OCR Text |
Show Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010 Page 2 World&NatiOn Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com OarifyCorrect The policy of The Utah Statesman is to correct any error made as soon as possible. If you find something you would like clarified or find unfair, please contact the editor at statesmaneditor@aggiemaiLusu.edu Guilty plea on one count for Barzee Celebs&People NEW YORK (AP) — After rap star Lil Wayne spent months bidding farewell to his fans and his freedom, what loomed for him Tuesday was a dental chair, not a house of detention. His sentencing in a LIL WAYNE weapons case was postponed so he could have dental surgery before going to jail. Lil Wayne is now due to be sentenced on March 2. His plea deal calls for a one-year term in a city jail, though good behavior could shave that to about eight months. NewsBriefs New York Governor refuses to bow out ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. David Paterson, defying calls from even fellow Democrats to drop out of the race for a full term, said Tuesday that he would leave only if the voters turned him out through the ballot box, or he's carried out in a box." Paterson spoke to reporters after several days of rumors sweeping the state Capitol about carousing in the governor's mansion, all of which Paterson strongly denied. A few months after Paterson took over from his predecessor, who resigned in a prostitution scandal, his popularity plummeted and many Democrats voiced their preference that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo run for governor when Paterson's term is up. LateNiteHumor Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010 Top 10 Reasons I'm Not On The Show Tonight: presented by Paris Hilton 10. I'd love to be there, but I got a thing. 9. My agent told me Dave got fired. 8. Just don't have it in me tonight to pretend Dave is hot. 7. My chihuahua just doesn't get along with Dave's chihuahua. 6. Have you seen the show? 5. Dave always smells like veal and peppers. 4. Too busy trying to figure out what the hell happened on last night's "Lost." 3. I'm not a big fan of Dave. 2. I was on Regis this week and I only talk to one old dude a month. 1. Just don't like publicity. WANDA BARZEE ENTERS Judge Judith Atherton's court in Salt Lake City, Monday Feb. 8, for a competency hearing. The judge found her competent to stand trial. Barzee then pleaded guilty but mentally ill to a conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping in the abduction of Elizabeth Smart in July 2002. AP photo SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Prosecutors on Monday dropped state charges against a woman in the 2002 abduction of Elizabeth Smart in exchange for a guilty plea related to the attempted kidnapping of Smart's cousin. Wanda Eileen Barzee pleaded guilty but mentally ill to one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping. The second-degree felony stems from the July 24, 2002, attempted abduction of Smart's 15-year-old cousin Olivia Wright — 50 days after Smart was taken from her Salt Lake City home at age 14. Sentencing in 3rd District Court is set for May 21. The plea helps resolve a nearly 7year-old case that slowed when Barzee was twice deemed incompetent to stand trial. Judge Judith Atherton ordered Barzee to undergo forced treatments with anti-psychotic medications. That process began in May 2008. Doctors at the Utah State Hospital said last fall that Barzee had responded to the treatment and was competent. Atherton accepted that determination Monday but said Barzee remains mentally ill. Barzee's treatment, primarily for depression, is ongoing, said her attorney, Scott Williams. In November, Barzee, 64, pleaded guilty to federal charges of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for Smart's abduction. Sentencing in that case is scheduled for May 19. Barzee could face up to 30 years in state and federal prison. As part of both plea deals, she has agreed to cooperate with the government in the pending state and federal cases against her estranged husband, Brian David Mitchell. Barzee was originally charged with six felonies in state court after her 2003 arrest. One of those was related to Wright's attempted kidnapping. Court papers say Barzee helped Mitchell plan to take Wright to a mountain campsite where Smart had been tethered on a 10-foot cable since her own abduction. Smart testified in federal court that she was taken from her bedroom at knifepoint on the night of June 5, 2002, was forced into a polygamous marriage with Mitchell, and endured repeated rapes and other abuse. She was held captive for nine months. A one-time itinerant street preacher, Mitchell allegedly wanted Smart as a plural wife so that he could fulfill a religious prophecy laid out in a 27-page manifesto he drafted in early 2002. On Monday, Salt Lake County Assistant District Attorney Alicia Cook said she believed Wright would have suffered the same fate had the kidnapping attempt been successful. But it was thwarted by clumsiness. In statement to The Associated Press in 2003, prosecutors and Wright's father, Steven Wright, said a thin object poked through a cut window screen knocked over a picture frame on the desk in front of the window. The clatter woke Wright's sister Jessica, and police were called. Prosecutors and family said the attempted kidnapping was not aimed not at Jessica