Wife hid $800k, sues bank for blabbing to husband

Those of you who keep a bank account secret from your partner should take note of this one....

A Great Neck, NY, wife has filed a lawsuit against Chase Bank after an employee told her husband about her personal $800,000 bank account. Nazita Aminpour, 43, a dentist, said her husband, David Shamash, 47, didn’t know about her private stash of cash until a Chase employee cold-called their home to provide investment advice. Her husband answered the phone and the jig was up.

The Long Island dentist is suing Chase bank to recover the more than $150,000 that she says she had to share with her hubby after the bank employee let it slip that she had a huge account balance he didn't know about.

Nazita Aminpour, 43, and her husband, David Shamash, 47, have a joint account at a Chase branch in Kew Gardens, Queens, along with a custodial one for their three children. But Aminpour also had a secret stash account of $800,000 at the branch in her name only, according to a suit filed last week in Queens Supreme Court.

A bank employee trying to be helpful spilled the beans to Shamash by cold-calling him and telling him he should take his small fortune out of the low-interest account and make other investments with Chase, the suit alleges.

Shamash said he knew nothing about the money.

"Shamash then began harassing [Aminpour], asking for money from the funds that he can invest in the stock market and to cover a margin call he had on his stock account," the wife's suit says.

Shamash began "alienating" Aminpour, so she forked over $155,000 "to save her marriage and restore order in the marital home," the suit says.

She says the bank placed her in a "situation of duress."

She also claims in the suit that the bank violated federal privacy laws that "prohibit the disclosure of non-public, personal information."

Aminpour wants Chase to cover her loss and shell out for her lawyers' fees.

A recent bank statement submitted with the court papers shows her with a balance of more than $1 million -- 25 percent higher than in March last year, when her husband had his hand out.

Chase Bank is declining to comment because the matter is currently under litigation.

Vatican's P.R. strategy against 'Angels and Demons' is to not have one

Controversy, if nothing else, sells newspapers and movie tickets and creates cash... lots of it!

It worked with Ron Howard's first film adaptation of a Dan Brown novel, 2006's "The Da Vinci Code," and Hollywood is hoping it will work again for their second collaboration, "Angels and Demons," which is set to open nationwide on May 15.

Howard recently stoked the fires with a terse op-ed in the Huffington Post, responding to calls for a boycott of the film by Catholic League President Bill Donohue.

''Let me be clear: neither I nor 'Angels & Demons' are anti-Catholic," Howard wrote. "And let me be a little controversial: I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church, will enjoy the movie for what it is: an exciting mystery, set in the awe-inspiring beauty of Rome."

Maybe, maybe not. But either way, in Round 2 of the battles with Brown, many church leaders are taking a new approach by trying to ignore the new film, hoping that the less attention they give it, the quicker it will go away.

''Be careful not to play their game," a top Vatican official, Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, said in the Italian newspaper La Stampa on March 20. "Dramatizing the question unintentionally gives publicity."

The Rev. John Wauck, a priest in the controversial Opus Dei movement that was a target in "The Da Vinci Code," agreed.

''Some people have called for a boycott but no one at the Vatican is speaking in those terms," said Wauck, who teaches communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. "And I don't think there's any need to boycott this movie ? particularly after the scathing reviews that 'The Da Vinci Code' received."

Ouch!!

It's no secret that there's no love lost between Dan Brown, Ron Howard, and the Catholic Church after the runaway success of "The Da Vinci Code," which centered on a church cover-up of a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

This time around, Howard's team had to build a small-scale replica of St. Peter's Square after church officials denied his request to film in the plaza.

''We were scheduled to film in particular locations all over Rome, with the Vatican and other churches in the background," Howard told reporters during a recent media blitz. "Three days before we were to begin filming, we were told, (there) was a meeting between the film commission and some Vatican officials and in the wake of that, our permits were rescinded."

Howard said he filmed in some of the locations anyway, using "guerrilla" tactics of hidden cameras and lightening-fast takes.

Although the film starts at a real-life residential science community in Switzerland, most of the action happens in Rome. Symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is called in to investigate the murder of a scientist-priest. Clues lead him and a beautiful scientist, Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), to Rome and a nefarious secret brotherhood called the Illuminati.

The Illuminati have kidnapped four cardinals during the conclave to elect a new pope, and kill them in creative and symbolic ways, giving Langdon one day to decipher the clues, to save the cardinals and to stop a catastrophic plot to destroy the Vatican.

The end result is like the TV show "24," only with a host of clerical collars and cardinal's crimson.

Howard admitted he took "a lot more creative license" with this adaptation of a Brown thriller, changing both the ending and an assassin, who is Muslim in the book version. They also toned down some of the book's more explicit religious content, trying to make the film version more of a traditional thriller.

One theater trailer, however, claims the church "ordered a brutal massacre" to silence scientists, and another focuses on the "war" between science and religion, a key theme explored in the book.

For now, church leaders say they're not worried ? at least not publicly.

''The truth is I don't think 'The Da Vinci Code' or 'Angels and Demons' is going to do much harm to Christianity," Wauck said. "The real impact has been on tourism. Dan Brown has brought a lot of people to Rome and they come looking for that mixture of history and mystery and religion and art and beauty that I really think is the reason why those books sell."

Did the internet predict Swine Flu before it happened??

Weeks before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization alerted the public to a growing number of swine flu cases, a startup out of Seattle's suburbs already had a hunch something was up.

Veratect Inc., a 2-year-old company with fewer than 50 employees, combines computer algorithms with human analysts to monitor online and off-line sources for hints of disease outbreaks and civil unrest worldwide. It tracks thousands of "events" each month - an odd case of respiratory illness, or a run on over-the-counter medicines, for example - then ranks them for severity and posts them on a subscription-only Web portal for clients who want early warnings.

The idea fueling Veratect and similar companies is that blogs, online chat rooms, Twitter feeds and news media and government Web sites are full of data that public health agencies could use to respond faster to problems like outbreaks of swine flu.

Veratect attracted attention in recent days by publicly posting a timeline of the outbreak and publishing short reports on there Twitter page, where more than 4,000 people signed up to receive updates.

But skeptics question whether these companies can reliably detect meaningful signals from all the noise online or whether they are mainly good at spotting patterns in hindsight. Complicating the picture, the companies are reluctant to disclose their sources and methods.

Veratect's chief executive, Robert Hart, says the company alerted clients to a potentially severe outbreak before the general public learned of swine flu. Veratect's computer systems, which troll the Web for reports that seem out of the ordinary, unearthed clues, and a team of about 30 analysts, many of them multilingual holders of public health degrees, chased down the ones that seemed most alarming.

