State Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who is accused in a sexual harassment scandal, is expected to escape all criminal charges against him, the New York Post reports. 

The prosecutor in the trial will announce Wednesday that there was not enough evidence to charge Lopez, sources told the Post. The assemblyman is accused of groping young female staffers.

The scandal, which became public last summer, also revealed that State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Speaker authorized a settlement of more than $100,000 in taxpayer money with two other women who made previous allegations against Lopez.

Lopez remains in the assembly, but was forced to step down as Brooklyn’s Democratic Party leader. The assemblyman held a fundraiser last month for a possible City Council run.

National Organization for Women president Sonia Ossorio blasted Lopez today, saying he should be expelled from political office, now and in the future.

“The Assembly engaged in a shameful cover-up at great expense to all women who live and work in New York State,” she said.  “Despite the fact that no criminality was found, Mr. Lopez is clearly unfit for office.”

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The lead detective in the Oscar Pistorius murder case is himself facing attempted murder charges for firing on a minibus full of passengers, South African police said on Thursday as prosecutors argued in court to deny the athlete bail.

Hilton Botha, who took the stand against Pistorius at the Paralympic and Olympic track star’s bail hearing earlier this week, is due to appear before a judge in May over the 2011 shooting, police spokesman Brigadier Neville Malila said.

“Botha and two other policemen allegedly tried to stop a minibus taxi with seven people. They fired shots,” Malila told Reuters.

It was unclear why the charges were reinstated against Botha, or how the latest twist in Pistorius’s sensational four-day bail hearing will affect the athlete’s chances of securing release from custody pending his trial.

At the time of the taxi bus shooting, Botha – a detective with 24 years on the force – was chasing a man accused of murdering a woman and disposing of her dismembered body down a drain, local media said.

The charges against him were provisionally withdrawn but reinstated on February 4 – 10 days before the shooting of 29-year-old model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp in a locked toilet at Pistorius’s Pretoria home, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said.

“The decision to reinstate was taken on February 4, way before the issue of Pistorius came to light or the murder of Reeva was committed,” NPA spokesman Medupe Simasiku told Reuters. “It’s completely unrelated to this trial.”

Malila said now that the court had decided to charge Botha, there would be an internal disciplinary investigation which would decide whether to keep him on the case: “At this stage there are no plans to take him off the Pistorius case.”

Pistorius, a double amputee dubbed “Blade Runner” because of his carbon fiber racing blades, faces life in prison if convicted of the premeditated murder of Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day.

Sportswear giant Nike, which uses the famous “swoosh” logo, froze its contract with Pistorius on Thursday saying the athlete should be “afforded due process”.

JUSTICE ON TRIAL?

The revelation about Botha capped a troubling 24 hours for South Africa’s prosecution service.

Under cross-examination at the bail hearing on Wednesday, the lead detective was accused of contaminating the crime scene in Pistorius’s house and had to backtrack on details such as the distance of witnesses from the athlete’s home.

Grilled by lead defense counsel Barry Roux, he also had to concede that Pistorius’s version of events – that he fired into the toilet door in a blind panic thinking an intruder was lurking behind it – was plausible.

The bail hearing resumed on Thursday with prosecutors immediately admitting they had only just found out about the charges hanging over Botha.

Pressing home the defense’s advantage to argue for Pistorius’s release, Roux said: “The poor quality of evidence presented by the chief investigating officer exposed disastrous shortcomings in the state’s case.”

The 26-year-old runner denies murder and was more composed in court after repeatedly breaking down in previous hearings.

His uncle, Arnold Pistorius, said his nephew was eating again after consuming nothing for six days and had spent much of his time in police custody reading the Bible.

A full trial is likely to take many months, and even if he is acquitted, Pistorius faces a huge challenge in rebuilding his career and image in the eyes of the millions around the world who saw him as the epitome of triumph over adversity.

SOUTH AFRICA AGOG

The proceedings have gripped South Africans, who have found themselves debating the finer points of police forensics and the ins and outs of the criminal justice process.

