A New Jersey man who confessed to the 1979 killing of Etan Patz should stand trial for murder and kidnapping in the 6-year-old boy’s disappearance, a judge ruled on Wednesday.

An attorney for Pedro Hernandez, 51, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, had asked the judge to throw out the indictment, arguing that the confession alone was not legally sufficient to support the charges. Under New York law, a confession must be corroborated by some evidence that the crime in question occurred, though the statute is considered by legal experts to set an extremely low bar.

But in a very brief hearing, Justice Maxwell Wiley ruled in state Supreme Court in Manhattan that the trial may proceed, finding there is enough evidence to try Hernandez on the felony charges.

Police said Hernandez in May 2012 confessed to a chilling crime that has long haunted New Yorkers, saying he had lured the boy near his family home in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood and strangled him on May 25, 1979.

Hernandez, who worked in the 1970s at a nearby deli, no longer admits to the crime, said his lawyer, Harvey Fishbein.

Patz had disappeared while walking alone for the first time to a school bus stop, and his case helped focus national attention on the issue of missing children. He was one of the first missing children to have their photograph posted on the side of a milk carton as part of an appeal for information from the public.

Patz’s body was never found but he was legally declared dead in 2001.

In the months after Hernandez’s confession, a grand jury indicted him on two counts of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree kidnapping.

Fishbein asked the judge to throw out the indictment, noting that authorities appear to have no physical evidence to corroborate Hernandez’s confession.

“You can’t support the indictment solely with these statements,” Fishbein has said. “There is no crime scene here. There were no witnesses to a crime.”

He has also said the confession is false and that Hernandez suffers from mental illness, including hallucinations.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Erin Duggan, has said prosecutors believe Hernandez’s confession will withstand scrutiny.

After the court hearing on Wednesday, Fishbein said he would argue the confession should be thrown out because it was obtained in violation of Hernandez’s constitutional rights.

“There will be a hearing to find out if the statements were constitutionally taken. He was held for seven, eight hours before he was told he had the right to remain silent. He has a psychiatric condition and he has a low IQ,” Fishbein told reporters.

For years, Jose Ramos, a friend of Patz’s babysitter, was the prime suspect in the case, although he was never criminally charged. Ramos was found liable for Patz’s death in a 2004 civil case.

Ramos, 69, was released in November from a Pennsylvania prison after serving 20 years for molesting children but was immediately rearrested on other charges.

Fishbein has maintained that Ramos remains a “far more likely” suspect in Patz’s disappearance than Hernandez.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Cynthia Osterman)

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An Arizona jury found Jodi Arias guilty on Wednesday of first-degree murder in the death of her ex-boyfriend in a sensational capital case that has snared media attention since January. Arias teared up as the verdict was announced. Family members of victim Travis Alexander embraced each other in the courtroom.

Arias, 32, could face the death penalty now that she is convicted of murdering 30-year-old Alexander, whose body was found in the shower of his suburban Phoenix home in June 2008. He had been shot in the face, stabbed multiple times and his throat had been slashed.

Arias has admitted to killing Alexander, but said it was in self-defense after he attacked her because she had dropped his camera while taking photos of him in the shower.

The jury reached its verdict on the third full day of deliberations. Judge Sherry Stephens, who gave them the case on Friday afternoon, had instructed jurors that they could consider the charges of first- and second-degree murder or the lesser charge of manslaughter, and that they should reach a unanimous verdict. First-degree murder requires proof of premeditation.

The trial, which began in early January and was punctuated by graphic testimony and evidence including a sex tape, was streamed live on the Internet and drew widespread media attention.

During the trial, the court heard how the petite, dark-haired Arias met and began dating Alexander, a businessman and motivational speaker, in 2006.

During 18 days of often gripping and salacious testimony, Arias said that she and Alexander continued to have sex despite their break-up from a relationship that was marked by emotional and physical abuse.

Arias said Alexander had made her feel “like a prostitute” and that he kicked and attempted to choke her, although she admitted never reporting the alleged abuse to the police, seeking medical treatment or documenting it in her journal.

Defense attorney Kirk Nurmi said Arias had snapped in the “sudden heat of passion” in the moments between a final photograph she took showing Alexander alive and taking a shower and a subsequent picture showing him covered in his own blood.

ARIAS PORTRAYED AS MANIPULATIVE

Prosecutor Juan Martinez painted a different picture of Arias, portraying her as manipulative and prone to jealousy in previous relationships, and said she had meticulously planned to kill Alexander.

“Nothing indicates that this is anything less than a slaughter,” he told jurors in his summing up on Friday, asking them to return a verdict of felony first-degree murder.

Martinez accused Arias of bringing the pistol used in the killing, which has not been recovered, with her from California, and said she rented a car, removed its license plate and bought gasoline cans and fuel to conceal her journey to the Phoenix suburbs to kill Alexander.

Martinez said that Arias lied after the killing to deflect any suspicion that she had been involved in his death, leaving a voicemail on Alexander’s cellphone, sending irises to his grandmother and telling detectives she was not at the crime scene before changing her story.

