Marijuana Inmate With Allergy Dies After Being Given Oatmeal

Marijuana Inmate With Allergy Dies After Being Given Oatmeal

Although marijuana has never killed anyone in history, the marijuana laws have claimed another tragic victim.
Michael Saffioti, 22, who, upon his mother’s advice, had turned himself in to the Lynnwood Police Department after missing a court date, was dead after just one night in the Snohomish County Jail in Washington state, reports Molly Shen of KATU.com. The county could face a lawsuit for ignoring Saffioti’s food allergy.

The young man knew dairy products could kill him; he read labels and carried medication, and suffered severe reactions from just being near dairy protein. His anxiety over the allergy was so severe, in fact, it left him needing medication.
“Ultimately, he found and thought he was better functioning using marijuana,” said his mother, Rose Saffioti, who is a nurse.

But Michael didn’t have a doctor’s recommendation to use cannabis medicinally, which left him vulnerable to prosecution. His marijuana use led to several encounters with law enforcement. After the most recent incident, he and his mother went to the police station, carrying his medical history, after he had missed a court date.

“I wanted Michael held accountable for his legal issues and I insisted on it,” his mother said. “But I didn’t want him to die.”

Michael started having trouble breathing after eating the oatmeal that was served to him in jail. According to other inmates, he begged for help.
The guards accused him of faking it, and allowed him to die in horrible pain. The autopsy found his allergic reaction to milk products contributed to his death.
“I know there’s a period where he knew he was going to die,” his mother said. “And he trusted me. Everything was supposed to bet set up, that he’d be taken care of.”

“He was scared,” she said, reports The Associated Press. “I said, ‘You are doing the right thing. They are going to take care of you.’ He said, ‘I have a bad feeling that they are not going to take me seriously.’ ”

“You can’t get help. You can’t call 911,” said Anne Bremner, an attorney representing the Saffioti family. “You’re at their complete mercy. When the jail’s the one that gives you something that’s going to kill you — that they know is going to kill you — they, at a minimum, have to rescue you. And they didn’t.”
The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t comment on Saffioti’s death or the potential lawsuit until its “investigation” is complete.

Rose Saffioti said she will sue the county, but that her first goal is to hold someone criminally responsible. Michael’s death is one of six deaths to occur in the same jail since 2010. It’s one of at least two that are resulting in wrongful-death claims against the county.

She and attorney Bremner are encouraging the Snohomish County prosecutor’s office to file involuntary manslaughter charges against jail workers whom they believe should have helped prevent Michael’s death.
Submitted by ‘Anonymous’

This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories Posted on October 22, 2012.

A St. Louis cop is headed for federal prison for re-selling seized pot, a Camden cop is heading there, too, for running amok in the drug war, a Miami cop awaits sentencing for transporting what he thought was cocaine, and a Baltimore jail guard gets popped for smuggling weed and psychedelics into the jail. Let’s get to it:

In Baltimore, a Baltimore jail guard was arrested last Friday on charges he was smuggling drugs into Central Booking. Guard Michael McCain, 44, was indicted on eight drug counts, including possession with intent to distribute marijuana and 5-methoxy-diisopropyltryptamine, better known as “Foxy Methoxy,” a psychedelic.

In Miami, a Miami-Dade police officer was convicted last Wednesday of helping to transport shipments of what he thought was cocaine on behalf of a man he believed was a South Beach club manager, but who instead turned out to be an undercover FBI agent. Officer Daniel Mack was convicted of conspiracy to possess and distribute multiple kilos of cocaine and using a firearm in the commission of a crime. He is looking at 15-to-life when he is sentenced in December. Mack was convicted along with two other men of transporting 19 kilos of what they thought was cocaine from Miami Beach to Aventura. They were paid $25,000 for their efforts. Mack had been suspended without pay pending trial; he will now be fired.

In Camden, New Jersey, a former Camden police officer was sentenced last Wednesday to 20 months in federal prison for stealing money during drug raids, illegally searching homes, planting evidence, and lying in court. He copped to conspiracy and deprivation of civil rights. Kevin Parry, 32, was one of four Camden police officers arrested on corruption charges in 2010. He got a reduced sentence because he testified in the trial of one of the others. Two of the others also pleaded guilty and are now doing time, while a third awaits sentencing. Camden County prosecutors dropped the charges in 210 cases in which the quartet was involved.

