Billboard questioning Santa's existence is scrapped

By: SUE LEEMAN - Associated Press | Friday, April 29, 2005 10:22 PM PDT ∞

LONDON -- Perhaps the elves put a curse on it. An art exhibition that questioned the existence of Santa Claus has been scrapped at the last minute, its British creator said Friday.

In an attempt to highlight the evils of consumerism, Glasgow School of Art student Darren Cullen had been planning to unveil an advertising billboard in the city Friday featuring the slogans "Stop Lying To Your Children About Santa Claus" and "Santa Gives More To Rich Kids Than Poor Kids."

But Maiden Outdoor, which owns the billboard, vetoed it after the plan generated media interest.

"The company was contacted by a newspaper, and I think they felt it was too contentious a theme," Cullen said.

"I am disappointed, but I am going to be contacting other companies to see if they can help. I hope to get the project up and running some time soon."

Cullen, who is in the final year of study, denied he was trying to ruin the magic of Christmas.

"Santa Claus is a lie that teaches kids that products will make them happy," he said.

"Before they're old enough to think for themselves, the story of Santa has already got them hooked on consumerism. I think that's more immoral than this billboard."

The billboard is part of a public art project that students are required to do each year.

It is not the first time that Cullen has featured Father Christmas.

His portfolio includes a drawing of Santa saying "I killed Jesus" as well as posters and stickers telling parents: "Stop lying to your children about Santa Claus."

"Our students work with public spaces and unconventional sites as a means of creating dialogue about the things that matter to them and to all of us," said Tanya Eccleston, head of environmental art and sculpture at Glasgow School of Art.

Minnesota woman attacked by tigers; owner jailed on charges he failed to register animals

By: Associated Press

FLORENCE TOWNSHIP, Minn. -- A woman who helped care for Siberian tigers was hospitalized after being attacked by the animals, whose owner remained jailed Friday on charges he failed to register them.

Allison Asher, 37, of Minneapolis, was listed in serious condition but was expected to recover. She was cleaning a pen Wednesday when four of the animals attacked her, inflicting wounds to her leg and neck, authorities said.

Grant Oly, 48, was being held Friday at the Goodhue County Jail on $2,000 bail. He faces charges that he violated a zoning ordinance, failed to register the animals and created a public nuisance.

Authorities believe Oly, who had seven tigers on his property, scared the animals off by yelling at them and dragged Asher to safety.

In 2003, a tiger at the site in southeastern Minnesota was euthanized after it bit a 31-year-old pregnant woman on the wrist.

Authorities said Oly was fined more than $300 last year and was placed on probation for violating the county's zoning laws for exotic animals. He was released from jail earlier this month after serving 30 days for violating the terms of his probation.

Prosecutor Carol Lee said that if Oly makes bail he will not be allowed back on to his property, which has been secured by sheriff's deputies. The county has hired a big-cat expert to care for the tigers, Lee said.

Police arrest men who claimed they found buried treasure

By: Associated Press

METHUEN, Mass. -- Four men who made headlines by claiming they dug up buried treasure worth as much as $125,000 from one of their yards were charged Friday with stealing the cache of old currency while doing a roofing job at someone's home.

The arrests came after the men made several appearances on national television, and police noticed how the story seemed to change each time.

"Had they kept quiet ... they probably could have sold the money and no one would have ever known," Police Chief Joseph E. Solomon said. "It just got away from them. Sort of like the snowball rolls down the hill and it keeps going and crushes you."

Barry Billcliff, 27, of Manchester, N.H., and Timothy Crebase, 24, of Methuen, Mass., pleaded not guilty after being arrested on charges of receiving stolen property, conspiracy and accessory after the fact. Warrants were issued for Kevin Kozak, 27, of Methuen, and Matt Ingham, 23, of Newton, N.H., on the same charges.

