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  Criminal Defense Law Firm - Austin

• At least Austin isn’t the DWI Fatality capital

  I saw this on the Houston Chronicles’s website www.chron.com. They make a good point that when you have that many people spread about and no useful public transportation, people are going to drink and drive and wind up killing someone. I know that there are people out there that say “well, you just shouldn’t drink and drive”. We know that, but people still do it. I heard a great story the other day about how in Japan, all the business people drink after work every day. Then around 9-11pm the subways are full of drunk business people. The guy who told the story  said there are very few DWI’s in Japan.

  DWI deaths called ‘pandemic’ in Houston

  By JAMES PINKERTON Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
  

  Harris County has the highest rate of alcohol-related traffic deaths among the nation’s most populous counties, researchers say, and a series of horrific crashes blamed on drunken drivers in recent days seems to back the claim.

  Experts agree the county’s high DWI fatality rate is partly a byproduct of limited public transportation for the region’s 3.9 million residents and an urban sprawl leading them to drive many miles. Stepped-up enforcement by more officers patrolling the roadways at peak times for drunken driving offenses, meanwhile, keeps the county jail full of DWI suspects. Adding to the deadly mix is a stubborn reluctance to rely on designated drivers, or cabs and other services that keep the intoxicated from driving.

  “We don’t make our plans before we drink, we try to figure out how we’re going to deal with it after we start drinking – that’s our biggest problem,” said officer Paul Lassalle, with the Houston Police Department’s DWI task force.

  District Attorney Pat Lykos, citing around 10,000 driving while intoxicated cases filed each year, has called the county’s DWI problem a “pandemic plague.”

  The most recent victims of crashes that authorities have blamed on intoxicated drivers include: a housewife from The Woodlands whose pickup was forced off a Hardy Toll Road overpass, a Pakistani immigrant killed while helping a stranded motorist on the Southwest Freeway, a volunteer firefighter from Cy-Fair left legless after being hit in an auto parts store parking lot, and a veteran Houston police officer critically injured while directing traffic around a crash on the Southwest Freeway.

  Lykos hopes to lower DWI rates by offering first-time offenders a pretrial probation term that avoids a conviction, in hopes of getting more into treatment. In recent years, most of those charged with drunken driving in Harris County have pleaded guilty, served jail time and paid a fine, rather than be placed on supervised probation where alcohol education and treatment assessment is mandatory. Probation for DWI fell from 4,700 cases in 2000 to 2,150 in 2007, according to the district attorney’s office.
  Not really that bad?

  Lykos announced the new DWI policy at a recent meeting of the Houston/Harris County Office of Drug Policy, which released a report noting the county has been designated the worst in the nation for alcohol-related fatalities per capita. And about 60 percent of the county’s traffic fatalities are alcohol-related, twice the national average, the report states.

  Hope Rangel, head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s Houston-area chapter, said those who drink any amount of alcohol should not drive.

  “It’s about choice. We don’t have enough folks who are really being cognizant about what their responsibility as a driver is when they get behind the wheel of a car,” Rangel said.

  But some question that worst county designation, arguing the statistics are manipulated to make a serious problem appear worse.

  “I’m not saying there are no intoxicated drivers; clearly there are. But I don’t think it’s as bad as statistics make it appear,” said attorney JoAnne Musick, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association. “As far as I’ve been able to tell, the statistics don’t differentiate between those that are DWIs and those that are not.”
  Statistics can differ

  Finding the exact number of DWI fatalities in Harris County can be confusing.

  The city-county report, citing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and other sources, lists 174 fatalities in 2006 involving drivers who were legally drunk. In contrast, The Texas Department of Transportation lists a significantly lower toll of 145 deaths in 2006 in crashes in which a driver had any measurable amount of alcohol.

  Lassalle, with HPD’s DWI task force, provided figures showing the NHTSA ranked Harris County first in per-capita alcohol-related deaths among 10 of the nation’s most populous counties in 2006 based on 232 alcohol-related traffic deaths and 203 traffic deaths in which a driver was legally drunk. Second was Dallas County, followed by Phoenix’s Maricopa County.

  “You have a huge population covering a huge territory and they’re doing it all in their own vehicles,” Lassalle said.

  Houston’s DWI task force receives about $480,000 a year in grants to pay overtime for officers to catch and process drunken drivers, said task force member Don Egdorf, also HPD’s liaison with the district attorney’s vehicular crimes unit. “I don’t know if there are more drunks on the streets, but there are more officers looking for the drunks so there are more of them getting picked up,” he said.