In St. Louis, a former St. Louis police officer was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison for seizing marijuana, then working with his brother to sell it on the streets. Larry Davis, 46, was a supervisory agent for a unit doing drug investigations, and he admitted seizing packages containing marijuana from delivery businesses, then selling the weed. His brother also got federal prison time, but only a year.

Disgraced and greedy, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik

Disgraced and greedy! Bernard Kerik. 

Disgraced and greedy, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik schlumped into the Bronx courthouse in bright orange prison T-shirt and navy blue jumpsuit, his shiny, bald head gleaming in the daylight and hands shackled uncomfortably to his waist.

Minutes later, bombastic Bernie changed his clothes and attitude. He strode purposefully to the witness stand in an oversized and expensive dark suit a couple of sizes too big for his clearly shrunken frame.

Hours later, he was reduced to tears.

FORMER NYPD BOSS HAS 'SCAM'NESIA DURING PALS' TRIAL

Kerik is a prisoner of a fine federal correctional institution in Maryland after admitting he accepted $165,000 in renovations, including a marble-framed Jacuzzi, in his Riverdale apartment.

He was unshackled yesterday to testify in the perjury trial of two allegedly mob-connected brothers accused of sprucing up Kerik’s home, free of charge, in hope of getting favors.

Kerik made it clear he’d prefer to be in a cell with a large, hairy roommate rather than here, singing like a stooge.

“Is it fair to say you’re not happy to be here?’’ asked prosecutor Stuart Levy.

“Yes,’’ Kerik groused.

Later, the swaggering ex-police chief was reduced to an ugly, blubbering mess. Prison accommodations got you down? The lack of marble showers? The cuisine?

Wrong.

Defense attorney Cathy Fleming asked if Kerik pleaded guilty to state prosecutors and the feds so he might avoid prison.

“You pleaded guilty because you thought it would end? You could move on with life?” she asked.

Kerik paused, his face turned red, his eyes welled up with tears and in a muffled, cracked voice said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Tears began rolling down his face.

A court officer brought him a tissue just in time, before we all got sick.

For four hours, Kerik, the high-school dropout who rose to be Rudy Giuliani’s correction commissioner then police commish, then almost was named George W. Bush’s director of Homeland Security, displayed selective amnesia for the riches bestowed on him by people who needed favors.

He couldn’t remember how much his pal Larry Ray paid for his 1998 wedding. ($34,000.)

Twenty-seven times in the afternoon alone he said, “I don’t know’’ or “I don’t recall.’’

He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, recall meeting with defendant Frank DiTommaso. He did notice that Frank had “gained a little weight, his hair got a little gray.” Frank’s brother and co-defendant, Peter, “also got gray.”

He remembered peevishly that DiTommaso gave him grief the first time they met.

“Two things I remember,’’ Kerik said. “One, he said he was highly insulted because I stepped in front of him during a Yankee celebration at City Hall.”

“Two, he pulled out a photo of him as a child sitting on a Harley motorcycle with his father behind him.’’ Dad was a cop.

He also clearly remembered the condition of his apartment — whose down payment (he was rejected by banks) came from another rich pal, Nathan Berman, with a series of small checks from $3,000 to $9,000. Some were made out to Bernie’s wife, Hala. Others to “Cash.”

“The whole apartment was green — green walls, green ceiling. Other walls were purple,” Kerik said.

“It was a mess?” asked the prosecutor.

“Yes.”

He also remembered vividly what the apartment was like when it was done.

A tacky marble “rotunda,” whatever that is, at the entrance. A marble Jacuzzi.

Kerik seemed to purposely forget what led to his downfall.

He said he removed his name from consideration for the job as chief of Homeland Security not because of financial shenanigans, and not because he kept a taxpayer-paid love nest for fooling around in  Battery Park City, which he did.

“My wife and I had hired a domestic servant, a nanny, I did not pay employment taxes on,” he said. Say it enough times and you begin to believe it.

Bernie might as well have been testifying for the defense, not the prosecution.

