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TEXTING: Prelude to Murder? (2#) -

A man contacted police after receiving a text message on his cellphone from an unknown number. The message read:

"For me, tomorrow or tonight Meredith dies."

A sensational murder case is going on in Italy which apparently includes two pretty young college students: an English girl, Meredith Kercher, who was murdered and an American girl, Amanda Knox.

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FALLOUT: from the Bob Allen Case -

Florida, land of hanging
chads and reckless eyeballing?

With the movie Recount coming up and throwing a renewed spotlight on Politics as it's practiced in the state of Florida, isn't there going to be some spillover onto this case, too? Or could the Bob Allen Case develop into another Duke-type debacle?

Well, it's the Day After the verdict and what condition is our condition in? Not so hotsy-totsy. This is a case that isn't about to go away! At the very least, the politicians are threatening to throw some more spaghetti up against
the wall.

Prosecutors have announced that they intend to seek jail time for Allen, although he was convicted of only a second-degree misdemeanor. Isn't this a bit unusual? Don't they usually just issue you a ticket and tell you to mail in a check?

Allen's sentencing is scheduled for Thursday. His lead attorney, Greg Eisenmenger, said he would seek a new trial. ASA Pat Whitaker, the prosecutor, claims that no reversible error occurred in this case as a basis for appeal.

:: Based on this morning's article by Laurin Sellers
-- with John Kennedy at the Orlando Sentinel.

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FL REP BOB ALLEN: GUILTY -

Laurin Sellers reports that after about 3 1/2 hours, the jury found FL Rep Bob Allen guilty of soliciting sex from an undercover police officer.

He vehemently denied the charges as he left the courthouse.

"I am innocent. I've done nothing wrong and my family, my God and my good constituents know that."

I expect there will be more information
and discussion about this further on.

I also expect Allen's lawyer to
launch an appeal on that verdict.

:: Orlando Sentinel ::

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BOB ALLEN CASE ... Midday Check (4#) -

# Both Prosecution and Defense rested their
cases this morning without Allen taking the stand.

Closing arguments were scheduled for this
afternoon after which, the jury will decide.

::CF13:: ... and ... ::WFTV::

# The jury left the courtroom at 2:16pm.

# As of 3pm, the jury has been deliberating.

+ Unless the jury gets snarled up,
their verdict may emerge just in time
to be featured on the TV Evening News.

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BOB ALLEN CASE LINKS (4#) -
In the Press This Morning -

# Jury visits park. Susanne Cervenko's account of the visit, timestamped late last night at 1:21am. Also includes some of PO Kavanaugh under cross.

# AP report by Travis Reed, timestamped early this morning at 6:29am. Describes park visit and some PO under cross. The Ledger is part of the NY Times syndicate.

# Laurin Sellers' account of the jury's visit to the park and its restroom with some related testimony by the arresting PO.

*The prosecution is expected to rest its case early today. Eisenmenger would not say Thursday whether he plans to call Allen or any other witnesses to the stand.*

# CFTV gives us a moderately detailed account of the jury's field trip to Space View Park yesterday afternoon. Timestamped 11:37pm last night and still up.

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BOB ALLEN CASE ... Thurs Recap (6#) -

# From Susanne Cervenko
at FL-Today - in (Reverse) Blogging Order:

Cross-examination of PO Kavanaugh in the morning; then jury went on a field trip to the Park and its restroom. Last entry timestamped at 4:53pm.

# AP wire service report by Travis Reed.

***********************************
Other Reports:

# ::CFNews:: - covers morning cross.

*************************
# Local6/Orlando TVNews -

:: Early Report - logistics of the restroom.
:: Later Report - covers cross and jury field trip.

*************************
# ::WESH-TV:: - a brief recap of the day's proceedings, including a remark by Eisenmenger noting that much of the police testimony didn't seem to correspond very well to the physical facts on the ground, making the Prosecution's case seem rather shaky so far.

+ I expect there may yet be a late report filed by Laurin Sellers from the O-Sentinel covering the day's events. If so, I'll try to catch up with it.

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JIHAD WITH
A FEMININE TOUCH - (2#) -

*A 23-year-old Heathrow airport worker who dubbed herself the "lyrical terrorist" today became the first woman to be convicted under the government's anti-terror legislation.*

Semina Malik is scheduled for sentencing on December 6th. All sentencing options remain open, Judge Peter Beaumont told her.

