The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 9

LATIMES.COM/NATION A13 THE NATION President pick to be the intelligence chief at the Department of Homeland Security withdrew from consideration on Friday amid signs that he could face opposition on Capitol Hill over his role in the interrogation of terrorism suspects. Philip Mudd, who has held a series of senior positions at the CIA and FBI, said in a written statement released by the White House that he had decided to step aside out of concern that his nomination would a to the administration. Mudd became the latest candidate for a high-level intelligence position to be forced to withdraw after being tied to the use of severe methods to interrogate terrorism suspects. From 2002 to 2005, Mudd served as deputy director of the counter-terrorism center, aunit that swelled in size in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and was responsible for running the secret overseas prisons.

Since 2005, Mudd has served as an assistant director of the national security branch, and has been credited with helping the bureau shift its emphasis from catching criminals to gathering intelligence and preventing terrorist attacks. The FBI and CIA faced severe criticism for their failures leading up to Sept. 11. arrival at the bureau came amid a major shake-up in U.S. intelligence gathering, and was seen as an effort to bolster ties between the FBI and CIA.

An FBI spokesman said that Mudd is expected to remain in his job at the bureau. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said that Obama believed Mudd have been an excellent undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, but understands his personal Mudd faced a confirmation hearing next week before the Senate Intelligence Committee. In recent days, key lawmakers said that Mudd was likely to face questions about his role in the interrogation program. position at the CIA would have given him direct knowledge of counter-terror- ism operations, including the detention and interrogation program. But officials familiar with his role said Mudd was a veteran analyst and not an architect of the interrogation program.

Mudd did his job to help keep this nation safe in the years after and today he is unfairly paying a political said Rep. Peter Hoeks- traof Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Obama banned the use of waterboarding and other severe interrogation methods during his first week in office. But the controversy has com- plicated the ability to fill key intelligence positions. Former senior CIA official John Brennanwas widely rumored to be first choice to lead the spy agency.

But Brennan was forced to withdraw from consideration in Novemberfor reasons similar to those cited by Mudd. At the same time, key Democratic lawmakers urged Obama to keep Stephen Kappesas the No. 2 executive, despite Kappes having had extensive knowledge of the interrogation program. greg.miller@latimes.com CIA ties derail intelligence nominee Homeland Security pick faced questions over tactics. Greg Miller reporting from washington the federal District Court bench in New York, a post she did not publicly aspire to.

Interviews with associates from the 1980s suggest that it was a series of influential mentors, like Cabranes, who helped her build a civic resume and eventually pushed her toward a judgeship. Sotomayor, now 54 and a federal appellate judge, was nominated last monthto replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter. If confirmed, she would be the high first Latino justice and its third woman. Cabranes declined to be interviewed.

But in an e-mail message, he confirmed his role in steering Sotomayor to the PRLDEF board, as well as recommending herto Manhattan Dist. Atty. Robert Morgenthau for her first job. Sotomayor worked as a prosecutor in Mor- office from 1979 to 1984. have a lot of talented people coming though here.

She was one of the top people. Smart, hard-working, a lot of common said Morgen- thau, who recommended Soto- mayorfor a post on a city campaign board and for her District Court judgeship. Sotomayor also received crucial boosts from the late David Botwinik, a partner at Pavia Harcourt, a small New York law firm she joined in 1984, and from his boyhood friend, Judah Gribetz, an attorney and longtime advisor to New York politicians. In 1987, the two men urged In late 1979, Cesar Perales, the head of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, fielded an unusual request from Jose Cabranes, a federal judge and a leading figure in Latino legal circles: Would he place Sonia Sotomayor, a recent Yale Law School graduate, on his board? Perales normally tried to stock his board with people who had money or connections that could benefit the fund, the most important Puerto Rican legal advocacy group. Sotomayor had neither.

But he deferred to Cabranes and put Sotomayor on his board. Cabranes, who had been general counsel at Yale University before moving to the bench, her patron, her mentor. He knew her. He thought she was a good Perales said. Sotomayor went on to serve on the PRLDEF board for a dozen years.The appointment becamea kind of template for her career leading up to her 1992confirmation for a seat on New York Democratic Gov.

Mario Cuomo to consider Sotomayor for a position in state government. With that assist, Sotomayor initially inquired about a state job as general counsel for the Urban Development which built state-subsidized housing. But Sotomayor so impressed gubernatorial staffers that they urged her take on a bigger job. floored said Ellen Conovitz, appointments secretary at the time. The bigger job turned out to be a seat on the board of the State of New York Mortgage Agency, a provider of mortgages for low-income residents.

Among board members with strong personalities, was very prepared and thoughtful, and a voice of said Andrew Goldman, the former executive vice president. found her to be direct, which I The following year, Morgen- thau recommended Sotomayor to the administration of Mayor Ed Koch for a seat on a newly formed five-member New York Campaign Finance Board, which among other tasks distributed public funding for local elections. Sotomayor was nosed and and more of a stickler for the rules than some other members, said board colleague James I. Lewis. According to Lewis, Sotomayor wanted the board to sanction the 1989 mayoral campaign of Democrat David Dinkinsfor sloppy financial record-keeping.

