TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Author: Trench Reynolds

  • Osantowski due back in court

    Osantowski due back in court

    Teen who plotted school massacre faces new charges:

    Our favorite racist from Threat Central Michigan is due back in court…

    A teenage boy convicted of threatening a Columbine-style attack at a Clinton Township high school will face trial in August for unrelated criminal offenses.

    Andrew Paul Osantowski, who turned 19 earlier this month, is scheduled to go on trial Aug. 29 in front of Judge Matthew Switalski in Macomb Circuit Court, charged with burglary of a building, larceny and receiving and stealing stolen property. Police say these incidents occurred before his arrest in September 2004 for making a terrorist threat.

    Osantowski was convicted about one year ago in circuit court for making a threat of terrorism, use of a computer to further a terrorist act and possession of stolen weapons in connection with his online threats of a massacre at Chippewa Valley High School. He was sentenced in July to 4 1/2 years to 22 years in prison.

    One of the offenses for which he is currently charged is for stealing a golf cart from Fern Hill Golf and Country Club in Clinton Township.

    About four months ago, the state Court of Appeals reversed Switalski’s throwing out of the bulk of Andrew Osantowski’s confession to police. The statements will assist the county Prosecutor’s Office in pursuing the latest charges against Osantowski.

    County Prosecutor Eric Smith previously said his office would not offer the younger Osantowski a plea bargain because of his prior felony convictions.

    These charges are considered juvenile charges. No word yet on how this would affect Osantowski’s current adult sentence.

  • Reaction to the lawsuit

    Reaction to the lawsuit

    Public reacts to MySpace.com lawsuit:

    Local reaction, from Austin, Texas, about the MySpace lawsuit…

    Reaction was mixed Tuesday after reports that MySpace.com is being sued for not doing enough to protect young users from predators.

    Some say the girl’s parents should have known better.

    Lowell Coleman likes to have coffee at the Spider House and frequently checks his MySpace.com account.

    “It’s a friendly networking-type thing,” he said. “What’s great about it is you’re able to prescreen before meeting a person.”

    But Coleman says he knows not everyone on MySpace.com is who they say they are.

    “Then again, if you’re a sexual predator, it does give you the accessibility to go ahead and prey on a particular person.”

    David Deschodt, who has an 11-year-old, wonders were the girls’ parents were.

    “What was that kid doing on a website without any supervision?” he said.

    Other parents KVUE News spoke to said children should always be supervised when using the Internet. Many weren’t blaming MySpace.com.

    “I don’t know if MySpace.com can be accountable. I really think it’s up to the parents to monitor.” said Lacey Cominsky who has an 11-year-old. “There needs to be more personal responsibility. I think I know there’s punitive damages that encourage a corporation that makes a lot of money to change their policy. It’s not about the plaintiffs just getting that money.”

    Your thoughts?

  • The Journals MIGHT be released

    The Journals MIGHT be released

    Sheriff plans to release Columbine killers’ diaries, not tapes:

    LITTLETON – The Jefferson County sheriff said Monday he plans to make the Columbine High School killers’ journals public, but will not release their video and audio tapes.

    The teens’ journals include expressions of anger and dissatisfaction, the filing said. It said portions with bomb-making instructions would be withheld.

    Other documents planned for release include messages Klebold and Harris wrote each other in yearbooks and Wayne Harris’ journal, the filing said. But it said the bulk of the documents were “largely irrelevant and innocuous, consisting mostly of school work.”

    Wayne Harris’ journal is the one I’m most interested in seeing. I’m curious to know just how much he did or didn’t know what was going on under his roof. Especially considering that while the shootings were going on, Wayne Harris had called 911 stating that he thought one of the shooters might have been his son.

    Realistically though, I’m sure the appeal is being worked on as we speak.

  • More on Katherine Lester’s legal woes

    More on Katherine Lester’s legal woes

    Michigan teenager involved in Web romance charged with being a runaway:

    She’s not being criminally charged, but this article clarifies some things regarding Katherine Lester…

    DETROIT — Authorities have filed a runaway juvenile petition against a Michigan teenager who flew to the Middle East to be with a man she met on the MySpace.com social networking Internet site.

    The paperwork was filed Monday in Tuscola County Family Court by the county sheriff and prosecutor against Katherine Lester of Gilford, said Kyle Jaskula, the court administrator.

