Phony plastic surgeon accused of using silicone for Botox

By Jared Taylor

MCALLEN, Texas | Thu Oct 31, 2013 5:45pm EDT

MCALLEN, Texas (Reuters) - An unlicensed plastic surgeon working along the U.S.-Mexico border allegedly injected her victims with silicone instead of the typical Botox or saline treatments, and may have caused one client to nearly lose her leg, a Texas sheriff said Thursday.

Nohemi Gabriela Gonzalez, 45, was charged Thursday with practicing medicine without a license, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.

She could also face charges of manslaughter or murder if investigators confirm that a second woman's death was related to treatments she provided, officials said.

Authorities in Hidalgo County, on the Texas-Mexico border about 60 miles west of the Gulf of Mexico, said Gonzalez solicited as many as 30 men and women seeking Botox injections and other treatments for their buttocks, legs and faces.

Many of the victims were immigrants in the country illegally, including exotic dancers who have eluded investigators, Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino said.

Authorities are still investigating whether one of her clients died as a result of the treatments.

Investigators learned of the underground practice when a victim traveled to Mexico to see a doctor after she had trouble breathing and complained of burning sensations in her ankles, according to a criminal complaint.

According to the complaint, the doctor told the woman, who was not identified, that she had been injected with silicone and there was nothing he could do.

The victim had the silicone removed from her legs at a South Texas hospital, where she remains a patient, Trevino said.

The woman told investigators she received what she had been told were Botox treatments at Gonzalez's house in Edinburg, Texas, and paid $120 — a discounted rate, the complaint says.

A flyer in Spanish recovered by investigators when they arrested Gonzalez on Wednesday claimed that her treatments could help patients reduce wrinkles and add volume to their hips, buttocks, legs and nose. Treatments started at $250, it said.

(Editing by Karen Brooks and Gunna Dickson)

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Analysis: In removing stop-and-frisk judge, U.S. court enters rare territory

By Joseph Ax and Julia Edwards

NEW YORK | Thu Oct 31, 2013 9:47pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a series of interviews in May, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said federal judges are too cautious in exercising their creativity and independence.

On Thursday, her own efforts to avoid that pitfall landed her in trouble with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which removed her from a high-profile case involving the New York City Police Department's controversial stop-and-frisk program. Her actions had compromised the appearance of impartiality, the court said.

Such a move is rarely seen from a federal appeals court and signaled that the three judges who wrote the decision were deeply troubled by her actions. But ethics experts said they did not expect Scheindlin to face any formal discipline.

In August, Scheindlin ruled that the stop-and-frisk tactic, in which patrolling officers stop suspicious individuals and search them, had an unconstitutional and disproportionate impact on minorities. She ordered a federal monitor to supervise broad reforms of the department's practices.

In a brief order, the panel found that Scheindlin had "run afoul" of the judicial code of conduct for giving media interviews. The code says judges should not comment on the merits of pending cases.

The court also chastised Scheindlin for encouraging the plaintiffs in the stop-and-frisk case to file a lawsuit and mark it as "related" to another case before her, thus ensuring that she would preside over the case.

Scheindlin's actions ensured that her objectivity could reasonably be questioned, the court concluded.

In a statement, Scheindlin rejected the 2nd Circuit's reasoning, saying she simply instructed the plaintiffs in the case that bringing a "related lawsuit" was the appropriate procedural action.

She also denied that she ever discussed the case in any interview.

"All of the interviews identified by the Second Circuit were conducted under the express condition that I would not comment on the Floyd case," she said. "A careful reading of each interview will reveal that no such comments were made."

Medical student David Floyd was one of the plantiffs in a lawsuit brought by four black and Hispanic men who claimed police improperly targeted them because of their races.

DISCIPLINE IS RARE

There have been a handful of other instances in which appellate courts have cited a judge's conduct in reassigning a case.

Last year, for example, the 3rd Circuit removed U.S. District Judge William Martini in Newark from a pair of criminal cases, including a murder case against former prosecutor Paul Bergrin.

The decisions, which came on the same day but were written by different appeals court panels, found that Martini had wrongly limited the government's prosecution in the Bergrin case and had improperly accused the government of misconduct in a separate case.

Ethics experts said it is extremely rare for judges to face discipline in such cases.

"It is hard enough to discipline a state judge here in New York, but it is rarely used in a federal context," said Ronald Minkoff, a partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz and an adjunct professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.

