The Orlando, Fla., woman -- acquitted of killing her 2-year-old daughter in a trial that riveted the nation -- has $1,084 in assets and at least $792,119 in debt, according to bankruptcy documents filed in a Florida federal court and obtained by local media.
The bankruptcy documents were filed Friday, the same day an appellate court threw out two of Anthony's four misdemeanor convictions.
The remains of Anthony's daughter, Caylee, were found inside a trash bag near the family home in December 2008. Anthony, now 26, was acquitted of the killing but convicted of multiple counts of lying to investigators.
Anthony's petition for bankruptcy laid out a financial situation drained by her trial, which became a media fixation. At one point, ABC News paid Anthony $200,000 for photographs, with the money then reportedly going toward Anthony's pricey legal defense.
That money is gone now, replaced by debts to scores of people and businesses, many for unspecified legal fees and "consulting fees" from medical and forensic services, according to the disclosure.
Most of the amounts owed were listed as "unknown," with the largest specified debt -- $500,000 -- belonging to Jose Baez, one of her defense attorneys.
In September 2011, the filing notes cryptically, Anthony "may have relinquished rights" to photographs of herself to Baez, adding that their value was "unknown." Further details were not immediately available, and Baez's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Anthony, whose petition used her parents' Orlando address, also owes $145,660 to the Orange County Sheriff's Office for investigative fees, $61,505 in court costs to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and more than $68,000 in taxes and penalties to the Internal Revenue Service, according to the filing.
Anthony's assets include $474 in cash and a "watch, pearl necklace, sapphire and opal rings, and miscellaneous sterling silver and costume jewelry" worth $200, the documents said. Anthony stated she had been unemployed for four years and listed no income.
Her bankruptcy attorney was listed as David L. Schrader.
Anthony is also the target of multiple lawsuits, according to the filing: Two defamation suits from Roy Kronk and Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez; two lawsuits for "unjust enrichment," including for a Texas horseback search group that accused Anthony of lying to them about her daughter still being alive; and the state of Florida, seeking to recoup investigative costs.
Kronk, who found Caylee's remains, is suing because Anthony's attorneys raised the possibility that he had killed the girl.
Fernandez-Gonzalez claimed distress after Anthony made up a fake babysitter with her name and accused that babysitter of kidnapping Caylee.
During Anthony's trial, however, Anthony's defense said Caylee had accidentally drowned in the family pool.
Fernandez-Gonzalez's attorney, Matt Morgan, called the bankruptcy filing a "calculated delay tactic."
"We are not deterred and will stay the course," Morgan told the Orlando Sentinel.
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Relatives of inmates pray outside the Uribana prison in Venezuela as a riot in the facility continued Saturday. (Leo Ramirez / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images / January 26, 2013)
By Mery Mogollon and Chris Kraul
January 26, 2013, 11:07 a.m.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- The unofficial death toll rose to 55 on Saturday from a ongoing prison riot as human-rights critics urged the government to improve Venezuela's overcrowded jails, described as some of the worst in Latin America.
National Guard members and police at midday were still trying to quell the riot at the Uribana prison in the western city of Barquisimeto, where violence broke out Thursday night when authorities began a search of cells for hidden weapons.
The prison is one of many severely overcrowded jails in Venezuela. It is reputed to be dominated by gangs whose tentacles extend to criminal enterprises across the country, including the sale of drugs and control of buildings and farms occupied by squatters.
Although the government has not released totals of dead and wounded, Raul Medina, director of Central Hospital of Barquisimeto, told reporters early Saturday that the toll was 55 dead. Other sources reported that 93 people had been wounded.
Many of the victims were disfigured and only 12 have been identified, Medina said.
Iris Varela, minister for penitentiary services, was scheduled to hold a news conference later Saturday, but issued a statement Friday in which she blamed local Barquisimeto media for announcing the prison search in advance. She also said many of the deaths were a “settling of scores” among rival prison gangs.
The Uribana jail has a long history of violence and appalling conditions. In a joint statement Friday, two human rights groups noted that the Inter-American Court on Human Rights in 2007 called on the government of President Hugo Chavez to take immediate steps to alleviate overcrowding and “avoid the loss of life” at the facility.
“Even then the court was asking the government to seize arms that were in the possession of the prisoners,” said the Venezuelan Prison Observatory and Federation of Colleges of Attorneys in their statement. Not just prisoners but guards and inmates’ families were unnecessarily at risk, the statement said.
The watchdog groups went on to criticize the abortive prison search for “excessive force” and for “not having been coordinated nor performed with the experts and methods called for.”
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CAIRO — At least five people were killed and hundreds were injured Friday as protests swept across Egypt over the Islamist-led government's failure to fix the besieged economy and heal the politically divided nation two years after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.
The anniversary of the revolution that led to Mubarak's downfall was marked more by bloodshed than joy as familiar and troubling scenes played out amid the widening despair. Gunshots echoed through cities, rock-throwing youths lunged at police through clouds of tear gas, and peaceful demonstrators waved banners and shouted epithets against those in power.
Five people, including police officers, were killed by unknown gunmen in the port city of Suez, according to state media. Unconfirmed reports from a private television station said nine people had died throughout the country. Nearly 400 people, including scores of police officers, were injured, with many of the wounded treated in mosques and alleys.
President Mohamed Morsi has been engulfed for months by anger from secularists, who claim he and his Muslim Brotherhood party have turned increasingly authoritarian in a bid to advance an Islamist state at the expense of social justice. The protests were the latest reminder of the volatile politics and persistent mistrust that threaten Egypt's transition.
"Morsi is finished," said Tarik Salama, an activist. "A big part of the population hates him now. It's too late for him to turn around and say, 'Hey guys, I love you.' He's in the same place as Mubarak was two years ago. Morsi's biggest problem is that he failed to unify the country. A lot of people voted for him, but he failed."
One banner raised in Cairo's Tahrir Square read, "Two years since the revolution, and Egypt still needs another revolution." Protest chants that harked back to the 18-day revolt that toppled Mubarak were now directed at Morsi: "Leave, leave."
The days ahead may prove more violent. Many of the youths clashing with police in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities are angry about an economy that offers little hope. They have been joined by hard-core soccer fans, known as Ultras, demanding that police officials be held accountable for the deaths of 74 soccer fans killed last year in a stadium riot.