Veratect says it posted a report to clients on April 6 describing an unusual number of respiratory illnesses in the Mexican state of Veracruz, then sent an e-mail on April 16 to the Centers for Disease Control pointing to an outbreak of atypical pneumonia in Oaxaca state, after officials there issued an alert.

A key clue came in Mexican media reports on April 6 indicating a Veracruz community called La Gloria - now considered a swine flu hot spot - was starting to point fingers. Local residents blamed waste from a nearby pig breeding farm for the respiratory illness, while health officials pinned it on a fly.

"Playing the blame game is one of those indicators" that something unusual is going on, said Dr. James Wilson, Veratect's chief scientist. When the company posted the La Gloria information, it treated the incident as a matter of "moderate severity."

To be sure, not everything Veratect turned up was related to the outbreak. Veratect told its clients of a Canadian lawyer hospitalized in late March after a trip to Mexico, but on Tuesday the company said he has since tested negative for swine flu.

Even with the flaws, clients like World Vision, the large Christian humanitarian organization based in Federal Way, Wash., pay Veratect for its intelligence.

Recently, World Vision shifted resources - water purification tablets and education staffers - to areas Veratect thinks might see cholera outbreaks, said Brian Carlson, the head of technology for World Vision's global relief efforts.

A 10-year-old Veratect rival, Annapolis, Md.-based iJet Intelligent Risk Systems, also tracks Web reports and uses analysts to interpret the data. Marty Pfinsgraff, iJet's chief operating officer, said it monitors emerging health risks, civil unrest and issues such as telecommunications outages. He said iJet advised clients to cancel unnecessary travel to Mexico and to activate pandemic plans last Friday, before health officials weighed in. Pfinsgraff said the CDC is among iJet's paying clients.

Other efforts focus more narrowly on disease. ProMed, a system designed by the Federation of American Scientists, lets human, animal and plant specialists share infectious disease information. A site called HealthMap compiles data from ProMed, the CDC, the World Health Organization and other sources. A volunteer-built site called FluWiki has tracked bird flu since 2005, and last year Google Inc. launched Flu Trends, which gauges U.S. flu conditions based on increases in flu-themed Web searches.

Specialists in disease outbreaks acknowledge that unscientific, community-level information can be valuable. For example, when a parasite slipped through Milwaukee's water treatment system in 1993, the first sign of trouble came in reports to city health officials that drugstores were selling out of diarrhea medicines.

But some public health experts say it's not possible to draw firm conclusions from online tools or reports from companies like Veratect.

"They are considered interesting, unofficial, instructive, imaginative, and then I would go back and emphasize unofficial," said Dr. William Schaffner, a public health expert at Vanderbilt University and a spokesman for the Infectious Disease Society of America.

Dr. Scott Dowell, who heads the CDC's international swine flu team, said the agency looks at reports from Veratect and other companies in the course of monitoring outbreaks around the world. Veratect is often useful, Dowell said, and can be very sensitive to emerging threats.

"It also generates a lot of noise," he said.

Others add that it's risky to act on early signals. Without positive lab tests, reports of new cases are unreliable, in part because mystery illnesses prompt uninfected people to think they have the symptoms.

Even now, when some of Veratect's findings appear to be bearing fruit, the focus on La Gloria as a disease epicenter may turn out to be off-base.

Dr. Philip Brachman, an Emory University professor who for years led the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service, said the scapegoating of the pig farm Veratect detected might stem from an existing local grudge.

"The town probably doesn't like the pig farm," Brachman said, "because of the odor."

Move Over, Craigslist: Twitter Gets Prostitution Ads!

from the didn't-see-this-coming dept....

Craigslist has been catching a lot of flack, but Twitter might be next in line for the blame game. A British tabloid discovered that a brothel in England was using the site Twitter to advertise its services, and got a quote from a member of parliament labeling it "cynical and inappropriate".

It's hard to imagine that this is the only business of its sort using Twitter to stay in touch with its customers, and it just goes to show that whatever media emerge -- from printed flyers to web sites to social-networking sites -- they'll be used to promote any sort of business, including sex-based ones.

The brothel's response to the newspaper article is pretty amusing, though: a Twitter coupon, using the paper's name as the discount code. In the meantime, expect to see law enforcement officials start attacking Twitter for "enabling prostitution" in 3... 2... 1....

Vancouver street racer deported to India

A driver who killed a woman during a Vancouver street race in 2000 has been deported to India, a spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency said Wednesday.

Sukhvir Singh Khosa was ordered deported from Canada to India in April 2003 after he was convicted of criminal negligence causing the death of Irene Thorpe, 51, who he struck and killed in November 2000.

Khosa, a permanent resident who immigrated to Canada in 1996 at age 14 with his family, fought to stay on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and filed a series of appeals. A Federal Court of Appeal decision allowed him to stay in the country, but the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the original deportation order last month.

Faith St. John, a CBSA spokeswoman in B.C., said Khosa boarded a plane and left Vancouver on Tuesday.

Bahadur Singh Bhalru, the co-accused in the street-racing death, was deported four years ago after being convicted of criminal negligence causing death.

Both Khosa and Bhalru received conditional sentences of two years less a day with house arrest, community service and a five-year driving ban.

In November 2000, Khosa was racing his car at more than 120 kilometres an hour in a 50 km/h zone when he lost control and slammed into Thorpe as she was out on an evening walk on a sidewalk along Marine Drive in south Vancouver.

He fought to stay on "compassionate and humanitarian grounds?" what grounds would he basing that on exactly? personally, I think that is used WAY too much in deportation cases, like COME ON buddy! that along with house arrests, community service I think are handed down as sentences way too often by our justice system here, a 5 year driving ban? that's it? all of that is a slap on the wrist considering he killed someone, and for what? a stupid street race, the street aren't meant for racing, that's why race tracks are built (hence the term "race tracks"????) both of these guys (Sukhvir Singh Khosa was 18 in 2001 and Bahadur Singh Balru was 21) were old enough to know better then to wrecklessly race around city streets, they weren't kids that "didn't know any better" .

Sending him simply back home to India I feel is the easy way out (HE KILLED SOMEONE!!!!) being east indian myself (although yes, admittedly, I've never personally been to India) What's he going to get there? he gets to go home once he's off the plane, go hang out with friends (from how I hear it, life in india, especially if you have some money, which he probably does, at least a little, and a semi decent job you're pretty well set there...the kicker? the job will probably be, working for a company, in Canada, that hires workers in India!!) What should have happened is a deal of some sort worked out with his country (India) if they were going to send him back there, for him to serve time in there prison system for a few years, I hear there prison system isn't the slap on the wrist system we have here, it would have taught him the lesson I feel he hasn't learned yet, because at his age (come on, he's still young) out with buddies, doing whatever, if a lesson isn't pounded into you yet, you're more then likely to make a stupid mistake again, the streets of India are much worse, a hell of a lot busier, where you're sharing the road with buses, rickshaws (not sure I spelt that right) cars, bicycyles, motorcyles, trucks, cows, sheeps, buffalos, people, and whatever the heck else... the rules are a lot more relaxed as well, more like a kill or be killed atmosphere, make it from point A to point B and hope you don't get killed!! can you imagine this guy racing on those streets?

