Teen with Bullet in Head to go on Trial

Joshua Adam Bush, 19, a Groves teen with a bullet in his forehead will go to trial. The trial date has been set for Aug. 11. Bush had previously entered a guilty plea but changed his mind after learning that he was not properly informed of the maximum punishment he faced.

Bush had originally been charged with 6 felonies, stemming from an attempted robbery of a used car lot. He had agreed to plead guilty to two of the charges, deadly conduct and aggravated assault of a witness. If Bush had followed through with the plea agreement, prosecutors would have dismissed the remaining four felonies and Bush would have been sentenced to no more than 10 years in prison.

Criminal District Court Judge John Stevens allowed Bush to withdraw his guilty pleas:

"Generally, pleas of guilty are not allowed to be withdrawn because when the pleas are made, we go over them so slowly and deliberately," Stevens said to Bush in court Friday.

Instead of being told the aggravated assault charge carried a punishment range of up to life in prison, an error on Bush's indictment led Stevens to warn Bush when he pleaded guilty that the charge carried maximum punishment of 20 years.

"The thing is, you either lied to me before when you pleaded guilty or you are lying to me now, telling me you are not," the judge said. "However, the court must admonish you accurately for it to be a constitutionally valid plea."

The Bush case has drawn a lot of publicity because he has a bullet lodged in the fatty tissue of his forehead about 2 inches above his eyes. Bush claims that he was shot accidentally by his friend but the police have a much different story.

The police contend that Bush was involved with a robbery at Olive's Used Cars in Port Arthur on July 21, 2006. During the course of the robbery they say that Bush shot at the manager of the car lot, competitive pistol shooter Allen Olive who returned fire hitting Bush in the forehead with a 9mm slug. Olive, however, told Port Arthur police he could not identify the man with whom he exchanged gunfire.

Bush, claiming that he was innocent, explained that he originally took the plea because: "I'm innocent, but I want to go home. If I took the plea I would get home faster, and that would be better than getting almost a life sentence."

"I didn't shoot at nobody," he said. "They ain't got no gun. The man at the car lot said he can't even identify that it was me. This man, I don't even know how he looks. He don't know how I look."

Michael Mayfield, who has a child with one of Bush's sisters, came forward to take the blame for the bullet in Bush's head which he claims is a .32 caliber slug:

"It was me that shot him," Michael Mayfield said in an interview. "What the DA is saying about the car lot, I kind of laugh at that," Mayfield said. "Because that bullet didn't come from no car lot situation. Can't nobody be more sure than me."

At the time the police obtained search warrants from state 252nd District Court Judge Layne Walker to remove the bullet lodged in Bush's head against his wishes. They claimed that they need the bullet as evidence to prove that it came from Allen Olive's 32mm gun.

Bush was prepped for a forced surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch Hospital in Galveston in December 2006 but the hospital backed out of the operation when Dr. David Parkus, a surgeon at Beaumont's Christus St Elizabeth hospital, noted the bone of Bush's forehead had begun growing around the slug, requiring a more extensive surgery than planned. After failing to find another doctor to perform the surgery the prosecution gave up and said they were confident of convicting Bush without the bullet.

The bullet's bulge on Bush's forehead was plainly visible when he appeared in court Friday. The withdrawn guilty pleas covered two separate cases. The aggravated assault charge was for shooting at the car lot's manager, Allen Olive. The other charge was an unrelated deadly conduct charge for shooting at a teenager on March 30, 2006, at the Port Arthur school district baseball field while a Memorial High School game was under way.

Thieves Caught by Stolen Laptop

The budding criminal careers of Edmon Shahikian, 23, of 13 Cobbling Rock Road, Katonah, and Ian Frias, 20, of 1609 E. 174th St., the Bronx, were cut short by a program on one of the laptop computers they stole. Shahikian and Frias are charged with second-degree burglary and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, both felonies. In a separate incident, the pair were also arrested last year on felony charges of criminal possession of marijuana.

When Kait Duplaga returned home with her two roommates on April 27 at about 10pm, they discovered that their Ridgeview Avenue apartment had been burglarized. Among the items stolen were: Two laptop computers, two flat-screen televisions, two iPods, gaming consoles, DVDs, computer games, a box of liquor and a set of car rims. One of the stolen laptops was a Macintosh belonging to Kait, who works at the Apple store in the Westchester mall. One of the programs installed on her computer was “Back to My Mac”, which allows users to access their laptops from remote locations.

Shortly after the burglary one of Kait's friends contacted her and congratulated her on the recovery of her stolen computer. Kait told her: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ and her friend said, ‘Well, you popped up as being online.’

After hearing this Kait Duplaga immediately signed on to another Macintosh computer and, using the “Back to My Mac” feature was able to gain access to her missing laptop remotely. She could see that the person who had her computer was doing some online shopping. Then it occurred to her that she could activate a camera on her laptop and watch the thief live. At first all she saw was an empty room but eventually a man came and sat down. Using the same program Kait was able to get the computer to take a picture.

“When you take a picture with that computer, it shows a countdown, and when it does, this guy figures out what’s going on. It all clicks for him, and he puts his hand up to cover the lens, but it was too late. The picture had already been taken.”

