New Quebec senator overcame tragedy to become voice for crime victims
January 29, 2010, By Sidhartha Banerjee, THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL - From inexplicable tragedy, Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu rose to become a tireless voice for all victims of violence and for tougher crime laws.
But the incoming Tory senator from Quebec paid a heavy price to take on that role.
In the span of just three-and-a-half years, Boisvenu lost both of his daughters in separate tragedies.
In response to the murder of his eldest daughter, Boisvenu formed a support group that helps the families of victims and fights to ensure they have more rights than criminals.
"In naming me a senator, prime minister Harper is also sending a clear message to Canadians and Quebecers that the Conservative government defends the rights of victims and not that of criminals," Boisvenu said in Ottawa on Friday.
It was the heinous murder of his daughter in 2002 that thrust Boisvenu into the spotlight.
Julie Boisvenu, 27, was kidnapped, raped and murdered in Sherbrooke, Que., by Hugo Bernier, who was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, forcible confinement and sexual assault.
Following the slaying, Boisvenu banded together with the fathers of three other Quebec murder victims to form the Murdered or Missing Persons' Families' Association in 2004.
The organization quickly became a rallying point for crime victims and their families. And any time or anywhere in the province families were dealing with violent crime, Boisvenu was there to lend a hand.
In December 2005, Boisvenu's life was turned upside down again when his youngest daughter, Isabelle, was killed in a car accident at the age of 26 on a treacherous stretch of highway in northwestern Quebec.
But despite the heavy loss, the father of three soldiered on and wrote a book about coping with their deaths. He still has a son, Christian.
"We're very proud of him," Martine Boucher, treasurer of the Murdered or Missing Persons' Families' Association, said Friday.
"He's put his heart into this organization and to have the laws changed to help families, to fight criminality."
A former Quebec public servant, Boisvenu is also the co-founder of Le Nid centre, which helps abused women in Val-d'Or, and of a camp for underprivileged youth in the Eastern Townships.
Ideologically, the 60-year-old Boisvenu seems a perfect fit for the tough-on-crime Tory agenda.
On Thursday, the Harper government announced plans to impose tougher rules to deal with violent or repeat young offenders when Parliament resumes sitting in March.
The Conservatives will introduce amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act to allow judges to impose adult sentences and stricter bail conditions, a move applauded by Boisvenu.
Boucher said being in Ottawa will allow Boisvenu to be closer-than-ever to the lawmakers and to be a vocal advocate for tough laws.
Boisvenu said he would like to stay on as head of the organization he helped found but will leave the ultimate decision up to the group's board. He's already agreed to give his senator's salary to the group.
Boisvenu says he probably won't stick around Ottawa for too long.
While he could stay on a senator until he's 75, Boisvenu said he'll re-evaluate his goals after four years.
"If I'm coming to the Senate, I'm not coming to have a salary or a career," Boisvenu said.
"I'm coming to the Senate to fulfil a certain mission ... and I think that in four or five years, I can accomplish that mission."
Senate Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu
Claude Larouche DNA evidence....
Crown says DNA evidence being used in wider probe of corrections slaying suspect
January 29, 2010, By THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL - The Crown says DNA evidence in the case against a man charged with murdering a federal corrections employee is also part of an investigation into other unresolved cases.
Claude Larouche is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of federal corrections employee Natasha Cournoyer.
The 37-year-old woman vanished from outside her workplace last October and her body was later found by the shores of the St. Lawrence River in Montreal.
Larouche wasn't in a Montreal courtroom today as his case was postponed until April 23 and DNA evidence was handed over to his new lawyer.
But outside the courtroom, Crown prosecutor Eliane Perreault said the large volume of DNA evidence gathered in the current investigation is being used in other criminal cases.
Perreault says it's too early to say whether Larouche will face other charges.
She says the investigation into the slaying of Cournoyer is continuing.
Dangerous-offender hearing for Thomas Svekla..
January 27, 2010, Prostitute killer can't control urges, court told, By TONY BLAIS, QMI Agency
EDMONTON - Convicted prostitute killer Thomas Svekla cannot control his sexual urges and acts on those impulses by violently overpowering his victims and taking advantage of them.
That's what Crown prosecutor Ashley Finlayson said Tuesday during his closing argument at Svekla's dangerous offender hearing in Court of Queen's Bench.
