A contractor with a long history of problems has been found in contempt for violating a court order that banned him from paving work in North Carolina, Attorney General Roy Cooper said.

“Businesses that rip off consumers and violate court orders time and time again have no business operating in our state and should face full punishment under the law,” Cooper said.

Tommy Edward Clack has repeatedly pressured consumers into paying too much for shoddy driveway paving. For years, Cooper’s Consumer Protection Division has fought to stop Clack from scamming North Carolina homeowners. In June of 2010, Cooper won a court order permanently barring Clack and his associates from all residential paving work in the state.

But Clack violated that ban, and at Cooper’s request Wake County Superior Court Judge Michael J. O’Foghludha this week found Clack guilty of civil contempt. He must repay his two victims $79,600 or go to jail for at least 90 days. That 90-day period can be renewed if he still has not repaid them.

Judge O’Fughludha also cited Clack for criminal contempt for failing to show up for his civil contempt hearing as ordered. Clack must appear before Wake County Senior Resident Superior Court Donald W. Stephens on June 27 at 10:00 AM to show why he should not be found in criminal contempt and ordered to jail for an additional six months, plus pay a fine.

The order of civil contempt was granted based on information from two homeowners who said that Clack charged them for driveway work after the ban was in place. An 81-year-old homeowner in Chatham County paid Clack $7,600 to pave her small driveway in July of 2010. In March of 2011, a Greensboro homeowner paid Clack $72,000 for driveway work. Clack allegedly used false names in both cases to try to hide his identity and evade the ban, calling himself Ray Tillman and Tommy Clark.

Consumer complaints to Cooper’s office illustrate how Clack usually operates. Clack claims that he is already in the neighborhood and will charge them low price because he has materials left from other jobs. Clack’s crew then begins work as soon as the contract is signed and completes the job quickly using poor quality materials.

Under state law, consumers have three days to cancel most purchases sold door-to-door, but many consumers who’ve dealt with Clack say they didn’t feel like they could cancel once the work was underway. Consumers who tried to cancel and get a refund report that Clack is generally uncooperative.

Clack initially operated in the Wilmington area. Cooper first filed suit against Clack in 2007, winning an injunction in March 2008 that compelled him to pay $50,000 and correct previous substandard paving jobs. Clack then relocated to Greensboro, where more problems surfaced. That led to a November 2008 court order that required him to wait at least four days after a written contract was signed before beginning work.

Read more: Garner News - Poor Paver held in contempt and must face his day in court

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(NAPSI)-Shortly after the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, police on the scene issued an urgent radio call for evacuation of the entire complex.

That order, given on a radio frequency used by one group of officials, was never heard by many other first responders on the scene. Just minutes later, the second plane hit the South Tower.

As noted in “The 9/11 Commission Report,” the call to evacuate was “given over WTC channel W,” a frequency used by only some of the scene’s first responders. As a result, the lifesaving evacuation message went unheard by many- and for some, arrived too late.

Americans learned many lessons from the tragic events of September 11. One national priority, highlighted by the 9/11 Commission, was the need for “interoperable” communications-a single radio that would enable one department, agency or single first responder to communicate with officials using any of the public safety frequency bands.

In response, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began research, development and deployment of a new technology that would ultimately solve the interoperability problem. State and local government officials around the U.S. are now being introduced to new radio technologies that are the direct result of the lessons learned in New York City.

With new, interoperable, handheld radios, federal, state, local and defense agencies can communicate using a single radio that operates across all public safety bands, including the VHF band used in many rural areas and the critical marine and mutual aid channels used during large-scale incidents and in search and rescue operations.

One company, Maryland-based Thales Communications, was among the first to respond to the DHS requirement. Putting to work the company’s experience in the development of software-defined interoperable radios for the U.S. military, Thales engineered the software that makes interoperability possible. The result is known as the Liberty Multiband Land Mobile Radio.

“With 2.2 million first responders in the U.S. operating on a wide range of frequency bands with different modulation schemes, achieving our goal meant we needed to simplify a highly complex problem,” said Steve Nichols, a public safety industry expert with Thales Communications. “The answer is software inside a handheld radio that links, in real time, every frequency used by first responders.”

Unlike military multiband radios, Liberty is designed to meet stringent public safety specifications but is just as rugged, with a metal case and the ability to survive an underwater submersion of up to two meters. The radio was tested successfully by DHS at the presidential inauguration and has been used during other high-security events including the Super Bowl, World Cup and Academy Awards.

Now, when the county official managing a local emergency needs to communicate the same urgent message to multiple police, fire and rescue departments on the scene, interoperable radios make the task a one-step process.

Skeptics of this new solution have argued that U.S. counties, towns and cities do not have the budgets or people to buy and manage new communications networks or systems. But according to Nichols, achieving interoperability doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated.

