Study: More New Orleans' Felony Cases Go To Court

T-P:

The number of felony cases accepted for prosecution by the Orleans Parish district attorney grew by 63 percent from the first part of the year to the last quarter of 2007, perhaps evidence of an improved working relationship between prosecutors and the New Orleans Police Department, the Metropolitan Crime Commission concluded in a report to be released today.

The study is the third report issued by the Crime Commission looking at 2007 arrests made by police and cases prosecuted in court, tracking the performance of a criminal justice system still rebounding from Hurricane Katrina.

While the group saw improvement in the number of people who will be prosecuted for felonies at Criminal District Court and an increased conviction rate, it still identified areas that call out for policy changes by police and prosecutors, said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the commission.

Sister of Mannie Fresh found murdered in New Orleans' Home

Mannie Fresh's sister, Angela Bryant, was shot and killed Wednesday night in her New Orleans home, according to local TV affiliate WWLTV. Police reportedly said the 42-year-old mother's two young children were present but not physically harmed.

Authorities said Bryant, whose body was discovered early Thursday morning, was murdered between 10 p.m. and midnight, according to WWLTV. Her black 1998 Lexus LS 400 reportedly went missing after the murder.

Bryant's husband, who had been out of town when his wife was killed, arrived at the house before noon and was distraught, according to the WWLTV report. The couple got married last month, and Bryant celebrated her birthday with family on Wednesday night, WWLTV said. Police reportedly did not elaborate on the conditions of the children, ages 2 and 7, but said they were safe and healthy.

Mannie Fresh (real name: Byron O. Thomas) — a legendary producer who claims T.I.'s "Big Things Poppin' " as his latest hit — was reportedly on his way back to his native New Orleans from Texas.

Ex-Councilman, Oliver Thomas' nephew fatally shot by police

The Times Picayune has reported that the nephew of ex-councilman Oliver Thomas was fatally shot by the police.

Alton Laraque, 19, died near his residence in the Iberville public housing complex.

Police were called to complex around 8:30 p.m. to handle a report of a man involved in a domestic disturbance. Laraque had apparently had been arguing with a girlfriend, police said.

When police responded, Laraque acted defiantly, they said. Laraque and police exchanged gunfire on two occasions within an hour, police said.

After the initial exchange near Iberville and Crozat streets, Laraque managed to evade police for about an hour, police said.

But police found him hiding underneath a car and another exchange of gunfire ensued, police said. Laraque died at the scene.

A distraught Thomas, a former city councilman who resigned in August after pleading guilty to taking bribes, arrived at the scene late Thursday night.

Police said they initially discovered a man carrying a chrome-colored, 9 mm pistol and chased him when he ran, police spokeswoman Shereese Harper said. During the foot-chase, Laraque turned and shot at the officer, who returned fire, police said.

The officer was not hit, and it still has not been determined whether the man was wounded at that time. But he managed to evade the officer's pursuit, officers said.

The incident is under investigation.

"Rehab" Can Be Very Costly

"Rehab can be a costly proposition for many people. Even though the cost to the individual patient and his family has declined in recent years, treatment programs often reach into the thousands of dollars. In 2002, the average cost of a rehab treatment program was around $1,400. Residential treatment rates stood around $3,800, and outpatient methadone treatments cost an average of about $7,400.

Some rehab facilities' inpatient treatment programs can cost into the tens of thousands of dollars. Crossroads Centre, a rehab center in Antigua, West Indies, founded by guitarist Eric Clapton, charges an average of $15,000 per month for treatment [source: Addiction Resource Guide].

When the length of time required by a treatment program is factored, the perception of cost shifts. For outpatient non-methadone treatments, the cost averaged $26.72 per visit. Non-hospital residential treatments cost an average of $76.13 per day, while methadone treatments, usually the longest-term treatment cost an average of $17.78 per visit [source: SAMHSA].

How rehab is paid for has changed somewhat over the past two decades. In 1986, private insurers paid nearly 30 percent of the total cost of rehab. Patients paid nearly 14 percent of the total cost that same year. In 2003, however, both patients and insurers paid less for treatment, changing to just over 10 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

The burden of paying for rehabs has shifted largely to the public sector, namely states. Medicaid, state-sponsored insurance programs for the poor, and other state agencies paid almost 60 percent of the total cost of rehab in 2003. That year, a total of $20.7 billion was spent on treating individuals with a substance dependency.

