In brief: Ranking Secret Service administrator on leave
WASHINGTON – The Secret Service has placed a high-ranking supervisor on administrative leave and suspended the supervisor’s security clearance after what it called “allegations of misconduct and potential criminal activity.”
Spokesman Brian Leary said Wednesday that the incident was first reported to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility on April 2, after which inspectors conducted corroborative interviews. Director Joseph Clancy was informed the same day, and the employee was placed on leave.
The spokesman would not provide details of the allegations, but said the Secret Service takes them “extremely seriously.”
Obama calls for end to gay ‘conversion’
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is calling for a ban on psychiatric “conversion” therapies aimed at changing the sexual orientation of gay, lesbian and transgendered youth, a top aide said Wednesday.
The White House shares concerns over the “potentially devastating effects” of the therapy, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said in a blog post on the White House website. She was responding to a petition calling for a federal law banning the practice.
Investigator hired in hanging death
JACKSON, Miss. – Lawyers hired by the family of a black man who was found hanging in Mississippi said Wednesday that they are hiring independent experts, including a high-profile forensic pathologist, to conduct an investigation separate from the one pursued by state and federal authorities.
Otis Byrd, 54, was found hanging by a sheet from a tree near his home in the small southwestern Mississippi town of Port Gibson on March 19. Authorities are trying to determine if he was killed or took his own life. He had been reported missing about two weeks before he was found.
“At this point, the family believes that it’s not suicide,” attorney Dennis Sweet IV said during a news conference in Jackson.
Couple arrested in gruesome abuse case
LAS VEGAS – Two people have been arrested in what authorities describe as a twisted, gruesome case of abuse involving a child’s corpse hidden in a broken-down car, a starved baby living on water and a sheltered teenager impregnated by her stepfather.
Jondrew Lachaux, 39, and Kellie Phillips, 38, turned themselves in after the three children were discovered, North Las Vegas police said.
The two face child abuse charges. Lachaux is also charged with concealing evidence after the toddler’s badly decomposed body was found in the couple’s garage.
For the past five years, the family had lived in North Las Vegas, but the group of children, which also included five other healthy children, rarely went outside and was homeschooled.