Bring Back Ma Bell

On the morning of Thursday, June 25th I called Verizon residential service in Pennsylvania to report that one of my three phone lines was not working. They said they would "immediately dispatch" (humor mine) someone to be on site.

Actually, they said FOUR DAYS later, i.e. on Monday, June 29th, 

But on Monday June 29th when they were supposed to show up after 8 AM, at approximately 3 p.m. someone called from Verizon to say they're too busy and would come out Tuesday.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission tells me that one-day is the statutory / regulatory response for outages.  I may file a formal complaint.

I'd never have considered porting a telephone number to Comcast but will do it now with one and if it works and the Comcast VIOP doesn't sound like a distorted audio tape, I'll add another line and, finally, kill the third Verizon number in honor of abysmal Verizon service.  Today, one must vote with his wallet..

Frankly, if I'm going to get bad service it might as well be at a lower price from Comcast and no service at this point could be worse than Verizon's.

I remember when Bell Atlantic meant service.   Today, "Verizon" probably means, "never" in an esoteric foreign language.

Arkansas Recruiting Station Murder:The Alleged Killer and Probable Cause

Yesterday's New York Times article about the Little Rock recruiting station alleged killer has me scratching my Homeland Secure head.

The reportedly heavily armed shooter of two Army recruiters and killer of one is the former Carlos Bledsoe and current Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad who is in the process of changing his name to Abdulhakim Bledsoe "for religious reasons," according to the Gray Lady.

What troubles me is that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad apparently was detained in Yemen, not for jaywalking but for possessing a fake Somali passport, according to the Times,

"The episode in Yemen prompted a preliminary inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other American law enforcement agencies into whether the man, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, had ties to extremist groups, the officials said. But that investigation was inconclusive, they said, leaving the bureau with insufficient evidence to wiretap his phone or put him under surveillance."

Someone help me with this. Does Somalia have a Disneyland or other resort at which Bledsoe vacationed? Isn't Somalia the home of Black Hawk Down? Isn't it a pirate sanctuary, a lawless country whose gross national product includes Al-Qaeda in all its varieties? And Yemen? Didn't Osama Whats-His-Name live there? Isn't that country today's biggest state-sponsored Al-Qaeda threat?

Why wouldn't a judge just on the basis of Bledsoe's travels and phony passport detention have allowed a little pen registering or listening-in by the FBI?

Frankly, I have no problem with the NSA or FBI recording or monitoring my phone conversations. In fact, I wish they'd log all the No Call List violations and transmit them electronically to the FTC for me.

Based solely on yesterday's article, I can't help wondering if a dead soldier just back from boot camp might not have been killed had the authorities looked a little more aggressively into Bledsoe in all his iterations.

And I sure hope he wasn't under some kind of surveillance when he allegedly carried out this assassination.

A rare habeas corpus winfor a PRforLAW, LLC client

After 10 years of consummate litigation attorney Timothy J. Mcinnis, Esq, has won a rare habeas corpus writ for his client, businessman Paul Kamienski, telling the Asbury Park Press for today’s editions that “An innocent man is going to be released.”

Kamienski, who had business interests in North Jersey and Florida, was unjustly convicted of murder by the Ocean County, New Jersey, Prosecutor for his alleged role in a New Jersey seashore double murder in 1983. He has been imprisoned for more than 20 years under a 30-to-life sentence.

In its opinion issued yesterday, a unanimous three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit panel found insufficiency of evidence for the felony murder conviction stating, "...based on our review of the evidence, the picture is simply not there and its existence can not be inferred absent the kind of guesswork that due process prohibits. Indeed, we can not accept the state’s view of the evidence without choking all vitality from the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The government’s arguments to the contrary rely not on inferences but on speculation."

Here's the first news that moved on Paul Kamienski's case.

The unique litigation Web site created for the case by PRforLAW, LLC has been updated. This reference site, www.ReleasePaulNow.com, includes the opinion, oral argument transcript and recordings, all filed documents, Kamienski's life story, and a description of the case. The site went live moments after the oral arguments this past April 16th.

Once you've been a wire service reporter with a deadline every few hours it's impossible to imagine what it’s like to work 10 years on anything, let alone a case in which a person’s freedom is involved. The prosecutor has 14 days to determine whether to seek reconsideration by the three-judge panel, the entire Court or both.

PRforLAW, LLC provided legal media relations support to the Manhattan-based Law Firm of Timothy J. McInnis, Esq. for the Kamienski case.

I've known Tim McInnis for more than 20 years, starting back when he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Frauds Division and I managed legal media relations and the Public Affairs Office for the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. He has been a key client of PRforLAW, LLC for many years.

No Kidnapping Local ABC Affiliate Reports

WPVI (ABC TV in Philly) just announced that the mother and the daughter were seen boarding a flight to Tampa, Florida yesterday.

Early today after posting my blog (see previous post) at 6:48 AM. I had sent an e-mail to a newspaper editor / friend. In it I stated that I felt "hinky" about the case and directed him to my posting.

His reply: "Extremely hinky -- I believe you will look prescient.."

If this pans out to be true and no kidnapping occurred and no "two black men" were involved I hope that the mother (unless she was the victim of duress or has a nonpareil reason) is subject to the full fury of the law. She should be forced to repay every local, state and federal dollar spent chasing this phony kidnapping.