Supporters of treatment programs point out that there is a cost/benefit analysis that should be conducted when viewing the expenditure of state money on rehab for individuals. One study concluded that the cost to society for alcohol and illicit drug use (including tobacco) totaled $500 billion in 2002 [source: NIDA]. This cost includes health care, loss of property, crime and other factors that society as a whole pays for, like prison systems. A 1993 Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)-funded study determined that the total cost borne by society for alcoholism came to $148 billion.

Some studies have shown that treatment programs have a tendency to actually offset some of that cost to society. One study by the NIAAA showed that for every dollar spent on rehab, three dollars were saved in other costs associated with the effects of addiction [source: ENotAlone].

Another study pointed out the human cost of alcoholism. Working off of the estimate that there are about 12 million alcoholics in the United States (an estimated 30 million in the United States, Japan and Europe combined), and calculating that each alcoholic may have a spouse, children and other close family members, the researchers concluded that as many as 60 million Americans were affected by alcoholism [sources:ENotAlone, Biotie]."

Note* When a parent ignores their child's drug problems, it has a devastating effect on us all. We all suffer from their criminal activity to support their drug habit. It is time for people to wake up and realize that drug addicts have a costly effect on our economy as a whole.

The Meaning of "Rehab"

"The word "rehab" has become a part of the international lexicon. While it can mean several things, it most frequently refers to a center or program where a person can find treatment for addiction. Although it's become so firmly embedded in our consciousness as a natural byproduct of the addictive nature of Western society, rehab is a relatively new concept.

Prior to the 1980s, anyone seeking help for a drug or alcohol addiction was sent to a sanitarium -- a psychiatric hospital -- or a traditional hospital. Think Patty Duke's character in "Valley of the Dolls" or Winona Ryder's character in "Girl, Interrupted."

In the '80s, rehab centers branched off from their psychiatric foundations to encompass several forms of treatment. This was partly due to a change in the perception of addiction. Rather than pinpointing a substance (with its addictive properties) as the cause of addiction, or believing addiction to be a weakness of will, addiction itself became viewed as a disease. However, what hasn't changed is the purpose of rehab centers: to provide a place of solace and respite where an addict can "kick the habit."

For many years, going to rehab was viewed as somewhat taboo. It wasn't an experience that was openly discussed and is still sometimes looked upon as somewhat shameful, as if the patient had failed somehow. But as more and more people go to rehab to find help for their addictions, it has come to play an accepted -- and necessary -- role in society.

Recently, the acceptance of a stay (or several stays) at a rehab -- as a consequence of fast living -- has became so widespread that some celebrities are reputed to have used rehab excursions as a publicity stunt to boost their fame.

Actress Lindsey Lohan made several highly publicized trips to rehab in 2007. Even Amy Winehouse, the British singer notable for her first American single "Rehab" (including the lyrics "They tryin' to make me go to rehab / I said no, no, no") eventually said "yes" to several short rehab stays after a brush with death from an overdose consisting of heroin, cocaine, ketamine (a horse tranquilizer) and ecstasy [source: Daily Mail].

Celebrities have even managed to boost some rehab facilities to fame. Centers like Promises in Malibu, Calif., and Crossroads in Antigua, West Indies, now enjoy elevated status thanks to some of their high-profile patients.

Although celebrities get the lion's share of the publicity for their visits, they aren't the only ones who utilize rehab services. The 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 3.9 million Americans age 12 and older received some kind of treatment for drug and/or alcohol dependency in 2005. Treatment was received in a variety of locales, including inpatient rehab centers, self-help groups (the largest portion) and prison [source: Department of Health and Human Services].

The wide array of treatments for people suffering from addiction reveals that a large portion of Western society has succumbed to dependency on everything from liquor to pills to sex, and even food. So what are these places where people can go to get help?"

The Effects of Money Laundering

"Depending on which international agency you ask, criminals launder anywhere between 500 billion and $1 trillion worldwide every year. The global effect is staggering in social, economic and security terms.