The jury had more than 100 questions for Arias. They grilled her on her claims that her mind went blank after she shot Alexander, and wanted to know why she had not called emergency responders – questions she struggled to answer.

The defense called a psychologist who testified that Arias’ memory lapses stemmed from post-traumatic stress as a result of Alexander’s alleged abuse and the killing itself – claims disputed by prosecutors.

In closing arguments, Martinez told the jury Alexander had sent an instant message weeks before his death saying he was “extremely afraid” of Arias because of her “stalking behavior.”

Nurmi also reminded the jury that Arias was charged with murder and not with lying.

“Did she lie? Of course she did, but that’s not in your verdict instructions,” he said.

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Two men involved in the botched robbery that ended with the shooting death of NYPD officer Peter Figoski are set to go on trial this week, the Daily News reports.

Nelson Morales, 28, and Kevin Santos, 32, and three other men attempted to rob a Brooklyn drug dealer in December 2011 before they were interrupted by police. When Figoski, 44, responded to the scene, he was shot and killed by Lamont Pride.

Pride was convicted in February and sentenced to 45 years to life. Michael Velez, the getaway driver in the case, was acquitted of all charges.

Morales was in the news again this March after he sued the city, claiming he was permanently injured when a Department of Corrections bus crashed into another bus on Rikers Island in January of 2012.

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A federal prosecutor says City Comptroller John Liu had to have known that two of his associates conducted the straw donor scheme that landed them in handcuffs.

Manhattan US Attorney Justin Anderson told jurors on Tuesday that secret recordings prove that Liu’s fundraiser Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan used code words to tell his boss that $16,000 in contributions actually came from a businessman named Richard Kong, the New York Post reports.

Kong was an undercover FBI agent.

“You know from the assurances that Mr. Pan gave ‘Richard’ that it would defeat the whole purpose of the straw-donor scheme if the candidate doesn’t know where the money’s coming from,” Anderson told the jury.

Anderson’s statements were part of the closing arguments at the trial of Pan and Liu’s campaign treasurer Jia “Jenny” Hou. The two were arrested separately more than a year ago and are accused of using straw donors to funnel money into Liu’s campaign.

The prosecutor said Liu knew that the money collected at an August 2011 fundraiser came from “Richard Kong.”

“When I say it’s your event, John Liu knows what that means. He knows that it’s your money,” Anderson read from a transcript recorded by the undercover agent.

Hou also knew the “code” and was in on the scheme, Anderson added.

Liu has not been charged in the case. A lawyer for Liu said there is no evidence that proves the comptroller knew of any wrongdoing connected to the campaign, according to the Post.

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The NYPD attempted to enter a memo into evidence Wednesday that they said was sent to commanding officers this month, requiring that cops who do stop-and-frisks provide a detailed explanation for the stop, according to a report from the Guardian.

Plaintiffs expressed incredulity over the memo, which their attorney said was only made available by city lawyers Tuesday night.

“The memo literally says what we’ve been asking for for 10 years,” said Darius Charney, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Now as we prepare to go to trial this memo magically appears.”

CCR is objecting to the inclusion of the memo as evidence.

The memo was reportedly signed by NYPD Chief of Patrol James P. Hall and addressed to commanding officers in all patrol boroughs, and dated March 5. It states that officers filling out UF250s — the reports for stops — must include a narrative description of the stop.

One of Charney’s co-counsels, Johnathan Moore, said the memo is “an admission that they’ve been doing it wrong all these years.”

Judge Shira Scheindlin, who is presiding over the bench trial, declined the city’s request to enter the memo into evidence, but said she might reverse that decision if provided with a witness involved in the creation of the memo.

Hall is already expected to testify for the city.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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UPDATE: Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne issued a statement in support of McCormack, declaring that McCormack “did what a good commander is supposed to do — direct officers under his command to protect the public.” 

Browne insisted that the Deputy Inspector was not racially profiling, and that his taped comments needed to be looked at in context.

“He was describing suspects in patterns of burglaries and robberies who were victimizing people in a specific part of the precinct,” Browne said.  ”The inspector’s concern was that the officer was not focusing on serious crimes — instead the officer was more concerned with people blocking an entrance to a building elsewhere in the precinct.”

“The message was for the officer to go to where the robberies and burglaries occurred, keep his eyes open and take appropriate action in response to suspicious or criminal behavior,” Browne added.

Metro’s original story is below.

A secretly taped conversation by a cop revealed that his commanding officer ordered him to specifically target young black males for stop-and-frisks.

On the fourth day of the stop-and-frisk trial, Bronx officer Pedro Serrano said his boss, Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, told him he should stop black males ages 14 to 21 because they are the ones who commit crimes.

McCormack is heard on the taped conversation telling Serrano to stop “the right people.”

“And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem telling you this, male blacks 14 to 20, 21,” he said, The New York Times reported.

Serrano testified that he was also criticized by McCormack for not stopping enough people last year.

