By Brenna Ehrlich/Medill News Service
 
The lead defendant in one of the biggest mortgage fraud schemes ever prosecuted in Chicago has allegedly been threatening some of his co-defendants and other individuals involved in his case, a federal prosecutor disclosed Tuesday during an arraignment at the Dirksen Federal Building.
 
Assistant U.S. Atty. Daniel May told a judge that defendant Bobbie Brown, Jr., 44, is “a danger to the community.” In response to the disclosure, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffery Cole ordered that Brown be placed under house arrest at his mother’s home pending a hearing Thursday, July 3, to decide whether or not Brown should be detained.
 
“Several individuals involved in the case have expressed that they have been threatened by Mr. Brown,” May said. One of the targets of the alleged threats was defendant Leslie Love, 42, a licensed real estate agent and owner of the Total Real Estate, May said. In addition, Brown allegedly told several people that if they spoke to federal agents they “should be watching [their] back.” May added.
 
Prior to the court hearing, Brown, a Country Club Hills resident who operated several businesses, including Chicago Global Investments, Inc. and Brown Trucking, Inc., said in an interview outside the courtroom that he is being unfairly charged. “I’m being railroaded,” he said. “We did a lot of business with a lot of people who aren’t here,” including loan officers, appraisers and investors. When asked if he believes that the trial will be fair, Brown responded: “They’re going to crucify me like they crucified Jesus Christ.”
 
Also Tuesday, the judge appointed a lawyer to represent Brown after his original attorney failed to appear in court because Brown had not paid him.
 
Brown was one of approximately 20 defendants arraigned during two separate hearings. All pleaded not guilty to the charges, which included counts of mail, wire and bank fraud, as well as using false identification, according to an indictment released by the Department of Justice two weeks ago. According to the indictment, Brown and his fellow defendants allegedly obtained 150 fraudulent mortgage loans on Chicago area homes, receiving $95 million from lenders and subsequently defaulting on some of the loans, leaving lenders with an estimated $19 million in losses.
 
According to the indictments, the defendants included “straw purchasers” recruited to purchase homes, loan originators who prepared false loan applications, a lawyer who oversaw home closing and builders. The indictment was the result of a national investigation into mortgage fraud, code-named “Operation Malicious Mortgage,” which lead to charges against more than 400 people, 67 from the Chicago area.

Apparently, after a man in Aurora was stabbed in a bar fight, he drove home and passed out. After waking up (past noon) on Sunday, he must have realized that that stabbing pain (pun intended) was not the result of too many rounds, but was actually knife-induced. The 35-year-old is currently receiving treatment. [The Chicago Tribune]
 
While it’s hard not to laugh at another’s misfortune, and knives are never funny in practice, stories like this make you wonder… What? I’m not quite sure yet.
 
Here’s a pearl of wisdom from one commentor:“My rule has always been…’too drunk to realize I’ve been stabbed in the chest, too drunk to drive.’”
 
Sage words, my friend. Sage words.

So, remember when I told you all about that new sting operation where cops dress as regular folk and try to catch people who don’t yield to pedestrians? Well, apparently–along with more than 100 warnings– the CPD doled out a healthy dose of confusion. Check out these selections from the Tribune.
 
“James Fugate of the South Side was one of the drivers stopped by police. He held a warning handout, looking perplexed.
 
‘I saw him come out, but he stood right in front of the sidewalk,’ Fugate, 32, said.
 
The decoy would have had to roam a little further into the street for Fugate to realize he was trying to cross, he added.”
 
“‘I saw him, but to be honest, I thought maybe he was drunk or something,’ said Elisa Chessen, 39, of Skokie, who also received a warning.”
 
Awesome.

So, apparently Chicago cops are going to start posing as pedestrians to catch drivers who refuse to yield at crosswalks. Ok.
 
“In the stings, an officer dressed in civilian clothing will enter the crosswalk to cross the street as a vehicle approaches from 140 feet away, officials said. That provides adequate stopping distance based on the 30 m.p.h. speed limit on most streets, officials said. The intersections are not controlled by traffic signals or stop signs, but state and city ordinances require drivers to yield to people in the crosswalk.” [Chicago Tribune]
 
Ok, good idea in theory… I suppose. I get as mad as the next guy when a car comes hurtling down the street, assuming that I will scamper to safety before it crashes into my tiny body. (Hence, I run like an idiot at every crosswalk). Once you’ve been flipped off by a big guy in a Hummer on Howard for crossing during a “Walk” sign, you tend to lose patience.
 
But really? What if the car hits the cop? Doesn’t this seem kind of dangerous? Maybe? Just a little? And it also begs the question: If you hit the cop, do you get a double citation? Failure to yield to a pedestrian and assaulting an officer. Eh, CPD. I just don’t know.

So, I was scanning the Tribune and I came across a blog post titled “Sex, drugs and drinking among Chicago teens.” Take a look at this rather baffling quote from the middle of the article:
 
“But the decline in percentage of teens having sex has stalled over the last seven years, as has the number of teens using condoms. With the rise of abstinence-only education, fewer teens are learning about AIDS or HIV infections in school. And more are obese.”
 