Investigators said Crebase confessed under questioning. Crebase said he, Billcliff and Ingham -- all roofers -- found the money stuffed in rusting tin cans in the gutter of a barn they were hired to repair, and persuaded Kozak to go along with their story, authorities said. In the alleged confession, Crebase said Ingham planned to use proceeds to fund his rock band.

Investigators said they are not convinced it was found in a barn; they said it might have been taken from the barn owners' house.

Under Massachusetts law, "when you're working on my house and you find it on my property, you've got to tell me," the police chief.

Police declined to identify the barn's owners, and said they were not even aware the money was there. Solomon said most of the currency was recovered, but some was probably already sold.

Lawyers for Billcliff and Crebase said the men were sticking to their story of finding the box while digging under a tree in the backyard of a house Crebase rented from Kozak in the town of Methuen.

Billcliff's lawyer, Alexander Cain, said, "There is no evidence, none, that my client committed any crime."

The cache included 1,800 bank notes and bills dating from 1899 to 1928. The currency had a face value of about $7,000, but prosecutors said the men had been offered $125,000 by a collector.

Police received an anonymous call on Tuesday from a woman who said the story the men had been telling was a lie, according to court papers.

They interviewed neighbors who said they had not seen anyone digging in the yard. And a coin shop owner who examined the money told investigators the men gave him conflicting accounts of how they found it.

Police also noticed that the money appeared to be in remarkably good condition for being buried a foot below ground through decades of New England weather.

In addition, the men gave conflicting reasons for digging in Crebase's yard. They told one reporter they were preparing to plant a tree. In other reports, they said they were trying to remove a small tree or dig up the roots of a shrub that was damaging the home's foundation.

Even Billcliff's name was the subject of confusion. He complained that some media had misspelled it Villcliff, but told The Boston Globe that he had given the wrong spelling so that people would not come looking for him.

The arrest of Billcliff and Crebase forced the cancellation of an appearance Thursday night on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" because they were being booked by police around the time the show was airing. They were to have been interviewed from the yard where they claimed to have dug up the money.

Solomon said the motive for calling the media about their find may have been to push up the price of the loot or publicize Ingham's rock band, which they mentioned in several interviews.

Crebase enthusiastically took all calls, and told one reporter how much he was enjoying the attention.

"It's all spectacular," Crebase said Wednesday. "I'm so beside myself, I don't know what to think."

Solomon said it doesn't appear the men planned to seek broad exposure, but when the national media came calling, they couldn't refuse.

"It just got out of hand," he said.

Husband disappears after wife's cyanide poisoning

By: Associated Press

GATES MILLS, Ohio -- The Volvo crashed at low speed into an oncoming car, then rolled to a stop. The driver had vomited inside and was found slumped over.

Rosemarie Essa was pronounced dead at the hospital, and hundreds attended her funeral to mourn the loving mother and express sympathy for the husband and two little children she left behind.

What happened next left Essa's family and their well-to-do Ohio town reeling: First, her husband, an emergency room doctor, disappeared. Then last week, the coroner ruled that it wasn't the accident that killed her; it was cyanide poisoning.

Essa had taken a capsule containing a high level of cyanide, believing it was a calcium pill, the coroner said.

"It baffles your mind. Obviously, there are suspicions. But you don't want to jump to any conclusions," said the Rev. James L. Caddy, pastor at St. Francis of Assisi Church, where Essa worshipped.

Police will not comment on a motive or say whether the husband, Dr. Yazeed Essa, is a suspect.

Dr. Essa's lawyer, Larry Zukerman, declined to comment. But the doctor sent co-workers an e-mail suggesting he has left the country, according to court documents in a case his brother-in-law filed to prevent anyone from touching the family's accounts.

Rosemarie Essa, a 38-year-old former nurse, was driving about 20 mph through a school zone Feb. 24 when she lost control of her sport utility vehicle. Police knew right away the low-speed crash could not have killed her and considered her death suspicious.

Her husband, a 36-year-old physician at Akron General Medical Center, disappeared three weeks later, failing to return from bereavement leave.