A court verdict in that case is expected Saturday. In recent days, youths in Cairo have battled police with stones and gasoline bombs around the high concrete barricades that block streets leading from Tahrir Square to parliament and the Interior Ministry.
Young men pulled part of the barrier down but police drove them back, firing steady volleys of tear gas that cloaked the square and drifted over the Nile.
"These young men and kids have no jobs," said Salama. "The young in Egypt feel there is no future for them. This is the big danger."
By dusk Friday, youths with rags and scarves over their faces hurled stones and rushed the barriers, preparing for another night of clashes. The unrest spurred the emergence of an anarchist group, known as the Black Bloc, whose masked and black-clad members threw Molotov cocktails and attempted to overrun the presidential palace and the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament.
Protesters attacked offices of the Muslim Brotherhood and blocked highways and rail lines. To avoid adding to the violence, the Brotherhood ordered its followers to stay away from Tahrir and instead participate in community programs, such as planting trees and handing out food to the poor. A militant arm of the Brotherhood was blamed last month for deadly attacks against anti-Morsi protesters.
The backlash against Morsi intensified in November when he expanded his presidential powers and, sidestepping the courts, pushed through a referendum on an Islamist-backed constitution. The liberal opposition, which has long been disorganized, denounced him for ruining the promise of democracy that inspired the 2011 revolution.
Morsi has said his actions were an effort to root out Mubarak-era loyalists from the government and propel the country toward parliamentary elections in the spring.
But his biggest problem perhaps is Egypt's troubled economy, which has lost more than half its foreign reserves and worsened conditions for the approximately 40% of Egyptians who live on $2 a day.
A friend of mine, a weatherman for a local TV station, always greets me the same way: "Time to sell my Apple stock?"
And I always offer the same response: Do you still like the company?
"Yes."
Then don't sell it.
Investors were wringing their hands Thursday over Apple's prospects, even though the company reported record quarterly profit of $13.1 billion and said it sold 28% more iPhones and 48% more iPads.
Despite what for any other business would be regarded as a stellar performance, Apple's shares fell $63.51, or 12.4%, to $450.50.
This is what happens when our relationship with a company turns emotional. As in all relationships, we try to be understanding and reasonable, but it's hard to mask our disappointment when expectations aren't met.
And, ultimately, investors and consumers can be very fickle.
"A minor chink in your armor and out you go," said Brad Barber, a professor of finance at UC Davis who specializes in investor psychology.
He described the sell-off of Apple's stock as "awfully dramatic" but not surprising, given that people have such a visceral relationship with this company.
"Is this a rational response?" Barber asked. "That's hard to say."
Hard because it's difficult to gauge whether Apple's stock is fairly priced. If the company has more blockbuster products in the pipeline and if its market dominance is secure, then, yes, Apple probably is worth its $423.8-billion market valuation.
But what if, you know, there's someone handsomer or prettier waiting in the wings? Do you really want to tie yourself down?
American consumers generally keep the business world at a healthy distance, understanding that commerce isn't the same as personal commitment. If a company provides a bad experience, we don't hesitate to take our business elsewhere.
But from time to time, exceptional companies rise to a higher level in our esteem. In a 1953 congressional hearing, the former head of General Motors, Charles E. Wilson, made a statement that has long been taken out of context this way: "What's good for General Motors is good for the country."
What he actually said was that "for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country."
What's interesting, though, is that the misquoted sentiment went generally unchallenged at the time. GM was America. It was Chevrolet and Buick and Cadillac. As GM said of its 1955 Chevy Bel Air Sport Coupe, it "exuded American optimism."
In more recent years, think of Sony in the 1980s. Was there a more innovative company anywhere? The best VCR was a Betamax, the best TV was the Trinitron. Remember your first reaction to the Walkman, the notion of carrying a stereo in your pocket?
These days, Sony would be lucky to get a passing glance on eHarmony.
Remember when Microsoft unveiled Windows 95? The company spent about $300 million on a global party for its new operating system, and people lined up for hours outside retail shops to get their hands on the software.
California's foreclosure crisis eased considerably during the final quarter of last year, with the number of homes entering foreclosure dropping to a six-year low.
The steep decline, accompanied by a similar drop in home repossessions, clears the path for a quickened pace of recovery this year. Fewer foreclosures on the market should lead to higher home prices and a healthier real estate market.
"Ultimately, fewer foreclosures means an even tighter market, which means a more rapid recovery," said Christopher Thornberg, a principal at Beacon Economics. "I see very little to forestall the real estate market this year."
The real estate research firm DataQuick reported a 22.1% decline in default notices during the final three months of 2012 compared with the previous quarter — and a 37.9% drop from a year earlier. A total of 38,212 default notices were logged on California houses and condominiums last quarter, the lowest number since the final quarter of 2006. A default notice is the first formal step in the state's foreclosure process.
Since the number of new foreclosure cases peaked in early 2009, experts and analysts have feared a second wave of home loan defaults flooding the market. Three years later, that appears unlikely as banks turn to foreclosure alternatives and home prices rise.
"We are past the peak of this," said Kenneth Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
A steadily improving economy has helped ease homeowner woes. And the vast number of underwater borrowers — those owing more on their homes than they're worth — have continued to pay their mortgages instead of walking away. Rising home prices should help more underwater homeowners come up for air, allowing them to regain equity and sell their homes if they run into financial trouble.
"Home values increased through most of 2012, and the rate of increase picked up toward the end of the year," DataQuick President John Walsh said in a news release. "That means fewer and fewer homeowners are underwater."
California's median home price rose 22.4% last quarter to $300,000.
California has also been able to work through its foreclosure problem faster than other states, in part because foreclosures take place largely outside the courtroom, said Celia Chen, a housing economist with Moody's Economy.com. That means California has not been bogged down with the same level of paperwork issues and delays that states such as Florida or New York have experienced.
California has also benefited from economic growth from Asian trade and from the technology industry centered around Silicon Valley. Indeed, the technology-rich Bay Area's declines in default notices outpaced both the statewide drops and those in every other region.
Those foreclosed homes that are hitting the market are being snapped up by investors to either rent or flip. Investors bought 42% of all homes sold at foreclosure auctions statewide last quarter, according to DataQuick.
Big hedge funds have become so interested in cheaply priced homes that flippers are now increasingly searching for homes in the $400,000 to $600,000 range throughout Los Angeles County, said Robert Fragoso, executive vice president for Anchor Loans, which makes short-term loans to investors. The new interest among renovators in pricier homes should also push up prices. Already, some homes are selling for more than the asking price, Fragoso said.
"I am seeing the inventory levels right now at very, very, very low rates, especially when you are talking about the product that has already been remodeled," he said. "We are getting multiple offers on almost everything within days of it hitting the market."
Banks have been increasingly averse to foreclosure because state and federal regulators increased scrutiny on the process, which led to huge settlements as well as new laws. Major lenders have now stepped up short sales and other kinds of loan modifications to deal with troubled borrowers.
Although the foreclosure crisis has abated, the number of people losing their homes remains at a very high level compared with historical averages, said Paul Leonard, California director for the Center for Responsible Lending. Those entering foreclosure are most likely people suffering from California's still tough economy or those with the most limited resources. Aid programs and reforms by federal and state authorities are still needed, he said.
"One has to be very cautious," Leonard said, "even as we have seen substantial declines in the overall levels of default and foreclosure."
Hans Massaquoi, a former managing editor of Ebony magazine who wrote a distinctive memoir about his unusual childhood growing up black in Nazi Germany, died in Jacksonville, Fla., on Saturday, his 87th birthday.
He had been hospitalized over the Christmas holidays, said his son, Hans J. Massaquoi Jr.
Inspired by the late Alex Haley, the author of "Roots," Massaquoi decided to share his experience of being "both an insider in Nazi Germany and, paradoxically, an endangered outsider." His autobiography, "Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany," was published in the U.S. in 1999, followed by a German translation.
Massaquoi was born Jan. 19, 1926, in the port city of Hamburg. His mother was a German nurse and his father the son of a Liberian diplomat. When his grandfather was recalled to Liberia, Massaquoi's father decided to return to Africa too, but his mother insisted on staying behind.
Living with his mother, Massaquoi grew up in working-class neighborhoods of Hamburg. There were other black Germans, but not many; some were offspring of European colonial troops who occupied the Rhineland after World War I.
In his book, he recounted a story from 1933, when he was in second grade. Wanting to show what a good German he was, Massaquoi said he cajoled his baby-sitter into sewing a swastika onto his sweater. When his mother spotted it that evening, she snipped it off, but a teacher had already taken a snapshot. Massaquoi, the only dark-skinned child in the photo, is also the only one wearing a swastika.
He wrote that one of his saddest moments as a child was when his homeroom teacher told him he couldn't join the Hitler Youth.
"Of course I wanted to join. I was a kid and most of my friends were joining," he said. "They had cool uniforms and they did exciting things — camping, parades, playing drums."
Germany was at war by the time he was a teenager, and he describes in the book the near-destruction of Hamburg during the Operation Gomorrah bombing attack in the summer of 1943.
Massaquoi had a theory to explain why he avoided deportation to concentration camps during the Nazi reign.
"Unlike Jews, blacks were so few in numbers that they were relegated to low-priority status in the Nazis' lineup for extermination," he said in a 2001 interview with London's Independent newspaper.
After the collapse of Germany at the end of the war, he played saxophone in clubs that catered to the American Merchant Marine and worked as a translator for the British occupying forces.
Eventually he left Germany, first joining his father's family in Liberia, before moving to Chicago on a student visa to attend an aviation mechanics school. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1951 and served stateside during the Korean War. Afterward, he became a U.S. citizen, earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois and began a career as a journalist.
He worked first for Jet magazine before moving to Chicago-based Ebony, where he rose to managing editor of the magazine aimed at African American readers.
Chicago author Studs Terkel interviewed Massaquoi for his 1984 book, "The Good War: An Oral History of World War II." By the late 1990s, approaching retirement, Massaquoi decided to tell his own story in an autobiography.
He was surprised by its reception in Germany.
"I had expected some interest there, but this has surpassed all my expectations," he told the Contra Costa Times in 2000. "I think the Germans want to get some closure about those years."
Fifteen years before the clergy sex abuse scandal came to light, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top advisor discussed ways to conceal the molestation of children from law enforcement, according to internal Catholic church records released Monday.
The archdiocese's failure to purge pedophile clergy and reluctance to cooperate with law enforcement has previously been known. But the memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese's chief advisor on sex abuse cases, offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation's largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police. The newly released records, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, reveal in church leaders' own words a desire to keep authorities from discovering that children were being molested.
In the confidential letters, filed this month as evidence in a civil court case, Curry proposed strategies to prevent police from investigating three priests who had admitted to church officials that they abused young boys. Curry suggested to Mahony that they prevent them from seeing therapists who might alert authorities and that they give the priests out-of-state assignments to avoid criminal investigators.
One such case that has previously received little attention is that of Msgr. Peter Garcia, who admitted preying for decades on undocumented children in predominantly Spanish-speaking parishes. After Garcia's discharge from a New Mexico treatment center for pedophile clergy, Mahony ordered him to stay away from California "for the foreseeable future" in order to avoid legal accountability, the files show. "I believe that if Monsignor Garcia were to reappear here within the archdiocese we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors," the archbishop wrote to the treatment center's director in July 1986.
The following year, in a letter to Mahony about bringing Garcia back to work in the archdiocese, Curry said he was worried that victims in Los Angeles might see the priest and call police.
"[T]here are numerous — maybe twenty — adolescents or young adults that Peter was involved with in a first degree felony manner. The possibility of one of these seeing him is simply too great," Curry wrote in May 1987.
Garcia returned to the Los Angeles area later that year; the archdiocese did not give him a ministerial assignment because he refused to take medication to suppress his sexual urges. He left the priesthood in 1989, according to the church.
Garcia was never prosecuted and died in 2009. The files show he admitted to a therapist that he had sexually abused boys "on and off" since his 1966 ordination. He assured church officials his victims were unlikely to come forward because of their immigration status. In at least one case, according to a church memo, he threatened to have a boy he had raped deported if he went to police.
The memos are from personnel files for 14 priests submitted to a judge on behalf of a man who claims he was abused by one of the priests, Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera. The man's attorney, Anthony De Marco, wrote in court papers the files show "a practice of thwarting law enforcement investigations" by the archdiocese. It's not always clear from the records whether the church followed through on all its discussions about eluding police, but in some cases, such as Garcia’s, it did.
Mahony, who retired in 2011, has apologized repeatedly for errors in handling abuse allegations. In a statement Monday, he apologized once again and recounted meetings he's had with about 90 victims of abuse.
"I have a 3 x 5 card for every victim I met with on the altar of my small chapel. I pray for them every single day," he wrote. "As I thumb through those cards I often pause as I am reminded of each personal story and the anguish that accompanies that life story."
"It remains my daily and fervent prayer that God's grace will flood the heart and soul of each victim, and that their life-journey continues forward with ever greater healing," he added. "I am sorry."
Curry did not return calls seeking comment. He currently serves as the archdiocese's auxiliary bishop for Santa Barbara.
The confidential files of at least 75 more accused abusers are slated to become public in coming weeks under the terms of a 2007 civil settlement with more than 500 victims. A private mediator had ordered the names of the church hierarchy redacted from those documents, but after objections from The Times and the Associated Press, a Superior Court judge ruled that the names of Mahony, Curry and others in supervisory roles should not be blacked out.
Garcia's was one of three cases in 1987 in which top church officials discussed ways they could stymie law enforcement. In a letter about Father Michael Wempe, who had acknowledged using a 12-year-old parishioner as what a church official called his "sex partner," Curry recounted extensive conversations with the priest about potential criminal prosecution.
"He is afraid ... records will be sought by the courts at some time and that they could convict him," Curry wrote to Mahony. "He is very aware that what he did comes within the scope of criminal law."
Curry proposed Wempe could go to an out-of-state diocese "if need be." He called it "surprising" that a church-paid counselor hadn't reported Wempe to police and wrote that he and Wempe "agreed it would be better if Mike did not return to him."
Perhaps, Curry added, the priest could be sent to "a lawyer who is also a psychiatrist" thereby putting "the reports under the protection of privilege."
Curry expressed similar concerns to Mahony about Father Michael Baker, who had admitted his abuse of young boys during a private 1986 meeting with the archbishop.
In a memo about Baker's return to ministry, Curry wrote, "I see a difficulty here, in that if he were to mention his problem with child abuse it would put the therapist in the position of having to report him … he cannot mention his past problem."
Mahony's response to the memo was handwritten across the bottom of the page: "Sounds good —please proceed!!" Two decades would pass before authorities gathered enough information to convict Baker and Wempe of abusing boys.
Federal and state prosecutors have investigated possible conspiracy cases against the archdiocese hierarchy. Former Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said in 2007 that his probe into the conduct of high-ranking church officials was on hold until his prosecutors could access the personnel files of all the abusers. The U.S. attorney's office convened a grand jury in 2009, but no charges resulted.
During those investigations, the church was forced by judges to turn over some but not all of the records to prosecutors. The district attorney's office has said its prosecutors plan to review priest personnel files as they are released.
Mahony was appointed archbishop in 1985 after five years leading the Stockton diocese. While there, he had dealt with three allegations of clergy abuse, including one case in which he personally reported the priest to police.
In Los Angeles, he tapped Curry, an Irish-born priest, as vicar of clergy. The records show that sex abuse allegations were handled almost exclusively by the archbishop and his vicar. Memos that crossed their desks included graphic details, such as one letter from another priest accusing Garcia of tying up and raping a young boy in Lancaster.
Mahony personally phoned the priests' therapists about their progress, wrote the priests encouraging letters and dispatched Curry to visit them at a New Mexico facility, Servants of the Paraclete, that treated pedophile priests.
"Each of you there at Jemez Springs is very much in my prayers and I call you to mind each day during my celebration of the Eucharist," Mahony wrote to Wempe.
The month after he was named archbishop, Mahony met with Garcia to discuss his molestation of boys, according to a letter the priest wrote while in therapy. Mahony instructed him to be "very low key" and assured him "no one was looking at him for any criminal action," Garcia recalled in a letter to an official at Servants of the Paraclete.
In a statement Monday on behalf of the archdiocese, a lawyer for the church said its policy in the late 1980s was to let victims and their families decide whether to go to the police.
"Not surprisingly, the families of victims frequently did not wish to report to police and have their child become the center of a public prosecution," lawyer J. Michael Hennigan wrote.
He acknowledged memos written in those years "sometimes focused more on the needs of the perpetrator than on the serious harm that had been done to the victims."
"That is part of the past," Hennigan wrote. "We are embarrassed and at times ashamed by parts of the past. But we are proud of our progress, which is continuing."
Hennigan said that the years in which Mahony dealt with Garcia were "a period of deepening understanding of the nature of the problem of sex abuse both here and in our society in general" and that the archdiocese subsequently changed completely its approach to reports of abuse.
"We now have retired FBI agents who thoroughly investigate every allegation, even anonymous calls. We aggressively assist in the criminal prosecution of offenders," Hennigan wrote.
Mahony and Curry have been questioned under oath in depositions numerous times about their handling of molestation cases. The men, however, have never been asked about attempts to stymie law enforcement, because the personnel files documenting those discussions were only provided to civil attorneys in recent months. De Marco, the lawyer who filed the records in civil court this month, asked a judge last week to order Curry and Mahony to submit to new depositions “regarding their actions, knowledge and intent as referenced in these files.” A hearing on that request is set for February.
In a 2010 deposition, Mahony acknowledged the archdiocese had never called police to report sexual abuse by a priest before 2000. He said church officials were unable to do so because they didn't know the names of the children harmed.
"In my experience, you can only call the police when you've got victims you can talk to," Mahony said.
When an attorney for an alleged victim suggested "the right thing to do" would have been to summon police immediately, Mahony replied, "Well, today it would. But back then that isn't the way those matters were approached."
Since clergy weren't legally required to report suspected child abuse until 1997, Mahony said, the people who should have alerted police about pedophiles like Baker and Wempe were victims' therapists or other "mandatory reporters" of child abuse.
"Psychologists, counselors … they were also the first ones to learn [of abuse] so they were normally the ones who made the reports," he said.
In Garcia's 451-page personnel file, one voice decried the church's failures to protect the victims and condemned the priest as someone who deserved to be behind bars. Father Arturo Gomez, an associate pastor at a predominantly Spanish-speaking church near Olvera Street, wrote to a regional bishop in 1989, saying he was "angry" and "disappointed" at the church's failure to help Garcia's victims. He expressed shock that the bishop, Juan A. Arzube, had told the family of two of the boys that Garcia had thought of taking his own life.
"You seemed to be at that moment more concern[ed] for the criminal rather than the victum! (sic)" Gomez wrote to Arzube in 1989.
Gomez urged church leaders to identify others who may have been harmed by Garcia and to get them help, but was told they didn't know how.
"If I was the father … Peter Garcia would be in prison now; and I would probably have begun a lawsuit against the archdiocese," the priest wrote in the letter. "The parents … of the two boys are more forgiving and compassionate than I would be."
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SAN LUIS OBISPO — A park ranger flagged down the elderly driver as he left a lonely beach parking lot 45 minutes past closing time.
George Taylor, 86, had cuts around his neck and on his wrists. He was disoriented, and there was a body in the back seat with a plastic trash bag cinched around its neck.
"Is that a mannequin?" the ranger asked, scanning the car with his flashlight.
Taylor said that it was his wife, 81-year-old Gewynn Taylor, and that she had been dead since the sun went down that December day. He and Gewynn, his wife of 65 years, had a suicide pact, he said, and he had failed.
The incident shocked a legion of friends who knew the couple from their frequent appearances before the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, where for years they had protested a massive sewer project in their tiny town of Los Osos.
It also presented local authorities with a problem that has vexed prosecutors and profoundly troubled families across the United States: Where does justice lie for those who, with no apparent motives other than love, help family members fulfill their last wishes and end their lives?
At least twice in the last year, prosecutors in California decided not to bring charges in similar cases. In other instances, assisted suicide convictions can result in light sentences; on Friday, an Orange County social worker received three years' probation for providing an 86-year-old veteran who wanted to end his life with his final meal: Oxycontin crushed into yogurt.
Both George and Gewynn Taylor were active in community causes. By all accounts, they were constant companions. Until recently, they enjoyed doing chores around a small ranch they owned and visited from time to time. Both also were "shepherds" of the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the controversial doctor who practiced and preached euthanasia, according to a court document.
George Taylor, charged with the felony of assisting suicide, pleaded guilty last month.
On Wednesday, San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Ginger E. Garrett sentenced him to three years' probation and two days in jail — time already served after his arrest Dec. 10, 2012, at Montana de Oro State Park. His attorney, Ilan Funke-Bilu, said his client would continue to receive mental health counseling and has "bonded" with his therapist.
At his brief hearing, the soft-spoken, slender Taylor, a retired Los Angeles firefighter, expressed gratitude but had no further comment.
In an interview, his attorney called the outcome of the case "a perfect storm of wisdom" — prosecutors brought lesser charges, and the judge was lenient.
The couple had disclosed their pact to their daughter and a few others close to them but did not reveal details, Funke-Bilu said.
"They were sharp, bright and warm," he said. "There was nothing wrong with their thinking. They were active people who always promised one another that if they couldn't lead their lives the way they felt they should, then that would be the end of it."
The attorney said medical problems were taking a toll on the couple but declined to elaborate. Neither had a terminal illness, he said, "but terminal diseases weren't the test for them."
It also wasn't the top consideration for Jack Koency, of Laguna Niguel. At 86, Koency was still mobile but had an acquaintance, Elizabeth Barrett, 66, help him end his life. Barrett bought him yogurt, a bottle of brandy and heartburn medication to help him keep the Oxycontin-and-yogurt mixture down.
Prosecutors in the 2011 case said they weighed several factors in recommending probation, including the wishes of Koency's family and "the nature of the crime."
In San Luis Obispo, Jerret Gran, a deputy district attorney, said investigators found no malice in George Taylor's action.
"It wasn't murder," Gran said. "There was an intent to help her kill herself, not an intent to kill her."
Cases filed under California's assisted suicide law rarely go to trial. Legal experts note that jurors might be torn about convicting elderly defendants they see as legitimately bereaved if not entirely blameless.
CAIRO — It was a bloody ordeal with tick-tock drama and a watching world.
The hostages at a gas refinery in the Sahara desert faced four harrowing days trapped between two dangers: Islamist militants who forced some of them into wearing explosives belts, and the Algerian military, which showed no inclination to negotiate for their release.
After the army carried out its "final assault" Saturday, Algerian officials said that at least 23 hostages and 32 militants had been killed since gunmen startled the world and rallied Al Qaeda-linked extremists by storming the refinery in the predawn hours Wednesday.
The nationalities of the hostages were not identified. Nearly 700 Algerians and 107 foreigners had been freed or had escaped from the gas field in eastern Algeria over the last two days. When the final assault began Saturday, at least 30 foreigners, including an estimated seven Americans, were unaccounted for.
The U.S. is "still trying to get accurate information" on what happened, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters while traveling in London. The only confirmed American death was Frederick Buttaccio, 58, of Katy, Texas.
Many details of the tense, bloody hours at the refinery remain murky. Foreign governments whose citizens were hostages, including Britain and Japan, complained that the Algerians did not apprise them of what was unfolding. Reports suggest that no foreign capitals were consulted before the army's first raid on Thursday.
"The loss of life as a result of the attacks is appalling and unacceptable," said British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond, who confirmed word from the Algerians that the hostage crisis was over. "We must be clear that it is the terrorists that bear full responsibility for it."
French President Francois Hollande praised Algeria's handling of the crisis.
"When you have people taken hostage in such large numbers by terrorists with such cold determination and ready to kill those hostages — as they did — Algeria has an approach which to me ... is the most appropriate because there could be no negotiation," he told reporters.
Algerian officials said the heavily armed militants planted mines and threatened to blow up the refinery and kill hostages or use them as shields to escape across the desert into Libya. Media reports and accounts from freed hostages suggest a number of hostages were killed Thursday when an army helicopter fired on four, or perhaps five, vehicles moving within the compound.
