Trust Betrayed series

A sixth-month, statewide investigation into Florida’s child care centers, nursing homes and assisted living facilities by Sally Kestin, Peter Franceschina and John Maines of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found that Florida laws have often placed children and the elderly in the hands of habitual criminals. The first of a three-part series includes a database of people with criminal histories approved to work in day care.

The Fresno (Calif.) Bee analyzed Fresno County Jail data and found one in five inmates released early over the past year was already back in jail. "Probation violations, drug possession and disorderly conduct were the most common charges, but some early-release inmates also have been arrested for violent crime such as robbery."

G.W. Schulz of the Center for Investigative Reporting investigated the policing tactics used during Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. last year. "Officials took unprecedented advantage of new laws to halt potential subversives before they attack. But the effort resulted in heavy-handed tactics, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting."

The accused killer of Los Angeles teenager Lily Burk "was set free in June 2009, despite failing to report to his parole agent for weeks, being a wanted fugitive on two different arrest warrants, and being arrested three times on drug charges and testing positive for cocaine -- all in a matter of six months, based on official records obtained exclusively by The Enterprise Report."

A report co-published by ProPublica and the Huffington Post Investigative Fund found that "15 years after Congress passed a law to ensure that rape victims would never see a bill, loopholes and bureaucratic tangles still leave some victims paying for hospital expenses and exams, which can cost up to $1,200."

Clark Merrefield, along with fellow CUNY graduate students, analyzed New York state’s compensation program for those found to be wrongfully convicted. Their findings showed that it takes years for recipients to receive their compensation, and the payment rates are wildly uneven despite promises to the contrary.

Mark Benjamin of Salon.com reports on problems plaguing Arlington National Cemetery.  The cemetery's deputy superintendent, Thurman Higginbotham, has been at the center of an Army investigation involving an illegal wiretap.  The grounds of the cemetery have suffered under his direction as well. "One of Higginbotham's failures, say employees, has been his inability to rectify disturbing discrepancies between burial records and information on headstones. For years, Arlington has struggled to replace paper-and-pen burial records with a satellite-aided system of tracking grave locations."

The San Francisco Chronicle and The Chauncey Bailey Project report that Yusuf Ali Bey IV, leader of the defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery, was indicted by an Alameda County grand jury. "Prosecutors are likely to bring the case with special circumstances – allowing them to seek the death penalty against Bey IV, 23. He allegedly told two of his followers that in exchange for killing Bailey, he would teach them how to file fraudulent loan applications that could reap hundreds of thousands of dollars."

The Fayetteville Observer investigated a police department's mishandling of a child abuse case. The department's actions ultimately led to its loss of felony arrest powers, scrutiny from the Cumberland County district attorney and a grand jury probe of corruption. The death of 3-year-old Anijah Burr had never been reported and was kept hidden behind a wall of secrecy, but the newspaper pieced together the story by talking with current and former Spring Lake police officers and reviewing hundreds of pages of unpublished police notes, reports and medical records.

Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker of the Philadelphia Daily News report that, “Again and again, supervisors in the Philadelphia Police Narcotics Field Unit signed off on cookie-cutter applications for search warrants, which are now the subject of an expanding FBI and police Internal Affairs Bureau investigation.” The article is part of “Tainted Justice,” a series that began in February when the newspaper published allegations that a narcotics officer had lied on search-warrant applications.