Rosemarie Essa's death was only the second cyanide poisoning that Cuyahoga County Coroner Elizabeth Balraj could recall in her 32 years in the coroner's office. Cyanide is common in laboratories and has many uses, including metal cleaning and killing rats.

"It's not something you can buy in a drugstore, but it's not that difficult to get either," Balraj said.

At Akron General's ER, "Yaz," as Dr. Essa was known, was well-liked by patients and the nursing staff, said nurse Sherri Hamm.

"He's an awesome doctor. He's kind. He's caring. His clinical judgment is right on target," Hamm said. "It's just concerning that this series of events has transpired."

But according to Ohio Medical Board documents, he had problems with alcohol. He was convicted of driving under the influence in 2002 and completed a 28-day stay in rehab in 2003. The board suspended his medical license this month for failing in March to provide samples of his urine for random drug and alcohol testing.

Dr. Essa had 11 businesses registered with the state of Ohio, including a dish-satellite business and a pager company.

The Essas lived in a neighborhood of large, wooded lots and circular driveways, where the distance between the houses makes it difficult for neighbors to get to know one another. The chandelier in the foyer of the couple's $590,000 white colonial was lit this week, though the house was empty. A plastic log cabin playhouse sat in the backyard.

Rosemarie Essa came from a large Italian family that would come over for holidays and other occasions, said next-door neighbor Joseph Gitto. He said he never noticed anything out of the ordinary there. "The loudest thing I heard is them calling the dog," he said.

About a month ago, Gitto watched as police, the FBI and the Secret Service, which investigates financial and computer crimes, searched the house.

Rosemarie Essa's brother, Dominic DiPuccio, has taken custody of her children, Armand, 4, and Lena, 2, and put a freeze on the family's assets. In a statement, the DiPuccio family said: "We are shaken, anxious and confused over the implications of the coroner's findings and pray that we and the Essa family may someday learn to understand the truth and begin to heal."

Mother charged in stabbing deaths of 9-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter

By: Associated Press

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. -- The mother of a 9-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl who were fatally stabbed more than 100 times each inside their suburban Chicago home was charged Friday with two counts of first-degree murder, authorities said.

Tonya Vasilev, 34 -- a heavy bandage covering her left wrist -- appeared in court Friday afternoon and answered the judge's questions in a soft, shaking voice. A public defender was appointed to represent her. The judge was expected to decide later Friday whether to set bond.

Investigators believe she was at home Wednesday night when Christian and Gracie Vasilev were killed. The children's father and a friend who had been living with the family discovered the bloody scene when they arrived home that evening.

Police found the boy lying just inside the front door and carried him outside, where they tried in vain to resuscitate him, said Hoffman Estates Police Lt. Rich Russo.

The little girl and the children's mother were both upstairs. The girl was dead, and her mother had what appeared to be minor cuts on her hands. Police recovered several knives believed to have been used to kill the children.

"It really doesn't get much worse than this," said Russo, who would not discuss a possible motive for the killings.

The stabbings came five years after the couple's 3-month-old daughter died in a fire at an Elk Grove Village town house where the family then lived. The cause of the 2000 fire remains undetermined, but foul play was never suspected, said Larry Hammar, deputy chief of the Elk Grove Village Police.

Hammar said his department will investigate that fire again. The mother was home at the time of the blaze.

Village police said at the time that Tonya Vasilev left the baby in a carrier in the laundry room while she went to check on another of her children. She noticed smoke coming from the window a short time later.

Mexican television actress dies of heart attack during attempted robbery

By: Associated Press

MEXICO CITY -- Popular Mexican television actress Mariana Levy died on Friday of a heart attack after a man armed with a pistol approached her van on a Mexico City street.

Levy, 39, appeared on the Nuestra Casa show on the Televisa network. She started her career as a singer in the 1980s, and later went on to appear in more than a dozen soap operas.

