Daily Rotten Archives January 14, 2005 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 Polygamist mom punched babies Deseret News | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Judge Andrew Valdez found that Heidi Mattingly, a member of the polygamist Kingston clan and the mother of 11 children by its leader John Daniel Kingston, abused her children... Mattingly hit children in the face until they bled, usually from the nose or mouth, has hit babies as young as 6 months old, hit one boy in the back with a broom, and ridiculed them and called them names... [Assistant Attorney General Carolyn Nichols] stated that Mattingly's admission under oath that she would return to the clan tomorrow if given the chance shows that nothing has changed. Nichols contended the home and lifestyle Mattingly has known before would subject the children to an environment where, among other things, women are treated as chattel, incest is condoned, laws are disobeyed and one's loyalty belongs to the organization above everything else." Read article... Dentist allegedly murdered wife, girlfriend WJLA-TV 8 Atlanta | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Dr. Barton Corbin's dental office sits dark, and next to the office door, someone has scrawled in red letters 'MURDERER.' The dentist sits in jail, awaiting trial on charges of murdering his wife last month and killing his college girlfriend 14 years ago under almost identical circumstances. Both women were found shot once in the head, the gun lying nearby, in what were initially thought to be suicides. It was while investigating the wife's death that authorities took another look at the girlfriend's, and concluded that what they were dealing with was not a remarkable coincidence." Read article... Man allegedly murders wife WISN-TV 12 Milwaukee | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "The defense attorney for a Sussex man accused of killing his wife said the defendant has a rare mental illness. Gerald Boyle told a judge in Waukesha County Monday that Todd Van Lare believed his wife, stepchildren and co-workers were involved in a conspiracy to poison him. The 34-year-old Van Lare is charged with first-degree intentional homicide. He's accused of cutting his wife's throat Nov 1." Read article... Accused incest dad dies before trial Rocky Mountain News | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Lawrence Dillard, 77, died in his sleep Wednesday, leaving his wife, 51-year-old Cheryle Dillard, still facing prosecution for alleged acts dating back to 1976. The alleged victim in the case is Sheila Benzer, of Provincetown, Mass... Benzer said her father sexually abused her regularly from the age of 3. But the specific acts for which he and Cheryle Dillard, his second wife, were charged allegedly occurred in 1976, when Sheila Benzer was about 15." Read article... Ex-boxer on trial for murder WSTM-TV 3 Syracuse | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "33-year-old [Joel Scott] is on trial for allegedly killing a 59-year-old disabled woman as she walked through an Albany park last June. Yesterday, he testified that he stumbled upon Dorothy Royal as two other men were beating her. He said he had been drinking and doing drugs for hours when he attempted to help her. Scott was a former heavyweight boxer once considered a rising star in the sport... Scott served four years in prison for pleading guilty to trying to forcibly rape a 12-year-old and having sex with three underage girls in 1996. He also admitted leaving the scene of an accident that critically injured a 12-year-old boy." [Sounds like a fun guy.] Read article... Alleged satanists on trial for murder BBC | Submitted by: ian deal "The trial of eight young members of a group calling itself the 'Beasts of Satan' has opened in Italy. The group - seven men and one woman - face charges of involvement in the murder of three friends and the death by suicide of a fourth... The murders appeared to have been part of a drug-fuelled Satanic ritual involving sex and heavy metal music. The affair was exposed last year when the body of the most recent victim - 27-year-old Mariangela Pezzotta, killed in January 2004 - was discovered in a forest outside the sleepy commuter village of Busto Arsizio in northern Italy." Read article... Man admits killing wife with sledgehammer BBC | Submitted by: The Holy Handgrenade of Antioch "A husband has admitted killing his wife by hitting her with a sledgehammer then strangling her with a tie. Hamish MacCowan, 55, killed Christine, 54, a mother-of-two, at their home near Aberdeen last September... [MacCowan] said he had been stressed by his oil industry-related work." Read article... Alleged murder-suicide only half successful Philippine Sun.Star | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A man suffering from a nervous breakdown killed his wife with a sledgehammer, then tried to commit suicide by stabbing himself yesterday morning in Barangay Guinacot, Danao City... [Rebecca Poras] died of internal bleeding after her husband bashed her skull. Her husband Willie is being treated at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center for two stab wounds in the abdomen... Leonido Gomez, Danao City police desk officer on duty, said the couple was found lying in a pool of blood on the second floor of their house... Gomez said neighbors reported that Willie was mentally disturbed. There were instances when he punched or hurled stones at passersby for no reason." Read article... Abu Ghraib inmate preferred Saddam Wire Services | Submitted by: Democracy is Dead "A former inmate at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison forced by U.S. guards to masturbate in public and piled onto a pyramid of naked men said on Tuesday even Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein did not do such things... 'I couldn't believe in the beginning that this could happen, but I wished I could kill myself because no one was there to stop it,' Hussein Mutar, who was sent to Abu Ghraib accused of car theft, said in videotaped testimony. 