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October 9, 2007

Tonight: Toothy grins, all aglow, at McCoy

The PawSox may be done for the year, but there will still be glowing smiles at McCoy Stadium. At least 5,000 of them through Oct. 30.

A jack-o-lantern display -- 5,000 toothy pumpkin grins -- is now open every night through that day at 6 p.m. For tickets, call (401) 724-7300 or go to pawsox.com.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for ages 3 to 12. Children under 3 years old get in free. Groups of 25 or more can call for special group rates.

The event is open rain or shine from 6 to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and from 6 to 10 p.m. on Sundays through Thursdays. The last entry into McCoy will be 45 minutes before closing time each night.

Posted by Mike McKinney at 7:05 PM | Comment

Photo: Boo!

Jouranl photo / /Bob Thayer
Nick McLaughglin, the Haunted Tunnel coordinator at Slater Park in Pawtucket, gets a scarecrow ready as part of the Haunted Tunnel exhibit. The exhibit is open weekends through October 27. "We started this past weekend, and over 200 people showed up, and they seemed to really enjoy it," McLaughglin said. The Haunted Tunnel features a maze filled with haunted figures, screams and a 'graveyard' with live characters.

Posted by Donna McGarry at 6:35 PM | Comment

Hotel Providence makes Expedia's top 100 list

A downtown hotel has made Expedia.com’s list of top 100 hotels in the world – just barely.

Hotel Providence on Westminster Street comes in at No. 100 on the list of 874 hotels, which includes hotels and resorts in cosmopolitan cities such as Paris, Prague and Dubai.

The list is generated using traveler reviews, price comparisons and input from hotel staff.

Another Providence hotel, Dolce Villa on Federal Hill, made the long list, coming in at number 210.

See how hotels across the world rank.

See more information about ranking methods.

Posted by Brandie Jefferson at 6:10 PM | Comment

Murphy, Carcieri react to Martineau fraud charges

House Speaker William Murphy and Governor Carcieri reacted to today's announcement that former House Majority Leader Gerard Martineau has signed an agreement to plead guilty to two charges related to using his position to help a health insurer and pharmacy company.

At the State House, Murphy, a Democrat, said, "I assume that this is something that happened years ago. My heart goes out to Representative Martineau."

At the same time, Murphy declared, "If somebody has done something wrong in this building, shame on them. But I know that the House of Representatives is being run correctly now."

Martineau had been majority leader and a Democrat from Woonsocket under then-House Speaker John Harwood. When Murphy succeeded Harwood as the 2003 House was coming in, Rep. Gordon Fox suceeded Martineau as majority leader.

Carcieri, a Republican, today pointed to the Martineau case as fresh evidence of a culture of corruption -- "people using what they do up here to benefit themselves personnally."

Carcieri asserted, "We've got to stop it."

-- With reports from Journal political columnist M. Charles Bakst

Posted by Mike McKinney at 5:36 PM | Comment

Update: Ex-legislator to plead guilty to fraud

PROVIDENCE -- Former House Majority Leader Gerard M. Martineau has agreed to plead guilty to two charges related to steering legislation on behalf of a health insurer and pharmacy company while receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars to make plastic and paper bags for the companies.

Martineau arranged to sell paper bags to the health insurance company for use as promotional items and to sell plastic and paper bags to a pharmacy company for use in its merchandising. In the case of the health company, millions of bags were never manufactured.

Martineau, who served as a Democrat representing Woonsocket, is alleged to have been paid more than $900,000 in the two schemes, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Rhode Island said this afternoon.

In return, according to U.S. District Attorney Robert Clark Corrente, Martineau used his position in the legislature to affect the outcomes of legislation for the two companies.

When asked by reporters today if the companies were Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and the Woonsocket-based CVS chain, Corrente did not say yes or no. Instead, he explained that under federal rules, he could not name the companies in the information.

The case is the latest development in a federal probe called Operation Dollar Bill, which is looking into corruption at the Rhode Island State House.

Read the full text of the charges against Martineau.

After first being in favor of the pharmacy freedom of choice legislation -- which the companies opposed -- in 1999 Martineau announced that he was changing his position to oppose it. That was after a business entity Martineau created, The Upland Group, starting selling bags to the health insurer and the pharmacy, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

“In reality, this was not a group at all – it was just Martineau,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Martinueau has not entered a guilty plea, but has signed an agreement to waive indictment with the intent of pleading guilty. He will have a chance to formally enter a plea at a U.S. District Court hearing that is not yet scheduled.

He faces two counts of "honest services mail fraud." Each carries a maximum five years in prison and several hundred thousand dollars in fines.

