Bizarre Murder Plot Foiled By Tosa Police

1-8-2013 Wisconsin:

An East Troy man stands accused of attempted murder of a Wauwatosa resident after a caller warns police that a truck has been circling his block — and officers find the driver has hatched a strange plot to kill an old friend.

An East Troy man's obsession with protecting children and his delusion that an old friend was a child sex offender led him to plan to murder the man, according to Wauwatosa police, as detailed in a criminal complaint.

Daniel G. Plevak, 54, was charged Thursday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court with attempted first-degree intentional homicide and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Although Plevak never actually confronted his intended victim, the complaint shows, police believe he had the ways, the means and the clear intent to commit the crime of murder, that he was about to do so, and that their actions stopped its commission.

According to the criminal complaint:

About 5 p.m. on Dec. 30, a resident called Wauwatosa police about a suspicious vehicle. Around 3:30 p.m., he said, he'd seen a yellow Penske rental truck drive by his house. A short time later, he saw it go by again. Over the next 45 minutes, he said, it went by five or six more times.

A patrol officer was dispatched, and he spotted the truck driving slowly down West Argonne Drive near West Concordia Avenue. The first thing he noticed was that the driver was wearing sunglasses despite the fact that the sun had set half an hour before.

The officer stopped the truck in the 9800 block of Argonne, walked up and found Plevak at the wheel — wearing a long black curly wig, makeup, a fake mustache, a parka and a Chicago Bears cap.

Plevak immediately told the officer he did not want to answer any questions, but he volunteered that he had a loaded gun on the floor near his feet, the complaint says.

The officer asked Plevak to get out of the truck so he could search him. He found that under his parka, Plevak was wearing an improvised holster made out of a belt. The officer asked Plevak what his business was driving around the area, and told him that if it was legitimate he might be let go.

Plevak told him, "I don't think you will be releasing me," the officer said in his report.

A firearm — and a fake arm

A second officer arrived on the scene and went to the passenger side of the truck, where he found several printed handbills on the seat. They pictured a man, gave his age and address, and said that the subject "...targets and sexually assaults little girls 5 to 12 years old. Protect your kids."

(Wauwatosa police would later learn that such handbills had been appearing in the neighborhood for two years, and that Milwaukee police had been taking them down.)

While Plevak was held outside the truck, the second officer continued his search of the cab. His next find was the gun Plevak had admitted having. It proved to be a .22-caliber Ruger semi-automatic handgun loaded with hollow-point cartridges — one in the chamber and 10 in the magazine.

The gun was on top of a Walmart bag, and in it was a 50-count box of .22 hollow points containing 19 more rounds. On the floor next to it were a pair of yellow gloves. The right-hand glove was attached to two rolls of taped-together bubble wrap that, the officer said, matched the dimensions of a false arm.

Wauwatosa police declined for now to release pictures taken at the scene of Plevak in full disguise and of the fake arm.

Intended victim a longtime friend

A detective presented with the strange evidence observed that if Plevak were to have placed the false arm with attached glove in the right sleeve of his parka, while wearing the left glove, it would appear that his hands were empty – but in fact he could have had his right hand inside his parka with access to the holster, ready to draw.

Also collected from the Penske truck was a receipt dated Dec. 23 from McMiller Sports Center in Eagle, where there is a shooting range. It noted a charge of $15.22 for "1 Range All Day."

On the back of the receipt was a hand-written note, reading: "arma balas, holster, night vision monocular, puddy (sic) knife, pepper spray, coat, peluca, bigote, brazo, abrigo, cinta, flyers." The detective translated the Spanish words in the list as, "bullets, wig, mustache, arm, coat and tape."

Next stop was the home of the man on the handbills, a nearby resident of Argonne Drive. He was shown a picture of Plevak, without his disguise, and immediately recognized him as a former friend he had known since college but hadn't seen in a number of years.

He said a neighbor had told him about similar handbills that he had seen in the neighborhood, but he had apparently never been shown one. He identified the photo as one taken of him and Plevak years before by Plevak's son. Plevak had cropped himself out of the photo, he said.

The man denied all of Plevak's allegations against him of criminal behavior and proved to have no criminal record.

