Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Round 1: Bankruptcy Loss for Nifong

The disbarred, disgraced, and former DA Nifong continued his legal losing streak in his bid to weasel out of having to confront his misdeeds in the civil lawsuit filed against him and his multiple co-defendants. Michael D. West, a bankruptcy administrator, filed a statement that Nifong should be "presumed to be an abuse" because his annual income would be higher than federal limits.

The News-Observer reported.

Michael D. West, a bankruptcy administrator, filed a statement in the case late last week.

Nifong's case, West said in his statement, should be "presumed to be an abuse" because his annual income would be higher than federal limits.

The administrator's statement is not a ruling. But if West follows up with a motion to dismiss, and if a judge agrees, that could make it more difficult for Nifong to hide in bankruptcy court from the three exonerated lacrosse players who are suing him.

In his bankruptcy protection petition, Nifong listed the monthly income for him and his wife as $9,209.96 -- he makes $4,957.48 in pension and retirement income, and she makes $4,252.48.

Shortly after the bankruptcy administrator filed his statement, Jim Craven, Nifong's lawyer, amended court documents to reclassify his client's potential debt as non-consumer debt, which would raise the allowable income level and possibly keep the case in bankruptcy court.

After filing his statement on Feb. 14, West, the bankruptcy administrator, has up to 30 days to ask a judge to either dismiss the case or convert it to another form of bankruptcy.

Nifong filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in federal court on Jan. 15, the day by which he was supposed to respond to a civil lawsuit brought by Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, the three lacrosse players he pursued in criminal court for more than a year.

In their suit, the exonerated players allege a conspiracy by Nifong, the city of Durham, the DNA laboratory hired by Nifong and others to bring gang-rape allegations that were "a total fabrication."
News-Observer


Heard around Town
It was reported on the LS Forum by a Durham citizen that construction workers were seen working inside Nifong's personal residence. Rumours of a Bat Cave construction were dismissed.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poor Nifong, he can't avoid bankruptcy because they make over $100,000 a year.

Anonymous said...

I do not know why he tried this. His pension is exempt, we do not have debtors prisons anymore and they can't touch the wifes. So send them a dollar a month till you die.

Anonymous said...

IMO he tried this because he and his sleazy cohorts will try every stalling tactic they can find to keep from facing up to the truth about their misdeeds. If the justice system permits them to keep filing stupid delays they will do it happily from whatever resort island they can find, hoping to outlast the rage of the people they offended and tried to send to prison SO THAT Nifong would win an election that would raise his retirement income.

Sure hope the LAX three, and all of the rest of them, will continue their pursuit of justice. They need to be continually reminded that many of us are there... watching, hoping, praying, that they don't grow weary in this. Nifong and his buddies are hoping for that very thing... that they will wear down their pursuers with their inane maneuvers.

Anonymous said...

Nifong's bankruptcy ploy seems very "Clintonesque" ..............
attempting to wriggle out of guilty actions, unable to acknowledge culpability, moral deficiency, scuzzy legal maneuvers .........

Mandelbrot's Chaos said...

Repeat after me: HA HA! I think Nifong and his accomplices, both in the Durham government and in Duke University itself, belong in prison. There are rapists involved in this case, and the aforementioned Nifong and his accomplices are the guilty parties.

Anonymous said...

Crystal Mangum belongs in prison, along with her accomplices. She was the rat that carried the plague.

Anonymous said...

the entire power structure exists on money made black market, and the numerous companies and goverment people who watch this site knows it to. they are watching to see what we know and who is going to come out and tell what the hell is really going on.

Read these with a warning they are not pornographic, but more visual to see for yourself and all you people watching to do something!

warning very graphic adult only

http://www.gnn.tv/threads/13788/Concentration_Camp_for_Organ_Harve
st

here are more truths and all you have to do is use google and find out just what is going on and by our own government is shocking

http://www.heuni.fi/uploads/66hiqubodt0rb.pdf

http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/11533

Anonymous said...

