Child porn suspect indicted by federal grand jury

A North Hills woman whom authorities allege plied a young girl with crack cocaine and photographed her having sex with an older man was indicted Tuesday on federal charges of producing child pornography and sex trafficking.

Letha Montemayor Tucker was named Tuesday in a four-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury. If convicted of all the charges, Tucker would face a mandatory minimum federal sentence of 10 years and could get up to life in prison, authorities said.

The charges come a month after authorities sought the public's help in the investigation by releasing photographs of a man and woman depicted in a set of widely circulated child pornography photos.

Tips started pouring in immediately after the photos were released, investigators said.

Tucker, who goes by the name Butterfly, was located about 10 hours after the release of the photos and taken into custody, said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The alleged victim, who was about 12 when the photos were taken, was found within a week of the case going public, Arnold said. She is an adult now and is cooperating with authorities, he said.

In addition to photographing the girl having sex with the man, authorities said, Tucker also committed sex acts with the alleged victim.

The photos were part of a child pornography collection known as the "Jen Series."

The 40-plus photos were first discovered by investigators in the Chicago area in 2007. Investigators said images in the series have been reported about 300 times and have been found on computers across the country.

The victim "didn't even know these images were out there," Arnold said.

"The horror of child pornography is it's for life, the victimization," Arnold said. "Once the photos are there in cyberspace, they're there forever."

The girl, identified in court records only by the initials J.M.M., lived in the same Los Angeles County residential hotel as Tucker, who worked as a prostitute, authorities said.

Around 2000 or 2001, the girl stopped attending school regularly and spent more and more time in Tucker's room, smoking crack cocaine Tucker provided, according to the indictment.

The girl was present when Tucker engaged in prostitution with clients and was usually high when this happened, authorities allege. Tucker instructed the child to take off her clothes in front of the clients, prosecutors alleged in court papers.

The faces of Tucker and the girl are "clearly visible" in the photos, according to the indictment. Tucker had an eyebrow piercing and a tattoo of a sleeping cat behind her shoulder, which made her easier to identify, authorities said.

The face of the man, however, is blacked out in the photographs. Authorities are still trying to identify the man, Arnold said.

"Obviously, we want him also to answer for his crimes," Arnold said.

Arnold said the alleged victim is "going to be dealing with this for a long time."

Now that she has been identified, she will receive a victim notification every time one of the images turns up in an investigation, he said.

Tucker is being held without bond and is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court on Feb. 13. Her attorney could not be reached for comment.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

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Fox cuts ties to commentator Dick Morris

NEW YORK (AP) — Political commentator Dick Morris' prediction of a huge landslide for Mitt Romney didn't pan out. And now he's lost his job at Fox News Channel.

Network spokeswoman Dana Klinghoffer said Tuesday that Fox wasn't renewing its contract with Morris, who was steadfast throughout the campaign in his prediction of a big Romney win over President Barack Obama. He has made few appearances on Fox since the election.

Morris had also been criticized for accepting paid advertisements on his website from candidates that he discussed on the air at Fox.

On his website, Morris said he'll be appearing on CNN's Piers Morgan show Wednesday to talk politics.

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Question Mark: Women’s Eggs Diminish With Age

Baby girls enter the world with enough of them to populate perhaps 40 small cities. A dozen or so years later, the first will make a debut of its own. And in the months and years to come, others will appear regularly, sometimes greeted with relief, other times with disappointment, perhaps most often with a touch of annoyance.

Abdullah Pope/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Not women's eggs, obviously.

Now, for women in the baby boom generation, they may be coming more sporadically, or not at all, signaling unmistakably that one time of life is over, and another begun. But what happened to all those eggs?

When girls are born, they have about two million eggs in their ovaries, nestled in fluid-filled cavities called follicles. That may sound like a lot, but consider that months earlier, when they were still in utero, they may have had as many as six or seven million eggs. Those eggs are still immature, and the proper name for them, by the way, is oocytes (rhymes with: nothing).

The first eggs to bite the dust were those in the fetus, which waste away. And by the time a girl reaches puberty, most of her remaining eggs have also deteriorated and been reabsorbed. If that sounds ominously like something from a “Star Trek” episode about the Borg, imagine if all those eggs had to take the customary path out of the body.

Even with the Great Egg Disappearance, girls enter puberty with many more than they will use, 300,000 or more. Each month, the body produces a hormone, FSH, which stimulates the follicles to prepare an egg for maturation and release.

With eggs backed up like bowling balls on a busy Saturday night at the lanes, the ovaries can afford to be a little wasteful, and as many as several dozen follicles are called into action. Then a single mature egg — usually, anyway — gets the tap on the shoulder and begins its travels to the uterus.