Under federal rules, the chief judge of the 2nd Circuit would initiate any investigation into an allegation that a judge had engaged in misconduct, whether a formal complaint has been filed or not.

The chief judge then has the discretion to dismiss the claims, conclude that corrective actions have been taken, conclude that intervening events have made a review unnecessary or refer it to a special committee for recommendations, which are then sent to a panel of judges for final determination.

Thursday's order by the 2nd Circuit gave no indication that any such inquiry was in the works.

The 2nd Circuit has not admonished a judge since 2004, when Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi apologized for making comments comparing President George W. Bush's election to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

The chief judge at the time, John Walker, accepted the mea culpa, and in light of the apology a review panel dismissed five complaints against Calabresi.

Scheindlin has clashed with the 2nd Circuit on occasion in other high-profile cases. In 2003, the appeals court overturned her finding that the United States detention of a militant suspect, Osama Awadallah, was illegal.

A jury eventually acquitted Awadallah in 2006.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Julia Edwards; Editing by Eddie Evans and Lisa Shumaker)

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U.S.-Mexico drug-smuggling rail tunnel is closed

1 of 4. U.S. attorney Laura Duffy speaks during a news conference about a newly discovered drug smuggling tunnel in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego, California October 31, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Denis Poroy

SAN DIEGO | Thu Oct 31, 2013 6:58pm EDT

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Authorities have shut down a tunnel equipped with electricity, ventilation and rail system for smuggling drugs between a San Diego industrial park and Tijuana, Mexico, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

Drugs were seized, and three suspects connected to the operation were in custody and facing charges, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement.

The tunnel, which was closed on Wednesday, had one access point in a warehouse in the Otay Mesa industrial park in San Diego and another in Tijuana, Mexico, ICE said.

Since 2008, more than 75 cross-border tunnels have been discovered on the Southwest border between the United States and Mexico, according to ICE.

The tunnels were almost all used for drug smuggling.

U.S. officials planned to release more details about the tunnel later on Thursday.

(Reporting by Marty Graham; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Gunna Dickson)

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U.S. to allow expanded electronic device use on flights

1 of 3. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta discusses the agency's response and recommendations from the Portable Electronic Devices Aviation Rulemaking Committee at Reagan National Airport in Washington October 31, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Gary Cameron

WASHINGTON | Thu Oct 31, 2013 5:00pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Airline passengers will soon be able to use certain electronic devices throughout their entire flight after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration ended a long-standing ban on Thursday.

Mobile phone calls remain barred under Federal Communications Commission rules. But fliers will be free to keep smartphones, tablets and e-readers running in "airplane" mode.

Delta Air Lines Inc and JetBlue Corp quickly filed plans with the FAA to show that their aircraft can tolerate radio signals from electronic devices, a condition required by the regulator.

The change is likely to boost the use of gadgets such as Amazon Inc's Kindle readers or Apple Inc's iPad.

"Most commercial airlines can tolerate radio interference from portable electronic devices," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said at a news conference at Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C. "It's safe to read downloaded materials, like e-books, calendars and to play games."

Passengers will be able to connect with an airline's WiFi network and can use Bluetooth accessories, such as wireless mouse and headphones.

"ALWAYS-ON" CONNECTIVITY ON THE HORIZON

A big winner from the change could be Gogo Inc, whose shares closed 4.5 percent higher. The company supplies Internet service to about 80 percent of U.S. aircraft.

The FAA's move is "another favorable tailwind," Gogo Chief Executive Michael Small told Reuters.

The FAA's decision is likely to move more passengers toward "always-on" connectivity, said Jonathan Schildkraut, an analyst at Evercore Partners in New York.

"Any increase in time spent connected is viewed as a positive," he said.

Technology fans have recently decried the "high cost to the traveling public" of passengers not having unfettered access to their mobile devices.

"More than 105 million hours of disrupted technological activity on domestic flights is projected in 2013 — an estimated 104 percent increase since 2010 - due to the FAA ban on the use of devices during takeoffs and landings," according to a May 2013 study by the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitcan Development at Chicago's DePaul University.

The FCC in May started deliberations on a proposal that would offer a new type of in-flight broadband service promising U.S. fliers higher Wi-Fi speeds and better connections. The proposal, which has been pushed for years by wireless equipment maker Qualcomm Inc, seeks to open up more radio airwaves for airborne Internet access.