  Troy McKinney, a Houston attorney who specializes in defending DWI cases, said alcohol-related deaths are being “massively overstated” and notes large numbers of DWI cases are eventually dismissed by the courts.

  “The realty today is, if you’re drinking and driving and are stopped by police, you’re going to jail whether you’re intoxicated or not. That’s the default,” McKinney said. “The attitude making its way to the government is: People shouldn’t be drinking and driving at all, but it’s not against the law.”

• Not guilty for murder

  You know, there is very little news coverage of not guilty verdicts. I am not sure why, but most news sources only show guilty verdicts and stiff sentences. They rarely show when someone is acquitted of a crime even though it happens quite frequently. In my opinion, this lack of coverage of the not guilty leads people to believe that prosecutors only try cases where the offender is guilty. These same people are the types that show up for jury duty.

  I don’t know much about this case, but I am guessing that the defendant had a great defense, but no one would dismiss the case. The cops wouldn’t let the case go and neither would the proseuctors. Why? Probably because you have a dead body and that persons family wanting some sort of justice. Both prosecutors and police officers have a hard time telling some family members that the deceased got what was coming to him. They would rather let a jury tell them that. It sucks for the accused because he had to put his life on the line for something he didn’t do.

  from statesman.com:

  Man acquitted in fatal shooting

  A Travis County jury on Monday found an Austin restaurant owner not guilty of murder in a 2008 fatal shooting at his home, according to Pat McNelis, one of the man’s defense lawyers.

  Efrain Arrellano, 44, was accused of killing Jorge Zarco Fajuardo, 29, on Feb. 9, 2008. Arrellano’s lawyers, McNelis and Leonard Martinez, said it was done in self-defense. McNelis said that three brothers, including Fajuardo, were drinking that night at Arrellano’s house on Quail Meadow Drive, near Rundberg Lane and North Lamar Boulevard. They got into an argument that led to an altercation in which the brothers assaulted Arrellano, McNelis said.

  That’s when Arrellano shot at them, McNelis said. Prosecutors argued that Arellano shot without provocation.

  Arrellano left for his native Mexico after the shooting but returned to the United States when he learned there was a murder warrant for him, McNelis said. He has lived in the United States for 25 years and is the owner of Taco More on Rundberg.

• New DWI Program in Harris County

  I found this today and while it is the preliminary stages, it will be nice to see how it works out. It seems like every other misdemeanor crime can be reduced or at least deferred to avoid a conviction, but if you have no criminal history and get a first offense DWI, there is no way to keep it off your record unless it gets reduced to a non-DWI offense or  you win at trial.

  from www.chron.com

  DWI plan’s details need work
  By LISA FALKENBERG Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
  June 3, 2009, 10:48PM

  Pat Lykos knows how she sounds when she talks about the potential impact of her new plan to give first-offender drunken drivers a second chance.

  “I sound like a missionary, don’t I?” the Harris County district attorney joked Wednesday during a visit with the Houston Chronicle editorial board.

  Her comments certainly don’t resemble any I recall from her red-meat prosecutor predecessor. Or even those of your typical tough-on-crime Republican.

  But why should Lykos willfully bind herself to party stereotypes and failing crime-fighting strategies simply because that’s the way it’s always been done?

  Her outside-the-box idea to offer a misdemeanor diversion program to first-time offenders, not just for DWIs but for misdemeanor drug possession and small theft cases as well, is refreshing. The point is to reduce the number of repeat offenders, but, in the process, it could help unclog the courts and jails.

  “Clearly, something has to be done because it’s a pandemic in Harris County,” Lykos said.

  But the lack of details Lykos provided last week when she first announced her program was a little troubling.

  “It has led to so much conversation,” Hope Rangel of Mothers Against Drunk Driving said about the program. “But it’s really no conversation. It’s questions. And nobody has the answers.”

  Lykos said that’s because news broke a bit prematurely. She and former Judge Roger Bridgwater, who would be heading up the program, told the editorial board it could be another month before it’s fully designed, and August before the first part is implemented.

