#Brutality Lawyers Staten Island

[killianglyndon]

Someone You Care ch2

A/N: This one explains their first meet from Rafael’s point of view. And I forgot to say this last chapter, this series’ timeline began from late S16. This chapter is somewhat based on 16x23 “Surrendering Noah.” But Nick didn’t get shot in this. ( I'm sorry i just don’t want to send him away.) And if the link isn’t working, or you want to be on the taglist, please let me know.

Warnings: rape mentioned, some gunshots mentioned, blood (nothing too graphic)

Series masterlist

Next chapter

(A few months ago)

When you and Intelligence walked into the squad room, you caught Rafael’s eye. From your navy blazer, to your black footwear. He could tell you more value the practicality than fancy, and of course, the badge hanged on your neck.

He watched you as you pointed the pictures on the whiteboard, explaining your findings on the case. The moment his emerald green eyes caught yours, he couldn’t help but feel a wave of heat creeping into his cheeks. His heartbeat definitely sped up. Thankfully, no one had any attention on Rafael, he could save himself from the embarrassment of being caught staring at you.

After Yates’ trial, SVU and Intelligence went out for drinks. To celebrate that the serial rapist, Yates, had been put behind the bars, and mourned for your friend, Nadia. Everyone had grabbed their drinks and toasted to their dear friend, Nadia.

About an hour or two later, almost everyone had gone home or hotel to rest, except you. Rafael saw you drinking your beer alone at the corner table, so he walked toward you. “Detective?” He said, and you turned your gaze from your drinks to him. “You okay?” He asked. “Maybe...” “Mind if I sit?” He asked carefully, and you shook your head. He sat down beside you and put his scotch on the table. “You know...? Nadia had taken the police exam, she was finally getting back on the track...” you murmured sadly, tears around your eyes. “She been through this much, and...and...Why is everyone leaving me?” You finally broken down, you had kept your emotions deep inside you for all this time, and Rafael pulled you into his arms to let you cry into his chest. “I’m here...you’re not alone...shh..” He traced small patterns with his hands on your back, holding you in his arms. Until you finally got yourself together, you slowly pulled away from his embrace. “I...uh...sorry.” You whispered, “ Don’t be, I know it’s hard when cases like this happened...” He averted his gaze to meet yours. “Thank you, but I...I should probably get going. Good night, counselor.” You hastily grabbed your things and walked out of the bar.

—————-

(Now)

It was been weeks since you joined SVU, you were surely got more acquainted with everyone, and more specifically, Rafael Barba. You two had been texting from time to time, talking about work, life, or even telling some jokes. He even brought you coffee sometimes when he came to the precinct. Every time he did that, certainly made the Staten Island detective ask you questions or give weird facial expressions. Sure, you and Rafael flirted a lot, and you definitely not the only one enjoyed it.

While you mindlessly recalling some encounters with Rafael, he walked into the squad room with two drinks in his hands. You haven’t realized that he walked in until he put a cup of coffee on your desk, and gave you a squeeze on your shoulder before walking into Liv’s office. Your cheeks heated and redden up a little, he did this gesture so many times, but your heart rates undoubtedly sped up every time. “I really can’t figure out how Barba can be like that.” Carisi commented, his face turned into confusion. “Like what?” You asked. “This all-loving-and-caring thing.” “He just being nice, that’s all.” “Nah, he definitely has feelings for you.” You felt your cheeks reddened up more, “I uh...” “You should ask him out, ya know?” That was when Rafael standing behind your seat. “Who?” Rafael asked. “What? uh...no one!” You said as calmly as you could. Rafael shot Carisi a confused glare, and Carisi just shrugged. “See you soon, detectives.” Rafael said and looked at two of you before leaving.

Rafael thought you had good times with him, but maybe you didn’t? Sure, two of you hadn’t labeled anything yet. But maybe all this time, you just being polite? Or there was someone else for you? Rafael just questioned himself more. His past relationships certainly made him a little insecure. Rafael didn’t have any sleep that night, just tossing and turning in his bed wondering if you liked him back or not.

—————

Another case came in, a sex-trafficking group was busted. SVU had successfully found the missing girl, Ariel. She was held hostage when the police trying to take out Johnny D. Luckily, Liv was successfully convinced him to let Ariel go, but that son of bitch asked for a lawyer immediately.

During the process, it turned out that Noah’s father was Johnny D. Rafael had been telling Liv that she didn’t have to put his name on Noah’s adoption information, but Liv didn’t want her life with Noah built on the lies.

Rafael had asked SVU’s detectives to make sure every girl feel safe so that they wouldn’t back out in the last minute. But when the first witness, Pilar, testified, she said all she did was cleaning Johnny D’s apartment, and he didn’t rape her. This surely gave a blow to this case.

This angered Ariel and other witnesses, who later testified that Johnny D brutally beaten them up, drugged them, and raped them repeatedly. But when Ariel testifying, some women, including Pilar jumped out and saying she was a liar. This went down quickly, as you and Nick trying to make them sit down. Johnny D took advantage of this situation. He flipped the table, and grabbed one of the court officers’ guns, and held one as a hostage. You and Nick saw this, so both of you drew out your guns and pointed at Johnny D. “Drop the gun!” Nick shouted. “Drop it now!” You added and slowly approaching him. Before you could respond, he shot you in the shoulder and took the hostage rushing out the door. “You okay?” Nick asked, “I fine. Go!” You said weakly.After hearing you Nick chased after him, Your shoulder aches so much, and the blood kept coming out, then you fell to the ground. Rafael rushed over to you, and shrugged off his jacket adding pressure on your wound. “(y/n), hey, stay with me!” He shouted. You could feel your consciousness was drifting away, you tried to use your other hand to grasp his forearm. “I...I like you a lot, Rafael...” You said weakly. Rafael felt his tears trying to roll down, “ I like you too, (y/n). Don’t you dare die on me! Help is on the way.” Your visions started getting blurry. Before you could answer, everything went black.

——————

You were rushed into surgery as soon as you were sent to the hospital, Rafael rode in the ambulance with you. Rafael was worried sick, he was just wondering if you had feelings for him or not. It turned out you did, but right now he was regretting that he didn’t tell you earlier. All he could do now is pray for you, hoping you would be alright.

Liv saw Rafael sitting in the chair with some blood on his shirt. Rafael was miserable. Liv walked over to him, “How long have you two been dating?” Liv asked. “We not dating... she just told me that she likes me a lot be..before she passed out...” Rafael murmured, his hand rubbing his face. “Oh...that’s...she will be alright, Rafael.” Liv put her hand on Rafael’s shoulder, giving his a squeeze. Rafael just nodded but didn’t say anything. “When she wakes up, ask her out.” Liv giving Rafael a knowing look. “I will...definitely.”

After a few hours, the doctor went out of the O.R, Rafael and the squad immediately rushed to him. “How is she?” Rafael asked. “She’s stable for now, we managed to remove the bullet, she should make a full recovery. But we still need to keep her for observation for 48 hours to make sure the wound won’t get any infection. You may go see her if you want, she should be awake at any minute.” The doctor replied. “Go, she must want to see you first.” Liv encouraged. Rafael nodded and slowly walked into your room.

You were lying there, looking pale, it was like the blood drained out of your face. Rafael couldn’t be more heartbroken than this, seeing you lying there, with some IV stuck in your forearm. Rafael walked to your bed, and sit in the chair beside you. Your eyes slowly opened, you spotted Rafael sitting next to you. “Hey...” You murmured. “Hey” Rafael put his hands on your left hand, tracing small patterns on it. “How’s everyone?” You asked weakly, your voice sounded hoarse. “A court officer got shot in the head...and Amaro shot Johnny D, he died on the scene.” You nodded. “You feeling okay?” Rafael asked worriedly. “ I’m okay, really...” You gave him a small smile. “God, I was so scared...I should have told you sooner...” He sniffed. “Hey, you’re not getting away from me that easily.” You joked and intertwined his fingers with yours. “Would you like to go on a date with me? I mean after you recover, obviously.” He smiled. “I would love to.” You grinned.

Liv, Carisi, and other people in the squad came into the room, “How are you feeling, (y/n)?” Liv asked first. “I’m fine, Sarge. Really.” You replied. “I called Voight... I figure he might want to know.” Liv said. “Thank you.” You replied. “By the way, you’re having desk duty until you fully recover. And please, take a few weeks off before getting back to work, okay?” Liv said. “Okay.” Liv specifically told you to rest up before leaving. And Carisi was blabbering that he would make you some Italian dishes from his mother’s recipe.

You were appreciated that there were so many people who cared about you. Guess you did found another family.

After a while, most people went home, except Rafael, of course. “You know you don’t have to stay here with me, right?” You said. “I know, but I want to.” He smiled. “What about work?” You asked. “It’s taken care of, I gave some to other A.D.A. I also take tomorrow off...” “I...Thank you...for being here.” You looked into his bright green eyes, and your gaze turned to his lips for a second. Rafael must felt the tension between you two, he leaned in and kiss on your lips. One of his hands traveled to your face and caressed it. Your left hand sneaked to his back of the neck, pulling his hair a little. Your lips melted into each other’s, it was even better than you had imagined. You pulled back until you two were breathless. “Wow...” You gasped, “Yeah...” He chuckled a little. “It was amazing.” You blushed. Rafael now sat back down in the chair. “After you recover, I’ll take you out on so many dates that we can’t even count.” He smirked. “Can’t wait.” You smiled.

Taglist: @ritajammer21

#law and order special victims unit #law and order svu #ada rafael barba #raul esparza #law and order svu imagine #Rafael Barba #rafael barba imagine #rafael barba drabble #rafael barba x reader #someone you care

[creepingsharia]

Muslim fugitive arrested, held without bail in Staten Island strangulation of 'Westernized, Americanized’ daughter

She was becoming more Westernized, more Americanized. She didn’t want to wear the hijab.

In other words, this was an Islamic honor killing.

Update: In an ironic twist, the now deceased Ola Salem - whose father was arrested in her death (honor killing?) - is the woman who started the infamous Rye Playland melee in 2011 after being told she could not wear hijab on certain rides per safety rules. She died not wanting to wear the hijab.

Kabary Salem in Muhammad Ali t-shirt

A former Olympic boxer charged with the strangulation of his daughter — an activist for the rights of Muslim women — was arraigned on murder charges Tuesday and ordered held without bail, the Staten Island district attorney said.

Kabary Salem, 52, was extradited from Kuwait on Friday, ending a year-long manhunt that started shortly after his daughter, Ola Salem, 25, was found strangled in Bloomingdale Park, a 138-acre park on the South Shore of Staten Island, the morning of Oct. 24, 2019.

Salem fled the country, possibly spending time in Egypt, authorities said — and even tried to throw investigators off his trail by telling The New York Times his daughter had complained to him that she was being tailed by another car on the highway.

“I want to know what happened to her, what is the reason for that, but no one tells me,” he told the news outlet. “I am just waiting.

“She was a really good, beautiful girl.”

The ruse didn’t work.

Kabary Salem was indicted by a grand jury Nov. 3 and charged with murder, manslaughter, concealment of a human corpse and strangulation.

It’s unclear where the slaying took place; a source familiar with the investigation said Salem and his daughter had been in Pennsylvania, where he owns a restaurant. It’s believed after the slaying, the suspect drove to Staten Island.

There, according to the indictment and other court documents, Salem allegedly dragged his daughter’s body into Bloomingdale Park, covered here with branches and fled, returning to Pennsylvania before leaving the U.S.

“Throughout the course of this tragic case, we had never lost hope that the alleged killer would be arrested and charged,” District Attorney Michael McMahon said.

“We will continue to work tirelessly to hold this defendant accountable for the brutal act of violence he has been accused of committing against his own daughter.”                   

It’s unclear what sparked the violence. The DA’s office wouldn’t comment on a report that the father wasn’t happy with the man his daughter was dating.

A source who knew the daughter told the Daily News she was becoming more Westernized and didn’t want to wear her hijab.

“She was very outspoken,” the source said. “She wasn’t timid.”

“She was becoming Americanized,” the source said.

Salem’s lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.

The suspect was a top boxer in Egypt and competed in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. His daughter also boxed and had dedicated her life to championing the rights of Muslim woman.

----------------------------------------------------------

Kabary Salem was a deadly boxer. Literally killing an opponent with headbutts in a match in 2000.

Salem, 52, is a former professional middleweight boxer from Egypt who went by the nickname “The Egyptian Magician” and who competed in the 1990s through early 2000s, including in the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics

Notoriously, Salem killed one opponent, Randie Carver, in the ring in Kansas City in Sept. 2000 after repeatedly headbutting the doomed man, news reports from the time show.

Carver never regained consciousness after being knocked out in the 10th round, and died two days later from blunt head trauma.

#Islam #Muslim #Sharia #Jihad #Legal #Law #News #Media #Politics #Terror #Immigration #Sports #HonorKilling

[yournewapartment]

True Crime Recs

Nobody asked, but...

Here is a list of True Crime-related media that I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve seen MANY others, but these are my top picks. I obviously am obsessed. Feel free to add your’s!

Stand-Alone Documentary:

Capturing the Friedmans: It’s been sixteen years since this film came out. And I still don’t know who to believe. 

The Central Park Five: The harrowing story of five young boys accused the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park. A story of police corruption. Recently dramatized on Netflix as “When They See Us”. 

Cropsey: Documentary follows convicted killer Andre Rand. He stands accused of the abductions and murders of multiple children in and around Staten Island, but where are their bodies? And why did he do it? And did he actually do it?

Dear Zachary: If you would like to have your heart ripped out of your chest and handed to you, this is the doc to watch.

Into the Abyss: This documentary centers on death row inmate Michael Perry and those effected by his crime. Also it’s a Werner Herzog doc so you know it’s gonna be great.

Paradise Lost: This film follows The West Memphis Three, three teenage boys who were convicted of murdering and mutilating three prepubescent boys. The only evidence in the case? The fact that the teenagers embraced goth culture. 

The Seven Five: Examines police corruption in Manhattan in the 1980s. The best part of this series is that you get multiple perspectives from ex-cops and others involved in the crimes.

Team Foxcatcher: Follows the life of multi-millionaire who funded an international wrestling team. They also made a movie dramatization of this.

Thin Blue Line: This film follows the wrongful conviction of Randall Adams. Many people believe that this film is the OG true crime film, and Adams was released a year after the film premiered. The same directed also recently directed Wormwood, which was not my cup of tea. But my dad once had dinner with the director and said he was very cool! So shout out.

Documentary Series:

American Crime Story: I personally love this series, although not every true crime fanatic does. It’s a dramatization of controversial trials. So far they’ve covered OJ Simpson and Andrew Cunanan. The casts are stellar, and Darren Criss won a Golden Globe for his role as Andrew Cunanan in the most recent season.

American Vandal: Still not over the fact that they canceled this amazing series! It’s not really true crime and it’s a comedy, but it’s really well written and directed, and I would feel wrong not including it. Please watch. 

The Confession Tapes: Each episode follows a different case in this mini series centering around the topic of false confessions. The take away is- never confess to anything! Call a lawyer ASAP.

Conversations With A Killer: Not the best series, but an interesting watch. I knew absolutely nothing about Ted Bundy going into this series, and everything that happened was WILD. Also this gives you an excuse to watch the movie where Zac Efron plays him.

Evil Genius: Mini series follows the murder of pizza delivery man Brian Wells and possibly the creepiest woman who ever lived.

I Love You, Now Die: I just watched this last week and it was amazing. I remember hearing this case as it broke, and this documentary is really eye-opening. 

The Jinx: Series follows accused murderer and terrifying shriveled raisin Robert Durst. Did he or didn’t he? And how many? 

The Keepers: This series follows the unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik. It’s alleged that she was murdered after she uncovered evidence of sexual abuse.

Lorena: This series follows the story of John and Lorena Bobbitt. Ever heard the story about the woman chopping her husband’s penis off with a kitchen knife? That’s this story! Incredible documentary.

Making a Murderer: My all-time favorite true crime documentary series following the multiple convictions of Steven Avery. After being released from prison after a wrongful conviction, Avery attempts to sue Mantiwoc County, Wisconsin. And then is immediately wrongfully charged again, except things are much, much worse.

Mommy Dead and Dearest: Follows the story of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Who is the real victim here? This was recently made into a series, but watch this documentary first.

The Staircase: This series is a “did he/didn’t he” documentary following accused murderer Michael Peterson. After his wife is murdered, evidence from his past is uncovered that makes him seem very guilty. Did he kill his wife? Did an owl kill his wife? Long form series covering many years of Peterson’s life.