As public opinion has swayed back and forth, schoolchildren have come to blows in playgrounds over the athlete’s innocence or guilt, and on Thursday “Hilton Botha” was a top-trending topic on Twitter in South Africa.

“We talk about the case every day. It’s all over the news. You can’t ignore it,” said Happy Ngwenya, a taxi driver waiting for rides in Johannesburg’s Sandton financial district.

“He must face his music but the thing is, here in South Africa, criminals have so many rights.”

With massive international media interest in the case against a global celebrity, many South Africans feel the apparent hiccups on the part of the state prosecution were hurting the country’s image in the eyes of the world.

“Bring someone from outside to sort out this mess,” said businessman Godfrey Baloyi. “The whole justice system needs an overhaul.”

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South African ‘Blade Runner’ Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee who became one of the biggest names in world athletics, broke down in tears on Friday after he was charged in court with shooting dead his girlfriend in his Pretoria home.

The 26-year-old Olympic and Paralympic superstar stood with head bowed in front of magistrate Desmond Nair to hear the charge that he had murdered model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp.

Pistorius then started sobbing, covering his face with his hands. “Take it easy,” Nair told him. “Come take a seat.”

The case has stunned a nation that revered ‘the fastest man on no legs’ as a hero who managed to compete at the highest levels of sport despite being born without a fibula in either leg.

Prosecutors told the Pretoria court the shooting of 30-year-old Steenkamp in the early hours of Thursday was pre-meditated.

Pistorius faces life in prison if found guilty.

He did not enter a plea but a statement issued by his family and London-based agent said the charge was disputed “in the strongest possible terms”.

“He (Pistorius) has made it very clear that he would like to send his deepest sympathies to the family of Reeva,” the statement said, in the first message attributed to him since his arrest.

Steenkamp was found shot dead in Pistorius’s plush home in the middle of a heavily guarded gated complex in the northern outskirts of the capital, police said.

The Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper said she was hit four times, in the head, chest, pelvis and hand.

“The security guards found Pistorius by Steenkamp’s body in the bathroom,” the paper said on its website, citing a neighbor. “The door had bullet holes right through it.”

Defense lawyer Kenny Oldwage said his client had an “extremely traumatized state of mind”. He did not request bail before proceedings were adjourned until February 19.

GOLDEN BOY LOSES SHINE

Early reports of the shooting suggested Pistorius may have mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder, but police said neighbors had heard noises before the shots and there had been previous “domestic” incidents at the house.

Pistorius said nothing during the 40-minute hearing.

His father, Henke, and brother, Carl, sat directly behind him in the packed court-room, occasionally leaning forward to give him a pat on the shoulder.

His mother died in 2002 when he was 15 years old – a tragedy that he said spurred him on in his quest to compete as an able-bodied athlete.

Along with Lance Armstrong’s recovery from testicular cancer to win the Tour de France – an achievement now brought low by his admission of doping – Pistorius’ tale of triumph over adversity was one of the most powerful in the history of sport.

South African newspapers plastered Steenkamp’s killing across their front pages, reflecting shock and dismay at the fall of a man who commanded rare respect on all sides of the racial divides that persist in Nelson Mandela’s “Rainbow Nation” 19 years after the end of apartheid.

“Golden Boy Loses Shine” ran a front page headline in the Sowetan, beside a picture of Pistorius, head bowed in a grey hooded tracksuit being led away from a police station.

Callers to morning radio shows expressed grief at the death of Steenkamp, who had been due to give a talk at a Johannesburg school this week about violence against women.

There was also widespread disbelief at the fate of a sportsman regarded as a genuinely “good guy”.

“How is it possible for one so high to fall so low so quickly?” Talk Radio 702 host John Robbie said.

ADVERTS PULLED

South Africa’s M-Net cable TV channel immediately pulled adverts featuring Pistorius off air but most of his sponsors, including sports apparel group Nike, said they would not make any decisions until the police investigation was completed.

