Chief David Romine of the St. Pete Beach Police Department apparently acting together to try and cover up where St. Pete Beach resident Aaron Rimar got the four illicit prescription drugs detected in his bloodstream the day he killed Heather Whalley? (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FLA—The Florida Supreme Court in recent court orders has disciplined 33 attorneys, disbarring 10, suspending 16 and placing four on probation. Some attorneys received more than one form of discipline. Seven attorneys were reprimanded. One was ordered to pay restitution. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist has proven he’s no friend of the disabled. he state of Florida fails to protect its disabled and vulnerable as it did Terri Schiavo.

Now Crist has essentially said that a human life in Florida is worth little more than $500 and a slap on the wrist. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

He’s been labeled as “just another death-peddler Obama has added to his list of nominees” and has earned the nickname among pro-lifers as “Piranha Perrelli” for his work on the Terri Schiavo case. (Read more…)

EXCLUSIVE

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

ST. PETE BEACH, FLA. —Seth Whalley, the grief-stricken husband of the late Heather Whalley who was mowed down and killed by an errant driver last April in St. Pete Beach,  is making an impassioned plea to Gov. Charlie Crist to “address the alleged corruption that has hindered justice” in the case. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

Judges are supposed to be fair, impartial and temperate—and appointed legally.

And then you have Palm Beach Judge Jorge Labarga, first appointed to the Fourth District Court of Appeals in mid-December by Gov. Charlie Crist and quickly elevated Friday to the Florida Supreme Court amidst questions of constitutionality. (Read more…)

© By June Maxam

ST. PETE BEACH, FLA—In a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist seeking a review of the November decision by the Pinellas state attorney’s office of Bernie McCabe not to file any criminal charges against St. Pete Beach resident Aaron Rimar in the death of Heather Whalley, St. Pete Beach Mayor Michael Finnerty says that it’s his belief that “justice has not been served. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

JACKSONVILLE, FLA—Ted Hires, president and founder of the Justice Coalition, a victims’ rights group in Jacksonville, Fla., was found dead Wednesday at his Westside Jacksonville home, the victim of a gunshot wound. (Read more…)

MARIANNA, FLA—At the request of Gov. Charlie Crist, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) is conducting an investigation into the more than 30 unidentified grave sites at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY—It’s politics as usual in Pinellas County.

A month to the day after Bernie McCabe and the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office refused to prosecute the man responsible for the April death of a pedestrian in St. Pete Beach, Gov. Charlie Crist has appointed the killer’s attorney to a judgeship. (Read more…)

By June Maxam

ST.PETE BEACH, FLA—The mayor of St. Pete Beach says he will be filing a formal request with the office of Florida Governor Charlie Crist to appoint a special state attorney to investigate the April death of North Carolina resident Heather Whalley and serious injuries incurred by her husband, Seth. (Read more…)

WARRENSBURG—A traffic stop in Warrensburg early Tuesday morning resulted in the arrests of three illegal immigrants allegedly in possession of forged documents. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY—They don’t campaign, voters have no choice other than a yes or no under Florida’s merit-retention system for judges.

Voters in the 14-county jurisdiction of the Second District Court of Appeals will be asked if four of the seven judges should be retained for another six-year term,  including Chief Judge Chris Altenbernd, who, working hand in hand with Dunedin attorney George Felos, has controlled the euthanasia movement from the Estelle Browning case in 1990 to the death of Terri Schiavo in March 2005. (Read more…)

JACKSONVILLE, FLA—The chairman of the St. Johns County Commission has been indicted for two counts of bribery. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE—Gov. Charlie Crist signed an Executive Order Wednesday enacting Florida’s ‘Silver Alert,’ which allows the immediate broadcast of information to the public regarding missing elders with dementia or other cognitive impairment.  (Read more…)

By June Maxam

ST. PETERSBURG, FLA—The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has concluded that a “complete and thorough investigation was conducted” of the June shooting death of 17-year-old Javon Dawson by a St. Petersburg police officer and “no additional action is necessary”.