Wild Wild Country: Wonderful series follows the cult of Bhagwan Shree which essentially took over a small town in Oregon. Did the cult blow up buildings and murder people? How culpable is the Bhagwan? Tough Titties. 

Podcasts:

Serial: The podcast that sparked the true crime podcast wave! Absolutely love season one, which follows the case of Adnan Syed. They recently made a mini series that is supposed to serve as a follow up to the serial podcast. 

Casefile: My FAVORITE podcast ever. The episodes are incredibly detailed and respectfully performed. Each episode features a different crime, but there are some long-form ones. The five part Belanglo series is a good place to start. Thanks @bitchesgetriches for the rec!

Dirty John: Wonderly is the organization that made this podcast, and they’re a bit extra. But try to ignore the weird narration, because the story is great. They also made a show dramatization of this story.

Dr. Death: Another Wonderly story, but utterly insane? How did this happen?

Someone Knows Something: Excellent and respectful podcast follows David Ridgen as he attempts to uncover the truth behind cold cases. Make SURE to listen to the follow up episodes! He’s actually able to solve several of the cases. 

Swindled: Need a break from murder for a second? Swindled is a good place to start! Fantastic podcast that focuses on the non-murder side of true crime. These stories will BLOW your mind.

#murder #serial killer #violence against women #true crime #death #violence #tried to tag enough things so that people who are triggered by this sort of thing don't see this and if you're triggered and you see sorry

[sunriserose1023]

Burden of Proof (2)

WORD COUNT: 7233 MARVEL BINGO FILL: Lawyers WARNINGS: Arrest, police station goings on, slight police brutality, angst, talk of past domestic abuse AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m taking liberty with this story and basing most of it off of what I’ve seen in movies/TV (aka Law & Order eps). I don’t know what actually happens when you get arrested or given a trial to decide about bail, so just give me liberty to play around here. Also, consider that Y/N is getting “special treatment” (be that good or bad) because of who Brock was and how people felt about him.

MASTERLIST

Bucky strolled into the precinct, rolling his eyes at the uniformed officers huddled over their tiny desks, furiously writing. He whistled a tune as he walked to the desk, tapping on it and glancing around. When no one appeared, he tapped the bell more than once with a little more force than was needed, smirking when one of the uniforms glared his way. 

He furrowed his brows when no one came to answer the bell and he glanced at the watch on his wrist. 

“It’s two in the fucking morning. Where the hell is everyone?”

A female officer walked by, arms full of files. He stepped into her path, holding up his hands at the glare she shot him. 

“Where is everyone?” “Who are you?” “Bucky Barnes. I’m a bounty hunter.”

She popped an eyebrow and he rolled his eyes. All the damn cops looked down on him, and he fucking despised them for it. He shook his head. 

“Look, I just need to talk to—“ “Well, we’re all busy, okay?” “What happened?” “I’m not at liberty to discuss—“ “Jesus Christ.”

He turned away from her, shaking his head. 

“Everybody toes that company line, don’t they?” “Excuse me?” “I know how it is, sweetheart. What, somebody try to rob a bank? Mugging in Central Park? Protest gone wrong in Times Square again?”

She clicked her tongue, tilting her head. 

“Murder on Park Avenue.”

Bucky’s eyes widened and she nodded. 

“Thought so.” “What?” “You used to be a cop, didn’t you?” “We don’t talk about that.”

She smiled, shaking her head, stepping closer to him and pitching her voice low.

“You didn’t hear this from me.”

He nodded. 

“Brock Rumlow’s dead.” “What?”

She nodded. 

“The D.A.’s on his way, but there’s no ferries from Staten Island this time of night. Everyone’s in an uproar.” “You got a suspect?” “Interrogating her now.” “Her?”

She nodded. 

“Ex-wife. Found her with blood on her hands. Seems pretty open and shut to me.” “Rumlow had an ex-wife?”

She nodded again. 

“Divorce was kept pretty hush-hush. We heard that she violated their pre-nup, since Brock was from old money, and she got nothing in the settlement. Sounds like pretty good motive to me.”

Bucky nodded, whistling low. 

“Damn.” “My thoughts exactly. You should probably come back another day, when it’s not so chaotic.”

Bucky nodded, and the woman walked away. He tapped his fingers on the front desk again, then turned to leave. 

“—won’t answer a damn question because she’s crying so hard. Tried to tell the bitch that we’ve got her and there’s no way she’s getting out of this, but she just keeps crying.” “I remember Rumlow talking about her. Said he had to teach her how to dress and everything. I don’t even know why he married her in the first place, if he had to force himself to fuck her.”

Bucky let the officers walk past him before he glanced over his shoulder and made sure they hadn’t noticed him. He looked around the room, but with everyone up in arms, he found himself alone. He made his way to the back, to the interrogation rooms, stopping outside one with the blinds partially open. 

A woman sat there, hands bound behind her back, head bowed. Her body trembled, shoulders shaking with every breath she took. Bucky glanced around, shaking his head when he didn’t see anyone. He quickly picked the lock on the door, stepping into the room. 

The woman didn’t move, and Bucky felt a tickle at the back of his neck. He walked closer to her, tapping a finger on the table, but she never looked up. 

“Hey, are you okay?”

No answer. Bucky rounded the table, crouching in front of her when the woman didn’t move. He moved his hands to cup her face, cursing under his breath. 

“Shit. Can you hear me? Hey. Come on, sweetheart.”

Her eyes were staring at nothing, not focusing on Bucky despite him being only inches away. He reached for her wrist, closing his eyes as anger bubbled inside him as he realized her hands were still in handcuffs. He let the anger fester inside him as he saw the blood where the cuffs had dug into her skin and he methodically picked the lock, freeing her from the cuffs. 

He gently moved her arms to hang by her sides and began massaging her wrists, smiling when she winced in pain. 

“There we go. Come back to me.”

He kept massaging, moving his hands to her shoulder and manipulating her arm in the socket. She gasped and he nodded. 

“Come on. You’re alright. Come back to me.”

He moved to the other arm and she gasped, trying to pull her wrist from his grip. 

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here to help you.”

She blinked, moving her eyes to meet his, blinking a few more times. He nodded, smiling softly. 

“Hey there.”

She didn’t speak, just blinked. Bucky kept the smile on his face, keeping his voice gentle. 

“You back with me?” “Wh … what happened?” “I think you kind of blacked out. You were here, but … you weren’t really here.”

She nodded, eyes moving over his shoulder to stare at the wall. 

“I remember walking in here. I remember them asking me questions. And then … I don’t know.” “It’s okay. Can you tell me what happened?”

She met his eyes, her own wide. Bucky shook his head. 

“What?”

She swallowed. 

“No one’s asked me that‍.” “What?”

She shook her head, looking down at her hands in her lap. Bucky licked his lips. 

“What did they ask you?”

Her voice was soft as she stared at her hands. 

“Why did I do it? What was I thinking? Would I prefer the chair or a firing squad?”

She sniffled and Bucky squeezed his eyes shut before he moved a hand to her lap, letting his hand rest there, his fingertips gingerly touching hers. He pitched his voice low. 

“Where’s your lawyer?”

She lifted her eyes to his and he smiled. 

“Is he talking with the officers? On the phone?”

She shook her head. 

“I don’t … I don’t have a lawyer.” “Excuse me?” “I don’t have one. I can’t—“

She swallowed, closing her eyes as more tears slipped down her cheeks. Bucky moved his hand to link his fingers with hers and she gave a sob. She shook her head and met his eyes. 

“I can’t afford a lawyer.” “It’s alright. It’s okay. They’ll appoint a lawyer for you. It’s your constitutional right. Who did they call?”

She shook her head again, and Bucky blinked, keeping his molars clenched together to keep from screaming. He spoke in a much calmer tone than he was feeling. 

“Before they interrogated you, did they ask if you wanted your lawyer present?”

She shook her head, and Bucky spoke again. 

“Did you know you could have a lawyer present?” “I didn’t know I could have one at all. I don’t have the money for one. I don’t have—“

She hung her head, exhaling a shaky breath. Bucky nodded, giving her hand a squeeze. 

“Did you do it?”

She lifted her head and met his eyes. 

“What?” “What they’re saying you did. Did you do it?”

She shook her head. 

“I found him in the library. It used to be my favorite room in the house and he whitewashed it, turned it into an office.”

She lifted the hand Bucky wasn’t holding. 

“I turned the light on, and his blood was on the wall. I didn’t even know.”

Bucky nodded, giving her hand another squeeze before he let it go and stood to his feet. He pulled his phone from his pocket, big hands trembling as he unlocked it and pressed on the screen until a call went through. He held the phone to his ear, pacing slowly as he listened to the ring. He hung up when the voicemail sounded, then dialed again. This time, a sleepy voice answered. 

“You better be fucking dying.” “Get up, get dressed, and get your ass down to the precinct.” “Did you get arrested again? Christ, Buck, I swear—“ “I’ve got a client for you.” “What time is it? It’s—Bucky, it is three in the morning. We have an on-call lawyer for shit like this.”

Bucky swallowed as he looked at the woman at the table. He turned his back to her and lowered his voice. 

“She’s in trouble. Big trouble, and she needs the big guns. Not your on-call lawyer. She needs you.” “Who is it? And what did they do?”

Bucky licked his lips. 

“Brock Rumlow was murdered tonight and I think this woman’s being framed for it.”

The line was quiet for a moment. 

“Are you shitting me?” “She was practically catatonic when I found her. They interrogated her and scared the shit out of her. She didn’t even know she could have a lawyer, and all she keeps saying is she can’t afford one.” “Fuck.”

Bucky could hear rustling on the other end, taking it as Steve crawling out of bed and getting dressed. 

“If Rumlow’s dead, the shit’s about to hit the fan. It’s too early for the ferries to be running, but I guarantee Fury’s on his way there.” “So beat him here. Forget the three-piece suit and just throw on some jeans.” “Give me more credit than that. How is she?”

Bucky nodded. 

“Her hands were still cuffed when I got in here. Probably wouldn’t hurt to have them looked at, since they were practically purple before I picked the lock.” “Picked the … Bucky?” “What?” “Who let you into the interrogation room?”

Bucky didn’t answer, and Steve cursed so colorfully Bucky pursed his lips and nodded in awe. 

“There’s cameras in all of the rooms and not one person has tried to enter in the almost hour I’ve been with her.” “If this hurts her case—“ “I’ll give you permission to kick my ass. Just get here now.” “I’m on my way.”

Bucky hung up his phone and smiled when he saw her scared eyes staring up at him. Bucky knelt beside her and nodded. 

“My friend is a public defender.” “A lawyer.” “A lawyer who works for people like you.” “I can’t pay him.” “You don’t have to.”

She looked down at her hands again and Bucky rubbed a hand over his mouth. He started to speak, closing his mouth when she whispered, a small, sad smile on her lips. 

“I’m not the biggest fan of lawyers.”

Bucky kept his voice low like hers. 

“Did I hear right? You’re Rumlow’s ex-wife?”

She nodded. 

“What’s your name?” “Y/N.”

Bucky nodded. 

“I’m Bucky Barnes.” “Nice to meet you.”

Bucky smiled, lifting a hand to gently move some hair from her face. He tried not to react when she sucked in a breath, able to tell from the look on her face that she was trying hard not to flinch away from his touch. 

He’d never gotten a good feeling around Brock Rumlow, and being with his ex-wife for less than hour proved to Bucky that his gut instinct about the man had been right. She’d clearly been abused, and Bucky was determined to get to the bottom of everything. 

“Okay, we’re … hey. Who the hell are you?”

Bucky stood up, a sneer coming across his lips when the man before him rolled his eyes and sighed. 

“Barnes. Who let the rats back here?” “Cross. Son of a bitch.”

Detective Darren Cross let out a laugh. He crossed his arms over his chest, a menacing smile on his face. 

“Who let you back here, Barnes?” “Doesn’t matter.” “Well, you’re free to go, so you should probably hit the road before we find a reason to throw your ass back in a cell.” “Kinda par for the course tonight, ain’t it, Cross?”

Darren raised an eyebrow and Bucky picked the handcuffs off of the table and threw them at him. Darren fumbled the cuffs, then looked back to Bucky. 

“What the hell is this?” “Those are the cuffs one of your officers put so tight on this woman it was cutting off her circulation.” “Well, we always try to protect ourselves from dangerous suspects.”

Bucky gave a hard laugh. 

“‘Dangerous?’ Get real.” “You didn’t see what she did.” “Oh, so she confessed?”

Darren shrugged his shoulders. 

“She didn’t have to.” “Really? Whatever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty?’” “Well, when you’ve got blood on your hands at a crime scene…” “Where’s her lawyer?”

Darren raised an eyebrow and Bucky grinned. 

“Oh, please tell me you interrogated her without her lawyer present. Please give me a reason to kick your self-righteous ass.” “It’s none of your concern.” “The fuck it’s not. You remember due process, right?”

Darren rolled his eyes and Bucky clenched his fists to keep from lunging for the other man’s throat. Bucky shook his head and pointed towards the woman cowering at the table. 

“The state I saw her in when I first came into this room is nothing short of police brutality, and I can bring the wrath of God and everyone else down upon you with one phone call. You know I can, Cross. Give me a reason to do it.” “How? By calling your boyfriend?”

Bucky grinned at the way the man spat the word at him. And the way Darren’s eyes widened after he spoke just egged Bucky on more. 

“Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Police brutality, homophobia, what else can I add to the list? Clint’s been itching for a big story and by God, here’s one.” “She killed the city’s ADA! We’re not going to treat her like a queen.” “Doesn’t give you the right to treat her like a dog! Hell, I wouldn’t even chain a dog up the way you did her. Kiss your fucking badge goodbye, Cross. You’ll be lucky if they’ll let you walk through the doors when we’re done with you.” 

Darren took a step forward, stopping when the door opened. He rolled his eyes, the breath leaving his lungs when he saw who was standing there, briefcase in hand. 

“Gentlemen. Is there a problem here?”

Steve raised an eyebrow and Darren pushed a smile onto his face. 

“Counselor, I don’t recall asking anyone in this office to give you a call.” “That’s precisely the problem, Detective. Did you interrogate my client without an attorney present?”

Darren sighed. 

“It wasn’t an interrogation—“ “Did you tell her she could have an attorney present?” “I wasn’t the one who read her—“ “Did you tell her she could have an attorney period?” “I didn’t read the Miranda rights to her.”

Steve smiled.

“So you’re telling me you arrested her without reading her her rights, interrogated her without an attorney, and didn’t bother to grant her constitutional right to an attorney?”

Darren sputtered and Steve shook his head. 

“Let me talk to my client while you go grovel with your boss to try and save your own ass, okay?”

Darren turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him. Bucky huffed across the room. 

“Self-righteous prick.”

Steve huffed a laugh, nodding his head at Bucky as he set his briefcase on the table. 

“They read me my rights.”

The men looked to the woman who’d kept her head bowed even now, hands folded together in her lap. She nodded, not taking her eyes from her hands. 

“The lady officer read me my rights when she walked me out of the house. I was kind of panicking, so I didn’t really hear her, but she did read them to me.”

Steve pursed his lips, then nodded. 

“Well, Cross could have double-checked.”

Steve sighed, pulling out a chair across from her, sitting in it and taking a notepad and pen from his briefcase. 

“I’m Steve Rogers. I’ll be your attorney for now, until we get a game plan going. Can you tell me your name, for starters?” “Steve?”

He lifted his head, pen in his hand, poised to write on the pad. He met her eyes and his face went slack, all the color draining. 

“Holy shit.”

The pen fell from his hand as he stared at the woman across the table. Bucky’s eyes darted from her to him and back again, seeing the confusion on both of their faces. 

“Uh … can I interrupt?”

Steve blinked and Bucky whistled until Steve looked his way. Bucky raised his eyebrows in question and Steve shook his head, looking back across the table.

“Y/N?”

She nodded and Steve shook his head again. 

“How …”

He just shook his head and she smiled softly. 

“I know.” “What are you doing here?”

Her voice was soft. 

“Wrong place, wrong time?”

Steve couldn’t help but smile at that, then blinked, shaking his head again. 

“So you … you’re Brock’s ex-wife?”

She nodded, looking back down at her hands. Steve ran a thumb over his bottom lip. 

“Was the divorce amicable?”

She gave a harsh laugh. 

“For him.”

Steve glanced to Bucky, who raised an eyebrow as he lifted his shoulders. Steve swallowed, then looked back to her. 

