"Pinky" Found Guilty

"Pinky" the 13-year-old Newburgh boy accused of manslaughter in the stabbing death of 17-year-old Levi King Flores was found guilty by Orange County Family Court Judge Andrew Bivona. He had been charged as a juvenile with:

• 1 Count Second-Degree Manslaughter (felony) 
  
• 3 Counts of Second-Degree Assault (felonies)
  
• 1 Count of Fourth-Degree Misdemeanor Criminal Possession of a Weapon.

At the time of his arrest "Pinky" had been charged as an adult with second-degree murder. Later a grand jury, finding there was insufficient evidence to support that charge, opted instead to charge him as a juvenile with the lesser offense of second-degree manslaughter. 

The trial began on Feb. 3, 2010 in Goshen, NY. The prosecution introduced as evidence - a videotaped interview with the boy, the knife used in the killing and DNA evidence - all of which was deemed inadmissible because the police failed to follow proper procedures.

The trial did however continue with two witnesses, a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old boy, who were allowed to testify. They told the court of the events leading up to the street fight resulting in the death of 17-year-old Levi King Flores.

The prosecution wrapped up its case against "Pinky" on Wed. Feb. 17. The defense declined to present any witnesses - not even "Pinky" himself - and requested that the charges be dismissed. The judge, Andrew Bivona, did no such thing.

Without so much as taking a break, Judge Andrew Bivona of Orange County Family Court declared the 13-year-old boy guilty.

After the verdict the family of the slain 17-year-old Levi King Flores went into consultation with the prosecutors.

13-year-old "Pinky" faces possible incarceration until he is 18. His family left the court without any comment.

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The "Pinky" Trial Continues

On trial at Orange County Family Court in Goshen, NY, is the 13-year-old boy known as "Pinky". He has been charged in the stabbing death of 17-year-old Levi King Flores on Jan. 13, 2010 in Newburgh NY. The trial began on Feb. 3 with police statements that the 13-year-old "Pinky" had assisted them in recovering the knife used in the attack. See the details here.

The prosecution suffered a setback when Family Court Judge Andrew Bivona threw out much of the evidence, including the statements made by "Pinky" when he was questioned by the police and the knife used to kill Levi King Flores, which the boy had helped them find - calling them the "fruit of the poisonous tree." Here is why the judge threw out the evidence:

As previously noted both the boy and his mother were read his Miranda rights. The mother was told in Spanish and the boy, who speaks English, in English. The problem was that the police conducted the entire interview with the boy in English, which his mother did not understand.

The boy's attorney, Stuart Greenberg, argued that "the language barrier of the mother prevented her from helping her son understand what police were asking and the consequences of answering." The judge agreed and granted Greenberg's motion to suppress the boy's statements.

Since the police were unable to use the boy's statements, they were also unable to use any evidence obtained from the interview with the boy, including the knife and any DNA evidence recovered from the scene.

Prosecutors were however allowed to use identifications made by two witnesses who claimed to see the stabbing. Each picked the boy out of a photo array as the killer. They were both friends of Levi.

The trial continued with the testimony of two of Levi King Flores' friends, both of them in 7th grade. They described the events leading up to the death of the 17-year-old. Both parents of Levi King Flores were in court, silently watching the proceedings.

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The first to testify was a 13-year-old boy. This is how he described what happened:

Levi and his friends were playing on a frozen pond in Downing Park. They had a small bat and were trying to punch a hole in the ice. A group of girls approached them and started swearing at them. One of the girls was the sister of the 13-year-old defendant, "Pinky". The girls continued to belittle the gang the boys belonged to - La Eme. During the confrontation "Pinky's" sister used her cellphone to call her brother. He came to join them and they all left going in the direction of a nearby store.

Levi and his friends also left, heading in the same direction. The argument continued culminating in a fight between "Pinky" and another 12-year-old boy. At the same time, Levi himself, was arguing with "Pinky's" sister and eventually got caught up in ongoing the fight. No one knew at the time that "Pinky" had a knife - hidden in one of his sleeves - until it was too late.

"After that Levi was limping, and we carried him to St. Luke's," he said.

After relating the story the boy was crying. "Pinky's" lawyer, Stuart Greenberg, gave the boy time to recover before starting the cross-examination. Under cross-examination the boy said that Levi King Flores was indeed a member of the Newburgh street gang known as La Eme. He said that he did not know what had happened to the bat used to break the ice on the pond. He also said that it was not used in the fight.