At one point, the militants reportedly offered to trade two captive Americans for two extremist figures jailed in the United States, including Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 of plotting to bomb landmarks in New York.
Saturday's army raid killed 11 militants but not before extremists executed their final seven hostages, two of whom may have been Americans. By nightfall, troops had discovered 15 burned bodies and were securing the plant, where hours earlier firefights played out amid the refinery's silver pipes and prefabricated housing.
"Our determination is stronger than ever to work with allies right around the world to root out and defeat this terrorist scourge and those who encourage it," said British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Other captives unaccounted for included 14 Japanese; five Britons; two Malaysians; and six employees of Statoil, a Norwegian firm. Their fates exposed the heightened risks to Algeria's gas and oil fields — and the skilled foreigners who help work them — at a time of growing Islamic extremism radiating across much of North Africa.
The militants were connected to a group known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which arose from the Algerian civil war in the 1990s. The attackers reportedly included Libyans, Egyptians and at least one commander from Niger. They said their assault on the compound was in retaliation for French airstrikes this month on rebels fighting to forge an Islamic state in neighboring Mali.
A White House official discounted that theory, saying the attack was planned far in advance of the French intervention in Mali. Accounts by freed hostages and statements by Algerian officials indicated that the militants, some of whom wore fatigues and appeared to know their way around the compound, may have been assisted by contacts inside.
The refinery, in a town called In Amenas, sits on a border rife with militants, traffickers and weapons, many of them looted and flowing in from an unstable Libya. The alleged mastermind of the hostage crisis was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a one-eyed Al Qaeda recruiter, whose nicknames include Mr. Marlboro for his smuggling networks. He was believed to have been aiding the rebels in Mali.
The militants at the plant were armed with machine guns and rocket launchers, according to Algerian officials. Since early Thursday the compound was encircled by army tanks, troops and special forces. The intensity of the firefights and fear within the plant was described in recent days by freed captives.
A man identified as Brahim, an Algerian driver for refinery technicians, told French media of his escape with three foreigners early in the siege:
"As bullets rang out nonstop, we cut holes in the metal fence with large clippers, and once through, we all started running," he said. "There were about 50 of us plus the three foreigners. We were quickly taken in by the special forces stationed just a dozen meters from the base. I didn't look back. All I saw during my escape was that a plane was flying over the site."
The natural gas refinery at In Amenas is operated by BP, Statoil, and Sonatrach, the Algerian national oil company. BP said four of its employees were missing.
"While the situation has evolved, it may still be some time before we have the clarity we all desire," said Bob Dudley, BP Group chief executive. "While not confirmed, tragically we have grave fears that there may be one or more fatalities within this number."
jeff.fleishman@latimes.com
Times staff writer Henry Chu in London contributed to this report.
CAIRO — One American was dead and dozens of foreign hostages were unaccounted for Friday after a military raid in the Sahara desert to retake a natural gas compound that was stormed this week by Islamist militants.
The Algerian government said 573 Algerians and nearly 100 of an estimated 132 foreign hostages had been freed or had escaped. Much about the military operation, however, remained unclear, leaving officials in other countries frustrated by contradictory versions of what happened at the remote gas field near the Algerian-Libyan border.
Reports suggested that heavily armed militants had scattered throughout the complex and that an unknown number of hostages were still hiding or possibly dead. The state-run news agency, which had announced the night before that the ordeal was over, said the military was still seeking a "peaceful end."
Late Friday, there were reports that the militants had offered to trade two captive American workers for two extremist figures jailed in the United States, including Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 of plotting to bomb landmarks in New York.
Asked about the offer, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, "The United States does not negotiate with terrorists." She confirmed that some Americans were still being held hostage in Algeria.
Nuland refused to comment on casualties, but a U.S. official said authorities had recovered the remains of one American, Frederick Buttaccio of Texas. Officials said his family had been notified.
The chaos left the United States, Britain and other nations worrying about their citizens and questioning why they hadn't been consulted about a rushed military strike that ignited intense firefights and sent captives taking cover or fleeing into the desert.
"The action of Algerian forces was regrettable," said Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed dismay about not being informed before the launch of the operation against the 20 to 60 militants who seized the gas complex, ostensibly in retaliation for French airstrikes on Islamist rebels in neighboring Mali.
In a statement to the House of Commons, Cameron said, "I was told by the Algerian prime minister while it was taking place. He said that the terrorists had tried to flee, that they judged there to be an immediate threat to the lives of the hostages and had felt obliged to respond."
A statement from the White House said President Obama was "receiving regular updates from his national security team on the ongoing situation in Algeria."
The Algerian government, which fought Islamist militants in a civil war that killed more than 100,000 people in the 1990s, sought to justify its raid on the complex at In Amenas, which is operated by BP; Statoil, a Norwegian firm; and Sonatrach, the Algerian national oil company.
"Those who think we will negotiate with terrorists are delusional," Mohamed Said Belaid, Algeria's communications minister, told state media. "Those who think we will surrender to their blackmail are delusional."
State news media reported that 18 extremists had been killed. Two Filipino and two British hostages reportedly died, though unconfirmed reports put the number of foreigner deaths as high as 35. A Mauritanian news organization said dozens of foreigners were killed when military helicopters strafed two vehicles attempting to flee the compound.
As first-person accounts began trickling out from survivors, at least one offered a similar description of Algerian air attacks on vehicles that contained hostages.
The drama began Wednesday when extremists ambushed a convoy of foreign workers headed for a nearby airport. They seized the vehicles and their occupants and drove to the complex.
Stephen McFaul, an Irishman who escaped the complex during the military assault, told his family that hostages had their mouths taped shut and explosives hung around their necks, Reuters news agency reported. McFaul said he narrowly escaped being killed — not by the militants, but by the Algerian military.
"They were moving five Jeep-loads of hostages from one part of the compound. At that stage they were intercepted by the Algerian army. The army bombed four out of five of the trucks, and four of them were destroyed," said Brian McFaul, recounting what his brother's wife, Angela, had told him. "The truck my brother was in crashed, and at that stage Stephen was able to make a break for his freedom. He presumed everyone else in the other trucks was killed."