The tape is the latest evidence in a class action lawsuit against the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk tactic brought by a group of individuals who say they were stopped because of their race.

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A former New York City police officer plotted to kidnap, kill and cook women, a jury decided Tuesday.

After 16 hours of deliberation, a jury reached the verdict that Gilberto Valle, 28, was guilty on all charges.

Prosecutors charged that Valle plotted to kidnap women, keeping files on more than 100, and conspired to eventually kill and cook them.

His defense lawyer portrayed his actions as harmless sexual fantasies, telling jurors he should not be convicted for his thoughts.

Evidence included online communications in which prosecutors said he plotted to cook women, judging whether his oven could fit one if he folded her legs. He also agreed to a payment of $5,000 to deliver a woman bound, gagged and alive, prosecutors said.

His wife, who was among his planned victims, prosecutors said, testified against him at trial. He cried during her testimony.

Valle, a Forest Hills resident who had patrolled in Harlem, faces life in prison.

Former Brooklyn prosecutor and attorney Michael Weinstock said the “game changer” in the case was Valle illegally using a crime database to find information on potential victims, which was itself a crime and showed taking an action past chats.

“He’s not just going onto a website with weirdos and talking about killing his wife,” Weinstock said. “That would be weird, and that would be disturbing, but that alone would not have gotten the guy convicted.”

In his opinion, he continued, “If he had simply said twisted things with other peculiar nerds online, it never would have been prosecuted, but once he opened the database, it was a game changer.”

But he said he did not think this case would set a precedent for others involving conspiracy to commit crimes, simply because prosecutors do not have the resources to patrol every sexual fantasy.

“They’ve got their hands full,” he said.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that the case showed that the web cannot be used for planning crimes.

“Today, a unanimous jury found that Gilberto Valle’s detailed and specific plans to abduct women for the purpose of committing grotesque crimes were very real and that he was guilty as charged,” Bharara said. “The internet is a forum for the free exchange of ideas, but it does not confer immunity for plotting crimes and taking steps to carry out those crimes.”

Prosecutors’ allegations

Planned to abduct and cook 100 women
Negotiated price of $5,000 to deliver a woman bound, gagged and alive
Used the National Crime Information Center to find potential victims
Kept files including a document entitled, “Abducting and Cooking [Victim-1]: a Blueprint,” with name, birthday, height, weight and bra size

Excerpts from the alleged planning

“[My oven] is big enough to fit one of these girls if I folded their legs.”

“I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus … cook her over a low heat, keep her alive as long as possible.”

“I love that she is asleep right now not having the slightest clue of what we have planned. Her days are numbered.”

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Gilberto Valle is on trial for allegedly plotting to kidnap, kill and eat women. (Facebook)

The former cop who is on trial for allegedly plotting to kidnap, kill and eat women was in tears on Tuesday after the defense rested its case after one day. Gilberto Valle also refused to testify in his own defense, The New York Times reported.

Prosecutors presented to jurors last week a series of Internet chats, emails and graphic images pulled from Valle’s computer revealing his plans to kidnap women, torture them and eat them. The women included his own estranged wife, Kathleen Mangan Valle, and old college friends, who took the stand last week.

The defense attorneys have stated that there is not enough evidence that Valle intended to carry out any of these plans and that he was merely fantasizing. They presented Tuesday a videotaped testimony from an operator of one of the websites Valle used. Sergey Merenkov explained that he created the site for people with all types of fetishes, and thousands of users visit the site each week.

Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Thursday. Valle faces life in prison if he is convicted.

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The final presentation from prosecutors to jurors in the “cannibal cop” case included an apparently staged video of a screaming woman chained and gagged over an open flame and other graphic images from websites that former NYPD officer Gilberto Valle visited.

The laptop that Valle’s wife handed over to police after she left her husband in September also revealed the types of search terms Valle entered on the Internet: “how to cook a human,” “human meat recipes,” “how to abduct a girl” and “how to chloroform a girl,” the New York Post reported.

Valle, a 28-year-old former cop from Queens, is accused of plotting to kidnap, torture, kill and eat women.

The defense team is prepared to make its case Tuesday as they try to prove that Valle never intended to carry out his plans. They are expected to present a videotaped deposition of a Russian operator of one of the websites Valle used who says he created the website to serve as a social network for people with kinky fantasies, and that users include both men and women who often engage in role play online.

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Two British men have been arrested in connection with the “cannibal cop” trial, including the man who allegedly served as Gilberto Valle’s online mentor on cannibalism.

A man who has been known in the trial as “Moody Blues” was identified on Friday as 57-year-old Dale Bolinger of Canterbury, according to NBC News. He is now free on bail after he was detained on suspicion of conspiracy, child grooming and possession of child abuse images. Another man from Canterbury, 30, was also arrested and is free on bail.

Former NYPD officer Valle is accused of plotting to kidnap, rape, torture, kill and eat women. Email exchanges between “Moody Blues” and Valle were among many Internet conversations read in court this week that detail the accused cop’s gruesome plans.