Read the full text of Martineau's plea agreement.

-- Journal staff writers Michael P. McKinney and Brandie Jefferson

The health insurer had contracted with the pharmacy company for a network that required insured clients to use that network for prescriptions. Legislation would have opened the network to other pharmacies.

In a two-part series that ran in The Journal in 2004, investigative reporter Mike Stanton reported that two of Martineau's customers were CVS and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, companies that regularly lobbied the General Assembly on health-care legislation.

The Journal investigation found that Martineau, while he was in a position to influence legislation affecting CVS and Blue Cross, was profiting from his private business with those companies, according to the 2004 story.

Martineau was selling bags to CVS, including the familiar white plastic bags with the red CVS logo, when he voted against pharmacy-choice legislation in 1995, the series reported.

Later, as majority leader, Martineau was instrumental in the passage of laws regulating health care and Blue Cross, the state's largest health insurer.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office this afternoon, Martineau, through the Upland Group, periodically billed the insurance company for bags in lots of 1 million and 3 million, at $19,500 per million.

In December 1998, December 2000 and in December 2001, he billed the company just days or weeks before the start of a legislative session.

Martineau billed the health insurer $195,000 for 10 million bags and was paid $175,500, but fewer than 2 million were ever manufactured, according to the information filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Between 1999 and the end of the 2002 legislative session, Martineau also worked for or against legislation on the insurance company’s agenda, including a 1999 bill that would have helped with the sale of the insurer to a for-profit company.

Before 1999, Martineau had a "long-standing business relationship with the pharmacy, selling commodities to it for commission."

After forming The Upland Group, between 1999 and the end of 2002 he received a total of $716,435 in commission payments on contracts with the pharmacy for bags. Martineau worked for or against other legislation on the pharmacy’s agenda.

Martineau never disclosed to the public "his conflicts of interest with the pharmacy and the health insurer," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. He "even took steps to conceal the relationships, by such devices as not signing his name to invoices, and writing business letters from the Upland Group to the health insurer over the signature of another person who had no relationship to the Upland Group."

The allegations against Martineau are the latest in Operation Dollar Bill, a wide-ranging investigation of corruption at the State House by a task force that includes the FBI, the state police, the IRS, U.S. Department of Labor, and the the U.S. Attorney's Office in Providence.

In March, John Celona, the former North Providence state senator convicted of using his public office for private gain, began serving a 2 1/2-year prison term. In August, he was quietly moved from a federal prison in western Pennsylvania to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls.

Sen. Stephen Alves, D-West Warwick, is reported to be under investigation by the FBI. It's alleged he killed a resolution that sought a tax break for Pennsylvania trucking company A. Duie Pyle, which is looking to build a distribution center in Johnston, to punish Johnston Mayor Joseph M. Polisena for not investing Johnston's pension funds with Alves, a stockbroker.

Alves has denied any wrongdoing.

Posted by Mike McKinney at 4:18 PM | Comment

Man found guilty of killing Dallas officer from R.I.

A jury today found a man guilty of capital murder in the 2005 fatal shooting of Dallas police Officer Brian Jackson, a 28-year-old former Rhode Islander.

Juan Lizcano was convicted in the death of Jackson, and the prosecution is now expected to seek the death penalty. Proceedings in the punishment phase were under way this afternoon.

Officer Jackson was killed in November 2005 while responding to a domestic violence call at the home of Lizcano's former girlfriend who called 911 twice to report he threatened her with a gun.

Defense attorneys had argued Lizcano was not guilty because the officer's death was not capital murder.

"This is in no way a capital murder," said defense attorney Brook Busbee. "He's not guilty of capital murder because he couldn't see the officer."

But prosecutor Josh Healy called Officer Jackson's slaying "an assassin-style killing" and told jurors there was no doubt Lizcano was guilty of capital murder.

Prosecutors said that the yard where Officer Jackson was killed was well lit.

Prosecutor Patrick Kirlin told jurors that "the credible evidence cries out for" a guilty of capital murder verdict.

Posted by Andrea Panciera at 3:02 PM | Comment

R.I. gas prices drop slightly

Gasoline prices in Rhode Island fell by one cent this week to $2.689 for a gallon of regular, unleaded at the self-service pump, according to AAA Southern New England.

Gas prices have fluctuated slightly over the past six weeks, according to AAA, which conducts a weekly survey.

At Labor Day, the price was also $2.689 and has varied only slightly since then, AAA said.

Rhode Island is eight cents below the national average. The local price was $2.279 a year ago.

