Lance Armstrong, Part 2. Thursday's interview didn't seem to resonate favorably with too many people. Did they even tune in again for Part II? I did. It was like a deja-vu of John Edwards admitting his affair (but denying paternity.)

It seems to me this interview is part of some legal-related master plan, as opposed to personal redemption or being able to compete again. I don't think it's just the Floyd Landis case, but I have no idea what else it might be. Some lawyers who have represented other athletes share their thoughts here.

Who besides Robert Luskin is on his legal team? Elliot Peters, of Keker and Van Nest, who has been in the news all week as the lawyer for Aaron Swartz. [More...]

Ray Nagin, the former mayor of New Orleans, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on corruption charges, including bribery, money laundering, wire fraud and filing false tax returns. The indictment is here.

Key players in the case are here.

In the George Zimmerman case, Mark O'Mara has requested a subpoena to ABC News for Matt Gutman's recordings of interviews with Witness #8, who Gutman refers to as "Dee Dee" (not her real name.) You can read the motion here.

Dee Dee is the witness who claims to have been on the phone with Trayvon Martin moments before his fatal encounter with George Zimmerman. Her existence was revealed on March 20, 2012 at a press conference called by Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump, at which he played snippets of what she told Crump during an audio interview the night before. Gutman has said he has a recording of the interview and interviewed her several times that week.

Here is the backstory. (More here.) Diwataman has the videos of Gutman's and Crump's statements on Dee Dee.

TSA has ended its $5 million contract with OSI, which makes the Rapiscan Backscatter, one of two "people screening" machines using advanced imaging technology at airports.

OSI could not meet a deadline to come up with software that rendered the images generic. Instead, TSA will use machines by L3 Communications which produce generic passenger images. Here's the L3 page for the Provision II. L3 Communications announced a $245 million contract with TSA in November. Also in November, at a congressional hearing, allegations arose, which OSI denied, that it had falsified test results.[More...]

Mass. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz answered some questions at a news conference about Aaron Swartz yesterday. She acknowledged the office knew he had mental health issues at his arraignment, 18 months ago.

Ortiz said “some issues about his mental health came up” about 18 months ago, but they were addressed during his arraignment.

As I wrote here, they were addressed by the Court ordering "medical or psychiatric treatment as directed" as a condition of bond.

But Aaron's father today, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, denies Aaron had a longstanding problem with depression. [More...]

Lance Armstrong interview on Oprah is airing now. It took me 10 minutes to find the channel (220 on Denver's comcast.)

He says the last time he "crossed the line" was in 2005. He did no blood transfusions or doping in 2009 and 2010.

He denied that he expected or required his top riders to dope.

Three police officers in Schaumburg, Il, a suburb of Chicago, are in jail with bond set at $750,000 on charges they ripped off drug dealers, put the drugs back on the street, and pocketed the proceeds.

Three Schaumburg police officers conspired to steal drugs they had seized during legitimate busts, then split the profits after their informant put the drugs back on the streets, with one of the officers later admitting he did it for “the thrill of it," according to prosecutors.

John Cichy, 30, Matthew Hudak, 29, and Terrance O’Brien, 47, were captured on video surveillance and audio recordings stealing money and drugs from the dealers, and all three have made incriminating statements, prosecutor Audriana Anderson said in court this morning.

[More....]

The Chicago City Council today unanimously approved payments of $32 million to pay two claims of police misconduct.

A mentally ill woman, Christina Eilman, will get $22.5 million.

Christina Eilman now suffers severe brain damage after police ignored pleas for help from her out-of-town family and turned the mentally ill woman lose in one of Chicago's most crime-ridden neighborhoods. She was raped and either fell or was pushed out of a seventh floor window.

Alton Logan will get $10.2 million for the 26 years he spent in prison for a crime he didn't commit. did not commit. [More...]

Your turn. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Tahawwur Rana, David Headley's co-defendant in the Chicago terror case related to the Mumbai bombings and planned attack on a Danish newspaper, was sentenced to 14 years today. The Government had sought a 30 year sentence.

Rana was convicted on two counts of a Superseding Indictment (Counts Eleven and Twelve) of conspiring to providing material support to a plot to attack a private newspaper in Denmark, the Jyllands-Posten, and providing material support to Lashkar e Tayyiba (“Lashkar” or “LeT”), a designated terrorist organization. The plot against the Jyllands-Posten was not executed, and no one was killed or injured.

Rana was acquitted on a third charge (Count Nine) which alleged that he conspired to provide material support to attacks in India, including the Mumbai attack in 2008. (Counts Nine and Eleven were charged as a conspiracy, Count 12 was charged as a substantive offense.)

The Judge rejected the Government's request to apply the terror enhancement guideline to Rana. Under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, the enhancement provides for a 12 level increase in the base offense level, and automatic placement in criminal history category VI (the highest category) if a defendant’s “offense is a felony that involved or was intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism.” [More...]

I have a post almost ready on the latest developments in the Kim Dotcom case, but won't get back to it until tonight. Background here. I think the Government is on shaky ground when it writes:

Yet Megaupload does not cite a single communication between the government and Megaupload or a single instruction from any member of the government to Megaupload; there are none.

Of course there aren't. Because the Government had Carpathia do its bidding for it and act as the middleman. In addition to what it represented to the court in its motion to seal the Ninja search warrant, and what the Court's sealing order for that warrant stated, there's this email from Carpathia to Kim Dotcom and Matthias Ortmann.

As I said, more later.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

A petition to the White House to remove Mass. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz for her office's handling of the Aaron Swartz case has gathered 37,000 signatures. 25,000 signatures are necessary for a response from the White House.

Ortiz' husband, Tom Dolan, took to Twitter and criticized the Swartz family for its obituary, claiming it left out the 6 month offer to Aaron. Then Dolan deleted his Twitter account. But you can see it here. [More...]