La Porte parolee charged in head-on fatal collision

A La Porte man with four prior drunken driving convictions who was paroled from prison was charged Thursday with criminally negligent homicide for a head-on crash that killed another motorist on Genoa Red Bluff Road.

Rodney Craig Price, 47, is being prosecuted as a habitual offender because of his prior convictions and faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of the charge, said Harris County assistant district attorney Ryan Patrick.

A criminal complaint accuses Price, a crane operator, of driving on the wrong side of the two-lane road when the crash occurred Feb. 11, killing Troy Augst, 30, of the Sagemont area of southeast Houston.

Two witnesses told Houston police that Price was trying to pass other vehicles when he veered into the oncoming lane of traffic before the collision, the complaint shows.

Price remains at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center under police guard and has been ordered held without bond once the hospital releases him. He is in good condition with broken ribs and a fractured ankle, police said.

He declined to comment when reached in his hospital room.

The victim’s mother expressed outrage that Price, who has done three stints in prison, had been paroled for a second time in 2007.

“If he had been in jail, my son would still be alive today,” Sharon Augst said. “Who makes the decision that this man can be released and get out and kill my son?”

Police noticed an odor of alcohol on Price’s breath after the crash two weeks ago, but blood tests revealed his blood alcohol concentration was 0.02, below the legal limit of 0.08, the complaint shows. Authorities are still testing Price’s blood for the presence of drugs, Patrick said.

James Landry Jr. of Baytown stopped to help after the crash. Landry stayed with Augst, a 1997 Dobie High School graduate, who was trapped inside the wreckage of his truck. Landry, who placed a hand on Augst’s shoulder, recalled the injured man’s last words were, “Please help me.”

Price, who has a record of 16 arrests in Harris County dating back to 1982, was being supervised by a parole officer and was supposed to remain on supervision until 2011, records show.

Each of Price’s four DWI convictions — in 1997, 1992, 1990 and 1986 — put him behind bars. His last DWI arrest, in which he was also charged with retaliation for threatening to kill a La Porte police officer, landed him a 12-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to both charges, records show.

He was paroled four years later in March 2002, Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials said. His parole was revoked in 2004 after he was arrested for the aggravated assault of his sister, who suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung, according to a La Porte Police Department report.

Price pleaded guilty to a lesser offense of misdemeanor assault and returned to prison for another two and a half years. He was paroled again in March 2007.

Price’s 16-year-old daughter called Augst’s family the day after the crash to express her sorrow for Augst’s death, said the victim’s brother, Eric Wilcox. Price’s family confirmed to the Chronicle that the teenager made the phone call.


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Texas and Southwest briefs

AUSTIN – A Central Texas man got a 30-day jail sentence for contempt of court after criticizing a judge in a Caldwell County Courthouse men's room.

State District Judge Jack Robison ordered Don Bandelman, 69, released after two days in jail after a state appeals court in Austin made inquiries into the matter. Officials said Robison had granted temporary custody of Bandleman's granddaughter to his son's ex-wife instead of his son. Bandleman then followed the judge into the men's room and berated him as "a fool," officials said.

Officer shoots, kills holdup suspect
SAN ANTONIO – A rookie San Antonio police officer fatally shot a suspect in a predawn gas station holdup Tuesday.

Police said Julio Molinar, 19, died at Brooke Army Medical Center shortly after the shooting in northeast San Antonio. They said Officer Michael Ruiz, who graduated from the police academy five months ago, drove into the parking lot of the gas station and shot Molinar after the suspect pointed a shotgun at him. He has been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of the police investigation.

Prison guard fired after inmate's death
McALESTER, Okla. – A prison guard was fired and his supervisor suspended after an inmate was beaten to death after being placed in the same cell with a co-defendant he testified against.

Paul Duran, 23, was killed March 11 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and Jesse Dalton, 33, remains a suspect in the case, officials said. The two had been charged in an Oklahoma City murder case.

Judge accused of sex offer is suspended
HOUSTON – The State Commission on Judicial Conduct on Tuesday suspended a Harris County criminal court-at-law judge under indictment for allegedly offering to help a defendant in exchange for sex.

