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BERLIN ? A 90-year-old man convicted last year of killing three Dutch civilians while he was part of a Nazi SS hit squad during World War II has been taken to prison to start serving his life sentence.
Robert Deller, a spokesman for prosecutors in Aachen, said Heinrich Boere was taken by ambulance Wednesday from the old-age home where he lived to a detention facility. He declined to specify the prison's location.
Deller said Thursday a court-appointed expert's report had determined that the wheelchair-bound Boere was fit to serve his sentence and officials found a "suitable" facility.
An Aachen court in March 2010 sentenced Boere to life in prison for the 1944 killings of a bicycle-shop owner, a pharmacist and another civilian in the Netherlands. A federal court rejected his appeal.
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NEW YORK ? A grand jury has indicted a repairman on criminal charges in an elevator accident that maimed a woman visiting a New York City hospital.
Brooklyn prosecutors say maintenance worker Jason Jordan wrongly disabled a safety switch that was supposed to stop the elevator from moving with its doors open.
Last Christmas, a 47-year-old woman was getting onto the elevator at SUNY Downstate Medical Center when it lurched into motion. Her arm and leg were trapped and crushed, but she survived.
Jordan was charged Thursday with assault and reckless endangerment. He says it was an accident and happened after he left the hospital.
The case is unrelated to a fatality Wednesday, when an advertising executive stepping into a Manhattan elevator was dragged and crushed.
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FOR USE AS DESIRED, YEAR END PHOTOS - FILE -In this Oct. 3, 2011 file photo, Amanda Knox breaks in tears after hearing the verdict that overturns her conviction and acquits her of murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher, at the Perugia court, central Italy. Italian appeals court threw out Amanda Knox's murder conviction and ordered the young American freed after nearly four years in prison for the death of her British roommate. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito, File)
FOR USE AS DESIRED, YEAR END PHOTOS - FILE -In this Oct. 3, 2011 file photo, Amanda Knox breaks in tears after hearing the verdict that overturns her conviction and acquits her of murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher, at the Perugia court, central Italy. Italian appeals court threw out Amanda Knox's murder conviction and ordered the young American freed after nearly four years in prison for the death of her British roommate. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito, File)
MILAN, Italy (AP) ? The Italian appeals court that overturned Amanda Knox's murder conviction in the slaying of her British roommate gave the reasons for its ruling on Thursday: the evidence that had been used by a lower court against the American and her Italian boyfriend just didn't hold up.
Those shortcomings included no murder weapon, faulty DNA, an inaccurate time for the killing, and insufficient proof that Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were even at the location where the crime occurred. So said the Perugia appellate court in its long-awaited reasoning behind its October ruling that reversed the lower court's convictions.
British college student Meredith Kercher was found slain in a pool of blood on her bedroom floor in Perugia, Italy, on Nov. 2, 2007.
Knox and Sollecito, who had just begun dating at the time of the murder, were arrested several days later, then convicted in what prosecutors' portrayed as a drug-fueled sexual assault. They were sentenced to 26 years and 25 years, respectively, in proceedings that made headlines around the world.
On Thursday, the appellate cited among the other failed elements of the prosecutors' case DNA evidence, which was undermined during a re-examination in the appeals trial, and the failure to conclusively identify the murder weapon. The appellate court even contradicted the lower court's time of death, saying it happened at around 10:15 p.m., not after 11 p.m. The court said the "building blocks" used to construct the case had failed.
The appeals court also said there was no proof of the prosecutors' claim that Knox and Sollecito had helped a third man, who was convicted separately, of sexually assault Kercher, nor was there evidence that the pair had simulated a burglary by throwing a rock through a window to remove suspicion from themselves, as prosecutors alleged.
The appeals court said the lower court had arrived at a verdict "that was not corroborated by any objective element of evidence and in itself was not, in fact probable: the sudden choice of two young people, good and open to other people, to do evil for evil's sake, just like that, without another reason."
"It is not, therefore, sufficient that the probability of the prosecutors' hypothesis is greater than the hypothesis of the defense, not even when they are notably greater in number, but it is necessary that every explanation that differs from the prosecutors' hypothesis is, according to the criteria of reasonability, not at all plausible," the court said.
The only elements of the prosecutors case that were proven, the appeals court said, were the charge of slander against Knox, who was convicted of falsely accusing a bar owner of killing Kercher, and the fact that the Knox and Sollecito alibis did not match.
That the alibis were out of synch "is very different" from the prosecutors' claim of false alibis, the court said.
The proven elements combined, the court said, are not enough to support convictions against Knox and Sollecito.
"The only elements that are sustained don't allow the belief, even when put together, that the guilt of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the crime of murder ... has been proven," the court said.
After her conviction was thrown out, Knox, 24, returned immediately home to Seattle. She was credited with time served for the conviction of slander for accusing bar owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba of carrying out the killing.
Prosecutors contended a kitchen knife found at Sollecito's house was the weapon because it matched wounds on Kercher's body and carried traces of Kercher's DNA on the blade and Knox's on the handle. However, the court-ordered review discredited the DNA evidence, saying there were glaring errors in evidence-collecting and that below-standard testing and possible contamination raised doubts over the DNA traces on the blade and on Kercher's bra clasp.
In addition, the defense cast doubt on the knife, questioning why Knox and Sollecito would return it to Sollecito's home if it had been used in the murder. They maintain the real weapon has yet to be found.
A third defendant in the case, Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast, was convicted in a separate trial of sexually assaulting and stabbing Kercher. His 16-year prison sentence ? reduced on appeal from an initial 30 years ? was upheld by Italy's highest court in 2010.
The appeals court also expressed incredulity that the two would have cooperated in such a crime with Guede, with whom there is no proof of any relationship. "For example, there is no evidence of phone calls or text messages between the three," the court said.