'They were torturing us as though it was theater for them,' he said, as the prosecution wound up its case against [Charles A. Graner] on assault, dereliction of duty and other charges... 'I was extremely emotional because (even) Saddam didn't do this to us.'" Read article... Idema accuses FBI of witch hunt Fayetteville Observer | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "People associated with Jonathan Keith 'Jack' Idema say the FBI is pressuring them in an attempt to gather enough evidence to arrest him on U.S. charges once he is released from an Afghan prison... Idema has said he believes that the FBI has held a vendetta against him since the early 1990s, when he refused to reveal sources who helped expose a Russian conspiracy to smuggle nuclear materials... Idema believes the FBI, upset that he didn't reveal his sources, retaliated by railroading him into a four-year prison sentence for defrauding 58 companies out of an estimated $260,000. Idema was released from prison in 1998." Read article... Thatcher admits role in coup attempt Guardian | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Mark Thatcher today admitted his role in a failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea under a plea bargain that saves him from prison. The Cape Town high court ordered the son of the former prime minister to pay a $498,000 fine and gave him a four-year suspended prison sentence... Thatcher, 51, admitted to paying for a military helicopter used by the mercenaries in the failed plot but maintained that he believed it was to be used as an air ambulance. He is now expected to leave South Africa and join his wife and two children in Dallas, Texas." Read article... Memo shows church aware of kidfucking priests Orange County Weekly | Submitted by: juanholmes "An internal church document obtained by the Weekly shows the Orange diocese accepted the $100 million settlement not to, as [Bishop Tod D. Brown] told the faithful, spare victims from 'years of emotionally difficult litigation,' but because Church officials knew just a minute before a civil court would 'return devastating jury verdicts against the diocese.' ... plaintiffs had to fill out a questionnaire and record a DVD interview about their alleged abuse, which was then turned over to the diocese. After reviewing the information, according to [Father Michael Heher], 'it was clear that many of the victims had suffered horrific sexual abuse and that a number of offenders were serial pedophiles or efebophiles [sic].' This realization occurred sometime in 2003, Heher wrote. Yet diocesan leaders continued to coddle suspected priests with such disregard for victims that the two sex-abuse survivors appointed to the diocese's Sexual Misconduct Board resigned in protest that year." Read article... Man convicted of pimping teens KOCO-TV 5 Oklahoma City | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A federal jury has convicted an Oklahoma City man who was accused of bringing girls ages 16, 15 and 13 to Oklahoma City so they could work as prostitutes. Troy Lamar Sutherland, 33, was found guilty Tuesday after a two-day trial in federal court on two felonies for trafficking the girls in March 2003 from Blue Springs, Mo... Because one of the girls was younger than 14, Sutherland could face life in prison." Read article... Brain nugget found in school salad dressing WKMG-TV 6 Orlando | Submitted by: Ringo Ate My Baby "A piece of sheep's brain from an anatomy class at a high school near Binghamton, New York, was taken out of the class and put in some salad dressing in the school cafeteria... [Vestal High School] officials said a student found the piece of brain at the bottom of a container of dressing at the salad bar. Students used some of the dressing before the material was discovered, but officials say there's no evidence anyone ate any of the preserved brain matter, and no one has reported getting sick." [Wonder if it had Scrapie.] Read article... Scooby Doo mystery solved Wire Services | Submitted by: The Good Doctor "A Polish woman who pretended to be a ghost and 'haunted' an Alpine castle was sentenced to four months in prison by an Italian court. Police were called in to investigate mysterious creaking doors and other unexplained nocturnal noises heard in 15th century Castel Coldrano, near the Swiss and Austrian borders, by a female occupant who ran the castle's cultural centre. Video cameras placed by investigators revealed the noises to be man - or woman - made, and arrested the 42-year-old Pole, whose husband worked for the centre. Police said she was motivated by 'a personal rancour' against the manager, and charged her with harrassment and incidental damage to the castle." Read article... Animal shelter head resigns WMAQ-TV 5 Chicago | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "After months of allegations of dogs being abused at the city pound, the woman in charge of that facility has quit... Volunteers at the animal shelter are charging that dogs were lying in their own waste and mistreated while under the watch of director Nikki Proutsos. According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, volunteers said workers power-washed the cages with terrified animals still inside. Proutsos said she was aware of the volunteers' complaints, but she is denying reports that the dogs were mistreated." Read article... Rehnquist may not reach inauguration New York Post | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "One of the most powerful men in America, cancer-stricken Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, looked very, very ill yesterday. I say that because I unexpectedly came face to face with the 80-year-old, wheelchair-bound Rehnquist as his aides pushed him down an endless series of basement corridors in the Capitol. The longtime chief justice hasn't been seen in public in several months... His eyes looked sunken and lifeless. A plastic collar was wrapped tightly around his neck, where his throat had been opened recently for a tracheotomy." [So far, 205 Rotten Dead Pool players have picked Rehnquist.] Read article... Bush learning importance of word choices San Francisco Chronicle | Submitted by: Schwag of Tulsa "'Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean,' [President Bush] said Thursday. '"Bring 'em on" is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. And those words had an unintended consequence. It kind of - some interpreted it to be defiance in the face of danger. That certainly wasn't the case.' In the week after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush was asked if he wanted bin Laden, the terrorist leader blamed for the attacks, dead. 