Judge Donald Jackson, 59, is accused of propositioning a young female drunken-driving defendant. His attorney has said his client is not guilty.




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Austin officer's killer files new claim Petition about union ad is filed as judge was to consider execution date.

The day before a judge was to begin considering the execution date of a man convicted of killing an Austin police officer, his lawyer filed new court documents with information he said could have swayed jurors in separate trials.
According to the petition, a newspaper advertisement last year paid for by the Austin police union set forth a sequence of events in the 1978 shooting of officer Ralph Ablanedo that differed from what investigators and prosecutors previously presented.
The full-page ad, published in the Austin American-Statesman to mark the 30th anniversary of Ablanedo's death, said Ablanedo fired nine rounds at David Lee Powell. Powell was convicted of murder and remains on Texas death row in the shooting.
Val Escobar, executive director of the Austin Police Association, said Wednesday that she pulled a narrative of the shooting used in the ad from the Internet and that it wasn't based on official documents or interviews.
Defense attorney Richard Burr said in the court documents: "Had the evidence that Officer Ablanedo returned fire nine times been available, the picture of the crime would have changed dramatically. This evidence would have cast other strands of evidence in a different light."
Burr said that had Ablanedo fired, the incident would have been considered a gunfight instead of an "ambush or execution."
The petition asks that a trial court determine whether the claim has a basis.
Bruce Mills, who was Ablanedo's patrol partner, said Ablanedo's gun was still in its holster when he arrived at the scene.
"No shots were fired from his gun," Mills said. He said the petition is "a feeble attempt to draw a distraction."
The petition said it is possible that Ablanedo had a second gun.
Travis County prosecutors last month asked state District Judge Mike Lynch to set an execution date for Powell in October. The defense requested more time to file a petition about the new information with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Lynch signed an order saying that he would wait until after Wednesday to allow Burr more time.
The court must decide if the petition can be considered under state law. Burr must show that he has found new evidence not previously available or that state law or court precedent has changed in a way favorable to Powell.
Powell was found guilty and sentenced to death soon after the shooting in the 900 block of East Live Oak Street in South Austin. According to court documents, he shot Ablanedo 10 times with an AK-47 during a traffic stop before trying to kill other officers as they closed in.
Powell appealed his conviction, saying that he had talked to a psychiatrist without being warned of his rights, and got a new trial in 1991. Powell also appealed that guilty verdict and, after he said he had been improperly sentenced, was given a new sentencing trial in 1999. He was again given the death penalty.
Powell's lawyers appealed that decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and lost.
During a hearing last year, attorneys said prosecutors did not disclose information in a timely manner that could have helped Powell's defense, including documents from the parole file of Powell's girlfriend, Sheila Meinert. They said the records showed Meinert fired shots at Ablanedo and that she had thrown a grenade at officers.

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Texas lawmaker: Death row inmate made Web threats

