12/01/2012
Male model convicted in grisly murder
(CNN) -- He was a 20-year-old male model. His lover was a 65-year-old man who was a television journalist. They were from Portugal, visiting New York City. The older partner broke off the relationship and ended up mutilated and dead. Now, almost two years later, a New York jury has convicted model Renato Seabra of the grisly second-degree murder of Carlos Antonio De Castro in their InterContinental Hotel room in Times Square. "This was a brutal and sadistic crime, where Renato Seabra bludgeoned, choked, and mutilated his victim before murdering him," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said following Friday's verdict. "But the jury's verdict now, finally, holds Seabra accountable. It is particularly tragic that Carlos Castro was not only ... betrayed by his spurned lover, but met a very painful and violent end far from his home," Vance said. Castro was found bludgeoned and castrated in the hotel room in January 2011, a law enforcement source told CNN at the time. Seabra, now 23, attacked Castro because he was angry that Castro had ended their relationship, prosecutors said. Following the prolonged attack, Seabra showered, took about $1,600 from Castro's wallet, and hung a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, prosecutors said. On his way out of the hotel, Seabra bumped into a friend of Castro's in the lobby, who later testified that Seabra said Castro "won't be leaving the room," prosecutors said. Castro's body was found shortly after an acquaintance appeared at the hotel asking to see him, saying she had been in contact with him earlier in the day, but was unable to reach him for some time, officials said. A hotel employee found Castro's unclothed body on the room floor on January 7, 2011, and the cause of death was later determined to be blunt injuries to the head and neck compression, prosecutors said. Seabra was taken into custody after he was spotted leaving a New York hospital where he received treatment for lacerations to his wrists, authorities said. He underwent a psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue, the source said at the time. The day after the murder, Seabra confessed to the crime at Bellevue Hospital, prosecutors said. A television journalist, Castro had also been a recent gossip columnist for the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha. Seabra was a recent finalist on a Portuguese model-search television show called "A Procura de um Sonho." The two men departed from Portugal on December 29, 2010, prosecutors said. Seabra, of Cantanhede, Portgual, is scheduled to be sentenced December 21.   |
Cuba pushes swap: its spies for jailed American contractor
 NBC News A billboard in Cuba shows the Cuban Five -- Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González. By Michael Isikoff It seems straight out of a Cold War spy movie. A group of Cuban undercover agents sneak into the U.S. and set up a secret pro-Castro network in south Florida — receiving instructions in code through late night radio transmissions from handlers in Havana. But the FBI gets wind, tails the agents, intercepts their messages and busts them, sending the agents off to federal prison, their ringleader for life. Today, the story of those spies -- called La Red Avispa, or the Wasp Network — rolled up by the feds 14 years ago is barely known in the United States. But its members, now known as the Cuban Five, are national heroes in Cuba – the subjects of mass demonstrations, their pictures on billboards and posters – and their petitions for freedom are championed around the world by Nobel Prize winners, celebrities like Danny Glover, even former President Jimmy Carter. And they may now prove key to the tense impasse between Havana and Washington over the fate of jailed American contractor Alan Gross, arrested three years ago Monday for distributing sophisticated satellite equipment to Cuba's tiny Jewish community and later sentenced to 15 years in prison for "acts against the independence and/or territorial integrity of the state." (Gross says he was only bringing Internet access to Cuba.) While the U.S. is demanding that Cuba release Gross, who visitors say is angry and frail, having lost 110 pounds in prison, Cuban officials say they are willing to do so only if President Barack Obama will release the Cuban agents. "I understand what Mr. Gross is going through," Gerardo Hernandez, 47, the Cuban Five ringleader, said in an exclusive interview with NBC News in October at his current home --a federal prison outside Victorville, Calif. "I understand his sufferings and that of his family. … If an agreement can be reached, to stop the sufferings of six families, then I welcome it." The idea of a swap—the release of Gross for Hernandez and his confederates among the Cuban Five — faces legal and political hurdles. An Obama administration official told NBC News that the "imprisonment of Alan Gross, an international development worker, is not comparable in any way to that of the five Cuban agents," noting that the Cubans were afforded their "due process rights" and convicted of serious crimes.  