Alexandre Berceaux, a French worker at the plant, told Europe 1 radio that he hid under a bed in his living quarters for 40 hours. His Algerian co-workers brought him food and water and communicated by password for him to open the door.
"I saw some dead. They said there were many dead," he said. "I don't know how many. There were terrorists who were dead along with foreigners and locals.... Nobody was expecting this. The site was protected; there were military forces there."
A plane sent to the area by the U.S. military and aircraft from BP were evacuating workers and freed hostages to Europe. At least seven Americans were believed to have been held captive, along with fewer than 30 Britons and citizens from Norway, Japan and other countries.
An Al Qaeda-linked group, the Signed-in-Blood Battalion, claimed responsibility for the attack. Its leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a smuggler known for masterminding kidnappings, supports militants in Mali who hope to build an Islamist state. France last week bombed militants' positions there and has sent in troops in an effort to stop their advances.
However, an Obama administration official, insisting on anonymity because he was speaking about sensitive internal discussions, said U.S. authorities did not believe the gas field attack was in response to the French action in Mali.
"This was planned far in advance," he said. "We believe this was unrelated, and they have seized on the French action to bring attention to it."
The overrunning of the compound raised questions about Algeria's ability to secure its rich oil and gas fields. The bloodshed also suggested that Islamic extremists were becoming increasingly emboldened across the deserts stretching from Mali across North Africa. News reports suggested that some of the militants killed by Algerian forces were from Libya and Egypt.
On Friday, as militants threatened new attacks on Algeria's oil and gas installations, international leaders remained frustrated by three days of fluid and confusing events at the compound at In Amenas.
"Parts of the plant are under Algerian authorities' control, and other parts are not. This information is changing by the hour," Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told the BBC.
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
Times staff writers Henry Chu in London, Ken Dilanian and Paul Richter in Washington and special correspondent Kim Willsher in Paris contributed to this report.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 villagers in Afghanistan, deferred entering a plea when he appeared Thursday morning for his arraignment at a hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle.
A veteran of three tours in Iraq before his Afghanistan deployment, Bales, 39, faces 16 murder charges, and other counts including attempted murder, assault and drug and alcohol charges. The proceeding is the equivalent of an arraignment and allows the military to move forward on a court-martial.
Attorneys for Bales have said he is not guilty of the charges.
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During a pretrial hearing in November, witnesses testified that Bales had been angered by a bomb blast near his outpost that severed a fellow soldier’s leg. That could open the door to a defense based on mental trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder or some other form of impairment.
The Army is expected to seek to bar Bales from using any sort of mental health defense at the court-martial, according to documents reviewed by the Associated Press. In order to seek the death penalty, the prosecution must establish that Bales is competent and did not act out of mental illness.
Officials have refused to make some documents about the case available to reporters. That has left civilian defense attorneys as the only source for records on the case, the AP noted.
In the documents reviewed by the wire service, military prosecutors argue that Bales should not be allowed to have any expert witnesses testify about what effect his mental health might have had on his guilt. Nor do they want any expert to testify during the penalty phase of the trial, should it get that far, as to whether any history of traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder should spare him the death penalty.
The military argues that Bales’ lawyers have refused to allow him to participate in a review by a board to determine his sanity.
“An accused simply cannot be allowed to claim a lack of mental responsibility through the introduction of expert testimony from his own doctors, while at the same time leaving the government with no ability to overcome its burden of proof because its doctors have been precluded from conducting any examination of the very matters in dispute,” Maj. Robert Stelle wrote in a motion Jan. 3.
Alternatively, Stelle wrote, the judge should order Bales to immediately undergo the sanity review.
Bales' attorneys have refused to let him take part in the sanity board because the Army would not let him have a lawyer present for the examination, would not record the examination and would not appoint a neuropsychologist expert in traumatic brain injuries to the board, according to the documents.
[For the record, 4:05 p.m. Jan. 17: An earlier version of this post stated that Bales was a veteran of four tours in Afghanistan. In fact, he served four combat tours in all, three in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.]
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MOSCOW — In what is being called a new hunt for Red October, a Russian cyber-security company says it has discovered a major international malware system that has attacked and compromised the computers of government agencies, diplomatic consulates, research centers and defense installations, among other sensitive institutions.
The malware has siphoned off terabytes' worth of information, much of it classified, researchers with Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab said in a report this week. The origin of the program and the motives of the attackers remain elusive, but there are hints that the programmers are Russian, the report says.
"Last October we first received from our clients samples of something we soon gathered was not just a malware program but a multi-component attack platform, initially targeting embassies around the world," Vitaly Kamlyuk, a senior anti-virus expert at Kaspersky, said in an interview Wednesday. "We called the virus 'Red October' because we detected it in October and because it required a level of red-alert attention to tackle."
Similar to the Flame virus, a now-defunct spyware program Kaspersky thwarted last year, the new virus usually infiltrates computers through an email attachment camouflaged to mimic ordinary business correspondence, the expert said.
"One embassy was looking to buy a car and received the virus in a car sale proposal they soon found in their inbox," Kamlyuk said.
Kaspersky, a leading developer of commercial anti-virus software, said it found victims of the malware with IP addresses in 39 countries, led by Switzerland, Kazakhstan and Greece. The most common targets included embassies, government agencies and research institutes, as well as aerospace and energy companies.
Kaspersky said the malware was probably being operated by a government or criminal organization large enough to employ at least two dozen highly trained programmers.
Independent experts in the United States offered differing views on who might be responsible.
"The two primary suspects for this operation would have been either Russia or China, just based on some of the data," said John Bumgarner, research director for the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a nongovernmental think tank.
But researcher Jeffrey Carr, author of "Inside Cyber Warfare," theorized that the malware was the work of the foreign intelligence service of a NATO or European Union country, and that the intent was to spy on Russian embassies.
"It's a pretty good guess" that Russia's spy service, the FSB, approached Kaspersky and asked the firm to investigate, Carr said. "One of the indications was that they were specifically looking for Russian documents."
Kaspersky researchers said the spyware, when first installed, might be only several hundred kilobytes in size, minuscule by modern computer standards. But as it gets established and communicates with its controllers, it may grow to several megabytes.