  On Wednesday, they provided some preliminary answers to several burning questions:

  • How do they expect it to work? To avoid a formal, record-staining conviction, the offender would sign a contract pleading guilty to the offense, waiving rights to a jury trial and appeals, and agreeing to meet certain conditions. Those could include alcohol treatment and a mandatory breath alcohol ignition interlock device in his or her car for at least six months, for which the offender would pay. Completion of the program could take up to two years. Those who reject the deal could see prosecutors argue for harsher sentences, Lykos said.

  • Will the DA’s Office use discretion in who can take part? Yes, after considering the evidence and conducting drug and alcohol screens (paid for by the offender), vetting, and background checks to make sure the person is a “true first offender,” meaning no record for any offense. But Lykos noted that discretion won’t be abused: “It’s going to be uniformly applied so it’s not just given to certain favored people who have certain favored lawyers.”

  • If the program helps avoid that first-time conviction, what’s to keep someone from becoming a repeat first-offender? Lykos said records on program participants will be public, to be considered for any future offenses in Harris or other counties, and available in the Harris County crime database, as well as ones maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the FBI. Bridgwater noted that the required guilty plea would help ensure that enhanced penalties could be assessed for future offenses. But, he said, if the person is caught driving drunk again, that second offense would be treated as the first.

  Lykos was harshly critical of some other counties that allow DWI offenders to plead to lesser charges and was careful to differentiate her idea, saying, “We’re not going to engage in any fraud as they do in other counties by calling a DWI something else.”

  Bexar County, for example, has a 1-year-old program that, under certain specific conditions, allows drunken drivers to plead to “obstruction of a highway – intoxication.”

  But Lykos’ own program is far from thoroughly thought-out. A new district attorney launching a controversial program should probably be a little more prepared before going public.

  It was clear in Wednesday’s meeting, which, to be fair, was hastily called, that she and Bridgwater are still on different pages on some things. At one point, he suggested offenders in the program could be fitted with a device that would monitor alcohol consumption at all times, suggesting that the program may prohibit some offenders from simply enjoying a beer at home.

  After a flurry of questions, Lykos backed away from the idea. “I’m not Carrie Nation,” she declared, referring to the hatchet-wielding temperance leader.

  Then, after a few more inquiries from journalists, preoccupied by the apparent affront to Texans’ beer rights, Lykos said: “Could we forget we even talked about having a beer at home? Let’s take that off the table right now.”

  With a laugh, she added, “I wish I had a Jack and Coke right now.”

  Bridgwater piped up protectively, “She’s not driving.”

• Officials say major Austin-area drug ring cracked

  from statesman.com

  Traffickers had ties to Mexico, Honduras, officials say; 28 already sentenced to federal terms.

  By Tony Plohetski
  AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
  Thursday, June 04, 2009

  Authorities announced Wednesday that they have dismantled a large-scale drug trafficking ring with ties to Mexico and Honduras that operated in Austin and across Central Texas.

  Officials said 28 defendants have already received federal prison sentences in U.S. District Court, including one who was sentenced to 27 years. They said some members of the ring were previously members of the Bloods street gang and provided drugs to current members.

  Authorities said they seized $1 million in drugs – mostly cocaine – cash, cars and jewelry as part of their nearly three-year investigation.

  “This is a great day for the city of Austin and Central Texas, for people who abhor violence and abhor gangs and the violence associated with narcotics and narcotics trafficking,” Police Chief Art Acevedo said during a news conference, which also included representatives from police departments across the region.

  Officials said that in 2006, they began an investigation into increased drug trafficking after noticing a spike in gang and drug activity in various Austin neighborhoods.

  They did not name the neighborhoods, though they said the areas saw jumps in assaults, property crimes, weapons trafficking, home invasion robberies and other activities that police said are often associated with drug trafficking, police said.

  FBI agent Steve Hause said investigators tried to identify suspects throughout all levels of the ring, including those who coordinated operations and those who sold drugs in Austin bars and clubs.

  “It was a goal of this investigation to work it up the line to get the entire conspiracy from the street to Mexico,” Hause said.

  Authorities identified Duane Hosea as the organization’s main leader. He received 27 years in prison.

  “He was very skillful at avoiding surveillance and avoiding his telephone being intercepted,” Hause said. “It took awhile to be able to learn about his organization.”

  Officials said most of the defendants have pleaded guilty and that the minimum sentence was three years.

  “We are thankful there was no spank on the hand,” Acevedo said

• This is just weird

  This is really nuts, it’s odd that you don’t hear about some of the weird things that happen in Austin until the case goes to trial..

  from www.statesman.com

  Man testifies about kidnapping, torture
  ‘Gory’ details ahead in West Campus assault trial, lawyer says.