The hearing originated from Svekla's conviction in Peace River of sexual assault and uttering death threats stemming from an Aug. 4, 2005, attack on a woman in High Level, and Finlayson cited several other of the former mechanic's convictions, as well as unproven allegations.
"What it shows is he is taking advantage of someone that he has gotten control of so he can sexually assault them and satisfy his sexual impulses," said Finlayson.
In order to prove that Svekla, 41, is a dangerous offender, Finlayson presented as additional evidence his convictions for sexually assaulting two young girls, including one for which he got a seven-year sentence last year.
The unproven allegations include testimony that Svekla pinned a girl against a classroom wall during junior high and tried to remove her clothes during a recess break.
As well, another woman testified Svekla choked her and tried to sexually assault her when she was a teen, and a former lover told court Svekla choked her until she passed out and forced unwanted sex on her.
The High Level case involved Svekla attacking a woman he had invited to his basement suite for drinks. She testified he grabbed her by her throat and hair and began sexually assaulting her.
She also said Svekla threatened to break her neck and said he would hide her body "where nobody was going to find it."
The woman escaped and went to police after she "played dead" and then fled when Svekla turned his back.
The hearing, which began in November, also heard psychiatric evidence concluding that Svekla is a psychopath who poses a high risk of reoffending violently.
The defence, which called no evidence at the hearing, is slated to present its closing argument Wednesday.
Svekla is currently serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 17 years after being convicted of second-degree murder in June 2008 for the slaying of prostitute Theresa Innes, 36. He has appealed the conviction.
He was also found guilty of offering an indignity to a body for transporting Innes's wire-bound and wrapped remains in a hockey bag from High Level to Fort Saskatchewan.
However, Svekla was acquitted on identical charges in the 2004 death of prostitute Rachel Quinney, 19. Her mutilated, naked body was found by Svekla in a wooded farmer's field near Fort Saskatchewan in June 2004.
If he is designated a dangerous offender, Svekla would receive an indefinite prison sentence.
Sebastien D. Boucher sentenced!
Vt. child porn from Canada suspect gets 3 year prison sentence
January 22, 2010, By John Curran, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BURLINGTON, Vt. - A Canadian child pornography suspect who initially refused to give up his computer password so police could search his laptop was sentenced Friday to three years in prison.
Sebastien D. Boucher, 33, was also ordered to submit to five years of supervised release for his conviction on one count of possession of child pornography transported in interstate or foreign commerce.
Entering the United States from Canada in 2006, Boucher - a Canadian citizen with U.S. residency - was stopped Dec. 17, 2006, at the Derby Line, Vt., checkpoint and asked to show his laptop to an agent.
He waived his Miranda rights and told agents he downloads pornography from news groups and that he sometimes unknowingly acquires images that contain child pornography. But he said he deletes the images when he realizes it.
The border agent saw files "Two year old being raped during diaper change" and "pre teen bondage," and the computer was seized. But when an when an investigator later tried to access a particular drive, he couldn't because of password-protected encryption software.
A grand jury subpoenaed Boucher to reveal the password, but a magistrate later said he didn't have to, since it would have the effect of giving prosecutors the key to get evidence against him.
On Sept. 25, Boucher pleaded guilty and agreed to surrender the password, on condition that what investigators found couldn't be used against him at sentencing.
According to U.S. Attorney Tristram Coffin, Boucher had a constitutional right not to surrender the password.
Prosecutors already had enough evidence to convict Boucher, but they wanted to examine the contents of the computer's "Z drive" to see if other crimes had been committed, according to Coffin.
Under the plea, if the government found evidence that he'd produced child pornography, that evidence could be used against him.
Boucher co-operated with the government "by providing information concerning the unlawful activities of others," according to the plea agreement.
When Boucher finally gave up the password Oct. 19, investigators found 2,000 still images and 118 video files depicting prepubescent children being sexually assaulted by adults, according to Michael Touchette, a computer forensics analyst for the Vermont Department of Corrections who testified Friday at the sentencing.
Touchette said there was no indication the computer had been used in the production or distribution of child pornography, and that he could find nothing on it that indicated where the files and video had come from.
Canada's privacy commissioner examining online data collection by social media
January 18, 2010, By THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO - Canada's privacy commissioner is launching a series of public consultations to investigate online data collection through social networking and consumer profiling.
Jennifer Stoddart is examining the privacy risks associated with the online tracking, profiling and targeting of consumers, in the lead up to a review of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
Canadians are among the world's most prolific Internet and social networking users and Stoddart's office says there's concern that personal information is being abused.
Advocates for the collection of user data say it leads to fun innovations in social media and a more personalized experience for users.
Some argue the user data would also improve the relevancy of advertising, which could foster free ad-driven Internet services.
But critics fear consumers are unknowingly revealing dangerous amounts of personal data when they use social networking sites.
Written submissions for the consultation are being accepted until March 15, while public discussion panels are being organized in Toronto in April and Montreal in May.
A future consultation will also examine the privacy implications of "cloud computing," which stores users' data online rather than on personal computers. Examples include Google's popular Gmail service and its suite of Google Docs applications - including a word processor and spreadsheet maker - which work entirely online.
Stoddart released a report last July outlining privacy issues with Facebook and some were eventually addressed by the popular website.
Sharia police arrested for rape
Hotli Simanjuntak , The Jakarta Post , Banda Aceh, 01/13/2010
A serious blow to the credibility and morality of sharia police in Aceh province, has occurred after several members were detained for an alleged gang rape in Langsa regency.
Police in the regency said Tuesday they had arrested two sharia police officers, or Wilayatul Hisbah, for reportedly raping a female detainee at the Langsa Sharia Police Station.
The Langsa Police are also hunting down another suspect who is currently on the run.
Langsa Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Yosi Muhammartha said the three suspects were accused of jointly raping a university student when she was held in a cell at the station.
The woman was gang-raped by the three sharia policemen during her interrogation, he added.
Yosi said the issue began when sharia police officers were conducting patrol on the night of Jan. 8, and found a couple on the side of the PTPN-1 Langsa ring road.
The police brought the pair to the sharia police office in Langsa.
The suspects then questioned the couple in relation to violating the 2003 Sharia Public Indecency Bylaw.
Based on a medical report issued by the Langsa General Hospital, the victim suffered a severe hemorrhage due to the rape.
”We have named the three sharia police officers as suspects.
“We have detained two of them and are looking for the third,” Yosi said.
He said the two detained suspects admitted their crime to police investigators.
He also said the police were developing a probe into the case.
The police have also conducted a criminal reconstruction at the Langsa Sharia Police Station’s detention cell.
“Apart from the medical report, we have also obtained evidence from the victim’s clothes, but we are waiting for a written medical report from the hospital,” Yosi said.
News of the gang rape spread quickly across Aceh, the only Indonesian province that enforces Islamic sharia law.
“This is a shameful act,” Lucy Paramita from the Indonesian Women’s Coalition, a local women’s NGO, said.
She added that the case illustrated that law enforcers committed many violations.
“People’s trust in law enforcers fades after these incidents,” she said.
Lucy said a state institution such as the sharia police should protect the community from violations against Islamic law, but the rape case shows women could become victims of abuse by law enforcers.
The Aceh Ulema Association has condemned the rape and urged authorities to hand out heavy punishment to the suspects, saying the immoral act had tainted the implementation of Islamic sharia law in Aceh.
“We strongly condemn the rape involving the sharia police.
“They must be harshly punished by using the Jinayat criminal code.
“This code requires violators be punished severely,” association secretary Faisal Aly said.
The Islamic criminal code was amended by the Aceh legislative council last year, allowing adulterers to be stoned to death.
Holly Grande: Short and Sweet
Blog post from Holly Grande,
Thank you to the SAFER blog, who inspired this post, and to bloggers like Victoria Placeo, Holly Desimone, Marcella Chester and others who gave me strength.........
http://hollygrande.blogspot.com/2010/01/four-letter-words.html
Robert Montgomery Exclusive: Fury at council pay-off deal for paedophile
Jan 10 2010 Derek Alexander, Sunday Mail
A PAEDOPHILE was given a golden handshake by council bosses after being charged with child sex crimes.
Bus driver Robert Montgomery, 60, was last month convicted of sexually abusing two sisters, aged three and five years old, during a six-year reign of terror.
But we can reveal that Montgomery - who ferried disabled adults around Hurlford, Ayrshire - was given a £26,000 pay-off and a £600-a-month pension after East Ayrshire Council awarded him an early retirement package.