“The day you get a Liberty radio, you can talk to someone on all channels,” said Nichols. “It works right out of the box.”

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(ARA) – What do a recent global crackdown on Internet child pornography and the arrest of Dennis Rader, the infamous “BTK” serial killer have in common with the Sept. 11 attacks on America? All are high profile crimes investigated not only by conventional police investigators, but by those specially trained in computer forensics, a new area of crime fighting.

Computer forensics is a branch of forensic science pertaining to legal evidence found in computers and digital storage mediums. Experts in this field investigate data storage devices such as hard drives, USB drives, CD-ROMS, floppy disks, etc., identifying, preserving and analyzing documentary and other digital evidence.

While most of the attention given to people working in this field comes from the work they do with police to help solve high profile crimes, that is not the only role they play. Individual companies are hiring forensic computer experts to perform such roles as determining the root cause of a hacker attack, collecting evidence legally admissible in court, and protecting corporate assets and reputations from crimes such as white-collar fraud.

Andrew Hildebrand, CPA, CVA, JD and dean of business programs at DeVry University in Fort Washington, Penn., offers this example of just how important a computer forensics expert’s role is in a corporate investigation of financial crime. “First a CPA would be contacted by an attorney to work on proving financial fraud. The CPA would need to have financial records and data, some of which may be in electronic format,” he says.

“Many times in these types of fraud cases, the suspect has attempted to cover-up the crime by deleting various documents, such as MS Word memos and MS Excel spreadsheets,” Hildebrand adds. “Once the accountants have some idea of what they are looking for, we can work with the computer forensics professional to recover the deleted material. During every step from seizure of the computer through to court testimony, the computer forensics professional will use their expertise to ensure that the data is recovered and the laws of evidence are respected.”

Realizing the growing need for trained professionals with this area of expertise, schools such as DeVry University, one of the country’s largest, publicly held, degree-granting higher education systems in the U.S., have developed special degree programs to train the experts of tomorrow. DeVry University offers an accelerated bachelor’s degree program in Computer Information Systems with a specialized track in computer forensics that can be completed in three years. As they are pursuing their degree, students learn how to follow the trail of computer clues that are left behind when someone commits a crime of technology. They also learn how to document evidence and how to coordinate with law enforcement to track the movements of the bad guys.

“Students will be prepared for jobs such as security auditor, security specialist, security administrator, security analyst, Web security manager, security director, digital forensic investigator, privacy officer and compliance officer,” says Rajin Koonjbearry, an instructor at DeVry University in Dallas. “These jobs are in high demand and will continue to grow because of new and changing regulatory requirements.”

Among the career avenues available for students graduating with a specialization in computer forensics:

* Law Enforcement. Police departments and sheriff’s offices nationwide are looking for computer forensics professionals to help them investigate computer-related crimes.

* Corporate. Those with a computer forensics background can help companies protect their computer systems from outside attacks.

* Private Organizations. Any private organization with its own network needs computer forensics professionals to maintain surveillance on their systems.

* Software Programmers. The advice that the computer forensics degree holder can provide a software company about the stability of their programs is always welcomed.

“We are responding to the changing IT industry in order to ensure DeVry University graduates are prepared to excel in emerging industry areas,” says Eddie Wachter, Ph.D., dean of academic affairs at DeVry University Central Florida. “Professionals who know how to protect companies and consumers from cyber crime will be in great demand in our increasingly networked world, and the new specialized options give our students the edge in this evolving industry.”

To learn more about DeVry University’s Computer Information Systems (CIS) degree program, log on to http://www.DeVry.edu  .

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RALEIGH, N.C. – Wake Tech’s new Public Safety Training Center opened to serve the growing needs of area law enforcement and other public service agencies. The Center, at 321 Chapanoke Road in Raleigh, will train law enforcement officers, firefighters, corrections officers, and emergency medical service providers. It is the first centralized facility for training of this kind in Wake County.

The Public Safety Training Center will begin with courses offerings such as Crime Scene Investigation, DWI Detection, and Field Training Officer instruction.

Read More:CarolinaNewsWire

Cybercriminals prey on online shoppers over the holidays. Here are the most common scams and how you can avoid them

Ah, the holidays—that most wonderful time of year when the Web is aflutter with e-mailed season’s greetings, online shopping offers…and cyber criminals. The scams run the gamut, from fraudulent e-mails purporting to be alerts about online transactions to scam gift offers. “There is always an effort by the criminal underground to separate victims from their money this time of year,” says Paul Ferguson, an advanced threat researcher with Trend Micro, a security software provider.

