9 juvenile jail workers are charged in sex case

April 25, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS -- Nine former employees of a county juvenile detention center were charged yesterday with using their positions of authority to have sex with teenage girls. The nine workers were accused of having sex with six girls who were 13 to 15 years old at the time. Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said one girl was raped by one of the defendants. The five others agreed to have sex with one or more of the men, but in Indiana the age of sexual consent is 16. Brizzi said the defendants sent the victims love letters and even a teddy bear bearing the words ''I love you." The nine defendants -- all of whom were fired or quit -- face 52 charges including child molesting, sexual misconduct with a minor, child solicitation, and official misconduct. (AP)

New York

NEW YORK -- A Pakistani immigrant, angered by the war in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, plotted to bomb one of the city's busiest subway stations in 2004 to teach America ''a good lesson," a prosecutor said yesterday at a federal conspiracy trial. The defendant, Shahawar Matin Siraj, considered striking several potential targets including the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge before settling on the Herald Square subway station, said Assistant US Attorney Todd Harrison. Defense attorney Martin Stolar told jurors his client was entrapped by an informant who had infiltrated a Brooklyn mosque. The government ''created a crime where none previously existed," Stolar said. (AP)

Washington, D.C.

A US jury began deliberating yesterday whether Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui should be executed or sentenced to life in prison. After lawyers from each side gave closing arguments, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema gave the jury more than an hour of instructions and told them to carefully weigh the evidence as they work to decide Moussaoui's fate. Moussaoui pleaded guilty last year to six charges in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. (Reuters)

Kansas

COLUMBUS -- Five teenage boys were charged yesterday with threatening to carry out a shooting spree at their high school on the anniversary of the Columbine bloodbath. The defendants, ages 16 to 18, were each charged with incitement to riot and making a criminal threat. A judge set bail at $50,000 for Charles New, 18, who was charged as an adult. The four juveniles were ordered held for a hearing May 3. The incitement charges carries to seven to 23 months in jail; the criminal threat charge is punishable by five to 17 months behind bars. The teenagers were arrested Thursday -- the seventh anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado -- after a message about the alleged plot appeared on the website MySpace.com. (AP)