What's worse is, give it a few years for "things to settle down" and this guy will probably try coming back here, show that he's "matured", will probably be let back in, who cares that he took a life his first time around here in Canada... An absolute joke!!

It really makes you wonder how we much value we have for a life in this country! This slapping on the wrist thing needs to end right NOW! THESE INDIVIDUALS TOOK A LIFE! Lock them up in jail for life and throw away the key (or better yet, grind the key up, make a locket out of it, and give it to the family of the person they've killed!)! The Canadian Justice System has moved beyond being a joke, BEYOND!!

Individuals who commit crimes like murder are walking free a few years later after being put on house arrest?! Does this sound right to anyone else?

R.I.P. Geocities

Maybe you’ve already heard by now that, But Yahoo is shutting down Geocities. Yes, the same Geocities it paid $3 billion dollars for a mere 10 years ago for.

Yahoo has shut down the Geocities website. Geocities was a free website service and online community. It was one of the hottest properties on the internet during the late 90s. Yahoo overpaid for the service in 1999, paying a whopping $4.9 BILLION for it in a stock deal.

CNET calls Geocities a "relic of Web's early days." PC World says "So Long, GeoCities: We Forgot You Still Existed."

The Geocities website now contains the following message.

After careful consideration, we have decided to close GeoCities later this year. We'll share more details this summer. For now, please sign in or visit the help center for more information.

Yahoo has also posted a faq about the closing. "Yahoo will be closing Geocities accounts by the end of the year". The faq states, "Later this year we will be closing all GeoCities accounts and web sites. We'll send you more details this summer."

It remains to be seen whether the failure of Geocities is a lesson for today's ultra hot web communities like MySpace and Facebook.

The first thing I thought about when I heard this news was MySpace.

Before you laugh out loud, I’m not talking MySpace the darling amongst teens and music artists today, I’m talking about MySpace 10 years from now. Take a ride in your time machine to the year 2019 because it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if by then MySpace has met the same grim fate. A lot of MySpace pages are nothing more than Geocities type over-busy pages with sound. The major difference is MySpace is more ‘social’ whatever that means.

There will be something cooler than MySpace within the next 10 years and the inevitable shut down will follow. That’s not to say MySpace is a complete waste of time today so don’t think I’m trolling here but I think the sobering news about Geocities being here today gone tomorrow within 10 years – a lifetime on the internet, BTW – should be a wake-up call for MySpace users.

What do you think, am I wrong? Will MySpace have more longevity than Geocities? If you need another example of a waning giant, look at eBay vs. Craigslist. It’s tough staying relevant, popular and cool online. For that matter, what about Facebook? it's not really all that hot as it was back just a few years ago is it? (I still don't get what the big deal is) or for that matter, Twitter, whats THAT all about? will we be reading about these in the cyber obituaries a decade from now? remembering back to what life was like when these "giants" were around?

Thoughts?

Swine Flu Education: Facts vs. Fiction

Unless you've been in a deep (real deep) sleep lately, you're probably well aware of the recent swine flu outbreak. Initially it began in Mexico; however, it has now been confirmed in at least across several States, Canada as well as several countries in South America, Europe and Asia.
Fortunately no individuals infected outside of Mexico have succumbed to the swine flu infection; but it would be naive to assume that such luck will continue. This story is changing by the hour and it is essential that all individuals educate themselves about the facts and myths of swine flu.

But before we get all worked up and run around in frenzied panic, what's really true? what's not?

First of all, IS it Swine Flu? Symptoms must include
- A fever above 100°F or 37.8°C and one or more signs or symptoms including:
- Head and body aches
- cough
- sore throat
- chills
- trouble breathing
- along with vomiting and/or diarrhea.

Swine Flu FACTS

- Swine flu is a respiratory illness caused by a type A influenza virus, usually of the subtype H1N1, that triggers outbreaks in pigs fairly regularly. It can also be transferred from pigs to humans, from humans to pigs, and from humans to other humans.

Four main virus subtypes – H1N1, H1N2, H3N2 and H3N1 – have been isolated in pigs, though the virus, like all influenza viruses, constantly mutates. When influenza viruses from different species infect pigs, the viruses can trade genes to create new versions that mix swine, human and/or avian influenza.

The swine H1N1 virus is not the same as the human H1N1 virus, so vaccines for the latter won't protect from the former.


Can human's catch swine flu? Yes, but it is not all that common. Usually, this happens to people who are in contact with pigs, though there are some documented cases of human-to-human transfer. Human-to-human transmission is believed to occur much like the regular flu, through coughing, sneezing and other contact. Eating pork does not transmit the virus. The symptoms resemble those of the regular flu virus.


Diagnosing swine flu requires a respiratory specimen taken during the first four or five days of infection, to be analyzed in a lab. The virus seems to respond to antiviral drugs, including those Canadian health authorities have been stockpiling in case of a flu pandemic.


The best-known case of swine flu in the past, is a 1976 outbreak at an army barracks in Fort Dix, N.J., which sickened four soldiers and killed one. There have been no previous major outbreaks of swine flu recorded in Canada.

The question a lot of people wonder is, How is swine flu H1N1 virus different from SARS and avian flu H5N1 virus? the answer to that is that all three come from animals, but SARS, a corona virus, and the avian flu are poorly adapted to infecting humans. As a result, it is fairly difficult for humans to catch either virus or pass them on to others, though the effects can prove deadly when infection does occurs.


Swine Flu FICTION

- You can’t get swine flu if you weren’t near pigs.

Even if your only contact with pigs was on the Muppet Show (ahhhh Miss Piggy), you can get swine flu if you’re around someone who has been in contact with pigs. Swine Flu is also an airborne virus, so you can pick it up if an infected person coughs or sneezes. To be clear, human-to-human transmission is generally limited to close contact and closed groups, the WHO says. But, the window is wide: You can catch it from an infected person one day before their symptoms develop and up to seven days – or more – after they become sick, the CDC says.

- Avoiding travel will prevent infection.

While the CDC advises travelers to avoid any unnecessary trips to Mexico until the outbreak is under control, you can still catch it – right in your own back yard! If a neighbor, colleague or classmate traveled to Mexico and was infected, you could be infected after having contact with that person. Both the CDC and WHO advise doing as your mother told you: Wash your hands in hot, soapy water, stop touching your face, and cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you sneeze. Plus, get your rest, eat well and drink plenty of water to stay healthy. When you’re run down, that’s when you’re more susceptible to any flu virus.