What? Where did that last part come from? I could make a snarky comment about the leap in logic, but I’ll restrain myself.

Hey readers!
 
I know I haven’t written in a while– you can blame that on grad school. I’m guessing my posts here will continue to be sporadic at best.
 
Anyway, I’m writing because this past Sunday, journalism student Ishma Stewart, 20, was killed in a driveby shooting on the South Side. Stewart attended Loyola University Chicago, and aspired to work for a magazine.
 
When I read this story, and the many that followed it that called Stewart an “aspiring journalist,” I couldn’t help but think, “She’s kind of like me.”
 
Especially after reading what her brother had to say about her ambitions, “She felt that journalism was a platform for her to go in and do her part to change the world a little bit—and at least expose some of the truth that may be neglected by mainstream society,” he said.
 
So far it seems that the mainstream media is out for the truth in Stewart’s case. Let’s hope they find it.
 
Also, I searched the Internet to find Stewart’s writing and came up cold. Anyone know where I could read her work?

Hey readers, this is worth checking out:
 
This rally is to begin to address the issue of gun-related violence, esp. against our youth-This past week-end there were two more homicides at or near schools. I believe that now the number is at 20 homicides of students from the Chicago Public schools and several more who were not students/older etc.
 
The rally planned for tomorrow, Tuesday, April 1st at 11:00am at the State of Illinois Building (Corner of Clark & Randolph).
 
One of the main speakers will be Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina’s Church.
 
Rafael Anglada
Area 5 CAPS
(312) 742-0990

So, there’s apparently a movie called Watching the Detectives. Starring big-eyed wonder Cillian Murphy no less. Here’s what the IMDB synopsis had to say:
 
“Neil, a self proclaimed film geek and owner of Gumshoe video, has always been content to live vicariously through his favorite film noirs. But when he meets Violet, a real-life femme fatale, his mundane world gets turned upside down and the line between reality and the movies quickly begins to blur. Will Neil step up and embrace a life full of adventure or retreat back to his comfortable couch?” PeaceArch Entertainment 2007
 
That sounds amazing! Where can I see this movie? Apparently at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January… Meanwhile, I guess I’ll have to tide myself over with gems like Semi Pro. Sigh.

So, today I was taking a look at Second City Cop’s blog when I saw their post about Ruben Ivy and Devonte Smith. The headline read, “Angels, One and All,” the dek, “Honor students and future heart surgeons, each and every one.”
 
Then, SCC goes on to quote a Chicago Sun-Times article that describes how Ivy and Smith’s mothers defended them in court, saying that they were good boys despite their lengthy criminal histories.
 
It’s always interesting to see the cop’s side of the coin. When I was working the highly truncated grad school crime beat last quarter, I went down to one of the stations to try to talk to the officers. The first officer I met started off our conversation with a lengthy denouncement of the media. (This was around the same time as the whole Michael Mette fiasco, so it was warrented). Then, he told me that whenever a kid is shot, the paper always runs an angelic high school graduation photo and quotes his parents as saying that he was a “good boy.”
 
Are these good boys? I don’t know. Are they bad boys? Probably in some respects. Is the media at liberty to decide? Probably not. So how do we handle situations like this? Do we keep our mouths shut? Put the kibosh on the glamour shots? What do you think?

Today, DeVonte Smyth was charged with first degree murder of Ruben Ivy. Ivy, 18, who died Friday, was the eighteenth student to die this year in Chicago.
 
Police are saying that the shooting of Ivy and the beating of another student arose from gang activity.
 
Gangs. It seems like they’ve always had a handle on Chi-town, sucking kids in with a terrifying force that they seemingly can’t resist. I’ve had one gang member tell me, “It’s hard to get out of the hood. So I might as well be the hood.”
 
Well, if this is the mindset we’re dealing with, what can we possibly do? I know I’ve boosted CeaseFire in the past, but seriously, it seems like a pretty good solution to me.
 
Charlie Ransford, one of CeaseFire’s crime analysts, says that shootings in Chicago have increased dramatically since August, when the program lost funding. In September 2007, there were around 225 shootings, up from nearly 170 last year, he said. In October, there were approximately 200 shootings, up from roughly 150 in 2006.
 
People keep dying, adults and children alike. So, as the Senate deliberates whether or not to reinstate CeaseFire I’d like to turn their attention to stories like this. Could we have prevented Ivy’s death?
 
Some factions of the state are not too pysched about giving CeaseFire the money that it needs to survive. A few months ago, I talked to Gov. Blagojevich’s press secretary, Gerardo Cardenas. He said that the state government has made it “very clear” that CeaseFire must find other funding.
 
Well, I hope the Senate feels differently. Because this is our priority in Chicago, to make sure that kids don’t kill each other anymore.
 
So, before Emil Jones axes the funding proposal that the House unanimously passed, I’d like to turn his attention to Ruben Ivy. Eighteen deaths in less than three months is unacceptable. Let’s fix that.