Cuban Five ringleader Gerardo Hernandez Members of Congress have denounced Cuba for holding Gross "hostage" to the release of the Cuban Five. "The Castro regime has no regard for human rights or international law," said Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and frequent critic of the Castro regime. "The Cuba Five should serve their sentences for spying." And Hernandez, who sports a trim goatee and displays a hearty laugh despite 14 years in prison, might not make the ideal candidate for a pardon or commutation from Obama — a precondition for a swap to take place. Asked if he regretted any of his actions, he smiled and said, "I regret that I got caught." In a follow up phone interview, Hernandez readily acknowledged that "we violated some U.S. laws" — mainly failing to register as foreign agents with the U.S. Justice Department. "We came here with fake passports. Fake identities." But, he added, "We act out of necessity.," As Hernandez and Cuban officials tell it, the Cuban Five was not sent to spy on the U.S. government. In fact, the members weren't accused of stealing any U.S. secrets (although they were convicted of conducting surveillance of U.S. military bases.) Instead, the mission of the Wasp Network, they say, was to infiltrate anti-Castro exile groups in South Florida who Havana suspected of plotting terrorist attacks inside Cuba. Among those attacks: the notorious bombing of Cubana Flight 455 over the Caribbean in 1976, killing 73 passengers (including teenage members of a Cuban national fencing team) as well as a string of hotel bombings in Havana in 1997 that killed an Italian businessman and were believed to have been aimed at disrupting Cuba's nascent tourist industry. "Cuba doesn't have drones to neutralize the terrorists abroad," said Hernandez. "They need to send people to gather information and protect the Cuban people from these terrorist actions. … I think it's the same feeling that Americans have that defend their country and love their country when they go to infiltrate al-Qaida and send information here to avoid the terrorist acts. And the U.S. has to understand that Cuba has been involved in the war against terrorism for 50 years."  Alan Gross in an undated family photo, left, and in 2012, after losing 110 pounds while imprisoned in Cuba. While admitting his role in spying on anti-Castro exiles —"I would do it again," he said -- Hernandez adamantly denies the most serious charge against him: conspiracy to commit murder. His conviction on that count, which has earned him a life sentence, was based on his alleged complicity in the February 1996 shoot-down by a Cuban fighter jet of two Cessna planes flown by members of the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, killing four men. The anti-Castro group had provoked Cuba by dropping anti-government leaflets over Havana. At the trial of the Cuban Five, prosecutors introduced messages between Hernandez and his controllers in Havana suggesting he had prior knowledge of the shoot-down. But Hernandez insists that prosecutors misinterpreted the messages and he knew nothing that wasn't already public. "No, sir, absolutely not," Hernandez replied when asked if he knew in advance about the incident. "All I knew was what everybody knew: that Brothers to the Rescue through the years has violated many times Cuban air space, that there have been 16 diplomatic notes from Cuba complaining over that situation."  / Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly (the Parliament) and a longtime Castro confidante, said this week in Havana that "the Cuban government publicly, front page in our papers, months before that incident had warned that we are not going to allow any more intrusions into our air space. … The order, the decision (to shoot down the planes) came from the highest level. Fidel Castro himself had said that publicly, that he was responsible for that decision." U.S. Appeals Court Judge Phyllis Kravitch of Atlanta concluded in 2008 that prosecutors never proved their case tying Hernandez to a plot to shoot down the planes, but she was outvoted two to one and his conviction on the murder conspiracy charge was upheld. Now Hernandez and his lawyers are appealing on another ground: that hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret U.S. government payments to anti-Castro journalists in Miami -- newly discovered through Freedom of Information Act requests —inflamed the Miami community against the Cuban Five and made it impossible for them for them to get a fair trial. The payments were mostly made for appearances on Radio Marti, a TV and radio operation funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent agency that oversees international broadcasting sponsored by the U.S. government. Slideshow: Castro through the years In court papers, lawyers for the Cuban Five have cited articles by some of the journalists, including one that denounced the "genocidal character" of Castro's regime and another that speculated that the real purpose of the Wasp Network was to introduce "chemical or bacteriological weapons" into south Florida. "This information was spread throughout the Miami area and helped inflame the community against these guys," said Martin Garbus, Hernandez' lawyer. "It was total madness. … When the case was brought, the anti-Castro feeling in the Miami area was at a fevered pitch."  