The beast was employed with the council for 27 years and got his deal last January - almost a year after he was arrested.
His crimes only came to light when his victims contacted police 30 years after they were attacked.
Last month he was found guilty at the High Court in Glasgow of a catalogue of sex offences.
The court heard that Montgomery forced one of the girls to regularly perform sex acts on him at his home between 1978 and 1983, starting when she was just five years old.
Jurors also heard that he targeted her sister by sexually assaulting her between 1977 and 1982 at his house in Kilmarnock. He told his victims that their disabled brother would be sent to live in a foster home if they ever told anyone about the abuse A council source said: "Montgomery's crimes were sickening and he should rot in jail.
"But he won't because East Ayrshire have helped make sure that whatever sentence he gets will be that bit easier because his bank balance will be growing while he's banged up.
"He'll be getting out of prison to a nice little nest egg waiting on him to start a new life anywhere he wants while his victims will still be trying to pick up the pieces.
"If there was any decency in the world everything he's got should be going to his victims." Last night EastAyrshire Council defended its decision claimng they saved taxpayers' money by allowing the beast to retire early.
They said: "The action taken has been vindicated as the costs arising from the retirement were less than if he had been retained."
Montgomery is being held in Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison and will be sentenced later this month.
12 PERCENT OF ADJUDICATED YOUTH REPORT SEXUAL VICTIMIZATION IN JUVENILE FACILTIES DURING 2008-09
ADVANCE FOR RELEASE
Bureau of Justice Statistics
THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010
Contact: Kara McCarthy
www.bjs. ojp.usdoj.gov/
WASHINGTON – An estimated 12 percent of adjudicated youth (3,220) in state operated and large locally or privately operated juvenile facilities reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another youth or facility staff in a survey mandated by the Prison Rape Elimination Act, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, announced today. About 2.6 percent of youth (700) reported an incident involving another youth, and 10.3 percent (2,730) reported an incident involving facility staff.
The National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC) limited reporting by youth to incidents occurring in the last 12 months or since their admission to the facility, if less than 12 months. Sexual victimization is defined as any unwanted sexual activity between youth and all sexual activity between youth and staff. About 4.3 percent of youth (1,150) reported having sex or sexual contact with staff as a result of force; 6.4 percent of youth (1,710) reported sexual contact with staff without any force, threat, or other explicit form of coercion.
Males were more likely than females to report sexual activity with facility staff (10.8 percent compared to 4.7 percent), but less likely than females to report forced sexual activity with another youth (2.0 percent compared to 9.1 percent). Overall, 91 percent of youth in the facilities in the survey were males; 9 percent were females.
Approximately 95 percent of all youth reporting staff sexual misconduct said they had been victimized by female facility staff. In 2008, 42 percent of staff in juvenile facilities under state jurisdiction were female.
Nearly half of the youth victimized by another youth reported they had experienced physical force or threat of force (46 percent), 30 percent had been offered favors or protection, and 17 percent had been given drugs or alcohol. Among youth victimized by facility staff, more than two-thirds (69 percent) did not report any force, threat of force, or offers of favors, protection, drugs, or alcohol to engage in the sexual activity. Nearly 20 percent of youth sexually victimized by another youth reported being injured in the incident, compared to five percent of youth victimized by staff.
All estimates of sexual victimization are subject to sampling error. A 95 percent-confidence interval including an upper and lower bound was constructed around each survey estimate to provide the range of values could have occurred if different samples were drawn.
To fulfill requirements of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, BJS identified 13 facilities as “high rate.” These 13 facilities had a confidence interval with a lower bound that was at least 35 percent higher than the average rate among facilities categorized by type of consent. Six facilities had victimization rates of 30 percent or more.
BJS also identified 11 facilities as “low rate” based on the low percentages of youth who reported incidents, and the upper bound of the 95 percent-confidence interval was less than half the average rate among facilities. Five of the low rate facilities had no reported incidents of sexual victimization.
The NSYC was conducted between June 2008 and April 2009 in 166 state owned or operated juvenile facilities and 29 locally or privately operated facilities, yielding 9,198 completed interviews from adjudicated youth. The survey was administered using an audio computer-assisted self-interview instrument (ACASI) on touch-screen laptop computers in a private setting.
