Archive for August, 2012

Another reason not to use Facebook.

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

Alberto Gutierrez was married to Mayela Gutierrez Gil. The relationship was somewhat rocky, and Mr. and Mrs. Gutierrez decided to divorce.

The divorce itself was somewhat unpleasant. Mr. Gutierrez was charged with “making criminal threats, stalking and two counts of disobeying a domestic relations court order”. The stalking charge was dismissed by a judge, who also threw out one of the two counts of disobeying a court order. Mr. Gutierrez was acquitted by a jury on the other counts.

So what? Well, it seems that Mrs. Gutierrez was romantically involved with Detective Phillip Solano of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

…during Gutierrez’s criminal trial, information surfaced that the man’s wife, Mayela Gutierrez Gil, and the detective were Facebook friends who had exchanged messages and calls. “How are you precious? I miss you a lot,” read one from the detective, according to Gutierrez’s attorney, Arnoldo Casillas.

Mr. Gutierrez sued LACSO, detective Solano, and another LACSO deputy, Russell Verduzco. Verduzco was accused of “conspiring with Solano to cover up evidence that showed Gutierrez’s wife was in fact the one making threats against him.”

The jury awarded Mr. Gutierrez $457,500.

Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said Solano will now face an internal affairs investigation. Although, he said, sheriff’s officials “believe we have very strong grounds for an appeal, so that’s going to be carefully considered.”

The Lazy Journalist’s Friend.

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

Summer is here? Slow news day? Your editor wants you to come up with something to fill space?

No worries, mate: you can always do a slideshow of weird crap you can buy from Amazon.

Random roundup, August 3, 2012.

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

We’ve got wrongful convictions, we’ve got banana republicans, and we’ve got pizza. Something for everyone: a comedy tonight. (Dammit, I miss Zero Mostel.)

In 2004, Omar Bradley, then mayor of Compton, was convicted of misappropriation of public funds. Also convicted with Mr. Bradley were Amen Rahh, a former council member, and John D. Johnson II, the former city manager.

Prosecutors said the men had used their city-issued credit cards for personal items and “double dipped” by taking cash advances for city business expenses and then charging the items to their city credit cards. Bradley was accused of misusing about $7,500 for purchases that included golf balls and shoes, cigars, a three-day stay in a penthouse hotel room and in-room movies.

Bradley’s conviction was on a felony charge: he served three years, could not hold public office, and lost his teaching credentials.

However, in another case last year, the California Supreme Court held:

…that officials must know or be “criminally negligent” for not knowing that they are doing something illegal in order to be guilty of misappropriation of funds.

The punchline?

Based on that case, the appeals court reversed its previous decision in Bradley’s case and overturned his conviction Wednesday.

(Rahh’s and Johnson’s convictions were not overturned.)

I’ve previously alluded to the police shootings in Anaheim, and observed that I don’t have a clear grasp of what’s going on. The NYT ran this story while I was on vacation, which I think gives a decent overview, and follows-up today with this story, which is more about the political and cultural divisions in Anaheim. (Note the correction at the bottom.)

As long as we’re on the NYT site, there’s another interesting story to talk about. Baithe Diop was a cab driver who was killed in 1995. Five men were convicted of his murder as part of  “an elaborate plot to distract the police from the intended crime: the theft of $50,000 worth of cocaine from a passenger in Mr. Diop’s car”.

But now, 15 years after the criminal trials, federal authorities have concluded that all five of those now imprisoned for the murder were innocent of the crime.

More:

The new findings suggest that there was a colossal breakdown in the criminal justice system. Robert T. Johnson, the Bronx district attorney since 1989, said through a spokesman on Thursday that his office had been notified of the new evidence discovered by federal prosecutors but had not yet been able “to resolve all of the questions that have been raised by this evidence.”

It now appears that the murder was actually committed by members of the “Sex Money Murder” gang.