- Wearing a face mask is ridiculous.

Since swine flu is an air-born virus, it can help decrease your chances of contracting the virus if you wear a face mask. Currently, the CDC is only recommending that people in contact with a sick person wear the mask. They advise that the mask be N-95 to keep out small, infectious particles. But, it’s important to know that the mask isn’t a 100-percent guarantee, so you should still do what your mother told you and wash your hands, cover your mouth … (See above. Or just call your mom and ask, she'll tell you.)

- You can get swine flu from eating pork, bacon or other pig products.

Memories of sick Thai picnickers are still fresh in many people’s minds from the bird-flu outbreak, so many people assume that with swine flu, you can catch it from eating pig products. Not true, say both the WHO and CDC:

“Swine influenza has not been shown to be transmissible to people through eating properly handled and prepared pork (pig meat) or other products derived from pigs. The swine influenza virus is killed by cooking temperatures of 160°F/70°C corresponding to the general guidance for the preparation of pork and other meat,” the WHO reports on its Web site.

Official who OK'd N.Y. flyby accused of 'felony stupidity'

After a YouTube video showed panicked New Yorkers scrambling as a Boeing 747 flew frighteningly close to the lower Manhattan skyline, a former Homeland Security adviser questioned whether the man who approved the flyby should remain in his White House office.

Fran Townsend, who advised President George W. Bush for more than three years, labeled the decision as "crass insensitivity" in the wake of 9/11.

"I'd call this felony stupidity. This is probably not the right job for Mr. Caldera to be in if he didn't understand the likely reaction of New Yorkers, of the mayor," Townsend said Tuesday on CNN's show "American Morning."

Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, quickly apologized for Monday's incident after the planes prompted workers and residents to evacuate buildings in New York and New Jersey.
"Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision," Caldera said. "While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it's clear that the mission created confusion and disruption."

The Federal Aviation Administration said the aircraft, which functions as Air Force One when the president is aboard, was taking part in a classified, government-sanctioned photo shoot.

An angry Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it "defies the imagination" that an agency would schedule the photo shoot so near the site of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.

President Obama also reportedly expressed outrage. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said the FAA's decision to not announce the fly-by "borders on being either cruel or very, very stupid."

Witnesses reported seeing the plane circle over the Upper New York Bay near the Statue of Liberty before flying up the Hudson River.

The YouTube video shows dozens of people standing in a parking lot, watching the plane approach. As it nears, they begin to run. Someone unleashes an expletive. "Run, run!" says one person. "Oh my God," cries another.

Two officials said the White House Military Office was trying to update its file photos of Air Force One. The officials said the president was angry when he learned Monday afternoon about the flight.

"The president was furious about it," one of the officials said.

On Tuesday, President Obama told reporters, "It was a mistake. It was something we found out about along with all of you. And it will not happen again."

Bloomberg said he, too, was perturbed.

"I'm annoyed -- furious is a better word -- that I wasn't told," he said, calling the FAA's decision to withhold details about the flight "ridiculous" and "poor judgment."

"Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo op right around the site of the World Trade Center defies the imagination," he said. "Had we known, I would have asked them not to."

Linda Garcia-Rose, a social worker who counsels post-traumatic stress disorder patients in an office three blocks from where the World Trade Center stood, called the flight an "absolute travesty."

"There was no warning. It looked like the plane was about to come into us," she said. "I'm a therapist, and I actually had a panic attack."

Garcia-Rose, who works with nearly two dozen patients ages 15 to 47, said she was inundated with phone calls from patients.

"They're traumatized. They're asking 'How could this happen?' They're nervous. Their anxiety levels are high," she said.

Garcia-Rose said she is considering filing a class-action suit against the government for sanctioning the plane's unannounced flight.

"I believe the government has done something really wrong," she said.

Capt. Anna Carpenter of Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland said local law enforcement agencies and the FAA had been given notice of the exercise.

New York Police Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne said the department had been alerted about the flight "with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it."

Here is a Youtube video of the plane flying low over New York

To fly a plane, this close over the general public, is just plain stupid, this was done as a photo opportunity to "update photos of air force one"?? are you kidding me? this couldn't be done in the air over some air force base away from civilian population? a photograph of a plane in the air is a photograph of a plane in the air regardless of where it is, isn't it?

Thoughts??

Phony degrees catch up to buyers

Marie Theriault-Sabourin is a manager in the registrar's office at Algonquin College in Ottawa. She has a master's degree in business administration.

Quami Frederick used her bachelor's degree to get into Toronto's Osgoode Hall law school and was offered a job articling with a Bay St. law firm.

Armed with his Ph.D in political science, police tactical trainer Augustus Michalik counts various Canadian and U.S. law enforcement agencies as his clients.

The only problem is.... their university degrees are fake.

They are among at least 220 Canadians with bogus academic credentials uncovered in a recent probe. Worldwide, fake degrees are a billion dollar industry, even threatening government security, investigators say.

Last week, an undercover Toronto Star investigation exposed Peng Sun, a York University grad who forges university degrees from real Canadian universities for $4,000. Sun's client list was not available, but the Star obtained a list of Canadians who bought fake degrees from an American diploma mill busted three years ago by the U.S. Secret Service and Homeland Security.

St. Regis University, which granted degrees under various names, was a complete fake! Canadians on its "buyers list" gave the Star one of three explanations: some admitted the degrees were bogus, some claimed they submitted course work (but did not provide proof to the Star investigation), and others thought they were awarded real degrees for life experiences.

"I don't want my name in (the story)," said Theriault-Sabourin, who is the manager of scheduling in the registrar's office at Algonquin, a 16,000-student college in Ottawa. She said she now understands the master's degree she purchased in 2000 for $1,350 is bogus.

Her husband, Leo, bought two, a bachelor's degree in business and an MBA in marketing. The couple have a turbulent financial past and it's unclear what role the fake degrees played. Leo was found guilty in an Ottawa court of tax evasion and fraud last May for evading almost $5 million in income taxes he prepared for dozens of clients, mainly chiropractors.

Marie declared bankruptcy earlier this year with more than $680,000 in debts and Leo declared bankruptcy in 2002, owing $483,000 (Leo was discharged from bankruptcy, and Marie's more recent bankruptcy is facing a court hearing).

"I never used it, and never will use it," Marie said of her degree, which she obtained just before she began her duties at Algonquin. Her husband, who is awaiting sentencing, could not be reached for comment by reporters.

Responsibilities of the registrar's office at Algonquin include authenticating degrees from other educational facilities. A college spokesman would not comment.