As for the maturing eggs that didn’t make the grade, there is no second chance. But they do not go out on their own. “Each month you probably lose a thousand or so,” said Dr. James T. Breeden, president of the American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “There’s just a natural death of them.”

For all the eggs a woman begins with, in the end only about 400 will go through ovulation. While men produce sperm throughout their lives, over time the number of eggs declines, and they disappear with increasing frequency the decade or so before menopause. Those that remain may decline in quality. “When you have a thousand or less within the ovaries, you’re thought to have undergone menopause,” said Dr. Mitchell Rosen, the director of the Fertility Preservation Center at the University of California, San Francisco.

It’s true that women make far more eggs than they end up using, but men should not pass judgment. “They produce millions of sperm, millions,” Dr. Rosen said. “The whole process is not the most efficient in the world.”

Questions about aging? E-mail boomerwhy@nytimes.com

Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip. You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming. You can reach us by e-mail at booming@nytimes.com.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 5, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described estrogen levels at the time of ovulation. They rise, rather than fall.

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18 people charged in $200-million credit card fraud

NEWARK, N.J. — Eighteen people were charged in what may be one of the nation's largest credit card fraud rings, a sprawling scam that duped credit-rating agencies and used thousands of fake identities to steal at least $200 million, federal authorities said.

The scammers used fraudulent tactics to improve fake cardholders' credit scores, which they then used to borrow money that was never repaid, investigators said Tuesday.

"In many respects the accused availed themselves of a virtual cafeteria of sophisticated frauds and schemes, whose main menu items were greed and deceit," said David Velazquez, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark field office.

Paul Fishman, the U.S. attorney in Newark, described an intricate Jersey City-based con that began in 2007 and operated in at least 28 states, Money gotten from the scheme was wired to Pakistan, India, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Romania, China and Japan.

The group used at least 7,000 fake identities to obtain more than 25,000 credit cards, Fishman said. He said $200 million in documented losses could rise.

Participants set up more than 1,800 mailing addresses, creating fake utility bills and other documents to provide credit card companies with what appeared to be legitimate addresses. Once participants obtained the cards, they started making small charges and paying off the cards to raise their credit limits.

They then sent fake reports to credit-rating agencies, making it appear that cardholders had paid off debts. The result — sterling credit ratings and high credit limits.

Fishman said once the credit limits were raised, members would take out a loan or max out the credit card and not repay the debts.

The group also created at least 80 sham businesses that accepted credit card payments, Fishman said. The group would run the fraudulently obtained credit cards through the machines, keeping the money.

The scheme funded a lavish lifestyle for the accused, including spa treatments, electronics and millions of dollars of gold, Fishman said. In one raid, authorities found $78,000 stashed in an oven.

Three jewelry stores in Jersey City were closed Tuesday and their inventory seized, Fishman said. Thirteen defendants also were arrested Tuesday. The investigation is ongoing, Fishman said.

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Scientists identify remains as those of King Richard III

LONDON -- More than 500 years after his death in battle, scientists announced Monday that they had definitively identified a skeleton unearthed in central England last summer as that of Richard III, the medieval king portrayed by William Shakespeare as a homicidal tyrant who killed his two young nephews in order to ascend the throne.

DNA from the bones, found beneath the ruins of an old church, matches that of a living descendant of the monarch's sister, researchers said.

"Rarely have the conclusions of academic research been so eagerly awaited," Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on the excavation, told a phalanx of reporters Monday morning. "Beyond reasonable doubt, the individual exhumed ... is indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England."

PHOTOS: Remains of King Richard III

The dramatic announcement capped a brief hunt for Richard's remains, the progress of which has been closely charted by international media and whose success has been barely short of miraculous.

Working from old maps of Leicester, about 100 miles northwest of London, archaeologists from the local university had less than a month to dig in a small municipal parking lot -- one of the few spaces not built over in the crowded city center. The team stumbled on the ruins of the medieval priory where records say Richard was buried, then found the bones a few days later last September.

"It was an extraordinary discovery that stunned all of us," Buckley said.

The nearly intact skeleton bore obvious traces of trauma to the skull and of scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that matched contemporary descriptions of Richard's appearance. The feet were missing, almost certainly the result of later disturbance, and the hands were crossed at the wrist, which suggests that they may have been tied.

Scientists at the University of Leicester, which pioneered the practice of DNA fingerprinting, were able to extract samples from the bones and compare them to a man descended from Richard III's sister Anne. The match through the maternal line was virtually perfect.