So. Pizza. Mangia Pizza. As we have previously noted, Mangia went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010. Mangia’s founder has proposed a plan to get them out of Chapter 11. However, another creditor has proposed a counter plan. The founder’s plan would (in theory) pay back unsecured creditors 100% of what they’re owed over the next ten years; the competing plan would give that creditor control of the company, and pay back the unsecured creditors 22 cents on the dollar. The founders have since modified their plan so that the unsecured creditors will get 22 cents on the dollar immediately,”with assurances to pay the remainder of the amount owed in coming years”.

(If I was a creditor, given the situation, I wouldn’t count on getting 100% of my money back in ten years, or ever. I’d take my 22 cents on the dollar and consider anything after that found money.)

What makes this even more interesting is that the competing creditor, “Cloud Cap LLC,  a subsidiary of Austin-based management and investment firm Pileus Group LLC” became a creditor by buying a claim from a place called Knife Sharpist, which (duh) sells knives and does knife sharpening. (I’ve been there a couple of times. They do good work.) The total amount of Knife Sharpist’s claim was $244.66.

Cloud Cap’s plan calls for changes to Mangia’s menu, a revamp of the restaurant’s décor and additional locations.

(For Austin residents who might be confused, the Mangia at Gracy Farms (which the Statesman constantly calls The Domain: it isn’t) and the one on Lake Austin are owned by another company and aren’t involved in the Chapter 11 proceeding. The Chapter 11 proceedings only involve the location on Mesa and the one at the airport. But it does make me wonder: if Cloud Cap takes control, will they force those two locations to change the name?)

[Michelle] Musick [Mangia’s bookeeper] said Mangia’s management has already taken steps to get the company back on stable footing, including closing stores in Round Rock and on Guadalupe Street near the University of Texas campus.
“The Guadalupe store was actually breaking even, but the rent was so astronomically high,” she said. “The Round Rock store was bleeding money.”

Mangia, according to the article, owes “more than $750,000”. (How much more?)

Records show that the Internal Revenue Service is owed the most, about $190,000. Other creditors include the state comptroller’s office, Travis County and the Round Rock school district, as well as several businesses.

DEFCON 20 updates (round 2).

Thursday, August 2nd, 2012
  • Here’s a link to the slides from Terrence Gareau’s “HF Skiddies Suck, Don’t Be One. Learn Some Basic Python” presentation. I’m not complaining, but be advised that this is a large download (620 MB ZIP file) with video and code examples. Also be advised that, based on a very brief preliminary skim of the file, there may be some NSFW material in the presentation.  (Also not a complaint, but an observation.) I’d like to thank Mr. Gareau for making this available: his presentation is the only one in the “DEFCON 101” track that I’ve found so far.
  • Added a link to Renderman‘s presentation on ADS-B hacking, “Hacker + Airplanes = No Good Can Come Of This” to the day 2 notes.
  • Josh Brashars (who is a heck of a nice guy) and I have exchanged emails, and he’s graciously allowed me to temporarily host the version of his “Exploit Archaeology: Raiders of the Lost Payphones” presentation from the DEFCON 20 DVD. Of course, iDisk no longer exists (NOT that I’m BITTER or anything) and WCD’s hosting provider/WordPress implementation has a 10 MB file size limit, so I’m using Dropbox to host this file. Let me know if it doesn’t work.

Banana republicans watch: August 2, 2012.

Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

Randy Adams wants severance pay.

That’s Randy Adams, former police chief for the city of Bell.

That’s Randy Adams, former police chief for the city of Bell, who was making $457,000 a year and cut a deal with the city of Bell to approve his disability pension at the same time the city was hiring him.

While I was on vacation, another story broke that I didn’t have time to cover. Last year, the state of California announced that they couldn’t keep all the parks in the park system open. Citizens and municipalities in California responded by donating money and coordinating fund raising events.

It turns out that the park system actually had $54 million stashed in various accounts. And folks are peeved.