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By The Associated Press
AP
The $1.2 million waterfront home where prosecutors say a Seattle chiropractor and his wife lived while claiming welfare assistance is seen. The U.S. attorney's office filed a civil lawsuit Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, accusing David Silverstein and Lyudmila Shimonova of filing false claims.
SEATTLE -- A Seattle chiropractor and his wife live in a $1.2 million waterfront home and have spent the past eight years flying to Moscow, Paris, Israel, Turkey, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
All the while, federal authorities say, the couple was collecting more than $100,000 in welfare.
Now, the U.S. attorney's office is suing David Silverstein and Lyudmila Shimonova, accusing them of filing false claims and demanding that the couple pay back more than $135,000 in federal housing assistance since 2003. Prosecutors are also seeking tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
In gaining Section 8 housing assistance, Shimonova represented that she lived alone with her two children and that her household assets were less than $5,000. Silverstein received the monthly benefits of $1,272 as Shimonova's purported landlord, the government said.
Shimonova also received benefits under the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, as well as Social Security cash reserved for people who can't work due to age or disability and whose assets fall below a certain threshold ? $3,000 for a married couple or $2,000 for a single person, the complaint said.
"Defendants have separately and, it appears, in conjunction with one another made false representations to various state and federal agencies in order to obtain federally funded benefits," assistant U.S. attorneys Harold Malkin and Kayla Stahman wrote.
Meanwhile, they were traveling the world, according to Department of Homeland Security records.
Michael Radyshewsky, a federal welfare fraud investigator, wrote in an application to search the couple's home that they took weeklong trips to Moscow in 2003, Dominican Republic in 2005, and Mexico and France in 2009. In 2007, they went for 12 days to Israel, and this past June they took a two-week trip to Turkey.
Silverstein said Tuesday his lawyer asked him not to comment, and his lawyer, David Allen, did not immediately return a message. The home did not appear to have a listed phone number, and Shimonova's lawyer, Michele Shaw, did not return an email seeking comment.
The investigation included surveillance of the three-bedroom, 2,300-square-foot home on Lake Washington, during which agents observed his black Jaguar parked there frequently.
Though Shimonova had claimed she was single and lived there alone, Silverstein listed it as his residence on his driver's license and passport application, the prosecutors said.
But in documents filed so that he could receive the housing assistance, he listed his office as his residence to conceal that he was living with Shimonova ? not her landlord, they said.
Furthermore, it appeared clear that the pair was actually married. Silverstein wrote on the website of his chiropractic business: "On a personal note, I am happily married with two children, whose careers are in medicine and Middle Eastern studies. As a family, we all enjoy snow-shoeing, mountain climbing and ocean sports."
A report of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle for the 2010 fiscal year listed "Mila and Dr. David Silverstein" as donors.
In addition to failing to disclose the marriage or living situation, Shimonova also failed to disclose bank accounts in her name containing tens of thousands of dollars, prosecutors said.
The lawsuit seeks to have the couple pay $11,000 in fines for each false claim the couple made. The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment on whether criminal charges are forthcoming.
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Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9257355-feds-couple-claimed-welfare-lived-in-12m-home
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DUBLIN ? Ireland unveiled new spending cuts Monday that will reduce civil servants' pay, increase waiting times for medical services, and lower monthly payments to parents with large families.
Ireland's minister for expenditure and reform, Brendan Howlin, said the government had no choice but to impose euro1.4 billion ($1.9 billion) in spending cuts to health, welfare and other state-funded services as part of Ireland's commitments under terms of its year-old international bailout. The figure represents 2.7 percent of current government spending.
"No government, whatever its numbers, wants to be the bearer of bad news. But our options are extremely limited. The public knows this," Howlin told lawmakers as he spelled out the first half of Ireland's fourth austerity budget in four years. The second half, detailing euro1.6 billion ($2.15 billion) in tax increases, is coming Tuesday.
Ireland last year was forced to negotiate a euro67.5 billion ($92 billion) line of foreign credit after the cost of its bank-bailout program overwhelmed state finances. The EU-IMF loan package is designed to keep Ireland funded through 2013 as the country merges and revives its debt-crippled banks. But as part of that deal, Ireland has promised to reduce its deficit to the eurozone limit of 3 percent of GDP by 2015 through four more years of austerity.
Ireland is planning euro3.8 billion ($5.1 billion) in total 2012 cuts and tax hikes in the hope of shrinking next year's deficit to 8.6 percent of GDP. Its 2010 deficit surged to a modern European record of 32 percent, reflecting exceptional bank-rescue costs.
Howlin said the government hoped to reduce this year's total spending of euro57.7 billion to euro55.8 billion next year, euro54 billion in 2013 and euro52 billion in 2014.
He said next year's cuts would reduce health costs by euro543 million, welfare benefits by euro475 million, and education by euro132 million. Civil servants in all three areas would see their numbers, overtime and expenses curtailed, saving euro400 million.
The welfare system currently accounts for 40 percent of the government's total spending, health care 27 percent, and education 17 percent.
Howlin cut welfare much less than expected, based on previous government plans, reflecting the involvement of the left-wing Labor Party in Ireland's 9-month-old coalition government.
He said parents with three or more children would see their monthly child payments shrink. But against expectations, he kept the euro140 monthly payment intact for first and second children.
On education, Howlin said the fee that students must pay annually to attend state-funded universities would rise euro250 to euro2,250, generating an extra euro18.5 million.
As part of each department's cuts, he said the 2012 civil service payroll would fall by euro400 million through 6,000 layoffs and reduced pay for overtime and expenses. Ireland's unemployment is currently 14.5 percent, near an 18-year high.
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Online:
Ireland's austerity plans, http://budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2012/2012.aspx
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