Cybercriminals know it’s easier to get people to fall for scams related to online shopping when they have shopping on the brain. It also doesn’t hurt that the legitimate act of online shopping often involves visits to comparison-shopping sites and strange discount sites. So it’s little surprise that some of those destinations turn out to be fake. “People are particularly vulnerable this time of year because they are looking for bargains,” says Bill Loesch, chief technical officer and co-founder of GuardID, the maker of a device, similar to a USB memory stick, that stores account information and verifies the identity of financial sites.

The rising popularity of online shopping makes for a target-rich environment. Consumers have spent about $25 billion online since Nov. 1, according to a Dec. 20 comScore (SCOR) study. That’s a 19% increase from last year. Security firms expect a similar increase in the amount of online fraud, bringing the total amount lost online to $3.6 billion this year, according to a November survey by CyberSource (CYBS), an electronic payment and risk management firm.

So what can consumers do to protect themselves from unwittingly buying someone else’s holiday gifts this season? For starters, they can keep an eye out for the following common holiday scams:  

You’ve probably heard the one about the Nigerian bank manager who needs your “confidential” help opening a U.S. account to transfer millions in oil-related profits. But those “dear friend” e-mails are fairly primitive compared with some of the devious phishing techniques criminals have come up with to trick consumers into handing over account information.

In fact, phishing attacks have become more successful in recent years. According to a survey by research firm Gartner, released Dec. 17, more than 3.6 million adults lost money as a result of phishing in the 12 months ending in August, 2007. That’s up from 2.3 million people in 2006.

One reason for the increase is the ingenuity of the scams themselves, which can look identical to legitimate notices from financial institutions such as Citibank (C) and PayPal, the leading online payment service from eBay (EBAY). Many of these e-mails open with warnings of imminent account cancellations or detection of fraudulent activity, which can make consumers more likely to click a link in hopes of rectifying the problem.

But the link typically directs to a fraudulent copycat site or downloads malware—software that scoops up account and other information—onto the computer, says Shane Keats, a research analyst with McAfee (MFE), a security software provider. “At some point this season you will get an e-mail saying that your auction account has been hacked and you must respond now,” says Keats. “Don’t panic.… It is not real. The auction sites and the banks don’t send that information by e-mail.”

For instance, phishing e-mails purporting to be from PayPal often begin with “Dear PayPal user” or “Dear PayPal member.” On its Web site, PayPal says it uses first and last names of customers when sending them e-mails; anything without the full name is a scam. PayPal also has an e-mail address, spoof@paypal.com, where users can report notices they suspect are fraudulent.

Read More:BusinessWeek.com

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ARA) – Worn tires are blamed for the death of an Irving, Texas, police officer killed in a crash on his way to a call this past April; and in Greenville, S.C., two ambulance workers were recently injured and a patient killed when their vehicle flipped after the rear tire tread came off .

First responders put their lives on the line every day to help others; never expecting to run into problems with their equipment, but it happens. In an effort to show appreciation for the work firefighters and EMS personnel do, Michelin North America is encouraging individuals and communities to nominate a first responder to win a new set of tires, ensuring that safe and reliable tires will be on the community’s emergency response vehicle. This year, 50 winners will be awarded a set of new tires, double last year’s prize. To nominate a local hero, visit www.MichelinMan.com and either e-mail a nomination prior to November 23, or print and mail the form postmarked by November 15.

Ryan Sutter, reality television star from “The Bachelorette” and full-time firefighter for Vail Fire and Emergency Services is working with Michelin to raise awareness of the importance of tire safety for first responders.

“Tire maintenance is essential to emergency responder vehicles and many fire departments and EMS units struggle to maintain their vehicles,” says Sutter. “Through this Michelin program, communities have the opportunity to recognize the brave efforts of local first responders and help them maintain vehicle safety by nominating them for new tires.”

Last year Linda Embry of Marietta, S.C., submitted her nomination, husband David Embry, as the community’s hero and he became the first winner to receive a new set of Michelin tires for his vehicle.

“My husband David works selflessly to help the people of our community. People know they can call him at home at anytime and he will drop what he is doing and get to them. Right now he is at the church “Trunk or Treat,” operating a borrowed smoke house to teach children fire safety,” Embry wrote in her nomination. “I know he’s my husband, but I can’t imagine anyone more deserving of being recognized as a local hero. And I can’t imagine anything making him any happier than winning a new set of Michelin tires for his beloved fire department.”

Many local fire departments are under funded and sponsor chili cook-offs or hold pancake breakfasts to raise money for vehicle maintenance and repairs. New tires are a necessity that many departments cannot afford. Take the time to nominate an individual or team and help ensure the safety of the people who generously and selflessly keep their communities safe.

Remember, tire safety is important for the safety of emergency responders, but also for individuals too. Here are some things to think about for all vehicles:

* Air Pressure
Keeping tires properly inflated is essential for the maximum performance and longevity of the tire, as well as the ride quality and safety of the vehicle. Tires carry the entire weight of the vehicle and when under inflated or over inflated, they cannot do their job properly. Check pressure once a month.

