By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — States around the country are turning to the Justice Department for help in locating an execution drug, the Associated Press reports. AP reported that 13 states signed a letter sent to the Justice Department asking for help scoring sodium thiopental after the only U.S. manufacturer stopped producing it and…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Four Alabama state legislators, three lobbyists, two business owners and one of their employees and an employee of legislature were indicted in a bribery scheme to promote legislation to legalize electronic bingo machines, the Justice Department announced Monday. “Today, charges were unsealed against 11 legislators, businessmen, lobbyists and associates who, together,…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The late “original civil rights photographer” Ernest Withers snapped shots of history: the motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot; King riding one of the first desegregated buses in Alabama. But there was a little known side to the man who had a front row seat in the civil rights…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Massachusetts native Richard DesLauriers, who has served as deputy assistant director of Counterintelligence at FBI headquarters, has been tapped to head the agency’s Boston office. He replaces Warren T. Bamford, who recently retired from the agency. DesLauriers entered the FBI in 1987 and was first assigned to the Birmingham, Ala. office…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The FBI on Wednesday defended itself against accusations that it screwed up in the case involving Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the death of a woman in Peru. He has also long been a suspect in the death of Natalee Holloway, the Alabama high school teen who disappeared…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — With the Obama administration seething over the Gulf oil spill, a criminal probe may be one way to express anger against BP. The Washington Post reports that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will visit the out-control spill in the Gulf on Tuesday and meet with U.S. Attorneys from…
FBI Agent Debra Mack By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — Debra Mack, the first African American female to head the FBI Mobile, Ala., office, is stepping down under a cloud of controversy. WKRG tv reports that Mack had been the subject of a two-year internal investigation involving a high ranking local politician. A source tells…
It’s a start, but the administration has a long way to go in filling all the U.S. Attorney spots. Unfortunately, there have been so many distractions since President Obama took office. MARY ORNDORFF Birmingham News Washington correspondent WASHINGTON – Joyce Vance had solid bipartisan support to become the top federal prosecutor in the northern district…
