Rebels bikie appeals murder jail term

A former Rebels bikie has been granted leave to appeal against his minimum 30-year jail term for murdering his girlfriend in 2007.

Edward Christopher Yost was described as an evil, cruel and sadistic killer when he was sentenced in the South Australian Supreme Court in December.

Natasha Jones was severely beaten and the court heard she was unrecognisable when her naked body was found at the Para Hills home she shared with Yost.

Yost pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life with a 30-year non-parole term.

He will be 76 before being eligible for parole.

Jail for star picket attack

A 20 year old Perth man has been sentenced to four years jail for a robbery in which the victim was hit across the face with a star picket.

Andrew Peter Schultz and a 16 year old boy attacked a 39 year old man at a service station in Burswood in August last year.

Schultz hit the man with a star picket, the boy took his keys and the two then stole his car.

The victim suffered four broken bones in his face and needed metal plates inserted.

Schultz pleaded guilty to charges of armed robbery and causing grievous bodily harm.

The Supreme Court was told he had no memory of the robbery because he was affected by alcohol and drugs.

Schultz was given another year on top of his sentence because the attack breached a suspended jail term he had received for offences including assault and stealing a car.

He will have to serve three years before he can be released.

Schultz was made eligible for parole.

Jail for robber with ‘sad childhood’

A 22-year-old Canberra man who broke into a Commonwealth office building has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail.

Daniel James Craft pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and theft.

Last September he and two other men broke into the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs building in Tuggeranong.

Craft was on parole at the time.

In sentencing, Justice Richard Refshauge told the ACT Supreme Court that he had sympathy for the 22-year-old, who had had a sad childhood.

He said Craft started drinking and using drugs when he was a teenager.

Justice Refshauge noted his lengthy criminal history and said this was a chance for him to turn his life around.

He sentenced Craft to four-and-a-half years in jail, but he will be eligible for parole next April.

Court reduces sentence for Jelena Dokic’s father

BELGRADE, Serbia — A Serbian court has reduced the prison sentence for tennis player Jelena Dokic’s father, who was convicted of threatening the Australian ambassador.

The court in Sremska Mitrovica said Tuesday it reduced Damir Dokic’s 15-month sentence to 12 months. Dokic could be out of prison in early May.

Dokic’s lawyer Bosiljka Djukic told The Associated Press she will push for her client’s release on parole before May.

The 51-year-old Dokic was arrested last year after reportedly saying he would blow up Australian ambassador Claire Birgin’s car because of articles in the Australian press in which Jelena Dokic accused him of beating her.

Upon arrest, police also found a large number of weapons in Dokic’s home.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

1988 pic shows US Fritzl, wife as loving couple

London, Sep 1 (ANI): A picture of American Fritzl, Phillip Garrido, and his wife Nancy, taken in 1988, has portrayed them to be a loving couple.

The picture of Garrido, then 37, and Nancy, 34, shows them hugging one another as they posed for the camera, soon after he had been released from jail on parole for kidnap and rape.

Both had met at Leavenworth prison, Kansas, where he was serving his sentence and she was visiting a relative, and they got married in the jail.

After Garrido got out they had the picture taken to send to his father Manuel, who refused to attend the ceremony.

It was signed on the back: “All our love, Phillip and Nancy Garrido”.

“You can see that he is a very handsome man and you can imagine him dominating Jaycee,” the Sun quoted Manuel as saying.

“Nancy was extremely attractive and would have and did do anything for Phil.

“They look like the typical All-American couple – but when you know Phil like I do you know there is something terrible under the surface,” he added. (ANI)

‘American Fritzl’ Garrido’s arrest was led by women’s intuition, say cops

London, August 30 (ANI): The two policewomen who finally arrested ‘American Fritzl’ Phillip Garrido, for holding a girl as sex slave with his wife Nancy for 18 years, have revealed that their suspicions were raised by “women’s intuition”.

Ally Jacobs and Lisa Campbell said that they became suspicious after being approached by Garrido at the University Of California, to seek permission to hold a religious event there.

They revealed that accompanying Garrido were two “robotic” little girls he fathered with his victim Jaycee Lee Dugard.