“Can you tell me about it?”

She lifted her head. 

“My divorce?” “All of it.”

She smiled. 

“A lot’s happened since high school, Stevie.” “Oh, there it is. High school. Oh wait—oh my god. You’re Y/N?!”

She blinked, confusion on her face as she looked to Bucky. Steve shook his head, closing his eyes as Bucky covered his mouth with a hand. 

“Holy shit. Holy shit.” “Can somebody fill me in?”

Steve shook his head. 

“Later. We’ve got more important things to worry about right now. The biggest being getting you out of here.” “Can you?”

Steve met her eyes again and she swallowed before she spoke. 

“Can you get me out of here?” “I’m going to try.”

She nodded. 

“That guy was saying I was never going to see the light of day again. He was going to make sure of it.”

Steve sighed, and Bucky spoke up from across the room.

“That guy’s an asshole. Don’t take anything he’s saying to heart.”

She nodded and Steve reached for his pen, picking it up and poising it over the notepad again. 

“Let’s see what we can do tonight.”

Bucky stayed with you while Steve made his rounds doing … whatever it was he did. You stayed in the uncomfortable chair they’d all but thrown you into hours earlier, but at least your hands weren’t cuffed anymore. They’d taken your mugshot and done your fingerprints when they first brought you in, but Bucky was the one to lead you to the bathroom—the men’s, but you didn’t really care and he loudly threatened to disembowel anyone who tried to say something—and let you wash the blood and ink off your hands. He let you walk around the interrogation room, smiling when you looked at the mirror, checking your reflection before your cheeks flamed and you quickly looked away. 

“No one’s on the other side.”

You glanced towards him and he shrugged. 

“They may not like me, but they trust me.”

You nodded. 

“You work here?” “Sort of. I’m a bounty hunter.”

Your eyes widened and he smiled. 

“I used to be a cop, but …”

The smile drifted from his face and he shook his head. You nodded, fingers reaching out to touch the bars on the frosted window. 

“I used to be a lot of things.” “Like what?”

You smiled. 

“I wanted to be a pastry chef. I was a pretty good baker.” “‘Was?’”

You swallowed. 

“It’s been a long time since I was near an oven.” “Brock didn’t have one?”

You didn’t even realize how you immediately straightened your spine at the mention of his name, and Bucky narrowed his eyes. You licked your dry lips and spoke softly. 

“He had two. Top of the line. Bought them and had them installed just to spite me, because he knew how badly I wanted to bake. He wouldn’t let me touch them, and the one time I did …”

You shook your head, moving a hand to your lower back. You lifted your foot and rolled your ankle in a circle before setting your foot back on the ground. Bucky managed to keep his voice steady as he spoke. 

“Did he hit you?” “Yes.” “More than once?” “All the time.” “Son of a bitch.”

Bucky ran a hand over his face and you crossed your arms over your chest, walking back to the chair and sitting in it. 

“I’m sorry.”

You smiled as you looked at the man across the table from you. 

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.” “You didn’t deserve that.” “No one deserves that. But it’s over now. I got away.” “How did you?”

You glanced at the table, then back to him. 

“I swear it was an act of God. I saw him kiss my best friend—well, who I thought was my best friend, a coworker of his. And when I asked him about it, he slapped me. A cop happened to see it and wouldn’t be paid off. He wouldn’t let it go, and I jumped at the chance he offered to help me get away.”

You shook your head. 

“I had tried for so long, and I’d just given up. But that day, it … it just seemed to fall into my lap.”

You took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. 

“I never did get a chance to thank that cop. He saved my life, and I don’t even think he knows that.”

You sighed. 

“I’m sure Brock made sure he got transferred to Siberia or something.” “Worse. San Francisco.”

You and Bucky turned to the door, where Steve was standing. He had a soft smile on his face as he walked in. 

“Scott Lang was the cop who helped you. He was a friend of mine, told me about how he helped you get away. I didn’t know it was you, because he didn’t give me a name.”

Steve shook his head. 

“If I’d known …”

He glanced down at his feet and you licked your lips. 

“They transferred him across the country?”

Steve smiled. 

“No, he transferred himself. Turns out, he had a little girl he didn’t know about. Scott was a bit wild in his youth, and he couldn’t stand not knowing his daughter. Soon as his ex called him, he started the process to transfer.”

You smiled, nodding your head. Steve cleared his throat and stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. You looked up at him and he squeezed Bucky’s shoulder before he turned to you. 

“There’s going to be a hearing in an hour.”

You blinked a few times, but nodded, and Steve continued. 

“The judge is going to decide whether or not to grant you bail.”

Your heart sank, and you looked down at your hands. Bucky and Steve exchanged a glance that went unnoticed by you and Bucky gently tapped on the table. 

“You okay?”

You shook your head. 

“I don’t have any money.” “You don’t have to pay the bail in full. We know a good bondsman who will work with you—“

You shook your head. 

“I don’t have anything I could use as collateral.” “What about your divorce settlement? Brock came from money. You must have gotten something out of that.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, shaking your head. 

“No, the judge—“

Your breath caught in your throat and you gave a pitiful, quiet whine you couldn’t hold back. 

“The judge was a friend of Brock’s and I didn’t get a penny. I’m actually paying all the legal fees for the both of us and I don’t … I can’t even buy food.”

Steve couldn’t take his eyes off of you, watching as you lifted your elbows to the table, covering your face as you sobbed as quietly as you could. Bucky glanced up at him and Steve shook his head, walking to you and turning your chair, crouching in front of you and taking your hands from your face. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped your tear-soaked face, then held both of your hands. 

“Look at me and listen.”

You did as he asked, noticing the lines beside his blue eyes that hadn’t been there the last time you’d seen him. Steve stared at you, giving a shake of his head. 

“I am going to do everything in my power to get you out of here.” “I don’t want to go to jail.” “I know, baby. And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. But these guys … the judges and the D.A., they’re going to try to throw the book at you. They’re out for blood, and I’m going to try my damnedest to save you.”

Bucky covered his mouth with a hand as he pushed away from the table, walking to the far corner of the room. You shook your head, voice shaking. 

“I’m scared.” “I know. But I need you to trust me.”

You nodded. 

“I do.” “When we go in there, let me do all the talking. You stand when they tell you, but don’t say a word. Anything you say can be turned against you, and we’re working against the current here as it is.”

You nodded, and Steve gave your hands a squeeze. 

“I’m going to get you through this. I promise.”

You hung your head, giving a shaky exhale. Steve glanced over to Bucky.

“It’s early enough that Natasha should be up. Give her a call, and get Clint here, too.”

Bucky nodded and you looked to him. 

“Can you … can you call the Scarlet Diner? My friend Wanda owns it, and I … I’m supposed to be there.”

Bucky nodded again, and made his way out of the room. Steve gave your hands a squeeze before he stood up, slowly pacing the room. 

“Tell me everything you did last night.”

You swallowed. 

“I worked all day at the diner. They close at ten, and I stayed to eat and clean up. Maria called—“ “Maria?”

You looked up at him. 

“Maria Hill. She was … I thought she was my best friend, but she was having an affair with Brock. She moved in after I moved out.”

A muscle in Steve’s jaw clenched. 

“Maria Hill, the paralegal that works for the D.A.’s office?”

You nodded, head moving slowly when the words registered with you. You leaned forward, putting your face in your hands again. 

“Oh my god.”

Steve ran a hand over his face, then shook his head. 

“Why did she call you?”

You moved your hand to cover your mouth, holding it there for a few seconds before you spoke again. 

“She said she had a few of my things that I could come by and get. She said Brock was working late and I knew this would be my only chance to get the things I couldn’t take with me when I left.”

Steve nodded. 

“Then what?” “I left the diner and took a bus to the Subway, then rode as close as I could to Park Avenue before I walked the rest of the way to the house.” “This was after ten, you said?”

You nodded. 

“Probably closer to midnight.”

Steve took a pen from his pocket, clicking it and making a note. When he was finished with his furious scribbling, he met your eyes again. 

“Then what?” “Maria had said the front door was open, so I walked inside. I called out, but no one answered. I walked around, trying to find the stuff she’d told me about. I didn’t find anything, so I went upstairs. The library had been at the top of the stairs, and it was my favorite place in the house. Brock had renovated it as soon as I stepped out the door.”

Steve nodded and you went on. 

“I knocked, but no one answered. I opened that door and it was dark. I felt along the wall for the light switch and touched something wet.”

You closed your eyes, stomach roiling at the memory. You shook your head, the next words barely audible. 

“There was blood all over the walls. All over everything. Brock was in a chair in the middle of the room, and he … he was …”

You squeezed your eyes shut and shook your head. 

“I started out of the room, to … I don’t know. Call 9-1-1, I guess, but there was a cop on the stairs. Jack Rollins, one of Brock’s friends. He pointed his gun at me, said they’d been called because there’d been a murder.”

You shook your head again, looking to Steve. 

“He was dead when I got there, but no one believes that. They saw me there and … that’s it.” “Okay. Okay, just breathe.”

Steve sat at the chair across from you, holding a hand across the table. You moved a shaking hand to rest in his and he nodded. 

“Breathe.”

You did as he said, closing your eyes as he rhythmically squeezed your hand, giving your whirling brain something to focus on. You shook your head, opening your eyes and meeting his. 

“I can’t afford any of this.” “Don’t worry about it.” “How can I not? Every penny I make goes towards the legal fees, and if I’m a minute late with a payment, Brock makes sure they tack on a late fee. I can’t afford clothes or a nice place to live or—“

You pulled your hand away from Steve, putting it over your stomach. You took in a breath, letting it out slowly. 

“If I don’t eat at the diner, I don’t eat. I think Wanda knows that, so she doesn’t make me pay. I got some clothes from Goodwill, but somehow Brock got a copy of my receipt and they added on an extra payment due of exactly that amount. So I don’t buy anything anymore. I don’t have credit cards or a bank account. I only have cash, and somehow they still know exactly how much I have.” “Easy. Take it easy. Just breathe.”

You sobbed as you closed your eyes, and Steve moved to kneel in front of you again. 

“Listen to me.”

You hung your head and he gently rubbed your arm as he spoke. 

“I’m not going to make you pay a thing. Do you understand that? I’m a public defender. You don’t have to pay a public defender. Y/N, Brock is gone. No matter the circumstances, he can’t hurt you anymore. Leave the rest of it to me, okay?”

You lifted your head, staring into his eyes, the pools of blue somehow still familiar after all the years. You slowly nodded and Steve stood just as a knock sounded at the door. The two of you watched the female officer that had read you your rights step into the room. 

“They’re ready for you.”

You stood on shaky legs and Steve slid his notepad and pen into his briefcase. The officer walked to you, an apologetic look on her face. 

“It’s protocol.”

You noticed the handcuffs she held and you nodded. You started to put your hands behind your back and Steve made a noise. 

“Front.”

The officer looked to him and Steve shook his head. 

“She doesn’t deserve to be shackled at all, but look at her wrists from where you cuffed her before.” “I didn’t cuff her. Rollins did.”

Steve shook his head. 

“Cuff her hands together in front of her stomach where I can see or don’t cuff her at all.” “Mr. Rogers, with all due respect, you’re not a cop. You’re not really the one in charge here.” “Miss … Carter, is it?”

Steve leaned in to read her name tag, then straightened. 

“I haven’t worked much with you yet, but if you stick around, that will change. Do us both a favor and try to stay on my good side, will you? Cuff her hands in front, and that’s the last time I’m saying it.”

The officer stared at Steve, then blew out her breath. She took hold of your arm, wincing when she saw the bruises and torn skin where the cuffs had originally been placed. She blinked a few times, placing the cuffs higher up your arms, above your wrists. 

“I’m sorry about that.”

You nodded, glancing at your shackled hands, the cuffs tight enough to stay in place, but not enough to hurt you. You met Steve’s eyes and he nodded to the officer. He took your arm, walking beside you as you started down the hall. He pitched his voice low, just enough for you to hear him. 

“Brock was rumored to be the front-runner to take over when Fury retired, so this will be a media freak show. Microphones and recorders are going to be shoved into your face, but don’t say a word, okay? Bucky or someone on my team will help get you through it if I can’t. Do not trust anyone and remember that anything—absolutely anything—you say can and will be used against you. So don’t say anything at all.”

You nodded, eyes widening when you and Steve rounded the corner to a passel of reporters. Cameras flashed, momentarily blinding you as voices could be heard all around, yelling questions at you, asking for statements, for clarity, for comments. Steve held out an arm, pushing the crowd back as he led you into the small courtroom. 

Thankfully, the media wasn’t allowed in, save for one reporter in the back row. Steve lifted his chin when he saw the man, and the man smiled, holding up his hand with only his thumb and pinky finger extended. You noticed the hearing aids in his ears, and you met his eyes. He looked to you, giving a single nod. You just blinked and walked where Steve was leading, stopping behind a table. Steve leaned over. 

“Judge will be in just a moment. Fury’s right behind us.”

You nodded. You’d met Nick Fury many times, and even though he was Brock’s boss, you couldn’t help but like the man. You didn’t really trust him, mainly because he was a lawyer, but the two of you had shared many a conversation at your dinner parties. 

You figured the easy relationship you’d shared was over and done with now. 

“Don’t look anywhere but straight ahead. Any facial expression can be taken into account.”

You cast your eyes down, because that was how you were comfortable. You’d gotten used to staring at the floor during the first year you and Brock had been married. You heard the door open and felt your breathing speed up, the raucous questioning dying away as Fury walked in, the door closing behind him. He shook his head as he walked to the table across from the one where you and Steve were. 

“Damn vultures.”

He nodded to Steve, laying his briefcase on the table. The judge walked in then, without the fanfare of the bailiff announcing or any call to order. You let your eyes drift up from where you’d had them cast at your feet and you felt a chill slip down your spine. 

Alexander Pierce. 

White noise filled your ears as black spots danced in front of your vision. You were going to jail. There was no question now. Alexander had loved Brock like a son and now … he’d make sure Brock’s killer would pay. Despite the fact that you weren’t the one who had killed Brock, Alexander hated you, and you knew he wouldn’t hesitate to punish you in the most sadistic way he could. 

“Y/N!”

You blinked hard, glancing around, not knowing when you’d sat down. Steve was kneeling before you with the reporter beside him, both with worried looks on their faces. Fury was standing behind them, eyebrows furrowed, mouth set in a line. You lifted your hands, remembering only when your movements were constricted that you were handcuffed. You swallowed, taking in a few shaky breaths. Steve’s voice was barely audible, and you wondered if the reporter could hear him even with the hearing aids. 

“Are you okay?”

You slowly nodded, speaking just as quietly as Steve had. 

“Pierce was Brock’s best friend. He’s the … the judge that did our divorce.” “What?”

Steve glanced over his shoulder, seeing Pierce pull a pair of glasses into his face, reading over some pages in front of him. 

“How could he preside over the divorce with such strong ties to it?” “He’s a judge.”

Steve lifted his shoulders. 

“Doesn’t mean he’s above the law.” “I don’t think he knows that.”

You and Steve looked to the reporter, who gave you a smile and patted your leg. 

“Don’t worry. We’re going to help you.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, and the reporter nodded to him, leaning in and whispering something you couldn’t hear. Steve slowly nodded, grasping the man’s hand, the two of them standing up before helping you. 

“Everything okay, counselor?”

The sound of Pierce’s voice sent chills down your spine. Steve nodded, helping you to stand to your feet. 

“Yes, your honor.” “Does your client need medical attention?” “No, sir. She’s just had a long night.”

Pierce snorted. 

“I’d say. Well, let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Y/N Rumlow, you stand charged with the murder of ADA Brock Rumlow. How do you plead?”

You looked to Steve, who leaned in to whisper that you had to be the one to say it. You swallowed, speaking as clearly as you could, voice shaking despite your efforts. 

“Not guilty.”

Pierce nodded, looking to Fury. 

“The people are fine with bail. Ms. Rumlow doesn’t have the means to attempt to leave the county.” “Already checking over her bank statements, Fury?”

Fury glanced across the aisle to Steve, a wide smile on his face. 

“You don’t think I’ve checked every step she’s made in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours, Counselor?”

You closed your eyes at the feeling of your head starting to spin, the roiling of your stomach at the fact that your life was no longer your own, if it ever was. Even after getting away from Brock, someone was still checking up on you. 

“Easy.”

You kept your head down, flicking your eyes towards Steve. You weren’t even sure he’d spoken, but it calmed you slightly. Pierce sighed from his spot on the bench, then nodded. 