Pistorius’ endorsements and sponsorships, which also include British telecoms firm BT, sunglasses maker Oakley and French designer Thierry Mugler, are thought to be worth as much as $2 million a year.

He reached the pinnacle of his fame in London 2012 when he became the first double amputee to run in the Olympics, reaching the 400-metres semi-finals.

In last year’s Paralympics he suffered his first loss over 200 meters in nine years. After the race he questioned the legitimacy of Brazilian winner Alan Oliveira’s prosthetic blades, but was quick to express regret for the comments.

Near the home, people who knew Pistorius paid tribute to a much-loved local hero.

“Some of us were in tears,” said Precious, who works at a petrol station where Pistorius used to fill up his McLaren supercar, signing autographs and picking up the tab for people in the convenience store.

“He was just so kind to everyone,” said Precious, who declined to give her family name.

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The December 16 attack on the 23-year-old student and a male companion provoked furious protests close to the seat of government in New Delhi and has fuelled a nationwide debate about the prevalence of sexual crime in India, where a rape is reported on average every 20 minutes.

The woman died of her injuries in hospital in Singapore, where she had been taken for treatment, on Saturday.

The five are accused of assaulting the woman on a bus in New Delhi, leaving her with such severe injuries that she died two weeks later. They were not present in court.

A sixth accused is under 18 and is due to be tried separately in a juvenile court.

A public prosecutor read out charges including murder, gang rape and criminal conspiracy. The court will examine the charges on Saturday, duty magistrate Surya Malik Grover said.

Murder carries the death penalty in India.

The father of the woman said earlier he backed the chorus of calls for those responsible to be executed.

“The whole country is demanding that these monsters be hanged. I am with them,” the father told reporters in his home village of Mandwara Kalan in Uttar Pradesh state. The woman was born in the village but the family later moved to New Delhi.

She has not been identified and nor have members of her family, in accordance with Indian law.

In a sign of the depth of feeling surrounding the case, the bar association at the court said none of its members was willing to represent the accused. The court is expected to assign a defense lawyer for the men.

Advocates dressed in black robes protesting outside the court called for fast justice. In the northern state of Kashmir, school girls marched with black ribbons over their mouths and demanded harsh punishment for the accused.

The case is due to be processed by a new, fast-track chamber set up in response to the crime.

While the fast-track procedure has broad support, many lawyers worry new that legislation written in haste could be unconstitutional and oppose introducing the death penalty for rape.

“A swift trial should not be at the cost of a fair trial,” Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said on Wednesday.

ANGER

Police have said the accused have admitted to torturing and raping the student “to teach her a lesson”. She fought back and bit three of them, a police source told Reuters, and the bite marks are part of the evidence against them.

After throwing her from the private bus, the driver tried to run the victim over but she was pulled away by her companion, a senior police official told Reuters.

Police have prepared a dossier of evidence and charges against the accused, which is believed to run to 1,000 pages, including testimony from the woman’s friend who survived the hour-long attack and a man who said he was robbed by the same gang prior to the rape.

Days of protests in New Delhi and other cities followed the attack. Many of the protesters have been students, infuriated by what they see as the failure of the government to protect women.

In the northeastern state of Assam on Wednesday, village women beat a politician and handed him to police for what they said was the attempted rape of a woman, police said. Anti-rape protests have also broken out in neighboring Nepal.

The government has set up two panels headed by retired judges to recommend measures to ensure women’s safety. One of the panels, due to make recommendations this month, has received some 17,000 suggestions from the public, media reported.

India’s chief justice inaugurated the first fast-track court for sexual offences on Wednesday – a long standing demand of activists to clear a court backlog.

A review of India’s penal code, which dates back to 1860, was presented to parliament last month, before the attack, and widens the definition of rape, another demand of activists.

That bill is now likely to be revised further, with chemical castration and the death penalty in rape cases among proposals under consideration.

