Charges against off-duty officers recommended

An update to the story posted Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 7:40PM
Surrey B.C. man alleges assault and racial abuse by 3 off-duty police officers

The Vancouver Police Department is recommending charges against two Lower Mainland police officers in connection with an alleged assault on a newspaper deliveryman in downtown Vancouver last week.

A rookie officer from West Vancouver Police Department may be charged with robbery, and a 38-year-old New Westminster police officer was recommended to be charged with assault and possession of stolen property.

A third officer who was with the pair, a 28-year-old from the Delta Police Department, has not been charged.

The names of the two officers would not be released until charges were laid.

The New Westminster Police department said Wednesday afternoon that their officer continues to be suspended with pay. The other two officers had been placed on desk duties.

Firoz "Phil" Khan, a 47-year-old deliveryman from Surrey, was dropping off newspapers to pay boxes and local hotels in the 600-block of Burrard Street in the early hours of Wednesday, Jan. 21, when he was allegedly kicked and beaten by three men.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu said six investigators from his department spent the weekend interviewing nine witnesses. They also interviewed Khan at length.

Chu said more investigators than usual were put on the case, and he took the unusual step of meeting with them while the investigation was ongoing.

Hate crime charges are not being pursued, said Chu.

He added that the Delta officer may have been trying to stop the attack.

The attack took place in the presence of a taxi driver who took two of the officers from the Roxy nightclub to the location near the Hyatt Hotel, and two City of Vancouver employees, Meatr Chima and Phil Pilon.

Chima and Pilon say the attack was so brutal they actually feared for the victim's life, not to mention their own.

"I wanted to jump in and get the one guy who was doing the punching off of the victim," said Pilon.

"Justice probably won't be served, I don't think so," said Chima.

"If it was a guy like me who did that to that guy there would be justice served, but against those police officers I doubt it. I think these police officers should look at themselves in the mirror and think of what they've done. I mean this is ridiculous."

Speaking from his Surrey home on Friday, Khan says one of the only reasons he's alive is because the two city workers stopped to help.

He said he had suffered serious injuries to his head and internal injuries after the attack. He also lost a filling and chipped a tooth.

"Thank God there was a lot of city workers that I know that clean the streets in downtown Vancouver," he said.

He fears what would happen if it didn't happen on city streets.

"Just imagine this thing happened on a back lane. I would have been dead and buried."

Pastor sentenced for sexually assaulting 10-year-old

A self-described pastor who hoped his "marriage" to a 10-year-old girl he took to bed would convince a judge to acquit him on a sexual assault charge was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday.

Daniel Cormier, who was convicted last October following a lengthy trial, has a maximum of 49 months left behind bars because of time already served.

"I would say that there's no remorse," Crown prosecutor Anne-Andree Charette said outside the courtroom. "He just tried to find justifications."

The Crown wanted the maximum prison term of 10 years, while a lawyer Cormier hired for sentencing arguments recommended between 30 months and four years behind bars, given Canadian jurisprudence..

The 57-year-old head of the now defunct Church of Downtown Montreal, who also once ran for mayor, has maintained he is not a pedophile and that he did nothing wrong as the pair were married during a ceremony at his obscure evangelical church in 1999.

Court heard he was lovestruck for the youngster.

During the trial, Quebec court Judge Sylvie Durand announced she would not hear testimony supporting his marriage defence.

The victim, who is now 19, testified she was too young to grasp the idea of marriage. She denied ever entering a union with him, but said she remembered the sexual abuse in vivid detail.

During the proceedings, court heard that Cormier's church catered to the marginalized. Starting in 1993, he took the girl's mother, a recovering junkie and prostitute, and her two daughters under his wing.

Relatives described Cormier as a father figure to the girls who were often invited to stay with him or go on vacation with him and other church members.

It was during such holidays that fellow parishioners became suspicious of Cormier's relationship with the victim.

He was arrested in 2003 after a social worker notified police but the case progressed slowly through the courts as numerous motions were filed by both the Crown and Cormier, who represented himself at the trial.

When it came time for the victim to testify, she agreed to do so only via video link from an adjacent room and Cormier was barred from cross-examining her or her mother.