“Bail is set at five million dollars.”

Pierce lifted the gavel as your mouth fell open. Five million? You barely had five dollars in your possession. There was no way you could come up with even ten percent for the bail bondsman. Steve raised a hand before Pierce could lower the gavel. 

“Five million? Your Honor, that’s a bit excessive, don’t you think?” “Excessive? How much does your colleague’s life amount to you, Counselor?” “Your Honor, Ms. Rumlow has no record. Not even a parking ticket. All of the evidence against her is circumstantial—“ “That’s for the trial to decide, Mr. Rogers. This is a bond hearing. Five million, or she can be remanded until trial.”

You closed your eyes, swallowing hard at the thought of going to jail. At least there you’d have meals and a place to sleep. A tear slipped down your cheek and you went to wipe it away, remembering too late that your hands were cuffed as the rattle echoed through the courtroom. You let your hands fall and sniffled, silence filling the room for a beat before Steve turned back to the judge. 

“What about monitoring her through house arrest?”

Fury gave a laugh. 

“Brock Rumlow’s ex in house arrest is like one of the Kardashians being put under house arrest. Where’s the punishment?” “She doesn’t live anywhere near Brock. She lives at …”

Steve shuffled through his papers, reading off your address. You glanced over to see the look of disgust on Fury’s face, followed by the furrowing of his eyebrows as he spoke under his breath. 

“Staying there 24/7 would be punishment.”

Pierce shook his head. 

“No, if she’s to be under house arrest, it will have to be in a nearby hotel. Something local, where officers can drop by unannounced to check in with her.”

Your body started to tremble and Steve shook his head. 

“She won’t be able to afford that, something I know you know, Fury.”

Fury nodded, and Pierce sighed. 

“If she’s unable to meet the court’s orders, she will be remanded until trial. You know the law, Mr. Rogers.”

He lifted the gavel and Steve cried out. 

“Wait!”

All eyes turned to him and Steve licked his lips, then looked to the judge.

“Release her into my custody.”

Your eyes widened and Steve pointed towards you as he spoke. 

“My penthouse is mere blocks from here. You can put the monitor on her, do the drop-in visits. I’ll clear my schedule where I’ll be able to keep my eye on her 24/7 to satisfy the court.”

Clint sat at the back of the courtroom, unable to do anything but blink. He’d spent most of the trial furiously writing, but this stopped him in his tracks. Fury blinked, exchanging a Look with the judge before he held up his hands. 

“The people are satisfied with that.”

Pierce narrowed his eyes at Steve, then sighed. 

“Do not make me regret this, Counselor. The defendant is to be remanded into the custody of Mr. Rogers until the date of her trial.”

He lifted the gavel, speaking once more before letting it fall. 

“Along with bail being set at five million dollars. Court is adjourned.”

You looked to Steve, shaking your head. 

“I can’t pay that. I don’t have five million dollars. I don’t even have the ten percent—“ “Hush.”

You closed your mouth and he started putting papers into his briefcase. 

“Let me take care of that.” “Steve—“ “There’s a process we’ve got to go through to get you released. Come on.”

He shut his briefcase and took hold of your arm. You started walking with him, stopping when Clint stepped into the aisle. 

“Hey, man. Can I get a quote from you?”

He looked over your shoulder, seeing Fury talking with Pierce, leaning in and hissing at Steve. 

“What the actual fuck are you thinking?!” “Can we do this later, and somewhere a little more private?” “Well where exactly do you suggest, because your bachelor pad is soon to be not so much anymore!”

You cleared your throat, making both men turn to you. You flicked your eyes over your shoulder towards the judge and Clint huffed out a breath. 

“Fine. But I’m coming over later and you know hell’s going to be coming with me.”

Steve nodded as Clint stepped out of the way. The two of you started walking again, and when you went to open your mouth, Steve shook his head. 

“Not a word until we’re out of this place.”

You nodded, moving closer to him as the two of you pushed through the door to the courtroom, the flashes of the cameras and the yelling of the reporters filling your senses while you tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. 

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#burden of proof series #marvel reader insert #mcu au #steve rogers x female reader #marvel fanfiction #marvel modern au #lawyer!steve rogers #abused reader #past abuse #tw: domestic violence #tw: hunger #tw: past abuse #marvel bingo 2019

[winddrift]

This is what happens, to “Good Cops”.  and why ‘WE’ never hear of them.   but change is on the way!!

Court Vindicates Black Officer Fired for Stopping Colleague's Chokehold Cariol Horne, a former Buffalo police officer, has been granted the back pay and benefits she was previously denied. (Getty Images) Jonah E. Bromwich Wed, April 14, 2021, 4:54 AM It was a cold November day in Buffalo, New York, when Officer Cariol Horne responded to a call for a colleague in need of help. What she encountered was a white officer who appeared to be “in a rage” punching a handcuffed Black man in the face repeatedly as other officers stood by. Horne, who is Black, heard the handcuffed man say he could not breathe and saw the white officer put him in a chokehold. At that point, court documents show, she forcibly removed the white officer and began to trade blows with him. In the altercation’s aftermath, Horne was reassigned, hit with departmental charges and, eventually, fired just one year short of the 20 on the force she needed to collect her full pension. She tried, and failed, more than once to have the decision reversed as unfair. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times On Tuesday, in an outcome explicitly informed by the police killing of George Floyd, a state court judge vacated an earlier ruling that affirmed her firing, essentially rewriting the end of her police career, and granting her the back pay and benefits she had previously been denied. “The legal system can at the very least be a mechanism to help justice prevail, even if belatedly,” the judge, Justice Dennis E. Ward, wrote. His ruling also invoked the deaths of Floyd and Eric Garner, a Black man from Staten Island whose dying words — “I can’t breathe” — have become a national rallying cry against police brutality. “The time is always right to do right,” added Ward, of the state Supreme Court in Erie County, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. In a statement, Horne, 53, celebrated the decision. “My vindication comes at a 15-year cost, but what has been gained could not be measured,” she said. “I never wanted another police officer to go through what I had gone through for doing the right thing.” A lawyer for the white officer, Gregory Kwiatkowski, did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Buffalo’s mayor, Byron Brown, said the city had “always supported any additional judicial review available to Officer Horne and respects the court’s decision.” The 2006 encounter that led to Horne’s firing began as a dispute between a woman and a former boyfriend whom she had accused of stealing her Social Security check. When officers tried to arrest the former boyfriend, the situation turned violent. Horne said she saw Kwiatkowski put the man in a chokehold. Kwiatkowski said he had grabbed him around the neck and shoulders in “a bear hug headlock from behind,” according to court documents. In Kwiatkowski’s telling, Horne struck him in the face, pulled him backward by his collar and jumped on him. An internal investigation cleared Kwiatkowski of all charges; Horne was offered a four-day suspension, which she turned down. After hearings in 2007 and 2008, the Police Department found that her use of physical force against a fellow officer had not been justified. She was fired in May 2008. Kwiatkowski was promoted to lieutenant the same year. “Her conduct should have been encouraged, and instead she was fired,” W. Neil Eggleston, a lawyer for Horne, said in an interview. The dispute between Horne and Kwiatkowski did not end when she left the Police Department. He sued her for defamation and won a $65,000 judgment against her. Kwiatkowski’s own police career ended under a cloud. He retired in 2011 while facing an internal affairs investigation and was indicted the next year on federal civil rights charges stemming from the arrest of four Black teenagers. He ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four months in prison. After she was fired, Horne worked odd jobs, including as a truck driver, and sometimes lived in her car, The Buffalo News reported. The death of Floyd in Minneapolis, where former Officer Derek Chauvin is now on trial for murder in the killing, brought new attention to her case and the circumstances surrounding it. (Three other officers who were present when Floyd died were also charged in the killing.) She filed a lawsuit seeking to vacate the firing, citing the case involving Floyd. Shortly before that, she and others in Buffalo had begun to press members of the city’s legislature, the Common Council, to pass a so-called duty-to-intervene law requiring officers to step in when one of their own used excessive force. The Buffalo Police Department had adopted such a rule in 2019, and last fall the council approved what it called “Cariol’s law” by a vote of 8-1. Darius G. Pridgen, the council president, said a confluence of factors — including Horne’s advocacy from firsthand experience and the increased scrutiny on police misconduct in the wake of Floyd’s death — had created an environment for action. “During the protests we were trying to reach for ways to hold bad police officers accountable,” Pridgen said. After the killing of Floyd and the demonstrations that followed, he said, “the timing was perfect.” The law also gives officers who have been terminated in the past 20 years for intervening to stop the use of force a chance to challenge their firings. In an unusual twist, the suit cited the law named for Horne to argue for that outcome. Horne’s lawyers said that although she had been fired for wrongfully intervening in an arrest, her actions had been consistent with what is expected of police officers: She had kept a civilian safe. “And after George Floyd,” Eggleston, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, said, “we really understand what happens if officers don’t act like that.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Compan

[riverdaleroundup]

Riverdale Roundup: 2x05 “ When A Stranger Calls”

Alright here I am once again, watching this damn show almost a week late. I honest to god don’t really remember what happened last time.

Oh right the Black Hood gave Betty a call and was like “ Hey girl, it’s me. Ya boy”. And he’s all like your sisters Uterus is FULL of sin so like if you don’t behave i’m going to kill that bish.” Alice comes in and assumes Betty is on the phone with her boyfriend like a normal girl instead of a mystery psycho killer and is like okay “ I pretended to like your boyfriend for like 3 minutes but honestly you should dump him. “

The writers remember that Betty and Archie are supposed to be freinds and they walk to school together and Betty is like I have tea to spill. Archie is like “you gotta go to the police” and Betty is like” nah i’m good. I’m fifteen and a grown up so like I can handle a literal murderer.”

So the Lodge family is gathered in Daddy's study and plotting about getting some other richie rich family to give them money for their SoDale(?) project and i’m like I STILL don’t know what the fuck that is.

Jughead meets up with the cast off B league teenage string of the South Side Serpents and it’s confirmed to me that Dilton confirmed did stab himself like a little attention seeking whore. I was unsure about that. So the Serpents think that the next reasonable step after the rumble at midnight with the Riverdale high school Bulldogs is to blow up a LITERAL building. That makes good sense. The slithery little snakey snakes are all like “ we aren’t the bad guys and to prove it to you we’re going to blow up the local newspaper with a pipe bomb our bros cousin made in his garage.”

Veronica starts going off about her old life with this Nicky bish back in nam where they went on crazy adventures and stayed up all night and i’m like oh last year? When you were 14?

Jughead rolls up to the South side Serpent bar and is like ‘okay i’m in put me in the gang’, and they’re like “ okay but first we’re going to haze you like you’re a pledge at Alpha Sigma Phi at Centeral Florida State University. “

The black hood is all like “Betty publish this story about your mother and her past on the south side” but like he literally sends her a newspaper clipping from back in the day. So don’t people already know about this? Why is it a big deal? Riverdale is small and gossipy as we’ve already seen so like did no one read the newspaper that day or did Alice gather them all up and burn them before anyone got their morning paper from their doorstep?  

The Sinclairs roll up and “ Nicholas” as Veronica calls him at least 11 times in the span of this 45 second scene is like “ this hotel sucks” and Veronica is like “ The five seasons is lovely.”  So this is supposed to be a play on the four seasons which are VERY fancy hotels. In what world would a town like Riverdale have anything close a four seasons or anything close to the kind of apartment that the Lodges live in? Nicholas should be complaining about having to stay at a Best Western or as this show would probably call it a Best Eastern or some bs like that, because that is far more plausible and riverdale is nothing if not completely plausible. So where do I know this Nicholas guy from?  Okay so I JUST discovered that his name is St. Clair and not Sinclar. Fucking sue me. I’m not going back to change it. that’s just too much work and I literally could not care less. He was that kid DJ in XOXO and in Staten Island summer. Oh shut the fuck up he was in 13! The musical. That’s fucking hilarious. Mirder me.

So Alice (whose bangs are once again different and I can’t handle it omg pick a style and stick to it) is all like Betty did you write this letter yourself for attention you sneaky little bish. Honestly it’s not going to shock me if the person who is calling Betty isn’t the real black hood and just someone fucking with her. How iconic would it be if it was Cheryl being like “ you threatened me in the bathroom so now i’m going to ruin your whole fucking life”. That would honestly make sense. So either Alice or Betty are getting Black Hood notes from a copy cat. OR there are two blackhoods. Who the hell knows?

Archie is in his bedroom pumping iron because you know he’s a man.

Jughead is trying to learn the serpent pledge and honestly shouldn’t it just be like “ I promise to share and be a friend” ala the girl guides. That’s so much simpler. So Jughead has to take care of hot dog and get spat on while what’s his face screams in his face and to top that all off he has to put his hand in the Rattle snake enclosure and i’m like okay i’m out. No gang for me. Toni calls Jughead Juggie and honestly i’m cringing.

Betty keeps coming for her mother and i’m like chill bish.

Veronica, Nick, and Archie are hanging out in her bedroom and it’s the strangest trio ever. Veronica turns down a line of coke because she’s too full from eating copious amounts of pasta at dinner i’m sure.

If Betty could change her ring tone I would be like SUPER grateful. Okay thanks.  She finds out she would recognize the face under the hood and i’m like no shit don’t like 11 people live in this town? The black hood is like “ I’m your only friend so cut Veronica loose” and not going to  lie that’s totally something I would do.

Jughead and Betty greet each other like they’re coming back from war in the middle of Pops dinner and they both just sit across the table from one another and feed each other lies. So healthy. So not annoying.

Nick is throwing a party and Cheryl is like fuck you all i’m coming to this thing. She’s Riverdale’s “ Resident IT girl” and she wants EVERYONE to know it.

It’s like three minutes into the party and Nick is like “ you’re friends are boring let’s all get high” and Veronica is like let’s pretend to be normal and i’m like  is it normal that 15 year olds get high in hotel suite off pixie stick esque mystery drugs?

Betty tears Veronica a new asshole and is honestly SUPER harsh but honestly pretty honest and i’m like Betty did you have to be so brutal? But whatever. Into it.

Toni rolls up to warn Jughead about joining the gang but all I could focus on was the dog in the background.

Nick is coming on to Veronica and she’s like lol we’re friends, no bro. Then he’s like “listen up bitch. If you don’t blow me i’m going to tell my daddy to tell your daddy to go fuck himself.” So like yikes.

The black hood is like defs not #Teambughead and is like okay Betty dump him. She’s like shit, and basically begs Archie to break up with Jughead for her and I would be judgy but I once made my sister quit my job for me so like bitches in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

So Alice rolls up to this gala in a very TS style fashion owning the snake label in a romper that basically goes down to her belly button. She promptly tells her good for nothing husband to shut up and continues to act as if she owns the place. I love it.

Nick is like “ omg so sorry for trying to blackmail you into sleeping with me V. I’ve been to rehab btw” and Veronica is like “ Okay we can be BFFs again. Let’s drink some ginger ale.”

Archie breaks up with Jughead for Betty in front of his whole new posey and it’s ice cold. The Serpent's proceed to beat the living shit out of Jughead and i’m like cute. Best way to gain loyalty from your new member.

Nick and Cheryl are chatting and it’s going well until he’s like “ hmmm she seems into me. Guess I’ll roofie her.” Like what the actual fuck you monster?

Josie and the Pussycats + Veronica  decide to pull out a cover of a song from Rent and i’m like i’m not mad but why? It just seems like such a random choice.  They note Nick taking a clearly fucked up Cheryl “ out for some air” and i’m like are you not in a literal tent?

They run through the halls of the 5 seasons and discover a master set of keys because all hotels just leave those hanging around. They rescue Cheryl and beat the living shit out of Nick which like good on you but that’s like super illegal and he’s so the type to lawyer up with Daddys money.

Black Hood tells Betty to go to this abandoned house to find out who he is and i’m like bitch this is SUCH a bad idea. Obviously he was never going to tell her who he is. Like what did she expect she’d put the mask on turn around and be like “ OLD MAN SMITHERS!” like this is some Scooby Doo type shit? Clearly not you silly bish.

Okay so we all gather around Cheryls bedside and Archie is ready to go FULL red circle on Nick and honestly betty is almost just sitting there like “ why am I here?”

Toni and Jughead admire his new tattoo while he ices his now fucked up face and then suddenly they're making out and i’m like okay murder me i’m not here for this.

Black Hood is like “ Betty what the fuck you’ve been telling Archie we’ve been wheeling! That’s so rude. I’m going to murder your whole family if you don’t give me the name of someone to murder” and she’s like “ Nick the would be rapist” and black hood is like “ yas good one. We are totes twins.”