In August, the Pinellas/Pasco state attorney’s office of Bernie McCabe had concluded that the death of Dawson was the result of being shot by Officer Terrance Nemeth and that the shooting was justifiable homicide. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

ST. PETE BEACH, FLA—Will the mayor of St. Pete Beach ask Florida Governor Charlie Crist to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the fatal crash of April 10 in which the mother of three was fatally injured as she and her husband walked on a sidewalk along Blind Pass Road? (Read more…)

BILLINGS, MONT—A Florida producer has been charged by a federal grand jury in Billings, Mont., with distributing obscene DVDs through the mails. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum has issued a series of subpoenas to four companies seeking information about reported increases in the price of gasoline throughout the state. The subpoenas request documentation from the companies detailing the purchase prices the companies paid for gasoline sold at their Florida retail stores. (Read more…)

By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY—State attorney Bernie McCabe is unquestionably one of the most controversial people in Pinellas County.

The controversy has only heightened with yet another determination of justifiable homicide issued by him in the case of Javon Dawson, a black teen shot in the back by St. Petersburg police officer Terrence Nemeth during a June graduation party. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum has announced the activation of the Attorney General’s Price Gouging Hotline and urged Floridians to be alert for anyone who may try to take advantage of people attempting to prepare for or impacted by the coming storm. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By Dr. Sandra Frank

The thought of an agency assigned to protect our elderly and disabled committing fraud is unthinkable yet in 2003, Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, who at the time was overseeing the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, received a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Jan. 29, 2003. (Read more…)

PINELLAS COUNTY—Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has declared a state of emergency due to the threat of Tropical Storm Fay headed towards the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. (Read more…)

EXCLUSIVE

COMMENTARY

© By June Maxam

It must be one of the best kept secrets in Pinellas County—-something that people in the criminal justice system know and just don’t want to talk about.

But then that’s usually what happens in a cover up—a planned effort to prevent something from becoming public—to conceal, hide, whitewash, hush up. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

Troopergate is one of the hot button topics in New York State these days.

It’s hard to imagine how the name Michael Schiavo, one of America’s most infamous husbands, surfaces when discussing the New York State Police and politics but yet when one mentions the name of retired State Police Lt. Col. Daniel Wiese, the name of Michael Schiavo, the man who willfully, knowingly and intentionally killed his disabled wife, immediately comes to mind for many people. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE—Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Commissioner Gerald Bailey and the United Kingdom’s Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) Deputy Director David Armond signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) Tuesday that affirms cooperation between the two agencies in exchanging relevant investigative and intelligence information to fight organized crime in Florida and the United Kingdom. (Read more…)

TOLEDO—The 2006 murder conviction of Roman Catholic priest Gerald Robinson has been upheld by the Sixth District Court of Appeals. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

People in Pinellas County are getting fed up with Bernie McCabe and are starting to demand that action be taken.

More and more, people are questioning the alliance between McCabe and the medical examiner for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, Jon Thogmartin. (Read more…)

By June Maxam

MIAMI, FLA—The fate of Jack Thompson’s law career lies in the hands of the Florida Supreme Court.  But are those jurists legally on the bench?

In typical Thompson style, he’s turned the tables on them as well as Charlie Crist, Florida’s governor. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FLA—Governor Charlie Crist signed the Fiscal Year 2008-09 budget into law Wednesday, providing additional funding for criminal justice information-sharing technology and upgrades to the Sexual Offender/Predator registry. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

Apparently Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger, the Florida Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist need an introduction to the U.S. Constitution. 

 Dillinger claims that state budget cuts will force him to refuse representation to thousands of indigent people who have been arrested for crimes of a misdemeanor level which means as many as 400 defendants a month who cannot afford a private attorney would be forced to answer the charges without assistance of counsel. (Read more…)

EXCLUSIVE

By June Maxam

© The North Country Gazette

TALLAHASSEE, FLA—The case concerning Michael Schiavo and his defunct political action committee, TerriPAC, currently under scrutiny by the Florida Elections Commission for reporting activities and contributions to the 2006 Jim Davis for Governor campaign, is headed to a probable cause hearing. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY, FLA—Last week in Meriden, Conn., two people accused of depriving a 23-month old toddler of fluids for at least a week as a punishment for bed wetting were charged with manslaughter, cruelty to persons and a risk of injury to a minor after the child’s death was ruled a homicide. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY—The stench of Florida’s criminal justice system has reached pandemic proportions, especially in Pinellas County, the state attorney’s office of Bernie McCabe and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. (Read more…)