Just read about the new suit - these guys need to get a lot of money, as Johnny Mack, Bob Steel and the other Wall Street Connection Moguls will not like this. Could be the end of the cushy jobs on Wall Street,

Anonymous said...

they are watching and have been and are a step ahead of the game. the moral collapse of our government that i have lost faith in and now that i know what i do will never be the same again people have to get out of there comfy spots and realise what is going on much worser than one pitiful little pimple as fong. the roots go way past him and runs very deeply into bed with strange bedfellows. we have had our rights taken away dont trust elections dont trust cops or politicians so what else do we expect they are in it to win it and make money at any cost. shit like this aint a movie its worse and real. to all the media people i say look into the deeper issues of dirty deeds done by countless officials nationwide and globally the media feeds what they are paid to print freedom of speech is the internet but still goverment knows and has easy acces to hacking a simple person screaming the truth begging for voices to shout this is not our nation and we are not robots. divert attention with hype sex drugs whatever to get you from seeing what goes on behind closed doors every minute all over the world but is connected and organized like a map. ask yourselves where would we be if china calls our debt and we didnt have money from blackmarket being made and spent it would be global disaster. but there has to be change and somebody has to speek out and tell or nothing changes. get off the stupid details of one case when there are worse where many many died and die each day.

Anonymous said...

http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/b/body-brokers-2006.shtml


BODY BROKERS: INSIDE AMERICA'S UNDERGROUND TRADE IN HUMAN REMAINS
by Annie Cheney
Broadway Books
March 2006, 224 pages, $23.95
by Bill Gibron
PopMatters Film & TV Columns Editor


:. e-mail this article
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Haziest Corpus

Everyone's heard the urban legend. A guy picks up a slinky foreign babe in a bar, then takes her to a restaurant where he wines her and dines her. They then head up to his hotel room for a "nightcap". In the morning, the man wakes up in incredible pain, his naked body immersed in a bathtub full of ice. There is a red tinge to the freezing water, and a message is scribbled in lipstick on the mirror. His hand races to his side as the words sink in -- "We have taken your kidneys. Call 911!". Such a scenario may sound outrageous and unbelievable (it was even used as the basis for the film Dirty Pretty Things), but journalist Annie Cheney has stumbled across something even more sinister ... and it's very, very real.

No, she has not uncovered a ring of date bait organ robbers. Instead, over the course of an investigative probe into the funeral home/crematorium industry, Cheney has uncovered an equally unsavory scandal over the disposal and sale of human body parts. As part of her fascinating, if flawed, book on the subject, she exposes a few of the key players, these so-called Body Brokers, and lays out the facts of how the dead, from the indigent to the most beloved of family members, often become commercial chattel, and then commerce, for the people who've pledged to deliver them into the afterlife.

In a matter of fact, historically cognizant manner, Cheney illustrates how the growing need for body parts -- for medical schools, surgical training seminars, corporate research and development -- has, in turn, created an underground subculture and unethical chain of corruption with links from the biggest national laboratories and hospitals to the Mom and Pop funeral home down the street. The quick, easy money available and the inability of the "victim" to complain about what is happening to them leads many a moral man and woman to ungodly, ghoulish behavior.

For her story, Cheney specifically focuses on Augustino "Augie" Petra, an internationally known body broker, a man responsible for the collection of corpses and the sale of their various parts for all manner of industrial and educational needs. Like a mobster trafficking in frozen flesh, Petra has many willing associates, and the narrative highlights two of the most memorable. Michael Brown, a California crematorium owner, saw the financial windfall possible in delivering parts to Petra, pre-immolation. Along with Petra associate and body diener (a term for 'morgue assistant' derived from the German word for 'servant') Allen Tyler, the trio builds an empire out of vivisection and regulation violation. Naturally, as with all things nasty and nefarious, their downfall seems predestined. But things don't always play out as fate has mandated.

With a subject this scintillating, all Ms. Cheney has to do is get her facts straight, and the story practically writes itself, right? Well, this is one of the awkward aspects of Body Brokers. Like the old saying goes, you can take the writer out of the reporter, but you can't take the reporter out of the writer. Instead of handling these stories in a Hot Zone thriller mode, loading her story with sickening examples of corruption and greed, Cheney simple states the truth and moves on. Of course, this is compelling in its own way. Morbid curiosity drives our interest, and there is plenty of disturbing subtext involving doctors who substitute PVC pipe for bones and freezers overflowing with headless, limbless torsos.

