Alberto Gonzales

WASHINGTON — After getting a bumpy reception in Washington as President Bush’s Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales has found some love in Texas.

Texas Tech announced Tuesday that Gonzales will return as a visiting professor for a second year, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The Chronicle reported that political science department chairman Dennis Patteron said Gonzales has been a tremendous asset to the department.

Gonzales,55, is a native of San Antonio.

“The Bricklayer” by Noah Boyd is published by Harper Collins.

Greg Stejskal served as an FBI agent for 31 years and retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have known Noah Boyd for over 30 years. I first met him in his former incarnation, Paul Lindsay, an FBI agent in Detroit. I was fresh out of the FBI Academy and had been assigned to the fugitive squad in Detroit .

Although I didn’t know it at the time, it was to my very good fortune to have Lindsay/Boyd as my training agent. (I will use Lindsay’s pen name Noah Boyd for simplicity.)

Boyd had earned a reputation as one of the best fugitive agents in the Bureau, that is, he was very good at finding bad guys who didn’t want to be found. Later in his career, Boyd would apply his considerable talents to cold cases and serial killers.

Boyd also had a talent for creative writing. In fact, he penned his first book in 1992 while he was still an agent in Detroit (under his true name). Since then he’s chalked up a total of seven novels – the latest being “The Bricklayer”. His writing has a gritty realism to it.

In “The Bricklayer,” he introduces a protagonist, Steve Vail, who is the quintessential American- Lone Ranger kind of hero. The first scenes in the book involve a bank robbery in which Vail physically subdues the bandits while the security cameras roll. Then before anyone can figure out who he is, he slips away.

By Allan Lengel

Attorneys for four current and ex-cops charged in the civilian Post-Katrina shootings on the Danziger Bridge will try and dissuade the Justice Department from seeking the death penalty, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

The paper reports that attorneys are scheduled to meet with Justice Department officials Tuesday to discuss the matter.

It’s highly unusual for the feds to seek the death penalty against cops. The paper reports the only former cop on death row right now is a New Orleans officer Len Davis, “who ran a drug-protection racket in the mid-1990s and ordered the murder of a woman who filed a complaint to his superiors.”

To read more click here.

Sam Adam Jr. may not return for act 2/ law firm photo

The sequel to Rod Blagojevich’s first public corruption trial could be coming to a federal court room in downtown Chicago as early as January, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The Trib reported that in a private meeting last week between U.S. District Judge James Zagel and lawyers, the judge said he was considering a January date.

Whether Blagojevich has the same attorneys is in question. His legal team of seven lawyers was paid from his $2.7 million campaign fund, which is now totally depleted.

The judge indicated he would appoint Blago two attorneys, which are likely to be paid by taxpayers.

The father and son team of Sam Adam Sr. and Sam Adam Jr. have hinted they may not return for a second act, the Tribune reported.  Blagojevich was convicted last week on one of 24 public corruption counts. The jury deadlocked on the other 23 counts and the judge declared a mistrial on those charges.

APPEARANCE ON THE DAILY SHOW MONDAY

Yonni Sebbag won’t be going to Disney World any time soon. In fact, he’s probably going to a place far scarier.

On Monday, in New York, Yonni Sebbag, 30, of Los Angeles,  pleaded guilty to conspiring with his girlfriend to sell insider information about Walt Disney Co. stock, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said.

Authorities say that Sebbag’s girlfriend Bonnie Hoxie, an assistant to Disney’s corporate communications chief, obtained confidential information about the company and gave it to Sebbag to sell.

By Allan Lengel

If you speak Ebonics, the federal government may have a job for you.

The Drug Enforcement Administration wants to hire people fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, transcribe and translate secretly recorded conversations in narcotics investigations, according to the website The Smoking Gun and DEA documents.

The Smoking Gun reports that up to nine Ebonics experts will work with the DEA Atlanta Division after obtaining “DEA Sensitive” security clearance.

Ebonics, or “Black English,” generally is defined as a nonstandard form of English spoken by African-Americans.

To read more click here.

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

• RFK Jr.’s Wife Faces New Impaired Driving Charges (AP)
• Witness Says He Felt Safe Around Az. Escapees (AP)
• Tex. Money Laundering Case Against Tom DeLay Moving Forward (AP)
• Death Penalty on Table for New Orleans Cops in Danziger Bridge Killings (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
• Calif. Man Gets 20 Years in Anthrax Hoax (AP)
• Ex-Bureau of Land Management Manager Took Oil Company Gifts (AP)
• Scant Progress in FBI Probes Into Civil Rights Era Murders (NY Times)
• Some Mass. Towns Give up on Marijuana Enforcement (AP)
• Ex-Maine Prosecutor Guilty of Child Porn Charges (Portland Press Herald)