Keystone / Getty Images Ever since U.S.-backed Cuban President Fulgencio Batista was forced from power by rebels led by Fidel Castro in 1958, the relationship between the two nations has been fraught with difficulties. U.S. prosecutors dismiss as "implausible" and "unfounded" the idea that the Radio Marti payments were part of a U.S. government effort to influence the jury in the Cuban Five case. "The jury (in the case) was carefully selected, following a searching voir dire (jury selection process) that the appellate court deemed a high model for a high-profile case, and that the trial comported with the highest standards for fairness and professionalism," wrote Caroline Heck Miller, an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami, in a court filing in July asking a judge to reject Hernandez' motion for a hearing into the payments to the journalists. She also noted, as federal prosecutors have repeatedly done when the issue has come up, that "no Cuban-Americans – the audience (Hernandez) hypothesizes as the target of the government campaign he imagines—served on the jury." Unless Hernandez can somehow persuade a court to reopen his case – or barring a prisoner swap with Gross -- he would seem to have few options. Rene Gonzalez, another member of the Cuban Five who was not convicted of the conspiracy-to-commit-murder charge, was released from federal prison on probation late last year, but has not yet been allowed to return home to Cuba to live.  / Adriana Perez, wife of imprisoned Cuban agent, Gerardo Hernandez The Cubans are doing their best to ratchet up the pressure. Just as Judy Gross has launched a public relations campaign in the United States to free her husband, appearing at a National Press Club press conference on Friday, this week the Cubans made Hernandez wife, Adriana, available for an interview with NBC News. A chemist in the food industry in Havana, she wept as she described the pain of separation from her husband – and how it has left her unable to bear children. "Every detail, every single moment reminds me of him," she said. "I believe there are many people in the U.S. and the American people as a whole, who could convey to President Obama that there is a woman here suffering." Hernandez, too, says missing his wife is the hardest part of his life in prison. And he has few illusions about his prospects of being freed. "The only thing I know for sure with me is that I have two life sentences and live with that every day," he said. "And to keep your sanity and your mind, you have to be realistic. But I would be dishonest to say that I don't have hope. " Michael Isikoff is NBC News' national investigative correspondent; NBC News Producer Mary Murray also contributed to this report. More from Open Channel:
|
Two die as bus slams into overpass
Miami (CNN) -- A double-decker bus crashed into an overpass at the Miami airport, killing two passengers, authorities said Saturday. The driver of the tour bus mistakenly entered Miami International Airport, attempting to enter the lower concourse, police said. The bus was too tall to clear the overpass, and two passengers sitting on the top level died as a result. One of the two victims died at a hospital, police said. Thirty other passengers were treated for injuries. |
Police: Kansas City Chiefs linebacker kills girlfriend, self
 Jamie Squire / Getty Images Jovan Belcher walks off the field during what would be his final game. It was against the Denver Broncos at Arrowhead Stadium on Nov. 25 in Kansas City, Mo. By Dave Skretta, The Associated Press KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend Saturday, then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and committed suicide in front of his coach and general manager, thanking them for all they'd done before turning the gun on himself. Authorities did not release a possible motive for the murder-suicide, though police said that Belcher and his girlfriend, 22-year-old Kasandra M. Perkins, had been arguing recently. The two of them have a 3-month-old girl who was being cared for by family. Belcher thanked general manager Scott Pioli and coach Romeo Crennel before shooting himself in the parking lot of the team's practice facility, police spokesman Darin Snapp said. Police had locked it down by mid-morning and reporters were confined to the street just outside the gates. The team said it would play its home game against the Carolina Panthers as scheduled on Sunday at noon local time "after discussions between the league office, Head Coach Romeo Crennel and Chiefs team captains." A spokesman for the team told The Associated Press that Crennel plans to coach on Sunday. Belcher was a 25-year-old native of West Babylon, N.Y., on Long Island, who played college ball at Maine. He signed with the Chiefs as an undrafted free agent, made the team and stayed with it for four years, moving into the starting lineup. He'd played in all 11 games this season. "The entire Chiefs family is deeply saddened by today's events, and our