In a statement, acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clybourn said the agency continues to study how best to promote consumers' and businesses' ability to use wireless devices on aircraft and elsewhere.

As a practical matter, cellphones should be kept in airplane mode during flight, the FAA's Huerta said. Without this setting, cellphones would continue to search vainly for a signal while aloft, draining batteries.

Huerta said the guidance applies to U.S. airlines throughout their domestic and international routes.

POLICY WAS 50 YEARS OLD

Huerta said he sought updated guidance on the matter, since the current policy was put in place about 50 years ago.

Among those giving input to the FAA for the long-awaited decision were representatives of airlines, plane manufacturers, passengers, flight attendants and the mobile technology industry.

A committee set up to recommend how the rules should change started work in January on what was to be a 6-month project. It later got a 2-month extension to work on guidance on how airlines could assess the safety risk posted to critical flight systems.

A backer of the change, the Consumer Electronics Association on Wednesday urged the agency to ease restrictions before the busy holiday travel season. It said the FAA's move "will bring policy on in-flight use of devices up to speed with the 21st century."

Huerta said that in some cases of extremely low visibility, for perhaps 1 percent of all U.S. flights, some landing systems may not be able to tolerate radio interference, and in those cases passengers should follow the advice of flight crews.

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA applauded the decision as it pushed for "uniform technical, operational, and training standards that will allow for the safe, managed expansion of PED usage by passengers."

The U.S. Travel Association, an industry group, praised the move as a "common-sense, win-win" policy.

But one lawmaker warned airlines and fliers to curb their enthusiasm and focus on safety first.

"Having access to e-mail or a movie is not worth compromising the safety of any flight," said Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko and Alina Selyukh in Washington, Alwyn Scott in New York and Karen Jacobs in Atlanta, writing by Ros Krasny, editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Maureen Bavdek and Richard Chang)

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California woman who killed pimp as teen is free on parole

Sara Kruzan, 35, is seen in a handout photo from the California Department of Corrections taken July 8, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/California Department of Corrections/Handout

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES | Thu Oct 31, 2013 6:17pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California woman who served nearly two decades in prison for killing her pimp at age 16 was released on parole on Thursday, after becoming the face of a campaign to reform the treatment of young offenders.

Sara Kruzan, 35, left the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla before dawn, state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Luis Patino said in a statement.

Kruzan was taken to Orange County in Southern California, where she will live, and processed at a parole office, Patino said.

Earlier this week, when California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, upheld her parole, the decision was hailed as a watershed moment by lawmakers and activists who had fought on her behalf for more than five years.

State Senator Leland Yee called Kruzan the poster child for a bill that became law this year, allowing offenders sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed before age 18 the chance to petition for a new hearing on their sentence.

Kruzan, who advocates say was raised by an abusive, drug-addicted single mother, said in a 2009 Human Rights Watch video that she was sexually assaulted at age 11 by George Howard, the man she would later kill.

Within two years, Howard had her working as a child prostitute. In March 1994, then 16-year-old Kruzan shot him to death in a motel room in Riverside, California.

Kruzan lost a bid to stand trial as a juvenile and a Riverside County jury found her guilty of first-degree murder.

A judge sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The Human Rights Watch video, in which she expresses remorse for the crime and describes her grim life as a prostitute, drew widespread attention to her case.

The year after the video was released, then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, commuted her prison sentence to 25 years to life, which made her eligible to be considered for parole.

Earlier this year, the California Board of Parole Hearings found her suitable for release, sending their recommendation to Brown, who notified the board on Monday that he would not intervene to stop her from being released.

(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Scott Malone and Gunna Dickson)

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California man agrees to plead guilty to extortion of Miss Teen USA

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES | Thu Oct 31, 2013 7:55pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 19-year-old California man has agreed to plead guilty to charges he hacked into the webcams of Miss Teen USA and other young women to take nude pictures in an extortion scheme, court papers revealed on Thursday.

Jared Abrahams agreed to plead guilty to charges of unauthorized access of protected computers and extortion linked to the case, the documents said.

Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf, also 19, came forward to media organizations in September identifying herself as one of the targets of the hacking, which ensnared at least 12 young women between 2012 and June 2013. Wolf told NBC's "Today" program she had gone to high school with Abrahams in the Southern California city of Temecula.