"The DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III," said Turi King, the project’s geneticist.

Richard reigned from 1483 to 1485, and occupies a unique place in England's long line of colorful rulers. He was the last English king to be killed in combat, at the Battle of Bosworth Field, by his successor, Henry VII. His death ended the Plantagenet dynasty and ushered in the long era of the Tudors, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

Jo Appleby, an osteologist at the university, said the skeleton belonged to an adult male in his late 20s to late 30s; Richard III was 32 when he died. The man would have stood 5-foot-8 at full height, but the curved spine would have made him appear shorter.

The skull was riddled with wounds strongly indicative of death in battle, including two blows from bladed weapons, either of which would have been fatal, Appleby said.

Richard III is one of England's most controversial monarchs, reviled by some as a bloodthirsty despot who stopped at nothing to gain power, but revered by others who insist that he has been unfairly maligned. His supporters note that the repugnant portrait of Richard in today's popular imagination is based almost entirely on accounts from the time of the usurping Tudors, especially Shakespeare's indelible characterization of him as a "deform'd, unfinish'd" man without scruples.

Fans say Richard III was an enlightened, capable ruler whose important social reforms included the presumption of innocence for defendants and the granting of bail, which remain pillars of the legal system in Britain and the U.S.

However, what happened to Richard's two nephews, who were his rivals for the throne and who were locked up in the Tower of London as young boys, never to be seen again, remains a mystery.

ALSO:

Race to unearth a royal mystery

Bones found in hunt for King Richard III's remains

Netanyahu officially asked to put together new Israeli government

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NJ Gov. Christie, Letterman laugh about fat jokes

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and David Letterman have shared some laughs about the many fat jokes the comedian has made about the lawmaker's ample girth.

Christie has termed his plumpness "fair game" for comedians. And during his first appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman" on Monday, the outspoken Republican and potential 2016 presidential contender read two of Letterman's jokes that he said were "some of my personal favorites."

The governor also drew loud laughs when he pulled out a doughnut and started eating it while Letterman asked him if he was bothered by the digs that have been made about his weight. Christie said he wasn't, noting that he laughs at the jokes if he finds them funny.

"Late Show" airs on CBS at 11:35 p.m. Eastern time.

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Well: Expressing the Inexpressible

When Kyle Potvin learned she had breast cancer at the age of 41, she tracked the details of her illness and treatment in a journal. But when it came to grappling with issues of mortality, fear and hope, she found that her best outlet was poetry.

How I feared chemo, afraid
It would change me.
It did.
Something dissolved inside me.
Tears began a slow drip;
I cried at the news story
Of a lost boy found in the woods …
At the surprising beauty
Of a bright leaf falling
Like the last strand of hair from my head

Ms. Potvin, now 47 and living in Derry, N.H., recently published “Sound Travels on Water” (Finishing Line Press), a collection of poems about her experience with cancer. And she has organized the Prickly Pear Poetry Project, a series of workshops for cancer patients.

“The creative process can be really healing,” Ms. Potvin said in an interview. “Loss, mortality and even hopefulness were on my mind, and I found that through writing poetry I was able to express some of those concepts in a way that helped me process what I was thinking.”

In April, the National Association for Poetry Therapy, whose members include both medical doctors and therapists, is to hold a conference in Chicago with sessions on using poetry to manage pain and to help adolescents cope with bullying. And this spring, Tasora Books will publish “The Cancer Poetry Project 2,” an anthology of poems written by patients and their loved ones.

Dr. Rafael Campo, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, says he uses poetry in his practice, offering therapy groups and including poems with the medical forms and educational materials he gives his patients.

“It’s always striking to me how they want to talk about the poems the next time we meet and not the other stuff I give them,” he said. “It’s such a visceral mode of expression. When our bodies betray us in such a profound way, it can be all the more powerful for patients to really use the rhythms of poetry to make sense of what is happening in their bodies.”

On return visits, Dr. Campo’s patients often begin by discussing a poem he gave them — for example, “At the Cancer Clinic,” by Ted Kooser, from his collection “Delights & Shadows” (Copper Canyon Press, 2004), about a nurse holding the door for a slow-moving patient.

How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

In Ms. Potvin’s case, poems related to her illness were often spurred by mundane moments, like seeing a neighbor out for a nightly walk. Here is “Tumor”:

My neighbor walks
For miles each night.
A mantra drives her, I imagine
As my boys’ chant did
The summer of my own illness:
“Push, Mommy, push.”
Urging me to wind my sore feet
Winch-like on a rented bike
To inch us home.
I couldn’t stop;
Couldn’t leave us
Miles from the end.