collective hearts are heavy with sympathy, thoughts and prayers for the families and friends affected by this unthinkable tragedy," Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said in a statement. A member of the Kansas City Chiefs has reportedly died after shooting himself at the team facility early Saturday. "We sincerely appreciate the expressions of sympathy and support we have received from so many in the Kansas City and NFL communities, and ask for continued prayers for the loved ones of those impacted," Hunt said. "We will continue to fully cooperate with the authorities and work to ensure that the appropriate counseling resources are available to all members of the organization." The NFL released a statement that also expressed sympathy and said, "We have connected the Chiefs with our national team of professional counselors to support both the team and the families of those affected. We will continue to provide assistance in any way that we can." Authorities reported receiving a call Saturday morning from a woman who said her daughter had been shot multiple times at a residence about five miles from the Arrowhead complex. The call came from Belcher's mother, who referred to the victim as her daughter, leading to some initial confusion. "She treated Kasandra like a daughter," Snapp said. Belcher's mother, who is from New York, had recently moved in with the couple, "probably to help out with the baby," Snapp said. Police then received a phone call from the Chiefs' training facility. "The description matched the suspect description from that other address. We kind of knew what we were dealing with," Snapp said. The player was "holding a gun to his head" as he stood in front of the front doors of the practice facility. "And there were Pioli and Crennel and another coach or employee was standing outside and appeared to be talking to him. It appeared they were talking to the suspect," Snapp said. "The suspect began to walk in the opposite direction of the coaches and the officers and that's when they heard the gunshot. It appears he took his own life." The coaches told police they never felt in any danger, Snapp said. "They said the player was actually thanking them for everything they'd done for him," he said. "They were just talking to him and he was thanking them and everything. That's when he walked away and shot himself." At Belcher's mother's home on Long Island, relatives declined to talk to reporters. A purple SUV in the home's driveway was flying a small Kansas City Chiefs flag. Perkin's Facebook page shows the couple smiling and holding the baby. "His move to the NFL was in keeping with his dreams," said Jack Cosgrove, who coached Belcher at the University of Maine. "This is an indescribably horrible tragedy." Belcher is the latest among several players and NFL retirees to die from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in the past couple of years. The death of the beloved star Junior Seau, who shot himself in the chest in at his California home last May, sent shockwaves around the league. Seau's family, like those of other suicide victims, has donated his brain tissue to determine if head injuries he sustained playing football might be linked to his death. Belcher did not have an extensive injury history, though the linebacker showed up on the official injury report on Nov. 11, 2009, as being limited in practice with a head injury. Belcher played four days later against the Oakland Raiders. Earlier this year, the NFL provided a grant to help establish an independently operated phone service that connects players, coaches, team officials and other staff with counselors trained to work through personal and emotional crises. The NFL Life Line is available 24 hours a day. Kansas City Mayor Sly James said that he spoke to Pioli after the shooting. "I can tell you that you have absolutely no idea what it's like to see someone kill themselves," James said. "You can take your worst nightmare and put someone you know and love in that situation, and give them a gun and stand three feet away and watch them kill themselves. That's what it's like. "It's unfathomable," James said. "It's something you would love to wash away from your mind, but you can't do it. There's nothing like it. I don't what else to tell you. Think about your worst nightmare and multiply it by five." The season has been a massive disappointment for the Chiefs, who were expected to contend for the AFC West title. They're just 1-10 and mired in an eight-game losing streak marked by injuries, poor play and fan upheaval, with constant calls the past several weeks for Pioli and Crennel to be fired. The Twitter account for a fan group known as "Save Our Chiefs" recently surpassed 80,000 followers, about 17,000 more than the announced crowd at a recent game. The group was organizing a "Can Scott Pioli" food drive for Sunday that has since been canceled. More content from NBCNews.com:
Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
West Point Cadet Chapel hosts first same-sex wedding