The couple's degrees came from a Washington State diploma mill. Eight ringleaders pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud charges. They set up 120 fake schools with names like St. Regis University and James Monroe University. There were no courses or classes.

The head administrator of St. Regis University was a high school dropout.

The gang raked in more than $7 million in sales to 131 countries. It sold everything from high school diplomas to PhDs and medical degrees. Dozens of U.S. government employees are on the list, including a White House staff member, National Security Agency employees, a senior State Department official, and a Department of Justice employee.

Tens of thousands of people are walking around with "ticking time bombs in their resumes," says Allen Ezell, a former FBI agent who has spent a big chunk of his career investigating diploma mills.

This week, Quami Frederick's blew up on her.

A third-year Osgoode Hall Law School student, Frederick, 28, is on the list as having paid $1,109 for a "B.A." in Business Administration, plus a transcript of marks. Using the degree transcript, Frederick got into Osgoode as one of 290 students selected from 2,500 applicants in 2006.

Contacted by the Star several weeks ago, Frederick initially denied everything, suggesting she might be the victim of identity fraud.

"I'm not worried because I never bought any degree from any university," said Frederick, who expected to graduate next year and has a job lined up with Wildeboer and Dellelce, LLP. The law firm noted her degree on its website, welcoming her aboard as an articling student.

This week, after much soul searching, Frederick changed her story.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lied to you," Frederick said. "I should've levelled with you. I figured you'd call the university and they wouldn't tell you anything and that would be the end of it."

The change of heart came after the Star found she never attended St. George's University in Grenada, from where she claimed to have an undergraduate degree. Frederick's case is different from others. St. George's is a real university and it appears the degree mill forged documents from there.

Frederick now says "the truth" is she spent $8,000 for a six-month, "fast-track" online business degree in 2004. School spokesperson Lisa O'Connor said St. George's does not offer this type of online course.

"Her degree is completely bogus," said O'Connor, noting the fake transcript shows Frederick spent four years at the school and made the Dean's honour list with a near perfect 3.93 grade point average. "No one by the name of Quami Frederick has ever been a student at our school."

Frederick told the Star this week that the associate dean of Osgoode Hall Law School at York University has launched an investigation into "a potential breach of academic honesty" and she may be expelled. A York spokesperson said they have a department that verifies applicant's credentials, but would not comment on Frederick's case. The law firm removed her name from its website yesterday and is investigating.

The St. Regis degree mill was shut down in August 2005 after a Secret Service agent, posing as a retired Syrian army weapons specialist, applied for three degrees, saying he needed them urgently to stay in the United States.

The only requirement St. Regis made of this potential terrorist was whether he would be paying with Visa, MasterCard or American Express. Two weeks and $1,277 later, the fictional Mohammed Syed got his degrees in chemistry and environmental engineering, based on his "life experience."

Seeing St. Regis as a threat to national security, a task force comprised of eight federal agencies moved quickly. In six years of operation, St. Regis had spread its tentacles around the globe ensnaring clients across Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Asia.

Operators used email to spam potential customers with tempting offers that included, "buy one degree at full price, get a second free."

Wayne Victor Cook bought two.

A former provincial and municipal candidate in Ontario, Cook claims his public affairs company Wayne Cook Public Affairs Consulting confers with the president of the United States at the White House. He also claims on his website that he played a key role in getting John Tory elected as leader of the Ontario Conservative Party.

Listing numerous blue chip companies and Ontario universities as employers and clients on his curriculum vitae, Cook also claimed to have an Executive MBA from the very real Heriot-Watts University in Edinburgh, Scotland.

He does not.

What he does have is two bogus degrees, an MBA and a Ph.D., purchased from the St. Regis diploma mill in 2004.

Cook, who ran for the Ontario Liberals in Beaches-Woodbine in 1981 and Toronto City Council in 1997, losing both times, paid $1,133 for a Ph.D. and an MBA in Human Resources Management.

Just hours after being contacted by the Star, Cook's online bios underwent radical changes. His Executive MBA from Heriot-Watts is now "expected" in 2010. All references to his MBA and PhD were deleted.

"I don't have an interest, and really don't have any comments for you," Cook replied when asked to explain the vanishing degrees.

A spokesperson for John Tory denied Cook played any role in his election as leader.

Design engineer Terry A. Hrushka is so proud of his three degrees from St. Regis that he's posted them on his website – a Bachelor of Science in Natural Physics in 1992, a Master of Applied Science in 1994, and a Doctorate in Process Physics in 1996.

The problem is St. Regis University, which falsely claimed it was accredited by the government of Liberia, didn't issue any degrees, bogus as they were, until 1999. What they did do was graduate any student with a credit card on any date they wanted.

"What you have written to me has devastated my life," Hrushka said in an email to the Star, responding to written questions. Hrushka said he thought his degrees were real. "I have now wasted six years of my life and just over $50,000 U.S."

"I wish I had the records to prove all this," Hrushka wrote, claiming he took correspondence courses from St. Regis. "But unfortunately they were lost over time as I moved around a great deal."

Martial arts expert Augustus Robert Michalik counts the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the U.S. Navy Seals, CIA agents and police officers from across Ontario as students of his Police Tactical Training and Black Arts courses he has taught for years.

Proudly posted on his website are certificates of achievement including one issued to "Dr. Augustus Michalik, PhD", by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research for courses in Global Terrorism.

Author of several books, including The Knife Fighting Anti-terrorist Handbook, Michalik purchased his degree in "Political Science" for $1,340 in 2003, and paid for it with a credit card, according to the information compiled by the U.S Justice Department.

"You've got the wrong guy," Michalik said when reached on his cell phone at his base in London, Ont., saying he had just returned from a consulting job in the Philippines. "That's not me."

His Ph.D. is in " political philosophy dealing with terrorism," Michalik said, but refused to name the university. "If you want, you can talk to my lawyer," Michalik said, then hung up.

Days later, all references to his Ph.D. disappeared from the website of Homeland Security Inc. where Michalik is the CEO. The Star was unable to determine which officers from the RCMP or other forces Michalik has trained.

One degree recipient, Dr. Anthony Alsayed, says he has instructed his lawyer to sue the people behind St. Regis in an attempt to clear his name.

A Lebanese-born Canadian with a medical degree from People's Friendship University in Moscow, Alsayed admits he made a mistake in trying to piggyback a PhD from St. Regis on to his medical degree from Russia.

"I'm a victim in this. It's not as if I'm a plumber who was looking for a PhD in education," Alsayed, said in an interview at his Mississauga home. "I have my MD. I'm a real doctor."

His medical degree is recognized in Canada, Alsayed said, but he is not licensed to practice as a physician. Until recently he ran a company that prepped students to take their medical exams.