Ally recalled that the girls were pale, as if starved of light, and extremely submissive.

What particularly disturbed her was the way the girls dressed and acted, said the cop.

“I can best describe it as they were dressed monochrome. It was almost like Little House On The Prairie,” the News of the World quoted her as saying.

“They were like robots. The young one wouldn’t move and had this eerie smile and the older one had very rehearsed answers and she didn’t very much like talking to us,” she added.

Ally further revealed that one of Garrido’s daughters even told them that there was a third girl living at his house.

The cop said: “The younger daughter told me, ‘We have an older sister aged 28.’ The older daughter said, without missing a beat, ’29′. And she seemed bothered that was even mentioned.”

Ally said that she and Lisa were certain that the little girl was talking about Jaycee.

She revealed that she even asked the younger daughter about a “tumour- like” bump under her brow, fearing that it could be a sign of child abuse.

She recalled: “She immediately replied with this very rehearsed response, ‘It’s a birth defect, inoperable, I will have it for the rest of my life.’ I’m a mother. I have two young sons and this is when my police mode turned into my mother’s mode, kind of mother’s intuition.”

Ally and Lisa said that they asked Garrido to return the next day, so that they would get some time to check his records.

Upon investigation, the cop duo found Garrido to be a registered sex offender on parole for kidnap and rape.

Recalling a discussion with Garrido’s parole officer, Ally said: “He stopped me when I said he brought in his two daughters. He said, ‘He doesn’t have two daughters.’ I felt sick.”

The discovery finally led to Garrido and Nancy’s arrests. (ANI)

Squeaky Fromme Released | Squeaky Fromme Parole | Squeaky Fromme | Charles Manson | Lynette Alice “Squeaky” Fromm | Manson Family | President Gerald Ford

Squeaky Fromme Released | Squeaky Fromme Parole |  Squeaky Fromme |  Charles Manson | Lynette Alice “Squeaky” Fromm | Manson Family | President Gerald Ford

Lynette Alice “Squeaky” Fromme born on 22nd October 1948 is an American was born in Santa Monica, California, the daughter of William Millar Fromme and Helen Benzinger, was a former member of the Manson Family,she was graduate in 1966.

She was arrested after pointing a gun at President Gerald Ford in Sacramento, Calif. on 5th September1975,the gun was later found not to have a bullet in the chamber.

She was sentenced to life imprisonment for attempting to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975, serving 34 years in custody, was released from Federal Medical Center Carswell (Texas prison hospital)  in Fort Worth  in Texas,on August 14, 2009.

‘Ridiculously drunk’ mom knees daughter’s school principal in the groin

Melbourne, Jun 25 (ANI): A woman, who was in a very inebriated state, could not recall punching, spitting and kneeing her daughter’s school principal in the groin.

Karen Lee Pommer, 47, attacked Jeff Munce when she went to pick up her eight-year-old daughter from Warrigal Road State School in the Brisbane suburb of Eight Mile Plains on October 31 last year.

The Brisbane District Court was told on June 25 that Pommer entered the school grounds screaming obscenities while the students waited to be collected at the end of the day.

When Munce approached her she punched his head repeatedly, then kneed him in the groin and spat in his face.

She also slapped and spat at another mother who tried to intervene.

The court was told Pommer – who was infected with hepatitis C – then spat at and bit three police officers who arrived to arrest her.

None of her victims contracted the highly infectious disease.

When she was hauled into the police vehicle, she then wriggled free from her handcuffs and smashed one of the windows.

Defence barrister Jann Taylor said Pommer, a chronic alcoholic, had been suffering an “alcohol-induced blackout”‘ when she went to the school.

“She was ridiculously drunk to the point of no recollection,” News.com.au quoted Taylor as saying.

Pommer pleaded guilty to 10 offences including three counts of serious assault and two of common assault.

Judge Leanne Clare sentenced her to two years’ jail but released her on parole immediately. (ANI)

Al Pacino to play lead in Jack Kevorkian biopic

Washington, May 27 (ANI): Al Pacino is set to play Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a former pathologist most noted for publicly championing a terminal patient’s right to die, in an HBO biopic.

The acting legend will star in the Barry Levinson project, which concentrates on Kevorkian’s construction of his infamous “Mercy Machine” and his first assisted suicide in the early 1990s.

Kevorkian, who claimed to have assisted at least 130 patients to meet their end and famously said that “dying is not a crime”, served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence for second-degree murder, reports Variety magazine.

The 80-year-old, who was later released on parole in 2007 due to good behaviour, also made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in Michigan.

Adam Mazer has inked the script for the production based on the medic, dubbed Dr. Death by the media, while Levinson, Steve Lee Jones, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Glenn Rigberg will play will executive producers. (ANI)

Robert De Niro, Edward Norton team up again for forthcoming thriller

Washington, May 8 (ANI): Hollywood actor Robert De Niro and Edward Norton are teaming up again for a forthcoming independent thriller.

Robert and Edward, who worked together in crime drama ‘The Score’, will be teaming up after 8 years, for the psychological thriller ‘Stone’, reports Contactmusic.

According to Variety magazine, Robert will portray a correctional officer who is seduced by the wife of Norton’s character, a convicted arsonist up for parole.

The forthcoming thriller will hit the theatres in 2010.

Norton’s last flick ‘Pride and Glory’ was a thriller, which featured Colin Farrell alongside him. (ANI)

Farrah Fawcett’s jailed son pays her monitored visit

Washington, April 28 (ANI): Farrah Fawcett’s son Redmond O’Neal was temporarily released from prison so that he could see his cancer-battling mother under a visit monitored by the sheriff’s office.

Redmond, who has been serving his sentence for a violation of his parole stemming from drug charges, had been released for three hours over the weekend.

“A sergeant and a deputy drove him to his mother’s home [Saturday] and he’s now back in custody,” People magazine quoted L.A. County Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore as saying.

Whitmore further said that the O’Neal family shelled 1,285.39 dollars for the personal visit, adding: “The visit wasn’t paid for with taxpayer’s money.”

The 24-year-old prisoner, the only son of Fawcett and Oscar-nominated actor Ryan O’Neal, was said to have had a wonderful time with his mother.

A source added: “Redmond’s attorney had requested that he be allowed to visit his mom a while ago. It was not a crisis or emergency. Farrah is status quo.

“He had a lovely visit with his mom. Farrah was thrilled to see him. It was a wonderful visit.” (ANI)

Varun Gandhi urges people to go beyond caste-based politics

Khaga (Uttar Pradesh), Apr 26 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Varun Gandhi on Sunday urged people to go beyond case-based politics, saying it is a test for voters to decide if they will go beyond their caste bonds or instead embrace national patriotic values.

Addressing his first political rally after his release on parole, Gandhi said he did not want to be known by his name but for his work.

“People ask me how it feels to be from the Gandhi family, but I swear that I don’t want to be known by my name but for my work,” he added.

Varun Gandhi also shared anecdotes from his days of Etah jail.

“I was kept in isolation in jail,” he added.

Varun Gandhi, who is a BJP candidate from Pilibhit parliamentary constituency, said he wanted to fight to make his country strong.

“This is not Varun’s fight alone. This is a fight to make our country strong, for a national vision focusing on farmers and the poor,” he added. (ANI)

Varun Gandhi to file his nomination from Pilibhit today

Pilibhit, Apr 22 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Varun Gandhi will file his nomination papers from Pilibhit today.

Varun, who is on a two-week parole after being jailed under the National Securities Act (NSA) for his alleged hate speech, will be accompanied by his mother Maneka Gandhi.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday turned down the request made by Varun for transfer of Pilibhit District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police.

The EC also rejected Varun’s appeal to appoint neutral observers in his constituency.

On April 18, Varun requested the EC to appoint neutral observers in order to prevent any sort of mischief by the Uttar Pradesh Government at the time of his filing the nomination. (ANI)

Britain’s train robber Ronnie Biggs to apply for parole

London – Seriously ill British train robber Ronnie Biggs is seeking parole ahead of his 80th birthday, according to media reports quoting his son Sunday.