Posted by Jack Perry at 12:38 PM | Comment

U.S. Attorney to discuss 'matter involving corruption'

PROVIDENCE -- U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. "on a criminal matter involving public corruption," his office announced this afternoon.

No other details were yet available.

Posted by Mike McKinney at 12:30 PM | Comment

Critic of creationism to speak at Roger Williams tomorrow

One of the nation's leading advocates for science education will discuss the theories of evolution and natural selection, as well as creationism and intelligent design, at Roger Williams University tomorrow.

In 1980 Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, headed a successful campaign to stop the teaching of creationism in Lexington, Ky., public schools.

She co-authored with Glenn Branch “Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools.” Intelligent design is a belief that says certain features of the universe and living things are best explained as being created by some form of intelligence, rather than evolution via natural selection.

The university said in a news release today that Scott has described herself as “Darwin’s golden retriever" in defending Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Scott plans to speak to the issues tomorrow at 5 p.m. in RWU’s New Academic Building on the Bristol Campus, One Old Ferry Road.

The event is free and open to public as space allows. Scott's visit is part of a Roger Williams lecture series.

Posted by Brandie Jefferson at 12:14 PM | Comment

High court hears arguments on same-sex divorce

PROVIDENCE — The Supreme Court this morning heard arguments from lawyers for two Providence women seeking Rhode Island’s first same-sex divorce.

Margaret R. Chambers and Cassandra B. Ormiston married in Fall River in May 2004, shortly after Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Their case marks the first time any of the same-sex couples married in Massachusetts have sought a divorce in another state.

“The issue today is one that is very narrow in scope,” lawyer Louis M. Pulner told the high court. “Very simply stated: Do we recognize a validly entered into marriage in the state of Massachusetts for the purposes of granting a divorce here in the state of Rhode Island?”

Pulner said that while the state legislature has had opportunities to pass a law on same-sex marriage, “they have not embraced it nor have they rejected it,” and he noted House and Senate leaders did not respond to the court’s invitation to file friend-of-the court briefs in this case.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank J. Williams pointed out that in recent years, the legislature also has chosen not to pass laws allowing civil unions or same-sex marriages.

“They have opted not to take a position either way,” Pulner replied, “which I think speaks largely relative to how this court should be looking at this particular issue.”

Williams said, “We are not the legislature, though, Mr. Pulner.”

“I grant you that, you honor,” Pulner said. “But the fact is that the legislature has known same sex couples from the state of Rhode Island have been going over the border into Massachusetts and availing themselves of that particular licensing statute. This legislature has done nothing, not withstanding the fact they have been given several opportunities over several years to be able to make that kind of decision.”

-- Journal writer Edward Fitzpatrick

Posted by Brandie Jefferson at 12:09 PM | Comment

R.I. delegation decries children's health care veto

Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski
Surrounded by photographs of adopted children, Sen. Jack Reed gets ready to speak out on President Bush's veto of the children's health program, at a press conference held at the Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island today.

PROVIDENCE -- Rhode Island’s entire congressional delegation came out in force this morning to vehemently criticize President Bush’s veto of a bill which would have continued providing health care to millions of children.

Congress first passed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in 1997 and it currently covers about 6 million children of families who earn too much to qualify for welfare but not enough to afford their own private health insurance.

In Rhode Island the program covers about 25,000 Rhode Islanders through the state’s Rite Care program for children, families and pregnant women.

At a morning news conference at the Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island, U.S. Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressmen Patrick Kennedy and James Langevin called Bush’s veto unconscionable and pledged to work to find the votes in Congress necessary to override the president’s veto.

The president is asking future generations to pay for the war in Iraq, said Reed; the least the country can do is help pay for their health insurance.

Video: This afternoon, President Bush is expected to promote his No Child Left Behind legislation. Support for its reauthorization has declined in the wake of his veto. Watch his Rose Garden press conference live starting at 2 p.m.

-- Journal staff writer Tom Mooney

Posted by Brandie Jefferson at 11:43 AM | Comment

Judge dismisses charge against R.I. Guard general

NORTH SMITHFIELD -- A disorderly conduct charge against the Rhode Island National Guard’s second in command was dismissed in District Court today, after the officer, Brigadier Gen. Brian W. Goodwin, completed 28 hours of community service.

Goodwin, 55, of 500 Greenville Road, had been charged Sept. 4, after North Smithfield police said he went on an obscenity-laced tirade in the police station that left officers concerned for their safety.

The one-star general was in the police station while his wife and son were being interviewed by police. The family was there because Goodwin’s son had lodged a complaint in which he said he was attacked by three other youths in the driveway of his family house three days before. The fight left the younger Goodwin with a broken jaw.