Alsayed showed the Star a receipt for $1,659 for his PhD in "Medical and Health Care Education." He also paid $650 to a U.S. degree certification company that checked out St. Regis and told Alsayed his degree was issued by a bona fide university accredited by Liberia. What Alsayed did not know was that the St. Regis scam artists had fooled everyone, creating a website purporting to be that of the Liberian government, which heaped praise on St. Regis as a great university.

To add insult to injury, St. Regis took the marks Alsayed got from his medical courses in Russia, and lowered them in the transcripts they sold to him. When he protested, they sent him an email saying a PhD in "Medical Management" from St. Regis was a very tough degree to earn.

"My wife says I'm naïve," Alsayed said of how he fell for the scam. "I thought this was the way they did things in North America."

Teacher Kin-Yau "Kenny" Wong has a real master's in business from the University of Toronto, then went and endangered his career by adding a bogus Ph.D. from Belford University to his academic record.

"I tried to use it at my school, but later on I found out that was wrong," Wong said. "I can frankly say I did not use it for any financial gain," said Wong, who paid $1,540 for the bogus Ph.D. in education.

"I admit I did something wrong," Wong said. "I just tried to satisfy my own ego."

Bogus degrees are a billion-dollar-a-year industry, says former FBI agent Ezell, who has spent most of his career investigating the sale of counterfeit and bogus college credentials and is now vice-president for corporate fraud investigation for Wachovia Bank.

Ezell, who headed the massive FBI investigation in the late 1980s, estimates there are 400 Internet diploma mills spewing out 200,000 bogus diplomas a year. More than 85 per cent are located in the U.S.

The fallout from the St. Regis bust is just now being felt across America.

Fourteen New York firefighters were fined more than $135,000 after they submitted bogus degrees from St. Regis in attempts to gain promotions. Six Chicago-area police officers also purchased bogus degrees. One cop even submitted his "tuition" from St. Regis for reimbursement from the department.

His superior, who signed off on the expense, had also obtained a bogus degree from the same diploma mill.

Should schools ban starter's pistol?

They don't fire any bullets, but deadly symbolism triggers call to keep them out of high school track meets

The starter's pistol is under the gun, facing a growing clamour to end its use at local high school track and field meets.

The movement to ban the gun because of its deadly symbolism includes someone who literally has pulled the trigger to start foot races for thousands of high school athletes across Ontario.

"We don't need people standing around with (pistols) – those days are done," said Brian Keaveney, a former teacher and an internationally ranked starter who has his own pistol.

Having guns in and around schools is bad optics, he added.

Keaveney has been joined in the call for the starter gun ban by some officials from the Toronto District School Board and Athletics Ontario, among others.

The push for a change comes almost two years after the May 2007 shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners at Toronto's C.W. Jefferys high school.

A probe into school safety after the Grade 10 student's death raised troubling questions about safety levels in GTA schools and the threat of weapons on school property.

Starter pistols fire blanks, make lots of noise and set off a spark that triggers electronic timers.

Ontario Provincial Police say they have had no complaints about starter pistols, which are not prohibited weapons.

They are, however, regarded as firearms if they have been modified to fire bullets.

Keaveney is confident technology will supply suitable alternatives – without the appearance of a weapon – though he admits it may be costly and take three to five years to implement.

Starter pistols have been used for decades at track meets throughout the GTA, long before athletic associations and school boards changed from timing races by hand to electronics.

Track and field officials have looked at a gadget that sounds like a horn and has a sensor on the starter's wristband, which sets off the electronic timers.

Cap guns have also been used. Caps are cheaper than shells, but can misfire under wet conditions.

"Right now, other options to the starter pistol are expensive," said Chris Deighan, a teacher and convenor of the Cardinal Carter Track Classic, being held this week at York University.

"Athletes, particularly those in outside lanes, could also be at a disadvantage. With the noise from a pistol, kids react to the bang."

Chick Kennedy, athletic director of the Toronto District School Board, said elementary school meets changed to a horn from the pistol two years ago.

"The perception of guns with little kids didn't go well, so we were asked to change it," said Kennedy, who confirmed the board is in control of a dozen starter pistols.

"We need an alternative, but I believe the track and field sport governing body needs to make the initial change and, when they do, I am sure they won't get an argument."

Roman Olszewski, director of technical services for Athletics Ontario, believes a change is necessary and figures a creative manufacturer might come up with a good option.

"We shouldn't have a person with a gun, even though it fires blanks, near school children," he said.

"At the World Youth championships five years ago in Sherbrooke, they used a horn that sounded like it was someone smashing the tops of two metal garbage cans. It was terrible."

Chris Reid, convenor for the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations track and field finals in June at the University of Toronto's Varsity Centre, said he's not impressed with the alternatives he's seen so far.

"The bang from a gun is distinctive, but I can understand a need for change – we just have to come up with something with sound that works, and that could take three to five years," said Reid.

Neil McNeil High School sprinter Dushane Farrier is upset with the thought of replacing the pistol.

"That's a huge step backwards," said Farrier, a medallist in the 100 metres at the provincial school finals last year. "We grew up running at the sound of those things. We're trained to hear the gun go off, then we explode."

"I understand people are antsy about guns, but if it's all right to use them at the Olympics, it should be fine at our meets, too."

Thoughts?

Keanu Reeves disses Canada

AAAAAND The LEAST likely to host the Juno awards issssssss.....

Nevermind that Keanu Reeves was born in Lebanon to a British mother and a half-Hawaiian, half-Chinese father. He is a Canadian, and proud of it...... Isn't he?
The 45-year-old was asked by Vogue Homme International why he keeps his Canadian citizenship. Sorry to break it to you true north but he didn't exactly stand on guard for thee.

"I sometimes wonder," he says. "I've even regretted not having American citizenship, especially at election times." But the Toronto-raised action star isn't going full Yank yet. "Ideally, I would take out dual nationality," he says. In case of intergalactic warfare, called dibs!

The Choking Game: A deadly fad

A deadly game Spread by YouTube, This deadly fad killed Kevin Tork, 15: ‘We have to stop this’

It goes by many names, including “the good kids’ game,” because it’s a way for kids who never drink or do drugs to get high.

It’s also a way for them to end up dead.

Ken and Kathy Tork know that now. Their son Kevin was a good kid — a bright and generous 15-year-old who seemed to have everything going for him. But the boy played what is most commonly called the “choking game” — a fad among teenagers that experts say could more accurately be called “suffocation roulette” — and he lost. Kevin was discovered unconscious in his room by his 11-year-old sister.

“You think the kid’s happy, always has a smile on his face, so you’re not really red-flagged for this until it [happens],” Kathy Tork told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Friday in New York. She had come to the studio along with her husband and daughter to warn other parents of the dangers of a deadly game that is learned at parties and camps and on YouTube, and which is claiming the lives of kids as young as 9 or 10.

“I would never guess he was doing anything like this,” she added.

Man on a mission
Kevin Tork died on March 30. What made it even more painful for his parents was that Ken Tork had seen a televised report on a young person who died playing the game and talked with his son about it. He told Kevin to promise he would never engage in anything so dangerous, and Kevin promised.

Ken Tork told Vieira he didn’t know how he would be able to go on after his son died. While praying for guidance, he said, he felt his son speaking to him.

“He reached into my heart. He pulled pieces of my heart together when I felt I couldn’t go on,” he told Vieira, adding that his son then gave him a mission: “There are other kids doing this. We have to stop this, and it’s up to you.”

If he could do it again, Ken Tork said, he would have made sure his son couldn’t access YouTube, where many videos are posted showing kids playing the game and giving instructions on how to do it.

“I didn’t go on YouTube to see what he was seeing. I didn’t know,” the father said. He then offered advice to other parents: “Restrict YouTube. Go in right now and password-protect it. Learn the code words for this game. Make it as difficult as you can for these kids to get to these Web sites. They’re showing them exactly how to do it.”

A Deadly game with many names
Among the many code names for the game are the American Dream, airplaning, black hole, black-out game, California choke, cloud nine, dream game, fainting game, flatlining, funky chicken, gasp game, knock-out game, pass-out game, purple dragon, purple hazing, the scarf game, something dreaming game, space cowboy, space monkey, suffocation roulette, and the tingling game.

There are no hard statistics on how many lives have been lost to the game, which experts say is played primarily by tweens and teens up to the age of 16. Deaths, which typically result from kids tying something around their necks and often hanging from a bedpost or clothing rod, may look like suicides, and public health researchers have a hard time sorting out choking-game deaths from suicides and suffocation deaths associated with autoeroticism.

But the federal Centers for Disease Control has identified at least 82 choking-game deaths in the United States from 1995 to 2007. The Web site ChokingGame.net, which attempts to educate parents about the activity, claims that more than 400 kids have died playing the game.

Although kids describe the sensations associated with being choked to unconsciousness as a “high,” that’s really misleading, said.Dr. Thomas Andrew, New Hampshire’s chief medical examiner. Andrew joined Vieira and the Torks to discuss warning signs parents should look for.

What kids call a high is really the light headedness they experience as blood flow and oxygen to the brain are cut off and they pass out. When they regain consciousness, there’s the sensation of a sudden rush of blood back into the brain.

“They get two sensations for one activity,” Andrew explained.

The game is practiced at sleepovers, scout camps and even church camps. After doing it with others, kids may pursue the sensations the game produces by themselves at home.

Andrew listed a number of warning signs parents should look for, including marks, bruises and abrasions on a child’s neck. Also, choking causes tiny blood spots to appear on the eyes and face. Parents should also look for such things as a necktie looped around a bedpost, a dog collar with a leash or a bent clothing rod in the child’s closet — the result of hanging from it.

They should also be alert for a sudden decline in academic performance. Kids who play the game alone may demand long periods of privacy in their rooms. When they come out, they may be slow to react or have slurred speech. Complaints of headaches are also a warning sign.

Ken Tork has started a blog to warn other parents about the perils of the choking game.

“He was the perfect son in every way,” he writes on the blog. “He was happy and fun-loving and caring. He would be the first to jump in without being asked and help where needed. He loved his family fiercely. He loved to laugh and make others laugh. He was in several plays in school, he loved music, basketball, writing poetry and stories. He loved making swords and models and he was the most honest young man there has ever been. He truly was perfect in every way.”

Now Kevin is gone. Ken Tork doesn’t want anyone else to have to go through such a horrible loss. And so he repeated to Vieira and everyone watching: “They’re going to learn by watching on YouTube. Block YouTube. Block access to it.”

He said he will continue hammering on that until everyone is aware of the deadly game. “I’m not stopping till it’s done,” he said.

$62,000 For Downloading Wall-E

$62,000 to download a movie? That's what happened to a caller named Alberto, who told his data roaming tale of woe on the air to HLN "money expert" Clark Howard on CNN. Alberto made the grave mistake of downloading Wall-E for his nephew while vacationing in Mexico over his data card and was slapped with a $62,000 bill from his wireless carrier when he returned home. Alberto tried to contest the charge and the carrier reduced the bill to $17,000, arguing that the five-figure charge was what it cost them to deliver the movie.

Needless to say, both Alberto and Howard were completely incredulous that a simple movie download would generate such an impressive data bill. Indeed, $62,000—or $17,000—is pretty daunting for a 98 minute animated movie about an robot. However, it's pretty clear that Alberto made a rookie mistake after he purchased the data card for his laptop that could have been easily avoided. Instead, he inadvertently joined the legions of other mobile users who failed to pay attention to the fine print before traveling.

Stories of users receiving unexpectedly huge bills after using their phones and data cards are easy to find on the web. In fact, there's even a class-action lawsuit brewing over an iPhone owner's receiving a $2,000 bill after roaming in Mexico (hey, $2,000 is nothing compared to $17,000). Whether or not it's fair for carriers to charge these outrageous fees is up for debate—the carriers insist that the roaming charges overseas are extravagant and that they are just passing along the fees to their customers.

However, all major carriers offer international roaming plans that users can set up on their accounts before they get on a plane that can apply to both voice and data use. T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint all have web pages that describe the rates, and some even offer packaged plans for regular jet setters. Making sure your account is set up for international roaming can help save you from headaches and massive bills with minimal planning ahead of time. Then again, those who get slapped with $62,000 in international data charges—and find themselves shocked—may not be the type to "plan ahead of time."

Pregnant woman chased by bear, Gets hit by car

Talk about having a bad day. A pregnant woman was not only chased down by a brown bear, but got hit by a car in her attempt to get away.

It happened Thursday morning on a trail in Colorado Springs near woodman road and Vincent Drive.

On the trail, there are warnings about possible flash flooding. But nothing prepared a pregnant Ashley Swendsen for a dangerous encounter with wildlife.

"I heard a rustle. I looked behind me and it was a bear--2 feet away," says Swendsen, who is 6 months pregnant.

The 26-year-old kept on walking, and then noticed the bear was following her.

"I freaked out and start running. It was chasing me for about 20 seconds," she says.

She made it to the street. But her troubles were far from over.

"This lady hit me with her car. She wasn't going that fast. I just rolled off her car," she says.

An elderly woman hit her from behind then took off.

The female bear also took off. Officers later tracked it down about a mile away and tranquilized it near some homes.

