France Finds Continental Guilty in Crash of Concorde - New York Times

Continental was ordered to pay civil damages of more than $1.3 million to Air France and a fine of $265,000. The mechanic was fined $2,650 and given a suspended 15-month prison sentence; three other defendants involved in the plane’s design and certification were acquitted.

A 2002 report by French air accident investigators concluded that a small strip of metal that had fallen off a Continental DC-10 that took off minutes earlier had punctured a tire of the Concorde as it accelerated down the runway on July 25, 2000. The tire disintegrated in seconds, investigators said, sending shards of rubber into the fuel tanks and sending the plane crashing into a hotel near the airport, flames pouring from its undercarriage.

All 109 passengers and crew members were killed, along with 4 people on the ground.

The court faulted the mechanic, John Taylor, 42, for using titanium, rather than a softer metal like aluminum, to construct a replacement piece for the DC-10 called a "wear strip." It also accused him of improperly attaching the strip to the aircraft, resulting in it falling onto the runway. Continental said it would appeal the “absurd” ruling, which took more than a decade to work its way through the French courts. “To find that any crime was committed in this tragic accident is not supported either by the evidence at trial or by aviation authorities and experts around the world,” Nick Britton, a Continental spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

The decision to proceed with criminal charges in the Concorde case has alarmed airlines and aviation safety experts worldwide, who contend that the threat of prosecution can dissuade some witnesses from cooperating in crash investigations. France is one of a handful of countries that routinely seeks criminal indictments in transportation accidents, regardless of whether there is clear evidence of criminal intent or negligence.

"Verdicts like this tend to drive safety underground,” said William R.

Voss, President of the Flight Safety Foundation based in Alexandria, Virginia. "Accident investigations depend on information from professionals who can admit mistakes when they happen,” he said. The threat of criminal conviction "generates a climate where people are unlikely to do that,” he said.

At the trial, before Judge Dominique Andréassier in Pontoise, northwest of Paris, a lawyer for Continental, Olivier Metzner, argued that investigators had disregarded accounts of more than 20 witnesses that the plane appeared to have caught fire at a point on the runway several yards before it reached the metal strip.

The three defendants who were acquitted were Henri Perrier, 81, considered the “father” of the iconic supersonic jet and an executive of Aérospatiale, the company that built the Concorde; and Jacques Hérubel and Claude Frantzen, formerly of the French airline regulator that certified the plane’s airworthiness.

Air France itself was not accused of wrongdoing and joined the case as a civil party in the hope of recouping damages from Continental. The $1.3 million in damages awarded on Monday was far less than the nearly $20 million the French airline had sought. The airline reached a $150 million settlement in 2001 with the families of the victims, most of whom were German citizens. But Monday’s verdict could still open the door to millions of dollars in potential litigation by the victims’ families against Continental and against European Aeronautic Defense and Space, the parent company of Airbus, which absorbed Aérospatiale in the 1970s. Judge Andréassier said EADS would have to share 30 percent of any future civil damages resulting from the accident.

The crash of Air France Flight 4590 was the only fatal accident involving the Concorde, which first took to the skies in 1969. became an emblem of trans-Atlantic luxury travel. Flying at twice the speed of sound, its Paris-New York crossing was less than four hours and its London-New York time just three and a half.

The disaster helped bring an end to the commercial operations of the plane, which had become a financial burden for its two operators, Air France and British Airways. Both airlines took the plane out of service in 2003. Only 20 of the planes were built, and just 14 entered commercial service.

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Rep. Charlie Rangel found guilty of 11 ethics violations - Washington Post

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), who was until his recent troubles one of the House's most powerful members, was found guilty Tuesday of breaking 11 separate congressional rules related to his personal finances and his fundraising efforts for a New York college.

The eight-lawmaker subcommittee that handled the trial - and reached a unanimous verdict on 10 of the counts - will now send the case to the full ethics committee for the equivalent of sentencing. Potential punishments include a formal reprimand or censure, with either of those needing to be ratified by a vote on the House floor. Expulsion is another possible penalty but is considered highly unlikely.

The full committee will begin considering Rangel's punishment Thursday.

Rangel was not present for the ruling. He walked out of the trial Monday after the panel rejected his request to delay the proceedings because he had no campaign money left to pay for a legal team. He had already spent $2 million on his defense.

He released a statement blasting the decision. "How can anyone have confidence in the decision of the Ethics Subcommittee when I was deprived of due process rights, right to counsel and was not even in the room?" it said. "I can only hope that the full Committee will treat me more fairly, and take into account my entire 40 years of service to the Congress."

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who chaired the trial, praised her colleagues for their handling of the case, which landed uncomfortably in their laps in July after talks with Rangel over a plea deal broke down.

"This has been a difficult assignment, time consuming, and we have approached our duties diligently," Lofgren said.

The trial subcommittee, divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans, essentially ratified all but one of the original 13 charges filed against Rangel by an investigative panel in July.

Those charges pointed to a collection of infractions related to four central elements of the case: that Rangel improperly used his congressional staff and official letterhead to raise seven-figure donations from corporate charities and chief executives for a college wing named in his honor; violated New York City rules by housing his political committees in his rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; did not pay taxes on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic; and did not properly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal financial assets.

This occurred while he served as the ranking Democrat or chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which has oversight of tax issues. He resigned as committee chairman in the spring when he was found guilty of a more minor infraction related to accepting corporate-financed travel.

After Tuesday's decision, most Democrats declined to address the issue or, as Rep. Anthony Weiner (N.Y.) did, described it as a "regrettable" moment. New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) emerged as one of Rangel's strongest supporters, rejecting any call for the 20-term congressman to resign. At the Capitol to lobby for his city's interests, Bloomberg called Rangel a friend and defended his storied career. "Whatever happens to Charlie, I wish him well. As a human being, he's certainly a nice guy, and he has done a lot for New York," the mayor said.

The Lofgren panel deadlocked, 4 to 4, on one count against Rangel: that he violated the gift ban by raising money for the Charles B. Rangel Center at the City College of New York. In his testimony before the committee Monday, the top ethics staff investigator acknowledged that raising donations of $1 million or more for a charity, even from corporate executives with business before Rangel's committee, was not in itself a rules violation. The problem was the official, taxpayer-funded methods the lawmaker used to raise the money, a point that Democrats highlighted during Monday's public trial.

Two other counts from the original charges were deemed so similar that the committee rolled them into one. On one other charge - that Rangel's actions brought "discredibility on the House" - the vote was 7 to 1 in favor. The subcommittee members were forbidden from naming the holdout.

This case will be very familiar to the 10-member ethics committee. All eight members of the trial subcommittee sit on the full ethics panel, and another lawmaker who worked on the investigative subcommittee also serves on the full panel. So just one of the lawmakers on the full committee will be new to the case.

Rep. Michael McCaul (Tex.), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, said he hopes that the public exposure of the trial will "begin an era of transparency and credibility" in Congress.

Staff writer Jason Horowitz contributed to this report.

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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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