 Amanda Fulton via Associated Press Brides Penelope Gnesin, seated, and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, hold hands during their wedding, Saturday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. By The Associated Press Cadet Chapel, the landmark Gothic church that is a center for spiritual life at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, was hosting its first same-sex wedding Saturday. Penelope Gnesin and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, were exchanging vows in the regal church in an afternoon ceremony attended by around 250 guests and conducted by a senior Army chaplain. The two have been together for 17 years. They had a civil commitment ceremony that didn't carry any legal force in 1999 but had longed hoped to formally tie the knot. The way was cleared last year, when New York legalized same-sex marriage and President Barack Obama lifted the "Don't ask, don't tell," policy prohibiting openly gay people from serving in the military. The brides both live in New Jersey and would have preferred to have the wedding there, but the state doesn't allow gay marriage. "We just couldn't wait any longer," Fulton told The Associated Press in a phone interview Saturday. They wanted to get married quickly also because Gnesim, 52, is a breast cancer survivor with multiple sclerosis, USA Today reported. Cadet Chapel, Fulton said, was a more-than-adequate second choice. "It has a tremendous history, and it is beautiful. That's where I first heard and said the cadet prayer," Fulton said, referring to the invocation that says, "Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won." The ceremony will be the second same-sex wedding at West Point. Last weekend, two of Fulton's friends, a young lieutenant and her partner, got married in another campus landmark, the small Old Cadet Chapel in West Point's cemetery. Fulton has campaigned against the ban on gays in the military as a board member of two groups representing gay and lesbian servicemen and servicewomen. She graduated in 1980 in the first West Point class to include women. "I was just a small town kid awed by West point and I loved the Army. I was so proud that we created a legacy that opened doors for so many young women leaders to serve and make our army stronger," Fulton said in a statement posted to YouTube. "Gay and lesbian soldiers no longer have to hide their lives and their families – makes them stronger, makes our army stronger, makes our military stronger." Fulton said the only hassle involved in arranging her ceremony came when she was initially told that none of West Point's chaplains were authorized by their denominations to perform same-sex weddings. Luckily, she said, they were able to call on a friend, Army Chaplain Col. J. Wesley Smith. He is the senior Army chaplain at Dover Air Force Base, where he presides over the solemn ceremonies held when the bodies of soldiers killed in action oversees return to U.S. soil. The couple planned on adding other military trappings to their wedding, including a tradition called the saber arch, where officers or cadets hold their swords aloft over the newlyweds as they emerge from the church. Sue Fulton, who married Saturday at West Point's historic Cadet Chapel, discusses the significance of the end of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy in the military. NBC's Isolde Raftery contributed to this report. More content from NBCNews.com:
Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
Hundreds flee fire in Rocky Mountain National Park
 Dennis Geving / inciweb.org Part of the Fern Lake Fire is seen on Nov. 27. By Keith Coffman, Reuters DENVER -- A wind-driven wildfire in Rocky Mountain National Park northwest of Denver jumped containment lines overnight, triggering the evacuation of hundreds of people on Saturday, fire officials said. Wind gusts of more than 70 miles per hour overnight blew flames from the so-called Fern Lake Fire close to dwellings and destroyed at least one cabin, said fire spokeswoman Traci Weaver. The east side of the park was closed, and authorities called 1,100 cell and home phones, warning people to either evacuate or prepare to leave quickly if winds drive flames their way. About 200 people went to stay at an evacuation center in a high school in nearby Estes Park after evacuations were ordered early on Saturday, said Nick Christensen, spokesman for the Larimer County Sheriff's Office. There are no reports of any injuries, Christensen said. The forced evacuations represented a dangerous development in firefighters' efforts to quell the stubborn Fern Lake Fire, which has burned for nearly two months. Efforts to battle the fire have been hampered by the steep, rugged terrain, gusty winds that have restricted air resources, and a lack of precipitation, Weaver said. The blaze, which has blackened some 1,550 acres, was ignited in October by an illegal campfire and is burning through stands of beetle-killed trees. It was about 40 percent contained before the overnight flare-up, officials said. Winds subsided after daybreak Saturday, Weaver said, and two heavy air tankers from Southern California were dispatched to the fire. "What we really need is snow," he said. More content from NBCNews.com:
Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions. |