  By Steven Kreytak
  AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
  Wednesday, June 03, 2009

  Adrian Lopez said that by the time he ended up held captive in the closet of an empty West Campus house in September, the group of men who held him there had punched him, beaten him with a bat and hit him with a shotgun so brutally that he was convinced he was going to die.

  In his own blood, he wrote the street-name initials of his attackers on the closet wall, he told a Travis County jury Tuesday.

  “I thought I was going to die, so that would help the investigators pinpoint who it was,” said Lopez, whom the men had accused of taking heroin from one of them.

  Lopez said his attackers left after he played dead, but not before cutting him repeatedly with a razor blade and injecting him three times with toilet bowl cleaner.

  Lopez’s testimony came during the first day of the aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault trial of Brian Vanfossen, 22, the first man to go to trial in the attack. Five others are also charged in the case and in the Travis County Jail awaiting trial. The kidnapping charge is punishable by up to life in prison, and the assault charge could bring up to 20 years.

  The case, in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court, is expected to last about a week.

  During opening statements, one of Vanfossen’s lawyers said the man was fearful for his life and only cut the victim because a co-defendant ordered him to.

  “The state is going to show you things that will haunt you. They haunt me,” said defense attorney Amber Vazquez Bode. “You are going to see some of the most disturbing, disgusting, gory things that I hope you ever see in your life.”

  Bode said that Matthew Brandon, 21, whose heroin disappeared that night, pushed Vanfossen to participate in the attack. Out of the presence of the jury, she said that Vanfossen has mental disabilities, although during his testimony Lopez described Vanfossen as very smart.

  Brandon’s lawyer declined to comment.

  Also charged with aggravated assault in the case are Justin Minor, 25, Victor Sanborn, 24, Gerald Fuller, 51, and Daniel Silverly, 21. Sanborn also faces an aggravated kidnapping charge.

  Prosecutor Mona Shea said the Sept. 28 attack began late at night in a house in the 900 block of 221/2 Street, about four blocks west of Guadalupe Street.

  That house, according to testimony, had several rooms that were rented to different people. The neighborhood features older apartment complexes, newer multistory condominium complexes and older homes, including a white Victorian-style house next door that in September was empty.

  Lopez said he was homeless at the time and went to the house on 221/2 Street to buy marijuana from Vanfossen, who had been a good friend of his for about three years.

  At one point, Lopez said, some heroin disappeared, and the attention turned to him. Lopez testified that the heroin was in his pocket but that he did not put it there, that it must have stuck to some change he had dropped into the sofa and then returned to his pocket.

  Angry, one man – Sanborn – ordered him into the bathroom to remove his clothes and put on new ones, and Brandon hit him in the leg with a baseball bat, Lopez testified. Eventually, they marched him at gunpoint to the empty white house next door and put him in the closet.

  Later, he said, Vanfossen cut him repeatedly with a razor blade and injected him with the toilet bowl cleaner, first in the wrist and then in the neck.

  “I faked like I fainted just to make them leave me alone,” he said, noting that he did lose consciousness while lying on the floor.

  The men were gone when he woke, and Lopez ran to a nearby apartment crying for help, leaving a trail of blood back to the white house, according to testimony.

• Man uses rifle in bank robbery

  from statesman.com

  AUSTIN

  Man uses rifle in bank robbery

  Austin police are looking for a man who robbed the Wells Fargo Bank at 3105 Windsor Road in West Austin about 2 p.m. Monday, officials said.

  A masked man entered the bank carrying an assault rifle, Sgt. Richard Stresing said. He aimed the weapon at the clerk and demanded money, Stresing said.

  He left on foot without firing the weapon, said Stresing, who did not how much cash was taken.

  Officers searched the area using a helicopter and canine units, Stresing said.

  It was the ninth bank robbery of the year, he said.

• When working out just isn’t enough…

  from chron.com

  Fort Bend holds suspects in alleged steroid ring
  By JAMES PINKERTON Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
  May 28, 2009, 5:43AM

  A complaint about steroid use in local gyms more than two years ago culminated Wednesday in the arrests of 66 bodybuilders and personal trainers accused of distributing hundreds of thousands of doses of anabolic steroids, human growth hormones and other substances in what authorities called the largest drug operation in Fort Bend County history.

