Ringleader guilty in wealthy Fla. couple's killing - The Associated Press

Ringleader guilty in wealthy Fla. couple's killing(AP) – 6 hours ago

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — A karate instructor used the promise of riches to lure a group of armed men dressed as ninjas to rob and kill a wealthy Florida couple while their nine special-needs children cowered or slept nearby, jurors concluded Thursday.

The Pensacola panel of 11 women and one man deliberated about five hours before finding Patrick Gonzalez Jr. guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of home-invasion robbery for leading the July 9, 2009, attack on Byrd and Melanie Billings.

Some 25 family members in the courtroom hugged and wiped away tears after the verdict was read. They included the Billings' daughter Ashley Markham, who, along with her husband, are raising the children, who were between 4 and 11 when their parents were killed.

Gonzalez did not react to the verdict and as deputies fingerprinted him before leading him away, he did not appear to acknowledge the family. Lawyers whisked the family out of the courthouse without speaking to reporters.

Gonzalez, 36, a father of six, faces a sentence of death or life in prison. Jurors on Friday will decide.

The men with Gonzalez that night testified that he told them that a safe in the home contained $13 million that Byrd Billings obtained by working for the Mexican mafia. The invaders did make off with a safe but it contained nothing of value. A second safe that they missed contained $164,000, court records show.

Prosecutor John Molchan during closing arguments said Gonzalez conceived the plan.

"Leonard Patrick Gonzalez is the man who had his hand on the gun and his finger on the trigger. He is the man who fired the shots that killed Mr. and Mrs. Billings," Molchan said.

But defense attorney John Jay Gontarek told the jury the gun used to kill the couple was not linked to Gonzalez by DNA evidence. He said the complicated web of self-serving defendants involved in the home-invasion does not lead back to Gonzalez as the ringleader.

"The Billings deaths are tragic. It would be equally tragic if someone who really was innocent was sent to prison or even executed," he said.

A co-conspirator who has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for his role in the botched robbery and killings testified that Gonzalez shot Byrd Billings in each leg, demanding to know where the money was kept and then turned the gun on his wife when she said she couldn't remember the safe combination.

Frederick Lee Thornton Jr., 20, said the men burst into the Billings' living room and found the couple and one of their children. Gonzalez shot Mrs. Billings in the bedroom, Thornton said.

"He said it was money from money laundering for the Mexican mafia from selling heroin. He talked about a vault in the bedroom," Thornton said.

Gonzalez supplied the group with ninja-like garb: black pants, shirts, boots, gloves, goggles and ski masks, Thornton said, and gave him a shotgun and his 16-year-old friend an AK 47.

According to autopsy reports, Melanie Billings, 43, was shot twice in her chest, and in the face and head. Byrd Billings, 66, was shot multiple times in the head and legs. The crime scene photos show dozens of bullet holes throughout the living room and bedroom and a trail of blood along the living room floor.

In his initial interview with investigators, Gonzalez suggested a group of car dealers with a grudge against Byrd Billings wanted him "whacked."

Gonzalez also told investigators that he and one of Byrd Billings' grown sons, Justin, had worked together as "enforcers" to get payments from people who had gotten behind.

The nine adopted children in the home have varying special needs ranging from Down syndrome to fetal alcohol syndrome and autism.

Thornton Jr. and another man who was in on the robbery face life in prison and have entered plea agreements with prosecutors in exchange for their testimony.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Va. shooting at vacant Marine recruiting station linked to other incidents - Washington Post

An overnight shooting at a vacant Marine Corps recruiting station in Chantilly this week has been definitively linked to two recent attacks on U.S. military buildings in Northern Virginia.

The FBI's Washington Field Office announced Thursday that evidence collected at the recruiting station Tuesday morning matched evidence found at the scenes of similar shootings at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle on Oct. 17 and at the Pentagon in the early hours of Oct. 19. FBI officials said the same weapon was used in all three shootings, but they have not indicated what type of weapon was used or the caliber of ammunition found at the scenes.

Each shooting occurred late at night or early in the morning, when the buildings were either vacant or when it was unlikely that people would be there.

Law enforcement officials said that they have no sense of a motive for the shootings.

"We're following all possible leads at this point,'' a said Andrew Ames, a spokesman for the FBI's Washington Field Office. The office's Joint Terrorism Task Force is leading the investigation.

Anyone with information about the shootings can call Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-8477.

- Josh White and Maria Glod

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Argentinians Cast Eye on Roles of Ex-President's Men - Wall Street Journal

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Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visitwww.djreprints.com

See a sample reprint in PDF format.Order a reprint of this article nowLATIN AMERICA NEWSOCTOBER 28, 2010, 11:06 P.M. ETArgentinians Cast Eye on Roles of Ex-President's Men ArticleCommentsmore in World »BY MATT MOFFETT

BUENOS AIRES—As thousands of mourners filed past the coffin of former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, investors and policy analysts were focusing their attention on a tiny group of people—the inner circle of political operators that Mr. Kirchner counted on to help him run the country and who could play a key role going forward.

This coterie served as the power behind Mr. Kirchner, who was himself widely seen as providing the brains and political muscle behind the presidency of his wife, Cristina. Whether Mrs. Kirchner maintains her husband's kitchen cabinet, or seeks out new blood, will determine whether Argentina continues ...

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school board member to resign over anti-gay post - CNN

Clint McCance, vice president of the Midland School District in Arkansas, says he will resign.NEW: Clint McCance says his wife and children have left state over safety concerns Clint McCance apologies for remarks, calls them "ignorant""I would never support suicide for any kids," he says after advocating suicide for homosexuals

(CNN) -- A school board district member in Arkansas who came under fire for an anti-gay post on a social networking site regrets the comments and will resign his seat, he told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday.