Bolinger communicated with Valle about the cop’s plans to kill and eat an old college friend. He also suggested Valle eat his victims alive, but Valle responded that he isn’t really into “raw meat.”

Valle faces life in prison if convicted. He has said that he was only fantasizing and never intended to carry out his plans.

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Gilberto Valle, a former city cop who is accused of plotting to kidnap, rape, kill and eat women, communicated with a butcher in India about his plans to kill and cook his wife and longtime friend, an FBI agent testified on Wednesday.

The butcher, identified as Aly Khan, allegedly offered Valle a place in Pakistan to kill his soon-to-be wife, said Agent Corey Walsh, according to the New York Post.

In Internet chats between Valle and Khan from early last year, the accused cop talked about how he could talk his wife into going on a trip to India. From there, the two men would take her to Pakistan, where they would drag her to a basement, hang her from her feet and sexually assault her before killing and cooking her.

They also talked about their plans for Valle’s college friend Andria Noble. Valle wrote that he wanted to dress her like a turkey and cook her alive.

Noble, 27, who attended the University of Maryland with Valle, testified on Monday that she never knew him to be violent.

Valle’s wife, Kathleen Mangan Valle, left her husband with their infant daughter last September when she discovered his grisly fetish.

The defense team has argued that the former officer was only fantasizing.

Valle, who also allegedly used government resources to research his victims, faces a life sentence if convicted.

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A new series of emails shows “cannibal cop” Gilberto Valle shared personal information with two co-conspirators about different women he knew in a plot to kill and eat them, including two friends from college.

On the second day of his trial, prosecutors displayed emails and instant messages that had detailed descriptions of what Valle wanted to do with these women, including a friend he’s known since 2002 when they attended the University of Maryland together, The Daily News reported.

The college friend, Kimberly Sauer, 29, testified on Tuesday. She said she considered Valle a friend and had no idea of his gruesome plans for her.

Valle exchanged emails with a co-conspirator known as “Moody Blues” about how he wanted to kill her and devour her.

“I’ll be eying her from head to toe and licking my lips, longing for the day I cram a chloroform-soaked rag in her face,” he wrote in an email some time before he had plans to meet Sauer for lunch, according to The Daily News.

Valle also targeted another college friend, Andria Noble, as well as his own wife Kathleen Mangan Valle and an 18-year-old college student named Kristen Ponticelli, who says she never met Valle.

Defense lawyer Julia Gatto said Valle never shared the last names of the women, indicating that his plans were part of a fantasy and not actual plans he was planning to carry out.

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A year after the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager in this central Florida town, there is a small memorial, a new police chief and an effort to improve race relations.

Trayvon Martin, 17, was gunned down on February 26, 2012, as he walked to his father’s fiancee’s home in one of Sanford’s gated communities. The man accused of his killing, George Zimmerman, 28, a white Hispanic on neighborhood watch, is set to be tried on June 10.

A judge could grant immunity to Zimmerman at a pre-trial hearing on April 29 under Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law, which allows people to use lethal force in self defense if they are in fear of serious bodily harm.

Martin’s death drew top-tier civil rights leaders, such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who brought a national spotlight to this town just north of Orlando and not far from Disney World.

That spotlight forced the town of 53,000 to confront police work that seemed to be a throwback to the days of separate and resolutely unequal racial sensibilities.

“This situation, with all eyes on Sanford is making them (city leaders) do something about it now,” said Cindy Philemon, 49, who helps run the local black heritage museum and welcome center.

A year later Martin’s family says it does not want the case considered in racial terms. “We don’t want people to see this as a black kid. I want people to see this as a teenager … who was walking, minding his own business,” Martin’s mother, Sabrina Fulton, told the NPR radio show “Tell Me More” on Monday night.

Despite the pain of losing her son, Fulton said she was glad that a debate had opened up about Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.

The family is backing an amendment to the law seeking to restrict its application. “You can’t follow, pursue and chase anyone, be the aggressor, have a confrontation with him, shoot and kill him, and then go home to your bed and nothing happens,” she said.

During the weekend, volunteers in the black community hastily worked to complete a modest memorial of stuffed animals, cards and crosses in time to remember the first anniversary of Martin’s shooting. It has also become a way for Sanford to remember the many other black victims of violence whose stories largely went untold.

City Manager Norton Bonaparte, who is black, said Sanford had begun to tackle deep-seated problems between police and the black community that were exposed in public forums after Martin’s death.

“In honoring Trayvon’s life, we have to make ourselves a better community,” Bonaparte said.

The police chief at the time of Martin’s shooting lost his job over criticism that his department and prosecutors chose not to charge or arrest Zimmerman.

The new chief starts his job in April.

“Now, it’s like the police are getting more involved in being with the community,” Philemon said. “They are starting to do their part in interacting with us. They say there is not as many shootings as there once was.”

Another resident, Thelma Holmes, 62, agreed saying, “It is better than what it was before, because we had a lot of killings of young men … The people and the police, they’re both trying.”

Trayvon’s death will not be forgotten.