But instead of placing this all within a context that would make for a smart, compelling read, Body Brokers treats its information like evidence, spreading it out before us in plain, unobtrusive text and letting us judge its value and worth on our own. Cheney makes no effort to be a storyteller. Instead, she puts on her Fourth Estate face and lets the data do the describing. Broken up into often unrelated chapters (unless you consider the overall subject matter as a satisfactory connection) we jump around a great deal while reading this book. At one moment we are with Brown and Tyler as their empires are crumbling, the next we are learning about how Florida based Regeneration Technologies, Inc. is redefining the role of hospitals and corporations in the body business.

Structure is indeed a problem here. Cheney divides up her ideas by people, confusing timelines and interchanging eras to complete one concept before moving on to another. Brown does get his entire saga spun, from initial interest to multiple indictments, in a single chapter. Similarly, when dealing with the historical perspective (complete with grave robbers and secret surgical societies) we are told everything important before moving on. This makes Body Brokers very choppy and vignette-oriented. It's not like we're reading an overall account of the illegal corpse trade. Instead, the narrative feels disjointed, and scattered, as if picking piecemeal through a daily or weekly bi-line.

Something similar like Blood and Money manages to take several divergent elements -- the murder of Texas socialite Joan Robinson, the trial of her accused plastic surgeon doctor John Hill, and the life of flamboyant attorney Richard "Racehorse" Haynes -- and fashions them into a compelling, complete whole. Perhaps the desire to avoid dramatization drove Cheney to format the book in such a stilted manner. Whatever the case, the scandalous subject matter has to keep us tuned in and attentive. Thankfully, it works, especially when the author uses real life examples of the defiled dead to show the thorny moral and ethical issues involved. Perhaps the most compelling material comes late in the narrative, when bone fragments "harvested" from an infected corpse find their way into bodies of healthy, unsuspecting donors. The resulting horrors do more to make Body Brokers points than the accompanying laundry lists of procedural violations.

In fact, had Cheney ditched much of the data and simply told the stories of families who traced their departed loved ones to freezers in funeral home attics or packing crates being handled by clueless FedEx workers, we'd have a wonderfully wicked cautionary tale -- as darkly comic as it is horrifyingly heartless. As it stands, Body Brokers is the professional if perfunctory primer on a problem facing our technologically advanced medical society. On the one hand, the skill and science is there to save countless lives and advance human health. On the other, there are not enough corpses to perfect these procedures. The balance between the living and the dead is something that the underground brokers bank on when attempting to find recruits. Yet as this book consistently points out, these ruthless rippers will sink to any and all means necessary to meet the need -- and there's nothing phony about this sad, soulless fact.

— 2 May 2006
and its only gotten way worse

Anonymous said...

What is the big shock here? The families have every right to sue the city for negligence of an entire political system that failed miserably! This is by far NOT the biggest case to be media worthy, but one that has brought to the light of day a sample of what people in power do every single day and nobody even knows or cares!

Well, I am here to tell the WORLD and every entity watching, that As God is my witness I will not go to my grave without speaking out about the same system that has not only covered over my beloved brother's murder, but have mocked us, threatened us, and continue to deny us the right to know not just how my brother died, but everything that was done and NOT done!

I have contacted EVERY person their is imaginable, excluding the President, and still have been denied not just documents, but the right of a family to know how their loved one met their death, and to know what was done, and not done to his body!

We have been lied to and threatened by the Durham Sheriff's Department, have been shuffled through 3 years and 3 District Attorneys, countless complaints filed to numerous governmental agencies, even our own Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and STILL NOTHING!

We have sent our documents that we have been able to glean from the system to Mr Ekstrand, but due to his obligation to the LAX team is unable to represent us but would if he could! I have sent him, the FBI, and several others copies of the BLUE blood coming from an entrance wound, none from 2 exits wounds, a inconclusive and actually negative GSR screen, proof of fraud and collaborative deception, and have been to hell and back in this maddening chase to expose this city and system for allowing crimes against humanity to go unannounced, while innocent people suffer from the hands of the very powers who took oaths before God and man to protect and serve!

So, here my family and I are coming forward to beg the media to help us to solve my brother's death, and expose a system of debauchery and evils that not only baffle the mind, but leaves you breathless and speechless! I have tried and done all that I can alone, and now have 2 months before the state can be held liable for not just one mans death, but expose a system that feeds off the helpless, then leaves them for dead!