JACKSON COUNTY, FLA—Agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) arrested City of Jacob Mayor David Samuel Pittman in Jackson County Friday after a warrant was issued. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FLA—A new and innovative feature has been unveiled on Florida’s Sexual Offender/Predator Registry Web site. Citizens can now sign up to receive e-mail alert notifications when a registered sexual offender or predator moves into their neighborhood or within a radius of any other designated location.  (Read more…)

• 1 of 5 girls will be sexually molested before her 18^th birthday (Read more…)

WASHINGTON—The Federal Election Commission (FEC/Commission) has entered into a conciliation agreement with Congressman Gregory W. Meeks (NY/6) and his campaign committee, Meeks for Congress (Committee), in which they agree to pay a $63,000 civil penalty to resolve violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

Politics make strange bedfellows.

Politicians will say or do anything that they think will gain them the most votes.

Case in point—John McCain and Charlie Crist. (Read more…)

TOLEDO—Attorneys for convicted murderer and Roman Catholic priest Gerald Robinson have filed a motion seeking to vacate his 2006 murder conviction in the 1980 death of a 71-year-old nun, claiming they have uncovered new evidence that the priest’s defense team failed to present at his trial. (Read more…)

North Country residents planning to head to sunny Florida in order to escape the sub-zero temperatures forecast for Wednesday and Thursday nights may want to wait a few days before getting on that plane. (Read more…)

The Florida Medical Examiners Commission met Saturday to fill the vacancy in Judicial District 14 in the Panhandle caused by their June removal of Charles Siebert due to honesty and integrity issues. (Read more…)

PANAMA CITY, FLA—First the attorney for “Girls Gone Wild” CEO Joe Francis accused state attorney Steve Meadows of prosecutorial misconduct. (Read more…)

Two and half years ago, Terri Schindler Schiavo died as a result of the long, painful and barbaric process of the court-ordered execution by starvation when her estranged husband Michael Schiavo removed her feeding tube which provided her nutrition and hydration. (Read more…)

By June Maxam

© The North Country Gazette

TAMPA—Five days after an investigation was opened into allegations that the assistant special agent in charge of the Tampa office of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has violated department policy, the special agent in charge of the Tampa office resigned.

Mere coincidence? Highly unlikely. (Read more…)

LUCAS COUNTY, OHIO—In a decision which will have far reaching effects in clergy abuse cases and eerily issued just days before Halloween, the Sixth District Court of Appeals in Ohio has reinstated a 2005 lawsuit involving alleged satanic rituals against a Toledo priest who was convicted last year in the 1980 murder of a nun. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE—Representatives of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s office of the Northern District of Florida and FBI met Tuesday in Tallahassee with officials of the Florida NAACP to discuss the ongoing federal investigation of the January 2006 death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson at a Bay County boot camp for juvenile offenders. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE—Officials of the Department of Justice have assured student protesters who were threatening a march on the state Capitol to protest the acquittal of seven boot camp guards and a nurse in the death a teenage boy, that they are investigating alleged civil rights violations in the case. (Read more…)

ORLANDO, FLA—The Ninth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission is seeking applicants to fill the vacancy of Orange County Circuit Court Judge James C. Hauser, who has resigned. (Read more…)

DETROIT, MICH—Last Sunday, an assistant U.S. Attorney from the northern district of Florida was arrested at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, charged with enticement of a minor using the Internet and knowingly traveling interstate to engage in illicit sex with a five year old girl. (Read more…)

ST. PETERSBURG, FL—At their meeting on Wednesday, the Florida Medical Examiners Commission reviewed the petition filed by District 14 medical examiner Dr. Charles Siebert appealing their June determination to remove him from his post in Bay County and five other Panhandle Counties and a probable cause panel’s decision that he had violated state law. (Read more…)

CLEARWATER—The website for the political action committee of Michael Schiavo, the Florida man who gained court permission to kill his wife by removing her feeding tube, causing her death by marked dehydration as the world watched for 13 days, remains offline. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Concerned about questionable marketing tactics employed by companies selling prepaid calling cards, Attorney General Bill McCollum has announced that his office has launched a formal investigation into several entities in the prepaid calling card industry including multiple distributors and service providers. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

The hierarchy at the St. Petersburg Times calls itself a quality news outlet.