"I'm sorry I've hurt people with my comments," Clint McCance, vice-president of the Midland School District in Pleasant Plains, Arkansas said. "I'm sorry I made those ignorant comments and hurt people on a broad spectrum."

McCance wrote on his personal Facebook page that he wanted gay people to commit suicide, according to The Advocate, a newspaper focusing on gay news.

McCance used the terms "queer" and "fag" repeatedly, promised to disown his own children if they are gay and stated that he enjoys "the fact that [gay people] give each other AIDS and die."

On Thursday, he disowned the comments.

"I would never support suicide for any kids," he said. "I don't support bullying of any kids."

"I'd like to extend apologies to those families that have lost children, for all those children who feel that suicide is the only way out, especially for the five families who have already lost children," he said, referring to a rash of recent suicides by gay teens. "I brought more hurt on them... they didn't deserve that and I do feel genuinely bad for them."

Though he disapproves of homosexuality, McCance said that "I give everyone a chance and try to love everyone."

McCance said that he has received an outpouring of criticism over his comments, including "thousands of phone calls, hate mails, people threatening to kill my family and me."

He said he has sent his wife and two kids out of the state because of fears for their safety and that he is installing a security system at his home.

"I'm reaping what I've sown," he told CNN. "I've had a lot of hate speech thrown at me and my family on every level."

He said he would resign from the school board to spare the district the bad press and distractions of dealing with the fallout from his comments. "If they decide after five or ten years to vote me back in, then I'll run again," he said.

McCance's comments had drawn criticism from education officials in his district and at the state level.

"I strongly condemn the statements that appeared on Mr. Clint McCance's Facebook page," Tom Kimbrell, Arkansas commissioner of education, said in a statement Wednesday. "... The statements attributed to Mr. McCance constitute a significant departure from statements we expect from our school leaders. The divisiveness and disruption of these comments cause me to seriously question the ability of Mr. McCance to remain as an effective member of the Midland School Board."

The Midland School District had also denounced the posting. "The district strives to foster an environment that discourages all forms of bullying," it said in a statement this week, "and an environment that encourages a safe and productive educational climate [for] all of our students. The district is very diligent in pursuing and addressing bullying of any variety on our campuses."

The state Department of Education had said it was "dismayed to see that a school board official would post something of this insensitive nature on a public forum like Facebook."

Because McCance's Facebook page is not accessible publicly, the Advocate said it learned about the posts after being provided with a screen shot.

The posts were made, according to The Advocate, in response to a bullying awareness campaign sponsored by GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The "Spirit Day" campaign aimed to foster recognition of bullying directed at gays and the effects it can have on young people through a series of events held on October 20.

One aspect of the campaign encouraged people to wear purple to honor those who had committed suicide after experiencing anti-gay bullying, and to show solidarity with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered youth who face the same pressures.

According to the screen grab obtained by The Advocate, McCance wrote the following about the event: "Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed therselves because of their sin." (sic)

The post spurred a Facebook page encouraging the Midland School District to fire McCance. More than 60,000 people had "liked" the page as of Thursday evening.

However, not everyone disagreed with McCance's comments, which he had defended on his page by citing his religious beliefs.

Gays and lesbians are "thinking they're all right, and [God is] going to let them think that and go to hell for believing what they're doing is right," pastor Harry Craig, of Pleasant Plains Full Gospel Church, told CNN Little Rock affiliate KARK.

On Tuesday, the federal government warned that bullying and harassment in schools often includes violations of federally protected civil rights. Officials warned that school administrators who fail to properly deal with harassment risk being cited for civil rights violations. In extreme cases, such violations could lead to cuts in federal funding.

A group of protesters had traveled Thursday to Pleasant Plains, where they held a demonstration to call for McCance's resignation.

Watch Anderson Cooper 360° weeknights 10pm ET. For the latest from AC360° click here.

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Adobe Flash Vulnerability Advisory Appears Alongside Shockwave Patch - eWeek

Call it a good news, bad news situation for Adobe Systems. On the one hand, the company patched a number of vulnerabilities today in Shockwave Player; on the other, it issued a new advisory on a zero-day bug in Adobe Flash Player.

The Flash Player vulnerability affects versions 10.1.85.3 and earlier versions on Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems, as well as Flash Player 10.1.95.2 and earlier versions for Android. It also impacts the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader 9.4 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX systems, as well as Adobe Acrobat 9.4 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh.

?This vulnerability (CVE-2010-3654) could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,? Adobe warned. ?There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x. Adobe is not currently aware of attacks targeting Adobe Flash Player.?

?We are in the process of finalizing a fix for the issue and expect to provide an update for Flash Player 10.x for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Android by November 9, 2010,? the company continued. ?We expect to make available an update for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.4 and earlier 9.x versions during the week of November 15, 2010.?

At the same time the company issued an advisory, it tucked a fix for a zero-day bug in Shockwave Player into a massive update that plugged 10 other vulnerabilities as well. On Oct. 21, Adobe warned a memory corruption vulnerability (CVE-2010-3653) in Shockwave Player versions 11.5.8.612 and earlier on Windows and Mac had been discovered. Six days later, the company warned the issue was under attack.

While users wait for a patch for the Flash Player vulnerability, users can delete, rename or remove access to the authplay.dll file that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat, Adobe advised. Doing so however will cause a non-exploitable crash or error message when opening a PDF file that contains Flash content. Instructions for doing this can be found in the advisory linked to above.

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