The women, who were only identified by initials, were in their late teens or early 20s and one lived in Ireland and another was in Canada, a statement of fact in the plea agreement said.

Abrahams, who lived in Riverside County at the time, would gain access to the Facebook and other social media accounts of the women and remotely take pictures of them by accessing their webcams, the plea agreement said. Many of the photos he took were of them nude, the document said.

He would then threaten to post the pictures on the women's social media pages unless they sent him more naked photos or videos or spoke to him by video chat on Skype and did what he demanded for five minutes, the court papers said.

Abrahams signed the plea agreement with federal prosecutors on October 22 and, amid media reports of the deal, a representative for the U.S. Attorney's Office on Thursday sent out an electronic copy of the document.

Abrahams faces a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison and a fine of $1 million, but in exchange for a guilty plea the U.S. Attorney's Office agreed to ask a judge to sentence him to between 27 and 33 months behind bars.

He is expected to formally enter his plea at a court hearing within the first two weeks of November. Alan Eisner, an attorney for Abrahams, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

In September, Eisner said his client and his family want to "accept the responsibility" and "apologize to the victims, not only the girls, but their families."

Abrahams until recently attended college and is on the autism spectrum, which "affects his ability to engage in reciprocal communications," Eisner said at the time.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

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Federal appeals court reinstates abortion restrictions in Texas

By Brendan O'Brien

Fri Nov 1, 2013 1:33am EDT

n">(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Thursday reinstated a Texas abortion restriction that was blocked by a lower court this week, allowing nearly all of the state's sweeping anti-abortion law to go into effect.

The decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals means doctors who perform abortions in Texas must have admitting privileges with local hospitals within 30 miles of their clinic, according to court documents.

The Texas law passed in July was the most fiercely debated proposal to restrict abortions in the United States this year. Republican efforts to pass the law sparked an unsuccessful filibuster by Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis, which propelled her into the national spotlight and encouraged her to announce she will run for governor.

"This new ruling represents a huge pro-life victory," said the Texas Alliance For Life in a statement.

The Appeals Court overturned U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel's ruling on Monday, a day before the law was due to go into effect, that a section of the measure pertaining to admitting privileges was unconstitutional after supporters said it would force clinics to close.

"This fight is far from over. This restriction clearly violates Texas women's constitutional rights by drastically reducing access to safe and legal abortion statewide," said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the family planning and reproductive health group.

Supporters of the right to abortion have warned that the reinstated measure could force up to one third of the state's clinics to close immediately, cutting off access for some 22,000 women, because those clinics have not been able to gain admitting privileges for their physicians since the law passed.

Whole Woman's Health will close three of its five facilities in Texas on Friday because of the ruling, according to Amy Hagstrom Miller, the organization's founder and CEO, who spoke on the Rachel Maddow Show on Thursday.

"Just this evening, we had to call all our patients and cancel their appointments for tomorrow," Miller said.

Doctors do not have the required admitting privileges at the three clinics located in Fort Worth, San Antonio and McAllen.

However, Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas said in a statement on Thursday that its "doors are still open."

Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican who is running for Texas governor, had asked the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Yeakel's ruling and requested a full court hearing on the issue in January.

"This unanimous decision is a vindication of the careful deliberation by the Texas Legislature to craft a law to protect the health and safety of Texas women," he said in a statement.

The appeals court granted Abbott a hearing on the issue in January.

However, the court let stand Yeakel's ruling that blocks the state from enforcing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's abortion pill protocol for women who are 50 to 63 days pregnant if a doctor determines a surgical abortion is unsafe.

In 2012, another federal judge in Austin struck down the state's law requiring women to get a transvaginal ultrasound before abortions. An appeals court reversed that decision and the ultrasound requirement has gone into effect.

Earlier this week, Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports the right to abortion, said nine states, including Texas, passed laws requiring doctors to have admitting privileges, but they are in effect only in Kansas, Tennessee and Utah.

Laws were blocked by courts in four other states and have not yet taken effect in Arizona, Nash said.

Some 18 states, including Texas, have enacted laws restricting drug-induced abortions or holding them to the stricter federal guideline, Nash said.

Such laws have gone into effect in 14 states, but have been blocked by legal action in North Dakota, Wisconsin and Oklahoma, and are being challenged in Iowa, she said.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien and Lisa Maria Garza; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Paul Simao and Ken Wills)

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