    At a hearing on Monday, Judge W. Wallace Kent Jr. ordered Lester to give up her passport and undergo counseling. He did not rule on the validity of the petition, and further hearings have not been scheduled.

    If the judge finds that Lester is a runaway, she could be placed under court supervision until she turns 18. Such supervision usually means she would be monitored by a probation officer and made to undergo counseling, Jaskula said.

    The petition is not a criminal offense, Jaskula said Tuesday.

    So it’s like being on parole but without having committed any crimes. And for those of you who are whining that it’s not fair, then she should have thought of that before she ran away.

    Think about it for a second. If they had succeeded in getting married, do you know what kind of international incident this would have caused? She should be thankful that she was stopped before they did.

    And here’s some advice from Ol’ Uncle Trench to the teenagers who are supporting them. 99.999% of the time, the guy or girl you date at 16 will NOT be the person you spend the rest of your life with.

    Get over it.

  • Katherine Lester’s parents use courts to keep her home

    Katherine Lester’s parents use courts to keep her home

    Tuscola County teen’s family trying to keep her home:

    Remember when I posted the article that said Katherine Lester’s parents could use the courts to prevent her from running away again? It seems that’s what they’re doing…

    TUSCOLA COUNTY (WJRT) – (06/19/06)–The family of a Tuscola County teen is making an attempt to keep her home. Katherine Lester, 16, of Gilford, recently flew to Jordan where United States authorities caught up with her.

    Lester was on her way to Israel to meet a man she met on MySpace.com. A runaway petition has been filed in Tuscola County that could put limits on any of her future travel plans.

    If granted, the court system will intervene to help the family deal with this Internet and international love story.

    The runaway petition was submitted to the probate court and requested by the Akron-Fairgrove junior’s family in the hope of trying to keep her home.

    “At this point, of course, the young lady leaving the country in the way that she did, obviously there’s tremendous concerns of her not following the reasonable and really legitimate commands of her parents,” said Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark Reene.

    MySpace.com is a social networking Internet site. Her family found out about her plans and FBI agents in Amman, Jordan, persuaded her to return home.

    But the family worries she may try this again, and Reene says the probate court could help in trying to keep her in the county.

    “The probate court can do a variety of things,” Reene said.

    “One thing is counseling. It can provide certain things that the girl has to do at different times to keep track of her and be sure — again, help her — evaluate all the considerations in her life at this point.

    While Lester turns 17 on Wednesday, the parents have legal supervision until she turns 18.

    “But the family probate court can still intervene up until she turns 18 in an effort to keep her on the right path, provide her with counseling and intervene again to hopefully ensure her safety,” Reene said.

    While the probate court judge did not sign the runaway petition this morning, that is expected, which would mean Lester and her family will be back in court soon.

    Can you blame them?

  • $30M MySpace lawsuit

    $30M MySpace lawsuit

    Teenager and her mother sue MySpace.com for $30 million:

    A 14-year-old Travis County girl who said she was sexually assaulted by a Buda man she met on MySpace.com sued the popular Internet social networking site Monday for $30 million, claiming it fails to protect minors from adult sexual predators.

    The lawsuit claims the Web site does not require users to verify their age and calls the security measures aimed at preventing strangers from contacting users younger than 16 “utterly ineffective.”

    “MySpace is more concerned about making money than protecting children online,” said Adam Loewy, who is representing the girl and her mother in the lawsuit against MySpace, its parent company News Corp. and Pete Solis, the 19-year-old accused by police of sexually assaulting the girl.

    Solis contacted the girl through her MySpace Web site in April, telling her that he was a high school senior who played on the football team, according to the lawsuit. She told him she was a freshman in high school and gave him her cell phone number, the lawsuit said.

    In May, he picked her up at school, took her out to eat and to a movie and then drove her to an apartment complex parking lot in South Austin where he sexually assaulted her, police have said. He was arrested May 19.

    A month before Solis initially contacted the girl on MySpace.com, representatives of the Internet site told CBS News that they protected users younger than 16 from being contacted by people who didn’t know them, according to the lawsuit.

    “That is obviously false,” Loewy said. “There are ways to contact them.”

    The lawsuit includes news reports of other sexual assaults in which victims were contacted through MySpace. They include a 22-year-old Wisconsin man charged with six counts of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a 27-year-old Connecticut man accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.

    Why do I get the feeling that this attorney is going to be the Jack Thompson of MySpace?