Administrators in each facility determined the type of consent required for youths. In loco parentis (ILP)—“in the place of a parent”—was required in 63 facilities. In the remaining 132 facilities, consent from the youths’ parents or guardians (PGC) was required. In addition, survey staff had to receive assent from the youth prior to conducting the interview. Approximately 80 percent of sampled youth in ILP facilities and 40 percent in PGC facilities participated in the survey. Overall, 54 percent of sampled youth completed the sexual victimization survey.
The report, Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008-09 (NCJ 228416) was written by BJS statisticians Allen J. Beck, Paige M. Harrison, and Paul Guerino. Following publication, the report can be found at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2113
RCMP solved 82 per cent of homicide cases in 2009
Almost half caused by domestic violence, release says...By Laura Drake, Edmonton Journal January 8, 2010
Alberta RCMP solved 82 per cent of the 39 homicides they investigated in 2009, according to a release Thursday.
Cpl. Wayne Oakes, spokesman for the provincial RCMP, credited the high rate with the types of murders RCMP investigate. Only two of the 39 RCMP-investigated homicides last year were gang-related, case that are notoriously hard to solve.
"Quite frequently when you have gang-related homicides there is a much greater reluctance for those involved to co-operate with investigations," Oakes said.
Nearly half of the homicides were the result of domestic violence.
"It just is really troubling to see that 16 of the 39 homicides include some kind of family relationship," Oakes said. "We have a great number of very skilled and dedicated resources that do work with a number of community groups trying to address family violence ... Because of the fact that so much of what occurs in a domestic relationship happens behind closed doors, it is extremely difficult to bring in the resources those people need."
Over the past decade, the number of homicides investigated annually by Alberta RCMP has varied from 23 to 53, a decade high that hit in 2008. The RCMP's Serious Crimes Branch is responsible for murders that fall outside the jurisdiction of city police forces in Alberta, which encompasses a population of 1,621,457, spread over the province's rural areas and some cities where the RCMP act as the municipal police force.
In 2009, Oakes said, 28 homicides took place in northern Alberta, defined as north of Wetaskiwin, and 11 were south. Oakes said there appears to be no reason for the higher homicide rate in the northern area, as the numbers fluctuate from year to year.
This year, the homicide caseload in the northern half of the province included several high-profile crimes. In a double-murder suicide in Grande Cache May 5, Kerry Saltel killed his wife Gail and 17-year-old daughter Erika.
Weeks later, Susan Trudel and Barry Boenke were killed on a Strathcona County property. Two 14-year-old boys who had escaped earlier that day from a nearby group home were arrested the next day and charged with first-degree murder.
In July, four family members died in a triple murder-suicide near Smith. Before shooting himself, Ian Paget killed his wife Joan Paget, their daughter Jolene Eliuk and their nine-year-old granddaughter, Misty Eliuk.
Ernie Del Pinto seeks justice!!!!
Calgary father continues fight two years after son slain in Thailand...January 7, 2010, By THE CANADIAN PRESS
CALGARY - A Calgary man says he goes to his son's grave whenever he feels his energy flagging after two long years seeking justice in a foreign land.
Ernie Del Pinto says one quick visit renews his determination to make sure whoever killed his son is punished.
Leo Del Pinto was shot to death in January 2008 just days after arriving for a vacation in Thailand.
An off-duty Thai police officer has been charged in his death.
Del Pinto's father says the case is crawling through the country's courts, with a pre-trial hearing set to wrap up around April.
His twin daughters have organized a candlelight vigil for their brother to mark the day they heard he had been slain.
RIDERVILLE rings in 100 Celebration BY LETTING ERIC TILLMAN VIOLATE HIS CODE OF CONDUCT!
TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR SASKATCHEWAN ROUGHRIDERS FOOTBALL CLUB,
YOUR Goal for a celebrate 100 YEARS of the Saskatchewan Roughrider Football Club by paying tribute to all the stakeholders (i.e. fans, shareholders, players, coaches, volunteers and business partners).
HERE IS THE WEBSITE
http://www.riderville.com/page/page-2010_centennial
SO LETS PAY TRIBUTE TO GENERAL MANAGER ERIC TILLMAN A CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER!
BUT WAIT HE GOT A SPECIAL GIFT! HIS CODE OF CONDUCT! HE GETS OFF!!!