Karin Miller, 48, of Minneapolis, turned to poetry 15 years ago when her husband developed testicular cancer at the same time she was pregnant with their first child.

Her husband has since recovered, and Ms. Miller has reviewed thousands of poems by cancer patients and their loved ones to create the “Cancer Poetry Project” anthologies. One poem is “Hymn to a Lost Breast,” by Bonnie Maurer.

Oh let it fly
let it fling
let it flip like a pancake in the air
let it sing: what is the song
of one breast flapping?

Another is “Barn Wish” by Kim Knedler Hewett.

I sit where you can’t see me
Listening to the rustle of papers and pills in the other room,
Wondering if you can hear them.
Let’s go back to the barn, I whisper.
Let’s turn on the TV and watch the Bengals lose.
Let’s eat Bill’s Doughnuts and drink Pepsi.
Anything but this.

Ms. Miller has asked many of her poets to explain why they find poetry healing. “They say it’s the thing that lets them get to the core of how they are feeling,” she said. “It’s the simplicity of poetry, the bare bones of it, that helps them deal with their fears.”

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Have you written a poem about cancer? Please share them with us in the comments section below.

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Herbalife stock leaves investors feeling queasy

Shares of Los Angeles nutritional products company Herbalife Ltd. went on a wild ride Monday, falling 12% on news of a law enforcement investigation, only to close with a gain for the day after a regulatory agency cast doubt on such a probe.

At least one thing is clear about Herbalife: Its investors are extremely jittery.

The New York Post reported Monday that an unidentified law enforcement agency is investigating Herbalife, which has faced intense scrutiny since billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman accused it in December of operating a pyramid scheme and bet $1 billion that its shares would fall.

The Post based its story on a Federal Trade Commission letter in which the agency said it would not release some complaints about Herbalife because of an ongoing law enforcement investigation. Later in the day, the FTC said it had made a mistake and should have cited a foreign government agency, not law enforcement.

Shares of Herbalife surged after the FTC's clarification, adding 47 cents, or 1.3%, to close at $35.54.

"It's being whipped and driven by these exogenous forces," said Timothy Ramey, a D.A. Davidson & Co. analyst. "Unless you have strongly held beliefs about the company, which some people do in both directions, you're going to get influenced by this kind of stuff."

While retracting its statement about a law-enforcement probe, the FTC released more than 100 complaints it has received about Herbalife, many of them from independent distributors who ended up losing money trying to sell its products. The FTC would not say whether it was investigating.

Herbalife said in a statement that it was unaware of a criminal investigation and considered the FTC complaints insignificant.

"For a direct selling company of our size, we have had a relatively low number of complaints to the FTC," Herbalife said. "However, we take every one of them seriously and stand by our record of doing right by our distributors and all consumers of our products."

Herbalife — which sells diet, nutrition and beauty products in more than 80 countries — reported earnings of $413 million on $3.5 billion in sales in 2011. It is scheduled to release last year's results this month.

Founded in 1980, Herbalife is a so-called multi-level marketer, paying distributors commissions for their own sales as well as for those made by distributors they recruit. The only way for consumers to buy Herbalife is through independent distributors; its products are not sold in stores.

The company employs more than 1,000 people in Southern California. Its headquarters are at L.A. Live, the entertainment and business complex near Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

In December, Ackman made a flashy, multimedia presentation to outline his case that Herbalife is an illegal pyramid scheme. He said the company's independent distributors are paid more money for recruiting new salespeople than for selling its products.

Ackman said that 90% of Herbalife distributors make little or no money, while a select few — those at the top of the pyramid — make huge profits. The company's chief executive, Michael O. Johnson, was the highest-paid executive in the United States in 2011, raking in more than $89 million in salary, exercised stock options and other compensation, according to GMI Ratings, a corporate governance firm.

In complaints to the FTC, some distributors said they ended up losing money trying to sell Herbalife products.

"I have been suckered into a pyramid," one Herbalife distributor wrote. "I was basically going to go bankrupt if I continue."

Countering Ackman's huge short position, which pays off if the stock price falls, another billionaire investor, Carl Icahn, took an undisclosed stake in Herbalife, betting essentially that the stock would rise.

The two squared off in a profanity-filled debate broadcast live by CNBC on Jan. 25 with Icahn calling Ackman a "liar," and Icahn countering that Icahn was "not used to someone standing up to him, particularly a little guy like me."

Ramey, the analyst, said he is recommending that investors buy Herbalife shares.

"It's not a pyramid scheme. It doesn't look at all like pyramid schemes look," Ramey said. "Companies that have been judged to be pyramid schemes don't look like real companies and they don't sell real products."

That said, Ramey expects a rough road for Herbalife shares.

"It's easy for me to sleep comfortably at night," he said, "but that doesn't mean it's not going to be volatile on a day-to-day basis."

stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com

Times staff writer Andrew Tangel contributed to this report.

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Ravens win Super Bowl XLVII over the 49ers, 34-31

Ravens 34, 49ers 31 (final)

The Baltimore Ravens have defeated the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII.

It's the second championship for the Ravens and linebacker Ray Lewis, who is retiring after 17 seasons.

After taking a safety on their final possession, Baltimore punted to San Francisco, which was unable to set up a return and suffered its first loss in six appearances in the NFL championship game.

San Francisco never led in the game, but the 49ers still had a chance to win the game when punt returner Ted Ginn Jr. fielded the punt. A swarming Ravens defense contained him near midfield before making the tackle.

Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco was selected the game’s most valuable player.

The championship goes to Baltimore Coach John Harbaugh over his kid brother, San Francisco Coach Jim Harbaugh.

The Times will have full coverage of the game played at the New Orleans Superdome throughout the night at latimes.com.

Ravens 34, 49ers 31 (4 seconds left)

The Baltimore Ravens are closing in on a Super Bowl title.

After moving the ball from their own 20-yard line to the Ravens’ 5, San Francisco saw Baltimore defensive back Joey Smith break up a third-down pass to Michael Crabtree.

Colin Kaepernick was then rushed heavily, forcing a throw that 49ers Coach Jim Harbaugh begged for pass interference with a Ravens defensive back and Crabtree jostling for position.

The Kaepernick pass flew beyond Crabtree with cornerback Jimmy Smith tugging on his jersey.

The Ravens went three and out on their next possession, opting to take a safety with four seconds remaining as the punter ran out of the end zone.

It’s now Baltimore 34, San Francisco 31.

Ravens 34, 49ers 29 (two-minute warning)

The San Francisco 49ers have never lost a Super Bowl, and now they find themselves in Joe Montana territory against the Cincinnati Bengals back in the day.

Taking possession at their own 20-yard line with 4:19 left in the game and trailing by five points, San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick ran for a first down, then completed a 24-yard pass to receiver Michael Crabtree to the Baltimore's 40.

A Frank Gore run moved the ball to Baltimore’s seven, and it’s now the two-minute warning.

Ravens 34, 49ers 29 (4:19 left in fourth quarter)

The Baltimore Ravens have increased their lead over the San Francisco 49ers to five points with 4:19 left in regulation.

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Xbox Hoax Leads Armed Cops to Family

Members of a Florida family were shocked to be awakened in the middle of the night to find their house surrounded by police with guns drawn shouting at them to put their hands up.

Police Lt. Mike Beavers said the commotion was “very rare” for the small town of Oviedo, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of it happening in our little town,” Beavers told ABCNews.com.

The frightened family did not want to be identified but recounted the ordeal to ABC News’ Orlando affiliate WFTV.

“I heard the doorbell ring,” the father of two told WFTV. “We couldn’t see anybody at the front of the door. All we saw was the rifle barrel.”

The man said he and his wife originally believed they were being robbed.

“They have rifles, they have guns, and I said, ‘Let’s get out of the house,’ so we ran down the hallway and got our two boys up,” the father said.

“We were told to freeze and put our hands over our heads,” he recalled. “They said, ‘We’re the police,’ so that was a big relief.”

What the family didn’t realize was that an Xbox hoax had led the Oviedo police to its house. The police said they were responding to a call from AT&T saying it had received online messages from a person who said he was hiding inside the house, claiming that someone had been killed there and that others were being held hostage.

But when police arrived, all they found was a very surprised and confused family.

Upon investigation, police learned that the confusion all started when an Oviedo teenager living in another house called police saying his Xbox had been hacked.

The teenager said the hackers had threatened to call in bomb threats to his home if he did not meet their demands for gaming information.

When the teenager refused, the hackers sent fake messages reporting the killing and hostage taking at the teenager’s former home. His previous address, where police showed up, was still connected to his Xbox.

The teenager did some of his own investigating, police said, and provided authorities with some possible identifying information on the hackers.

“The caller gave information to officers regarding two possible suspects, including IP addresses, Twitter and Facebook accounts and a possible name of one of the suspects,” according to the police report. “The information provided to the officers revealed that both suspects were located in different states.”

The information has been turned over to Oviedo detectives for further investigation.

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