Former Sussex County realtor, Joe Connor, plead guilty today to charges stemming from a May 2007 DUI that ended in a police chase on Rt. 17 in Selbyville.

Connor will pay close to $10,000 in fines and restitution, and serve 60 days in prison for the DUI and an additional 365 days in prison for other charges related to the incident. He will undergo treatment during that time and is eligible for parole and a work release program. Upon completion, he will be on level 3 probation for 24 months, with “zero tolerance” for drug and alcohol abuse.

In court today Connor was remorseful stating, “I want to apologize to the people of Sussex County…” and in particular, “…any citizen on Rt. 17 that night.” He also said, “Nobody is responsible for what I did but myself.”

State Prosecutor Marty Cosgrove called the agreement, “adequate.” Connor began serving his sentence immediately.

Delaware blogger Hube at The Colossus of Rhodey, does a great job dissecting the News Journal’s ridiculous policy of withholding race descriptions of wanted criminals.  One of my favorite soap box topics.  Read it here. 

There’s a cadre of evil operating in Sussex County… Cronyism… Good Ole Fellas… Liars, Hypocrites, Backstabbers…. People who are making, under the seams, life a very ugly thing in Sussex County. If you look deep enough below the surface, these people will present themselves…. They’re the ones that have little secret meetings, gossips, whiners…and are just generally unpleasant…. Could the current sheriff and his minions be amongst this select group? According to former sheriff deputy and candidate for State Representative, Kirk Pope, Yes.

The Neuberger Firm sent a letter out today claiming that Kirk Pope was fired from his post as sheriff for running for office against Pete Schwartzkopf, for being a republican, and for supporting former Sheriff Reed.

They claim Schwartzkopf blackballed and “put the word out” against Pope. They claim Sheriff Swanson belittled Pope’s military service and told him that there were going to be some changes because “I know you were loyal” to Sheriff Reed. They claim Sheriff Swanson told other Sheriff’s Office employees that they should vote “better,” meaning vote democrat.

Attorney Thomas Neuberger says that Swanson “believes he is above the law.” Attorney Stephan Neuberger calls Swanson a “renegade public official.”

So why does this apply, you thought Delaware was a hire-at-will state… Apparently, that doesn’t apply to elected officials… According to the Neuberger Firm:

Thirty-one years ago, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment barred the newly elected Democratic Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois from firing his Deputy sheriff’s because of their political affiliations and activities.

Stephan Neuberger says that if it applied to Cook County, it applies to Sussex County.

I talked to Stephen Neuberger today to explain the details around this potential lawsuit… For everyone interested in the future of Sussex County, I urge you to listen to the below interview.

ATTORNEY S. NEUBERGER DISCUSSES POPE AND SWANSON (08-15-07 10:35am)

READ the Press Release and Complaint HERE.

Don’t send your kid off to school without the latest trend for today’s youth, a bulletproof backpack:

The $175 “My Child’s Pack” boasts a lightweight bulletproof plate sewn into it, which Pelonzi said has been tested to deflect most bullets as well as knives, machetes and hatchets.

But wait, there’s more…even Lt. John McDonough of the Quincy Massachusetts Police Department thinks it’s “a great idea,” which I’m sure makes parents in that town feel secure sending their kids off to school:

“I think they are a great idea and I’m getting them for my two grandchildren,” McDonough told the paper.

And you can even see it demonstrated HERE on YouTube. I saw it a little while ago on MSNBC, and I still can’t believe we’ve come to this point.

Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden was in West Rehoboth Beach Wednesday morning.

Last Sunday, Delaware Senator and 2008 Presidential hopeful Joe Biden was in Rehoboth Beach signing his new book, “Promises to Keep,” and on Wednesday, it was his son, Attorney General Beau Biden, visiting the Nation’s Summer Capital.

West Side New Beginnings, Inc., in West Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, hosted a news conference today with Attorney General Biden and several State Police officers. They were there to announce the enforcement of the “newly enhanced Drug Nuisance and Social Vices Abatement Act,” which is being used to force nine property owners around Delaware to clean up the illegal activity or face possible loss of property. One such property was in the area of the announcement.

Biden tells the West Rehoboth community what he’s doing to make their neighborhood safe.

You can LISTEN to Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden talk about the litigation against the property owners HERE. And you can hear Biden explain the choices for the property owners HERE. And Biden explains what can happen and what “abatement” means HERE.

You can LISTEN to Diaz Bonville, Program Director of the West Side New Beginnings, Inc, talk about the community center and the Attorney General’s visit HERE. And Brenda Milbourne, Executive Director of the Center, talks about what inspired her to work to improve the community HERE.