“It started people to come forward. So his death is not going to be in vain,” Philemon said. “And he will always be remembered.”

Martin’s parents and lawyers will be in New York City, not Sanford, to hold a candlelight vigil on Tuesday night.

Zimmerman, who is charged with second-degree murder, was granted bond and ordered to surrender his passport, agree to be electronically monitored, reside in Seminole County, and observe a nighttime curfew.

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An NYPD officer who allegedly planned to kidnap, torture, cook and eat women is going on trial. Opening statements are expected to begin Monday afternoon.

Gilberto Valle, 28, faces life in prison if convicted. Prosecutors say emails and other online evidence show that Valle plotted to abduct women and eat them.

New court papers show that Valle’s wife left him more than a month before his arrest when she found out about his bizarre and deadly plans that included her, The Daily News reports.

The defense team is expected to say Valle’s ideas were purely fantasy, and he never planned to act on them.

Valle was arrested on a kidnapping conspiracy charge on Oct. 24. He plead not guilty in November.

Another man from New Jersey who allegedly schemed with Valle in a plot to kidnap a Manhattan woman is also awaiting trial.

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Taylor Murphy, 29, is on trial for charges that he violently attacked his girlfriend, Claudia Charriez, a transgender model known for her appearance as a contestant on “American’s Next Top Model.”

Murphy, who appeared as “Mr. March” in a calender featuring FDNY firefighters, is accused of pulling Charriez’s hair, shoving her into a phone booth and choking her outside a Midtown strip club on the night of Aug. 6, 2011. He’s also accused of kicking, punching, and biting her inside a hotel room.

Opening statements in the trial began Thursday.

Murphy, whose Model Mayhem profile lists him as 6’4 and 220 pounds, continues to pursue a career in modeling after his appearance in the 2011 NYC Firefighters Calendar, the unofficial calender of the FDNY.

Charriez was disqualified in the semifinal round of “ANTM” in 2006 after it was revealed that she was born a man.

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Zimmerman walked out of the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Sanford, Florida, and is expected to be moved to a temporary safe house secured by his lawyer.

George Zimmerman’s legal defense fund raised $20,000 in the 24 hours after a judge set bond at $1 million for the former neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed the unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman’s official website said on Friday.

The figure is about 22 times the daily rate of donations for the previous two months, according to a statement on the website, which said the defense fund had collected $55,000 over the past two months.

Zimmerman, who had been free on a $150,000 bond, was sent back to jail in June after prosecutors alleged he misled the court about his finances and failed to surrender a valid passport.

Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester said Thursday in his new bond order that he believed Zimmerman and his wife Shellie intended to flee the country but were thwarted by the judge’s requirement that Zimmerman wear an electronic monitoring device.

Defense attorney, Mark O’Mara, said Thursday that Zimmerman and his family could not post the higher bond, which typically would require a deposit of 10 percent cash and the rest secured by collateral, without donations from supporters.

Shawn Vincent, who manages the website for O’Mara, told Reuters the largest donation overnight was $1,000, and that most contributions ranged between $10 and $25.

Since May 3, when O’Mara took control of Zimmerman’s defense fundraising, donations have averaged $500 to $1,000 per day, he said.

In granting bond, Lester imposed numerous restrictions. He said that if released from jail again, Zimmerman must submit to electronic monitoring, remain in Seminole County, stay away from the Orlando-Sanford International Airport, refrain from applying for a passport or holding a bank account, avoid alcohol and obey a curfew from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.

The defense website said Zimmerman’s security team had established a temporary safe house for him to go to upon his release from jail, but that a permanent location was still being sought.

Zimmerman is charged with second-degree manslaughter in the February 26 shooting death of 17-year-old Martin in a gated community in the central Florida city of Sanford.

Martin’s killing drew national attention because police initially declined to arrest Zimmerman. They cited Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law and Zimmerman’s claim that he used deadly force because he believed his life was being threatened by Martin.

Zimmerman, 28, was later arrested on second-degree murder charges, which carry a penalty of 25 years to life in prison.

Shellie Zimmerman has been charged with perjury for allegedly working with her husband to hide from the judge at least $135,000 that was raised by Zimmerman, through a personal website and Paypal account, prior to his arrest.

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Sandusky now faces a maximum sentence of 442 years in prison.

The crowd gathered outside the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania erupted in cheers after the jury announced guilty verdict after guilty verdict. Sandusky was led from the courtroom in handcuffs.  

Jurors reached the verdict after two days of deliberations.Sandusky, 68, was facing 48 counts of abuse of 10 boys over a 15-year period in a case that stunned the university, refocused attention on the issue of child sexual abuse in the United States and led to the firing of Penn State President Graham Spanier and legendary head football coach Joe Paterno.

Meanwhile, as jurors in the child sex abuse trial of Jerry Sandusky worked into the night to reach a verdict on Friday, his lawyer predicted the outcome, telling reporters he would be shocked if the one-time Penn State assistant football coach was acquitted of all charges.