So, in closing I will say the purpose of this letter now on this thread is to also gain attention to the enumerable failures within the system, to right a countless injustice done to a plethora of lives that have been left completely devastated, and to make our government be held responsible and accountable for FAILING us the citizens, and the dead who have no voice but scream beyond their graves! The truth is worse than a nightmare because it is REAL and more HORRIFIC than you could ever have imagined!

Never could I have guessed such wickedness by not just individuals, but extremely organized and calculated, and failed by the very country and leaders we so blindly put our hopes and faith into! My heart bleeds for the truth, and mourns those who have been so wickedly tortured! My brother and countless others did NOT die in vain, and I will be damned if I will let fear keep me from Justice For Jack, but JUSTICE For ALL!

Rhonda Fleming
Cleveland, Ohio
Sister of Allen Jackson Croft Jr, Murdered May 11, 2005

For legal reference please refer to Mr Ekstrand for personal contact
Robert C. Ekstrand
Firm: Ekstrand & Ekstrand

Address: 811 Ninth Street, Suite 260
Durham, NC 27705


Phone: (919) 416-4590

Fax: (919) 416-4591

Anonymous said...

Imagine instead, your child or loved one MURDERED, and not only does it take Law Enforcement over a YEAR to send ONE single report, they LIE to you from the beginning, and not only REFUSE to do any investigating, but fail to adhere to ANY role of conduct and protocol, then threaten you and LAUGH at you?!



Yes, I have the utmost sympathy for the team, but let us not forget just how many OTHER cases have been corrupted by the exact same system! WHAT has been done to answer and solve the murders of my brother, Janet Araboa, and Michelle Young?! What voices have they now they are dead?!



Where is the outrage, and public and media attention for our families?! Nifong is by far the only knave on the long list of miscreant marauders who care nothing about rights of citizens, and care only for what is in "their" best interest! Wake up people and ask why the Department of Justice has not intervened, and why do our nations leaders just watch and do nothing about an abjectly corrupt and politically ran city?!



I never would have imagined what I now know, and am sick that nobody has taken our pleas, and heard our cries! Our loved ones not just dead, but murdered, and we will never see them hear them, or feel their touch ever again! Unfair?! Unjust?! Impossible?! The cesspool of corruption flows deep into a murky quagmire of wickedness that should expose our own government for allowing it to continue!



True and REAL crimes against humanity ranging from organized crime and drugs, to kidnapping, slavery, prostitution, and murders for global sale of body parts! Google human trafficking in organs, and learn exactly what is going on behind closed doors "the powers that be" never want to see opened! The reality is not only horrific and unimaginable, it IS happening every single day across the world, and Durham is just one of the many links in this chain of the grisly, dark underworld!



I have fought for nearly 3 years to restore my beloved best friend's respect, and JUSTICE he, and all of the others desperately deserve, and will never quit until something is done and things are changed! NOBODY deserves what mine and countless other families have endured, and for us I am begging the people and media to make a difference and care about all of the other serious matters that have fallen to the wayside for needless years!



Rhonda Fleming

Cleveland Ohio

Sister of Allen Jackson Croft Jr, murdered May 11, 2005 in Durham NC

STILL praying for "JUSTICE!"

Anonymous said...

Imagine instead, your child or loved one MURDERED, and not only does it take Law Enforcement over a YEAR to send ONE single report, they LIE to you from the beginning, and not only REFUSE to do any investigating, but fail to adhere to ANY role of conduct and protocol, then threaten you and LAUGH at you?!



Yes, I have the utmost sympathy for the team, but let us not forget just how many OTHER cases have been corrupted by the exact same system! WHAT has been done to answer and solve the murders of my brother, Janet Araboa, and Michelle Young?! What voices have they now they are dead?!



Where is the outrage, and public and media attention for our families?! Nifong is by far the only knave on the long list of miscreant marauders who care nothing about rights of citizens, and care only for what is in "their" best interest! Wake up people and ask why the Department of Justice has not intervened, and why do our nations leaders just watch and do nothing about an abjectly corrupt and politically ran city?!



