Cheney, Gonzalez Indicted in Prison Scandal
Indictments fly: Willacy County DA targets officialsNo! Say it ain't so! Dick Cheney profiting from inhumanity? Alberto Gonzalez tied to torture? This is America. That kind of thing doesn't happen here. Oh, sure, maybe it happens in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and Cuba, and maybe the occasional suspect is extraordinarily rendered to a secret prison or two somewhere in Eastern Europe to undergo procedures that are illegal on US soil, but it couldn't happen here.
By Emma Perez-Trevino, The Brownsville Herald
A Willacy County grand jury indicted several high-profile public officials on Monday including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr.
The indictment charges Cheney with illegally profiting, by virtue of his office, from $85 million in investments in the Vanguard Group. The group invests in companies that house federal detainees. He also is charged with exerting pressure on how much prisons are paid to house detainees.
For now, Cheney's office did not comment. "I haven't seen the indictment," Cheney's spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said Tuesday, indicating that it would be reviewed.The indictment further alleges that Gonzales used his position to stop investigations into assaults committed in the private prison managed by the GEO Group in Willacy County.
The GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., was also indicted on murder charges involving the 2001 death of an inmate killed in a Raymondville prison. The indictment accuses GEO of allowing inmates to beat Gregorio De La Rosa Jr., 33, of Laredo, to death with padlocks stuffed into socks...
Will this go anywhere? Will we ever see a Cheney perp walk? I doubt it. He'd have to be dug out of his undisclosed location first, and those sent to retrieve him would have to take care not to wind up being shot in the face. Still, it's fun to think about.
