The story came about after a tip from a parent.

I conducted background checks on more than 40

coaches, interviewed the coaches with criminal records as well as league officials, parents and
outside sources for this story. After it was published, I was both vilified and praised on talk
radio; the story and its three follow-ups gathered hundreds of comments on tampabay.com and
my phone rang off the hook with responses from readers. This story placed fifth in the Hearst
Journalism Awards for in-depth reporting in 2008. —LN

St. Petersburg Times | Oct. 30, 2007

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/30/news_pf/Southpinellas/Who_s_your_kids__coac.shtml

Who’s your kids’ coach?

Some youth programs check sex offender registries but let other offenses slide.

By LIBBY NELSON, Times Staff Writer

Published October 30, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - Three evenings a week, four coaches for the Azalea Bulldogs football
program teach youths ages 7 to 14 to block and pass. Whistles around their necks, they
demonstrate technique, make out plays, encourage young minds.

Among them, they have 45 arrests.

Their records include cocaine sales, weapons offenses and prison time.

“We’re supposed to be setting examples and being good mentors,” said Sally Johnson, executive
director of the National Council of Youth Sports. “You want to be certain that we’re being
responsible and that your children are in the care of upstanding citizens.”

The coaches have slipped through a loophole that legislators, advocacy groups and other counties
are trying to close.

The only criminal background check required of the Bulldogs and the 10 other programs in the
Suncoast Youth Football Conference is a search of the sex offender registry.

“What we’re looking for is criminal sexual offenders and child pedophiles,” said conference
president Lenny Anderson.

The conference declined to provide information about coaches. But background checks on more
than half the coaches in the conference revealed no records comparable to Azalea’s.

The coaches are not without their supporters.

“I’m very careful,” said Kim Walter, president of the Azalea Bulldogs division, who knows the
coaches’ stories but believes they are a positive influence. “I’m not a cop. I try to be trusting.”

‘Very good people’

The coaches are volunteers. From August to November, they give their teams three evenings a
week and most of Saturday.

Finding people willing to make that commitment can be challenging, and the Bulldogs are not
the first to see coaches’ records catch up with them.

Last year, Hillsborough County removed a youth football coach who had been convicted on
corruption charges, only to have him reinstated by a committee of volunteers. The county since
has clarified its policy to exclude anyone convicted of felonies within the past eight years.

Under those guidelines, three of the four Azalea coaches would have been ineligible to coach.
The Azalea division includes 11 head coaches instructing 400 young players who make up 10
teams, categorized by age, weight and ability. The Bulldogs’ parent organization, the Suncoast
Youth Football Conference, has 11 such divisions in Pinellas County.

The conference requires coaches to list their records, but it also searches a state sex offender
registry for their names. The registry would have given no hint of the four Azalea coaches’
criminal histories.

Adrian Monroe was sentenced to three years in prison in 1997 for cocaine trafficking, possession
of marijuana and carrying a concealed weapon.

He was released in 2000. In 2002, Monroe became an assistant coach.

Monroe, now a head coach, has not discussed his record with players or parents.

Monroe said he filled out his background form honestly when he volunteered but didn’t expect
his record to be a problem.

He was arrested 12 times in 11 years, between 1992 and 2003, but most charges are almost a
decade old. Domestic violence charges in 2003 were dropped.

“They’re looking for sexual predators, stuff like that,” Monroe said.

Other coaches moved even more quickly from prison or probation to the playing field.

Charles Price was arrested for selling cocaine in 2002 and sentenced in May 2003 to three years’
probation.

Three years and three months later, he was an assistant coach.

Price is an assistant to Brian Dozier, who has 14 arrests, most for driving with a suspended
license. As a habitual offender, Dozier was sentenced to a year in jail in 2003. Now he’s back on
the practice field.

Head coach Aundre Stevens also had a speedy turnabout.

He pled guilty in 2003 to possession of cocaine and was put on probation. He began coaching in
2006, the same year he was convicted of grand theft and larceny for writing a bad check.

Not every criminal offense should eliminate someone from coaching, Azalea Bulldogs president
Walter said.

“Driving with a suspended license -- that’s not going to keep a coach off my field,” Walter said.
“Being arrested eight, nine, 10 years ago, that’s not either. Two years ago? Maybe.”

She said she believes people can turn their lives around -- and that these coaches have.

“I just think they really are positive role models for these kids,” Walter said. “They really are
very good people.”

Legislation planned
Cases such as Azalea’s have made thorough background checks more common among youth
sports organizations.

But many organizations only consult the state’s sex offender registry, which is free and addresses
parents’ fears about sexual predators near children.

In the spring 2008 legislative session, legislators will vote on whether that’s good enough.
“It’s a loophole left out there for unsavory people to get near our children,” said Sen. Jeremy
Ring, D-Margate, who is proposing a bill requiring comprehensive background checks. “What if
your coach was busted for selling crack cocaine a month ago? There’s a lot of criminal activity
that parents need to be concerned about.”

Ring’s bill does not specify what offenses would disqualify a coach. If it passes in the
Legislature’s spring session, background check requirements would go into effect in June 2008.
Some organizations support an even tougher line.

The National Council of Youth Sports’ guidelines advise leagues to disqualify coaches who have
been convicted of any felony punishable by a year or more in prison, and any coaches convicted
of a drug crime. Under those rules, none of the four Azalea coaches would be on the field.

In Hillsborough, the county imposes guidelines that often go beyond those required by youth
organizations, just to ensure no one slips through the cracks.
Pinellas County does not have a similar backstop. Neither do Pinellas public schools and the city
of St. Petersburg.

For example, Azalea players practice on Pinellas school property, but the schools defer to the
city, which requires only a sex offender registry check, said spokesman Paul Whitehouse.

More comprehensive background checks are too expensive, he said.

That notion is commonly held, but some groups are working to bring down the price.

A criminal history from the state costs $23. USA Football, a nonprofit supporting amateur
football, subsidizes background checks for $15 per coach.

Though the checks are aimed at catching sex offenders, they also screen for all other offenses.
John Brill, spokesman for Hillsborough Parks, Recreation and Conservation, supports thorough
background checks.

“We don’t run the league, but they are on our property,” he said. “We’re held accountable in
everybody’s eyes.” ■

This is, by far, the craziest assignment I’ve ever had. I worked an 18-hour day, including several
hours at the museum before the event and a few hours writing the story when I got home. I got
hit in the shoulder with a microwaved tomato. I was afraid that fireworks might misfire and hit
me. And all for a story that led off the front of the New York Times’ Culture secton.

The New York Times | August 15, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/arts/design/15duke.html

In Queens, a Battle on the Low Seas, and May the Best Artist
Win
By LIBBY NELSON

Sated with free beer and wine, and plenty of it, the toga-wearing crowd flung microwaved
tomatoes and morsels of baguette into the reflecting pool at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in
Queens.

“Boats!” they yelled. “Boats! Boats! Boats!”

This was an art exhibition — a term that perhaps conjures a more subdued event. But the art in
this show, called “Those About to Die Salute You,” involved humans in motion, boats on water
and those tomatoes. It was the creation of Duke Riley, whose work skews aquatic and
unpredictable: He once built a wood and fiberglass submarine, floated it too close to the Queen
Mary 2 and was arrested.
His vision for Queens on Thursday night was a Roman-style staged naval battle among
representatives of museums in four New York boroughs, who would face off in teams in the
reflecting pool, paddling in boats built from recycled materials like reeds and salvaged
Styrofoam.

At least, that was the general idea. There were no dress rehearsals; there was no script.

“It’s one of these things where you’re taking a certain degree of risk,” said Tom Finkelpearl,
executive director of the Queens Museum of Art. Mr. Riley, speaking before the performance,
said he had “no idea exactly what’s going to go on.”

“There’s a lot of variables and wild cards,” he added. “I just hope everything goes smoothly and
safely, and nobody gets too badly hurt.” In the end it was a sopping melee, very messy, and any
notions of careful naval strategies were quickly abandoned as the audience and the team
members — dressed in cardboard armor with painted faces and cardboard swords and shields —
got caught up in their enthusiasm. But it was art. And nobody got too badly hurt.

The idea evolved over the course of a year, Mr. Riley said. He had been thinking for some time
about naumachia, as ancient Rome’s elaborate re-enactments of naval battles were called. When
he was asked to do an exhibition for the Queens Museum of Art, which hosted the event,
“everything just kind of clicked,” he said.

By Thursday afternoon, the reflecting pool was filled with 70,000 gallons of water for what
organizers said was the first time since the 1964 World’s Fair. The teams, from the Queens
Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and El Museo del Barrio
in Manhattan, were putting on their war paint and cardboard armor. A Queens Museum intern
had spent the day microwaving tomatoes, seeking to achieve the perfect consistency for
throwing.

And by early evening toga-wearing guests were packed into the museum, shouting at one another
to be heard over a rock band playing behind them. Eventually spectators moved out to the
reflecting pool, sitting quietly at first, on the grass and on bleachers.

As the wait stretched to an hour, they grew restless. The microwaved tomatoes, piled in boxes by
the pool, were meant to be thrown during the mock battle, but they proved too much of a
temptation. Soon people were flinging them across the pool at one another. A few unfurled
umbrellas to protect themselves.

Then the audience began jumping into the thigh-deep pool as the first boat, the one from the
Queens Museum of Art, emerged. An announcer grabbed the microphone: “Let’s get it started!”
he said.

But that ship, as they say, had sailed.

“Get out of the pool!” the announcer yelled, trying to restore order and using several expletives.
“Get out of the water! We’re not starting till you’re out of the pool!”

The audience complied, and the ensuing battle resulted in the disintegration of most of the boats
within 20 minutes. Audience members refused to stay corralled and jumped back into the water
and climbed onto the boats. The Queens boat collapsed, as did the Brooklyn one, meant to be a
battleship. Only a giant pig-shaped boat made of wood, representing Manhattan, emerged mostly
unscathed.

A model of the Queen Mary 2, Mr. Riley’s old target, was the last to arrive, pushed by a
volunteer, and was promptly set aflame, driving spectators from the water. Then Roman candles
began issuing from the boat, followed by other fireworks. Some burst overhead; others landed a
little too close, and the crowd ducked. The flames reached almost three feet high before the boat
was tipped into the water and the fire extinguished.

“You never really know what’s going to happen,” Mr. Riley said after the performance. “Nobody
got hurt, and I’m not in jail.”

Afterward the spectators appeared exhilarated but slightly shell shocked. Some praised the
participatory nature of the art; others were still recovering.

“It was radical, super radical,” said Catherine Harine Connell of Brooklyn. “The fact that it was
in a public park in Queens.

“It was free form, but still organized,” she added.

Ms. Connell was euphoric; others were alarmed.

“That was wilder than I ever would have expected,” said Dorothy Trojanowski, who described
the event as “out of control.”

“The danger factor was —— “ she paused. “Stimulating.”

As everyone piled out of the pool, leaving debris from the boats behind, an announcer promised
a Roman orgy at the museum afterward.

Some wondered, given the night’s events so far, whether he might have been serious. ■

I spent days at the Taxi and Limousine Commission office for this story, listening to telephone
testimony and chatting with judges. The resulting “Only in New York” story was a fun slice of
life, as well as an adventure in big-city bureaucracy.—LN

The New York Times | September 5, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/nyregion/05taxi.html
With Advent of Telephone Testimony, More Taxi
Complaints Are Heard by a Judge
By LIBBY NELSON

Len Gelstein’s taxi nightmare started, he said, after he slipped into a yellow cab at Kennedy
International Airport. It ended after a harrowing $71 ride, he said, and a call to the police.

Mr. Gelstein said his driver got lost and ended up in a line of garbage trucks on a bridge
unfamiliar to Mr. Gelstein. The cabby drove more than 70 miles per hour, Mr. Gelstein said, and
even backed up on the highway. The price wound up being almost double what the trip
ordinarily costs.

Outraged, Mr. Gelstein called the police to ask if he had to pay the fare. Told he would spend the
night in jail if he did not, he complied. Then he turned to another agency for recourse.

“It was a remarkable ride,” Mr. Gelstein testified on a recent Monday before a judge at a Taxi
and Limousine Commission hearing.

Complaints about the work of cabdrivers seem to follow the adage about the weather: Everybody
talks about it, but nobody does anything. This has long been a problem for the commission,
which relies on customer complaints to monitor drivers. Complaints are filed in only about 1 in
every 11,000 rides, and the customers who do lodge complaints often do not follow through. In
2008, less than a quarter of those who agreed to testify at a hearing showed up.

In December, in an effort to make the process easier, the commission began allowing those who
file complaints to testify by phone. This year, about a quarter of the complainants who have
opted for a hearing chose to testify by phone. (Mr. Gelstein was among them.)

The commission’s chairman, Matthew W. Daus, considers the program a success thus far. Now,
half of the customers who say they will testify in person and half of those who agree to testify by
phone do so.

One such customer was Jane Bills, who filed a complaint in January, saying she had been forced
to pay her fare in cash.

“Is the guy, the driver, there?” Ms. Bills asked over the phone during a hearing on Aug. 17. Told
that he was, Ms. Bills began to tell her story.

She said she had hailed a cab after a dinner with friends. The driver, Khris Singh, insisted that
she would have to pay in cash, she said, telling her the credit-card reader was broken, although
she said it appeared to be fine. She said that she rolled down her window slightly and that Mr.
Singh rolled it up from the front.
Fed up, she had the cab stop short of her destination, paid the fare — in cash, with exact change
— and got out.

Hearings like Ms. Bills’s often feature competing narratives and limited verifiable truth. (Mr.
Singh’s lawyer, M. Daniel Bach, said that his client did not remember driving Ms. Bills and that
she could not prove he was lying about the credit-card machine.)

If found guilty, drivers, who must appear in person to testify, can be fined or have their licenses
suspended or revoked. Those found not guilty still pay a price, because they are unable to earn
fares while in court. “For a taxi driver, the minute a complaint is filed, the penalty begins,” said
Bhairavi Desai, the founder and executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

Some drivers, like Mr. Singh, hire lawyers. Others cannot afford to, including Yah Nuamah, who
was accused of hitting a car with his cab and leaving the scene. When Mr. Nuamah was called by
the judge, he was asked if he wanted to return with a lawyer. He could not afford one, he said.
He would represent himself.

At the intersection of driver and passenger is an administrative law judge. The judge hears
testimony from passengers, who are sometimes angry because drivers refused to transport them
or did not take the route they requested, and from drivers, some angry as well, who sometimes
must represent themselves despite speaking little English.

One of the judges, Patrick McAuliffe, said he saw the conflict as a deeper one, between the
public’s right to good service and safe streets and the drivers’ right to make a living in a difficult
job.

“It can get very dramatic,” Judge McAuliffe said. “How could it not?”

When witnesses testify by phone, one bit of courtroom drama vanishes: the moment when driver
and customer meet face to face. A personal connection is lost, said Ms. Desai of the taxi workers
alliance, as is, in many cases, the chance for an apology or explanation from the driver. “Once
they see them in that environment,” she said, “it softens a lot of people, and they realize that,
wait a minute, this driver could lose their livelihood over our matter.”

Ms. Bills still seemed to realize the stakes. “I know I filed a complaint,” she said, somewhat
apologetically, after concluding her testimony. “I’m not trying to ruin this guy’s life.”

Most of the hearings that day resulted in fines: $900 for the cabby who drove Mr. Gelstein (he
did not show up for his hearing and was found guilty in absentia), and $200 for Mr. Singh. But
even with the new system, almost half of the complainants do not testify, and the complaints are
dismissed.

That happened to Mr. Nuamah, who could not afford a lawyer but whose passenger, who had
opted for a phone hearing, failed to answer his phone. Mr. Nuamah’s scheduled hearing time
passed, and he received good news: the complaint against him was dismissed. ■
This crime story generated a lot of attention in the Minneapolis metro area and landed on the
front page. It was written on deadline, with about four hours from the preliminary assignment to
the final product, including transit time to collect the police documents.—LN

Star Tribune | July 17, 2008

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/25601044.html

Minnetonka Realtor arrested in theft of pain meds

By LIBBY A. NELSON, Star Tribune
July 17, 2008

Freddy Akradi came home at lunch Tuesday to clean before what he thought would be the first
showing of his Minnetonka home.

Instead, he found his Siberian husky locked in the garage and pain medication missing from his
kitchen cabinet.

“I knew right away somebody had been in my house,” said Akradi, 26.

Police say the culprit was Minnetonka real estate broker Charles Lindley, 64, arrested that day at
another home showing. He’s accused of stealing pain medication from Akradi’s home and other
houses he had claimed to be showing to clients.

Lindley was in the Hennepin County jail Thursday night pending charges. Police said they can
link him to a similar theft in June and possibly to dozens of other cases.

“My guess is it’s going to be lots of houses,” said Minnetonka detective Sgt. Dave Riegert,
who’s supervising the investigation.

When Lindley was arrested, he had “literally hundreds of listings” for other homes with him,
Riegert said.

“People that are selling their houses are going back and looking in their medicine cabinets,” he
said. “They’re finding that their hydrocodone [a narcotic pain reliever] is gone and they didn’t
know about it.”

Lindley, who operates a brokerage agency with his wife, used a real estate database to search
new listings, Riegert said. He would set up a time to show a house, but then would arrive without
clients.

His wife is not under investigation, police said.

After Akradi’s real estate agent called police, four officers were waiting at a showing Lindley
had scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, Riegert said.

According to police documents, Lindley was in the house police staked out for less than five
minutes, going straight to the kitchen and pulling bottles of pills from the cupboard.

Police found a sock containing 85 pills in his car, according to the report.

When arrested, Lindley told police that he had become addicted to prescription drugs during
treatment for restless-leg syndrome 10 years ago, according to the report. He said he has been
prescribed pain medication but was supplementing it with the thefts.

Such cases rare

Real estate agents who steal from clients are rare, but such cases do occur, said Bill Walsh, a
spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Commerce, which licenses real estate agents and
brokers.

Lindley was licensed as a broker in 1985, according to Department of Commerce records.

On Wednesday, he agreed to a revocation of his license, Walsh said.

Akradi’s real estate agent, Wendy Villella, said the case creates even more problems for real
estate agents in a tough market and taints an honest profession.

“The Realtors out there are sick and tired of having a bad name, and it’s very hard to sell homes
when somebody’s out there stealing from your sellers,” Villella said. “It’s a very difficult market
out there, and the Realtors that are surviving are going above and beyond.”

It’s difficult to safeguard against dishonest brokers, who, unlike real estate agents, might not
have any contact with homeowners, Walsh said.

Riegert advised people selling their homes to lock up their valuables, including prescription
drugs, just in case. “You don’t know if the Realtor’s going to get distracted, or if there’s going to
be a bunch of people there,” he said.

Akradi said he’s just glad his dog -- locked in a hot garage on a 90-degree day -- is safe.

“I could care less about the prescription,” he said. “I really was worried that my poor dog was in
the garage. God knows how long he was in there for.”

And though he blames the economy, not the break-in, he has also decided to wait a little longer
to try to sell his house. ■
For this story, written in a day on deadline during my summer internship at the Star Tribune in
Minneapolis, I chased beer vendors around the Metrodome stadium for a “talker” piece.—LN

Star Tribune | Aug. 20, 2008

http://www.startribune.com/local/27208229.html

At the old beer game

A University of Minnesota study of alcohol sales at pro sports events finds it’s not
hard to get a drink when you shouldn’t

By LIBBY NELSON

Metrodome beer vendor Jeff Scroggins knows a drunk fan when he sees one: slurring words,
avoiding eye contact, trying to mask how much he or she has had. He said he won’t sell them
any of the $6.75 bottles he carries through the stands.

“I’m here to make money, but you gotta be responsible,” Scroggins said.

Not all vendors are so scrupulous, a University of Minnesota study of alcohol sales at the “big
four” pro sports events has found. The study, released Wednesday by the university’s Division of
Epidemiology and Community Health, looked at 16 sports stadiums in five states from
September 2005 to November 2006. It found that nearly three out of four people posing as
intoxicated fans and one out of five trying to pass as underage drinkers without ID succeeded in
buying alcohol.

Underage or intoxicated drinkers have about equal chances of being served regardless of whether
they’re attending pro football, basketball, baseball or hockey games, said lead researcher Traci
Toomey, an associate professor at the university’s School of Public Health.

Because the study involved human subjects, Toomey said, she couldn’t give any specifics on the
stadiums, not even saying in what parts of the country the stadiums are located. She wants to
focus on the problem nationwide, saying stadiums are a “high-risk setting” for alcohol use.

Drinking at the stadium

“Alcohol is related to a lot of problems we deal with in our society,” she said. “At a stadium, you
have a large group of people trying to watch a game. They don’t want a drink spilled on them,
they don’t want to be next to a fight breaking out, they don’t want to have someone next to them
so loud they can’t hear the game, they don’t want to get in their car and have someone next to
them who’s had too much to drink.”
The study hired people older than 21 who were judged to look underage and actors selected on
their ability to feign drunkenness. The actors would slur their words, fumble with money and
repeat themselves while trying to buy a drink, sometimes spraying themselves with alcohol
beforehand to add to the effect.

Those pretending to be underage would try to buy a beer without ID, Toomey said.

The subjects found that buying alcohol in the stands was nearly three times easier than at a
concession stand.
At the Metrodome, vendors are “very proactive” about illegal alcohol sales, said Dennis Alfton,
director of operations.

32 seats of difficulty

Vendors in the seating area are required to check ID of anyone who looks too young to drink
legally, though that can be difficult because there may be as many as 32 seats between aisles,
Alfton said.

“That is a challenge, and one we’re looking at,” he said. “If employees are found to sell to
underage drinkers, they are immediately terminated.”

The Metrodome has passed recent compliance checks by the city, he said. “Those issues are high
priorities for us and have been so for a number of years,” Alfton said.

Scroggins said he’s been trained to recognize drunken patrons but doesn’t see them “as often as
you might think.” “The bigger the game, the more it happens,” he said. He added that other fans
often tip vendors off when a would-be buyer has already had too much.

Twins fans tend to be responsible drinkers, said vendor Ryan Wegner, who was selling beer in
the cheap seats of the Metrodome during the Twins victory over Oakland on Wednesday.

“People, if they’re drinking at all, usually only have two or three beers,” he said.

Underage drinking is a well-publicized problem, Toomey said. The consequences of more

drinking by those who are already drunk has gotten less attention.

She said she hopes stadiums are concerned about both situations. “My goal as a researcher in
public health is to identify issues that may contribute to problems we’re facing in our society,”
she said. “Hopefully, it opens up a dialogue.” ■

I traveled to Indiana to report this story on Sallie Mae’s last-gasp lobbying efforts: using the
threat of job losses to persuade moderate Democrats into voting against the student-loan reform
bill. I spent a day at the headquarters, talking with ordinary workers as well as officials; I also
talked to expert sources for an analysis of how true the company’s projections of doom really
were. The result was this narrative, showing some of the less-visible people in the student loan
debate. —LN

The Chronicle of Higher Education | Nov. 22, 2009

http://chronicle.com/article/Sallie-Mae-Fights-for-Stude/49224/

Sallie Mae Fights for Student-Loan Role in a Campaign

That’s All About Jobs
By Libby Nelson

Fishers, Ind.
On a crisp November morning, hundreds of Sallie Mae employees gathered here in a scene
reminiscent of a high-school pep rally. They filed into rows of folding chairs, wearing matching
blue-and-white “Protect Indiana Jobs” T-shirts, as John Mellencamp’s rock ‘n’ roll played over
the speakers. They cheered as an official of the student-loan company praised their dedication
and told them how important they were to the local economy.

For two weeks, at grocery stores, nursing homes, and soccer games, employees of Sallie Mae’s
loan-service and data center in Fishers had tried to persuade their neighbors to join them in
signing a petition urging Congress to consider alternatives to the Obama administration’s plan to
end bank-based student lending. The company official, Jon Kroehler, a senior vice president, told
the crowd that one employee had handed around the petition in a hospital delivery room as his
wife was giving birth.

As he finished reciting a few last facts about the company’s Fishers location (its $148-million
payroll has the economic impact of 7,000 local jobs, he said), about 20 employees ran out from
behind him, clapping and grinning and carrying stacks of petitions. Above, a banner dropped to
reveal the total number of signatures: 81,437, greater than the population of Fishers.

“As my daughter would say, OMG,” Mr. Kroehler said, as the crowd before him cheered.

The U.S. House of Representatives has already voted to end bank-based student lending,
approving a bill in September that would move all federal loans to the Education Department’s
direct-loan program. The legislation, which largely mirrors President Obama’s plan, would use
the estimated $87-billion in savings to increase student aid, provide grants to community
colleges, and finance other college programs. But the Senate has yet to introduce its version of
the legislation, and lenders are seizing on the delay.

Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest student lender, has lobbied Congress and put forward its own
proposal for overhauling the federal student-loan system. That plan, too, would move all federal
loans to direct lending, but it would continue to allow student-loan companies to originate loans
before they were sold to the government. After the House vote didn’t go their way, company
executives accelerated their use of another tactic, one based on the adage that all politics is local.

The student-loan giant began drumming up grass-roots opposition to the legislation in the towns
where its largest facilities are located: Fishers and Muncie, Ind.; Lynn Haven, Fla.; and Wilkes-
Barre, Pa., among others. Thousands of employees at those locations donned T-shirts with
slogans protesting Congress’s move to end bank-based lending and solicited signatures on
petitions.

If bank-based lending ends, Sallie Mae employees told their neighbors and friends, the company
would face a major downsizing. Many of its 26 U.S. locations would probably close, putting
hundreds of people in those towns out of work, employees were told. Sallie Mae’s argument
against the legislation is a simple one and, with the national unemployment rate at its highest
level in 26 years, perhaps a powerful one, too.

The question is whether the argument, and the 186,092 signatures gathered nationwide in the
just-ended petition campaign, will be enough to change the outcome when the Senate takes up
the measure, later this year or early next year. Sallie Mae officials say they hope that, in the
meantime, some moderate Democrats, such as Sen. Evan Bayh, of Indiana, can be swayed to
vote against the bill.

Job Fears in Fishers

“There’s Washington, and then there’s the rest of the country,” Albert L. Lord, Sallie Mae’s
chief executive officer, told the crowd in Fishers. “This is the rest of the country.”

In Washington, Sallie Mae has spent $5.8-million in the past year and a half on lobbying. In
Fishers, company executives criticized Congress and the administration as being out of touch
with ordinary workers.

Fishers, just northeast of Indianapolis, is a fast-growing suburb of about 69,000 people that is
dotted with SuperTargets and megachurches amid the large parking lots, strip malls, and young
trees that mark new development. Overwhelmingly white and solidly middle-class, it was ranked
10th in Money magazine’s 2008 “Best Places to Live” survey, which lauded its high education
level and low home prices. The county unemployment rate, which was 6.1 percent in September,
is far below the national average of 10.2 percent but has almost doubled in the past year.

Sallie Mae’s facility here stretches for nearly a quarter-mile in an office park. Only about 100
loan originators, the jobs that are the most at risk if bank-based lending ends, work here. Far
more of its 1,600 employees work in default prevention, calling customers who are behind on
their payments, or in the data center, a windowless expanse of servers with data for Sallie Mae
offices all over the country.

Still, that does not mean those jobs are safe. “If we have to do a downsizing, every job is going
to be rated,” said Mary Eure, a senior vice president. “Every job is at stake.”
Brenda Marino, 42, found work as a systems analyst at Sallie Mae five months ago, after being
laid off from a job she had kept for 19 years. Afraid she would be jobless again, she posted the
Sallie Mae petition on Facebook every few days and kept a copy in her purse to pull out at every
opportunity, eventually gathering 47 signatures.

“My daughter will need a student loan, and if she can’t get one, I’ll have to support her at home,”
Ms. Marino says, echoing company executives who had cast doubt on whether a direct-loan
program would be able to efficiently lend money to students who need it.

Barbara Foust, 57, a loan-reconciliation processor—she helps work out problems with
loans—has worked at Sallie Mae for 18 years. Talking about the possibility of losing her job, she
has tears in her eyes. Her husband has health problems that left him hospitalized for two months
this year, and her 26-year-old son is unemployed. “I am the sole supporter of our income,” she
says.

During the Fishers rally, Mr. Lord accused Congress of creating “enormous anxiety” regarding
student loans among people like Ms. Foust and Ms. Marino as well as in colleges worried about
switching loan systems.

He also dismissed Education Department officials’ arguments that little net job loss would result
from the proposed changes. The department points to an analysis by the Council of Economic
Advisers that said direct-loan servicing contracts, which Sallie Mae will still get if bank-based
lending ends, would create new jobs to help offset job loss.

“Many of these jobs are likely to be at the very same banks and loan-servicing companies that
will be affected by the elimination” of bank-based lending, Christina Romer, the council’s chair,
wrote to Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Senate education committee.
Mr. Lord, however, was not buying it. “We don’t want just any old jobs,” he told the crowd. “We
want our jobs.”

Forecasting Job Losses

Should bank-based lending end, Sallie Mae has been chosen as one of four companies to service
federal loans under a contract with the Education Department. And Sallie Mae’s borrowers will
still be repaying their existing loans, which will have to continue to be serviced for years, until
they are all paid off.

A switch to direct lending would require a vast restructuring of the company, says Martha E.H.
Holler, vice president for corporate communications. Sallie Mae would need to lay off about 30
percent of its 8,500 employees, she warns, and most of the company’s 26 U.S. facilities would
close, consolidating operations at five or six remaining locations.

Some industry analysts, though, have cast doubt on how many jobs would actually be lost if the
bank-based federal loan program is eliminated.
Tim Ranzetta, president of Student Lending Analytics, an independent research company,
predicted in August that there would be a net loss of 4,750 jobs related to federal student loans
over the next several years if direct lending prevails. In his analysis, he assumed that Sallie Mae
would bring back to the United States 3,400 jobs that it has outsourced to other countries. He
also projected that some jobs would be created by the pending legislation’s College Access and
Completion Innovation Fund, which would give grants to states and programs that work to help
more students attend and complete college.

Regardless of the exact figure, the threat of job losses has been potent. At the Sallie Mae facility
in Lynn Haven, Fla., the 700 employees work almost exclusively in loan origination. “Obviously
it’s a critical issue,” says Renee Mang, a senior vice president there.

A petition circulated around Lynn Haven got 23,000 signatures. In Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where
Sallie Mae employs about 1,000 people, employees gathered more than 31,000 signatures.

Aiming at Moderate Democrats

The petition drive in Indiana is the biggest by far, in part because more than a quarter of Sallie
Mae employees work in Fishers and Muncie. The petition’s appeals to fight the bill also found
fertile political ground there.

Arguments against the policies of President Obama and the Democrats, and against a big federal
government, play well in the solidly Republican county where Fishers is located. In 2008,
Hamilton County residents gave John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, 60.8
percent of the vote.

Scott Faultless, president of the Fishers Town Council, is one of the petition’s most active
supporters. In a speech at the rally, he cast the House bill as part of a series of “government
takeovers,” linking it to the bailouts of the banking and auto industries and the proposed health-
care overhaul.

“You can’t do everything from Washington,” he said. “Private industry has a place.”

Influencing the votes of moderate Democratic senators from Florida, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia could help to change the outcome of the bill, although the Democrats’ sizable majority
in the Senate means a larger shift would be necessary to defeat the administration’s proposal
altogether.

Time is the biggest weapon on the side of the student-loan companies, higher-education lobbyists
have said: The longer the Senate waits to debate, the longer the lenders’ arguments have to gain
traction. And the closer the 2010 elections loom, one higher-education lobbyist says, the more
wary lawmakers will be of voting for any proposal that, like the loan overhaul, would make
broad changes to the federal government’s role.
Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat of Nebraska, has publicly raised concerns about job losses that
would be created by the version of the bill that passed the House. He has spoken out against the
measure, saying it would restrict options for students seeking loans.

Armed with the petitions from Muncie and Fishers, representatives of Sallie Mae have met with
Senator Bayh. Mr. Lord says the senator was responsive to Sallie Mae’s concerns.

A spokesman for Mr. Bayh says his vote will depend on the specifics of the Senate bill. He “will
evaluate the Senate’s version of student-lending legislation when it comes out of committee,
looking at the legislation’s overall impact on students and families, as well as the impact on jobs
in Indiana,” the spokesman says.

Direct Lending Still Growing

The direct-loan program has grown in popularity among colleges in the past year. It now carries
42 percent of federal student-loan volume, up from 29 percent a year ago. Some of the colleges
that have already moved to direct lending are in Sallie Mae’s backyard: Indiana University-
Purdue University at Indianapolis, a 30-minute drive from Fishers, switched in the summer of
2008, along with the rest of the Indiana’s public colleges.

Officials of Indiana-Purdue say they chose direct lending when they were told that fees charged
to students in the federal bank-based system would increase to a level higher than for students in
the direct-loan program.

“There was a sense that things were going to become a bit more unstable” in the bank-based
program, says Rebecca E. Porter, associate vice chancellor and executive director for enrollment
services. And the switch to direct lending went smoothly, she says.

The university “never had any problems” with Sallie Mae, Ms. Porter says, but in the end the
decision came down to saving students money. The campus administration takes no position on
the student-loan legislation.

But for the Sallie Mae employees just up the road, the stakes appear high as they await
Congress’s next move.

“I love my job, and I’ve had it for 18 years,” says Ms. Foust, the loan-reconciliation processor
whose income supports her disabled husband. “If Sallie Mae would close their doors today, it
would devastate my family.” ■

I covered courts for three weeks at the Star Tribune—as (bad) luck would have it, some of the
slowest weeks of the summer. But I did get to write several features on county and state policy,
including this one.

Star Tribune | Aug. 18, 2008

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/27088619.html
Hennepin County is saving lives via DWI court
By LIBBY NELSON, Star Tribune

When Mark Flakne wants his car to start, he breathes on it.

If there's no alcohol on his breath, the car starts. If he's trying to drink and drive -- and that hasn't
happened, Flakne said -- a machine turns off the engine. He can try again in six hours.

Flakne, 42, a carpenter with multiple DWI convictions, normally wouldn't be behind the wheel at
all. But now he can drive with the sensor, called an ignition interlock, as part of the Hennepin
County DWI court program, an 18-month regimen for repeat offenders designed to stop them
from drinking and driving again.

Of about 110 participants in the court so far, only one has been convicted again for drunken
driving. In Ramsey County, which began a similar program in 2005, three of 73 participants have
been convicted again, and none since 2006.

Repeat DWI offenders usually have a 60 percent to 80 percent chance of reoffending.

"We're saving lives," said Fourth District Judge John Holohan, who oversees the DWI court.
"Not only the lives of the offenders, because a lot of those people are out-of-control alcoholic
and their fate if they don't get help is an untimely death. We're also protecting society from the
worst of the worst of the drunken drivers."

DWI court hasn't only saved lives, Holohan said. It's also saved Hennepin County about
$500,000.

The court costs about $2,000 per participant, or more than $5,000 less than the traditional 90
days in jail for repeat offenders.

"Locking somebody up to punish them, and doing nothing to address the underlying behavior, is
costing the taxpayers $7,000 to $8,000," he said. "What we're doing is changing the behavior."

Niki Leicht, who directs the DWI court program in Ramsey County, said the county hasn't yet
evaluated the costs and savings, but is planning to compare court participants to a group DWI
offenders who chose the traditional probation route.

In Hennepin County, repeat offenders, usually with at least three DWI convictions, can apply to
participate in the court. Instead of the usual 90-day jail sentence, they serve six days, then
undergo a screening procedure. If they pass, they're accepted to the program, agreeing to meet
weekly with a probation officer, attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and let probation or
police officers conduct random searches at their home.
In return, participants who normally would have their licenses suspended or revoked, can drive
with the ignition interlock for a set amount of hours per week to work, court and Alcoholics
Anonymous.

Ramsey County's program requires participants to be sober in stages: 90 consecutive days at

first, then 120, then 180, Leicht said, and doesn't offer the driving option.

The program's success rate is partly based on the participants it chooses. The screening process
selects offenders who think they need help, not those looking to avoid jail time and go back to
old habits, Holohan said.

"We're not taking in people that are noncompliant or who are trying to get in here just to get out
of doing the 90 days in jail," he said. "We're taking in people that we believe have a sincere
commitment to turning their lives around and getting sober."

Forced to make changes

Flakne is one of them. After his most recent DWI conviction, in February 2007, he decided it
was time for a change. His attorney suggested DWI court. A little less than 18 months later, he
became the program's third graduate a few weeks ago.

"Instead of just sitting in jail and stewing about the mistakes I had made ... it forced me to make
some lifestyle changes," Flakne said.

Educating drunken drivers about the effects of their actions can have a positive impact, said Jean
Mulvey, executive director of Minnesota's chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which
works with the Hennepin County court system to show things from the victim's perspective.

"We want them to change their behavior so that they realize some of the different consequences,"
Mulvey said.

The process made Flakne realize he was going to be back in jail if he didn't change.

"Fortunately for me, the only person I hurt was myself," he said. "There are people who've done
a lot worse. But you know what, it was probably just a matter of time." ■

While covering the New York Police Department for the New York Times, I also covered the
resolution of a court case brought by a former officer. I reported and wrote this story on
deadline from the State Supreme Court. —LN

The New York Times | July 21, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/nyregion/21brown.html

Police Officer Shot During Drug Raid 11 Years Ago Settles

Suit Against City
By LIBBY NELSON

Eleven years after he claimed he was shot by a fellow police officer, a former New York Police
Department sergeant accepted a $3.25 million settlement from the city on Monday, ending a
legal battle after more than a decade of wrangling.

Dexter Brown, 46, who was shot in the back, agreed to drop his wrongful-injury lawsuit, which
accused the Police Department of failing to properly train its officers in the use of deadly force,
as jury selection was scheduled to begin in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

Mr. Brown said he felt vindicated. But in a fiery statement, he made it clear he was still angry
with the city and the police force he once belonged to, accusing the police of shooting minorities
— both officers and civilians — without cause.

“Not only are we being beaten, crippled and killed, other actions are being taken against us
needlessly,” said Mr. Brown, who is black, accusing the Police Department of a “prevailing
mentality of shoot first and lie about it later.”

Mr. Brown was leading an undercover narcotics team when he was shot in the back in February
1998. Struggling with two suspects in a Bedford-Stuyvesant crack house, he shot one of them in
the leg. Then, Mr. Brown said Monday, he felt two shots in his back. He turned around and saw a
member of his own squad, Detective Luis Lopez, firing from a few feet away.

From that point, competing narratives unfold.

Mr. Brown said that Detective Lopez shot him intentionally, and continued to fire even after
being ordered to stop, fatally injuring one of the suspects before fleeing the scene.

The Police Department initially said that the mortally wounded suspect had shot Mr. Brown.
Later, a firearms-discharge review board review concluded that Detective Lopez had fired the
shots, but said the shooting was justified.

Detective Lopez himself swore under oath that he was not the shooter.
Pretrial proceedings in the case stretched on for years. Mr. Brown retired in 1999 on full
disability and moved to Mississippi with his family in 2005. He said that he is still in pain, often
needing steroid injections to get out of bed in the morning. He walks with a cane, and he said he
will require further back surgery.

Insurance pays for his medical bills, but his legal fees will come to about one-third of the
settlement, his lawyer, Bonita E. Zelman, said. Mr. Brown had initially sued for $31 million.

“After 10 years of fighting the courts to get justice, the city finally stepped up to the plate,” Ms.
Zelman said in a statement after the settlement was announced, adding that she hoped the case
would lead to changes in department policy.
Ms. Zelman and Mr. Brown called for another investigation into the shooting and for Detective
Lopez, who is still a member of the police force, to be disciplined.

The Police Department and the city’s Law Department said Monday that the settlement was not
an admission of official wrongdoing.

“The city supports the actions of the defendant police officers in this rapidly developing, split-
second police encounter involving a narcotics buy-and-bust in which the defendant officers heard
shots, saw the sergeant struggling with a perpetrator and thought that the sergeant’s life was in
danger,” said Fay Leoussis, the tort division chief of the law department, in a statement, adding
that city settled because of the uncertainties inherent in a trial.

The $3.25 million settlement is about what the city paid in 2003 to settle a case brought by
Desmond Robinson, an undercover officer who was shot in 1994 by Peter Del-Debbio, an officer
who was off duty at the time. Mr. Robinson received $3 million.

On the steps of the courthouse after the settlement was reached, Mr. Brown described the night
he was shot, recalling the betrayal he felt when the Police Department disputed his version of
events.

But asked the question at the center of the case — why he was shot — he was at a loss for
words.

“That’s a question I’ve been asking for 11 years now, and no one gave me a good answer,” he
said. ■