Archives for June 2021

South Carolina officials gave initial approval Tuesday to a $6 million settlement to resolve dozens of prisoner lawsuits against the Department of Corrections following a riot that killed seven inmates.

With one abstention due to a conflict of interest, the State Fiscal Accountability Authority voted unanimously to approve the deal, which it said would work toward resolving a total of 81 lawsuits filed by or for inmates in state and federal courts against the prison system.

The 2018 riot raged for more than seven hours at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Columbia. Most of the slain were stabbed or slashed; others appeared to have been beaten. One inmate described bodies “literally stacked on top of each other, like some macabre woodpile.”

Corrections officials have blamed the violence — the worst U.S. prison riot in 25 years — in part on illegal cellphones, which Department Director Bryan Stirling has said represent the greatest security threat inside prisons because they give inmates an unmonitored way to communicate with the outside world and each other.

Stirling told The Associated Press after Tuesday’s vote that the deal next goes to the plaintiffs for signatures, before a court decides how to divvy up the money.

Rep. Justin Bamberg, an attorney who has represented some of the inmates who sued the state, said he appreciated Stirling’s leadership following the “tragic” incident.

“Now everyone can focus on healing without needless litigation, and the state can move forward with its goal of improving the South Carolina Department of Corrections,” Bamberg said in a statement to AP.

For several months leading up to the insurrection, the AP communicated with a Lee prisoner who used a contraband cellphone to offer insight into life behind bars. Describing frequent gang fights with homemade weapons, he said prisoners roamed freely, had easy access to cellphones and drugs, and were often left to police themselves.

Just after the riots, both that inmate and an attorney who frequently works in the state’s prisons told the AP that the illegal cellphones were frequently furnished by corrections officers themselves. A person familiar with the agency’s operations backed up those notions, telling the AP that delivery trucks, required to be inspected upon entering prison grounds, often ferried cellphones and other contraband.

Since the riot, numerous security improvements have been implemented across the prisons system and specifically at Lee, including a $1 million cell door locking system, 50-foot-high nets to limit contraband from being thrown over the fences and systems to detect cellphones and drones, which could be used to ferry in contraband.

Federal communications regulations continue to prevent the full use of the cell signal-jamming technology Stirling wants, however.

The number of maximum-security inmates at Lee has also dwindled from more than 1,300 at the time of the riot to 270, as of this week, according to Corrections officials. Stirling said inmate assaults on each other, as well as on prison staff, have continually decreased in the years since the riot.

“I think our staff has been working hard on safety and security,” Stirling told AP. “And we’ve been working hard on getting funding for rehabilitation and reentry programs. There are avenues, if people want to better themselves when they come to the Department of Corrections.”

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

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SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) — About a block from the Miami-area beachfront condominium tower that collapsed sits its sister building, erected a year later by the same company, using the same materials and a similar design. It has faced the same tides and salty air.

This has made some residents of Champlain Towers North worried enough to leave, though many have remained, saying they are confident their almost 40-year-old, 12-story building is better maintained. They say their building doesn’t have the same problems with cracking in support beams and in the pool area that 2018 engineering reports show the south tower had.

The collapse of Champlain Towers South in the town of Surfside on Thursday has drawn attention to older high-rise buildings throughout South Florida and prompted Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to order a 30-day audit of whether such buildings under her jurisdiction are complying with a required recertification of structural integrity at 40 years. She said she wants any issues raised by inspections to be immediately addressed. She’s also urged municipalities within the county to follow suit. Miami, for example, has launched a 45-day audit of buildings six stories and higher that are 40 years old or older.

Inspectors performed a quick-hit examination of the north building and Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said nothing was found that indicates the tower is in danger of collapse.

That didn’t reassure everyone.

“I’m petrified of returning,” said Rebecca Weinstock, a snowbird who bought a sixth-floor condo in the north building four years ago with her husband. She is in New York, where she was when the south tower collapsed early Thursday, killing at least 11 people and leaving 150 missing.

While she agrees the north building is well maintained, she said that’s not enough to satisfy her that it’s completely safe. It was completed in 1982, one year after the south tower, and built by the same developer, Nathan Reiber, through his firm, Nattel Construction. The possibility that the collapse was caused by a design or construction flaw means she won’t be returning anytime soon.

“I am out my investment, I am out my apartment, I am out my future, but we are talking about lives here,” she said. The only way she’ll return, she said, is if two independent engineers — not from South Florida — agree it’s safe.

North tower residents who want to temporarily relocate are being offered private assistance from Support Surfside, a charity group helping victims of the collapse. The group did a survey of the building’s full-time residents and found about half are staying and half have left. Overall, about half the units are owned by snowbirds like Weinstock and those residents left before the collapse, the group’s survey showed. Overall, 28 of the 113 units are currently occupied, the group found.

Most residents who are staying took the position of Philip and Nora Zyne, who remain in their fifth-floor condo. The Zynes bought their condo 12 years ago, and have lived there full time for six. They have several friends and acquaintances who lived in the south tower and remain missing.

Zyne said Monday that he’s seen numerous inspectors in his building since the collapse.

“I’ve never seen any major structural issues” in the north building, said Philip Zyne, an attorney. “I’m not worried at all right now. I do want to get a full structural engineering and forensic examination done.”

Salomon Gold, who spent 10 years as the condo association president for the north tower and 20 on the board, is convinced the building is safe, saying he and the other board members never skimped on maintenance. He compared the building collapse to airplanes: Just because one crashes doesn’t mean others of that same make and model will.

“We are in good shape,” said Gold, 89. The current condo association president, Naum Lusky, declined comment Monday.

Surfside Mayor Burkett said a deep-dive inspection of the north tower will be conducted Tuesday by an engineering firm hired by the residents. The town will inspect other older buildings soon. Given the results of the preliminary examination of the north tower, he said he doesn’t see a reason to order an evacuation. Still, he said, he’s not sure he would stay there.

“If you asked me if I wanted to spend the night in that building, I’d be a little … I wouldn’t be willing to do that until we went through it,” he said.

Esther Drachman and her husband aren’t taking any chances. Drachman’s 91-year-old mother-in-law lives in the north tower.

“My mother-in-law is bedridden, so we took her out and brought her to our house,” Drachman said. “We just felt like we couldn’t get her out in five minutes” if a rapid evacuation became necessary.

Drachman said her mother-in-law wasn’t worried or very aware of the details of the disaster. She said she and her husband are waiting to see if a thorough inspection turns up any problems.

“We’ll see if that building’s fine,” Drachman said. “And if it is, we’ll put her back in.”

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Associated Press reporter Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami contributed to this report.

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A previous version of this story, using information provided by a Surfside official, incorrectly reported that residents of the north tower are eligible for federal relocation assistance. They are not.

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — An international conference opening in Paris on Wednesday aims to fast-track the road to gender equality and mobilize millions of dollars to achieve the long-sought goal quickly, the head of the U.N.’s premiere global body fighting to empower women says.

UN Women’s Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said in an interview with The Associated Press that the underfunding of women’s programs and the slow implementation of a 150-platform to achieve gender equality adopted by the world’s nations in Beijing in 1995 “leaves a lot of women in a situation where they will never really realize their true and full potential.”

What the three-day Generation Equality Forum starting Wednesday is about, she said, is tackling and funding all areas where women have been “short-changed” — forced marriage, gender-based violence, leaving school, experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change, trying to crack glass ceilings, losing out on innovation and technology, and ensuring their sexual and reproductive rights and health.

“Many of the problems that women face in 2021, we know the answers,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said. “The fact is that we are not doing what is right by women is a true reflection of people who really don’t care or understand the pain that women go through.”

The Generation Equality Forum in Paris, an initiative of UN Women marking the 25th anniversary of the 1995 Beijing women’s conference, was delayed from last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic and will be mainly virtual because of the continuing global impact of the coronavirus. It is a follow-up to a forum in Mexico City in March and is co-chaired by France and Mexico.

Mlambo-Ngcuka said the forums bring together not just the U.N.’s 193 member nations but civil society, the private sector, men and boys, young people, philanthropists and religious and traditional leaders.

“All of these are going to be announcing what it is they are going to do different in the next five years, in order to change the trajectory for women’s future,” she said in a virtual interview Monday from Paris. “Anyone who is going to speak at this conference, they are speaking because they are making a commitment.”

Mlambo-Ngcuka said Wednesday’s opening of the Generation Equality Forum at the Elysee Palace will include remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the presidents of South Africa and Argentina and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who will be speaking virtually.

When Mlambo-Ngcuka became head of UN Women in 2013, she said the budget was about $250,000, and she was told “our mission is to take UN Women to half a million — and my heart almost stopped.”

At this week’s conference, she said, she will be announcing “a new day” for the U.N. agency including major contributions that will transform UN Women “into a true coordinator of the women’s agenda in the world.” Without disclosing the amount, she indicated it will be in the millions and that in the future “we’re looking more for billions.”

Mlambo-Ngcuka said the women’s agenda will receive investments from the World Bank, the Gates Foundation whose co-founder Melinda Gates will be in Paris, from governments, the Ford Foundation, the private sector including Salesforce, “and other very important contributors … that will help us to push the agenda forward,” she said.

Investments are especially needed now, she said, because COVID-19 “has disproportionately affected women.”

Two-thirds of those who lost jobs in the pandemic were women, and many were in “the informal sector” with no savings or support. she said.

“But they are committed to jump up so we need to meet them halfway,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said. “Getting women into the labor force was one of the major pushes we’ve had in the last 25 years. We still were not where we wanted and needed to be, but we were pushing nevertheless.”

She said girls education also increased dramatically in the last 25 years and was making “headway” until the pandemic forced girls to drop out of school.

UN Women is determined to “get the girls wherever they are and bring them back to school” even if they became pregnant during COVID-19 because of non-consensual sex, she said.

“We need to rescue them from this and make them survivors and continue with their education,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said. “We cannot afford just to give up.”

She said the pandemic also increased the burden for women of caring for family members and others.

At the Generation Equality Forum, Mlambo-Ngcuka said, an alliance of countries, the private sector and civil society will launch a new approach changing “the way we do care” that will focus on infrastructure for caring for children and for the elderly as well as policies, money and laws.

“And we’re very thankful that the United States is in the leadership on that” along with Bangladesh, South Africa, Argentina and other countries, she said.

U.N. goals for 2030 include achieving gender equality.

Mlambo-Ngcuka said technology can now accelerate things that used to take a long time and UN Women has already enlisted Google, Microsoft and Salesforce and is reaching out to other technology companies to help close gaps in education, to speed up police reactions to violence against women, and to close the digital divide for women including migrants and refugees.

“We are also looking for companies that can address economic empowerment and opportunities for women to do much better in improving their economic well-being in a shorter time,” she said.

For example, she said, it should be possible for women in rural Congo rural areas to sell goods in New York quickly.

“I am hoping that in 2030 we will have some countries who would have come close to achieving gender equality,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.

And by pushing harder, she said, it’s possible that even more can reach gender equality by 2050.

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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian officials say they have arrested a Romanian hacker who is wanted in the U.S. for distributing a virus that infected more than a million computers from 2007 to 2012.

Mihai Ionut Paunescu faces computer intrusion and banking fraud charges in New York, where prosecutors say he was part of a ring of criminals that developed and spread the “Gozi” virus and other forms of malware that were used to steal money from bank accounts.

Prosecutors say that Gozi infected computers in at least eight countries, including the United States, Germany, Finland and the United Kingdom.

Victims included individuals, corporations and also computers belonging to NASA.

The virus traveled within PDF documents and once it entered a computer it was able to steal bank account passwords, enabling cyber criminals to take “tens of millions of dollars” from victims according to an indictment filed in the Southern District Court of New York.

Prosecutors say Paunescu designed hosting systems that helped cyber criminals to share the virus files without being detected. The virus was rented out to criminal operators for a fee of $500 a week.

In 2016, the virus’ creator, Nikita Kuzmin, was sentenced to 37 months in prison and fined $7 million following a plea bargain. A Latvian programmer who helped design the virus also received a 21-month prison sentence after being extradited to the U.S.

Paunescu had been arrested in Romania in 2012, but was able to avoid extradition. Colombia’s Attorney General’s office said he was detained at Bogota’s international airport, sporting a thick beard and wearing a red t-shirt.

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