I never would have imagined what I now know, and am sick that nobody has taken our pleas, and heard our cries! Our loved ones not just dead, but murdered, and we will never see them hear them, or feel their touch ever again! Unfair?! Unjust?! Impossible?! The cesspool of corruption flows deep into a murky quagmire of wickedness that should expose our own government for allowing it to continue!



True and REAL crimes against humanity ranging from organized crime and drugs, to kidnapping, slavery, prostitution, and murders for global sale of body parts! Google human trafficking in organs, and learn exactly what is going on behind closed doors "the powers that be" never want to see opened! The reality is not only horrific and unimaginable, it IS happening every single day across the world, and Durham is just one of the many links in this chain of the grisly, dark underworld!

Anonymous said...

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-931447.cfm

Jail suicide prompts no policy changes
BY BRIANNE DOPART : The Herald-Sun
bdopart@heraldsun.com
Mar 8, 2008

DURHAM -- Despite claims by inmates that a Durham County Jail prisoner spoke openly of suicidal tendencies and a discovery of suicide notes, officials say they received no such indications before the 27-year-old man ended his life.

And there are no plans for policy or structural changes at the jail, where fellow inmates found assault suspect Brian Lashand Rollins hanging from part of a window frame in his cell about 4 p.m. on Feb. 9. That was about 30 minutes after he'd last been seen alive, according to the report of his autopsy.

Days after the hanging death of Rollins, county leaders told The Herald-Sun they'd await the outcome of the Sheriff's Office investigation to determine if additional safety precautions were needed to ensure the jail was a safe place for its inmates.

According to Deputy County Manager Carolyn Titus, it is routine procedure for the Sheriff's Office to investigate a jailhouse death, ensure no foul play was involved and then recommend any adjustments that need to be made to the facility.

Titus said that the Sheriff's Office made no such recommendations and expressed confidence in the safety of inmates housed at the jail.

Rollins, a father of eight, was without a pulse when he was discovered. He was taken to Duke University Hospital, where he was declared brain dead the next morning and died a short time later.

He was found hanging from a window frame in his cell. But the Sheriff's Office says there is no need to adjust cells by removing items from which an inmate could be hanged. Sheriff's Office Investigator Tom Mellown, who investigated the case, said suicidal individuals can hang themselves from anything, so long as they can apply enough pressure to the neck to block the passage of air.

Yet in the past, the Sheriff's Office has requested money from the county to rid cells of vents based on the argument that the vents present a safety threat and an opportunity for hanging. Mellown, who as investigator has no part in budgeting, could not comment on those past requests, he said.

Mellown's criminal investigation into Rollins' death determined there was no foul play. From conversations with guards, jail employees and four or five inmates, Mellown determined there were no indications that the 27-year-old inmate was suicidal, he said.

One inmate did tell the investigator that Rollins never responded to him when he tried to chat with him from an adjacent cell. Another inmate told the investigator Rollins talked to him about wanting to end his life. But according to Mellown, the inmate said he never told any jail guards or officials of Rollins' intentions.

One inmate who was in the jail at the same time as Rollins told The Herald-Sun that, contrary to the Sheriff's Office's investigation, the troubled inmate told anyone who would listen that he wanted to end his life. But the guards, he claimed, were either too busy or didn't care and ignored Rollins' repeated pleas for help.

Rollins was distraught, the source said, over relationship issues involving a woman. Rollins was being held in the jail on a charge of assault on a female. His bond was $50,000. It was unclear whether the assault victim was the same woman with whom he was romantically involved.

According to the Sheriff's Office, no red flags arose during a 10-question psychological assessment that Rollins, like all inmates entering the jail, was subject to when he arrived at the facility Feb. 6.

Jail procedure calls for inmates to be administered the test only upon arrival, regardless of how long they are to be held in the jail. But if an inmate reaches out for help or if jail employees notice an inmate acting in a way that demonstrates his or her psychological state has changed, they will be referred for reassessment.

Rollins was not referred for any such assessment.

THIS is the SAME man who "INVESTIGATED" my brother's death, and you all still think HE and LE are to be trusted at all?!?!

AND, again, NO autopsy was done for my brother, AND we were LIED to and told one was done, plus threatened!!!!!

For the love of God people, DO SOMETHING!!!!

Rhonda Fleming
Durham SURVIVOR