He declined to submit to the court an approved list of questions and rested his case without calling further witnesses or taking the stand himself.

At the time of his conviction, two additional charges of sexual touching and invitation to touching were dropped.

Cormier is currently on trial in another case involving a 16-year-old girl and could face additional jail time if convicted.

The alleged crimes, which Cormier denies committing, also date back to his time as a pastor.

2 men sentenced to death in China's milk scandal

A Chinese court on Thursday sentenced two men to execution and gave a former top executive a life sentence for their roles in the country's deadly tainted milk scandal.

The former boss of Sanlu Group, Tian Wenhua, 66, was handed a life sentence by the Intermediate People's Court in Shijiazhuang. Sanlu was the company at the heart of the scandal.

Tian is the highest-ranking official charged in the probe into milk contaminated by melamine, a chemical used in the manufacturing of plastics that was used to give milk an apparently higher nutrition content in protein tests.

At least six children died, and nearly 300,000 people became ill from consuming the contaminated infant formula and milk products. Melamine can cause kidney stones and kidney failure when large amounts are ingested.

Tian pleaded guilty to charges of producing and selling fake or substandard products during her trial at the end of December.

Zhang Yujun, 40, was sentenced to death for running a workshop that was allegedly China's largest source of melamine.

Geng Jinping was also given the death penalty for producing and selling toxic food.

They were among 12 defendants sentenced Thursday in connection with the case. Others were given prison terms of five to 15 years.

Parents remain angry

Families of babies made sick by contaminated milk gathered outside the court to hear the sentences read out.

Dozens of police officers guarded the courthouse and cordoned off the surrounding area, asking victims' families to keep about 100 metres away.

"Many parents are angry that only middlemen got the death penalty and that some company and government officials faced lesser charges or avoided prosecution," CBC's Michel Cormier reported from Beijing.

Zheng Shuzhen, from Henan province, said her one-year-old granddaughter died in June after drinking Sanlu milk and was upset by Thursday's decision, saying Tian's sentence was too light.

"My granddaughter died. She [Tian] should die, too, she should be shot. She has brought such harm to the public, to children," said Shuzhen.

"I've run out of tears…. That's why I came today. Even if [Tian] dies a hundred times over, it won't lessen our hate."

More than 200 families whose children died or were made ill by poisoned milk in China have appealed to the country's highest court, demanding higher compensation than the amount offered and long-term treatment for their babies.

The 22 Chinese dairies involved in the scandal proposed about $200 million in compensation.

The Chinese government has vowed to crack down on food safety crimes in the future, but warns there could be an increase in cases as businesses try to cut corners in times of recession, said Cormier.

Girl, 15, Faces Child Porn Charges for Nude Cell Phone Pictures of Herself

I'm interested in seeing what your take would be on this one:

Central Ohio authorities have filed felony charges against a 15-year-old girl accused of taking nude cell phone photos of herself and sending them to high school classmates.

Police say the Newark Licking Valley student was arrested Friday and held over the weekend. On Monday, she entered denials to juvenile charges of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material and possession of criminal tools.

A spokeswoman for the Ohio attorney general's office says an adult convicted of the child pornography charge would have to register as a sexual offender, but a judge would have flexibility on the matter with a convicted juvenile.

A prosecutor says Licking County authorities also considering charges for students who received the photos.

Thoughts?

North Port Florida Teacher Arrested After Allegedly Using Text Messages To Seduce Teen For Sex

Ronald Barche, a 47 year old ROTC teacher at North Port High School in Northport, Florida has been arrested on accusations that he attempted to seduce a 16-year-old student through text messages over a cell phone.

According to police, Barche began text messaging with a 16-year-old girl using a cell phone that became sexually explicit in nature on July 30th.
Investigators say Barche propositioned the teen for sex during his conversations with the teen.

There is also an unconfirmed report that the teen allegedly sent naked images of herself to Barche during the cell phone communications.

Police first became aware of the relationship when the girl and her mother filed a report with North Port police department and showed them the messages on the teens cell phone.

Barche was arrested at his home and charged with use of a computer service or electronic device to seduce/solicit a child. He was reportedly being held at the Sarasota County Jail.