But Lewis and other board members won out with an argument for leniency. felt like a Lewis said. Dinkins the same thing in Although she had a strong desire to give back to her community, Sotomayor had to be nudged into applying for a judgeship, said Richard Mattiaccio, a former partner at Pavia Harcourt. Mattiaccio recalled hearing that Sotomayor was about to receive an endorsement from U.S. Sen.

Daniel Patrick Moyni- a seat on the bench and heading happily into office to try to learn more. asked David, did this He said, just decided her name should be in the It initiative. It was application went to Gribetz, who at the time was the gatekeeper for screening committee. Moynihan was taken by background and her achievements, Gribetz said. interest was in the pursuit of excellence and in the pursuit of diversity, which are not mutually Gribetz said.

James Oliphant in the Washington bureau contributed to this report. Brendan Smialowski Bloomberg News NOMINEE: Sonia Sotomayor, in the background, in Washington, worked up a civic resume before becoming a judge. A career marked by mentors Sotomayor was nudged into the judiciary, associates say, with boosts from key figures who believed in her. Andrew Zajac reporting from washington The federal government on Friday set a deadline for Pennsylvania landowners who have refused to give up their property so that a memorial to United Airlines Flight 93 can be built. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told landowners that they have one week to reach sale agreements with the National Park Service before the agency exercises eminent domain to acquire the 500 remaining acres for the memorial, at the site where the hijacked plane crashed on Sept.

11, 2001. On Friday, a delegation that included Salazar and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) met with the property owners near Shanksville, a tiny rural town about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The park service, an agency of the Interior Department, has reached agreements to purchase nearly 1,000 acres from other landowners in the area, but it has failed to persuade the six families that own the rest of the land to sell. Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoffblamed the impasse on miscommunication on both hope today has cleared the she said.

One obstacle is that some landowners think been offered enough money. Federal law prohibits the government from paying more than market The government wants the $58-million memorial to be completed by the 10-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Flight 93 was traveling from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco when it was hijacked by planned to crash it in Some of the 40 passengers and crew fought back, and the plane crashed as they were trying to gain control of the cockpit. More than a million people have paid their respects at a temporary memorial at the site, according to the park service. In 2002, Congress passed the Flight 93 National Memorial Actto establish a memorial site, which will include a monument designed by Los Angeles architect Paul Murdoch.

The project will be paid for by federal and state funds and $30million in private donations. Some members of the memorial group Families of Flight 93attended meeting and later released a statement urging officials to meet the 2011 completion deadline. Not everyone welcomes the project. Awoman who answered the phone at the country store in who did not wish to be identified, said that many residents worry what the memorial will meanfor local revenue, because government- owned land is not taxed. schools are going to losemoney because of that damn she said.

Aspokeswoman for the park service said that when federal land is in the boundaries of a local government, the federal government typically makes payments in lieu of taxes. kate.linthicum@latimes.com Deadline set for Flight 93 land sales The government will claim eminent domain for a memorial site if Pennsylvania owners reach a deal. Kate Linthicum Roger Vogel (Somerset County, Pa.) Daily American TRIBUTES: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar visits the temporary memorial to those lost on Flight 93. ARKANSAS Yemen denies torture The man accused of killing an Army private outside a recruiting center never suffered torture or beatings while jailed on an immigration violation in Yemen, an official with the embassy said. Embassy spokesman Mohammed Albashadenied claims by Abdulhakim Mu- that abuse radicalized the man into becoming a terrorist.

Instead, Albasha said, the once-idealistic college student from Tennessee found his own way to religious anger after converting to Islam in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Muhammad, 23, appeared briefly in Little Rock District Court. Judge Alice Lightleap- pointed lawyer Jim Hensleyto represent him. Muhammad has pleaded not guilty to a capital murder charge in the death Monday of Pvt.

William Long. Another soldier, Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, was wounded in the shooting. FLORIDA Man pleads guilty in faked death AU.S. money manager pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from a plot to fake his own death in a small-plane crash in Florida to avoid financial fraud charges in Indiana.

Marcus Schrenker, 38, parachuted out of his plane over Alabama in January and let it continue to fly on eventually crashed in Florida. He was arrested a day later at a Florida campsite. In U.S. District Court in Pensacola, Schrenker pleaded guilty to deliberately crashing a plane and placing false distress calls. He still faces the financial fraud charges in Indiana.

NEW YORK Body unnoticed in ticketed van decomposing body inside a minivan covered in parking tickets went undiscovered for weeks because the windows were apparently tinted and ticketing offi- cers normally search cars, police said. George Morales, 59, died naturally from heart disease, the medical office said. The body was found in the back seat Wednesday when a city marshal tried to tow the vehicle from beneath an overpass on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, police said. NEW HAMPSHIRE Submarine sailors held in beating Two nuclear submarine sailors are accused of beating a man and leaving him near death on a street in Portsmouth, N.H. Seamen Gerald Smith of Hawaii and Sandy Portobanco of Inglewooddid not contest in court that police had probable cause to arrest them in the May 22 beating of Stephen Huntress.

Huntress is a former town council member in Kittery, Maine. He suffered serious injuries, including skull fractures, and remains hospitalized. The sailors, from the sub- marineGreeneville, say Huntress insulted the Navy. wire reports NATIONAL BRIEFING.