You can LISTEN to the entire statement made by Biden HERE.

These are pictures taken while I was out and about around Delmarva this week:

Christy Freeman’s house in Ocean City, Maryland, where the bodies of four unborn babies were discovered.

Federal agents involved in the excavation of Christy Freeman’s house. Two cats and one dog were found buried in the yard.

Rick Leventhal from FOX News covering the Christy Freeman story in Ocean City, MD. He’s the guy with the blue shirt and jeans in the middle of the picture.

The Mountaire truck that crossed the center line and swiped a Mountaire tanker truck. It was rumored that the driver of the truck that crossed the line had a heart attack.

The beach at Tower Road today. The sun was shining and the water was refreshing and people were certainly taking advantage of the beautiful conditions.

Surfers and boogie boarders enjoy the little, clean waves coming into Tower Road today.

The seagull that pooped on me at the water park on Tuesday afternoon. Being pooped on by a bird is apparently considered “good luck” by some people. Those people all must have really, really bad luck.

(From left to right:  Chief Bernadette DiPino, Officer Barry Neeb, and Worcester County State’s Attorney Joel Todd at today’s press conference in Ocean City, Maryland )

An Ocean City, Maryland woman, Christy Freeman, 37, was held on 3 charges including “1st degree Murder” for allegedly killing her unborn child this week. Freeman had been admitted to Peninsula Regional Medical Center where staff discovered she had been pregnant.  Police later found a “small infant wrapped in a blanket” in her home.  A search turned up more fetuses.     

You can LISTEN to “Jake the Local” talk about Christy Freeman HERE.

          

The FBI is excavating the grounds around the house where Christy Freeman lived.

Joel Todd, Worcester County State’s Attorney explains his case HERE.

The entire OCPD press conference is available to LISTEN to HERE.

The “viable fetus statute” that Joel Todd hopes to prosecute Freeman under is Maryland’s version of “Laci’s and Connor’s Law” named after Laci Peterson, whose husband, Scott Peterson, was convicted of murdering her and their unborn child, Connor.  Under Maryland law it’s illegal to abort a fetus once it’s viable unless the life of the mother is in danger or if there is an abnormality with the fetus.  Todd will have to prove that Freeman’s baby was intentionally aborted.

There was no word on the age, condition, or paternity of the other fetuses found in the home wrapped in plastic. The State of Maryland and specifically the Ocean City area, do, in fact, have women’s clinics that offer family planning. 

UPDATE:  From WGMD News:

The officers who were searching the home of 37 year old Christy Freeman on Sunset Drive in Ocean City for additional remains are now done excavating as Barry Neeb of the Ocean City Police Department tells WGMD..

WGMD has also learned that they also found the remains of two cats and one dog, and police say the pets belong to Christy Freeman. Freeman is being charged with first and second-degree murder and manslaughter. A preliminary hearing is set for August 27th. Domestic violence experts will examine bruises on Freeman’s body that are accidental, self-inflicted, or caused by someone else.  

Can newly elected Indian President, Pratibha Patil, achieve the gender equality that her country so desperately needs?

A grizzly find is being reported today in India:

Police in the eastern Indian state of Orissa have exhumed skulls and body parts believed to be from three dozen aborted female foetuses and murdered infant girls in an abandoned well, a grisly find that highlights the persistence of infanticide in the country.

Officers suspect a nearby clinic of performing the abortions and killing the children because they were female.

Sadly, this isn’t a new development for India. An eerily similar crime was committed in another region of the country last August:

Singh and his wife were exposed after Punjab police received a tip-off from a disgruntled employee, whom the pair had recently fired from the clinic. The employee informed the police about the couple’s activities, and revealed that the couple were hiding the aborted babies in an unused well. Police investigating the allegations discovered abortion instruments and medicines used for sex determination in the clinic, and have recovered the bodies of 15 female aborted babies.

In China, where couples are limited by the State to one child, the practice of aborting female fetuses and female infanticide is widespread. But in India, where having an abortion based on the child’s sex has been illegal since 1994, it’s not a government mandate that’s endangering girls, it’s “cultural preference:”

The British medical journal, Lancet, has revealed that the combination of selective abortions and India’s prevailing cultural preference for male sons has caused the abortion of 10 million Indian girls over the past 20 years.

