Archive for the ‘Criminal procedures’ Category
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19
Oct
2009
Michigan’s top detective is a dog named Sable
Sable the detective dog
Sandy Hutchens Chronicle – Human sewage and detergents are familiar territory for Sable, the detective canine with a nose trained for these things. Sable has Alsatian roots and is very particular about what he eats. He loves canned soft food along with his coarse grain kibble. And after a hard day with his nose in human waste there is nothing like a bowl of yogurt.
Sable is of mixed lineage, very thin, and very strong. His guardian and trainer, Scott Reynolds, has to use all his strength to
An offspring of mixed lineage, Sable is as thin as a rake. Yet he is strong. Scott Reynolds, his guardian and trainer of two years, has to struggle to hold him back when walking him on leash.
Sable’s job is to detect illicit discharge of wastewater in drains meant to carry rainwater. He makes a dash for the nearest manhole and stormwater drain outfall to bring to book those guilty of sewage crimes. If his estimated 200 million-plus scent receptors detect human sewage or detergents, he barks at Reynolds. The duo have been employed to sniff out illegal sewage and laundry connections in three Michigan counties in the US. Their weekly consultancy fee is anywhere between US $5,000 and $10,000.
Sable has come a long way from his days in Mackenzie’s Animal Shelter in Lake Odessa, Michigan. Life’s main tasks then were eating and chasing tennis balls for exercise. His life changed when at the age of 15 months, the Reynolds adopted him; Scott Reynolds and his wife Karen, between them, have more than 30 years of experience in training scent-tracking dogs in multiple disciplines.
In July this year, the couple launched their own company, Environmental Canine Services. Sable had a video showcasing his talents—agility, strength, persistence in getting what he wants. It was up on the animal shelter’s website. Sable’s video impressed the Reynolds. He was brought out to meet them when they visited the shelter. His adoption was finalized in March 2007.
Within a month, Sable was training hard. He followed Reynolds round Michigan’s county neighbourhoods to sniff human sewage from residential septic tanks and municipal sources. Next came detergents. He spent days learning to sniff and recognize washing powder. This would help him track illicit laundry connections later when he started on the job.
There would be a juicy bone for Sable each time he discerned detergents in drains. The small rewards motivated him.
In July 2007, Sable went for live field trials. Scott flushed dyes down suspected toilet connections to trace illicit discharge from outfall to source. He tested Sable in 200 urban and rural settings where data existed. Sable scored 84 per cent rate on accuracy; he had passed with flying colours.
Sue Cubic, senior engineer with Michigan’s Genesee County Drain Commission, for whom Sable worked, has been quoted by the media saying the dog provides quick results. Lab reports of water samples take two to three weeks to prepare. The first test has to be followed by four to five confirmatory tests. Each test costs US $100-200. Sable’s quick detection abilities save this money and time.
Fear of infection is an occupational hazard. Sable therefore undergoes routine checks including frequent blood tests.
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17
Sep
2009
Pulp Fiction car tragedy : Hutchens Chronicle
Roger Avary pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter. Avary cowrote Pulp Fiction with Quentin Tarantino. They won an Academy Award for their efforts.
The writer was drunk and smashed his Mercedes Benz into a telephone pole in Ojai, California. Ojai is about 90 miles from Los Angeles. His wife Gretchen was injured and another passenger was killed. His original plea was not guilty but he has felt remorse since that time.
He could end up going to jail for a period of six years.
Avary is the child of a Brazilian-raised mining engineer and a German physiotherapist. He was born in Flin Flon, Manitoba but grew up in Oracle, Arizona. In the early 1970s Avary’s family moved to California where he attended high school and then to Manhattan Beach. Avary is a cartoonist similar to Sergio Aragonés, and made several animations in Super-8 format.
In 1979 he began working at one of the earliest video stores in California. The store was owned by the father of one of his childhood friends, and his first partner, Scott Magill. The pair grew up making movies, and experimented in Betamax videotape. One of Avary’s early Super-8 mm films, The Worm Turns, won Best Film from The Los Angeles Film Teachers Association in the early 1980’s.
Pulp Fiction co-written by: Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary video presented by Hutchens Chronicle
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11
Aug
2009
3 men indicted in straw borrower scheme
Sandy Hutchens Chronicle – The fourth Solon case announced today by Cuyahoga County (OH) Prosecutor Bill Mason involves a new house at 38710 Flanders Drive. Ogbonnaya Edeh, 49, of Cleveland, fraudulently obtained an $850,000 loan from New Century Mortgage Company. He never made a down payment, never saw the inside of the house before the purchase, and never lived in it. Edeh was employed as a local cab driver, but he falsely stated he made $150,000 as a structural engineer for Classic Tango Engineering, and Phillip Taylor, the owner of that company, falsely verified Edeh’s employment and income. Edeh received $31,000 for this scam. Brian Chenoweth, president of Widdershin One, Inc., and Ike Osuji, a middle man, who posed as a buyer, were also indicted for their involvement in this scheme.