That’s not an opinion widely shared, especially when it comes to coverage of the Terri Schiavo case

Selective reporting, biased reporting, slanted towards Michael Schiavo, the St. Pete Slimes are descriptors most often heard by its detractors. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

© North Country Gazette

By June Maxam

It’s common knowledge that Michael Schiavo killed his disabled wife.

What’s not common knowledge is that Michael Schiavo is in the middle of a dispute at the Pinellas County Jail involving the alleged illegal dispensing of medication to a fellow nursing supervisor who later died.

For his role in the incident, Pinellas County Sheriff Jim Coats suspended Schiavo for one day, the suspension ordered to be served on March 2 and Schiavo was docked eight hours of pay. (Read more…)

TAMPA—Attorney Dennis Hernandez is scheduled to go to trial on July 30 on charges of false imprisonment and domestic battery, accused of beating up his ex-girlfriend on New Year’s Day 2006.

Now Hernandez, an attorney at Hernandez’ law firm and paralegals are the subject of a 54-page disciplinary complaint filed by The Florida Bar with the Florida Supreme Court. (Read more…)

CLEARWATER—Gov. Charlie Crist has rewarded yet another player in the Terri Schindler Schiavo case, one of his former employees in the Attorney General’s office.

Pinellas County Judge John Carassas, former assistant attorney general under Crist,  has been appointed by Crist to serve on the nine-member statewide Commission on Open Government which will evaluate the public’s access to government meetings and records. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE – Law enforcement capabilities in Florida, designed to further protect Florida’s children from predators, have been enhanced under legislation signed into law by Gov. Charlie Crist.

Other bills signed increase penalties for certain drunk driving accidents and for crimes committed against law enforcement officers. Additionally, Crist announced that he has petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to convene a statewide grand jury to investigate gang activity. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE – Governor Charlie Crist has signed House Bill 461 establishing a pilot program that provides for random steroid testing of high school athletes participating in interscholastic football, baseball, and weightlifting.

The Governor also signed House Bill 463 making student records relating to steroid drug tests confidential. (Read more…)

BAY COUNTY, FLA—Despite a unanimous vote last week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission to remove Bay County medical examiner Charles Siebert due to honesty and integrity issues, Bay County state attorney Steve Meadows has decreed that Siebert will be appointed as the interim medical examiner until his replacement is found. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

A federal bankruptcy judge has ruled that OJ did it.

Engaged in a fraud that is.

On Friday, Judge A. Jay Cristol ruled that a now bankrupt company in Miami, Lorraine Brooke Associates, owned by Simpson’s four children, was a shell company to hide profits from OJ Simpson’s book, “If I Did I It”, a supposedly fictional account of how OJ would have carried out the June 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend, Goldman, IF he had been the one responsible for the crime. (Read more…)

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA—A Broward County judge who gained national attention  during the Anna Nicole Smith paternity case and was later caught smoking pot in a city park has now tendered his resignation effective July 2.

Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Korda, 59, had been on a voluntary paid leave of leave since early April. He was transferred from family court to probate court after he was caught smoking pot and after he became the subject of intense public criticism, he went on leave. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

ST. PETERSBURG, FLA—Florida honors judges who advocate killing the disabled, elderly and vulnerable.

The alma mater of Michael Schiavo, the estranged husband who battled in the courts for years in order to secure a court order to kill his wife, is honoring retired Circuit Court Judge Susan F. Schaeffer, the judge who assigned Probate Court Judge George W. Greer to be the executioner in the Terri Schiavo case. (Read more…)

BAY COUNTY, FL—-Saying that they had concerns with the honesty of medical examiner Dr. Charles Siebert, the Florida Medical Examiners Commission voted Wednesday to remove Siebert from his post in Bay County and five other Panhandle counties.

The removal vote came a month after the commission had voted not to recommend that Siebert’s appointment be renewed by Governor Charlie Crist when it expires on June 30. (Read more…)

A week after The North Country Gazette editorialized that ‘Disability Rights Not In Crist’s Vocabulary”, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced plans Saturday to not only build three special needs hurricane shelters for people with disabilities, but he’s even going to create a commission for people with disabilities and appoint a coordinator. (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

Florida’s governor Charlie Crist has no hometown loyalties.

And he continues in his callous disregard for disability rights.