Boom. Episode over. There’s a new episode in like two days so like a bitch will be back.

#riverdale #riverdale roundup #Bughead #jughead jones #betty cooper #archie andrews #veronica lodge #the cw #the cw riverdale

[bigyack-com]

Here's How Ex-Nissan Boss Carlos Ghosn Escaped From Japan

Sometime last fall, a security contractor based in Asia took a call that he found curious. The man on the other end of the line, a longtime acquaintance and, like him, an expert in protecting VIPs and valuable cargoes in challenging environments, was looking to hire for a job in Japan. He offered few specifics. The assignment would involve escorting someone out of the country, he said. It would pay well. And he was looking for operatives with military or police experience and, ideally, fair-skinned East Asian faces-the kind that wouldn't stand out in Tokyo. The contractor wanted to know more. Who would the operatives be protecting? What was the specific threat? Would the client be carrying cash or gold or something else of value? The caller wouldn't say. The contractor was noncommittal but said he would get in touch if anyone else came to mind. They hung up, and the contractor didn't really think about the job again-until he and the rest of the world saw the news about Carlos Ghosn. Just before New Year's, Ghosn, the ousted leader of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA, completed a daring escape from Tokyo, where he was facing criminal charges that could have put him in prison for more than a decade. Despite being under intense surveillance while out on bail, with a camera trained on his front door and undercover agents tailing him when he left his house, Ghosn somehow made it to Lebanon, where he lived for most of his adolescence and is a citizen.

 On January 8, 2020, Carlos Ghosn addressed the media in Beirut accusing Japan and Nissan of unfair treatment For Ghosn, who'd spent more than 100 days in solitary confinement in a Tokyo jail and was contemplating trial in a country where prosecutors virtually never lose, it was a stunning coup. Lebanon has a policy against extraditing its citizens, and as one of the most successful member of the country's diaspora, he's a national hero, with friends who include some of the biggest names in local business and politics. His face is on a postage stamp. Safely in Beirut, he could finally attempt to rebut the allegations against him, which he argues were the result of a conspiracy between nationalist factions, both within Nissan and the Japanese government, that were determined to take him out of play. And, most important for someone who spent the better part of two decades building and cultivating his public image, he could set to work restoring his reputation as a great man of business, maybe even preparing a comeback. A few weeks after Ghosn's escape, it's not at all clear that he'll be successful. While he is, for the foreseeable future, beyond the reach of Japanese law enforcement, his legal problems are nowhere near being resolved. Ghosn is still under investigation in France, where Renault is based, while the government of Japan has issued a so-called Red Notice in his name through Interpol, exposing him to possible arrest the moment he enters a country less hospitable than Lebanon. Japanese prosecutors have also obtained an arrest warrant for his wife, Carole, claiming she gave false testimony in their investigation. And the task of restoring his stature as one of the leading lights of global capitalism is enormous. Even some of his closest former colleagues remain unsure what to make of the allegations against him. It's hard to imagine major corporations, banks, or investors agreeing to work alongside a man who's officially a fugitive. Gathered with his family in the country of his youth, Ghosn has undoubtedly upgraded his personal circumstances. What remains to be seen, though, is whether he's simply traded one form of confinement for another. While out on bail, Ghosn spent much of his time at his lawyers' office in central Tokyo, in an anonymous mid-rise building near the Imperial Palace. Forbidden under the terms of his release from accessing the internet anywhere else, he'd been given the use of a cramped meeting room with a bare table, whiteboard, and a laptop. It was also the sole location where Ghosn was allowed to call Carole, and even then only with the approval of a Tokyo judge. From April, when he had last seen her, to the end of the year, he received this permission twice: once in November, and again, for one hour, on Christmas Eve. Being unable to see his wife was the hardest part of his ordeal, Ghosn would say later, an absence that "put me on my knees." His mood only darkened on Christmas Day, after a pretrial hearing during which he learned that prosecutors wanted to delay the second of his two trials until 2021. In all, his lawyers told him, it might take five years to fully resolve his cases. Ghosn was indicted four times, all for financial misconduct. The first two charges accuse him of underreporting his compensation in official filings, leaving out tens of millions of dollars that investigators say he intended eventually to get. In the third and fourth indictments, for breach of trust, prosecutors accused him of improperly benefiting from Nissan's relationships with partners in the Arab world, and in one case of diverting $5 million of company money to his own ends via a car dealer group in Oman. Ghosn has denied wrongdoing, arguing that the compensation prosecutors claim was misreported was only hypothetical, and that he never misused Nissan funds. (He also settled a civil complaint from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which claimed he failed to adequately disclose his compensation, agreeing to a $1 million penalty without admitting the agency's allegations.) Most criminal defendants, in Japan or elsewhere, don't have the option to simply exit their proceedings if they believe they can't win. Ghosn-with ample financial resources and passports from Lebanon, France, and Brazil-did. For months, a team of more than a dozen security operatives, led by a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran, had been designing a plan to get him to Lebanon, the country where Ghosn has the most extensive connections. The secrecy was intense: Some of the participants, according to a person familiar with the operation, didn't know the identity of the person they were going to extract, even after they'd accepted the job. The team's leader had a career that couldn't have been more different from Ghosn's. Born in Staten Island, N.Y., Michael Taylor joined the U.S. Army after high school and was accepted into the Green Berets, accumulating skills that included HALO jumps: the delicate art of leaping from a plane at 30,000 feet or more and free-falling as long as possible before opening the parachute. He was deployed to Lebanon during the country's brutal, 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990, and there met his future wife, Lamia-like Ghosn, a member of the country's Maronite Christian minority. After leaving the Army, Taylor put his abilities to work in the private sector, setting up a Boston-area company, American International Security Corp., that protected executives in dangerous places, prepared vulnerability assessments for critical infrastructure, and even planned operations to rescue kidnap victims. He also collaborated with agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, on one occasion working undercover to investigate Lebanese drug traffickers, and developed a relationship with Duane Clarridge, a legendary CIA officer who oversaw a private espionage network in his retirement. Taylor, 59, also had a habit of operating in gray areas. In the 1990s he was indicted in Massachusetts for charges including illegal wiretapping and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor offenses. Later, the New York Times reported that he was connected to an "off-the-books" espionage network in Afghanistan, which was operating in apparent defiance of military rules against using private contractors as spies. (Taylor wasn't accused of wrongdoing.) And in 2012 federal prosecutors charged him with bribing an Army officer to win $54 million in contracts and conspiring with an FBI agent in an attempt to kill an investigation into the matter. Taylor pleaded guilty to wire fraud and violating federal procurement law and was sentenced to two years in prison. AISC's business collapsed. It's not clear how Taylor was connected to Ghosn, although Lebanon is small enough that there would be only a couple of degrees of separation between their extended families. Even for Taylor, getting the executive out of Japan would be an extreme assignment. After almost 20 years at the top of one of Japan's largest companies, Ghosn was perhaps the best-known foreigner in Tokyo, hardly someone who could slip onto an airplane or ship without being noticed. And he wasn't a hostage of a militant group or an abducted child; he was a criminal defendant, under prosecution by the government of a bedrock U.S. ally. Taylor and everyone he hired might face charges if their identities were discovered, at the very least restricting their future travel and employment, and at worst landing them in prison. The security contractor who was approached about an operation in Japan said he would never accept an assignment as perilous as the Ghosn job; those who might, he said, would need extremely generous compensation for the risks involved, perhaps pushing the total cost to $15 million or more. Yet according to the person familiar with the operation, Taylor was eager to help, and not only because of the potential payoff. Despite their drastically different backgrounds, Taylor sympathized with Ghosn, the person said. Taylor had been denied bail in the runup to his own trial, confined to Utah jails half a country away from his home in Massachusetts. In Ghosn he saw someone in a similar situation, a man he felt had been treated unfairly. Whether Ghosn was guilty seemed beside the point. On the ground in Japan, Taylor would be assisted by an old friend from Lebanon, George-Antoine Zayek. A gemologist by training, Zayek had joined a Christian militia during the civil war, sustaining a severe leg wound during the fighting. Doctors in Beirut wanted to amputate; instead, Taylor helped arrange for more sophisticated treatment in Boston. Zayek kept his leg, but acquired a limp-and a lifelong loyalty to Taylor. He became a U.S. citizen and was involved with Taylor's companies in the 1990s, later working for him in Iraq. Taylor declined to comment on Ghosn's escape; Zayek could not be reached for comment. The final phase of the Ghosn operation began just before Christmas. On Dec. 24 a company called Al Nitaq Al Akhdhar was billed $175,000 by MNG Jet, a Turkish aviation group, for chartering a Bombardier Global Express jet, which has a range of more than 11,000 kilometers (6,835 miles). If anyone from MNG had tried to visit this client, they would have found it difficult: There's no company called Al Nitaq Al Akhdhar at the Dubai address it provided on the charter paperwork. Around the same time, MNG has said, a different client arranged to hire another plane, a shorter-range Bombardier, to fly from Istanbul to Beirut. On the morning of Sunday, Dec. 29, Taylor and Zayek landed at Kansai International Airport, near Osaka, on the chartered Global Express. On board were also two pilots and, according to people familiar with the flight who asked not to be identified, a couple of large black cases of the kind concert roadies use to hold audio gear. Later the same day, according to surveillance camera footage reported on by Japanese media, Ghosn left his residence, a rented house in the busy Roppongi neighborhood. He wore a hat and a surgical-style mask. (Used to protect against germs, these aren't unusual in Japan.) Taylor's advance team had chosen Ghosn's next destination carefully. During the months its members spent observing the plainclothes agents following Ghosn around Tokyo, they'd noticed something, according to the person familiar with the operation. For some reason, the Japanese operatives typically didn't follow their target when he entered a hotel. Ghosn soon arrived at the nearby Grand Hyatt Tokyo, which is attached to Roppongi Hills, a giant mall and office complex with a confusing array of entrances and exits on different floors. From there, according to Japanese media, he made his way to Shinagawa station, a major rail hub, and onto a high-speed train to Osaka. Ghosn's presence on public transport wouldn't, in itself, have been suspicious. Under the terms of his bail he was permitted to travel domestically, and he'd previously visited Kyoto, which is on the same bullet-train line, with one of his daughters. Like everything else about Ghosn's escape, the means of departure from Japan had been chosen with utmost care, with Taylor's team evaluating a wide range of scenarios. Using a fake passport to get Ghosn onto a private jet as a passenger was a gamble: Japanese entry stamps contain QR codes, which if scanned would quickly reveal the subterfuge. Another option, spiriting Ghosn onto a cargo vessel that would be purchased for the operation, was eventually rejected as too complicated. As part of their reconnaissance, Taylor's people had surveyed airports all over the country, looking for terminals where security was lax. A few months ago, the person familiar with the operation said, the team observed that the X-ray machines in Kansai's private terminal were much too small to scan a large box-and oversize items were simply waved through. The routine was the same on the night of Dec. 29. Airport officials didn't examine the large black cases that Taylor and Zayek had with them, and they were loaded onto the Bombardier without incident. The plane was bound for Istanbul; filing a flight plan listing Lebanon as the destination would have raised too many red flags, according to a person familiar with the subsequent investigation. A little after 11 p.m., the jet was in the air. It landed at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport about 12 hours later. An MNG operations manager named Okan Kosemen, who'd helped arrange the charter, was waiting to greet it. In subsequent statements to a Turkish judge, Kosemen recounted that when he came on board, two Americans-presumably Taylor and Zayek-led him to the rear of the cabin. There, waiting in the bathroom cubicle, was Ghosn. Kosemen waited for the crew to leave, shooed away a technician who wanted to work on the aircraft, and bundled Ghosn into a Ford van to take him to the second plane and to Lebanon. (Kosemen says he didn't know he was aiding a fugitive when he arranged the charter and that one of the people involved threatened to harm his family if he didn't cooperate. MNG also said it had no knowledge Ghosn would be on the flights.) Ghosn's passports had been taken as a condition of his bail-with one exception. He had two French passports, a privilege granted to citizens with particularly demanding travel schedules. He'd received permission to keep the second one; Japanese law requires foreigners to carry their identity documents at all times. The caveat was that it had to be kept in a plastic case, sealed with a lock to which only his lawyers had the combination. But Ghosn got it open and later presented it to an inspector at Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport like any other traveler. It was the first legal act he'd performed since leaving Japan. For the first few days after Ghosn's departure, official Japan seemed unsure how to react. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his deputies made no official statements; at the Ministry of Justice and the Tokyo prosecutor's office, journalists struggled to get a comment from a spokesperson. The near-silence briefly fueled theories that Ghosn might even have had a subtle green light for his escape-that elements within the government had grown tired of the public-relations headache of prosecuting such a high-profile defendant and decided it would be better to be rid of him. Those theories were soon discarded. On Jan. 7 prosecutors said they'd obtained an arrest warrant for Carole, citing what they claimed were false statements she made more than eight months earlier. Ghosn's representatives viewed the move, which was soon followed by a report that Japan would seek a Red Notice for her, as a clear attempt to intimidate him before his first public appearance since his escape. That was planned for Jan. 8 in Beirut, in the offices of the national journalists' association, and billed by Ghosn as a chance for him to expose the "injustice and political persecution" behind his predicament. As the appointed time approached, Japanese camera crews thronged the sidewalk outside the venue; most had been denied accreditation to attend, a decision Ghosn said was motivated by what he viewed as unfair treatment by the Tokyo press. Shielded by bodyguards, he entered the room just before 3 p.m. His hair, previously jet black, was wispy and gray, and deep lines marked his face. But otherwise he was unmistakably Ghosn: confident, unflappable, and in total command of his material. His address lasted more than an hour, illustrated with documents projected onto the wall behind him. Ghosn argued that the allegations against him had effectively been cooked up, the result of a conspiracy to halt his plans to more closely integrate Nissan with its partner Renault. The plot's organizers, he said, included Hiroto Saikawa, his successor as Nissan chief executive officer, Hitoshi Kawaguchi, who was in charge of government relations, and board member Masakazu Toyoda. All have rejected his claims. Only two topics were off-limits: the particulars of his escape, to protect the people who helped him, and the identities of Japanese officials he believes participated in the conspiracy-a concession, according to a person familiar with Ghosn's planning, to concerns within the Lebanese government about complicating relations with Japan more than he already had. "I am here to clear my name. These allegations are untrue, and I should have never been arrested," he said. "I was presumed guilty before the eyes of the world and subject to a system whose only objective is to coerce confessions, secure guilty pleas, without regard to the truth." His escape, he said, was "a risk one only takes if resigned to the impossibility of a fair trial." But as Ghosn's speech went on, entropy took hold. He jumped rapidly from allegation to allegation at a pace that was difficult to follow even for observers versed in the latest Ghosniana. At one point he committed the No.1 faux pas for foreigners in Japan, comparing his arrest to the attack on Pearl Harbor. There were flashes of arrogance, with Ghosn describing Nissan as "in the dirt" before he arrived and boasting that "20 books of management were written about me." He devoted a significant stretch of time to a relatively minor issue-whether his comped use of a room at Versailles for his 2016 wedding celebration constituted a sort of kickback for Renault's sponsorship of the palace-providing a convoluted explanation that he later summed up with, "If I had thought there had been an ethical problem, I wouldn't have done it." He then spent more than an hour gamely answering questions, switching among English, French, Arabic, and, out of deference to a small but enthusiastic crew of Brazilian reporters, Portuguese. He may not have exactly been having fun, but he clearly felt liberated. That feeling won't last if his former captors have anything to say about it. The Red Notice initiated by Japan has triggered a legal proceeding in Lebanon, and the day after his press conference Ghosn was summoned by the country's Ministry of Justice. Prosecutors questioned him on the Japanese allegations as well as a separate issue: whether he committed a crime by visiting Israel as Renault's CEO. Lebanon considers Israel an enemy, and it's illegal for citizens to travel there, with violations punishable by a jail sentence-a reminder that Ghosn's globalist values may not be fully compatible with those of his new home. And it will, for now, be his home: The government has formally barred him from leaving, taking possession of his French passport. In an interview in Beirut, Justice Minister Albert Sarhan insisted that Lebanon will carefully consider any requests from Japan and that it's too early to say Ghosn won't be extradited. But given the political and legal context, that outcome is highly unlikely. 0 CommentsGhosn says he's eager to clear his name, something his lawyer has suggested could occur through a trial in Lebanon-a country that ranked 138th in the most recent Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International. At his press conference, Ghosn was more expansive, saying he would welcome being judged "anywhere where I think I can have a fair trial." When he puts it that way, it's a reminder that for everything he's lost, he still has plenty. Among the remarkable things about Ghosn's situation in Japan, where he stood a very real chance of becoming one of the few corporate leaders of his stature ever to be sent to prison, was the degree to which all his advantages-connections, money, access to the global media-seemed to count for nothing. That turned out to be only half right. Ghosn may not have been able to beat the system, but he didn't need to. He had the resources to go around it.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) For the latest auto news and reviews, follow CarandBike on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Read the full article

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[biofunmy]

After Rikers Island Closes, What Will Jail Look Like?

