Runners-up: a judge, a hijacker, a female rapist–and lots of others
Runners-up for top story of the month:
Franklin County, Ohio Common Pleas Judge John Connor, 66, who has been targeted for removal from the bench by Gov. Bob Taft, House Speaker John Husted and Attorney General Jim Petro for failing to imprison an admitted rapist who sexually assaulted two children of Sri Lankan immigrants. The assailant, Andrew Selva, 46, admitted to abusing the boys, ages 5 and 12, repeatedly over a period of three years. Although originally charged with 20 counts of rape, the indictment was found legally defective and, under a plea arrangement with Connor, Selva was labeled a sexual predator and sentenced to treatment and probation. Connor admitted that if prosecutors had gone forward with rape charges, Selva “would have been gone for 100 years.”Connor’s judgment should be questioned, since Conner has had as many as eight arrests for DUI, including at least two since becoming a judge (the precise number might never be known, since his records were reported to have been improperly sealed). Sobriety requires both abstinence and ego deflation, which is questionable in someone who calls it a “joke”that state leaders are asking him to step down. What’s truly a joke is that court records of judges can be sealed and that Connor was named Irishman of the Year by the Shamrock Club of Columbus, Ohio.
Would-be hijacker and jihadist Zacarias Moussaoui, setting himself up for death for his role in the September 11 atrocities by boasting at his sentencing trial that he was set to fly a fifth plane into the White House. His father, Omar Moussaoui, was a violent alcoholic who routinely beat his wife and two daughters, Zacarias’ sisters. Reportedly, he frequently asked his mother to forgive him, but for what was never made clear. We might suspect that it was for his inability to protect his mother from his father’s abuse. His may be a classic case of the child of an alcoholic learning the parent’s behaviors all-too-well.
Connie Retana, 38, arrested for rape-in-concert and false imprisonment. She’s been accused of cheering on her 18-year-old son, Martin Delgado, along with his gangland friends, as they allegedly repeatedly raped a 23-year-old woman. She is among 10 charged for the rape, which was in retaliation for the young woman’s boyfriend’s actions. Retana previously served two prison terms for drug possession.
Amy Fisher, nicknamed the “Long Island Lolita,”finally admitting to having been strung out on Ecstasy when she shot then boyfriend Joey Buttafuoco’s wife, Mary Jo, in the face in 1992. She told “Entertainment Tonight”that the drug made her feel “stronger and confident.”Yes, drugs will do that for addicts. She admits it was “totally irrational.”Yes, that too.
Actor Don Johnson, former star of “Miami Vice”and “Nash Bridges,”who saved his Aspen, Colorado home by forking over $14.5 million to a lender two days before a foreclosure auction. Johnson has a long history of “partying,”which seems to interfere with “paying one’s bills.”
Actress Melanie Griffith, twice married to actor Don Johnson and now married to actor Antonio Banderas, back in AA after yet another relapse. Melanie, age 48, admits to first “dabbling”in drugs at age 14 and has since entered treatment at least twice, in 1988 and 2000. The trouble is, she has too much money. As an actress she is perhaps a more convincing liar than most addicts when doing what she must to protect her perceived right to use, while still keeping her kids and husband around to enable. Message to Antonio: give her an uncompromising choice before we are reminded of comedian Phil Hartman, his wife Bryn and their two orphaned children.
Rapper Snoop Dogg, 34, arrested on suspicion of “violent disorder”and creating a disturbance over access to a first-class lounge at London’s Heathrow Airport. Seven officers were reported to have received minor injuries in the fracas. Creating a commotion at an airport in a day and age of terrorism is by itself enough for a diagnosis of alcoholism. Creed singer Scott Stapp was mentioned in the March www.addictionreport.com as having had a similar experience. It turns out that Stapp had gotten out of rehab just weeks before.
Conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, reaching a settlement with Palm Beach County prosecutors in which he will be charged with a single count in connection with illegally obtained prescriptions for a drug from more than one doctor. As part of the plea, the charge will be dropped in 18 months if he continues treatment for drug addiction. Limbaugh has not, to my knowledge, retracted his repeated statements that drug users should be jailed. By the way, his apparent drugs of choice”Oxycontin and Vicodin”are legal opioids, or synthetic heroin. I will repeat my assertion to which a radio commentator responded by hanging up on me: Limbaugh is a wealthy heroin addict, no different from the rest, except for his ability to perpetuate an extraordinary level of hypocrisy.
Alex and Rhoda Toth, indicted on charges of filing false income tax returns in 2000, 2001 and 2002. The Toth’s were down to their last $24 when they won a $13 million jackpot in the Florida Lotto in 1990, opting to take annual payments of $666,666 until 2010. They appeared on Oprah in 1996 and later claimed the money had torn apart their family. According to reports, “their wealth led to family squabbles and bankruptcy court,”with both of the Toth’s filing under Chapter 13 in 2001. Take a look at the picture of Mr. Toth at http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=28728 and decide whether their wealth created problems for them or, perhaps, something else did. (It’s a great picture, isn’t it?) The Toth’s deny wrongdoing and blame “someone they trusted”for their legal woes. Theirs appears to be a classic case of financial abuse of others as well as themselves.
Vili Fualaau, now 22, who married his sixth-grade teacher, Mary Kay Letorneau, now 44, when she got out of prison after serving seven years for child rape, found guilty of DUI after blowing a .136. Fualaau and Letorneau are both unemployed and living off the spoils of the sale of their story to TV. She is reportedly “concerned”about Vili’s “partying.”
Singer Whitney Houston, whose life has completely fallen apart due to addiction with an apparent specialty in crack cocaine. Returning to rehab yet again, she may have been inspired to try sobriety by a very public airing of the problem by her family, including sister-in-law and former drug buddy, Tina Brown. Perhaps the lurid pictures of a disheveled and very high Whitney will serve as a reminder before yet another relapse and risk of death. Hers is a truly tragic case of late-stage multi-drug addiction and self-abuse.
Former Dodger pitcher Steve Howe, National League Rookie of the Year in 1980, killed early Friday morning, April 28, in a one-vehicle rollover. Howe, who also pitched for the Twins, Rangers and Yankees, was suspended seven times for behaviors related to his well-known alcohol and cocaine addiction. In 1997, a year after his final season in the Major Leagues, he was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident and charged with DUI. More recently, he became co-owner of an energy drink company in Arizona. Toxicology tests have not yet been performed.
Singer June Pointer, 52, the youngest of the Pointer Sisters, dead from multiple cancers. She was kicked out of the group in 2000 after a long history of alcohol and other-drug addiction, which she admitted began at age 13. A close friend suggests if she’d gotten regular checkups the cancers might have been found before becoming life-threatening; unfortunately, she may have been too busy securing her drugs of choice, including the all-around alcohol, the stimulant crack cocaine and the tranquilizers Valium and Xanax, to be concerned with early diagnosis of cancer. Her parents were reportedly non-drinking ministers.
Actress Maureen Stapleton, who died from chronic pulmonary disease. Apparently long sober, Stapleton was nominated for and winner of several Academy, Emmy and Tony Awards. While she won the best-actress Tony for her portrayal of a down-and-out alcoholic singer in Neil Simon’s “The Gingerbread Lady,”she is perhaps best known for her role as the anarchist Emma Goldman in “Reds.”She once told an interviewer, “The curtain came down and I went into the vodka.”She inherited her alcoholism from, among likely others, her father, who was a “prodigious drinker”and who, according to a New York Times obituary, “had endless battles with her mother, Irene, until they separated when Maureen was a child.”Stapleton was 80.