AUSTIN, Texas — Prison officials are investigating whether a Texas death row inmate accused of threatening a state lawmaker using a smuggled cell phone is behind an Internet posting that threatens the lawmaker and his family.
State Sen. John Whitmire said he's convinced Richard Lee Tabler is behind a rambling May 29 posting on a site dedicated to death row inmates and their cases. The posting was first reported Friday by the Austin American-Statesman.
Tabler, who faces execution for the 2004 slaying of two men in Bell County, was busted last year for having a smuggled phone in his cell. He was charged with retaliation, and his mother and sister were charged with possessing contraband in a state prison. Those cases are pending.
The Web posting, under Tabler's name, states: "So many thoughts are running through my head about these indictments against my family members. Some times I wish that I could really show my hand and ask Senator Whitmire how 'Rebecca's health' is. ... John please understand that just because I'm on death row does not mean that you cannot be gotten to ... or your family."
Whitmire said his ex-wife is named Rebecca.
Prisoners do not have access to computers, and all of Tabler's incoming and outgoing mail is read except for mail pertaining to his court case, Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said. The prison system's Office of the Inspector General is investigating whether Tabler was able to get a threatening letter to someone else to post, Lyons said.
The department declined to allow Tabler to be interviewed Friday, and he could not be otherwise reached for comment. A lawyer for Tabler could not be found. A court clerk official declined to release information about Tabler's lawyer over the phone.
Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote Thursday to the chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice and the prison department's executive director to complain about lax security with death row correspondence. He said his committee will conduct a hearing on prison mail policies.
Whitmire, who is often contacted by inmates because of his committee role, told The Associated Press he was troubled by the threatening Web posting.
"Obviously I'm concerned — for her, me, anyone in the state of Texas," Whitmire said. "I know for a fact inmates have contacts on the streets of Texas. Their ability to carry out a threat is real."
He said his aides spotted the May posting recently while doing an online search.
"Pretty unbelievable stuff," Whitmire said. "What does it take to identify the guy as a threat and scrutinize everything he does?"
Whitmire gave Tabler his cell phone number last year after Tabler contacted Whitmire at his office and posed as an old schoolmate, Whitmire said. Tabler later identified himself as a death row inmate, and he and Whitmire held several phone conversations under the supervision of law enforcement, the lawmaker said.
Those conversations led to charges against Tabler, his mother and sister, and to a crackdown within the prison system on illegal cell phone use. Hundreds of contraband phones, chargers and phone components were seized over several months, and security was tightened for those entering and leaving the prisons.


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Big Spring Man Charged with DWI in Connection to Friend's Death

Big Spring, Texas - A 19-year-old man is now facing charges in connection with an incident last summer that killed his friend.

Jeffrey Ray Pierson has been charged with a misdemeanor DWI.

Last august, 18-year-old Michael Creel was riding in the bed of Pierson’s pickup when he somehow fell out and struck his head.

Creel's body was found hours later and Pierson was charged with intoxication manslaughter.

He was not indicted by a grand jury due to lack of evidence.

County Attorney Joshua Hamby will be handling the case.

According to officials this is his first offense and if convicted Pierson could face 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine.




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Stanford Will Remain in Jail Until Trial, Judge Rules

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- R. Allen Stanford must remain jailed until he can be tried on charges he swindled investors of as much as $7 billion, a U.S. judge ruled.
Stanford, the Texas financier accused of defrauding investors through bogus certificates of deposit sold by his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd., had asked U.S. Judge David Hittner to reconsider an order revoking his bail. Stanford has been in federal custody since June 18, when he was arrested following an indictment on fraud and conspiracy charges that could imprison him for life, if he’s convicted.
“Having considered the motion and the applicable law, the court determines that the motion should be denied,” Hittner said in an order posted today on the court’s electronic docket.
On June 30, Hittner ruled that Stanford’s network of international contacts, presumed access to millions of unaccounted-for dollars and globe-trotting lifestyle made him a flight risk. The judge revoked a $500,000 bond granted Stanford by a magistrate judge and ordered him held in prison until his trial, which could be a year away.
Stanford, who denies all wrongdoing, faces civil and criminal charges linked to what the government claims was a Ponzi scheme that paid depositors “improbable, if not impossible” returns by taking money from new investors to repay early investors. Stanford is also accused of siphoning as much as $1.6 billion of investor deposits to fund a lavish lifestyle.
Another Appeal
Dick DeGuerin, Stanford’s criminal-defense lawyer, appealed today’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans. He said he would continue trying to win Stanford’s release on bail.
“Given the new evidence we presented in our motion to reconsider, I’m surprised and disappointed that it was overruled without a hearing,” DeGuerin said in a statement released by his office.
DeGuerin asked the appellate court to review the case on an expedited schedule.
In a motion yesterday arguing that Stanford deserved bail, DeGuerin complained that his client can’t readily aid his own defense because he’s incarcerated at a county jail in Conroe, an hour’s drive from his law office in downtown Houston. Today, DeGuerin filed a request for Stanford to be transferred to the federal detention center near his office.
“We think the judge has again made the correct decision, Justice Department spokesman Ian McCaleb said in an e-mail following today’s ruling.
Misrepresented Facts
On July 7, DeGuerin filed papers asking Hittner to reconsider his denial of Stanford’s bail, saying the government had misrepresented key facts on Stanford’s ability and motive to flee during two days of hearings. Stanford, who has dual U.S. and Antiguan citizenship, has surrendered his three passports, including one that was found in the government’s possession three days after prosecutors told Hittner its whereabouts were unknown.
DeGuerin argued that while Stanford traveled frequently on business and had homes and influential business contacts abroad, the financier’s primary residence remained in the U.S. DeGuerin also stressed that Stanford, formerly worth roughly $2 billion, is penniless as the result of a court-ordered freeze of all his assets until the civil case is resolved.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Stanford, two associates and three of his companies in February, alleging they defrauded investors by misrepresenting the safety and regulation of the bank’s investment portfolio. Stanford investors were told their funds were held primarily in cash and readily liquid equivalents. The government contends the funds were invested largely in private equity and overvalued real estate.
Finding Assets
Court-appointed receivers in the U.S. and Antigua have located about $1 billion in cash and investments in Stanford- controlled bank accounts in the U.K., Switzerland, Canada and Antigua.
Although they are still determining the value of the private-equity investments and real-estate holdings, the receivers say anticipated recovery will fall far short of what’s needed to repay holders of $7.2 billion in outstanding certificates of deposit at Stanford International Bank.