Notes outline a basic plan

Police next obtained a search warrant for the trailer home and premises listed to Plevak in East Troy. There, they found a trove of oddities, including repeated rough outlines of a plan to kill someone. Among the finds:

• A folder containing another handbill like the others
• An old envelope addressed to Plevak from the intended victim's address
• Photos of the intended victim
• A handwritten note listing the rules and fees of the Eagle gun range
• A handwritten note reading, "CCI Velociraptor Hypervelocity ammunition 22 long rifle, 40 grain plated lead hollow point"
• A handwritten note reading, "Practice draw while wearing a coat/jacket. 1. Draw weapon 2. Safety off 3. Aim and fire 4. Flee 5. Safety on 6. Holster"
• A Walmart receipt for binoculars, ammunition and powder solvent dated Nov. 21
• Another handwritten note reading, "Practice drawing pistol while wearing a coat or jacket 1. Draw weapon 2. Safety off 3. Aim and shoot-shoot-shoot 4. Flee 5. Safety on 6. Holster," and below that, "Binoculars for range and surveillance, gun grease, spray cleaner, cleaning kit, targets and disguise."
• A calendar filled with multiple notes similar to the above.
• A handgun case
• A night-vision scope
• Gun-cleaning supplies, and a receipt for many of the items mentioned or found, including the bubble wrap
• Fifteen more handwritten notes with personal information about the intended victim and/or his fiancée including their employers and their addresses, maps, and the couple's interests and activities (all of which proved to be substantially correct).
• Three packages of self-adhesive fake mustaches, with one mustache missing; and
• A 100-count box of .22-caliber hollow-point ammo, minus 75 rounds.

Testimony piles up against defendant

There were still other people to talk to. Among yet other evidence that mounted up against Plevak:

• A range officer at McMiller Sports remembered Plevak practicing at the range just before Christmas and said he proficiently fired hundreds of rounds from various distances on the 25-yard range.
• A statement from a Waukesha police detective that Plevak in 2010 had reported that the intended victim had sexually assaulted his daughter 14 years before, and that she, by then 26, needed to file a complaint. She never did, the detective said, and so the matter was never investigated.
• Plevak's daughter told police that her father was obsessed with the intended victim and has been growing more so since the death of her brother about a year ago. She told police she believed her father would kill the man. She said nothing about any sexual assault on her involving the intended victim or anyone else.
• Plevak's brother told police that he believed him to be a very dangerous person and needing help. He said his brother constantly talked about protecting children, particularly his grandchildren.
• The statement alluded to above from a Milwaukee police officer that for some two years he has been responding to alerts from neighbors near the intended victim about the accusing handbills and has been finding them and taking them down all that time. There is no mention that the Milwaukee police ever thought to talk to the subject of the handbills about what was going on.
• Plevak's own criminal record: He was convicted in 1980 of two felony counts of battery of a police officer, hence he should never have owned, possessed or used a gun. He was also convicted in 1997 of battery. In that case, two more charges were filed but then dismissed, but were allowed to be read into the court record. They were: disorderly conduct; and recklessly causing bodily harm to a child by a parent or guardian.

Adding all that up, Wauwatosa police and an assistant district attorney concluded that Plevak was "on W. Argonne Drive waiting for his opportunity to kill" his old friend and that the facts "demonstrate unequivocally, under all of the circumstances, that he had formed that intent and would commit the crime except for the intervention of the Wauwatosa Police Officers."

Plevak is scheduled for a preliminary hearing at 1:30 p.m. next Monday.

The attempted homicide charge carries a penalty of up to 60 years in prison plus five more for the use of a dangerous weapon, if Plevak is convicted. A conviction on the separate weapons charge would add 10 more years if the sentences were to be served consecutively. ..Source.. by Jim Price

Letter to the editor in the Billings Gazette

1-6-2013:

Letter to the editor found here: http://billingsgazette.com/news/opinion/mailbag/false-rape-claim-warrants-severe-punishment/article_a4dd9568-56b2-5d33-919c-76fccf12aea0.html

I'd like to comment on an article written by ____, concerning a false rape claim by ______ in The Gazette. First of all, I received this article via email from The Society Of The Wrongfully Accused.