“I would die of a heart attack – shocked – if he was acquitted on all of the charges,” Joe Amendola told reporters awaiting the verdict in the courtroom, despite a standing gag order for the attorneys in the case.

Amendola’s off-the-cuff remark was the latest of several quips he made to reporters covering the trial this week. Previously he compared the trial to a TV soap opera, which earned him a trip to Judge John Cleland’s chambers.

Emerging from his meeting with Cleland, Amendola made a zipping motion at his mouth and said Cleland had told him: “Joe, you’re going to the prayer corner.”

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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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The man was the sixth of eight alleged child sex abuse victims to testify in the closely watched trial in Pennsylvania.

Sandusky, the former defensive coordinator for Pennsylvania State University’s successful football program, faces 52 counts of abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period. If convicted on all counts, he faces a sentence of more than 500 years in prison.

The witness said he had met Sandusky in 1998 when he was 11 years old at a picnic hosted by the Second Mile, a charity Sandusky had founded.

The witness said Sandusky invited him to work out at a Penn State campus gym, which was deserted when they went there late in the day. The two wrestled and lifted weights for about 15 minutes and then Sandusky told him it was time to shower, the witness said.

“My immediate thought was, ‘I’m not really sweating yet, it’d only been about 15 minutes,” said the man.

In the shower, Sandusky grabbed him from behind and said playfully, “I’m going to squeeze your guts out” and bear-hugged him, the man testified haltingly.

Sandusky also lifted him up to rinse shampoo out of his hair. “That’s the last thing I remember about being in the shower. It’s all black,” said the man, identified in court documents as Victim 6.

The boy’s mother reported the incident to university police and it was investigated but no charges were filed.

The man testified that he had continued to have contact with Sandusky. He sent Sandusky emailed Fathers Day and Thanksgiving Day greetings in 2009. The man said the email was one he had sent to all those on his list of friends.

When defense attorney Joe Amendola asked the witness, “Did the change in your attitude have anything to do with hiring an attorney and thinking that there might be some financial gain for you?,” the man answered: “Zero.”

Three alleged victims were set to testify against the 68-year-old Sandusky on Thursday after three others offered testimony on Wednesday accusing him of sexually abusing them in showers, bedrooms and basements when they were young boys.

Judge John Cleland told jurors at the close of Wednesday’s session in Centre County Court in Pennsylvania that the trial was running much more quickly than expected. The prosecution, which began presenting evidence on Monday, could conclude its case by Friday.

“It would appear that by Friday the commonwealth will have enough time comfortably” to finish, he said. At the trial’s start, Cleland had said it would go on until the end of the month.

Of the alleged victims – known in court documents as Victims 1 to 10 – eight agreed to testify against Sandusky. Those who have testified have offered sometimes-graphic accounts of abuse, including oral sex. Two of the accusers remain unidentified.

The defense has said it could call dozens of witnesses when it presents its case. They include Sandusky’s wife Dottie and other family members. Amendola has argued that the accusers are out for money. He has said that Sandusky might have acted inappropriately but is not a molester.

The trial is taking place amid a heavy media presence in the small town of Bellefonte, about 10 miles northeast of State College, site of Penn State’s main campus.

Sandusky, who retired in 1999, is accused of meeting the boys through the Second Mile.

The case prompted the firing of university President Graham Spanier and head football coach Joe Paterno, record-holder for most wins by a major U.S. college football coach. Paterno died of lung cancer in January.

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The alleged victim, now 25 years old, told the court that Sandusky pinned him down and forced him to receive oral sex while the two were wrestling in the basement of Sandusky’s home. The victim said Sandusky got on top of him and pulled his shorts down. The man said Sandusky told him, “I’d never see my family again,” if he told anyone about the oral sex, according to the AP.

The victim was living with a foster family at the time and had met Sandusky, a former coach for Penn State University football, through the The Second Mile, a charity the former coach founded to help underprivileged boys. The man told the court that Sandusky later back down from his threat, but forced him to receive and perform oral sex two more times in 1998 and 1999.

“He apologized for saying that,” the witness said. “He told me he didn’t mean it and that he loved me.”

This witness was one of the first two alleged victims to come forward, which set off an investigation leading to 52 criminal counts against Sandusky.

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In the defense’s opening statement in a trial closely watched in the United States, Sandusky’s attorney Joe Amendola told the seven women and five men of the jury that Sandusky, 68, was a naive man filled with love and affection for young people.

“Jerry Sandusky, in my opinion, loves kids so much he does things that none of us would ever think of doing,” Amendola said.

Sandusky faces 52 counts of sexual abuse against 10 boys. If convicted, the former Pennsylvania State University football defensive coordinator could be sentenced to more than 500 years in prison.

Eight young men are prepared to testify in Centre County Court in Pennsylvania about how Sandusky befriended and sexually abused them as boys over a 15-year period, according to prosecutors. The men, now aged 18 to 28, will be identified publicly for the first time in court.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Joseph McGettigan III called Sandusky a “predatory pedophile” and urged the jury to listen to his alleged victims in the case, now men, as though they were children.