Just before Thanksgiving 18-year-old Nicholas Feliciano became the latest casualty of Rikers Island. Mr. Feliciano, who had a history of suicide attempts, got injured in a fight with other inmates and was transferred to a unit where guards watched for seven minutes — and did nothing — while he tried to kill himself. He ended up in a medically induced coma.

To countless New Yorkers, the news was only more confirmation why tearing down Rikers can’t happen soon enough. Its demolition has become a kind of collective cleaning of the slate, a moral reboot for the city, another rallying cry for the prison abolition movement. The plan now is to shutter Rikers by 2026 and replace it with four smaller jails, one in each borough save for Staten Island.

If we’re going to keep building jails, can new architecture help heal what ails the penal system? Jails are works of architecture, after all. Their designs, including how they present themselves on the street, give physical form to society’s shifting attitudes about justice.

Today Americans seem more divided than ever on most things but criminal justice reform is an issue that unites Charles Koch and Black Lives Matter. Although New York’s murder rate is up this year, in recent decades crime has significantly fallen. Along with much-debated bail reforms, decriminalization of some lesser offenses, speedier court adjudications and alternative supervision, the city is reducing incarceration. Back in 1991, at the peak of the crack epidemic, city jails housed more than 21,000 inmates. The jail population has dropped to 6,700. The four new jails would accommodate 3,300 detainees.

Unlike prisons, jails house those arrested, presumed innocent and still awaiting trial or serving short sentences. Increasingly, jails and prisons have become the country’s de facto mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities. Some 43 percent of New York’s current inmates receive mental health services, according to data from Correctional Health Services.

The principle behind the new plan is that, thoughtfully designed and humanely staffed, borough-based jails should make life safer for detainees and staff, help mitigate distrust between targeted, vulnerable communities and authorities, and streamline criminal cases by bringing detainees closer to the courts, not to mention to families.

This isn’t a new concept. I grew up near the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood jail that occupied an art-filled, Art Deco building next to Jefferson Market Courthouse, today the Jefferson Market Library. It was heralded as a model of justice reform when it opened during the 1930s.

But by the late 1960s, it had become squalid, overcrowded and violent. I can still hear the desperate pleas of inmates shouting through the windows as I walked home from school every day. Authorities finally tore the building down in the ’70s and moved the women to a new facility on Rikers.

Unfortunately, Rikers by then was itself becoming a virtual paramilitary compound. During the 1950s, it, too, had been a laboratory for rehabilitative practices under the leadership of an enlightened Department of Corrections commissioner named Anna Moscowitz Kross. Kross brought in clinicians and social workers and opened the first city public school in a jail (P.S. 616), for adolescent inmates.

But with rising crime and urban unrest, this all came undone a decade later as politicians pressed for tougher policing and mass arrests. “In very many ways,” notes Jarrod Shanahan, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Governors State University in Chicago, who has studied New York’s penal system, the city’s history of failed jails is a “history of progressive penology.”

That said, the city has little choice at this point but to try again. Unlike before, it can now build on historic declines in crime rates, and it has examples of safer, dignified jails and prisons to draw from in countries like Norway and Germany, where incarceration is regarded as punishment enough, guards are trained as social workers, and recidivism for those who have been convicted and imprisoned is generally lower than in the United States.

True, New York isn’t Hamburg. But its new jails can still be respectful and community-facing. They can be designed to fit architecturally into the fabric of the streets — not loom like giants over them — signaling that neighborhoods matter. Ground floor accommodations made for community assets like health clinics won’t mollify the jails’ opponents but can help mitigate the stigma of incarceration.

Criminal justice experts and architects also agree: Modern jails should be light and airy, with materials that reduce decibel levels and aren’t all cold and hard (there’s window glass strong enough to withstand an hour’s beating with a four-pound hammer). Environment cues behavior. Brutal and dehumanizing conditions brutalize and dehumanize both inmates and staff.

In Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, the city is presently imagining the new jails as skyscrapers rising near borough courthouses where detention complexes already exist. In the Bronx, the site is a police tow pound in the Mott Haven neighborhood; the courthouse is somewhere else.

Unsurprisingly, neighbors have protested. All four community boards voted the plan down. Residents in Mott Haven, which already has the Vernon C. Bain floating jail barge, are suing, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has joined opponents arguing the city should spend its billions on subsidized housing and mental health programs, not jails.

Nevertheless, the City Council approved the demolition of Rikers and construction of the borough jails in October. So the project is moving ahead.

Nobody today is arguing that buildings alone will repair the broken jail system, of course. A corrections department whose officers declined Mr. Feliciano aid clearly needs drastic reform, not just a nicer place to work.

But there’s a mountain of evidence that bad architecture contributes to a climate of cruelty, shame and alienation. I was in North Dakota recently and saw firsthand, at the Missouri River Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison there, the benefits of a more benevolently designed and run facility with no fences and transitional housing in converted trailers that allowed select inmates keys to individual rooms and the ability to cook their own meals. Both prisoners and guards told me that the physical layout was a powerful motivator for good behavior and rehabilitation.

At the state’s maximum security prison in Bismarck, by contrast, I saw how architecture conceived to isolate, subjugate and punish inmates undercut similar efforts by state officials and prison staff to inculcate a culture of reform.

I also visited San Quentin, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, where inmates and prison officials stressed how invaluable proximity to educators, social workers, job training and family is — how much it helps with rehabilitation, daily life and mental health.

Will New York’s new jails be places where visiting families feel welcome? Will the jails provide space for police officers and medical staff to train together? For detainees to confer with lawyers? For therapeutic assistance and recreation?

Outside as well as inside, will they be scaled to their surroundings, will the city be open to other sites and will the buildings architecturally represent, as borough landmarks, our civic ideals and values?

“Why not?” asked Elizabeth Glazer, director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, when we spoke the other day. “Why shouldn’t jails be dignified and even beautiful buildings since they are in our communities and our city? They are part of our society. They should match our aspirations for justice reform.”

At the moment, there’s reason to fear they won’t.

The shuttering of Rikers and the construction of the four borough jails are presently estimated to cost nearly $9 billion. Mayor Bill de Blasio has handed the assignment to the city’s Department of Design and Construction, which released a letter of intent describing the project as “a once in many generations opportunity to build a smaller and more humane justice system” through “innovative and high-quality design.”

The D.D.C. has announced that the jails will be design-build projects, an umbrella term that essentially means architects and contractors team up to bid for the jobs. The first requests for qualifications go out after the New Year.

Design-build, the D.D.C. says, should reduce delays and budget-overruns and work around the department’s troublesome rule about hiring the lowest-bid contractors, whose ineptitude often ends up costing the city a fortune, stalling projects for years.

This can all sound good. But the D.D.C. has no experience managing a design-build project on anything like this scale, and design-build is ultimately about saving time and money, not about producing good architecture. It guarantees contractors the upper hand. New York officials in recent weeks have been pushing to expand design-build authority, meaning the jails are also likely to become a template for future large-scale projects in the city. Design-build can work for infrastructure and certain other sorts of projects, but it is at heart a neoliberal solution with a legacy of churning out mediocre designs.

New York’s new jails, on the other hand, need to be transformational buildings, not mediocre ones, to match the transformational aspirations of criminal justice reform, and to do justice to the boroughs.

For starters, the city should commission architects upfront to devise schematic drawings. These drawings would be given as guidelines to the design-builders — “bridging documents,” they’re called — so that architecture is assured of being a priority and a commitment.

The city should also hire a czar. Rockefeller Center had Raymond Hood. Lincoln Center had Wallace Harrison and Robert Moses, and while nobody wants today’s incarnation of the old, authoritarian Moses, somebody with a mayoral mandate and construction chops who believes in the social and civic value of design excellence could be appointed to oversee the new jails and break the bureaucratic logjams that, especially across successive city administrations, inevitably bog down and compromise undertakings like this one.

“No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails,” Nelson Mandela said. New York will reveal itself by what it does in this case. “New jails can’t fix everything,” as Ms. Glazer put it. “But they can contribute to a virtuous cycle.

“And in the end that will make the city a safer, better place to live.”

Sahred From Source link Arts

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[kacydeneen]

Judge Says NYPD Officer in Eric Garner Case Should Be Fired

An NYPD judge recommended firing the officer accused of using a banned chokehold in the July 2014 death of Eric Garner, law enforcement sources familiar with the decision tell News 4.

The judge found officer Daniel Pantaleo -- who has been on modified administrative duty in the years since Garner's death on a Staten Island street corner -- guilty of using a chokehold on the 43-year-old father, which is banned under NYPD policy, according to a high-level source familiar with the decision.

Arrests Made At Eric Garner Protests Outside Mayor's Office

The chokehold or no-chokehold debate was the crux of the entire case against Pantaleo, whom a grand jury declined to indict and whom the U.S. Department of Justice declined to prosecute. Prosecutors had argued the video, which captured Garner's dying words, "I can't breathe," clearly showed Pantaleo use a banned chokehold -- and the medical examiner's autopsy report listed a chokehold as the cause of his death. Health factors, including obesity and high blood pressure, were mentioned as contributing factors in that report.

Defense attorneys submitted that the move Pantaleo was seen using was not an illegal chokehold, but a department-approved takedown move used to subdue suspects resisting arrest -- and that his arm was not around Garner's neck when he said, repeatedly, "I can't breathe."

'Today We Can't Breathe': Garner's Mom Vows to Keep Fighting

The judge's Friday ruling is preliminary, not the final decision regarding the fate of Pantaleo. Next, both Pantaleo's attorney and attorneys for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which prosecuted the case, will have an opportunity to meet with the judge to discuss the decision before it goes to NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill, who will ultimately make the decision on the officer's future.

The attorneys have up to two weeks to do that, then the departmental judge sends her final findings to O'Neill, who will decide whether to fire Pantaleo or not.

Chokehold Led to Eric Garner's Death, Medical Examiner Says

Asked about the case on "The Joe Piscopo Show" Thursday, O'Neill said the department has been working since Garner's death to build community trust.

"We have the same cops, the same sectors every day. We have great detectives dealing with the crime victims," O'Neill said. "There has to be real relationships and when something does happen, those relationships are established beforehand and then the trust is there and they'll trust us they'll give us the opportunity to explain what happened."

The development comes after the U.S. Department of Justice announced July 16 -- a day before its deadline -- that it would not file civil rights or criminal charges against Pantaleo, who has been on modified duty since Garner's death. 

U.S. Attorney General William Barr made the final decision in that case, an official said, adopting the recommendation of prosecutors in Brooklyn. Lawyers in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, however, had a different view and believed charges could have been pursued, according to two officials.

Pantaleo's NYPD trial in the death of the 43-year-old Garner, whose dying words, "I can't breathe," became a rallying cry for the national movement against police brutality began May 13 and wrapped up in June.

Garner, an unarmed black man, refused to be handcuffed after police stopped him on a Staten Island street corner for allegedly selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. Pantaleo, who is white, is seen on a widely watched cellphone video putting Garner in an apparent chokehold, which is banned under NYPD policy.

Pantaleo did not face criminal charges; a grand jury opted not to indict him, prompting a series of national protests and marches. However, a judge subsequently said a disciplinary trial could proceed.

The disciplinary trial kicked off to heightened emotions as protesters swarmed a major New York City highway at the height of the morning rush, stretching a banner across the FDR condemning the officer.

During the disciplinary trial, officer William Meems, one of the officers who responded to the Eric Garner arrest scene in July 2014, testified May 21 he thought the 43-year-old father, seen on widely circulated video gasping "I can't breathe," was faking it.

Pantaleo's partner, Justin D'amico, also took the stand, testifying that he and Pantaleo waited about nine minutes before trying to arrest Garner because he was "irate." He also testified that Garner twice tried to smack his hand away.

Under cross examination, D'amico acknowledged he finished filling out Garner's arrest form even after the man was dead -- and that form charged Garner with a felony amount of cigarette sales. Garner had very few cigarettes on him when he was stopped that day, prosecutors have said.

Video showed Pantaleo put an arm around Garner's neck in an apparent chokehold; the officer's attorney, though, said in opening statements that the cop's arm was not around Garner's neck when he said "I can't breathe."

Garner died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. His death was ruled a homicide, with the medical examiner listing a chokehold as the cause of his death.

The defense has argued that Pantaleo did not use a chokehold, which is banned under NYPD policy, but an approved tactic called a "seat-belt hold" in an attempt to take Garner down. Defense lawyer Stuart London has also cited Garner's health -- hypertension, obesity, an enlarged heart -- as reasons for his death.

While the medical examiner listed those as contributing factors, the autopsy report concluded that those issues did not cause Garner to die.

On May 15, describing the chokehold as the first event in a lethal cascade of events, Dr. Floriana Persechino, the medical examiner, testified she found hemorrhages on muscles inside the neck, root of tongue and the back of his neck. She said there was a 2-inch hemorrhage in front of his larynx. The hemorrhages, she said, occurred around the time of Garner's death. She noted that she found no visible injuries under Garner's neck, but said in her medical opinion, the 43-year-old father was put in a chokehold.

Additionally, an NYPD training expert testified that the move seen on the video "meets the definition of a chokehold." That contradicts the defense's claim that Pantaleo used an approved technique called a "seat-belt hold."

However, a few weeks later, the defense brought in a key expert witness that contradicted the city's medical examiner's opinion on cause of death.

Dr. Michael Graham was one of two witnesses that testified before the defense rested its case.

Graham said a chokehold did not kill Garner because he could speak and never lost consciousness.

Graham said he believes Garner's death was caused by heart problems because "his heart disease was exacerbated by the interaction with law enforcement.”

The same day that Graham testified, the defense brought in another witness -- one who taught officer Pantaleo at the police academy -- testified the alleged chokehold seen in the famous cell phone video from the 2014 incident was instead a proper procedure called a "seatbelt" maneuver.

Pantaleo did not testify at his trial. Instead, the judge received a written transcript of his statements to internal affairs. This did not sit well with Garner's mother Gwen Carr, who was furious Pantaleo did not testify.

"Is that fair? Is that justice?" she asked those waiting outside the trial after the defense rested its case.

Subsequently, during closing arguments, London said his client wanted to keep his job. 

Pantaleo's trial was highly anticipated and even brought out a federal prosecutor that sat in on the administrative trial.

The appearance of Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes at a proceeding signaled that the Department of Justice still has an interest in how Garner died. Ultimately, however, the U.S. Justice Department, which had faced a July 17 deadline, the fifth anniversary of Garner's death, to decide whether to file civil rights charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo or others involved in the fatal arrest on a Staten Island sidewalk decided to not file charges July 16. The statute of limitations on most federal charges is five years.

Garner's family received $5.9 million from the city in 2015 to settle a wrongful death claim. Federal prosecutors have until July to file civil rights charges against Pantaleo.

Photo Credit: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP (File) Judge Says NYPD Officer in Eric Garner Case Should Be Fired published first on Miami News

[learningrendezvous]

Racism

EXIT: LEAVING EXTREMISM BEHIND

By Karen Winther

EXIT is a personal and urgent look at the ways people legitimize hatred and the threats they face when they attempt to leave their radicalized worlds behind. Paralleling her own past as part of a violent right-wing organization with the experiences of other former extremists, filmmaker Karen Winther explores what makes someone join neo-Nazis, Jihadists or other hate groups, and what makes them decide to leave.

Winther introduces us to Angela from the US and Ingo and Manuel from Germany, all ex-right-wing extremists who made the leap to abandon their movement and now must live isolated lives in hiding. In Denmark, we witness the other side of the spectrum when former violent left-wing extremist Soren shares the story of his life. Winther also travels to France to meet a French former jihadist. Through these intimate conversations, Winther examines how and why some radicalized people, when confronted with the realisation that everything they once firmly believed is wrong, gather the courage to embark on extraordinary journeys to turn their lives around.

