An employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is accused of running a prostitution ring from her work computer in the agency’s Kansas City office. Laurie Lynn McConnell, a 26-year-old statistician, allegedly ran the ring in three states with the help of a 36-year-old co-defendant who does not work for the USDA. The pair faces between five and 20 years of jail time if convicted. (Kansas City Star)
The White House has found 14 million missing email messages, according to a lawyer with the Justice Department. The announcement came just hours after a federal judge ordered White House employees to do a comprehensive search of computer workstations, preserve portable hard drives and look over any emails sent between 2003 and 2005. The emails will be transferred to the National Archives, as is legally required of the White House. The emails were sought after because they may contain details of the Valerie Plame affair and the firing of U.S. attorneys. (Washington Post)
The same Pentagon official who went on record as saying that the U.S. government tortured a terror suspect now says that that suspect will likely never be prosecuted. Susan Crawford, the convening authority of military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, said the treatment of Saudi detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani fit the legal definition of torture and so she did not refer his case for prosecution. Qahtani was allegedly meant to be the 20th hijacker on 9/11. (AFP)
J. Ezra Merkin, a New York-based financier, has become the latest person to be investigated for a connection to the alleged fraud of Bernard Madoff. New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has issued subpoenas for Merkin in order to determine whether or not he defrauded universities and charities when he invested their money with Madoff. Merkin invested the money through a feeder fund without disclosing where it was being sent. (New York Times)
CIA Director Michael Hayden stood by harsh interrogation techniques on Thursday, saying that they “got the maximum amount of information, particularly out of that first generation of detainees.” Although U.S. officials insist that the government has not used waterboarding in the last five years and only admits to waterboarding three people in total, Hayden insisted “these techniques worked.” (Associated Press)
Authorities in California raided the home of a county tax assessor and found a substance they believe to be methamphetamine. The raid came a week after Bill Postmus told county officials he had overcome a substance abuse problem. Postmus is in charge of setting property values for tax purposes in San Bernardino County, which currently has the nation’s seventh-highest foreclosure rate. (Associated Press)