'I want justice,' Bush said. 'And there's an old poster out West, that I recall, that said, "Wanted Dead or Alive."' Recalling that remark, Bush said Thursday: 'I can remember getting back to the White House, and Laura said, "Why did you do that for?" I said, "Well, it was just an expression that came out. I didn't rehearse it." I don't know if you'd call it a regret, but it certainly is a lesson that a President must be mindful of, that the words that you sometimes say... I speak plainly sometimes, but you've got to be mindful of the consequences of the words. So put that down. I don't know if you'd call that a confession, a regret, something.'" Read article... FBI finally forced to admit $170M boondoggle CNN | Submitted by: Deth Vegetable "[FBI] officials told a news briefing that they expect to find that after four years in development their much-touted Virtual Case File system does not work... [Sen. Patrick Leahy] called the program 'a train wreck in slow motion.' Leahy noted that the FBI said last May the Virtual Case File system would be completed by the end of 2004. 'Now we learn that the FBI began to explore new options last August, because it feared that VCF was going to fail.' ... He said that getting straight answers from the Justice Department and the FBI 'has been so difficult that we had to take the step of asking for an independent investigation by the Government Accountability Office.'" Read article... and This article... Man admits scamming Red Cross WFOR-TV 4 Fort Lauderdale | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "A man who collected $68,000 by falsely claiming his domestic partner died in the 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center has pleaded guilty to grand theft. Patric Henn, 29, entered his plea Wednesday, without a deal from prosecutors. He admitted making up the story to steal from the American Red Cross... Henn told the Red Cross, the media and others that he had spoken with [Jeff John Anderson] about 45 minutes before the attacks began and Anderson told him he was about to visit a brokerage firm in the World Trade Center... When the group refused to provide Henn benefits, Henn threatened to complain about the organization to the gay media, said group spokesman Joe Tarver." Read article... Drunk boxer breaks into computer shop, pisses on self WLOX-TV 13 Biloxi | Submitted by: Reid Fleming "Even though it was the middle of the night, a drunk [Hector Camacho] decided he wanted [his laptop] back immediately, so he could e-mail his family back in Puerto Rico... Camacho climbed into the ceiling of his office and crawled across a firewall. 'Arrogantly, because I'm the Macho man who gets away with a lot of bullshit, you know, I attempted to climb the wall,' he said. He stumbled through the ceiling tiles... 'And on my way down, I messed up a lot of things,' he said. 'I even urinated on myself because I was drinking.' On himself, the Wheeler's fax machine and the office walls... Camacho said he was ashamed of the situation he got himself into. He wasn't ashamed of himself... According to a December 8, 2004 letter from the computer shop's attorney, Hector Camacho broke six laptop computers. One other computer was missing." Read article... High school wrestling team spreads herpes Ashland Daily Tidings | Submitted by: Surgeon General "A handful of wrestlers at Crater and Grants Pass high schools have been diagnosed with herpes, athletic directors at both schools confirmed Thursday. The Crater wrestlers apparently contracted the viral infection while competing at a tournament in Fresno, Calif., Dec. 11-12 and then spread the disease to the Grants Pass team when they met for a dual match on Dec. 16, Crater athletic director John Beck said... The wrestlers are thought to have contracted the infection caused by Herpes Simplex Virus-1, commonly known as oral herpes. The virus usually features lesions or 'cold sores' on the lips, nose and surrounding areas." Read article... Career Day speaker addresses future ecdysiasts San Francisco Chronicle | Submitted by: Jim Jones "A student asked Foster City salesman William Fried to explain why he listed 'exotic dancer' and 'stripper' on a handout of potential careers. Fried, who spoke to about 45 eighth-grade students during two separate 55-minute sessions, spent about a minute explaining that the profession is viable and potentially lucrative for those blessed with the physique and talent for the job. According to Fried and students who attended the talk, Fried told one group of about 16 students that strippers can earn as much as $250,000 a year and that a larger bust - whether natural or augmented - has a direct relationship to a dancer's salary. He told the students, 'For every two inches up there, it's another $50,000,' according to Jason Garcia, 14." Read article... So much for solar power BBC | Submitted by: Bawdymonkey "Comparing Israeli sunlight records from the 1950s with current ones, [Dr Gerry Stanhill] was astonished to find a large fall in solar radiation. 'There was a staggering 22% drop in the sunlight, and that really amazed me.' Intrigued, he searched records from all around the world, and found the same story almost everywhere he looked... Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to one to two per cent globally every decade between the 1950s and the 1990s. Dr Stanhill called it 'global dimming', but his research, published in 2001, met a sceptical response from other scientists. It was only recently, when his conclusions were confirmed by Australian scientists using a completely different method to estimate solar radiation, that climate scientists at last woke up to the reality of global dimming." Read article...