DVD (Color, English, Norwegian, French, German, Danish) / 2018 / 85 minutes

FEELING OF BEING WATCHED, THE

By Assia Boundaoui

In the Arab-American neighborhood outside of Chicago where journalist and filmmaker Assia Boundaoui grew up, most of her neighbors think they have been under surveillance for over a decade. While investigating their experiences, Assia uncovers tens of thousands of pages of FBI documents that prove her hometown was the subject of one of the largest counter terrorism investigations ever conducted in the U.S. before 9/11, code-named "Operation Vulgar Betrayal."

With unprecedented access, THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED weaves the personal and the political as it follows the filmmaker's examination of why her community-including her own family-fell under blanket government surveillance. Assia struggles to disrupt the government secrecy shrouding what happened and takes the FBI to federal court to compel them to make the records they collected about her community public. In the process, she confronts long-hidden truths about the FBI's relationship to her community.

THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED follows Assia as she pieces together this secret FBI operation, while grappling with the effects of a lifetime of surveillance on herself and her family.

DVD (Color) / 2018 / 87 minutes

WHITE RIGHT: MEETING THE ENEMY

By Deeyah Khan

In this BAFTA-nominated documentary, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Muslim filmmaker Deeyah Khan meets U.S. neo-Nazis and white nationalists face to face and attends America's far right rally in Charlottesville. Khan, who has received death threats in the past after advocating for diversity and multiculturalism in an interview on the BBC, seeks to understand the personal and political reasons behind the violent ideology and apparent resurgence of far right extremism in the U.S.

Speaking with fascists, racists and proponents of alt-right ideologies Deeyah attempts to discover new possibilities for connection and solutions. As she tries to see beyond the headlines to the human beings, her own prejudices are challenged and her tolerance is tested. When she finds herself in the middle of a race riot at the now-infamous Unite the Right march, Deeyah's safety is jeopardized. Can she find it within herself to try and befriend the fascists she meets?

With a U.S. president propagating anti-Muslim propaganda, the far-right gaining ground in German elections, hate crime rising in the UK, and divisive populist rhetoric infecting political and public discourse across western democracies, Deeyah Khan's WHITE RIGHT: MEETING THE ENEMY asks why.

DVD (Color) / 2017 / 55 minutes

BLACK GIRL IN SUBURBIA

By Melissa Lowery

For many Black girls raised in the suburbs, the experiences of going to school, playing on the playground, and living day-to-day life can be uniquely alienating. BLACK GIRL IN SUBURBIA looks at the suburbs of America from the perspective of women of color. Filmmaker Melissa Lowery shares her own childhood memories of navigating racial expectations both subtle and overt-including questions like, "Hey, I just saw a Black guy walking down the street; is that your cousin?"

Through conversations with her own daughters, with teachers and scholars who are experts in the personal impacts of growing up a person of color in a predominately white place, this film explores the conflicts that many Black girls in homogeneous hometowns have in relating to both white and Black communities. BLACK GIRL IN SUBURBIA is a great discussion starter for Freshman orientation week and can be used in a wide variety of educational settings including classes in sociology, race relations, African American Studies, Women's studies, and American Studies.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2016 / 54 minutes

PROFILED

By Kathleen Foster

Profiled knits the stories of mothers of Black and Latin youth murdered by the NYPD into a powerful indictment of racial profiling and police brutality, and places them within a historical context of the roots of racism in the U.S. Some of the victims-Eric Garner, Michael Brown-are now familiar the world over. Others, like Shantel Davis and Kimani Gray, are remembered mostly by family and friends in their New York neighborhoods.

Ranging from the routine harassment of minority students in an affluent Brooklyn neighborhood to the killings and protests in Staten Island and Ferguson, Missouri, PROFILED bears witness to the racist violence that remains an everyday reality for Black and Latin people in this country. Moving interviews with victims' family members are juxtaposed with sharply etched analyses by evolutionary biologist, Joseph L.Graves, Jr, (The Race Myth) and civil rights lawyer, Chauniqua D. Young, (Center for Constitutional Rights, Stop and Frisk lawsuit). PROFILED gives us a window on one of the burning issues of our time.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 52 minutes

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

By Angelique Molina

In View Park, California, an extended African-American family experience demographic changes and reflect on their shifting community.

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD intimately follows an extended Black family of View Park, California as they experience demographic changes due to gentrification and reflect on their shifting community. View Park is the largest Black middle-class neighborhood in the country. Adele Cadres is a longtime resident and mother of three who gives us insight into the history of the neighborhood. Her eldest daughter Ayana Cadres raises her biracial children with the hopes that they foster the utmost respect and reverence for the Black community she grew up in. Adele's youngest daughter, Aida, struggles to find an affordable home in the neighborhood due to increasing property value. As the family and other residents reflect on the history and culture of their neighborhood, they debate the issues of maintaining a changing community.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 27 minutes

OLD SOUTH

By Danielle Beverly

OLD SOUTH, through a quiet unfolding story, provides a window into the underlying dynamics of race relations that influence so many American communities. In Athens, Georgia, a college fraternity traditionally known to fly the confederate flag moves to a historically black neighborhood and establishes their presence by staging an antebellum style parade. Through the perspective of local resident Hope, OLD SOUTH follows the neighborhood struggle over three years, while both communities fight to preserve their historical legacies against an ever evolving cultural backdrop in the South.

DVD (Color) / 2015 / 54 minutes

SOUTHERN RITES

By Gillian Laub

SOUTHERN RITES is a powerful portrayal of how perceptions and politics have divided two towns in southeast Georgia along racial lines for years. In 2009, The New York Times Magazine published filmmaker and acclaimed photographer Gillian Laub's controversial images of Montgomery County High School's racially segregated proms. A media furor ensued and under extreme pressure, the Georgian town was forced to finally integrate the proms in 2010. Laub returned camera in hand to document the changes, only to stumble upon a series of events far more indicative of race relations in the Deep South: old wounds are reopened following the murder of an unarmed young black man by an elderly white town patriarch. Against the backdrop of an historic campaign to elect its first African-American sheriff, the case divides locals along well-worn racial lines and threatens to drag the town back to darker days.

SOUTHERN RITES documents one town's painful struggle to progress while confronting longstanding issues of race, equality and justice. Through her hauntingly intimate portrait, Laub reveals the horror and humanity of these complex, intertwined narratives, a chronicle of their courage in the face of injustice. Laub's film captures a world caught between eras and values with extraordinary candor and immediacy- and ultimately asks whether a new generation can make a different future for itself from a difficult past.

DVD (Color) / 2015 / 87 minutes

TOO BLACK TO BE FRENCH

By Isabelle Boni-Claverie

In this documentary film, Isabelle Boni-Claverie explores the role of race and the persistence of racism in France, as well as the impact of the French colonial past. Through an exploration of her personal family history, and interviews with historians and academics, TOO BLACK TO BE FRENCH peels back the layers of race relations in supposedly institutionally colorblind France.

Boni-Claverie, a French-Ivorian, who grew up in upper class French society, unpacks how socio-economic privilege doesn't mean protection from racial discrimination. Boni-Claverie solicits anonymous individuals to speak on their daily experiences with race, class, discrimination and micro-aggressions. TOO BLACK TO BE FRENCH also features interviews with acclaimed sociologists and historians including Pap Ndiaye, Eric Fassin, Achille Mbembe, and Patrick Simon to help contextualize racial history in France. Boni-Claverie's film starts an urgent discussion on French society's inequalities and discrimination.

DVD (Color, French) / 2015 / 52 minutes

WILHEMINA'S WAR

By June Cross

In much of America, progress in HIV/AIDS treatment suggests the worst is behind us, but every year 50,000 Americans are still diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS. Astonishingly, it's one of the leading causes of death of African American women. And nearly half of the Americans with HIV live in the South, where the AIDS epidemic has taken root in rural communities. WILHEMINA'S WAR is an intimate, personal narrative that tells the story of one family's struggle with HIV over the course of five years. Despite facing institutional and personal obstacles every step of the way, 62-year-old Wilhemina Dixon works tirelessly to combat the stigma and care for her daughter and granddaughter, both HIV-positive.

Emmy award winning journalist and Professor June Cross finds Wilhemina, a one woman army fighting against a systemic dehumanization that's the result of centuries of racism, and lack of access to drugs and treatment. Her story touches upon many of the structural issues that contribute to the alarming rising trend of HIV-positive women in the South: lack of education, lack of access to quality healthcare, lack of transportation, and silence and stigma in the local church congregations. This urgent documentary lays bare the intersection of poverty, race and politics with women's health and security in the rural south, while showing determination in the face of adversity, and the triumph of the human spirit. Essential viewing for African-American Studies and Public Health courses.

DVD (Color) / 2015 / 53 minutes

LIVING THINKERS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BLACK WOMEN IN THE IVORY TOWER

By Roxana Walker-Canton

LIVING THINKERS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BLACK WOMEN IN THE IVORY TOWER examines the intersection of race, class and gender for Black women professors and administrators working in U.S. colleges and universities today. Through their diverse narratives, from girlhood to the present, Black women from different disciplines share experiences that have shaped them, including segregated schooling as children, and the trials, disappointments and triumphs encountered in Academia. Though more than 100 years have passed since the doors to higher education opened for Black women, their numbers as faculty members are woefully low and for many still, the image of Black women as intellectuals is incomprehensible. And while overtly expressed racism, sexism and discrimination have declined, their presence is often still often unacknowledged. Through frank and sometimes humorous conversations, this documentary interrogates notions of education for girls and women and the stereotypes and traditions that affect the status of Black women both in and out of the Academy. A perfect companion film for any classroom discussion on the intersection of racism, sexism and/or feminism.

DVD (Color) / 2013 / 75 minutes

ANTONIA PANTOJA

By Lillian Jimenez

Antonia Pantoja (1922-2002), visionary Puerto Rican educator, activist, and early proponent of bilingual education, inspired multiple generations of young people and fought for many of the rights that people take for granted today. Unbowed by obstacles she encountered as a black, Puerto Rican woman, she founded ASPIRA to empower Puerto Rican youth, and created other enduring leadership and advocacy organizations in New York and California, across the United States, and in Puerto Rico. Recognized for her achievements in 1996, Dr. Pantoja was awarded the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed upon civilians in the US.

In this important documentary, Pantoja's compelling story is told through never-before-seen home movies, archival footage, and personal passionate testimony from Pantoja herself and some of her countless proteges, as well as her life partner. Highlighting major landmarks in Pantoja's biography and long, productive career, the film shows her profound commitment to transforming society, her pivotal role in the Puerto Rican community's fight to combat racism and discrimination, and her pioneering work in securing a bilingual voice in the US. An eloquent tribute to a remarkable woman, the film sheds new light on the Puerto Rican community's far-reaching triumphs.

DVD (Spanish, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2009 / 53 minutes

PATSY MINK: AHEAD OF THE MAJORITY

By Kimberlee Bassford

In 1965, Patsy Takemoto Mink became the first woman of color in the United States Congress. Seven years later, she ran for the US presidency and was the driving force behind Title IX, the landmark legislation that transformed women's opportunities in higher education and athletics.

Mink was an Asian American woman who fought racism and sexism while redefining US politics, and her tumultuous and often lonely political journey reveals what can be at stake for female politicians that defy expectations, push limits and adhere to their principles. Not only did she encounter sexism within her own party, whose leaders disliked her independent style and openly maneuvered against her, but Mink's liberal views, particularly her vocal opposition to the Vietnam War, engendered intense criticism.

A compelling portrait of a iconoclastic figure that remains seldom spotlighted in history books, this film illuminates how Mink's daring to remain "ahead of the majority" in her beliefs enabled groundbreaking changes for the rights of the disenfranchised. A woman of the people as well as a pioneer, a patriot and also an outcast, Patsy Mink's intriguing story embodies the history, ideals and spirit of America.

DVD (Color, Black & White) / 2008 / 56 minutes

FAR FROM HOME

By Rachel Tsutsumi

While busing may be a rapidly fading memory in most American schools, it continues to be a reality for more than 3,000 Boston students every year. FAR FROM HOME spotlights Kandice, an insightful, precocious African-American teenager participating in METCO, a voluntary Boston school integration program. Since kindergarten, she has risen before dawn each day to be bused to Weston, an affluent, predominantly white suburb. Now in her last two years of high school, she takes us inside her personal triumphs and daily negotiations: serving as the first black class president, playing the college admissions game, defying stereotypes she feels from white society, living up to her family's tradition of activism. Kandice's grandfather, a civil rights activist murdered in 1968, helped found the busing program and her mother was among the first black students bused to the suburbs in the late 1960s. Through cinema verite and interviews, the film weaves together Kandice's current school life with a family history that has been profoundly shaped by racially integrated educational experiences.

With more than fifty years separating Kandice's story from the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, this compelling film illustrates the ways in which a truly desegregated education system is still an unachieved goal in this country.

DVD (Color) / 2005 / 40 minutes

WRITING DESIRE

By Ursula Biemann

"Ursula Biemann's 'WRITING DESIRE' is a video essay on the new dream screen of the Internet and how it impacts on the global circulation of women's bodies from the third world to the first world. Although under-age Philippine 'pen pals' and post-Soviet mail-order brides have been part of the transnational exchange of sex in the post-colonial and post-Cold War marketplace of desire before the digital age, the Internet has accelerated these transactions. Biemann provides her viewers with a thoughtful meditation on the obvious political, economic and gender inequalities of these exchanges by simulating the gaze of the Internet shopper looking for the imagined docile, traditional, pre-feminist, but Web-savvy mate. 'Writing Desire' delights in implicating the viewer in the new voyeurism and sexual consumerism of the Web. However, it never fails to challenge pat assumptions about the impossibility for resistance and the absolute victimization of women who dare to venture out of the third world and onto the Internet to look for that very obscure object of desire promised by the men of the West. This tape will promote lively discussion on third world women, the sex industry, mail order brides, racism and feminist backlashes in the West, and on women's sexuality, desire, and new technologies." - Gina Marchetti, Ithaca College

DVD (Color) / 2000 / 23 minutes

LOCKIN' UP

By T. Nicole Atkinson

When Jamaican-born filmmaker T. Nicole Atkinson threw away her comb to let her hair coil into dreadlocks, she was forced to challenge both society's and her own conflicted notions of beauty. Her story and those of other African Americans who have chosen to 'lock up' are wittily chronicled in this award-winning, entertaining film. Anecdotes, historical data, groit performances, and hair tips mingle in a survey of the origins and cultural significance of dreadlocks, including the stereotypes which mirror the racism inherent in Western standards of beauty. T. Nicole Atkinson is the co-producer of the late Marlon Riggs' acclaimed documentary, Black Is...Black Aint.

VHS (Color) / 1997 / 29 minutes

REMEMBERING WEI YI-FANG, REMEMBERING MYSELF

By Yvonne Welbon

Remembering Wei Yi-fang, Remembering Myself: An Autobiography charts the influence of the filmmaker's six-year experience as an African American woman in Taiwan after college graduation. The highly original film recounts Welbon's discovery, through another language and culture, of being respected for who she is, without the constant of American racism, and how it helped her achieve self-knowledge. Linking this story with that of earlier women in Welbon's family, the richly textured memoir blends dramatic sequences with documentary footage.

DVD (Color) / 1995 / 29 minutes

BEYOND BLACK AND WHITE

By Nisma Zaman

Beyond Black and White is a personal exploration of the filmmaker's bicultural heritage (Caucasian and Asian/Begali) in which she relates her experiences to those of five other women from various biracial backgrounds. In lively interviews and group discussions these women reveal how they have been influenced by images of women in American media, how racism has affected them, and how their families and environments have shaped their racial identities. Their experiences are placed within the context of history, including miscegenation laws and governmental racial classifications. Beyond Black and White is a remarkable celebration of diversity in American society.

DVD (Color) / 1994 / 28 minutes

SIREN SPIRITS

By Ngozi Onwurah, Pratibha Parmar, Frances-Anne Solomon, Dani Williamson

"Siren Spirits" is a wonderful feature comprising four short dramas directed by women of color, produced by the British Film Institute for BBC Television.

Ngozi Onwurah's "White Men Are Cracking Up" uses a murder mystery to explore the legacies of British colonialism and the exoticization of Black women.

Using magic realism, "Memsahib Rita" by Pratibha Parmar looks at the physical and emotional violence of racism. Shanti is haunted by both the racist taunts of nationalist white youths and the memory of her white mother.