Crist has signed a $71.5 billion budget for the state of Florida for 2007-08 but he vetoed St. Petersburg’s request for $2 million to help create a 1,000 bed shelter to house those with developmental disabilities during hurricanes which would have been the first such shelter in Florida.  After all, the disabled have special needs and are even more seriously impacted in such natural disasters as hurricanes. (Read more…)

Editor, The North Country Gazette:

On Thursday, Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist vetoed a measure to provide hurricane sheltering for Florida’s developmentally disabled citizens.  He stated that “there was someone to take care of them already.”  That was not even an artful dodge.  The objective is proper sheltering throughout the state, not to rely upon some invisible network of folk who still need to shelter somewhere appropriate!   Florida’s governor is doing a disservice which in his career is nothing new.  (Read more…)

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

There’s a lot of definitions of hearsay.

One of the most prevalent is that it’s “rumor: gossip (usually a mixture of truth and untruth) passed around by word of mouth.

That one seems to be the one most applicable in the Schiavo case, particularly as in the self-serving hearsay that Judge George W. Greer used as his basis for clear and convincing evidence to kill a disabled woman. (Read more…)

WEST PALM BEACH, FLA— – Governor Charlie Crist has signed legislation that will establish a paper trail for all votes cast in Florida elections. The election-reform legislation will provide optical scan machines for counties that do not already have them for Election Day voting and early voting sites. The legislation also changes the date of Florida’s presidential primary to the last Tuesday in January. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE –Access to public records has been expanded in Florida with Gov. Charlie Crist’s signing of Senate Bill 1760 which requires state public information officers to respond to public records requests promptly and in good faith.

“Florida has a long history of providing access to government records,” said Crist. “Our open government laws are among the strongest in the nation, and this legislation creates an even higher standard of service and makes government even more accessible to the people.” (Read more…)

TAMPA, FLA–One of America’s most vilified judges, Pinellas County probate court judge George W. Greer, judge, jury and executioner for Terri Schindler Schiavo,  will be among the presenters at The Florida Bar’s June 1 Media Law Conference.

Greer is the icon of judicial tyranny in America, who set the stage for the mass killing and extermination of the disabled and elderly in the U.S. as part of the government’s effort to save of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, to perpetuate a throw-away society. (Read more…)

© By June Maxam

All Rights Reserved

Ever seen the shell game played, tried to follow the pea?

It’s no more than a swindle, a game of deceit used to perpetrate a fraud, a sleight of hand.

In a shell game, it appears that bets are placed by numerous players but in actuality, the “players” are all part of the scam, acting in consort with the shell man in efforts to raise the bet and make the stakes higher.  Shell game gangs usually focus on scamming one victim at a time.  The various players all have different roles, some run interference with police, some act as enforcers to intimidate victims who become irate after being scammed and some are simply shills, whose job is to pretend to play in order to drive up the ante. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FLA—In a 118-0 vote in the Florida House of Representatives, a bill was passed requiring all Florida counties to have paper ballot voting technology in place before the 2008 Florida primaries and general election. The House vote comes shortly after the Florida Senate approved a similar measure.

The ACLU of Florida applauded the Legislature for acting on Gov. Charlie Crist’s commitment to change the State’s voting system to a paper ballot-based technology. “The battle for fair elections in Florida now focuses on the 15 formerly DRE counties, which must act independently to ensure that disabled and language-minority voters will not be second-class citizens,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE—The Florida Legislature has approved a $5 million settlement for the family of black teen Martin Lee Anderson who died of suffocation last year at a Bay County boot camp for juvenile offenders in Panama City  after being beaten by guards and having ammonia tablets held to his nose.

Seven guards and a nurse employed at the camp face manslaughter charges. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum praised the Florida House and Senate for the passage of an important piece of legislation which, when signed into law, will mirror the Federal False Claims Act. The False Claims Act allows the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit to recover triple damages in civil lawsuits against those who commit Medicaid Fraud. (Read more…)

TALLAHASSEE – Governor Charlie Crist has proposed reducing the property tax burden by $34 billion on Florida’s homeowners, businesses and renters over a five-year period. The Governor’s proposal would encourage home ownership while also capping runaway spending by local governments.

“This plan would provide immediate relief to both those who are barred from the American dream of owning their first home and those current homeowners who feel unable to move and trapped by skyrocketing property taxes,”  Crist said. “By providing immediate relief now along with a plan for future reductions, we can reverse the trend of high property taxes and make living in Florida more affordable.” (Read more…)