“You will be hearing the voices of young men, but I ask you to bring insight … of how children react to things,” McGettigan said.

McGettigan added that he would press the witnesses for details in the lurid case only because the jurors’ needed to hear them. “I must ask, and they must answer,” McGettigan said.

Putting up pictures of eight of the 10 alleged victims on a courtroom screen, while occasionally jabbing a finger toward Sandusky, McGettigan told jurors that eight had remained silent until now out of humiliation, fear and shame.

As the prosecutor spoke, Sandusky sat silently, hunched forward with his back to the packed courtroom, as ceiling fans whirled overhead.

Amendola called his task of defending Sandusky a difficult one, given the resources of the state and a “tidal wave” of negative publicity about the case.

‘A DAUNTING TASK’

“This is a daunting task. This is like looking up at Mount Everest from the bottom of the hill, it’s like David and Goliath,” he told jurors.

Amendola suggested Sandusky could take the witness stand, telling jurors that the former coach would tell them about his youth and how taking showers with other people had been common for people of his generation growing up in Washington, Pennsylvania.

Amendola also hinted that the accusers could be out for money, saying that six of the eight identified accusers had taken the step of retaining civil attorneys.

Prosecutors allege Sandusky had physical contact with the boys, known in court documents as Victims 1 to 10, that ranged from tickling and a “soap battle” in Penn State showers to oral and anal sex.

The abuse charges shook the university and prompted the firing of revered football coach Joe Paterno and university President Graham Spanier in November 2011.

Sandusky is accused of using the Second Mile, a charity he founded in 1977, to prey on needy young boys. The charity said last month it was closing because contributions had dried up.

Victor Vieth, executive director of the National Child Protection Training Center, said Amendola would try to attack the accusers’ credibility but would face a tough task.

The long gap between the alleged abuses and reporting them “only adds to their credibility,” said Vieth, a former Minnesota prosecutor. “This is not a fun day for them. Who wants to talk about having anal intercourse with a much older man?”

The allegations brought an ignominious end to the career of Paterno, who recorded more wins in major college football than any other coach. He died of lung cancer in January, about two months after being fired. His widow Sue and son Jay may be called as witnesses for Sandusky.

The charges also marked a watershed in awareness of child sexual abuse. Sandusky was a well-respected children’s champion and coach in college football.

Sandusky has laid out a potential defense, saying in an NBC television interview in November that he engaged in horseplay with alleged victims but stopped short of sexual intercourse or penetration.

Amendola has said one of his tactics will be to “destroy” the credibility of former graduate football assistant Mike McQueary and thus raise questions about all the witnesses and victims.

McQueary, a key witness, told prosecutors he saw Sandusky assaulting a boy known as Victim 2 in February 2001 in a Penn State locker room. Victim 2 and another boy, Victim 8, have not been found.

The trial has brought a flood of media to Bellefonte, a town of 6,200 people about 10 miles northeast of State College, the location of Penn State’s main campus.

Eight of the 12 jurors, who were picked last week, have ties to Penn State, the largest employer in the area of small towns and farms. But legal and jury experts said familiarity is no guarantee of sympathy for Sandusky and may hurt him if they blame him for tarnishing the university’s image.

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William Balfour, now estranged from his wife, Hudson’s sister Julia, is accused of killing Hudson’s mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew Julian — Balfour’s own stepson, more than three years ago.

According to prosecutors, Balfour shot Hudson’s mother and brother in a jealous rage over the possibility that his wife was seeing another man. The body of his wife’s son was found in a car three days later.

Hudson also told the court of the close relationship she shared with her mother, according to CNN, saying she shared a bed with her until she was 16-years-old.

The trial is expected to last three to four weeks.

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Edwards is accused of accepting more than $900,000 in campaign funds from two wealthy donors, knowing the exposure of his extramarital affair “would destroy his presidential campaign,” prosecutors said in a trial brief.

The candidate at the time was a married father of three, whose late wife, Elizabeth, had breast cancer.

Jurors will hear opening statements the federal courthouse in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Edwards, 58, is accused of conspiring to solicit the money, receiving more than the $2,300 allowed from any one donor, and failing to report the payments as contributions.

He faces six felony counts, each carrying a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Edwards admits personal failings but insists he broke no laws.

Edwards’ defenders say the government is overreaching with its prosecution of Edwards, the son of mill workers who earned his fortune as a trial lawyer in North Carolina before being elected as a U.S. senator from the state in 1998.

His defense lawyers dispute the Justice Department’s interpretation of federal election laws, arguing the donors would have given the money regardless of the campaign and did so knowing it wouldn’t be used for campaign purposes.

The money was not spent to influence the election but rather to conceal the affair and resulting pregnancy from Edwards’ wife and children, they said.

Edwards never personally received any of the payments, nor did his campaign. The money was used to cover living expenses and medical care for his mistress, campaign videographer Rielle Hunter, rather than traditional campaign activities.