I myself was a false rape victim back in September of 1995 while living in ___. I was accused by a woman I never even shook hands with. I was arrested, charged and thrown into jail without any consideration and had the embarrassment of having my name and charges splattered all over the Sacramento Bee.

The embarrassment and humiliation to my wife, my daughter and myself was immeasurable; it caused severe emotional trauma and in some ways permanent damage to my marriage. I hope and pray this woman receives the justice she deserves and that some day laws are passed making false rape claims a felony. They also should be treated as a sex crime. Even though no physical rape was committed, men who are almost always the victims in these cases, are raped by the justice system. If they are unfortunately convicted and sent to prison, they are often physically raped and sometimes murdered.

I once worked as a correctional officer for four years in a maximum security federal penitentiary and know that convicted rapists and child molesters are often targeted for violence by other inmates; any amount of time in prison for me would have ended my life. ... But the biggest crime of all, are committed by people who bare false witness against others.

[Name Omitted] ..Source..

Former prison guard describes hostile atmosphere for sex criminals

12-20-2012 Pennsylvania:

A former State Correctional Institution Pittsburgh prison guard testified against an ex-colleague at trial today, saying that officers created a hostile atmosphere for sex crime convicts, but that he did not personally witness physical abuse.

Former corrections officer Curtis Hoffman worked SCI Pittsburgh's F Block, where, according to inmate testimony, sex criminals were singled out for hazing and sometimes physical abuse. Tory Kelly, 41, of Aliquippa, is on trial on 14 counts ranging from simple assault to official oppression.

Another former officer, Harry N. Nicoletti of Coraopolis, faces trial next month on 89 counts.

Mr. Hoffman testified under a grant of immunity from prosecution that also covered his testimony, twice, before a grand jury.

He said that Mr. Nicoletti would perform most of the new inmate orientations on F Block.

Mr. Nicoletti would "say, 'You look like an [epithet] child molester. You'd better tell me or I'm going to go on the computer and find out,'" Mr. Hoffman testified.

Mr. Hoffman said that Mr. Kelly was not assigned to F Block, but would frequently come there.

Mr. Kelly "bragged about his escapades," Mr. Hoffman said. "He always talked about fighting. ... The only complaints I heard with reference to him were inmate workers or staff who said they were tired of him bragging about beating up inmates."

Under cross examination by defense attorney David Cercone, Mr. Hoffman said he never saw Mr. Kelly strike an inmate, nor did he recall seeing the defendant interact with any of the four prisoners whose allegations form the basis of the trial.

He portrayed supervision of F Block as lax.

"It's commonplace for supervisors to approach the block, sign the log book and leave," he said. But within the prison there was broad knowledge of the singling out of sex crime convicts on F Block, he said.

The prosecution then rested and the defense will begin, and possibly complete, its case this afternoon. Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge David Cashman is handling the nonjury trial.

Some time shortly after the completion of this trial, Mr. Kelly faces a separate trial on five counts related to allegations that he tried to intimidate Mr. Hoffman. ..Source.. by Rich Lord / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Asperger's and Violence: Experts Weigh In

December 2012:

Dec. 19, 2012 -- Reports that Newtown shooter Adam Lanza had Asperger’s syndrome, a highly functioning form of autism, have led some to wonder whether that diagnosis could have played a role in the mass shooting, which killed 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school last week.

As with many cases such as this, the answer is complex. While experts are clear that Asperger's doesn’t make a person more likely to commit a violent crime, some say it may affect the way a crime is carried out.

Advocates for people with autism are more direct.

“Autism did not cause this crime,” says Peter Bell, MBA, executive vice president for programs and services at the nonprofit group Autism Speaks.

Bell, who also has a son with autism, says it’s important to understand that the condition is a developmental disorder that arises early in life. Children and adults with autism spectrum disorders struggle to communicate with others. They may feel socially isolated and have trouble feeling like part of a group. They may also have repetitive or restrictive behaviors, like rocking or shaking their hands.

“There’s absolutely nothing in that definition that talks about violence or committing aggressive acts,” Bell says.
Asperger’s and Violence

Indeed, psychologists and psychiatrists agree that people with autism or Asperger’s are not more likely to commit violent crimes than members of the general population, but they say in very rare cases, it can happen.

