A long-time businessman in Stockton, California, Lyle Burgess, pleaded no contest to a charge of statutory rape of a 5-year-old. His punishment: 90 days of house arrest and five years of information probation, KTXL-TV reported.
About The Sentence
To make matters even worse, the 79-year-old does not have to register as a sex offender.
“A 5-6-year-old little girl was molested. Normally the sentence is state prison and then when you’re released, you have to register as a sex offender,” family attorney Ken Meleyco said. “He’s obviously very wealthy and it’s just an example of how the wealthy people, time and time again, escape the penalty for what they did.”
“It is just appalling that somebody commits an offense like this and you have protections like 290 (failure to register as a sex offender) and Jessica’s Law and someone has the propensity to harm children and now nobody is warned,” Davenport told The Stockton Record.
According to Burgess’ attorney, Gregory Davenport, the family is doing this with an agenda in mind.
“I believe the allegations are motivated by greed,” Davenport told The Stockton Record. “They are using this instance to try to gain financially.”
About The Assault
The rape in question allegedly took place in 2016 when Burgess — a trusted family friend and someone who knew the dad for more than two decades — invited the family to his cabin in Calaveras County, The Sacramento Bee reported.
“They trusted this man, he was a family friend, and he took advantage of them,” Meleyco told KMOV-TV.
Meleyco says the now 7-year-old is not doing very well. “She’s showing all the symptoms of somebody who’s been molested. She’s in counseling, and she’s gonna be in counseling all her life.”
The Stockton Record details the parents’ testimony:
“I’m incredibly disgusted by his behavior and continuously disgusted by his lies,” she said before describing his sentence as “getting off so easy” and not registering as a sex offender.
“I want other kids to be protected by possible future abuse by this man,” she said.
The victim’s father, who has known Burgess for more than two decades, said: “I don’t have too many prized possessions in this world other than my family. (My daughter) will remember this the rest of her life. She sleeps on the floor outside our room.”
San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Ron Northup told the parents that their testimony makes an impact but, because the please was negotiated, “courts are somewhat limited” in how they sentence a case.
The Calls For Investigation
Now, a petition has surfaced, urging investigators to look into why Burgess’ sentence was “so lenient.”
Lyle Burgess, a wealthy man who lives in Stockton, sexaully [sic] assaulted a five year old girl. He was sentenced by San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Ron Northup to either 90 days in an alternative-work program or in-home detention plus five years of informal probation! He doesn’t even have to register as a sex offender! House arrest and probation?! How does this happen?
This child deserves justice! She deserves to know that people care enough to make sure this man can never hurt her or any other child again! She will have to deal with this for the rest of her life, and her abuser is basically getting a slap on the wrist.
Please sign and share this petition! Put pressure on the people who can investigate why his sentence is so lenient. Maybe there is a way he can be re-sentenced. Thank you!
The petition currently has 148 signatures at the time of publishing.
Barack Obama is speaking out about how he wants to use the film projects he develops with Netflix to heal the political divide and tell America’s stories.
Earlier this week, Netflix announced it is partnering with Barack and Michelle Obama to develop original content for the video streaming giant. Initially, no real details were released — including the actual price tag of the contract. But three days later Obama has filled in some of the blanks about his plans, Business Insider reported.
Speaking at a Las Vegas tech conference hosted by cybersecurity company Okta, Obama waxed poetic about the “stories” Americans have to tell and said he wants to use his multi-year contract with Netflix to help “train the next generation of leaders.”
Barack Obama said he relied on “stories” to fuel his political career. “Everyone has a story that is pretty sacred” about their life, Obama said. Listening to people’s stories is what helped him better serve, he explained.
“We want to tell stories. This [Netflix deal] becomes a platform. We are interested in lifting people up and identifying people doing amazing work,” Obama said, adding, “We did this in the White House.”
Obama related meetings to hear the stories of Hamilton creator and Broadway producer Lin-Manuel Miranda and rocker Bruce Springsteen, and he noted that identifying talent in a similar fashion is his intent with Netflix.
Obama said he wants to produce stories “we think are important, and lift up and identify talent, that can amplify the connections between all of us. I continue to believe that if we are hearing each other’s stories and recognizing ourselves in each other, then our democracy works.”
“We are all human. I know this sounds trite, and yet, right now globally, we have competing narratives,” Obama said.