Wright, then 18, but at Olivia, who was close to Smart and used to sleep in the bedroom where the break-in occurred. It was Smart who led Mitchell and Barzee to the Wright home, former Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocum said in 2003. Mitchell also was deemed incompetent to stand trail in state court, but a judge ruled against forced medications. In federal court, a judge has yet to issue a decision after a 10-day competency hearing was held late last year. Now 22 and serving a mission in Paris for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Smart did not attend Monday's court hearing. Her father, Ed Smart, said the family is comfortable with the plea agreement because Barzee has accepted responsibility for the kidnapping in federal court and is expected to testify against Mitchell. "Elizabeth has basically said that Wanda and Mitchell felt they were above the law, that they were answering to a higher law, and would do anything to accomplish their goal," Ed Smart said. "You hope that Wanda is sincere and that she's trying to change her life. We really hope that's the case." Scandal draws attention of Pope Benedict VATICAN CITY (AP) — A scandal in Italy's Catholic Church has morphed into a tale of Vatican intrigue complete with forged documents, reports of dueling cardinals and a papal admonishment Tuesday to put the matter to rest. The scandal erupted in August, when the newspaper Il Giornale reported that it had court documents showing the editor of the newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference had paid to settle charges that he harassed the wife of a man he was romantically pursuing. The revelations were initially seen as retribution by Il Giornale, which is owned by Premier Silvio Berlusconi's brother, against the bishops' newspaper, Avvenire. The Catholic paper had harshly criticized the premier and demanded he answer questions about his purported liaisons with younger women. Il Giornale accused Avvenire editor Dino Boffo of hypocrisy, saying the journalist had been fined in a plea-bargain several years ago for making harassing calls to the man's wife. Prosecutors say Boffo made the calls, but have denied the case involved a gay angle. Boffo acknowledged being fined in the case but said someone else had used his cell phone to make the calls. Amid the fallout, he resigned from Avvenire in September, saying he wanted to spare his family and the church further humiliation. Three months later, Il Giornale's editor Vittorio Feltri — who had penned the initial articles — admitted the document implying Boffo is gay was falsified, and apologized in a front-page letter. The scandal resurfaced last week when Feltri said the document in question had been given to him by an "institutional" church official whom he trusted. Some Italian media suggested that the editor of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, essentially the pope's mouthpiece, was involved. Others suggested the Vatican No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, was behind it. There have been long-running reports in the Italian media of battles between Bertone and the leadership of the Italian Bishops' Conference, particularly its previous head Cardinal Camillo Ruini. Italian news reports have said Bertone sought to wrest dealings with the Italian government away from the bishops' conference and had vetoed candidates for the conference leadership who he deemed were too powerful. Italian newspapers routinely publish unsourced stories about machinations in the Vatican. Rarely, though, do such reports elicit thorough and high-ranking denials. On Tuesday, however, Bertone POPE BENEDICT XVI gestures to the faithful, during his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall at The Vatican, Wednesday Jan 13. AP photo issued a statement saying that reports of Vatican involvement were false and that Pope Benedict XVI himself "deplored these unjust and insulting attacks" that were "defaming the Holy See." L'Osservatore Romano ran the statement on its front page with a note saying Benedict had approved the text and ordered it published. The statement — unusual in its line-by-line denial of unsourced rumors — was confirmation that the case had reached the highest echelons of power in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, making clear that HELISEDE MANOR zewygy remodeged ggxgry apartment - g • 8 Private Bedrooms, Fully Furnished • Desk, Bed and Bookcase in each Bedroom . TV, DVD, VCR • 2 New Modern Kitchens the pope had become personally involved. "The Holy Father Benedict XVI, who has been kept constantly informed, deplores these unjust and injurious attacks, renews his complete faith in his collaborators, and prays that those who truly have the good of the Church to heart may work with all means to ensure that truth and justice triumph," the statement said. Feltri, for his part, denied he had ever met Bertone or L'Osservatore's editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, much less obtained documents from them. HAVE YOUR OWN FRATERNITY OR SORORITY Laundry Facilities Large Living Room • Cable TV Jacks in each Bedroom Wireless Internet Service Air Conditioning . . No Parking Hassles Accepting Applications for Summ er and Next School Year FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL DARLA • (435) 755-8525 • PAGER WO 206-1926 • darladclark@pcu.net 676 EAST Goo NORTH |