When Kait showed the picture of the thief to one of her roommates, the roommate replied: “Oh, I know exactly who that is — it’s Ian,” referring to Ian Frias. Ian Frias and Edmon Shahikian had been among the guests at a party at the apartment weeks before, and were friends of friends of the victims. Kait was able to find a picture of Shahikian on the computer. She took the pictures to the police who were able to arrest the two men. Virtually all of the property stolen from the apartment, valued at more than $5,000, was recovered at the two men’s homes.

Edmon Shahikian was released on $3,500 bail, while Ian Frias was freed on $7,500 bail. At their arraignments both men were warned by City Judge Barbara Leak, who signed an order of protection, not to contact the victims. After making bail, Frias called Kait Duplaga who reported the incident to the police. He was again arrested and charged with criminal contempt, a misdemeanor, police said.

In court Judge Leak sent Frias back to jail on $3,500 bail on the new charge, telling his lawyer, Judith Berger, "I told your client no phone calling, e-mailing or text-messaging. Within seven days, a call was made. That's not acceptable.''

Frias and Shahikian also are due in Yonkers City Court on June 9 in a marijuana case. They were arrested last year after 3 pounds of pot was found in the Jeep they were in, Yonkers police said. Both were charged with a felony count of marijuana possession. Frias accepted a plea bargain and is to be sentenced on a misdemeanor possession charge; the felony charge against Shahikian is still pending.

Teen Uses Text Messages To Foil Burglars

Lauren Durnbaugh, 13, of Lithopolis, Ohio did not attend school last Tuesday but she did receive an A+ in a real life test. She was home alone when she heard the sounds of someone breaking into her house through an unlocked rear door. The teenager went to her bedroom and hid under the covers while the intruders were ransacking the rest of the house.

"I ran into my room and got under the covers and was hiding," Durnbaugh said. "I didn't know what to think and I couldn't breathe. I was scared.

What she did there, under the covers, not only saved the house from being robbed but also led to the arrest of the two persons responsible for the break-in..... she sent text messages to her mother at work telling her what was going on.

"OMG. They're in the house. I think we're being robbed," Durnbaugh said in a text message to her mother, Margo Roby, 53, who was working at a car dealership about 15 minutes away.

In the meantime, the intruders were going through all the rooms in the house and even searched the teen's bedroom and sat on her bed. They had no clue that Lauren was there hiding under the covers.

After receiving the text messages from her daughter, Margo Roby raced home while calling 911. When she arrived at the house she saw the burglars' car parked in her driveway. She rammed the car with her own vehicle. This got the attention of one of the intruders, later identified as Jenna Marie Burns, who came out of the house. The two women began to wrestle just as the sheriff's deputies and the Lithopolis police chief arrived. They arrested both Jenna and her companion, Jeremiah Lee Fyffe.

Jewelry, a laptop computer, a digital camera and a tool box were among items the intruders had set outside apparently to be carried away, Sheriff Dave Phalen said.

Margo then rushed into the house in search of her daughter.

"I ran in to get my daughter. She was just shaking like a leaf," Roby said. "After we cried, she said, 'Wow, I can't believe I did that,'" Roby said.

Jenna Marie Burns, 20, of Orient, and Jeremiah Lee Fyffe, 26, of Lockbourne, were arrested and charged with burglary. Burns also was charged with robbery. Both remained in a county jail Wednesday on $100,000 bond.

Burns' mother, Virginia Burns, said her daughter is only guilty of "bad association."

"I think that my daughter has made the wrong choice in people, and now she's going to pay the price for that association," she said. "I believe in my daughter. She is a goodhearted individual. But she has made a bad decision and she'll pay the price for it."

Margo Roby said she blamed herself for failing to lock the door when she left for work. But she's proud of how her daughter handled herself. If convicted, Burns faces a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison; Fyffe faces a maximum of eight years.

Sex Tourist John Armstrong Sentenced

John Dickens Armstrong, 51, a registered sex offender, found out the hard way that certain crimes perpetrated in foreign countries can and will be prosecuted in the U.S.

Armstrong was living in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico when the Mexican police found him in the company of a 15-year-old El Paso girl. The teenager, a U.S. citizen, lived in Juarez with her grandmother at the time. She told the police that she had sex with Armstrong for money and crack cocaine. Upon further investigation it was discovered that Armstrong had solicited under-aged girls in a bar. He offered them $40 to have sex with him. He was also reported to have provided them with crack cocaine. Ciudad Juarez police officers arrested him for engaging in sexual conduct with underage girls.

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) learned of Armstrong's arrest they conducted their own investigation and obtained an arrest warrant for him. When Mexico deported him, I.C.E. was waiting for him at the border. He was taken into custody and charged with engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place, a federal offense.

A federal judge sentenced the 51-year-old man to more than nine years in prison (110 months) after he pleaded guilty to engaging in sexual activity with teenage girls in Juarez. In addition, Armstrong also received 10 years of supervised release after he's released from prison. He must also register as a sex offender for the rest of his life under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). He was already a registered sex offender in Arizona for a 1978 rape conviction.

"So-called sex tourists such as Armstrong are in for a rude awakening," said Roberto G. Medina, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in El Paso. "ICE and its law enforcement partners on both sides of the border are vigilant to this crime. Although we cannot restore innocence to those who sexual predators have exploited and abused, we make sure that justice is served on their behalf."