The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page A3

Time: 02-11-2009 21:47 User: mstollhaus PubDate: 02-12-2009 Zone: KY Page Name: A3 Color: Nation TODAY, IN 1999 The Senate voted to acquit President Bill Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair. THURSDAY FEBRUARYS, 2009 www.courier-journal.comnationworld Atlantic Ocean Peanut Corp. owner won't testify Gulf of Mt lexico P.R. FROM WIRE DISPATCHES Congress looks into salmonella outbreak blamed on his company. The outbreak has sickened about 600 people, may be linked to nine deaths the latest reported in Ohio yesterday and has resulted in one of the largest U.S.

product recalls, more than 1,800 items. Parnell sat stiffly, his hands folded in his lap at the witness table, as Rep. Greg Walden, held up a clear jar of his company's products wrapped in crime-scene tape and asked him if he would be willing to eat the food. "Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on advice of my counsel, I respectively decline to answer your questions based on the protections afforded me under the U.S.

Constitution," Parnell said. After repeating the statement several times, he was dismissed from the hearing. Later, a laboratory employee testified that ParnelFs company discovered salmonella at its Georgia plant as far back as 2006. The subcommittee released e-mails obtained by its investigators showing that Parnell ordered products identified with salmonella shipped and quoting his complaints that tests discovering the contaminated food were "costing us huge Last month, after the national outbreak was tied to his company, Parnell told Food and Drug Administration officials that his workers "desperately at least need to turn the raw peanuts on our floor into money." In another exchange, he told his plant manager to "turn them loose" after products once deemed contaminated were cleared. Darlene Cowart of JLA USA testing service told lawmakers that Peanut Corp.

contacted her in November 2006 to help control salm onella discovered in the plant. Cowart said she visited the plant once at the company's request and pointed out problems with its peanut roasting process and storage of raw and finished peanuts together that could have led to the salmonella. She testified Peanut Corp. officials said they believed the salmonella came from organic Chinese peanuts. An earlier FDA inspection report said the company found salmonella in some of its products a dozen times dating to June 2007.

"We appear to have a total systemic breakdown," said Rep. Bart Stupak, chairman of the committee's investigations subcommittee. Peanut now under FBI investigation, makes only about 1 percent of U.S. peanut products. But its ingredients are used by dozens of other food companies.

WASHINGTON Senate confirms Lynn as deputy defense secretary The Senate voted 93-4 yesterday to confirm William Lynn as deputy defense secretary, endorsing President Barack Oba-ma's decision to waive his ethics regulations by putting a former defense lobbyist in charge of day-to-day operations at the Pentagon. During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to close the "revolving door" between government and big business. His new rules bar people for two years from working for the agencies they lobbied. Administration officials say Lynn, a former lobbyist for Raytheon should be exempt from the ethics rules because he is uniquely qualified for the job. By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Brett J.

Blackledge Associated Press WASHINGTON The owner of a peanut company refused to testify at a congressional hearing yesterday amid the disclosure that he urged his employees to ship bacteria-tainted products, pleading with federal health officials that he should be able to "turn the raw peanuts on the floor into money." Stewart Parnell, owner of Peanut Corp. of America, repeatedly invoked his right not to incriminate himself before the House subcommittee holding a hearing on a national salmonella outbreak 7v AdpJ Bill WaughAssociated Press Police and fire crews searched through storm debris yesterday from mobile homes in Lone Grove, Okla. A tornado hit the southern Oklahoma town Tuesday, killing at least eight people. Tornado-ravaged town hopes death toll stops at 8 Judges allegedly jailed kids for cash Kickbacks totaled more than $2 million By Michael Rubinkam and Maryclaire Dale Associated Press WILKES-BARRE, Pa. For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.

The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench. In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. "I've never encountered, and I don't think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids' lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money," said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre. Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. The judges were charged on Jan.

26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court soon after. No company officials have been charged, but the investigation is still going on. The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles' records expunged. Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before.

Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it. Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel. The judges are scheduled to plead guilty to fraud today in federal court. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years behind bars.

Ciavarella, 58, who presided over Luzerne County's juvenile court for 12 years, acknowledged last week in a letter to his former colleagues, "I have disgraced my judgeship and I have only myself to blame." Ciavarella has denied he got kickbacks for sending youths to prison. Conahan, 56, has remained silent about the case. GREENVILLE, S.C. Woman is sentenced for identity thefts A federal judge sentenced a Montana woman who stole multiple identities over several years and faked her way into Ivy League schools to 51 months in prison yesterday. Esther Reed pleaded guilty in August to federal fraud and identity theft charges.

Police were tipped off to Reed in June 2006, when she tried to get a job as a housekeeper using the name, birthday and Social Security number of missing South Carolina woman Brooke Hen-son. She also used Henson's identity to fake her way into Columbia University in New York, where she spent two years as a graduate student beginning in 2004. Authorities do not believe she had anything to do with Hen-son's 1999 disappearance. BELLEFONTAINE, OHIO Teacher is arrested in prostitution sting A fourth-grade teacher had a side job as a prostitute, and even skipped class after using a school computer to arrange an afternoon tryst at a motel, authorities said yesterday. Amber Carter, 35, left school early Tuesday taking half a sick day and was arrested in a motel parking lot, where authorities had set up a sting operation.