According to police reports, when they tried to resolve discrepancies between the younger Goodwin and his mother’s statements, the general became enraged. In his report on the incident, Lt. Stephen E. Riccitelli said Goodwin’s behavior was enough to make him reach for his pepper spray.

"I felt that the offender’s actions were threatening, disruptive, and I thought he was about to attack me physically," Riccitelli said in his report.

-- Journal staff writer John Hill

Goodwin was ordered out of the station, but police said he continued to yell obscenities and demand that his son and another witness leave, Riccitelli’s report said. He said police decided not to arrest Goodwin at that time for fear that would provoke “a more serious physical confrontation.”

Goodwin later arranged to turn himself in and be booked, after which he extended his hand and apologized to patrolman Francis Gallagher, who had been in the station during the incident, Gallagher noted in his report.

Town Solicitor Mark C. Hadden, who prosecuted the case, said he felt dismissal was appropriate because Goodwin had no criminal record and had completed the community service he would have been sentenced to anyway.

“It was not even a misdemeanor, it was a petty misdemeanor,” Hadden said. “For his age, and with no criminal record, it was appropriate.”

Goodwin deferred to his lawyer, Richard Bicki, who said only that Goodwin was pleased with the dismissal, calling it “the right, appropriate thing to do.”

Goodwin worked his community service time with groups that help the homeless. He worked 13 hours for Operation Stand Down, an outreach group for homeless veterans, seven hours for Project Homeless Connect and eight hours for the Rhode Island Donation Exchange.

Hadden said the plea agreement he negotiated initially called for 20 hours of community service, but he was concerned that the seven hours for Project Homeless Connect, because it gets state funding, could be construed as working for his employer, the state of Rhode Island. He said Goodwin worked the extra eight hours at the donation exchange to resolve Hadden’s concern.

Posted by Jack Perry at 11:35 AM | Comment

Campus safety event at CCRI tomorrow

In the wake of the fatal shootings at Virginia Technical Institute and other acts of violence on college and university campuses, the Community College of Rhode Island is hosting a campus safety forum.

Sponsored by the U.S. Attorney’s Anti-terrorism Advisory Council, the state police and the state Emergency Management Agency, the forum will focus on ways to prevent, detect and deter shooting incidents on campus.

Public safety and health officials, and administrators from colleges and universities in Rhode Island are expected to attend.

The Virginia Tech Review Panel will present its findings after studying the fatal April shooting on that campus that left 34 people, including the gunman, dead.

United States Attorney Robert Clark Corrente, Rhode Island State Police Superintendent Brendan Doherty, and Robert Warren, the executive director of RIEMA, are scheduled to speak at the forum tomorrow at 8:45 a.m. on the College’s Knight Campus, room 4090
.

Posted by Brandie Jefferson at 10:26 AM | Comment

Man convicted of murder gets new trial

A Providence man who was convicted of murder outside a nightclub in 1998 is scheduled to appear in Superior Court this morning.

In December, 2002, the state Supreme Court ruled Destie Ventre deserved a new trial, overturning a second-degree murder conviction by a lower court.

Ventre, now 35, was accused of fatally shooting one man and wounding another outside the Acorn Social Club in Providence in 1998. He said he acted in self defense.

Retired Chief Justice Joseph Weisberger wrote in his decision that the trial judge, the late John Sheehan, should have allowed evidence that one of Ventre’s attackers, Vincent Leonardo, who was injured, had been convicted of murder when he was 14.

Weisberger said Ventre may have reasonably been afraid for his life.

The Supreme Court also called the trial judge’s instructions to the jury on the self-defense doctrine "gravely inadequate."

Ventre's attorney, John "Jack" Cicilline Sr., agreed, saying he believed the trial justice took a narrow view of the law.

Cicilline said his son, David Cicilline, now the mayor of Providence, and lawyer Ann Marsh wrote the brief outlining the appeal in late 2001, but the elder Cicilline argued it before the court because his son was campaigning.

Posted by Brandie Jefferson at 9:22 AM | Comment

Senate committee to discuss foster care changes

The state Senate Health and Human Services Committee today will discuss the impact of cuts in services to hundreds of 18-to-21-year-olds raised in state care.

Cuts in services such as housing assistance, health insurance and college tuition payments went into effect in June as part of a plan to cut state expenses.

State Department of Children Youth and Families Director Patricia Martinez, Child Advocate Jametta O. Alston and Ross Harris, a court-appointed special advocate for children, are expected to testify.

There will also be testimony from youth in state care, the Rhode Island Foster Parents Association and the public.

The hearing, at 3 p.m. in room 313, is one in a series that the Senate Health and Human Services Committee is holding on issues raised about the care of children served by DCYF.

Posted by Jack Perry at 8:44 AM | Comment

Woonsocket mayoral primary today

The top two vote getters in today’s Woonsocket mayoral primary will face each other next month.

Retired police officer Todd R. Brien, 43 and Michael M. Mello, 50, a retired civilian employee for the Navy, are challenging 59-year-old Mayor Susan D. Menard, a 12-year incumbent.

-- with reports from Journal staff writer Tatiana Pina

Mello said Menard is inaccessible to the public and has created a sense of secrecy around what happens at city hall. He’s said he wants to make municipal government more open, and will reestablish relationships with the Police Department and City Council.

Brien, who ran against Menard in 2005, said integrity had broken down during her years as mayor.

He’s spoken against Menard’s decision to increase firefighters’ wages nearly 13 percent over three years. At that time, Brien said, taxpayers were expecting a tax increase to offset bonds for two new middle schools, but could not afford to pay for the firefighters’ benefits.

Menard says she’s running for reelection to see the completion of the middle schools to their completion. Negotiating with the firefighters, she said, which included the elimination of co-pays, saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The top 14 vote-getters for City Council will also run in the November elections.

Six of the seven City Council members are running for reelection, including Council President Leo T. Fontaine, Normand J. Laliberte Jr., J. Michel Martineau, William D. Schneck Jr., Suzanne Jean Vadenais and John F. Ward. Brian Blais announced in August that he would not seek reelection.

Challenging the incumbent council members are Christopher A. Beauchamp, Stella G. Brien, Daniel M. Gendron, Roger Harris, Roger G. Jalette Sr., Michael E. Moniz, Harvey F. Nabozny, Robert D. Phillips, Christopher M. Roberts, Edward M. Roy Jr., and Thomas W. Wrona.

Posted by Brandie Jefferson at 8:24 AM | Comment

Power co. to pay $4.6B to reduce Northeast pollution

WASHINGTON -- One of the nation's largest power generators has agreed to end a years-long federal lawsuit filed jointly by Rhode Island and seven other sates, by paying $4.6 billion dollars to reduce pollution that has eaten away at Northeast mountain ranges and national landmarks.

Watch the Department of Justice announcement

“These companies not only increased the amount of harmful air pollutants they were generating but also failed to install the best technologies available," Attorney General Patrick Lynch said in a statement today.

"They did so at the economic expense of power plants here in Rhode Island that were in compliance with the most stringent technology requirements of the Clean Air Act.”

The settlement requires Ohio-based American Electric Power to reduce chemical emissions that cause acid rain by at least 69 percent over the next decade.

It also fines AEP an additional $15 million in civil penalties and another $60 million in cleanup and mitigation costs.

Read the consent decree online.

"The reduction in pollutants from these huge power plants should help us in gaining attainment of our ozone standard by 2009 as well as reducing particulate matter and regional haze," DEM Director W. Michael Sullivan said in a statement.

-- The Associated Press and projo.com staff reports

"The outcome is a good example of how, by working together within Rhode Island and with other states and the federal government, we can solve persistent air quality problems."

Eight states including Rhode Island, a dozen environmental groups and the EPA brought the lawsuit against AEP in 1999.

They accused the energy company of rebuilding coal-fired power plants without installing pollution controls as required under the Clean Air Act.

Posted by Brandie Jefferson at 7:30 AM | Comment

Court to hear gay divorce argument

PROVIDENCE — The state Supreme Court will hear arguments this morning in Rhode Island’s first same-sex divorce case.

Lawyers for Margaret R. Chambers and Cassandra B. Ormiston are scheduled to appear before the high court at 9:30 a.m.

The Supreme Court has denied motions from the attorney general and others to participate in today’s arguments, courts spokesman Craig N. Berke said Friday.

Read the full story.

Posted by Jack Perry at 7:02 AM | Comment

It's finally feeling like fall

Here's that fall weather: The National Weather Service is forecasting a high temperature of 65, partly sunny and northeast winds with gusts up to 25 mph.

And then there's rain. Showers are likely overnight, mostly after 3 a.m., paired with patchy fog. The overnight low should be about 50.

More rain likely tomorrow morning with cloudy skies and temperatures in the low 60s.

For more weather and regular updates, see projo.com/weather.

Posted by Brandie Jefferson at 7:01 AM | Comment

Today's front page

Today's front page features the third part of a five-part series on fishing.

Download a copy of today's front page in .pdf format.

Posted by Jack Perry at 7:00 AM | Comment