  Fort Bend County Sheriff Milton Wright said none of the 73 charged in the investigation were sports celebrities or high school athletes. One of those arrested, authorities said, was a Houston firefighter. Late Wednesday, Fort Bend sheriff’s deputies, U.S. marshals and drug agents were still searching for seven people named in warrants. (See a map of where the arrests happened here.)

  “The majority of this thing is built around body trainers at fitness centers,” said Wright. “Their livelihood is getting customers they can develop physically – legally or illegally. It doesn’t matter in their eyes, as long as they get the job done.”

  In all, 51 defendants were indicted on state charges in Fort Bend County, while another 22 were indicted on federal charges, authorities said. The investigation involved street dealers, distributors, importers and manufacturers, according to law enforcement officials.

  “There’s been other offshoots from it because sometimes the steroids cause severe muscle pain and that leads to painkillers,” the sheriff said.

  Acting U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson identified one of the principal defendants facing federal charges as Charles Falkenhagen, who operated a Sugar Land business called Fitness Consulants. He is free on bail.

  Officials said the investigation that led to Wednesday’s sweep began shortly before the arrest of Falkenhagen in late 2006, adding that a large inventory of steroids, HGH and diverted pharmaceutical drugs were found in his storage facility.

  Charges facing the 22 federal defendants include money laundering and conspiracy to possess, distribute and manufacture a controlled substance, Johnson said. The 51 defendants charged by Fort Bend officials face charges of conspiracy to deliver, manufacture controlled substances or dangerous drugs, and could face up to ten years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

  Zoran Yankovich, special agent-in-charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s office in Houston, said the Fort Bend investigation led agents to other suspects illegally importing raw products from China and elsewhere that were used to make batches of steroids and human growth hormone.

  “The investigation started here with the sheriff’s office and we ended up following it to other areas where they were bringing in raw products, or were connected otherwise,” said Yankovich. “And it led us into California, Indiana, Louisiana, Georgia, and internationally where raw products were being imported from Mexico, Canada and China.”

  Sheriff’s Lt. Glen Dening, of the Fort Bend County Narcotics Task Force, said authorities were concerned that those arrested could have recruited younger clients in local gyms.

  “They (suspects) work out at all the local gyms in Fort Bend County, so, of course, the high school students have access to those gyms. So, inevitably, it’s going to happen. They’d end up customers of these steroid dealers,” Dening said.

  He said a complaint about steroid use in local gyms two years ago led to surveillance of dealers selling hundreds of thousands of doses of anabolic steroids, human growth hormones, Ecstasy and other controlled substances, including Xanax, Viagra and other drugs.

  “The fact that’s there is anabolic steroid usage in Fort Bend County – or anyplace, really – shouldn’t be surprising,” Fort Bend District Attorney John Healey said. “Hopefully, it will send a fairly strong message that law enforcement and prosecutors are happy to combine to bring the folks who bring it into our county to task.”

• Honey, what did you do with my receivers and ammo?

  Man, I wish I knew the real story. Who throws away thousands of dollars worth of gun parts and ammunition?

  from statesman.com

  AUSTIN

  Gun parts, ammo found in trash

  Gun parts and about 2,000 rifle rounds were discovered in a Dumpster near a North Austin apartment complex Tuesday afternoon.

  Agent Francesca Perot of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the Austin Police Department contacted the agency after a man found the parts in a Dumpster on Swanee Drive, near Airport and Lamar boulevards.

  The parts were eight upper receivers for an AR-15 rifle, worth about $500 each, Perot said.

  The ATF is investigating.

  “We don’t understand why someone threw them away, unless they were involved in some type of criminal activity,” Perot said. “Ammunition is very expensive right now.”

• Another use for GPS devices

  from the Houston Chronicle (www.chron.com)

  High-tech sleuth helps reduce truancy
  By RENÉE C. LEE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
  May 25, 2009, 7:52PM

  Seventeen-year-old Clarissa Curry, a New Caney High School student, is a repeat-offender truant which, in Judge James Metts’ court, likely would have landed her in jail.

  But the judge found a high-tech alternative.

  Instead of spending a three-day weekend in the Montgomery County Jail, Curry must spend six weeks carrying around a handheld device the size of a cell phone that tracks her every move.

  Several times every day the New Caney High School sophomore is required to log her whereabouts by pushing a button on the Global Positioning System and cellular device, which transmits her location to a computer every two to five minutes. If she’s not where she should be, she’ll get a call from a counselor to get back on the right path.