"We cannot feel anything other than an enormous rage and indignation," Televisa news anchor Adela Micha said of Levy's death. "Even if a bullet didn't kill her, the fear and the lack of public safety did."

A man was arrested and later identified by Levy's husband as the man who approached the vehicle, in which the couple was taking several children to a local amusement park.

Another witness said the man had earlier approached his car and tried to rob him, according to local prosecutor Carlos Gurrea.

But Gurrea noted the suspect -- who was being held on suspicion of illegal weapons possession -- did not apparently directly threaten or make any contact with Levy.

The mere shock of seeing him approach the vehicle apparently triggered the attack.

"He never threatened them ... there was no physical or verbal contact," Guerrea said of the man, who has a previous record for robbery and auto theft. Earlier reports had said the man had tried to rob Levy of her watch.

Citing Levy's husband, Jose Maria Fernandez Jr., Gurrea said the children in the van began screaming and his wife began having trouble breathing when they saw the man with the pistol.

He took her to a nearby clinic, where she died.

The death shook the Mexican entertainment world. It was one of the highest-profile deaths in Mexico's persistent wave of common crime since television comedian Francisco "Paco" Stanley was gunned down alongside a Mexico City freeway in 1999.

Levy, the daughter of television news personality Talina Fernandez, appeared in soap operas including "Rosa Salvaje," and most recently "Amor Real."

Besides her husband, Levy is survived by her three children.

Eight-year-old sticks schoolmates with needle, causing health scare

By: Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA -- A third-grader stuck 19 schoolmates with her mother's diabetes blood-testing needle this week, and one pricked student tested positive for HIV on a preliminary test, officials said.

Health officials said the virus could not have been contracted from the needle stick, and they noted that preliminary tests can yield false positives. The risk to students who were stuck after the possibly infected child depends on factors including the depth of the stick, health officials said.

The 8-year-old stuck her Taylor Elementary schoolmates Wednesday at the school's breakfast, at lunch and in the classroom, using a needle that was about one-third of an inch long, on the end of a device that looks like a pen, school officials said. They were unsure why the girl did it.

She was suspended and will probably be moved to another school, said Paul Vallas, the school district's chief executive.

Most of the students involved were taken to a hospital for testing and treatment, school officials said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the risk of HIV infection after a needle stick is low, with an average of one in 300 cases leading to infection.

Canadian professor dies during attempt to scale summit of Mt. Everest

By: Associated Press

OTTAWA -- A 63-year-old Canadian academic who studied mental and physical training for mountain climbers died Friday after an apparent heart attack on the slopes of Mount Everest, a member of the Canadian expedition team said.

Dr. Sean Egan, a professor at the University of Ottawa, was leading his third expedition to the world's highest mountain in Nepal, which would have made him the oldest Canadian to reach the summit had he succeeded.

Egan had been suffering from a respiratory infection and was heading down the mountain for medical assistance but collapsed and died before he was helped, an Ottawa firm handling publicity for the trek reported Friday.

"This is a shock," said Terry Kell, a friend and team member, who described Egan as a "very, very fit" man.

Egan had led a 17-member Canadian team to the slopes of Everest before making his first attempt at scaling the summit.

"We were only trekking to base camp; I wasn't planning an attempt," Kell told The Canadian Press from Almonte, Ontario. Kell, who returned Monday from Nepal, said he wasn't aware that Egan suffered from any heart trouble.

Egan had been preparing for the climb for two years. He held a doctorate in sports psychology and his research interests included mental and physical training for mountain climbers, according to the University of Ottawa Web site.

"Reaching the summit for me is a personal goal," Egan said in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. "I've been into fitness, health and wellness for many years ... I believe teaching is one thing, but practice is the main thing."

Agent convicted of charges he bilked famous speakers, including Andy Rooney, Magic Johnson

By: Associated Press

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- A man who booked speeches for Andy Rooney, Erin Brockovich, Magic Johnson and scores of other celebrities -- but failed to pay them -- was convicted Friday of fraud and conspiracy.