His request is to be decided at a parole board meeting on Thursday, the reports said.

“We are hopeful that he will be freed but we’re trying not to count on the egg before it leaves the chicken,” Biggs’ son Michael was quoted by the BBC as saying. He gave July 3 as the planned release date.

Biggs, who earned notoriety for his involvement in the daring 2.6- million-pound mail train heist by a 15-member gang Britain in 1963, has been serving time at Norwich prison in eastern England.

He was initially sentenced to 30 years but escaped from prison and fled the country, evading capture for over three decades and returning to Britain voluntarily only in 2001.

Biggs turns 80 on August 8, 46 years to the day that he and his gang staged what became known as the Great Train Robbery. (dpa)

SC orders the release of Varun Gandhi on parole; BJP welcomes decision

The Supreme Court has ordered the release of BJP candidate Varun Gandhi, the grandson of ex-India PM Indira Gandhi, on parole for two weeks. He was arrested under the National Security Act (NSA) for his communally-offensive comments against Muslims at the March 6 and March 8 rallies in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh.

Though the coverage of Varun Gandhi’s inflammatory speeches were extensively broadcast on Indian television, he said that the recordings were “doctored.” However, the Election Commission was convinced that coverage had “not been tampered with, doctored or morphed.”

While the release of Varun Gandhi gives him the opportunity to continue poll campaigning, the SC has strictly instructed him to desist “provocative speeches” during his parole term. The court cannot forbid him from contesting elections till the time he is convicted or found guilty.

Welcoming the court’s decision to release Varun Gandhi, BJP spokesman Balbir Punj said that NSA was slapped against the party candidate due to political vendetta.

Punj told reporters: “We welcome the SC decision to release Mr. Gandhi on parole. Mr. Gandhi, who is an active party worker, will meanwhile work for the party in this period.” Punj added that whatever campaigning Varun Gandhi undertakes in the coming days will depend largely on his “comfort level and demands of the individual candidates, where ever he is needed.”

Gandhi family scion arrested for hate speech given parole

New Delhi – India’s Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of the grandson of the late prime minister Indira Gandhi on parole for two weeks to enable him to file his candidacy for general elections.

Varun Gandhi was arrested in late March in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh for allegedly making inflammatory anti-Muslim statements while campaigning for India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The 29-year-old was booked under the National Security Act and was lodged in jail in Etah.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan ordered Gandhi’s release, pending a final decision on his lawsuit challenging his arrest by the state government.

The bench dismissed stiff opposition by the Uttar Pradesh government when ordering Gandhi’s temporary release but imposed strict conditions on the politician during his parole, such as not making speeches “likely to cause communal disturbance and hatred among any caste and community.”

The order would allow Gandhi to register as a candidate from the Pilibhit constituency in the state and launch his campaign.

The Indian National Congress party, which leads India’s federal coalition government and is headed by Sonia Gandhi, accused Varun Gandhi and the BJP of playing communal politics.

Varun Gandhi’s mother, Maneka Gandhi, was married to Indira Gandhi’s second son, Sanjay Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi, who was married to Indira’s elder son, Rajiv, is his aunt. The two branches of the family are members of rival political parties.

The Congress party and the BJP lead the two main alliances fighting the five-phased, month-long general elections in India, which began Thursday. (dpa)

Varun Gandhi released from Etah jail

Etah (Uttar Pradesh), Apr.16 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the party’s candidate for the Pilibhit Lok Sabha constituency, Varun Gandhi, was released from the Etah District Jail shortly after 6.15 p.m. on Thursday, a day after giving an undertaking to the Supreme Court and the Etah District Magistrate that he would not make any more communally sensitive or hatred-filled speeches during the interim bail period of two weeks.

Apart from the undertakings, Gandhi alos furnished a personal bond of Rs.50,000. He left the jail in a convoy of four cars , accompanied by his mother and former Union Minister Menaka gandhi and his supporters.

Unconfirmed reports said that he would be undertaking a roadshow from Etah to Bareilly.

Earlier, the Supreme Court ordered the release of Gandhi on parole for a period of two weeks.