  • The tapes will NOT be released

    The tapes will NOT be released

    Sheriff to Release Columbine Documents:

    But not the tapes…

    Sheriff Ted Mink said he decided against releasing the tapes after the FBI, which conducted a review at his request, concluded they “could serve as a strong motivating influence for other adolescents to commit and/or attempt to commit similar acts of violence. The tapes provide instructional material for how to successfully plan and implement similar acts.”

    It’s a little too late for that now, isn’t it? Do Red Lake, Rocori, and Santee ring a bell?

  • SOME Columbine evidence to be released

    SOME Columbine evidence to be released

    Sheriff Plans To Release More Columbine Evidence:

    (AP) GOLDEN, Colo. The Jefferson County sheriff said Monday he plans to make public nearly 1,000 pages of documents seized from the homes of the Columbine High School killers, but the release could be delayed if the gunmen’s parents appeal.

    During searches of the Harris and Klebold homes after the shootings, sheriff’s deputies seized journals kept by the gunmen, videotapes and audio tapes. In a news release, Mink said he wanted to release 936 pages of evidence but did not say whether that would include any of the tapes.

    I’ll get to the appeal in a minute. Only 1,000 pages of evidence? What about the basement tapes? What about evidence item #201? I get the feeling that this is going to be 1,000 pages of bureaucratic crap. Now back to the appeal…

    Sheriff Ted Mink said a state Supreme Court ruling on the documents gave the parents of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold the right to appeal his decision. It was not immediately clear whether they would appeal and how long that might take.

    The gunmen’s parents fought to keep the records private. They have said they fear the material could inspire copycat crimes.

    You know they are going to appeal. And it has nothing to do with the fact that it would inspire copycat crimes. It’s a little too late for that. In my opinion, it’s because they don’t want to get sued by the victims of copycat crimes. This will more than likely be tied up in the courts for years.

    They’ll find D.B. Cooper before all this evidence is released.

  • 6/16/06: From the Mail Sack

    6/16/06: From the Mail Sack

    Let’s dip into the mail sack today, shall we?

    Today it’s from a mutant that escaped from the cornfield in my entry about the Columbine death photos…

    Vodka & Reb Says:

    June 16th, 2006 at 2:54 am

    Check out Super Columbine Massacre RPG. It’s a game with crummy graphics, but it’s a game about the columbine shooters. Super cool. They’re actually making games about these Heros, One day they’ll make a game, with graphics like Doom 3, but it’ll be just about that day April 20, 1999. The whole game. Can you imagine.

    Hope a gaming company makes the game soon.
    That would rule 😈

    Is that the kind of dialog you were hoping for, Danny?

  • What Katherine Lester’s parents could do

    What Katherine Lester’s parents could do

    Parents may need court to rein in MySpace teen:

    I found this to be an interesting article from the Detroit Free Press about what recourse Katherine Lester’s parents could have taken in keeping her from running away again…

    Technically, Katherine Lester’s parents can prohibit her from reuniting with a Middle Eastern man she met on an Internet site. She is, after all, 16, a minor, and according to Michigan law, still under the care of her parents.

    But realistically, there may be little they can do to keep her home, short of having a court declare the teen incorrigible, legal experts say.

    But Lester turns 17 next week. Experts say that should she decide to leave home again, police may not want to look for a runaway at that age, particularly if her parents and authorities know where she is.

    “I’ve had cases where kids that age get up and walk out, and yes, the police will take a missing persons report. But will they treat it like a 9-year-old who disappears off the street? No, they won’t,” said Bloomfield Hills attorney Leslie Logan, who specializes in family and probate law.

    Attorney Diana Bare of Ortonville said the circumstances surrounding the case might make it more likely that law enforcement and the courts would be aggressive in trying to keep Lester in the country, but ultimately, her parents would have to seek help from the courts.

    “I really think the danger in which this girl has put herself makes it a different kind of case,” she said. ” … The fact that she met him on the Internet, that he surreptitiously moved to get her out of the country, without her parents knowing, it just smacks of criminality.”

    Michigan law allows children as young as 16 to wed with parental permission.

    It also allows 16-year-olds to become what’s known as emancipated minors, freeing them from parental control.

    But that takes a court order and there is no such order in the Lester case, at least not yet.

    If the Lester family decided to try to control the girl with the court’s help, they would have to ask that a judge find her incorrigible — meaning she refuses to obey her parents — which would allow them to place her in a secure juvenile facility until she turns 18.

    The measures may seem a bit drastic, but isn’t what she did drastic at best?