“We want the laws to be amended in such a stringent way that before a person even thinks of touching a girl, he should feel chills down his spine,” said lawyer Suman Lata Katiyal, protesting at the south Delhi courthouse.

Hanging is only allowed in the “rarest of rare” cases according to a 1983 Supreme Court ruling. It was used for the first time in eight years in November when the lone surviving gunman from a 2008 militant attack on Mumbai, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab from Pakistan, was executed.

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Stan Xuhui Li was indicted Thursday on 219 counts after an investigation uncovered that he doled out access to xycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl and Xanax for at least 20 patients at his Flushing clinic, the office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor said. Li would see as many as 100 patients a day as people lined up on the sidewalk of his clinic on weekends and paid for their visits in cash, officials charged.

Seven of Li’s patients died of prescription drug overdoses between January 2009 and December 2011, prosecutors said. He faces charges in two of those deaths. Li is accused of writing prescriptions for the the potentially dangerous drugs without conducting proper patient exams or considering alternative treatments.

In one instance, prosecutors said a patient received 15 prescriptions for controlled substances from Li within three months of his overdose death.

Officials said Li ignored signs of addiction in his patients and continued to give them access to prescriptions, even after other doctors or patient family members notified him of non-fatal overdoses.

“Dr. Li preyed on the community by supplying patients with illegal narcotics for cash,” Tom O’Donnell of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said. “In essence, the government believes he was little more than a glorified drug dealer.”

Li is also accused of defrauding Medicare and Empire BlueCross BlueShield, and trying to dodge an investigation by the New York State Health Department’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct.

Li’s charges include manslaughter, reckless endangerment and criminal sale of a prescription for a controlled substance.

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Gilberto Valle, 28, of Forest Hills, Queens, was charged and arrested in October with conspiring to cross state lines to kidnap the women and with illegally accessing a federal database.

Prosecutors said some of the women were acquaintances of Valle but it was not clear if he knew or had met all of them. Valle, who an official said had no prior criminal record, was not charged with carrying out any of his suspected plans.

At a brief hearing Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Valle’s attorney, Julia Gatto, told the judge she would again seek to have her client freed on bail after two other judges previously denied her request.

Investigators uncovered a file on Valle’s computer containing the names and pictures of at least 100 women, and the addresses and physical descriptions of some of them, according to the criminal complaint. It said he had undertaken surveillance of some of the women at their places of employment and their homes.

Gatto argues that Valle, a 6-1/2 year NYPD veteran, was all talk and should be released on bail.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

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A grand jury today indicted Pedro Hernandez, 51, on two counts of murder in the second degree and one count of kidnapping in the first degree. He was first arrested by the NYPD in May, after a member of his family told police he was responsible for Patz’s murder.

In custody, Hernandez told police he lured the boy into SoHo basement on May 25, 1979, by offering him a soda. He confessed to strangling Patz and then wrapping his body in plastic wrap and putting it in the trash. Shortly after, Hernandez moved from his West Broadway apartment, eventually to Maple Shade, N.J., where he was living at the time of his arrest.

Police said Hernandez told family members over the years he had “done a bad thing and killed a child in New York,” prompting one relative to turn him in.

His own attorneys have raised the question as to whether mental health issues led him to make a false confession, but the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Hernandez’s confession will stand.

“This indictment is the outcome of a lengthy and deliberative process, involving months of factual investigation and legal analysis. We believe the evidence that Mr. Hernandez killed Etan Patz to be credible and persuasive, and that his statements are not the product of any mental illness,” Erin Duggan, a spokesperson for the Manhattan DA, said in a statement. “The grand jury has found sufficient evidence to charge the defendant, and this is a case that we believe should be presented to a jury at trial.”

Hernandez’s attorney, Harvey Fishbein, insists his client has an I.Q. in the “borderline-to-mild mental retardation range.”