A federal jury found that Alan Walker, 67, had bilked speakers or sponsors out of tens of thousands of dollars with a pattern of evasion that included false promises, bounced checks, partial payments and ignored messages.

Besides Rooney, Brockovich and Johnson, witnesses included actor James Earl Jones, political guru James Carville, broadcaster Deborah Norville and many others.

Walker, president of Program Corp. of America, technically could be sentenced to 30 years in prison for each of 60 fraud counts and five years for a single conspiracy count; he was acquitted of one other fraud count. But he is likely to receive a much shorter prison term when he is sentenced Aug. 2.

Walker betrayed no emotion as the jury foreman ticked off the guilty verdicts.

Defense lawyer Kerry Lawrence said the verdicts would be appealed. He said he hoped the judge "will take into account all the circumstances relating to Mr. Walker's life and business."

The jury had deliberated 13 hours over three days.

Big-name witnesses have drawn crowds to the courtroom, where they saw a grouchy Rooney argue with the judge and a smiling Johnson interrupt his testimony to sign a lawyer's basketball.

Defense lawyers had tried to show that Walker had no intent to defraud -- that he was simply trying to keep his failing business afloat. But the prosecution presented evidence that Walker pocketed thousands of dollars that should have been paid to the speakers.

At one point he overhauled his company's ledgers to erase the hundreds of thousands of dollars owed, prosecutors said.

Walker had managed to resist hundreds of attempts by well-connected speakers to reach him for payment. He even managed to evade a "60 Minutes" crew headed by Rooney, who received only half of the $20,000 he was owed.

Former boxer Hurricane Carter, who testified that he never received a penny for six engagements booked by Walker, also couldn't find Walker despite siccing the Bulldog Collection Agency on him.

Six injured in parking lot mishap

By: Associated Press

TIBURON -- Six people were injured Friday when a hand-held throttle in a car altered for disabled drivers malfunctioned, causing the vehicle to careen wildly through a parking lot, police said.

The 75-year-old driver and his wife were among those injured in the series of collisions.

Capt. Dave Hutton, a police spokesman, said the man was driving through a parking lot in downtown Tiburon at 1:19 p.m. when the throttle became stuck.

The Cadillac crashed into a wall at a shopping area and hit two pedestrians. One woman was thrown onto the hood and the car barreled toward the end of the parking lot.

The car stopped when it hit another vehicle, which plowed into a beauty salon. The woman on the roof was pinned between both vehicles.

The woman was pulled from the wreckage and taken to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, where she is listed in serious condition with head and lower body injuries. Two salon workers suffered cuts from glass shards.

Hutton said no charges were filed against the driver. Police are examining the vehicle.

Murphy receives prison discharge papers, won't serve more time

By: Associated Press

LAS VEGAS -- Sandy Murphy will serve no additional prison time for the theft of casino heir Ted Binion's silver after she was given credit for time already served.

On Thursday, Murphy went to the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center, where she received paperwork showing her sentence on the theft charges had been discharged.

"I'm grateful this has come to a head and it has been resolved in a timely fashion," Murphy said afterward.

Murphy, Binion's live-in girlfriend, had spent nearly four years in prison after being convicted of killing the wealthy former casino executive. That conviction was later overturned on appeal.

During a second trial, a jury acquitted her of murder, but found her guilty of plotting to steal Binion's silver. Her lover, Montana contractor Rick Tabish, was also convicted in the silver plot.

Both were sentenced in March to one to five years in prison for the theft. Murphy had remained free while she appealed the conviction.

Murphy's lawyer Michael Cristalli said Thursday that he had convinced prison officials that Murphy was due more credit for the time she had already served.

Murphy said she will continue with her appeal.

"I'll litigate it until I am successful," Murphy said.

Tabish, currently serving time on unrelated charges, has also vowed to appeal his conviction on the theft charges.

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