::Guardian:: ...and... ::UK Times::

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BOB ALLEN CASE ... latest (2#) -

# From Susanne Cervenka:

- Titusville PO Leamon Jackson accuses Bob Allen of
"Reckless Eyeballing." Is that law still on the books?

- And a story commenter signing "Jovial Flower"
almost causes a mistrial. But, after a conference, the
comment does not succeed in derailing the proceedings.

:: FL-Today ::

*************************

# From Laurin Sellers:

Describes Allen's day and activities.

Eisenmenger said "Allen entered the
men's room more than once because
he had consumed a lot of iced tea."

:: O-Sentinel ::

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PAK: THERE GOES
THE NEIGHBORHOOD (7#) -

# "Fazlullah’s militants take Kalam - Militants
now in control of six of Swat district’s eight tehsils."

# "The historic statue of Buddha in the Jihan Abad area of Swat district in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has been blown up by unidentified militants."

# "NEW DELHI (Agencies): Pakistan has pulled tens of thousands of troops from its border with India in a bid to quell rising violence by pro-Taliban militants in the northwest, officials said here Wednesday."

# "MINGORA: Govt poised to start operation - Security forces are reinforcing positions at the Fizaghat and Ghalkedro hilltops in preparation for a major push against the forces of Maulana Fazlullah, witnesses and officials said. "Heavy weapons are being taken to the hilltops."

# Swat from Wikipedia.

# Official NWFP gov't ::portal::

# No Cable TV News: Sat Dishes in much demand.
..... A charming dispatch from Gulzar Ahmed.

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Following the . . .
BOB ALLEN CASE / Part III -

The Cyber Water Cooler -
Does chatter on the Internet
impact on Court proceedings?

On Wednesday, it seems it did:

"A comment posted in a story chat on the Web site of Local 6 News partner Florida Today created questions on Wednesday about whether one or several of the jurors are biased against state Rep. Bob Allen."

+ The crowd up there in Central FL seems confused about what a Blog is and what a Comment Thread is. And some of the comments at that newspaper which have been posted about this case have been stunningly vicious. Nevertheless, the discussion about this issue is worth noting.

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:
Following . . .
BOB ALLEN CASE continued (3#) -

# From Laurin Sellers at O-Sentinel:

*The undercover officer, Eisenmenger said,
is the only one who mentioned sex and money.

If it's two consenting adults, "there is nothing illegal about walking up to someone in a bathroom and picking them up,'' the attorney said. The law regarding solicitation does not apply, he said.

"The only way you can find my client guilty
is if he offered sex for money,'' said Eisenmenger.*

----------------------------

# Eisenmenger also noted that:

*the bathroom's stall walls are
too high for Allen to peer over.*

----------------------------

# From Susanne Cervenka
at FL-Today in Blogging Order:

*Testimony of Titusville police officer
Leamon Jackson continued into the afternoon.

"What was significant about someone
looking at you?" Eisenmenger asked...

Eisenmenger... questioned how looking at
a person constituted hitting on a person.*

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FOLLOWING . . .
THE BOB ALLEN TRIAL (2#) -

The Jury: *Three men and three women, including a Christian schoolteacher and a county Parks and Recreation Department employee... with two women as alternate jurors... The jury also includes a dean's assistant for the Brevard County School District, a Florida Power & Light worker, a bookkeeper and a government researcher. They range in age from 32 to 62.* [tcpalm]

----------------------------
A Legalistic Footnote: *Defense attorney Robert Berry attempted to question potential jurors about whether they would be willing to find a defendant not guilty if the State Attorney's Office charged a person under the wrong criminal citation, to which Assistant State Attorney Pat Whitaker promptly objected... Eisenmenger said the state was mixing solicitation with a different subsection of the prostitution charge, and that his client was not correctly charged.* [loc6]

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SAUDI KING MEETS POPE (2#) -

"A Vatican statement says the 30-minute meeting Tuesday included discussion of restrictions on Christian worship in Saudi Arabia, the need for cooperation among Christians, Muslims and Jews, and prospects for a just peace in the Middle East... The statement said the Saudi monarch requested the audience." [voa]

Some additional background from:
:: The Times of London ::

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HOMOCIDES UP 13% -

Florida murders jump. Who cares?

"the number of murders in Florida jumped by more than 13 percent during the first six months of the year. So who cares?