Gandhi was booked under the National Security Act (NSA) for an alleged hate speech delivered in his parliamentary constituency of Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh last month.

The release of Gandhi came even as the Uttar Pradesh Government, which is headed by Chief Minister Mayawati, said that it would go ahead with a hearing of the NSA case against Gandhi. The State Government said that it has instructed an advisory board to take the matter up. The advisory board is scheduled to meet on April 18.

Reacting to his release, Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that Varun Gandhi had received his comeuppance, and been been reduced from “hero to zero” by the apex court. He said that Varun would have to be very careful about what he would do or say in the weeks that he would be out of jail, and added that he would have to operate under very strict guidelines.

Gandhi is to file his nomination in Pilbhit on April 21. (ANI)

Supreme Court releases Varun Gandhi for two weeks

New Delhi, Apr.16 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Varun Gandhi on parole for a period of two weeks after it received an undertaking from him that he would not indulge in communally sensitive and hate speeches.

The apex court, however, said that Gandhi would have to give a new undertaking to the District Magistrate of Etah.

Gandhi was booked under the National Security Act (NSA) for an alleged hate speech delivered in his parliamentary constituency of Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh last month.

The release of Gandhi came even as the Uttar Pradesh Government, which is headed by Chief Minister Mayawati, said that it would go ahead with a hearing of the NSA case against Gandhi. The State Government said that it has instructed an advisory board to take the matter up. The advisory board is scheduled to meet on April 18.

The BJP welcomed the Supreme Court order. Party spokesman Balbir Punj said that imposing the NSA on Gandhi was a blatant misuse of the law and government by the BSP administration in the state.

On Wednesday, a lawyer representing Varun Gandhi revealed that his client has given an undertaking to the Supreme Court that he will not make any more hate speeches, raising prospects of his early release on bail from the Etah District Jail where he has been lodged under the National Security (NSA) Act.

According to the lawyer, an affidavit has been submitted to Etah District Magistrate Gaurav Dayal in this regard. The affidavit will be forwarded to the Supreme Court that had adjourned the hearing of Varun’s bail plea till April 16.

Varun had moved the Supreme Court seeking relief to allow him to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Pilibhit, and according to Dayal, has promised not to give provocative speeches that violate the Constitution or lead to any law and order problem.

“In his affidavit Varun had promised that he will not deliver any hate speech and that he will follow the model code of conduct,” news reports quoted Varun”s lawyer Prashant Singh Atal, as saying.

The apex court had said on Monday said Varun”s plea for bail could be accepted only if he comes out with a promise that he will not make provocative speeches during his campaign.

Varun”s affidavit also states that his actions were not in violation of Constitution and that he has obeyed the law. (ANI)

Farrah Fawcett’s son faces 3yrs in jail

Washington, Apr 13 (ANI): ‘Charlie’s Angels’ star Farrah Fawcett’s troubled son Redmond O’Neal is facing three year jail term, if he pleads guilty to violating parole on drug charges.

On April 10, an L.A. court judge ordered O’Neal to be held without bail until he was sentenced on April 17, reported Us magazine.

The 24-year-old has been in custody since April 5 after he was arrested at an L.A.-area jail on suspicion of carrying heroin.

Redmond and his father Ryan O’Neal were arrested on meth possession charges last September at their Malibu home.

Then, in June, he pleaded guilty to additional methamphetamine and heroin possession charges, and was sentenced to a drug diversion program.

Fawcett, who is battling anal cancer that recently spread to her liver, was released from an L.A. hospital on April 9. (ANI)

Australian arsonist jailed for 13 years

Sydney – An Australian woman who set at least 21 forest fires on Adelaide’s outskirts on the hottest days of 2007 was sentenced Tuesday to 13 years in prison.

Helen White, 45, is one of few women convicted of setting fire to forests.

In February, forest fires outside Melbourne killed 173 people, destroyed more than 1,800 houses and left 7,500 people homeless.

Unlike those fires, some of which were also caused by arson, the blazes caused by White caused little damage.

Judge Michael Boylan said without White’s guilty plea, he would have sent the mother of two young children to prison for 18 years.

White is to become eligible for parole in 2018.