Dani Williamson's "Get Me to the Crematorium on Time" is a moving portrait of undying love and grief. When her husband of twenty years dies, Bonetta is overcome by her loss and is taken to a mental hospital; but she knows she must escape to get to the crematorium to say farewell to the man with whom she has shared her life.

In Frances-Anne Solomon's "Bideshi" a 50-year-old Bengali man lies in a coma in hospital, his soul stuck in a dark tunnel near death, until a resolution of his conflict with his daughter liberates his spirit.

"Siren Spirits" shows the powerful complexity of family and race relations in contemporary society and is testament to the brilliant creativity of these four directors.

DVD (Color, Black & White) / 1994 / 80 minutes

WHO'S GOING TO PAY FOR THESE DONUTS, ANYWAY?

By Janice Tanaka

A brilliant collage of interviews, family photographs, archival footage and personal narration, this videotape documents Japanese American video artist Janice Tanaka's search for her father after a 40 year separation. The two reunited when Tanaka found her father living in a halfway house for the mentally ill. Telling the moving story of her search as well as what she discovered about history, cultural identity, memory and family, Who's Going To Pay for These Donuts, Anyway? Is a rare look at connections between racism and mental illness.

VHS (Color) / 1992 / 58 minutes

JUXTA

By Hiroko Yamazaki

This beautiful drama observes the psychological effects of racism on two children of Japanese women and American servicemen. Thirty-one year old Kate, the daughter of a Japanese/white mixed marriage visits her childhood friend, Ted, a Japanese-Black American. Together they confront the memory of her mother's tragic story in this telling, emotionally nuanced journey into the complexity of US racism.

DVD (Color) / 1989 / 29 minutes

COFFEE COLORED CHILDREN

By Ngozi Onwurah

This lyrical, unsettling film conveys the experience of children of mixed racial heritage. Suffering the aggression of racial harassment, a young girl and her brother attempt to wash their skin white with scouring powder. Starkly emotional and visually compelling, this semi-autobiographical testimony to the profound internalized effects of racism and the struggle for self-definition and pride is a powerful catalyst for discussion.

DVD (Color, Black & White) / 1988 / 15 minutes

BLACK WOMEN OF BRAZIL: MULHERES NEGRAS

Directed by Silvana Afram

Despite official jargon to the contrary, Brazilians live in a racially segregated class system. This upbeat, sensitive and elegantly composed documentary, produced by Lilith Video Collective, looks at the ways Black women have coped with racism while validating their lives through their own music and religion.

DVD (Color) / 1986 / 25 minutes

HAIR PIECE: A FILM FOR NAPPY-HEADED PEOPLE

By Ayoka Chenzira

An animated satire on the question of self image for African American women living in a society where beautiful hair is viewed as hair that blows in the wind and lets you be free. Lively tunes and witty narration accompany a quick-paced inventory of relaxers, gels and curlers. Such rituals are all-too familiar to African American women-and indeed to all women confronted with an unattainable ideal of beauty. This short film has become essential for discussions of racism, African American cinema and empowerment. Used by hundreds of groups as diverse as museums, churches, hospitals and hair stylists.

DVD (Color) / 1985 / 10 minutes

DIFFERENT IMAGE, A

By Alile Sharon Larkin

A highly-acclaimed film, A Different Image is an extraordinary poetic portrait of a beautiful young African American woman attempting to escape becoming a sex object and to discover her true heritage. Through a sensitive and humorous story about her relationship with a man, the film makes provocative connections between racism and sexual stereotyping. The screenplay of A Different Image is published in Screenplays of the African American Experience, edited by Dr. Phyllis R. Klotman.

DVD (Color) / 1982 / 52 minutes

http://www.learningemall.com/News/Racism_1907.html

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A Staten Island man with health issues was brutally punched and tased in his family's home by police responding to a 911 call, his family and attorney say. Police responded to the Staten Island home of William Colon, 24, on Sept. 28 after a neighbor who heard Colon and his girlfriend arguing called 911. Video taken by Colon's brother shows officers punching and tasing Colon - who suffers from several diabetic-related health conditions, stands at around 4-foot-8 and weighs approximately 85 pounds - as he lies face down on a bed. Colon was only told later that he'd been arrested for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend, his attorney Christopher Pisciotta, of the Legal Aid Society, said. Pisciotta and Colon's family members, however, claim Colon never attacked his girlfriend. "What was clear from the video was the brutality and the excessive force that was used in this case," Pisciotta said. Colon's girlfriend's lawyer Lou Gelormino, says the girlfriend denies that Colon hit her. from Liveleak.com Rss Feed - Featured https://ift.tt/2QCQ12c

#NEWS

[foursprout-blog]

Bill Clinton Triggered, Denies Clinton Foundation's Haiti Funds Were Used For Chelsea Wedding

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/bill-clinton-triggered-denies-clinton-foundations-haiti-funds-were-used-for-chelsea-wedding/

Bill Clinton Triggered, Denies Clinton Foundation's Haiti Funds Were Used For Chelsea Wedding

Former President Bill Clinton lashed out on Twitter Saturday in response to accusations that daughter Chelsea Clinton used Clinton Foundation funds to pay for her wedding, calling it a “personal insult to me, to Hillary, and to Chelsea and Marc,” referring to son-in-law Marc Mezvinsky.

No Clinton Foundation funds—dedicated to Haiti or otherwise—were used to pay for Chelsea’s wedding. It’s not only untrue, it’s a personal insult to me, to Hillary, and to Chelsea and Marc.https://t.co/YEHqqYrsxW

— Bill Clinton (@BillClinton) January 13, 2018

Bill was triggered after controversy surrounding the Clinton Foundation’s involvement in Haiti was rehashed following a tweet by Chelsea Clinton – criticizing President Trump’s alleged use of the word “shithole” in reference to several impoverished countries, including Haiti – which the Clintons have a long and sordid history of screwing over.

Mr. President, immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti and the 54 countries in Africa likely helped build your buildings. They’ve certainly helped build our country. cc @POTUS https://t.co/hv1QYRoRy3

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) January 11, 2018

In response to Chelsea Clinton’s tweet that “Immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti and the 54 countries in Africa likely helped build your buildings,” conservative journalist Paul Joseph Watson brought up claims revealed in an email published by WikiLeaks that the Clinton Foundation used money designated for Haiti relief towards Chelsea Clinton’s wedding:

Chelsea loves the Haitian people. They paid for her wedding, after all. https://t.co/rYmmXiswGE

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 12, 2018

Linked at the bottom of Bill Clinton’s tweet is a Washington Post article, “fact checking” a 2012 email published by WikiLeaks sent from long-time Bill Clinton aide, who became notorious in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election for his extensive insider revelations on the true nature of the Clinton Foundation, as leaked by WikiLeaks, Doug Band to John Podesta, in which Band urges Podesta to speak with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about “The investigation into her [Chelsea Clinton] getting paid for campaigning, using foundation resources for her wedding and life for a decade, taxes on money from her parents..”

Hilariously, the WaPo “fact check” Bill Clinton links to relies on the suggestion that Doug Band lied to John Podesta about Chelsea due to “bad blood” – after Band had left the Clinton Foundation to start Teneo Holdings. 

Band appears to be alleging Chelsea Clinton engaged in some inappropriate use of Clinton Foundation “resources” — whatever that is — for her 2010 wedding to Marc Mezvinsky. Clearly, there’s some bad blood between Chelsea Clinton and Band, who had left the foundation in 2011 to start his own company, Teneo Holdings. –WaPo

WikiLeaks points out that while Bill Clinton’s tweet says no Clinton Foundation “funds” were used on Chelsea’s wedding, Doug Band uses the word “resources.” 

Bill Clinton claims that no Clinton Foundation “funds” were used to pay for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. However, the leaked email from then top Bill Clinton aide Doug Band doesn’t say “funds” it says “resources”: https://t.co/hHY9OUwry3 https://t.co/mU2xJhASnL

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 14, 2018

In addition to Chelsea’s wedding, WikiLeaks emails also revealed that husband Marc Mezvinsky used Clinton Foundation connections to raise money for his hedge fund. 

In a Jan. 2012 email to Podesta, Mills and current Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Band wrote that Mezvinsky invited “several potential investors” for his hedge fund “and a few current business ones” to a foundation poker night fundraiser he had been planning.

“I assume all are contributing to the foundation, which of course isn’t the point,” Band wrote. “The entire plan of his has been to use this for his business.”

In the same email, Band — referring to Chelsea Clinton by her initials — wrote that Mezvinsky “has CVC making some calls for him to get mtgs with some clinton people.”

And, in a Nov. 2011 memo released Sunday, Band wrote that major Clinton Foundation donor Marc Lasry was “assisting Marc Mezvinsky – Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky’s husband – in raising money for his new fund.” –Politico

Who is Doug Band? 

Band, 45, was a longtime personal assistant to Bill Clinton, and considered the “key architect” of the Clinton post-presidency; helping to create the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) which allowed the Clintons to accept foreign aid. Band left the Clinton Foundation in 2011 to form investment banking and advisory firm, Teno Holdings, along with Hillary Clinton’s top fundraiser for her 2008 campaign, Declan Kelly.

Of note, Band negotiated with the Obama administration for the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:

Inside the Obama transition, the intense vetting for the Clintons, dubbed by some as “the project,” is being handled by a small circle of close advisers to each side. Representing the Clintons are: Cheryl Mills, a former Clinton administration official and top aide to Sen. Clinton during her presidential bid; Doug Band, counselor to Mr. Clinton; and Bruce Lindsey, chief executive of the William J. Clinton Foundation. Obama transition chief John Podesta, and his deputy, Todd Stern, are spearheading the discussions for Mr. Obama. –WSJ

Chelsea vs. Doug

As we wrote in October, 2016 – with each new WikiLeaks dump, the rabbit hole in the feud between Chelsea Clinton and Doug Band seemed to grow a little deeper.  In a November 11, 2011 email from Chelsea to John Podesta, Cheryl Mills and the Clinton Foundation lawyers – Chelsea clearly lists out her issues with Clinton aides Doug Band, Justin Cooper and someone referred to only as “Hannah,” which is presumably Hannah Deletto, Director of Membership at the Clinton Foundation. 

Among other things, the email alleges that Justin Cooper installed spyware on Bill Clinton’s computer in order to monitor his email traffic, that both Justin Cooper and Hannah Deletto stole “significant sums of money” from the Clintons and that Doug Band / Teneo “hustled business at CGI.”

Band, meanwhile, had a bad habit of being brutally honest over email about “spoiled brat” Chelsea… The following example comes from January 2012 when Band forwards a complimentary email from Chelsea (aka “Diane Reynolds”) essentially calling her a two-faced backstabber.

She sends me one of these types of emails every few days/week

As they say, the apple doesn’t fall far

A kiss on the cheek while she is sticking a knife in the back, and front

Of course, this wasn’t the first time Band intimated his true feelings about Chelsea to Podesta.  Just a couple of months earlier, in November 2011, Band sent the following email after Chelsea expressed her views that Band’s firm, Teneo, created potential conflicts of interest in going to State Department officials to seek assistance for clients, including MF Global.

“She is acting like a spoiled brat kid who has nothing else to do but create issues to justify what she’s doing because she, as she has said, hasn’t found her way and has a lack of focus in her life. I realize she will be off of this soon but if it doesn’t come soon enough….”

After that, the situation escalated to the point that Band sent the following email two days later saying that Chelsea had pushed Clinton Foundation COO, Laura Graham, to the brink of suicide.  Within the email Band describes an encounter in which he received a “late night” call from Graham who was:

“…on staten island in her car parked a few feet from the waters edge with her foot on the gas pedal and the car in park.  She called me to tell me the stress of all of this office crap with wjc and cvc as well as that of her family had driven her to the edge and she couldn’t take it anymore.”

Chelsea, meanwhile launched an internal investigation into the Clinton Global Initiative and Clinton Foundation, according to a January, 2012 email Doug Band sent to John Podesta: 

I just received a call from a close friend of wjcs who said that cvc told one of the bush 43 kids that she is conducting an internal investigation of money within the foundation from cgi to the foundation

The bush kid then told someone else who then told an operative within the republican party

  The Clintons vs. Haiti

Doug Band and Chelsea Clinton’s feud aside, the Clintons have a long and sordid history with Haiti, including; 

Hillary Clinton’s State Department pressured Haiti to suppress their minimum wage in sweatshops in order to benefit US clothing manufacturers

factory owners refused to pay 62 cents per hour, or $5 per day, as a measure unanimously passed by the Haitian Parliament in June 2009 would have mandated. And they had the vigorous backing of the US Agency for International Development and the US Embassy when they took that stand.

To resolve the impasse between the factory owners and Parliament, the State Department urged quick intervention by then Haitian President René Préval.

A deputy chief of mission, David E. Lindwall, said the $5 per day minimum “did not take economic reality into account” but was a populist measure aimed at appealing to “the unemployed and underpaid masses.”

–The Nation

Clinton Foundation donors were were allegedly handed government contracts to clean up in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake: 

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Bill Clinton intervened in the jail sentence of Laura Silsby, a convicted child trafficker who attempted to smuggle 33 children out of Haiti. 

Of note, Huma Abedin was constantly forwarding Hillary Clinton articles on Silsby’s organization. 

  Laura Silsby was arrested at the Haitian border attempting to smuggle 33 children out of Haiti without documentation. Her sentence and charges were reduced after an intervention by Bill Clinton.https://t.co/tuk1Vs3D4u

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 11, 2018

Hillary and Bill Clinton took an extraordinary interest in Silsby’s case from the moment she was arrested and almost immediately stepped in on her behalf. The Harvard Human Rights Journal stated that one of Bill Clinton’s first acts as special envoy for the United Nations in Haiti “was to put out the fire of a child abduction scandal involving American citizens.” On February 7th, 2010, The Sunday Times reported that Bill Clinton had intervened to strike a deal with the Haitian government, securing the release of all co-conspirators except for Silsby. Prosecutors ultimately sought a six-month sentence in Silsby’s case, reducing charges for conspiracy and child abduction to mere “arranging irregular travel.” A shockingly light penalty given the circumstances of her arrest, which would likely not have been possible but for the intervention of the Clintons in Silsby’s case. –Disobedient Media

And the attorney who represented Laura Silsby? Convicted human trafficker Jorge Puello Torres. 

SANTO DOMINGO, March 19 (Reuters) – A Dominican Republic man who acted as legal adviser to a group of U.S. missionaries held for several weeks in Haiti on child kidnapping charges has been arrested in Santo Domingo, local police said on Friday. Jorge Puello Torres, wanted by El Salvador as a suspect in a human trafficking ring, was detained at a car wash in the city late on Thursday, a spokesman from the Dominican Republic’s police anti-narcotics unit said. He was arrested in the Dominican Republic’s capital on a warrant issued by Interpol, the international police organization. (reuters)

Oddly, a former Haitian government official set to expose the Clinton Foundation’s misdeeds in Haiti shot himself in the head a week before he was able to testify. Klaus Eberwein, was found dead in a Miami Dade motel room in what examiners ruled a suicide.

  According to Miami-Dade’s medical examiner records supervisor, the official cause of death is “gunshot to the head.“ Eberwein’s death has been registered as “suicide” by the government. But not long before his death, he acknowledged that his life was in danger because he was outspoken on the criminal activities of the Clinton Foundation. 

Eberwein was a fierce critic of the Clinton Foundation’s activities in the Caribbean island, where he served as director general of the government’s economic development agency, Fonds d’assistance économique et social, for three years. “The Clinton Foundation, they are criminals, they are thieves, they are liars, they are a disgrace,” Eberwein said at a protest outside the Clinton Foundation headquarters in Manhattan in 2016. Eberwein was due to appear before the Haitian Senate Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission where he was widely expected to testify that the Clinton Foundation misappropriated Haiti earthquake donations from international donors. But this “suicide” gets even more disturbing…

Eberwein was only 50-years-old and reportedly told acquaintances he feared for his life because of his fierce criticism of the Clinton Foundation.  His close friends and business partners were taken aback by the idea he may have committed suicide. “It’s really shocking,” said friend Gilbert Bailly. “We grew up together; he was like family.”

You can watch more on the Clintons and Haiti here: 

Perhaps actor James Woods summed up the relationship between the Clintons and Haiti best;

The balls on this guy! You looted Haiti like a peg-legged pirate. You, your crooked wife, and your cheesy slush fund “foundation” worked in concert to turn it into the shithole it has become. #BagmanBill #ClintonFoundation #Haiti https://t.co/kPRxesS72C

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 13, 2018

#Wealth