"If it is the one and Division of Wildlife policy is any aggressive bears do have to be euthanized," says an unidentified division of wildlife officer.

It turned out to be the bear. Its fate decided, the DOW had no choice but to kill it.

"Bears not afraid of people are the most dangerous because they don't run away," says DOW spokesman Michael Seraphin.

"It's still sad. It spared me and it still has to die," says Swendsen. But she says she'll remember the bear in her own way.

"We're going to name the middle name of our baby, 'bear.'"

Police are looking for the woman who hit Swendsen for possible hit-and-run charges.

She is described as white, in her seventies and was driving a black 4-door sedan, possibly a Mitsubishi. It's unknown if there is any damage to the car.

How Bernie Madoff did it

Madoff is behind bars and isn't talking. But a Fortune Magazine investigation uncovers secrets of his massive swindle.

Since Bernard Madoff was arrested in December and confessed to masterminding a multi-billion Ponzi scheme, countless people have wondered: Who else was involved? Who knew about the fraud? After all, Madoff not only engineered an epic swindle, he insisted to the FBI that he did it all by himself. To date, Madoff has not implicated anybody but himself.

But the contours of the case are changing.

Fortune has learned that Frank DiPascali, the chief lieutenant in Madoff's secretive investment business, is trying to negotiate a plea deal with federal prosecutors. In exchange for a reduced sentence, he would divulge his encyclopedic knowledge of Madoff's scheme. And unlike his boss, DiPascali is willing to name names.

According to a person familiar with the matter, DiPascali has no evidence that other Madoff family members were participants in the fraud. However, he is prepared to testify that he manipulated phony returns on behalf of some key Madoff investors, including Frank Avellino, who used to run a so-called feeder fund, Jeffry Picower, whose foundation had to close as a result of Madoff-related losses, and others.

If, for example, one of these special customers had large gains on other investments, he would tell DiPascali, who would fabricate a loss to reduce the tax bill. If true, that would mean these investors knew their returns were fishy.

Explains the source familiar with the matter: "This is a group of inside investors -- all individuals with very, very high net worths who, hypothetically speaking, received a 20% markup or 25% markup or a 15% loss if they needed it." The investors would tell DiPascali, for example, that their other investments had soared and they needed to find some losses to cut their tax bills. DiPascali would adjust their Madoff results accordingly.

(Gary Woodfield, a lawyer for Avellino, and William Zabel, the attorney for Picower, both declined to comment. Marc Mukasey, DiPascali's laywer, says, "We expect and encourage a thorough investigation.")

Inside the Madoff swindle: Read the full story

These special deals for select Madoff investors have become a key focus for federal prosecutors, according to this source and a second one familiar with the investigation. The second source describes the arrangements as "kickbacks" and "bonuses." A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney declined to comment.

But a little-noticed line in a public filing by the prosecutors in March supports at least part of these sources' account. The document that formally charged Madoff with his crimes asserted that he "promised certain clients annual returns in varying amounts up to at least approximately 46 percent per year." That was quite a boost when most investors were receiving 10% to 15%. It appears to reflect the benefits that accrued to those who helped bring large sums to Madoff.

The emergence of this potential star witness is the best news to surface publicly for the Madoff family since the case began. DiPascali has every incentive to implicate high-profile names to save his skin -- and nobody is more under scrutiny than the Madoffs, many of whom worked for the firm. (Representatives for all of the family members have asserted their innocence.) It should be noted that DiPascali is not in a position to say what the Madoffs knew -- this should not be construed as an exoneration. But the fact that a high-ranking participant in the investment operation is not implicating them is telling.

The DiPascali revelations are part of a special Fortune investigation into the inner workings of Madoff's firm. It chronicles Madoff's rise -- how he started his firm in 1960 with only $200, rose to become a pioneer of electronic trading, and became notorious for his investment operation -- a strange, secretive world supervised by DiPascali.

DiPascali was a 33-year veteran of Madoff's firm. A high school graduate with a Queens accent, he came to work in an incongruously starched version of a slacker's uniform: pressed jeans, a sweatshirt, and pristine white sneakers or boat shoes. He could often be found outside the building, smoking a cigarette.

Nobody was quite sure what he did or what his title was. "He was like a ninja," says a former trader in the legitimate operation upstairs. "Everyone knew he was a big deal, but he was like a shadow."

He may not have looked or acted like a financier, but when customers like the giant feeder fund Fairfield Greenwich came in to talk, DiPascali was usually the only Madoff employee in the room with Bernie. Madoff told the visitors that DiPascali was "primarily responsible" for the investment operation, according to a Fairfield memo.

And now DiPascali may be primarily responsible for taking the ever-surprising Madoff case in yet another unexpected direction

Newspapers about to get tastier?

Wonka-style edible ads -- the future of marketing?

In case you haven’t noticed, newspapers aren’t exactly the place to be right now.

But Old Man Print is one resilient fellow. Even though his battle against the Internet might be more lopsided than a Kimbo Slice street fight, there’s now something the papers can offer you’ll never find online.

The Economist reports newspapers might be getting a shot in the arm by delivering edible ads inside its pages, an homage to Willy Wonka and a creative spin on those cologne/perfume pages you see today in magazines.

Even though you might think First Flavor, the company responsible for bringing this idea to life, sound like a bunch of stoners, their approach to make this the next big thing in advertising actually seems legit.

Their lickable ads, which are produced on edible films, have so far been sent out for Welch’s grape juice, acai-berry juice, lime-spiked rum and baking soda toothpaste in stores, magazines and via direct mail campaigns.

Awful-flavoured cigarette ads were even sent to schools to deter kids from smoking, a move that was likely to spawn the first line of, “Mommy, is this what Courtney Love tastes like?” questions in history.

Now, First Flavour wants to tackle newspapers by stuffing them full of edible ads the way they’ve been with coupons and fliers for years.

The ads would be delivered in sealed pouches and First Flavour wants to see them attached to the front pages of newspapers to accompany corresponding food and drink promotions.

Naturally, papers approached with the idea have been skeptical, but the way the Economist puts it, First Flavour thinks they’re onto something.

They presume “the collapse in newspaper advertising revenue, as a result of the recession and the rise of the Internet, provides an opportunity. Internet advertisements can do all sorts of the things, but so far there is no way to transmit tastes electronically. Edible ads would allow newspapers to offer something the Internet cannot match.”

Sounds fair, at least, yet whether papers will actually go for the pitch is another matter. Though profits in print advertising can’t get much worse, can they?

If this does someday become a reality – and you find yourself making out with your watermelon-flavoured sports page while you walk down the street in 2012 or something – let me offer you one piece of advice.

Please, Watch out for this man!