When the second witness - a 12-year-old boy - took the stand he recounted the same story as the previous boy. When the Assistant District Attorney Allan Drian asked him to lift up his shirt, he revealed the scars left from the three puncture wounds he had received during the knife attack. This provoked an audible gasp from Martha, Levi's mother.

The trial continues.......

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Ex-Boyfriend Gets Woman Raped

Jebidiah James Stipe, 27, from Carbon, Wyo. broke up with his 25-year-old girlfriend but he was far from finished with her. In fact he hatched a scheme that would eventually make her life a living hell; destroy the life of not-so-innocent Ty Oliver McDowell, 26, from Bar Nunn, Wyo.; involve Craigslist in another scandal; give prosecutors a headache and the general public an insight into the depravity of a sick, conniving, malicious individual. 

This all began after Jebidiah Stipe, a Marine stationed at Twentynine Palms, Calif., broke up with his girlfriend from Casper Wyo. He then posted an ad in the "adult services" section of Craigslist, pretending to be his girlfriend. The ad said:

"Need a real aggressive man with no concern for women"

Stipe also included the woman's picture and personal information. The ad remained on Craigslist for two days before the ex-girlfriend saw it. She contacted the Natrona County Sheriff's Office, complaining that someone had posted a false Craigslist ad about her. She also complained to Craigslist, which took down the ad. But the damage had already been done.

The ad was spotted by Ty Oliver McDowell, a medical technologist, employed at the Wyoming Medical Center's radiology department. He e-mailed a response to the address given in the ad and began corresponding with whom he thought was a woman, but was really Jebidiah Stipe.

During the exchange of messages, Stipe, posing as his ex-girlfriend, explained exactly what "she" wanted - "humiliation, physical abuse, sexual abuse" - and gave Ty McDowell his ex-girlfriend's address. 

Taking this for an invitation, Ty McDowell went to the woman's house. When she answered the door he said "I'll show you aggressive," and immediately began to assault her. He forced her into the living room and bound, blindfolded and gagged the 25-year-old woman. Then he raped her as he pressed a knife to her throat.

Later, he told detectives he thought he was fulfilling her rape fantasy.

McDowell was arrested and charged with first-degree sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated burglary. Stipe was also arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree sexual assault.

According to a Marine Corps spokeswoman, Jebidiah James Stipe - a maintenance mechanic who had enlisted in the Marines in 2001 - was in the process of being ejected for an undisclosed pattern of misconduct at the time of his arrest. Documents related to Stipe's arrest have been sealed.

Craigslist has also come under fire for allowing the ad to be placed on its site. "Although Craigslist officials had cooperated with the investigation, the fact that they published sexually suggestive ads also facilitated the crime" said Natrona County Dist. Atty. Mike Blonigen:

"If I were king, I'd like to see them not run these personal ads," he said. "This is a debate we've had for a long time: . . . Do we censor the Internet?"

Steve Patterson, a spokesman for the Cook County sheriff who had sued Craigslist before, said the website wasn't blameless:

By hosting an adult services forum, "they create this specific place for criminal activity to take place," he said.

Craigslist had no comment on the case. But Federal law protects Internet sites from liability for their users' actions, said M. Ryan Calo, residential fellow at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.

"The idea was that these website platforms were truly communities assembled of random users, with no editorial control over what users were doing. Craigslist is like a hotel with millions of rooms, but it doesn't have the ability to figure out what's happening in those rooms," Calo said.

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RIP Levi King Flores

Levi King Flores was only 17 years old. He had not yet graduated from High School. He could not yet vote. He couldn't buy beer. He couldn't even buy a pack cigarettes....and he will never be able to do any of those things because he was stabbed to death on the streets of Newburgh, NY on Jan. 13, 2010. He leaves behind loving parents, siblings, a girlfriend, a daughter and many friends. Levi was a victim of gang violence.

A 13-year-old boy, who goes by the street name of "Pinky", was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Levi Flores. He was arraigned in Newburgh City Court before Judge Harold Ramsey and was placed into the custody of the Orange County Sheriff's Office. Police did not release real name.