Edeh was a “straw buyer” in this scheme that involved other individuals, including Stephen Holman and Jeffrey Brown of Buckeye Lending, Inc. After Edeh purchased this house, Holman and Brown leased the home to a tenant, who signed the lease with Brown’s company, Marketing Land and Concrete, LLC. That tenant made rent payments that were intended to pay the new mortgage and these payments counted toward buying the home. However, the tenant he lost his $6,000 initial down payment and $22,600 in lease payments before realizing it was a scam. Neither Brown nor Holman used these payments to pay the mortgage obligation to New Century. Each defendant was indicted on several theft and forgery related charges, which range in prison time from one to five years. The house is now in foreclosure.
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Stephen Holman
Former mortgage broker sentenced to 12 years in prison
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Jeffery Brown
Sentenced to 3 years in prison
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Phillip Taylor
Sentenced to 30 days in County Jail
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Ike Chukwu Osuji
Sentenced to 6 months in prison
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason announced that Stephen Holman was sentenced to 12 years in prison. After a 7 day trial, a jury found Stephen Holman guilty of 15 theft related mortgage fraud offenses involving two houses valued at $1,575,000. These houses are located at 38710 Flanders Drive and 6749 Winston Lane in Solon, Ohio and were fraudulently purchased with loans totaling $1,488,750 from three lenders. Other co-defendants who pleaded guilty before trial and who testified against Holman were also sentenced.
Prosecutor Mason said, “This broker took advantage of relaxed standards of the subprime industry—he knew the buyers did not have the income to qualify for these high dollar loans. He is another one of the unscrupulous brokers that have contributed to the rampant mortgage fraud in Cuyahoga County. His proven guilt in this trial – and the 12 year sentence – sends a strong message that brokers will be held accountable for trumped up information submitted by anyone involved in buying a house.”
Holman, who was a mortgage loan officer for the now defunct Buckeye Lending, a mortgage brokerage company, submitted a $850,000 false loan application to New Century Mortgage Company, no longer in business, for a “straw buyer” to purchase a newly constructed house at 38710 Flanders Drive. Holman was aided and abetted by others to help him submit this bogus application. Holman received a $49,100 kickback plus his loan commission, and he helped arrange for a total kickback of $140,000 from the builder, who pleaded guilty earlier and is serving a 34 month prison sentence.
The straw buyer received a $31,000 kickback, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve one year in prison, because he signed these loan papers stating that he was an engineer living in Beachwood, making $204,000 a year for a company called Classic Tango. This buyer was actually a local cab driver who lived in Cleveland. Holman used another co-defendant, Phillip Taylor, the owner of Classic Tango, to falsely verify the buyer’s employment. Taylor pleaded guilty and testified against Holman. Others who aided and abetted Holman were Jeffrey Brown, Ike Osuji, and Brian Chenoweth, president of Widdershin One, Inc.
Brown, also a mortgage broker at Buckeye Lending, pleaded guilty and testified against Holman. Osuji was a middle man who brought the straw buyer to Holman, and later in the deal Osuji posed as a buyer to a tenant living in the Flanders house.
Osuji, who was paid $9,000 by Holman, pleaded guilty, and testified against Holman.
Brian Chenoweth is a fugitive and is believed to out of the county.
Brown, Osuji and Taylor were sentenced to confinement. Brown was sentenced to three years in prison; Osuji to 6 months, and Taylor to 30 days in the county jail.
The second Solon house that Stephen Holman brokered is located at 6749 Winston Lane. Holman submitted a false loan application on behalf of the buyer, who purchased this house for $725,000 in September 2005, by submitting false loan applications for a $500,000 first mortgage loan from Argent Mortgage Company, LLC, and a $188.750 second mortgage loan from GB Home Equity, LLC. Holman overstated the buyer’s income by $100,000 and his bank accounts by $16,000 to these lenders. Holman also engaged in a scheme regarding the $36,400 down payment. No down payment was actually made because third parties engineered a scheme to deceive the lenders. The owner of Buckeye Lending, also participated in the mortgage fraud scheme. Both he and this buyer pleaded guilty to misdeamors, and they concluded their cases by re-paying the money they received.
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