But what in India’s culture, you may ask, would result in the abortion of female fetuses and the murder of baby girls? Well, surprisingly enough, it’s the dowry, which, like sex selective abortion, is currently banned in India, but there is no enforcement of a law that carries a five year sentence. Indians would rather abort or murder their daughters than end up getting shaken down by greedy son-in-laws and in-laws. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that the dowry is just endangering female fetuses and babies:

Violent dowry harassment is an increasingly visible phenomenon in India.

An average of one dowry death is reported every 77 minutes according to the National Crime Record Bureau and victim support groups say complaints of dowry harassment are rising, fueled by a rising climate of consumerism.

The article goes on to blame the West for the “rising climate of consumerism,” but that’s a stretch, considering our consumerism doesn’t usually result in someone setting their wife on fire. Hopefully the election of their first woman President, Pratibha Patil, will help bring India into the 21st century.

You can check out THIS NEWSCAST about the dozens of female fetuses and babies found in the well.

THIS is outrageous:

Congressional Democrats today failed to include a provision in homeland security legislation that would protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leaders.

The provision, dubbed the “John Doe Provision,” stemmed from a lawsuit filed by six imams who were ejected from a US Airways flight after acting sketchy. You know, sitting in a 9/11 terroristesque pattern on the plane, allegedly yelling “Allah,” and stuff like that. Here is a description of the lawsuit filed by the “flying imams” against ordinary citizens:

“The flying imams” lawsuit was announced on March 13 by Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The imams are suing US Airways and Minnesota’s Metropolitan Airports Commission, alleging that their civil rights were violated.

And while CAIR says the airline is the main focus of the lawsuit, the imams also are suing “John Does”– described in the lawsuit as “passengers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport who contacted U.S. Airways to report the alleged ’suspicious’ behavior of Plaintiffs’ performing their prayer at the airport terminal.”

One of the unnamed “John Doe” defendants is described as an “older” man who “picked up his cellular phone and made a phone call while watching the Plaintiffs pray” at the U.S. Airways gate.

In March, House Republicans jumped in and put together a provision that would give passengers immunity from lawsuits and it passed:

On Tuesday, U.S. lawmakers got into the act. House Republicans proposed a measure to protect public-transportation passengers from being sued if they report suspicious activity involving their fellow passengers, the Washington Times reported.

By a vote of 304-121, the House agreed to send the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007 back to committee so that language shielding passengers can be inserted into the bill.

But, alas, the “language shielding passengers” was never “inserted into the bill.” House Democrats held a press conference last week to discuss the Homeland Security legislation that was passed, but didn’t address the missing provision that had so much bipartisan support:

Democratic leaders held a press conference with members of the September 11 commission just prior to the conference meeting but did not address the fate of the provision.

“We have always said that any discussion of September 11 in any way, shape or form would be made on sacred ground, with reverence to those who were lost,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat.

“We promised you answers, and we promised you a safer America. Hopefully, this legislation will fulfill the rest of the promise,” Mrs. Pelosi said.

Safer for whom, Mrs. Pelosi, lawyers and potential terrorists? Certainly not for the average American trying to do the right thing. Will people be less likely to report suspicious behavior on planes, trains and busses if they’ll get sued if they’re wrong?

And what is the reason we have so far for removing the “John Doe provision?” Like you didn’t already know:

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, initially opposed the legislation, expressing concern that it would lead to racial profiling.

Political correctness.

Jose R. Garcia walked away from a work detail at the Sussex Community Correction Center. He’s still on the loose.

From the WGMD News Room:

A walk-away occurred recently in which a tier 2 sex offender-Jose Garcia of Georgetown was on work detail at the Sussex Community Correction Center—and then without anyone noticing until hours later—walked out in shackles. Apparently he stole a vehicle and is still on the loose. The media and public weren’t notified until the next week, and Commissioner of Corrections for the State of Delaware Carl Danberg– on WGMD’s The Randy Nelson Show—apologized saying that there are ways that communication to the public can be improved.

You can LISTEN to Commissioner of Corrections for the State of Delaware, Carl Danberg, apologize for his office endangering us all and giving this guy one heck of a head start HERE.

So why did it take until the next week to inform the public that Garcia was (and still is), on the loose? Well, because Danberg was out of the office:

Danberg explains that he was away on military leave, and that his staff was unable to reach him immediately. So they delayed instead of communicating that information to the public right away. Danberg says they have addressed the mistake that was made, and believes the problem has been fixed.

UPDATE: From WGMD News:

DOC spokesman, John Painter, tells WGMD’s Jared Morris Show that Garcia, who is also a Tier 2 sex offender, turned himself in without incident on Sunday. Garcia walked away from an on-site work detail at SCCC and allegedly stole a truck from a nearby residence. He is now being held at SCI.