* Tread
Looking at the wear and tear of the tread of a tire can tell its history. Tread is important to help the vehicle properly grip the road. Wear in the middle of the tire indicates over inflation for a significant amount of time, as wear on both outer edges indicates under inflation.

* Rotation
Regular rotation extends the life of the tires, saving both time and money in the long run. For rotation, each tire and wheel is removed from the vehicle and replaced in a different position. This ensures that all of the tires wear evenly and last longer.

*Alignment
Alignment generally refers to the adjustment of a vehicle’s front and rear suspension parts. Proper alignment not only ensures that the vehicle handles correctly but it will also help increase the life and performance of the tires. Check alignment after hitting an object, when wear patterns develop on the shoulders of the tires or if there is a difference in vehicle handling.

For more information visit www.MichelinMan.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

Baker won sheriff’s post in ’78, set mark for service

RALEIGH – When John Baker Jr. was a child, his father was hired as Raleigh’s first black police officer. The son vowed that one day he would become sheriff.

It was a pretty heady dream for an African-American boy growing up in the segregated South during the 1940s and 1950s. After a career as an NFL defensive lineman, Baker achieved it.

He was the first elected black sheriff in North Carolina since Reconstruction.

Baker, 72, died in his sleep Wednesday morning, said his pastor, Marion Robinson of St. Matthews AME Zion Church. Robinson said Baker had been sick for several months. He declined to discuss the nature of the former sheriff’s illness.

Baker, a hulking man, gravel-voiced but soft-spoken, was sheriff for 24 years, from 1978 to 2002. Along the way, he modernized the Sheriff’s Office. He started the county’s gun permit system and formed the first sheriff’s homicide unit. He also hired more patrol officers and was instrumental in getting the $56 million Wake Public Safety Center built in downtown Raleigh.

Before becoming sheriff, Baker was a college football All-American at what is now N.C. Central University from 1954 through 1957. He was selected in the fifth round of the NFL draft by the then-Los Angeles Rams and went on to play 11 seasons with the Rams, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Detroit Lions. He was elected to NCCU’s inaugural Athletic Hall of Fame in 1984.

Ferocious on the field

Herman Boone, 72, a college teammate, said Baker “terrorized all of North Carolina” during his high school football days. Baker carried that ferocity with him to college and pro ball. But off the field, Baker was “just the nicest guy God ever created,” said Boone, of Alexandria, Va.

“He would take your head off in a moment’s notice and at the end of the play give it back and warn you not to come that way again,” Boone said. “Off the field, other than his size, you would have never known he was a football player. He was like a big teddy bear.”

In 1964, Baker’s ferociousness on the field helped produce an enduring image of the game — New York Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle kneeling on the field with blood on his helmetless head, after being tackled by Baker.

After his football days, Baker took his calm, tenacious spirit to the political arena. His first foray into politics came in 1975 when he served as an aide to U.S. Sen. Robert Morgan. One year later, he worked as deputy state chairman for Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.

Blacks in politics

When Baker was elected sheriff in 1978, he followed a vanguard of young and ambitious black politicians who were elected during the post-civil rights era, including Raleigh’s first black mayor, Clarence Lightner, in 1973.

Still, when Baker was elected, the idea of a black lawman serving in a predominantly white capital city in the South was a “major rallying point” for African-Americans in Raleigh and throughout Wake County, said Ralph Campbell, a former state auditor.

“I still have the T-shirt and campaign button around here somewhere,” Campbell said. “The button was shaped like a star — which everyone cherished — that said ‘Baker Backer.’ After that, John became a political icon.”

His tenure was not without controversy. Baker, a Democrat, clashed with the Republican-dominated county Board of Commissioners during the 1990s, particularly over the size and budget of his office.

In 1996, Baker ran newspaper ads accusing county commissioners of not heeding the public’s concerns about crime by refusing his requests for more deputies. Baker wanted the county to pay for the ads; the commissioners refused, saying the ads were a political swipe at them. The News & Observer eventually sued the county and Baker to collect $7,600 for the advertisements. Baker and the commission settled their differences and the bill was paid

Read More:News & Observer

APEX – For a day, Durham wasn’t the only place famous for bull.Around 2:30 p.m. Friday, Bone Collector, a rodeo bull, plowed through a fence at the Apex Veterinary Hospital, 1600 E. Williams St., said Apex police Sgt. G. Rhodes. Apex authorities and veterinary workers immediately gave chase.

The bull had been spotted several times in the town but eluded officers well into the evening, Rhodes said.

Then around 8:30 p.m., a resident spotted the bull grazing in a pasture off Apex-Holly Springs Road.

Read More: News & Observer