“Nothing that occurs in the course of this trial will answer what actually happened to Etan Patz,” Fishbein said. “The indictment is based solely on statements allegedly made by my client, who has, in the past, been repeatedly diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia, and who has, over the last six months, been found to suffer from schizotypal personality disorder, which is characterized by, among other things, unusual perceptual experiences, commonly referred to as hallucinations.”

Patz’s disappearance on his first walk alone to the school bus stop grabbed national headlines in 1979.  His face become one of the first to appear on a milk carton in an effort to garner information leading to his whereabouts.

Potential prosecution problems

Paul Callan, former deputy chief of homicide in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, said it’s unusual for a suspect to be indicted six months after an arrest, and it could suggest some holes in the case.

“It’s a real uphill battle to get a conviction in such an old case,” Callan said. “Witnesses’ memories fade, physical evidence doesn’t exist anymore.”

In New York, a defendant cannot be convicted solely on a confession. Prosecutors must present corroborating evidence, which could prove challenging, Callan suggested, especially because Patz’s body was never found.   

“The defense will come in and say they don’t even know that Etan Patz was murdered, maybe he was kidnapped,” Callan said.

One point the prosecution might argue, he predicted, is that Hernandez confessed the crime to multiple people over the years with consistent detail, suggesting truthfulness. Jurors may also be more eager to reach a resolution in such an iconic cold case.        

“This is the case that put child predators on the radar screen of mothers in America. A jury will like to convict and punish the person responsible,” Callan added. 

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The incident occurred when Private First Class Isaac Lawrence Young, 22, came down with a case of the hiccups while the soldiers were watching a football game on television Sunday night in Killeen, Texas, home to the military post.

In an attempt to scare the hiccups out of his friend, Private First Class Patrick Edward Myers, 27, pointed a handgun at Young and fired once, according to an arrest affidavit. A bullet struck Young in his eye.

Police said Myers admitted to shooting Young, and told responders on the scene the shooting was an accident. Myers said he thought he had loaded the gun with dummy rounds, according to police.

The soldiers had been drinking, police said.

Young later died in an ambulance, according to Killeen Police spokesperson Carroll Smith. She said the investigation into the shooting was ongoing.

Myers was charged with manslaughter and is being held on $1 million bond.

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Boyd Shropshire, 29, was identified by a woman who said she witnessed him trying to position his cell phone beneath another woman’s skirt as she walked up the stairs in front of him while exiting the York Street subway station in DUMBO.

Police released surveillance video of the suspect following the Aug. 20 incident, and Shropshire was booked today on charges of unlawful surveillance, according to the NYPD.

On his Facebook profile, Shropshire has photos of himself playing a guitar and singing with other musicians. According to Gothamist, he was in a band called Human Television in 2005.

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According to the NYPD, a plainclothes officer approached 52-year-old Basam Syed on Monday evening after a woman identified him as her groper.

In the video posted on LiveLeak, Syed can be seen on his knees, begging the officer, “Please, sir. Please, sir.”

He then leaps to his feet and sprints to the edge of the platform before jumping down onto the tracks. He crossed several sets, including the electrified third rail, then rolls across the last set before crawling onto the opposite platform.

Syed, however, didn’t get very far. He was quickly arrested near the station and charged with persistent sex abuse, forcible touching, resisting arrest, criminal trespass and reckless endangerment, according to police.

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The onetime coach is accused of abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period, sometimes in Pennsylvania State University locker rooms. Sandusky faces more than 500 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

Before deliberations began, the jury of seven women and five men heard closing arguments from the prosecution and defense lawyers.

Earlier in Thursday’s session, Judge John Cleland gave final instructions the jury, telling them a sex abuse conviction must be based on more than whether a child “feels uncomfortable.”

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Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France winner, denied the charges in a statement: “I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one.”

The Post cited a 15-page charging letter by the USADA.

It said the agency, which oversees anti-doping in Olympic sports in the United States, was empowered to bring charges that could lead to suspension from competition and the rescinding of awards but did not have authority to bring criminal charges.

A spokesman for the USADA was not immediately available to comment.

