larryyellen's Blog

Our story Wednesday night disclosed a judgment of more than half a million dollars against a Chicago nightclub, "WET"  for serving imitations of Red Bull instead of the real thing. This was not the first time that Red Bull had sued clubs for "passing off" other mixers as Red Bull. There were cases in Houston ($150,000), Fort Lauderdale ($75,000) and Orlando. This judgment, however, appears to involved the largest dollar amount yet.

As we pointed out in our story Thursday night, Tracy Rizzo is starting her own private detectives agency, following in the footsteps of her father Ernie. She emphasizes, however, that she is not giving up her law practice, only adding to it.

Wednesday night, we revealed that at least two employees in the Social Security department are under investigation for possible violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits political activity by federal employees. We mentioned that the penalties can range from termination down to a 30-day suspension without pay; what I didn't have time to point out is that the presumptive penalty if convicted is termination, it's then up to the employee to seek a lesser penalty. Prosecutors say they have not yet officially opened a case file for the two employees; the investigation is still preliminary.

In our story this week revealing how investigators in Lake County are using file-sharing programs to track down child pornography cases, we didn't have time to explain that the leads for these cases come from police all over the country. In the two cases we mentioned, it was a Wheaton police officer, a member of the Illinois Crimes Against Children task force (ICAC), who was using Limewire to search for child porn. When he located potential violators in Lake County, he notified investigators there and they took over the cases. One reason that police aren't spending more time on Limewire, looking for such cases, is that many of the suspects they discover are in far-away jurisdictions.

Our story Sunday night would not have been possible without the cooperation of John Schofield, a marine veteran who was always ready to challenge veterans who appeared to be wearing medals they had not earned. As we reported, Mr. Schofield passed away shortly before our story aired; his efforts will surely be missed. Our thoughts are with his family.

Prison officials at Oxford told the media on Wednesday that former Gov. George Ryan was allowed to enter the prison camp through a rear, delivery  entrance because of concerns about security and safety. They must have thought that the two dozen reporters and cameraman who had been camped out (some of them all night) were preparing to storm the prison entrance, when Ryan arrived. Just for the record, during the two days reporters were on the scene, I don't believe any of them stepped foot on prison property, as we had been warned not to do. Photographers knew they might miss the picture of Gov. Ryan entering the front door, but --as far as I know --none of them were willing to risk getting arrested to get the picture.  But Oxford prison officials apparently felt otherwise, and decided that  allowing a convicted felon to enter through a back door was a necessity, regardless of the message it sent to the law-abiding citizens who pay their salaries.