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Odd-couple lawyers aim to save Jammie Thomas

The elder member of Jammie Thomas-Rasset's legal team is a former U.S. Army Ranger. He doesn't say whether he's proud of that, but his voice does dawdle when he says the words "special forces."
"I like pain. I like fighting. I like conflict," says Joe Sibley. "Going to war was something I always wanted to do (but didn't)...later in life I discovered I was more capable of fighting and ending wars with my mind."
The younger member of Thomas-Rasset's legal team says, half kidding, that he spent his youth disappointing his parents, who wanted a career for him in medicine. Instead, he fecklessly pursued a Ph.D in economics at Stanford University, and then drifted into law school at Harvard. When he graduated, magna cum laude, Kiwi Camara was 19 years old.
They are the founders of the Camara & Sibley law firm, and they are pretty much all that's standing between Thomas-Rasset, the music-pirating mother from Minnesota, and the $1.9 million judgment that's hanging over her head. Last month, the attorneys sat next to Thomas-Rasset when she was found liable for willful copyright infringement, the second time a jury has decided against her.
On Monday, her attorneys filed a motion for a new trial and asked the judge to set aside the verdict or reduce the damage award to the minimum of $18,000. If they don't get that, they plan to file an appeal. They will argue that forcing Thomas-Rasset to pay $2 million for illegally sharing 24 songs is unconstitutional, the equivalent of "sentencing someone to life in prison for shoplifting $25 worth of merchandise," said Sibley.
"We actually think that the jury award of $1.9 million is helpful to our argument about unconstitutionality," Sibley said. "Here's a real life award of a ridiculous amount of damages for a group of songs that costs $25 on the Internet."
That's not how 24 Minnesotans saw it. Thomas-Rasset has had two goes at proving to juries she wasn't the one who used her computer to illegally share music on a peer-to-peer service. The first time was in October 2007, when she was found liable for $222,000 in damages. The judge threw that decision out after acknowledging he erred in giving jury instructions.
As for Sibley, 34, and Camara, 25, the Thomas-Rasset case could be a springboard that launches them to the upper ranks of attorneys who defend downloaders and tech companies from copyright suits. They could certainly boost the reputation of their fledgling Houston-based law practice, which they opened in February, by helping Thomas-Rasset break her losing streak.
Pointing fingers
In her first trial, Thomas-Rasset was represented by another attorney who suggested to the jury that an unknown hacker might have commandeered her computer and shared the music. Sibley and Camara, who didn't take over the case until three weeks before her retrial, were skeptical anyone would believe some unknown third party was responsible.
Instead, the attorneys went with the only other choice they had, in effect fingering the only other people who had access to Thomas-Rasset's computer: her ex-boyfriend and her children. While on the stand, Thomas-Rasset said it was possible one of her children or her former boyfriend, who had babysat while she was away on three separate occasions, could have shared the music.
"On one end, if the jury believed it, they could let her off," Sibley said. "On the other end, if they disbelieved it that could create the opposite effect. If the jury thought she was lying and pointing a finger at family members, that could result in inflation of the statutory damages and in my opinion that is what happened in this case."
After such a dramatic defeat, how do they go forward?
"I think there is a fair shot that (U.S. District Judge Michael) Davis will grant (some of the requests) in our (new trial) motion," Camara said. "I think the arguments are strong, there's lots of law behind them and it's the first time he's heard them."
There's little doubt the case is headed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, Camara said. The side Davis rules against will surely take the case to the higher court.
Facing long odds