In Ventura County, supervisors Tuesday sent a letter to state officials demanding the immediate return of $50,000 earmarked to repair a crucial sewer line at McGrath State Beach near Oxnard. Last year, the state said the popular beach would close because it lacked $500,000 for the fix. Officials even urged McGrath fans to vote early and often in a Coca-Cola contest that would award $100,000 to America’s “favorite” park.

Pity the poor Stockton PD. (Well, and the Stockton Fire Department, too.)

Stockton police officers and firefighters said they haven’t been able to fill the gas tanks of their emergency vehicles because the pumps at their stations are empty.

Since the city has filed for bankruptcy, the company that was providing gas has terminated the contract.

By the way, former Stockton Police Chief Tom Morris, who served as the chief for eight months and retired at 52, is getting an annual pension from the city of $204,000.

(Hattip for that last link to Instapundit.)

I am disgusted.

Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

It is 3:00 PM local time on Ice Cream Sandwich Day, and nobody has brought me my Android 4.0 tablet yet.

DEFCON 20 updates.

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

Yes, we have more bananas.

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

The House Ethics Committee has recommended that Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach) be reprimanded for pressuring her congressional staff to work on her political campaign, dealing a severe blow to her reelection bid.

In a scathing report issued Wednesday, the ethics panel’s investigative subcommittee found Richardson improperly used House resources for campaign and personal purposes, compelled congressional staff to work on her campaign and obstructed the committee investigation “through the alteration or destruction of evidence” and “the deliberate failure to produce documents.”

Obstruction? “deliberate failure to produce documents”? “…callous disregard for her staff and the resources entrusted to her by the American people”? And she gets a reprimand?

You’re doing it WRONG!

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

A suspect in a Smart Car led authorities on a high-speed chase from west Houston to northwest Houston Wednesday afternoon.

(Video of the “high-speed chase” at the link.)

Banana republicans watch: August 1, 2012.

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

Tyrone Freeman used to be the president of Local 6434 of the Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU).

Then things started happening. The LAT did a series of reports on Freeman’s spending as head of the local. The federal Department of Labor, the FBI, and the IRS started investigating.

Last month, his wife, Pilar Planells, pleaded guilty to an income tax charge in connection with more than $540,000 she received in consulting payments from the union. She is expected to be sentenced to three years’ probation and must pay about $130,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties, according to court records.

And now Freeman has been indicted on 15 counts:

Freeman was indicted on federal charges of stealing from those workers to enrich himself — even billing the union for costs from his Hawaiian wedding. The 15-count indictment, which also contains allegations that he violated tax laws and gave false information to a mortgage lender, carries combined maximum prison sentences of more than 200 years.

Oddly enough, I see no mention of strippers. Freeman was apparently big on cigars and cognac.

Still pending in state court is a civil lawsuit the union filed against Freeman and Planells over more than $1.1 million they allegedly pilfered. The suit contends that the money financed Freeman’s lifestyle of $175 glasses of cognac, $250 bottles of wine and a $3,400 trip to the NFL Pro Bowl.

Yeah, Hawaii is nice and all. But, dude, the Pro Bowl? Seriously?

Quote of the day.

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

If you have a few, shall we say, indiscretions in your past, don’t be alarmed. You shouldn’t automatically assume you won’t be hired. If you’re really interested, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot.

(I love that “shall we say, indiscretions“.)

Noted for the record.

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

The two NSA pamphlets I mentioned previously, Solving the Enigma – History of the Cryptanalytic Bombe” and “The Cryptographic Mathematics of Enigma” are available from the NSA website as free downloads, along with quite a few other publications related to WWII cryptography. There are also publications available on cryptography in other eras: Korea, Vietnam, Cold War, etc.

I personally like having the printed versions to have and to hold (and you can request them by email), but this is a gold mine for the impatient person who really wants to know the “History of the Cryptographic Branch of the People’s Army of Vietnam 1945-1975“.