The ex-president also warned against “tribalism,” saying that when people feel threatened, “We go tribal. We go ethnic. We pull in, we push away.”
He concluded saying he wants to use Netflix to help “set up institutions based on rule of law and a sense of principals and the dignity and worth of every individual.”
Finally, after noting there is still a “clash” in the country, Obama told the crowd what he hopes his new work will do.
“I’m putting my money on the latter way,” Obama said. “That’s what we hope to be a voice to, through Netflix and through my foundation, where we’re identifying and training the next generation of leaders here in the United States and around the world. So they can start sharing their stories and cooperating.”
I Thought Gays Were Suppose To Be Smart! But Wait They Do Stick Things Up The Rear So I Guess Not.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Friday that he believes the FBI was using a “confidential informant” rather than a “spy” to keep tabs on the 2016 Trump campaign.
Graham admitted that he isn’t sure if the use of a confidential informant was appropriate, but would not call the informant a “spy.”
Both Are Democrats With R’s In front Of Their Names.
“A confidential informant is not a spy,” Graham said, according to a show transcript. “I don’t know if there’s a reason to have a confidential informant following a campaign.”
“There should be some rules about surveilling a major party nominee’s campaign,” he added. “And there probably is not any.”
Hewitt asked specifically if he thinks Trump was wrong to call the informant a spy, and Graham said, “I don’t think he’s a spy.”
People These Guys Believe They Know What’s Best For You. Both Are Damn Traitors.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) on Monday evening became the first sitting GOP member of the House of Representatives to publicly call for the removal of House Speaker Paul Ryan now, rather than on Ryan’s planned schedule post-election, during an interview onBreitbart News Tonight on SiriusXM.
During a discussion with host and Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour about Ryan’s failures on immigration with a looming pro-amnesty discharge petition hanging in the balance, Gosar hammered the entire current leadership team.
“Part of the problem is I think the whole leadership team is toxic,” Gosar said. “And that’s part of the problem. How did we choose this? These are the same group of people that conveyed the jurisdiction of the omnibus. These are the same group of leaders that haven’t honored a promise.”
Gosar pointed to the founding chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), as a solid replacement of Ryan when the time comes. Mansour had asked him about a call from Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney—a Freedom Caucus House member before he joined President Donald Trump’s administration—for Ryan to be removed now to force House Democrats to demonstrate in a floor Speakership vote their true allegiance to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
“There’s a movement of people that are backing Jim Jordan from the Freedom Caucus,” Gosar said. “He would be a great person to get back to having leadership for change and well-statute reform. That’s how you look at this: it’s got to be somebody that is going to bring back good process which brings back good policy which builds good politics. This is problematic.”
News broke this weekend that a group of grassroots conservatives—well more than a hundred of them—are calling to draft Jordan for the speakership.
He further elaborated on his support for Jordan for Speaker.
“I think Jim Jordan is a great person. I think the move is afoot to draft Jim Jordan,” Gosar said. “I think if the votes were already had I think the replacement would have already been there. I think the further this goes down the road—I think this was the latest warning call in regards to that process, on the farm bill. I think it’s time. I think it would energize our base. It would get somebody who would actually get back the jurisdiction and the clout to Congress and the House as equal footings with the Senate and stop taking this crap allowing the Senate to back us into corners and mitigate with ourselves instead of being a fair and equal component like the Senate. This would be the perfect scenario—otherwise we’re going to have the same kind of problems over and over again.”
When Mansour asked again if Gosar was specifically saying call the vote for Speaker now and elect Jordan before the election in November, he replied: “Absolutely.”
“It allows us to pony up but it also allows us to get things done,” Gosar said. “Because we haven’t seen it done.”
Gosar listed a number of things Ryan promised but has not delivered as speaker.
This all comes amid a fraught political time for the House GOP leadership. Ryan, who announced he is not seeking re-election thereby ceding his authority as Speaker by taking a lame duck approach to the midterm elections, is widely viewed as not doing enough to stop an effort by pro-amnesty open borders Republicans to use a discharge petition to force the issue of amnesty onto the floor of the House of Representatives.
“Once again, the damage is done because if you’re a member of the moderates why would you sign onto that when you know you can have the discharge petition come forward if this Goodlatte bill doesn’t come forward? So they’ve played this whole hand out publicly which is totally bananas,” Gosar said.