“This is expanding the scope of the definition of campaign contribution,” said Ron Wright, a law professor at Wake Forest University who is not involved in the case. “It is an unprecedented definition.”

PIVOTAL POINTS

The defense is expected to call two former Federal Election Commission members who, if allowed by the judge, would testify they believe Edwards did not violate campaign finance laws.

Hampton Dellinger, a former deputy attorney general who has followed the Edwards case, said the campaign finance experts’ testimony could be pivotal.

The missing pieces of the case also could be significant, he said. Neither of the two donors whose payments are in question are able to testify.

Fred Baron, who served as Edwards’ national campaign finance chairman in 2008, has since died, and heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon is 101 and physically unable to attend the trial. Elizabeth Edwards died in 2010.

A chief government witness will be Andrew Young, a campaign aide who later wrote a tell-all book about Edwards’ affair and the efforts to keep it out of the public eye.

Young, who was granted immunity, initially claimed he had fathered a child with Hunter, who is also expected to testify. A lawsuit settlement earlier this year between Young and Hunter called for copies of a videotape purported to show her having sex with Edwards to be destroyed.

Edwards’ defense team, recently reshuffled to include the lawyers who represented Hunter in the civil case, has indicated it will attack Young’s motives and credibility.

Edwards, who also ran for president in 2004 before becoming John Kerry’s vice presidential running mate the same year, has his own credibility issues. He repeatedly denied having an affair and daughter with Hunter, and finally admitted paternity two years after the child’s birth.

“This case is not so much the United States v. John Edwards, it’s Andrew Young v. John Edwards,” Dellinger said. “And I think the jury’s determination about which one of them is more credible may be one of the key factors in deciding whether Mr. Edwards is guilty.”

The trial could last until late May or early June. A conviction would make what qualifies as a campaign contribution less certain for future candidates, said law professor Wright.

“It’s going to mean lots more lawyers employed by campaigns,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot more legal risk involved in election reporting if the government wins this.”

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The star witness, identified as M.B., was one of the last people to see Clementi, 18, who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after posting about his suicide plan to Facebook on September 22, 2010, just days after learning his roommate Dharun Ravi, now 20, covertly watched them and others to do so too.

M.B., a man in his 20s or 30s who is not a Rutgers student, said he met Clementi in an online chat room for gay men and then visited him in the dorm room he shared with Ravi. The men had three dates before Clementi committed suicide.

According to The New York Times, M.B. learned that his encounter with Clementi had been recorded two weeks after his death when prosecutors came to his home. However, M.B. said he had felt “uneasy” during his visit to Clementi’s dorm room after noticing a camera lens.

“I had just glanced over my shoulder and I had noticed there was a webcam that was faced toward the direction of the bed, and I just thought it was kind of strange. Just being in a compromising position and seeing a camera lens — I guess it just stuck out to me that if you were sitting at a desk using the computer, that camera wouldn’t be facing that direction, it would be facing the person at the computer,” M.B. said during his testimony, according to The Times.

M.B. has been the most anticipated witness in the trial. His identity has been closely guarded because he is considered a victim himself. Efforts to protect M.B.’s identity were requested by his lawyer, Richard Pompelio.

Ravi is not charged in Clementi’s suicide, which was widely portrayed as a tragic example of bullying and the toll it too often takes on gay teenagers. He is, however, charged with 15 counts of invasion of privacy, witness and evidence tampering and bias intimidation, which is a hate crime. If convicted, he faces the possibility of 10 years in prison.

Students who lived in the same college dorm and have been called as witnesses in the trial described M.B. as about 30-years o-d and “sketchy.” Ravi’s lawyer maintains he set up the webcam because he was afraid that the man would steal his valuable computer equipment.

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After a five-weeks-long trial, jurors came back with a guilty verdict in the involuntary manslaughter trial. He faces up to four years in prison and the loss of his medical license with the verdict.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office determined that Jackson died of acute propofol intoxication, with sedatives also playing a factor in death in 2009 at the age of 50.

Jurors deliberated for two days in order to digest the 23 days of testimony given by 49 witnesses, including Jackson’s former employees, investigators, various medical experts, andMurray’s girlfriends and patients according to CNN.

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Seattle native Knox and Italian computer student Raffaele Sollecito had appealed against a 2009 verdict that found them guilty of murdering 21-year-old Kercher during what prosecutors said was a drug-fueled sexual assault four years ago.

Looking pale and tense as the sentence was read out in a packed Perugia court room, Knox was led away in tears and close to collapse by police officers.

The court quashed the conviction against Knox, who was sentenced to 26 years in jail, and against Sollecito, who was sentenced to 25 years, after independent forensic investigators sharply criticized police scientific evidence, saying it was unreliable.

Kercher’s half-naked body, with more than 40 wounds and a deep gash in the throat, was found in 2007 in the apartment she shared with Knox in the Umbrian town of Perugia where both were studying.

A third man, Ivorian drug dealer Rudy Guede, was imprisoned for 16 years for his role in the murder.
The defense argued that no clear motive or evidence linking the defendants to the crime had emerged.

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