Police Investigations

LONDON - A senior police officer was given a 15-month term in prison Friday, the first person sentenced in the wide-ranging phone-hacking inquiry in Britain.   Det. Chief Inspector April Casburn was convicted last month of illegally attempting to sell information to a tabloid journalist in 2010. Judge Adrian Fulford was handed down by who called her actions "a corrupt attempt to make money out of sensitive and potentially very damaging information," according to a BBC report. Scotland Yard, where Casburn had headed the counter-terrorism squad at the time of her offense, issued a statement expressing its “great disappointment” that she “abused her position.” During her trial, Casburn spoke of her unhappiness at work and anger that counter-terrorist officers were diverted to investigate accusations that the now-defunct News of the World tabloid had made extensive use of phone hacking to gain news scoops.

Over the last decade, there have been numerous calls to prosecute Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and his top aides for their mishandling of clergy sex abuse. At least three grand juries, two district attorneys and a U.S. attorney have subpoenaed documents and summoned witnesses. None of those cases resulted in charges against the archdiocese's hierarchy. The release this week of a trove of internal church records showing a concerted effort to hide abuse from police triggered new demands from victims and church critics that Mahony and his advisors be held criminally accountable.

LONDON - A senior Scotland Yard detective was found guilty Thursday of trying to sell confidential information to a tabloid in the first conviction of a police officer in a corruption probe spawned by Britain's phone-hacking scandal. A London jury took just a few hours to find Det. Chief Inspector April Casburn, one of the force's highest-ranking female detectives, guilty of misconduct in public office for leaking details of the phone-hacking investigation and seeking payment for it. The publication to which she made the offer, the News of the World, was the very newspaper under investigation for allegedly tapping into the private voicemails of thousands of people to feed its appetite for scoops.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has refused for more than two years to allow its agents to cooperate with a Los Angeles Police Department investigation into the death of a drug suspect shortly after he was arrested in a DEA operation, according to LAPD records. The LAPD's homicide investigation has effectively stalled, and officials said in documents reviewed by The Times that without assistance from the DEA they cannot determine how the man's fatal injuries were inflicted.

Police arrested the top official in the Cayman Islands on Tuesday morning on suspicion of corruption, including abuse of office, theft and conflict of interest, the latest chapter in an ongoing investigation in the British territory famed as both a tax haven and a Caribbean idyll. Premier McKeeva Bush, 57, was taken into custody at his home on Grand Cayman island, the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service said in a brief statement. The Cayman Islands premier was detained “in connection with a number of ongoing police investigations,” it said, including allegations tied to misusing a government credit card and importing explosive substances without the proper permits.

Australia is launching a federal investigation into sexual abuse of children, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced Monday. The decision came after a string of accusations surrounding the Roman Catholic Church outraged Australians and spurred regional inquiries. The royal commission will center on institutional responses to allegations of such “insidious, evil acts,” Gillard said, scrutinizing religious and government institutions, schools and other organizations. “I believe we must do everything we can to make sure that what has happened in the past is never allowed to happen again,” the prime minister said.

ST. LOUIS - Law enforcement officials are investigating threats that were made against Rep. Todd Akin, the Missouri Republican who sparked controversy when he said that women's bodies can somehow prevent pregnancy in the instance of a “legitimate rape.” Akin spokesman Steve Taylor said in a statement that the congressman “has received threats of rape of his official staff, family and the congressman himself along with suggestions that the...

Now even the Church of England has pulled its support. Tuesday, the Church of England announced that it had sold its holdings in Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate, News Corp., "on the advice of the Church's Ethical Investment Advisory Group. "  The church and its pension board held a relatively small stake in the New York-based media company, shares worth about $2.5 million. Still, the divestiture could loom large in spiritual and symbolic terms. In a news release, the church said it tried to counsel News Corp.

Several violent incidents, including the shooting of a 13-year-old boy, have sparked worries of renewed gang activity in a northeast Los Angeles neighborhood where city authorities have invested many resources to combat a notorious gang. Years after a largely successful effort to clear a subgroup of the Avenues gang from Drew Street in Glassell Park, authorities say it appears that rival gangs are looking to exact revenge on, or humiliate, a once powerful and predatory enemy. "I think there's payback a little bit there," said LAPD Lt. David Kowalski, supervisor of the Northeast Division's gang unit.

When filmmaker Sofia Coppola set out to tell the story of the "bling ring," she wanted the movie to have an authentic, docudrama sensibility. So the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department investigator who cracked the case of the starry-eyed youths from the San Fernando Valley. Four years ago, their lust for stardom and money led them to raid the homes of young Hollywood, making off with Paris Hilton's designer clothes and Lindsay Lohan's artwork.