  The device is part of a program called AIM, or Attendance Improvement Management. Metts, justice of the peace in Montgomery County Precinct 4, is piloting the program to curb truancy in his precinct. He ordered Curry and nine other students to enroll in the program in April.

  Truancy is a consistent problem every school year, but this year Metts said he has seen more repeat offenders and wants to help change their behavior.

  “They can either be an asset or liability to their community,” Metts said. “I would rather see them graduate from high school and be productive citizens.”

  Metts said he turned to AIM because it teaches students responsibility, provides one-on-one mentoring and appears towork.

  Developed four years ago at the request of a Dallas County truancy court, AIM has seen a 98 percent attendance rate among its students, said Travis Knox, chief executive of AIM, the Dallas company that manages the program.
  Harris County interested

  AIM began expanding to other parts of the state in January. It is now in six cities, 26 middle schools and high schools and five courts, Knox said. Metts is the only judge in the Houston region using the program, Knox said. Metts is not being charged for the program this year, but next year the court will pay about $16 per day per student, he said.

  The program has caught the attention of the truancy section of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Michael Moore, the county’s chief truancy prosecutor, said he is considering the program to augment the section’s Stay in School program.

  Dealing with truancy is often less about getting a body in school and more about addressing underlying issues that cause students to miss school, say court and school officials. Many students have family issues, are homeless or have drug problems.

  Knox said a key feature of AIM is the “human contact” students get from the program’s coaches who call during the week to provide support and guidance.

  The personal relationships established in AIM are helping turn around Curry and four other New Caney school district students who had habitual attendance problems, said Morris Fuselier III, the district’s associate superintendent for administrative services. Since April 25, only one student has missed a school day and that was for a doctor’s appointment, Fuselier said.

  “They’ve been punished before with court-ordered programs and threatened with juvenile detention and they did not respond the way they have with this program,” he said.
  Jail time a possibility

  The punishment for truancy can vary depending on the judge, but state law enables them to put 17- and 18-year-old students in jail for up to 72 hours for violating a court order to go to school.

  Similar monitoring programs are being used around the country, including one by a Midland judge that requires students to wear an electronic bracelet to monitor students.

  The programs appear to have gained some momentum over the past five years, said Terry Cash, assistant director of The National Dropout Prevention Center.

  Pressure to meet requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act has forced schools to find innovative ways to keep students in school, and some see the monitoring programs as one way to target at-risk students, Cash said.

  So far, the results are mixed. Short term, the programs have some positive impact, but their long-term effectiveness is unknown because data is lacking, he said.

  Curry ended up in AIM because she defied a court order to go to school.

  She said the routine she must follow every day as part of the program is becoming second nature. She pushes the button on her device when she wakes up,five more times throughout the day and again when her 9 p.m. curfew rolls around. At curfew, she also must call a call center and read a code number. Her voice and location are then verified by the computer.

  To ensure Curry is going to class, her teachers must sign a daily attendance sheet.

  Curry said she likes talking to her coach, who calls four times a week to check on her progress.

  “It’s not that bad,” she said. “It teaches me a lot of responsibility and that there are consequences for your actions.”

  Her mother, Melanie LaBluff, said she and her husband own two businesses that keep them busy and sometimes they don’t ask their three children about school. She said she did not know Clarissa was repeatedly skipping her English class until she was cited for failure to attend school this year.

  She said Clarissa is not a troubled student and that AIM has taught her repetitive behavior and responsibility.

  “I’m thankful she’s getting the help that will push her,” LaBluff said.

• “I can’t help it. I’m a junkie,”

  From statesman.com

  Man accused of breaking into Spaghetti Warehouse for wine

  By Isadora Vail | Friday, May 22, 2009, 01:20 PM

  A man was arrested Thursday after police say he was stealing wine from the cellar of the Spaghetti Warehouse on Fourth Street, an arrest affidavit said.

  An Austin police officer who was dispatched to the restaurant found Joseph Martinez, 29, placing bottles of wine on the edge of the basement near the door, the affidavit said.

  The officer said Martinez kept saying, “I can’t help it. I’m a junkie,” while he was placing Martinez under arrest, the affidavit said.

  Martinez was charged with felony burglary of a non-residence, which carries a maximum penalty of two years in a state jail. He remained in the Travis County Jail with bail set at $5,000.