"You want to believe everybody's good, everybody wants to help you," she told me last week.
A hulking juvenile counselor named Tony Simmons led her in handcuffs from the girls holding area to the elevator.
She expected Tyson, as Simmons was called, to bring her up to the courtroom where she was scheduled to be sentenced for filing a false police report.
Instead, the elevator descended to the basement. The 42-year-old counselor pulled down her pants and raped her with calm, practiced precision that made him all the more terrifying.
"He knew exactly what he was doing," Ashley said. "Everything."
When he was done, Simmons pulled her pants back up and the elevator ascended to the courtroom. He raised an extended index finger to his lips in a mute command for her to say nothing.
"I was very scared," Ashley said. "I was terrified. He was a very large man."
Just moments after being violated, Ashley was seated next to her mother and before the judge. She was too shocked and terrified to report the attack.
"I knew I was just raped. I knew it wasn't supposed to happen," she recalled. "I didn't think anybody would believe me."
She kept silent as she was found to be a juvenile delinquent and sentenced to 12 months. She says her only crime was initially reporting to police she did not know who had jumped and cut her on the way to school.
Simmons continued to prey on teenagers in his custody until 2008, when a 15-year-old girl came forward to say he had sodomized her behind a locker in the girls holding area, which he stocked with condoms and cookies. Investigators believe the assaults go back a decade to the rape of a 13-year-old in the holding area.
"Just the tip of the iceberg," Assistant District Attorney Amir Vonsover said in 2008, when Simmons was indicted for three sex assaults.
On Sept. 27, Simmons appeared in court and pleaded guilty to raping Ashley and sexually assaulting two other teens.
He received probation.
"I got 12 months for a falsified police report and he got probation for raping me and the others," Ashley said on Friday. "It's just ridiculous."
Ashley says she was not told about the probation deal when she called Vonsover last week to check on the case. She had prepped to testify in the upcoming trial, but she was now told that Simmons had pleaded guilty.
"[Vonsover] said, 'You should be so happy,'" Ashley recalled. "I'm thinking, 'Great. He's definitely going to jail.'"
When she went online later, Ashley saw a news report that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance had blasted Judge Cassandra Mullen as "outrageously lenient" for giving Simmons probation.
In defense of the judge, the Office of Court Administration noted that the transcript of the plea shows that Vonsover offered no objection. He was insisting he had objected during an off-the-record sidebar. Court sources say Vonsover offered Simmons his cell phone to call relatives before taking the plea.
Ashley and her family feel the judge still bears some responsibility no matter what the prosecutor did or did not say. Ashley's mother-in-law asked, "I'm a nurse. If a doctor gives a wrong prescription, do I give it or do I question it?"
Ashley recalled what the investigators told her in 2008, after they contacted her and she finally recounted the rape.
"They said, 'Great! We have a definite case. He is going down, 100%.'"
She also remembered how she felt when she had to identify Simmons in a lineup.
"I lost my breath, to be honest," she said. "I stood there for about four or five minutes. I couldn't speak. I actually felt like my heart was going to stop in my chest."
While pondering Simmons' probation for the courthouse rape the day she got 12 months, Ashley notes that she actually served nearly three years.
She is not of the streets and that made her the target of kids who were. And, as the shock of the rape turned to anger, she often talked back to counselors.
"You say something, they throw you on the floor; 60 days, 90 days, 120 days added to your sentence," she said.
She was already an orphan and she had lost her adoptive parents as well by the time she was released. She nevertheless kept on track, getting a perfect score on her GED exam and enrolling in a professional program at a prestigious university.
"It's awesome! It's beautiful!" said Ashley, now 20.
True love helped her overcome trust issues that began with that walk to the elevator five years ago. She is married and has a son she named after Vonsover before she could even imagine Simmons getting probation.
She does not want her full name in the paper, lest Simmons try to track her down. She is not worried about her photo.
"I'm only scared of one man, and he already knows what I look like," she said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/03/2010-10-03_raped_by_judge_and_justice_system.html#ixzz11b8mCMoX
New icon allows 'opting out' of online tracking
WASHINGTON -- In an effort to allow people to stop advertisers from tracking them online, advertisers have created the "Advertising Option" icon, a new regulating device, also called the "forward i."
Members of the newly formed Digital Advertising Alliance will be required to include the little blue triangle icon in the upper-right-hand corner of online ads. When users click the icon, they will be shown information on the origin of the ad and whom it targets.
Users also will be linked to pages explaining how to block that advertiser, its attendant third-party data and network partners.
Unauthorized data-pirating has gotten so bad, MSNBC.com has hired outside help to police their own uninvited "data trolls," paidContent.org reports.
"We're operating in an industry where everybody is concerned about privacy and data piracy dimensions," says Krux Digital executive Tom Chavez.
"That data is our industry's 'blood diamonds' and nobody wants to be caught buying, selling, moving or trading it."
But protecting the industry from privacy pirates is not the only reason advertisers are moving so quickly. Consumers have long complained about privacy violations.
Within the next few weeks, the Federal Trade Commission is expected to recommend consumer protection regulations. Chairman Jon Leibowitz and staffers have floated the idea of a "Do-Not-Track" registry, similar to the mechanism that blocks telemarketers, ECommerce-Guide.com reports.
Critics of the advertising industry are skeptical that the forward i icon will allay the FTC's concerns.
"For the first time in really more than a decade, the FTC wants to get to the bottom of this problem," says Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
"I think there's a recognition at the FTC that self-regulation hasn't worked and can't work," Chester tells InternetNews.com.
http://www.wtopnews.com/?sid=2071524&nid=25
Virus, fungus new suspects in bee disease
WASHINGTON (AP) - Researchers have a pair of new suspects in the mysterious collapse of honey bee colonies across the country.