On the socio-cultural end of the spectrum, successfully laundering money means that criminal activity actually does pay off. This success encourages criminals to ontinue their illicit schemes because they get to spend the profit with no repercussions. This means more fraud, more corporate embezzling (which means more workers losing their pensions when the corporation collapses), more drugs on the streets, more drug-related crime, law-enforcement resources stretched beyond their means and a general loss of morale on the part of legitimate business people who don't break the law and don't make nearly the profits that the criminals do.

The economic effects are on a broader scale. Developing countries often bear the brunt of modern money laundering because the governments are still in the process of establishing regulations for their newly privatized financial sectors. This makes them a prime target. In the 1990s, numerous banks in the developing Baltic states ended up with huge, widely rumored deposits of dirty money. Bank patrons proceeded to withdraw their own clean money for fear of losing it if the banks came under investigation and lost their insurance. The banks collapsed as a result. Other major issues facing the world's economies include errors in economic policy resulting from artificially inflated financial sectors. Massive influxes of dirty cash into particular areas of the economy that are desirable to money launderers create false demand, and officials act on this new demand by adjusting economic policy. When the laundering process reaches a certain point or if law-enforcement officials start to show interest, all of that money that will suddenly disappear without any predictable economic cause, and that financial sector falls apart.

Some problems on a more local scale relate to taxation and small-business competition. Laundered money is usually untaxed, meaning the rest of us ultimately have to make up the loss in tax revenue. Also, legitimate small businesses can't compete with money-laundering front businesses that can afford to sell a product for cheaper because their primary purpose is to clean money, not turn a profit. They have so much cash coming in that they might even sell a product or service below cost.

The majority of global investigations focus on two prime money-laundering industries: Drug trafficking and terrorist organizations. The effect of successfully cleaning drug money is clear: More drugs, more crime, more violence. The connection between money laundering and terrorism may be a bit more complex, but it plays a crucial role in the sustainability of terrorist organizations. Most people who financially support terrorist organizations do not simply write a personal check and hand it over to a member of the terrorist group. They send the money in roundabout ways that allow them to fund terrorism while maintaining anonymity. And on the other end, terrorists do not use credit cards and checks to purchase the weapons, plane tickets and civilian assistance they need to carry out a plot. They launder the money so authorities can't trace it back to them and foil their planned attack. Interrupting the laundering process can cut off funding and resources to terrorist groups.

So the next question is: What are authorities doing to prevent money laundering?"

Homeowner Holds Burglary Suspect At Gunpoint

"For David Holbrook of Mandeville, arming himself and capturing a thief who recently attempted to burglarize his house not only protected his family and their belongings, but may have finally put away a teenager who has stockpiled criminal charges over the past two years.

The drama began to unfold Aug. 26 at about 5:15 a.m., when Alana Holbrook awoke to find a man outside the doorway of the master bedroom at their home on the 100 block of Cindy Lou Place in the Old Golden Shores neighborhood. After seeing her wake up, the man fled downstairs as she woke her husband, David Holbrook.

As his wife called the police, Holbrook armed himself with a loaded .45-caliber Ruger pistol and began searching for the intruder, later identified by police as Matthew Weaver, 19, who lives just three blocks away at 212 Fountain St.

Holbrook didn't find the suspect inside or outside the house, but discovered the burglar had stolen a laptop computer, a computer game system and money from the purses of his wife and two daughters, ages 12 and 16.

Returning outside, Holbrook spotted the suspect coming from the side yard, heading across the street.

Holbrook ran toward Weaver, gun aimed, and ordered him to the ground. Weaver complied, and Holbrook held him there for several minutes until police arrived.

After arresting him, officers recovered the stolen goods, which had been stashed in the bushes across the street. The suspect also had money stolen from other locations, according to the Mandeville Police Department.

Weaver was taken to the parish jail in Covington and booked with burglary of an inhabited dwelling.

From October 2005 to August 2007, Weaver accumulated 31 criminal charges involving nine separate incidents, court records show. The charges are mostly burglaries and theft, but also include a misdemeanor drug charge and a second-degree battery charge from January 2007.

Weaver is set to go to court Monday for the battery case, and the recent burglary arrest will not affect those proceedings, said Lt. Tommy Breazeale, spokesman for the Mandeville Police Department."


*Note: Arming yourself is another solution to trying to prevent home burglaries. It may also be necessary in order to save your life.