The virus records the names of the users, their IP addresses, information stored on their processors and local disks, the history of browsers, logins and passwords, and the records of devices plugged into USB ports, including smartphones, according to the report.
Like the Flame program, the new virus can record screen shots, as well as keystrokes.
Evidence of the Red October virus dates to May 2007, Kamlyuk said. The program was embedded in Microsoft Excel and Word documents that had been used by Chinese hackers against Asian companies and Tibetan political activists, Kamlyuk said.
"But soon enough," he said, "we realized that, despite its obvious Chinese roots and the fact that no agencies in China were in fact targets of the new malicious program, the Chinese hackers had nothing to do with Red October."
The language used in the malware was primarily English, but not that of a native English speaker. It included Cyrillic symbols and transliterations of terms from Russian computer jargon, the researchers said.
For instance, Kamlyuk said, the malware sometimes uses the Russian word "zakladka" for "bookmark" or "marker" and "proga" for "programs."
"Many domain names of the malware were registered under fake Russian names and addresses too," he said.
"Now we have come to the realization that we are dealing with something programmed by Russian-speaking experts, based on Chinese hackers' exploit documents and mostly aimed at embassies of and other targets in Russia and its former Soviet satellites," Kamlyuk said.
Sergei Karaganov, honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, a Moscow-based think tank, said in an interview that such cyber-espionage is increasingly common and that Russia and other countries have attempted to create international protocols to combat it.
"But every time, their attempts have been thwarted by the stiff resistance on the part of the United States, which probably counts too much on its supremacy in this sphere," he said. "On the other hand, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of this being an ingenious trick on the part of Kaspersky Lab to boost their trade."
sergei.loiko@latimes.com
Times staff writer Ken Dilanian in Washington contributed to this report.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Tahirul Qadri, the fiery Islamic cleric leading a large antigovernment protest in the heart of the capital, was in the middle of a speech denouncing President Asif Ali Zardari's administration when an aide interrupted him with news.
The Supreme Court, Qadri was told, had just ordered the arrest of Zardari's prime minister on corruption charges. As he relayed the news to the crowd Tuesday, legions of Pakistanis filling a plaza about 500 yards from the parliament exploded in a yelp of joy. Many danced in the streets. Others embraced, tears streaming down their cheeks.
"My happiness is beyond words," said Ghulam Nabi, a 28-year-old laborer from Lahore. "We thank God for giving us this victory."
For demonstrators, the ruling served as validation of Qadri's message that Pakistan's current government is corrupt and incompetent, and cannot be trusted to oversee national elections this spring. But for Zardari's ruling party and many observers, the ruling heightened suspicion that Qadri's protest is being engineered behind the scenes by a powerful entity, perhaps the military, with the possible involvement of the judiciary.
"It looks like the Supreme Court is part of this intrigue," said Asma Jehangir, a human rights activist and former Supreme Court Bar Assn. president. "This isn't coincidence. Look at the timing. I believe the Supreme Court's moral authority has vanished."
Speaking to a Pakistani television channel, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said, "This decision by the Supreme Court doesn't look like a coincidence."
The order to arrest Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in connection with a scandal from his days as water and power minister broadsides Zardari's government at the worst possible time, as he struggles to withstand pressure on his administration created by Qadri's populist movement.
An estimated 40,000 Pakistanis unhappy with Zardari continued to take part in Qadri's sit-in protest Tuesday, and many who were interviewed said they would stay put until the parliament was dissolved and Zardari stepped down, demands Qadri made Monday after leading a long caravan of demonstrators from the eastern city of Lahore to Islamabad.
Zardari's inability to remedy a host of ills, from crippling power outages to militant attacks, is cited by demonstrators as a prime reason why they joined the sit-in. Voters have the choice of electing a new government in May, but Qadri contends the electoral system is weighted unfairly toward the two most powerful parties.
The system requires the appointment of a caretaker government during the run-up to the election, and leaves the choice of appointees to Zardari's ruling Pakistan People's Party and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party, the PML-N.
Qadri has said Pakistan's powerful military should be involved in the appointment, a remark that has led many observers to speculate that the country's security establishment is behind Qadri's movement. Both Qadri and the military deny that.
Until Tuesday, Zardari's team had tried to appear confident that Qadri's movement wasn't large enough to effect change and would eventually wither. Qadri fell far short of his goal of rallying 1 million Pakistanis for the protest march.
The Supreme Court ruling, however, put Zardari's party on the defensive. Party leaders in the coalition running the parliament said they would meet Tuesday night to discuss strategy.
"We were right that [Qadri's movement] is an effort to derail democracy," said Sharjeel Memon, a PPP stalwart and information minister for Sindh province. "What's happening now is not good for democracy."
For more than a year, the high court has been investigating Ashraf's role in the issuance of licenses to so-called rental power plants, a short-term project that was supposed to help solve the country's power shortage. The government signed three-to-five-year contracts with relatively small private power stations, essentially renting them while it worked on building larger plants.
The effort did little to alleviate the country's power troubles, however, and wasted millions of dollars in government money.
The corruption allegations against Ashraf involve purported kickbacks related to bidding for the rental plants, which took place while Ashraf was water and power minister from March 2008 to February 2011.
Ashraf was appointed prime minister in June to replace Yousuf Raza Gilani, who was forced from office that month by the Supreme Court after he was convicted of contempt for ignoring the court's order to revive an old corruption case against Zardari.
Many analysts at the time warned that Ashraf's appointment was risky, given the power plant scandal hanging over him. The episode earned Ashraf the nickname "Raja Rental" in the Pakistani media.
The Supreme Court order also seeks the arrest of several other officials suspected of being linked to the scandal.
It remains unclear how Zardari's government will respond. Gilani remained in office after he was convicted of contempt in April 2012, and stepped down only when the high court ordered his dismissal weeks later.
Deep animosity has for years tainted the relationship between Zardari's government and the judiciary, led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. The feud dates to the early days of Zardari's presidency, when he balked at reinstating Chaudhry as chief justice. Chaudhry had been ousted by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's leader in 2007.
Zardari reportedly feared that Chaudhry would allow old corruption charges against him to proceed. After intense political and public pressure, Zardari relented and reinstated the judge.