On a Tuesday, a whole bunch of people. On a Saturday, maybe not so much."

:: Orlando Sentinel ::

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Jupiter: BEHIND THE DOOR -

Police found Nongkran Stoll's body stuffed into a trashcan in an upstairs bedroom closet at a neighbors home.

Investigators said Stoll's body was bloody and that she had a clear plastic bag over her forehead.

She had gone over there to walk their family dog.

:: WPBF ::

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:
BOB ALLEN TRIAL update (3#) -

Some Highlights from the Media...

# Prosecutors want to present testimony from a park volunteer named Robert Arnold, but the judge has not ruled on the issue yet. [osent]

*************************
# From Keyonna Summers at FL-Today:

- Implicitly tries to blame the Media for the
... prospective jurors' lack of impartiality.

- Police video shows a plaque with Allen's
... name on it at the alleged crime scene.

- How much discretionary cash did Allen
... have with him at the time of the incident?

*************************
# Susanne Cervenka has been
blogging this afternoon's proceedings:

- Allen's lawyer claims that
his client was incorrectly charged.

+ Stay classy, Viera! Back to you, Ron...

...

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FL REDNECK GAY BUTTON PUSHED -

Trolling or Entrapment?

FL State Rep Bob Allen's trial got off to a slow start today when more than half the prospective Brevard County jurists had to be rejected due to their denial of impartiality.

Allen has been accused by a male plainclothed police officer of a lewd solicitation in a public bathroom. The police officer's sexuality has not been questioned, challenged or investigated.

It appears that the officer was located inside a wheelchair-dedicated stall during the incident, ostensibly because there were no paper supplies anywhere else in the facility, although he is not known to be disabled. And he could have been playing his kazoo at the time.

Allen "was raised in the area - near Kennedy Space Center on Florida's Atlantic Coast - and has spent seven years serving it in the Legislature. He is even honored on a plaque at Veteran's Memorial Park... for its funding before his election. His attorney said the lawmaker was there in preparation for a fundraiser."

:: Miami Herald (AP) ::

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STAR WEIRDS: Cyber Jihad -

Much chatter on the Net lately about
a rumored impending cyber-attack
involving a Malware version of SETI.

Supposedly, the attack is scheduled
to begin on November 11th. [reg]

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:
SoFlo:
AN OGLE GOES
VERY WRONG (2#) -

A 41-year-old woman spent 83 days in jail after being charged with illegally videotaping a former date who was ogling a topless sunbather and then posting the video on Y**Tube. The man she had been dating was a judge.

::PBPost:: ... and ... ::PBPost::

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MIXED NUTS & NUKES -

Is Pakistan on the verge of civil war?

Robert Fox gives an easy-to-understand,
concise and lucid explanation of the
current situation in Pakistan and explains
why the rest of us may be keeping a
worried eye on the recent events there.

...

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Bookish: WRITER BANNED (2#) -

From Letters to the Editor
of the Charleston Gazette:

*About the novels your county just censored: The Prince of Tides and Beach Music are two of my darlings, which I would place before the altar of God and say, "Lord, this is how I found the world you made."

... Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them.*

:: Signed by author Pat Conroy.

-- via Clayton Moore's ::Blog::

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PAKISTAN: "HAYWIRE" - (6#) -

# *Meanwhile, Musharraf's chief spokesman defended the emergency declaration on judicial activism by Pakistan's Supreme Court, including the setting of airport parking fees and releasing of terror suspects.

"Things had gone totally haywire,"
Khan earlier told CNN Sunday.*

Asma Jagangir, head of Pakistan's human rights commission, is quoted by CNN, claiming that President Musharraf "has lost his marbles."

# PAK MEDIA ::CURBS::

# A Grand Jirga is being convened to discuss and work out a strategy to resolve the recent problems which have been occurring in Swat. [dawn]

# SWAT: Fazlullah, the Radio Mullah, and and an exploration of the grave implications of the seditious activities in the area. [dtimes]

# MISSILE IN MIRAN SHAH: *A missile destroyed a suspected militant hide-out in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border Friday, killing 10 people and wounding 11. It was not clear who fired the missile that struck a compound in Danday village on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region.* [Fpost]

# TALIBAN THREATEN SHEWA: *The immediate affect of the letter was that three internet cafes in Al Hamza Plaza in the Shewa closed down and all the computers shifted to safe places and the internet network has been destroyed.* [Fpost]

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