Both Sibley and Camara acknowledge that they knew they were facing long odds when they offered Thomas-Rasset their services pro bono. The truth is that anytime a lawyer takes on the RIAA or MPAA in a copyright dispute, he or she knows that the opposing team has an almost perfect batting average, certainly with regard to the most high-profile disputes of the past decade. Tick off the names: Aimster, Napster, Grokster, and TorrentSpy, all wins for the copyright owners.
These are precisely the kind of long-odd cases that Sibley and Camara say they want. Sibley said one of his greatest regrets was that he joined the Army too late (1993) and missed the fighting in Somalia. He's spoiling for big fights. The calmer Camara said the duo is willing to take on cases that "matter, make a difference" regardless of how tough they are or whether they involve technology, securities or anything else.
The partnership was formed when the duo arrived at Harvard. Sibley and Camara were the first people each other met that first day on campus. Their individual trajectories to reach that point were vastly different.
The child of two doctors, Camara wrote a paper on treatments for rheumatoid arthritis that was published in a medical journal in his home state of Hawaii. He was 11. He dropped out of the 8th grade to attend college and graduated at 16. After Harvard he began teaching at Northwestern University School of Law. He was groomed for academic greatness.
In contrast, Sibley was an also-ran for most of his life, a poor kid from East Texas always battling more privileged and pedigreed opponents.
After getting out of the Army, he took a series of odd jobs in his East Texas hometown of Spring. No one in his family had ever gone to college and he never thought he would either--he was an average student in high school who got disciplined a couple of times for fighting--until one day he woke up and wanted to study philosophy and Frederick Nietzsche. First came community college then the University of Texas, where he took 21 hours of course work each term and graduated with honors--all the while working part-time, maintaining a marriage and raising a child.
At Harvard, said Sibley, he and Camara became friends and allies despite Sibley being one of the oldest students and Camara being the youngest. What they had in common was their conservative political views, which made them "outcasts" among the liberal majority, Sibley said.
They stuck by each other even when Camara stirred what became a controversy on campus that spilled out into a national debate via The New York Times. Camara posted course outlines on a student-operated Web site and used a racial epithet to describe African Americans. There were protests and denunciations. Camara seems to accept that the incident is going to trail him for a long time.
"The story has been covered in lots of other places," Camara said. "I have apologized many times and I think the existing coverage is adequate."
He and Sibley, who said he knows the pairing might seem odd to outsiders, don't seem willing to allow the controversy to define them or their practice.
"(Physically) I wouldn't pick him in a fight over too many people," a chuckling Sibley said of Camara. "But when it comes to mental toughness and ability he's one of the smartest people on the planet and he's scrappy. He doesn't take any s***. He's not the stereotypical sort of genius. He's more like the evil genius."


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Man accused in slaying quits as Texas prison guard

HENDERSON, Texas — A Texas prison guard charged in the shooting death of his younger brother has resigned as a corrections officer.
The Rusk County Sheriff's Office said 22-year-old Justin Gregory Raner (RAY'-ner) of Bullard remained jailed Thursday on $1 million bail.
Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark told the Longview News-Journal that Raner, a guard at the Hodge Unit in Rusk since mid-2008, resigned Wednesday.
Raner is charged with murder over the killing of 19-year-old Jeremy Neal Raner. The victim's body was found Saturday in a hayfield.
Investigators believe the siblings had argued. Further details were not released by law officers.

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