Newsfront

Internal Fraud

Washington, D.C.--An audit of the IRS found that employees had stolen at least $5.3 million over a 30-month period. In a case that accounted for $4.6 million of the total, an employee and his cohorts duplicated checks, then altered and cashed the copies. In other instances, a tax examiner issued ten refund checks, totaling $269,000, to herself under her maiden name, and an employee altered a taxpayer's check to make it payable to "I. R. Smith." The General Accounting Office, which conducted the investigation, also criticized the IRS for hiring private couriers to deliver bank deposits, citing an incident in which a deliveryman left $200 million worth of taxpayer checks unattended in a car with an open window.

Forfeiture Follies

Kansas City, Missouri -- Police departments in the state routinely divert money earmarked for schools into their own coffers to fund the war on drugs, according to an investigation by the Kansas City Star. Under state law, cash seized in drug cases is supposed to be turned over to a judge, who dispenses the funds to public schools. But police departments circumvent the law by giving the money to federal agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration. The feds shave about 20 percent off the top for "processing costs," then return the rest to the police as grants that aren't subject to state laws. State legislators say they had designed the law to benefit children and to keep police from profiting from forfeitures, which can lead to illegal searches.

Milwaukee--Police seized $100,000 presented as bail for an accused cocaine dealer, claiming the money was probably drug profits. But 25 members of Gerardo Hernandez' family insist the funds came from their savings. Although the family provided the name, address and place of employment for each claimed donor, the state gave the money to the federal government. Two months later, after the feds decided they wouldn't pursue the case, the IRS filed a claim for the money. The agency said the family may have violated laws regulating bank transactions of more than $10,000. Meanwhile, Hernandez remains in jail.

On the Edge

Vancouver--A provisional judge has struck down a law that bans the possession of kiddie porn. Justice Duncan Shaw of British Columbia's Supreme Court ruled that because a person's possessions reflect his or her thoughts, criminalizing the ownership of child porn violates the rights to privacy and self-expression. "A person who is prone to act on his fantasies will likely do so irrespective of the availability of pornography," Shaw wrote. The case stems from the arrest of a 65-year-old man who owned computer disks, books and photos that the government considered illegal; he still faces distribution charges. Prosecutors vowed to appeal.

Sex Sells

Spartanburg, South Carolina--A movie theater owner who banned R-rated movies to protest their sexual, violent and profane content abandoned his crusade after five months because attendance had dropped 40 percent. "I don't want to sit here and go broke," he said.

Equal Access

Santiago, Dominican Republic--About 70 female inmates at Rafey Prison organized a noisy protest to demand conjugal visits. "We want sex," the prisoners said, "and we're going to fight for it because we are human beings just as men are." Male inmates are allowed to have sex with their partners, but authorities claim that giving such a luxury to women would turn the prisons into maternity wards.

Freedom Bleed

Wilmington, Delaware--A federal court struck down a law that sought to restrict premium adult cable channels. Passed in 1996, the law required cable operators to install expensive equipment in 30 million homes to block occasional audio and video "signal bleed" in all cable homes, whether or not the homeowners wanted it. Alternately, the statute required providers such as Playboy TV to broadcast only between 10 P.M. and 6 A.M. The court ruled unanimously that the law violated the First Amendment.

A Mother's Reward

Vero Beach, Florida--Does a police officer have to read an arrested suspect his Miranda rights? Not if she's his mother. Officer Molly McIntyre visited her son in jail after he was arrested for burglary and attempted rape. Be it mother's intuition or street sense, she suspected he had been involved in the murder of a young woman two months earlier. After a heart-to-heart in which his mother told him, "If we don't take care of this now, you're going to go to the electric chair," Patrick McIntyre allegedly confessed to the killing. His mother then asked the city for the $5000 reward. The city agreed to honor the request, ruling that McIntyre had visited her son as a mother, not as a cop.