In those isolated instances, forensic psychiatrists tell WebMD, a diagnosis of Asperger’s or autism may help explain some aspects of seemingly unfathomable acts.

“I think it does matter. I think that’s probably part of making sense of this horrible thing that happened. I think that’s part of the equation,” says Marc Hillbrand, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

Hillbrand has studied the psychology of mass shootings, but he had no direct knowledge of Adam Lanza’s medical history.

“What’s so unusual about this individual, if indeed he has Asperger’s, is the use of weapons. There are a few cases of people with high-functioning autism who have committed violent crimes using weapons, but it’s a very small number of people,” he says.

Marianne Kristiansson, PhD, professor of forensic psychiatry at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has published one of the few studies looking at the characteristics of a small number of violent offenders who also had autism.

She said when she heard about the Connecticut shooting, her first thought was that the shooter might have had Asperger’s.

“That was just my diagnosis,” Kristiansson says. “This offender behavior that he has presented is quite typical of a subject with ... autistic traits.”

As head of the national board of forensic medicine in Sweden, it’s Kristiansson’s job to try to figure out why people sometimes act in violent ways.

She says most people who commit crimes do it for some kind of concrete reward -- money, for instance, or sex, or drugs. That’s not the case in people with autism spectrum disorders.

“In these cases, it’s very, very different. The motive for the crime is different. The motive of the crime is to communicate that you yourself are very offended. Other people have treated you in a very bad way and you want revenge. You want to communicate that on a very global level to lots of people,” she says.

“This behavior is completely impossible to understand because it’s so horrible. A psychopath would never commit such a crime,” she says “because a psychopath commits crimes that he receives some benefit from, and he would not commit suicide after a crime.”

“In Sweden we have had such offenders who really wanted to communicate to other authorities that they are very offended and very frustrated, but due to their autistic traits, they didn’t have the ability to communicate that verbally, so instead they take some kind of non-verbal communication,” she says, referring to the case of Peter Mangs, a 40-year-old with a diagnosis of Asperger’s who was charged with shooting more than a dozen people, most of them immigrants, from 2009 to 2010.

“Asperger’s subjects may have special interests. He had a special interest in shooting and guns and so on. So he had a license for lots of guns,” she says, referring to Mangs.

When people with Asperger’s become fixated on weapons, it can lead to violence, she says.

“It could be fires or fire-setting. We have even seen an interest in explosives that had very problematic effects and offending behavior,” Kristiansson says.
When a Child With Autism Is Violent

Amy Lutz doesn’t buy the idea that people with autism may turn to violence as a way to communicate. Lutz is the president of the EASI Foundation, which stands for Ending Aggression and Self-Injury in the Developmentally Disabled, a new nonprofit she started to help parents with violent children.

Lutz has a 13-year-old son with autism who was once so aggressive that he was admitted to a residential treatment program for a year so doctors could stabilize his rages.

“I didn’t want to become that mom who was beaten to death by her son,” she says, referring to the case of Trudy Steuernagel, who was killed by her teenage autistic son.

Lutz says that in her experience, her son’s rages were unpredictable. She says they happened in reaction to something in his environment or to some chemical imbalance in his brain. They were never predatory, as the shooting in Connecticut seemed to be.

“There was no intention behind the aggression,” Lutz says. “He would go off a cliff and there was no coming back until the storm had passed.”

But the storms were terrible. When her son was 9, they had him committed to the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore for a year, where he was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in addition to his autism.

A 2008 review found that 84% of violent offenders with autism also had co-existing psychiatric disorders at the time they committed the crime.

Lutz says that in her son’s case, electroshock therapy to control the biopolar disorder has helped.

“He’s still very autistic, but the rage is gone,” she says.

SOURCES:Peter Bell, MBA, executive vice president for programs and services, Autism Speaks, New York.Marc Hillbrand, PhD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.Marianne Kristiansson, PhD, professor of forensic psychiatry, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.Amy S. F. Lutz, president, EASI Foundation. ..Source.. by WebMD Medical News: By Brenda Goodman, MA and Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD