TODAY’S DEAL:
Get huge discounts every day
50-90O%FF pressherald.com
Mostly cloudy, breezy and warmer High 44 Details, B6
A $200 legal check-up at Vogel & Dubois for only $50! To buy, visit pressherald.com, click on the Maine Deal offer and enter your information. Available until 11:59 PM or when sold out!
Sam Milligan, 6, of Brunswick
75 cents Tuesday, March 22, 2011
thepressherald.com
Campaign volunteer admits to falsifying
REVOLUTION IN LIBYA
REBELS GET REPRIEVE Missiles halt assault, but stalemate looms
He didn’t understand the law on gathering Clean Election contributions, his lawyer says.
By RYAN LUCAS The Associated Press
By DENNIS HOEY Staff Writer
PORTLAND — A South Portland man who collected campaign contributions for former Democratic gubernatorial candidate John G. Richardson of Brunswick pleaded guilty Monday to making false statements about the donations. Joseph Pickering, 54, of Harbor View Avenue pleaded guilty to five counts of unsworn falsification – a Class D misdemeanor – in Cumberland County Superior Court. Pickering had been charged with 16 counts of unsworn falsification, but under an agreement reached with the state Attorney General’s Office he was allowed to plead to five counts. Judge John O’Neil accepted the arrangement and ordered Pickering to complete 120 hours of community service. Under what is called a deferred disposition, O’Neil said Pickering’s criminal record will be erased if he completes the community service within a year. If Pickering fails to do the community service in the time allotted, he could face a fine of up to $2,000 or 364 days in jail. “This campaign did not train its volunteers very well,” Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin told O’Neil. “It would not be a model for other campaigns to follow.” Pickering is one of four former Richardson campaign volunteers accused by the state of falsifying Maine Clean Election Act contribution documents. Their cases are in various stages of prosecution. Maine law requires the circulator –
Top and above right: Libyan rebels advance on the outskirts of Ajdabiya, where proGadhafi forces sealed the city’s entrance Monday. Right: Tracers from antiaircraft guns arc above the hotel where foreign media and government officials are staying in Tripoli.
The Associated Press
Please see LIBYA, Back Page
Chicago Tribune
D7 C7 D1 D6 B3 A8 D7
Horoscope Local & State Lottery People Sports Television Theaters
D7 B1 A2 A2 C1 D7 B3
Proposed freezes on longevity and merit pay are especially unfair when combined with increased retirement contributions, they say. By SUSAN M. COVER
Volume 149 Number 236
MaineToday Media State House Bureau
Copyright 2011 MaineToday Media, Inc.
AUGUSTA — State worker Dean Staffieri told lawmakers Monday that caseworkers, clerks and others he works with can’t afford a continuation of a freeze in their merit pay – a term referring to step increases that recognize job experience. “I ask you, today, to please consider
Edition: CY Sec/Page: A1 Rundate: Tuesday, March 22, 2011
NoFolio-MST-A1-NoTargets Modified 5/08/09 InDesign*
the people who are DA ETO Y M hurting, the people IN who make significantly less than those doing the same jobs in the E private sector, the HO U people who make U SE B sure that the fine state of Maine continues to function,” said Staffieri, a licensed social worker in the Office of Child and Family Services. Staffieri was one of about a dozen state workers or union representatives who testified in opposition to two elements IA ED
Abby Business Classified Comics Deaths Editorials Hax
to convince them that the marriages were legitimate, according to court papers filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Fisk Malone, the prosecutor in the case. Some recruits got cold feet after the wedding and backed out of the scheme when told by immigration officials that pretending to get married for immigra-
Please see MARRIAGE, Page A7
Workers for state battle pay squeeze at hearing T
Please see CAR SEATS, Page A7
INDEX
S TA
The nation’s largest organization of pediatricians is telling its members and parents that children riding in cars should remain in rear-facing child safety seats until at least their second birthday, and preferably even longer. That conflicts with advice given to parents for years by many pediatricians: that children’s car seats should be turned around shortly after their first birthday. The new policy from the American Academy of Pediatrics, published Monday in the Pediatrics medical journal, is buoyed by research that shows children younger than 2 are 75 percent less likely to die or be
The ultimate goal of the marriages, according to the government, was to get permanent legal status and, eventually, citizenship. Most of the weddings were held in apartments in Lewiston. The marriages themselves were worth $1,500, followed by additional payments as the U.S. recruits filled out paperwork to support the charade and met with immigration officials
U
By PATRICIA CALLAHAN
rica seeking to become legal residents of the United States. Rashid Kakande, 37, appeared Monday in U.S. District Court in Portland for the opening of his trial before a By DAVID HENCH federal jury. He is charged with arrangStaff Writer PORTLAND — A Massachusetts ing payments of up to $5,000 for women man faces charges of conspiring to and men willing to marry people from defraud the federal government by Uganda and other African countries arranging numerous sham weddings who were here on expiring tourist or between Mainers and people from Af- student visas.
Mainers say they were paid up to $5,000 to marry people trying to become U.S. citizens.
EA
Turn them forward at age 2 or later, not at age 1, they say while urging other changes.
Please see FALSIFY, Page A7
Witnesses detail workings of sham wedding scheme
MA
Pediatricians do an about-face on child safety seats
R
ZWITINA, Libya — Coalition forces bombarded Libya for a third straight night Monday, targeting the air defenses and forces of Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, stopping his advances and handing some momentum back to the rebels, who were on the verge of defeat just last week. But the rebellion’s more organized military units were still not ready, and the opposition disarray underscored U.S. warnings that a long stalemate could emerge. The air campaign by U.S. and European militaries has unquestionably rearranged the map in Libya and rescued rebels from the immediate threat they faced only days ago of being ‘WHERE THE crushed under a CRIMINAL powerful advance GADHAFI by Gadhafi’s WAS forces. The first STOPPED’ round of airstrikes BACK PAGE smashed a column of regime tanks that had been moving on the rebel capital of Benghazi in the east. Monday night, Libyan state TV said a new round of strikes had begun in the capital, Tripoli, marking the third night of bombardment. But while the airstrikes can stop Gadhafi’s troops from attacking rebel cities – in line with the U.N. mandate to protect civilians – the United States, at least, appeared deeply reluctant to go beyond that toward actively helping the rebel cause to oust the Libyan leader. President Obama said Monday that “it is U.S. policy that Gadhafi has to go.” But, he said, the international air campaign has a more limited goal, to protect civilians. “Our military action is in support of an international mandate from the Security Council that specifi-
of Gov. Paul LePage’s two-year budget: a continuation of a merit pay freeze put in place two years ago, and the reinstatement of a freeze on pay increases related to years of service. Those two parts are estimated to save $12.6 million over the two-year period. Unlike his predecessor, LePage is not proposing that state workers be required to take unpaid days off, nor is he proposing a large number of layoffs. Merit pay increases affect employees mostly in their first seven years of
Please see BUDGET, Page A7
CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK