Daily Archives: October 30, 2012 - 5 results

Over the past decade, 26 states and the federal government have passed laws allowing mandatory DNA testing for anyone arrested for a felony – even individuals who are never charged or convicted. A number of states approve this procedure for certain misdemeanors, and sometimes even if the offender is a juvenile. The results of these tests are uploaded to local, state and federal crime databases.   Does Mandatory DNA Testing Solve Crime? Proponents say that the results are a valuable …

A Florida woman who made headlines for leaving her husband and children to join Occupy Wall Street last year has received $85,000 from her now-ex in a divorce settlement. Stacey Kessler, now 39, was featured in the New York Post last November when she was arrested for blocking a street during Occupy protests in the Manhattan. The paper noted that Kessler had left behind her husband and four children to become a part of the protest at Zucotti Park. Before …

If you get hit with a big domestic support judgment against you, filing for bankruptcy could get you nowhere. That’s what a Michigan man found out recently when he tried to avoid paying $100,000 to the mother of his child in a custody dispute. After the state judge in their custody dispute case ordered Patrick Rugiero to pay Antonietta DiNardo $100,000 in attorney’s fees, he filed for bankruptcy in federal court. First ruling that the custody case could proceed (despite …

Sexual molestation by church leaders continues to be exposed as a widespread scourge, but their victims are finally getting justice in court. In the most recent example, a former youth minister in Alabama who had been convicted of sexually abusing a 15 year-old girl has now been been ordered to pay $1 million to his victim. William David Webb, was a youth minister and executive pastor at the Word of Life Christian Center, where his father, Scott Webb, served as …

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., is facing more legal trouble in the form of a lawsuit filed Oct. 23 by the family of Ernest Atencio, who died in jail while under the custody of the sheriff’s deputies. The 44-year-old passed away after he suffered a heart attack while being beaten and attacked with a stun gun by deputies and police last December 16. Atencio had been arrested for kicking a woman’s door in Phoenix, after officers had already …