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A photo taken by the paparazzo shows Middleton — the sister-in-law of Prince William — grinning in the passenger seat of a convertible as the driver aims the firearm at the camera. Paris police officials are expected to launch an investigation.

“If the evidence points to her involvement, she will be prosecuted. Anybody involved in the illegal use of a handgun in public is liable to arrest and interrogation,” a source says, adding that if the gun proves to be real, brandishing it in a public place is punishable by up to seven years in prison “for all parties involved.” (Also in the car was Middleton’s friend, fashion mogul Arthur de Soultrait, who sat in the backseat.) If it was a fake gun, the maximum sentence is two years.

Wait. You can get two years in prison for showing off a fake gun in France? And here I?thought their attitudes towards fat people were harsh.

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Members of Occupy Wall Street have taken to sleeping near the New York Stock Exchange nightly for about a week. The group has grown to more than 80 people who camp on the sidewalk with sleeping bags and blankets, which is protected by law as a form of protest, as long as no tents are erected.

This morning, four protesters were taken into custody.. After the arrests, protester were seen loudly shouting with each otherwhile camped out on the steps of Federal Hall, as passing tourists watched with curiosity.    

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The investigation, which has been the target of criticism since Martin was killed a month ago, has become so convoluted with so many leaks, that witnesses need to be re-interviewed, according to CBS News.

Police questioned Zimmerman for five hours the night Martin was killed. Zimmerman was reportedly “bleeding from the nose and the back of the head.” Police went back to the scene with him to re-enact the shooting. They also interviewed six witnesses, none of whom actually saw the shooting happen.

The Sanford Police Department tried to bring manslaughter charges against George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman who admitted to shooting the unarmed Martin, for the first six weeks of the investigation. However, police were eventually told by the state attorney that there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue charges.

Now, after mounting public pressure, a new special investigator has been assigned to the case who is reviewing the evidence and once again interviewing witnesses — “essentially starting from scratch,” according to CBS. Meanwhile, George Zimmerman has still not been charged as he continues to assert that he acted in self-defense. 

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Russell was spotted storming through the San Diego streets (in broad daylight) completely naked while flailing his arms, cursing the devil, pounding on the cement and inappropriately touching himself. A firestorm of jokes, memes and criticism ensued.

The good news for Russell? He will not face criminal charges for his outburst, which was reportedly caused by factors like stress and exhaustion — and not alcohol or drugs — according to his family.

Reuters also reports that Russell is still undergoing involuntarily psychiatric hold, which is when a person can be in custody for up to 30 days if police believe he or she is a danger to themselves or others.

UPDATE: Slate’s Explainer asks if it is possible for an otherwise-healthy man like Russell to snap because of stress and exhaustion and concludes, “not without an underlying mental illness.”

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26-year-old Helian Williams of Newark, who has since been fired from CareOne in Livingston, is accused of snapping the below-the-belt photo and then sending it to 21-year-old Michele Walker. Prosecutors then say Walker posted the photo on her Facebook page.

Ironically, CareOne’s mission statement says, “We treat residents, their families and each other with respect, dignity and compassion,” as Gawker points out.

“No one should be made to suffer humiliation, particularly at the hands of someone responsible for his or her care,” said Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Ronald Chillemi, according to NBC.

Williams and Walker are both facing third-degree invasion of privacy and third-degree conspiracy charges.

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41-year-old Katia Gaton is accused of scamming at least five people out of a total of $13,600 by asking them to pay her “application fees” and the cost of uniforms they’d need on the job.

The district attorney said Gaton has never worked at the Hilton New York. She allegedly promised her victims full-time jobs as bellhops, housekeepers and front desk assistants.

According to the DA, Gaton brought the job seekers to the lobby of the Hilton, promising them an interview with the manager. She would then disappear and later return, telling her victims that the manager unexpectedly became unavailable. She even offered them “tours” of the hotel’s public areas and sometimes set a start date for her victims. 

Gaton is now facing scheme to defraud and grand larceny charges.

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