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According to reports, a fight broke out at the corner of First St. and Carpenter Ave. in which Levi was stabbed along with a 12-year-old boy. They were both taken to St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital Newburgh Campus. While there, two other teens showed up, also with stabbed wounds - a 14-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl. All of them were interviewed by the police. During the course of their investigation, the police learned the identity of the accused 13-year-old.

Levi and two of the other stabbing victims were taken by helicopter to Westchester Medical Center. While en route Levi died. The others are expected to survive.

"It's unbelievable, it's unbelievable that the violence has resulted in this kind of action. What used to be a personal insult or an assault in the school yard that might have resulted in a fist fight is now culminating outside on the city streets...its unbelievable," said Eric Paolilli the chief of police.

The next day at NFA, the high school, there was a lot of tension. A number of fights broke out. The police were called in. By noon they had arrested 4 students. Many parents showed up at the school to get their kids early. Some of the students were angry but many were grieving. The disturbance prompted school officials to cancel all after school activities and close the school system for the following day, Friday. On Monday the schools will remain closed in observance of Martin Luther King's birthday.

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Torture Prince Acquitted

Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, 40, is a member of the royal family in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He is the brother of Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed. He was caught on tape torturing a man, an Afghan grain trader named Mohammed Shapoor, in 2004, in the most inhumane fashion. The graphic video below, broadcast by ABC News in April 2009, shows him:

• Stuffing the man's face with sand
• Firing a machine gun close to his body
• Hitting him with a whip and an electric cattle prod
• Cutting his bare buttocks by striking him with a nail embedded in a stick
• Pouring salt into the man's wounds and
• Driving over him again and again with his vehicle.

Not only was Sheikh Issa aware of being videotaped, he was the one that ordered the tape be made so that he could view it later at his leisure. At times he actually directs the cameraman to focus in on some of his particularly sadistic acts. The tape was sneaked out of the country by an ex-business partner, Bassam Nabulsi, who was also jailed and tortured in prison before being released. It was Bassam's brother, Ghassan Nabulsi, who was the cameraman.

Please note this video is explicitly brutal

After the tape was widely shown by the media Sheikh Issa was arrested and ordered to stand trial. He was charged at an opening hearing last October (2009) with endangering life, causing bodily harm and  rape.

In his defense the sheikh claimed that he "was under the influence of drugs [medicine] that left him unaware of his actions."

On Jan. 10 2010 Judge Mubarak al-Awad cleared the UAE President’s brother of all charges in a UAE court despite video footage of the incident, saying he was not responsible for his actions.

Sheikh Issa, who had been in custody for eight months, attended the hearing. He wore a traditional white robe and head scarf and was not handcuffed or restrained. On hearing the verdict, he hugged his defense lawyer, Habib al-Mullah, and left the courtroom without speaking to reporters.

However five co-defendants, the two Nabulsi brothers and three farm workers were all found guilty. Ghassan and Bassam Nabulsi, were sentenced to five years in jail each, in absentia, for administering drugs to Sheikh Issa, endangering the life of Mohammed Shapoor and filming without his permission. The farm workers were sentenced to between one and three years in jail, also in absentia, for drugging the sheikh.

Habib al-Mullah, Sheikh Issa's lawyer, told the court, in the oasis city of Al Ain, that one of the sheikh’s co-defendants was responsible for Sheikh Issa’s medications and had drugged him, then videotaped the incident and tried to blackmail him.  He also told the court that the sheikh had been drugged against his will during the incident and had no recollection of what had happened.

“We submitted medical reports showing that the drugs that the two co-defendants administered to him left him unaware of his actions,” the lawyer said.

The defense did not just center on the medication, he said, but claimed that the videotape and other incidents from that night were all part of a conspiracy aimed at blackmailing the sheikh.

"No one can prove that this videotape has not been tampered with," al-Mullah said. The only person who can confirm the incidents happened as seen on the tape is the victim, and he has not confirmed that, he added. "We deny the incident as it was shown on that videotape."

Habib al-Mullah was taken to task in the following CNN interview.

Judge Mubarak al-Awad, presiding over a three-judge panel, further ordered the two brothers to pay an interim compensation of about $2,500 to the victim, who can file a new lawsuit to claim full compensation.

The verdict, however, is not final as it will have to be reviewed by a higher court if the public prosecution decides to challenge the ruling.

 

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