An anonymous e-mail was sent to the Logan County Sheriff's Department saying a local woman was posting sex-for-cash ads on the Web site Craigslist, Lt. Rob Bibart said. Detectives found the ad and arranged Tuesday's meeting with Carter, he said. KALAMAZOO, MICH. Bicyclist is beaten by group of young males Some members of a group of 40 to 50 young males attacked a 50-year-old man riding a bicycle and beat him unconscious, police said.

The motive for the attack Tuesday evening was not known and police were still interviewing witnesses, Lt. Tom Hemingway said. No arrests have been made. Witnesses told investigators the attackers knocked the man off his bike and began beating him. The man remained hospitalized yesterday.

STARKE, FLA. Man executed for killing girlfriend's daughter A man convicted of murdering his girlfriend's teenage daughter more than 25 years ago has been executed. Wayne Tompkins was pronounced dead at 6:32 p.m yesterday after he failed to get courts to listen to his claims of innocence. He was put to death by lethal in-jection for the murder of 15-year-old Lisa DeCarr, who disappeared from the Tampa home she shared with Tompkins and her mother on March 24, 1983. Read the latest news online at: nationworld By Tim Talley Associated Press LONE GROVE, Okla.

Rescuers sorted through bricks and shattered plywood yesterday in search of more victims of a deadly tornado that blasted through a small Oklahoma town where many people in a trailer park had nowhere to escape the howling winds. Some of the eight fatalities were caused by flying debris. One man died when a pickup truck fell on him. There were also miraculous tales of survival: People taking shelter in a closet pulled a woman to safety after the tornado blew part of the roof off and threatened to carry her away. Another woman was found injured but alive beneath an overturned mobile home.

Residents of Lone Grove, a town of 4,600 about 100 miles south of Oklahoma City, awoke yesterday to find much of their community in ruins. Shirley Mose was not at home when the tornado struck, but she returned to find the house destroyed and her pickup truck wrecked. The Lone Grove twister was among a cluster of unusual February tornados that touched down Tuesday in Oklahoma. A half- victims appeared to have been inside their homes when the tornado hit. Others had fled outdoors.

Most died from blows to the head. "One victim was found underneath a pickup truck the tornado had lifted and dropped on him," Ballard said. There was no shelter near the mobile home park for the residents to seek refuge. All that was visible of the mobile homes yesterday were the cinder blocks they once sat on. Trees were uprooted or snapped in half.

Cars were flung around like toys. Hoods of vehicles were ripped off. And debris was scattered everywhere. Along the main road in Lone Grove, homes and businesses were destroyed. Trees were splintered.

Roofs were missing. Lana Hartman rode out the storm with seven other people in a small clothes closet of the rental house she moved into on Monday. "We were all in the closet. The suction was so unreal," Hartman said. The tornado blew part of the roof off the house and lifted one of her daughters into the air.

Everyone grabbed the woman to keep her from flying off. "I was in shock. I think I still am," Hartman said. "We're alive. That's all that matters." The Russian satellite was out of control, Matney said.

The Iridium craft weighed 1,235 pounds, and the Russian craft nearly a ton. No one has any idea yet how many pieces were generated or how big they might be. There have been four other cases in which space objects have collided accidentally in orbit, NASA said. But those were considered minor and involved parts of spent rockets or small satellites. At the beginning of this year there were roughly 17,000 pieces of manmade debris orbiting Earth, Johnson said.

dozen homes and several businesses were also damaged in Oklahoma City and suburban Ed-mond, but no serious injuries were reported there. Lone Grove firefighters methodically searched each damaged or destroyed structure, spray-painting a large on homes after inspection. Residents were then allowed to check for belongings. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning at 6:50 p.m. Tuesday, meaning a twister was imminent and residents should take shelter.

Another warning was issued at 7:15 p.m. when the tornado was spotted. It hit Lone Grove at 7:25 p.m "A lot of people just didn't leave," Carter County Sheriff Ken Grace said. Tornadoes are relatively rare in the winter. Since 1950, Oklahoma has been hit by 44 in February, most recently on Feb.

25, 2000, when a twister damaged a barn and power lines in the western part of the state. Most of the bodies were found in the mobile home wreckage. A trucker driving through town was also killed when winds slammed into his rig. Fourteen other people were seriously injured. Cherokee Ballard, a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner's office, said some of the "We knew this was going to happen eventually," said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA believes any risk to the space station and its three astronauts is low. It orbits about 270 miles below the collision course. There also should be no danger to the space shuttle set to launch with seven astronauts on Feb. 22, officials said, but that will be reevaluated in the coming days. The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning.

Two satellites collide over Siberia Space station faces slight risk Associated Press CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Two big communication satellites collided in the first crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds and posing a slight risk to the international space station. NASA said it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the crash, which occurred nearly 500 miles over Siberia on.