Once released from custody she should be ordered to serve 500 hours of community service with an inner city self-help organization..

Shades of Susan Smith, as I had predicted.

More on this later, once we know more about it.

Bizarre and terrifying kidnapping case dominates local media at this minute

A bizarre and terrifying kidnapping case is dominating the local headlines at this minute.

A 38-year-old suburban Philadelphia homemaker and her nine-year-old daughter, riding in a luxury SUV (Yukon Denali) were involved in a rear-end collision at a suburban intersection. A 90's vintage black Cadillac struck the rear of the SUV, the mother told 911, according to authorities.

When Upper Southampton Police got to the intersection neither vehicle was there. Later the mother placed seven or more calls to 911. In one or more of those calls she stated that she has been kidnapped and was calling from the trunk of the Cadillac while her daughter was still in the SUV, according to local television broadcast reports.

Philly police later found the SUV parked on a downtown street with a parking ticket on its windshield. They also found a black Cadillac with front-end damage but, according to another television station, no evidence that anyone had been held in the trunk.

Mother and daughter are still missing at 7:57 AM.

I recognize that this is a rapidly unfolding matter and reportage may not be 100 percent on point, so some of what I've heard my not be correct. The FBI is involved and the SUV has been towed to the Upper Southampton Police Lab.

This is the kind of crime that sends chills up and down the spines of everyone: a random abduction following a rear-end collision.

It is a stark reminder of suburban Philadelphia killing of Amy Willard in 1996 after her killer purposefully collided his vehicle with the college student's car.

But the skeptic in me is whispering in my ear just like Barton Keyes' (Edward G. Robinson) little man in Double Indemnity told him something was wrong with a pending insurance claim.

When I heard that "two black men" are alleged to have carried out yesterday’s collision-kidnapping I can't help thinking about Susan Smith in October 1994 who told authorities that a "black man in a knit cap" carjacked her vehicle and drove away with her two young sons in it. In a few days authorities learned the horrible truth. Smith had rolled the car, with the boys strapped into their car seats into a local lake.

If the mother and daughter are found, safe and sound or harmed in any way, I hope the two kidnappers get punished as severely as possible.

But if there’s no crime and the kidnappers are artifice created by the mother I hope she gets the book thrown at her.

My skeptical little man used to be a reporter. He has "hunched" before and been right.

Let's see how this plays out.

A Legal Communicator's Worst Nightmare

A New Jersey prosecutor's office erroneously sent out, on Friday the 13th no less, a news release identifying the wrong man indicted for sexual assault  The wrongly identified man had actually been no-billed.

"Correction: Teen Sex Assault

2/14/2009, 6:09 p.m. EST

The Associated Press     

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — In a Feb. 13 story about a teen being charged with sexual assault, The Associated Press, relying on a statement from the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, reported erroneously that....."

As a former spokesman and public affairs office manager for both federal and state prosecutors I comment at PRforLAW.com on this legal media relations nightmare.

A Media Relations "UnAward"To Philadelphia's Homicide Division

Today's media relations “UnAward” goes to a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Homicide Division captain who should have stuck to the facts or allowed one of his department PIOs (Public Information Officers) to satisfy local media after a Super Bowl Sunday night accidental shooting death.

In the incident, the 27-year-old son of a Philadelphia police officer was shot in the back and killed while watching the football game with approximately eight others in his basement.  A neighbor, later charged with murder, apparently picked up a Glock 9mm semi-automatic service weapon, without an external safety, that another partygoer -- an off-duty officer from another department -- left on a coffee table.  While “toying around with the gun,” the captain told The Philadelphia Inquirer, the weapon discharged and the 27-year-old was killed.

So far, so good.

But an UnAward is required (watch local TV) for creating a sound bite that makes no sense, but which the media (obviously) loved. 

While one or two cameras rolled outside the “Roundhouse” police headquarters the captain said, "It's a total tragedy that something like this would happen, you know, during a festive time as the Super Bowl."

Does this mean if the killing only occurred during the week we'd understand?  It's a tragedy any day of the year. “Festive?”  Is the Super Bowl like the Fourth of July, New Year's Eve or Cinco de Mayo?

If the Department only had issued a brief news release (Check their Press Room.  I could not find one.) someone could have read it, verbatim, for the reporters.  And I'm inclined to believe that festivity would not have been in the handout.

Citations from the PRforLAW, LLC RPC (Rules of Press Conduct)

1.3: A camera, a reporter, or microphone in proximity is not a grand jury, to which  one must speak .

2.2: A printed news release, publicly posted, is always the most reliable, official method of imparting information to the public. 

The Day The Music DiedWill Be 50 Tuesday

Tuesday is the 50th anniversary of the early-morning single-engine plane crash in Iowa that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper.”

I heard the Bopper's son on Coast-to-Coast radio early this AM. Did not know that the Bopper, J.P. Richardson, also wrote "Running Bear," and gave it to Johnny Preston who turned it into a hit after the Bopper died. (To the uninformed, "Running Bear" was a person and not a streaking reference.)

See http://www.winterdanceparty.com/ and "Chantilly Lace," is at http://www.officialbigbopper.com.

On Tuesday I'll toast everyone from Junior Three and Trenton High with a slice of Don McLean's "American Pie."as I remember "The Day The Music Died."