The widespread damage to the bees has caused concern because the insects are needed to pollinate scores of crops.
Researchers say samples collected from hives affected by the syndrome indicated the presence of a virus as well as a fungus. The two pathogens were not found in bee colonies not affected by the syndrome, called colony collapse disorder, the researchers reported in Wednesday's edition of the journal PLoS ONE.
"We truly don't know if these two pathogens cause CCD or whether the colonies with CCD are more likely to succumb to these two pathogens," Jerry J. Bromenshenk of the University of Montana said in a statement.
Previous studies have looked at the possibility of multiple viruses found in the bee colonies as well as the potential harm from pesticides, but researchers have yet to pin down an exact cause.
The new study said the suspect virus is insect iridescent virus, which is similar to a virus first reported in India 20 years ago, as well as a virus found in moths.
They said it affects the abdomens of bees, and the tissues may take on a bluish-green or purplish hue. The fungus is called Nosema ceranae, and this can sicken bees if they ingest the spores.
Robert Cramer, a pathologist at Montana State University in Bozeman said, "There seems to be a correlation between the presence of these two pathogens together. We envision the bee gets an infection from one or the other, and this causes the bees to become stressed, which then allows the second infection to come in and more effectively cause disease."
The analysis of the bees was done at the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.
___
Online:
PLoS ONE: http://www.plosone.org/home.action
http://wtop.com/?sid=2071988&nid=220
Dollar tumbles to fresh 15-year low against yen
TOKYO (AFP) – The dollar tumbled to a fresh 15-year low at 82.22 against the yen in Tokyo trading hours on Thursday on persistent fears over the US economic outlook.
The dollar fell from 82.87 in earlier trade to well below the level at which Japan last month carried out its first currency market intervention since 2004 to weaken the yen and protect an export-led recovery.
It later strengthened back to the mid 82-yen level.
The markets increasingly expect the US Federal Reserve to pump more money into the system to boost the flagging economy, even if doing so weakens the dollar and risks fanning inflation.
"The basic trend is dollar selling on the expected credit easing... The market is now sensitive to any negative news on the US economy," said Yasuyuki Takeuchi, dealer at Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking.
The Australian dollar on Thursday surged to an all time high of around 99.00 US cents, traders said, outstripping the record of 98.49 since it was allowed to float in December 1983.
The euro was trading close the key 1.40 dollar level, at around 1.3983.
"A lot of the trading community thinks this has further to go," Daragh Maher, a senior currencies analyst at Credit Agricole in London told Dow Jones Newswires.
The greenback has been pressured after a report from payrolls firm ADP showed an unexpected drop in private sector jobs in September, highlighting fears about the lagging economic recovery.
The data added to worries that a closely watched government survey on non-farm payrolls for September due Friday may also indicate weakness.
The markets increasingly expect the US Federal Reserve to pump more money into the system to boost the flagging economy, even if doing so weakens the dollar and risks fanning inflation.
Tokyo has also repeatedly warned it is ready to step into the markets again, with Prime Minister Naoto Kan threatening further "decisive" steps if necessary on Thursday.
The yen's continued strength follows moves by the Bank of Japan on Tuesday to adopt a near zero-rate policy and new pump-priming measures in a bid to spur growth, beat deflation and address the impact of the surging yen on the economy.
The strong yen has hurt Japan's exporters, making their goods more expensive and eroding overseas profits when repatriated. Exports expanded at their slowest pace this year in August, with falling demand adding to their woes.
A strong domestic currency also makes imports cheaper, helping prolong a damaging deflationary cycle where consumers hold off on purchases in the hope of further price drops, clouding future corporate investment
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101007/bs_afp/forexasiajapanus_20101007100939
Solar surprises raise questions for climate models
Scientists found that a decline in the Sun's activity did not lead as expected to a cooling of the Earth, a surprise finding that could have repercussions for computer models on climate change.
The Sun's activity is known to wax and wane over 11-year cycles, which means that in theory the amount of radiation reaching Earth declines during the "waning" phase.
The new study was carried out between 2004 and 2007 during a solar waning phase.
The amount of energy in the ultraviolet part of the energy spectrum fell, the researchers found.
But, contrary to expectation, radiation in the visible part of the energy spectrum increased, rather than declined, which caused a warming effect.
The investigation, based mainly on satellite data, is important because of a debate over how far global warming is attributable to Man or to natural causes.
Climatologists say that warming is overwhelmingly due to man-made greenhouse gases -- invisible carbon emissions from coal, gas and coal that linger in the atmosphere and trap solar heat.
But a vocal lobby of sceptics say that this is flawed or alarmist, and point out that Earth has known periods of cooling and warming that are due to variations in the Sun's output.
"These results are challenging what we thought we knew about the Sun's effect on our climate," said lead author Joanna Haigh, a professor at Imperial College London where she is also a member of the Grantham Institute for Climate change.
"However, they only show us a snapshot of the Sun's activity and its behaviour over the three years of our study could be an anomaly."
Insisting on caution, Haigh said that if the Sun turned out to have a warming effect during the "waning" part of the cycle, it might also turn out to have a cooling effect during the "waxing" part of the cycle.
In that case, greenhouse gases would be more to blame than thought for the perceptible rise in global temperatures over the past century.
"We cannot jump to any conclusions based on what we have found during this comparatively short period," Haigh said. "We need to carry out further studies to explore the Sun's activity, and the patterns that we have uncovered, on longer timescales."
The study is published in Nature, the weekly British science journal.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.6f90940f6d9bb44d73f1c586d3a44fbb.8c1&show_article=1
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