Meanwhile, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy—the presumed heir apparent as Speaker—has a major uphill battle ahead of him to convince members like Gosar and other conservatives to vote for him if and when he does have a speakership vote on the floor. While McCarthy is indeed personally close with President Trump, he was thwarted by these same conservatives in his last bid for speakership back in 2015 which cleared the way for Ryan’s ascendancy to third place in the line of the presidential succession. McCarthy could very well win them over in the end, but he has an enormous amount of work to do—and palling around with Ryan, when Ryan is not stopping this discharge petition, does not help his case.
Waiting in the wings is House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, also viewed as a potential contender for the speakership should McCarthy not succeed. Scalise would face many of the same hurdles as McCarthy faces.
It remains to be seen how this all will go down but one thing is certain at this stage: Ryan is in serious trouble, and is very likely to not survive to his desired expiration date at the beginning of next year at the end of this Congress.
Everyone From Obama’s Administration Should Be In Jail.
President Donald J. Trump announced his decision to demand an official investigation of former President Barack Obama’s administration on Sunday for infiltrating or surveilling his presidential campaign for political reasons.
“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday afternoon.
Trump frequently blames investigations of his campaign on Obama, suggesting that politically motivated investigators were unfairly targeting his campaign.
He spent most of Sunday morning sharing his thoughts on Twitter about the ongoing Russia investigation, suggesting that the ongoing “witch hunt” was out of control. “Things are really getting ridiculous,” Trump wrote, noting that so far there was no collusion found by special investigators.
He criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team as “13 Angry and heavily conflicted Democrats” who were part of the Obama administration.
“STOP!” he wrote. “They have found no collusion with Russia, No obstruction.”
Trump again redirected the continuing investigation towards failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Democrats, Tony Podesta, the DNC, and politically biased FBI officials.
“Republicans and real Americans should start getting tough on this Scam,” he wrote.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!
Last week, reports indicated Stefan Halper, a Cambridge professor and longtime aide to some of Washington’s most powerful figures, was outed as an FBI informant planted inside Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The New York Post writes:
Halper made his first overture when he met with Page at a British symposium. The two remained in regular contact for more than a year, meeting at Halper’s Virginia farm and in Washington, DC, as well as exchanging emails.
The professor met with Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis in late August, offering his services as a foreign-policy adviser, The Washington Post reported Friday, without naming the academic.
…
Days later, Halper contacted Papadopoulos by e-mail. The professor offered the young and inexperienced campaign aide $3,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to London, ostensibly to write a paper about energy in the eastern Mediterranean region.
Here are a few fast facts about Halper’s history in politics.
Got His Start in Nixon/Ford Years
The Stanford and Oxford-educated Halper started his career in government in 1971 as a member of President Richard Nixon’s Domestic Policy Council. The foreign policy expert served as the Office of Management and Budget’s Assistant Director of Management and Evaluation Division between 1973-1974. Halper then served as an assistant to all three of President Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staffs — Alexander Haig, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney — until 1977.
Accused of Leading a Spy Ring Inside Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Campaign
The Reagan-Bush presidential campaign hired Halper to serve as Director of Policy Coordination in 1980 and would later be embroiled in the Debategate affair, a scandal in which CIA operatives were accused of leaking the Carter campaign’s foreign policy positions to the Republican ticket.
Four decades ago, Halper was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election, in which the Reagan campaign – using CIA officials managed by Halper, reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush – got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter’s foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering.
Halper also worked as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs during President Ronald Reagan’s first term.
Had a Stint as a Bank Executive
In 1984, Halper was chairman of three financial institutions — National Bank of Northern Virginia, Palmer National Bank, and George Washington National Bank. White House official Oliver North wired loaned funds from the Palmer National Bank to a Swiss bank account, which were later used to aid the contras.
Believed Hillary Clinton Would Be a Better Steward for U.S.-UK Relations
In March 2016, Halper told Russia’s Sputnik News that he believed then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton would prove to be a steadier hand in preserving the “special relationship” enjoyed by the United States and Britain.
“I believe Clinton would be best for US-UK relations and for relations with the European Union. Clinton is well-known, deeply experienced and predictable. US-UK relations will remain steady regardless of the winner although Clinton will be less disruptive over time,” Halper said.