In a particularly testy exchange, he refused to tell the prosecutor that Interstate, the company owned by the DiTommaso brothers, had paid for the rotunda and other gizmos at his apartment. He refused to squeal.

He also defied credibility by answering the prosecutors question, “Do you admit you did something wrong? It’s a yes or no answer.”

“No, I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Kerik.

Kerik admitted he agreed to pay $30,000 for what turned out to be more than a quarter-million dollars’ work. And even then, high-on-the-hog Bernie wasn’t satisfied.

In the end, the ungrateful wretch didn’t even appreciate the work on his apartment.

“It was much nicer than I anticipated. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

He just wanted the space “cleaned up and livable.”

I’d love to see the condition of Bernie’s prison cell.
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Officer Jason Elder Repeatedly Raped Minor Girl; Police Chief Knew & Did Nothing

Officer Jason Elder Repeatedly Raped Minor Girl; Police Chief Knew & Did Nothing

from Cop Block » Articles by CopBlock

This article, originally posted at Courthouse News Service, was submitted to us by Joe.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (CN) – A Harrodsburg police chief knew what was going on but never stopped an officer from repeatedly raping an underage girl, the victim claims in federal court.

From 2007 to 2010, former Harrodsburg police officer Jason Elder engaged in “unwanted sexual conduct” with S.C. while she “was a minor child, attending middle and high school in Mercer County, Kentucky,” according to the complaint.

S.C. did not sue anonymously, but Courthouse News has redacted her name in the interest of privacy.

Nearly 20 years old today, S.C. says she could not “provide or give consent to the sexual assault and battery perpetrated upon her by defendant Elder” because of her age and minor status at the time.

Harrodsburg police chief Ernie Kelty knew about Elder’s “inappropriate and illegal conduct,” but he “failed or refused to take any action to discipline” the officer, according to the complaint.

S.C.’s father allegedly informed Kelty about the abuse to no avail, but found more success with state prosecutors.

On May 11, 2011, a grand jury charged Elder “with (1) one count of rape in the first degree, (2) one count of rape in the third degree, (3) 48 counts of sodomy and (4) 96 counts of sexual abuse,” according to the complaint.

A database on state prisoners says Elder began a three-year sentence at Kentucky State Reformatory in April for third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy and first-degree sexual abuse.

S.C. seeks damages for constitutional rights violations, assault and battery, emotional distress, negligence, and failure to report child abuse.

She is represented by Hal Friedman and Michael Cooper of Louisville, along with S. Marie Hellard of Lawrenceburg, Ky.

Elder and Kelty are named as defendants along with Harrodsburg and the city’s police department.

This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories

This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories

Posted on October 09, 2012.

A former Pennsylvania prosecutor gets caught peddling pot, and a TSA agent and an Alabama cop head to prison for taking bribes from drug dealers. Let’s get to it:

In Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, a former Centre County assistant DA was arraigned Tuesday on charges he distributed marijuana. Former Assistant DA Steve Sloane faces seven felony counts after he got caught accepting Fedex packages from California that contained drugs. Sloane has admitted he had been addicted to Oxycontin and also admitted receiving several packages containing hydrocodone pills and marijuana from an old friend in California. Sloane denied selling pot to anyone, but police interviewed several witnesses who said they bought from him. He is currently free on a $100,000 bond.

In Birmingham, Alabama, a former Jasper police officer was sentenced last Wednesday to 15 months in federal prison for accepting a bribe from a drug dealer. Scottie Wilkins, 30, had borrowed money from the dealer, who was on probation, then paid him back by selling him drugs out of the evidence room. He also took a bribe from the dealer to help him out with a probation matter.

In New Haven, Connecticut, a former TSA officer was sentenced Tuesday to six years and four months in federal prison for accepting bribes to allow prescription pain pills to travel unimpeded through airport security. Jonathan Best, 31, had pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute oxycodone. Best admitted accepting cash from a drug dealer to allow oxycodone pills through airport security and agreed last year to travel to Connecticut to help the trafficker launder drug proceeds. Two other former TSA officers, a former New York police officer and an ex-Florida state trooper have also pleaded guilty in the case.