Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Blog
News from the Charlotte Observer of a suspicious summer course offering at UNC-Chapel Hill shows that a class with no instruction time was created just days before the summer semester began which was filled exclusively with football players.
The records show that in the summer of 2011, 19 students signed up for AMFAM 280: Blacks in North Carolina. 18 of these students were current football players; the other man was a former player. 
The players had the support of their academic advisors who knew there would be no actual instruction. The whole affair is now the subject of a full scale criminal investigation.
Additional records show that football and basketball players made up a majority of nine other suspect classes in which professors listed as instructors deny ever teaching. They are also claiming that their signatures were forged on records related to the courses. This amounts to significant evidence of academic fraud taking place at UNC. An internal search discovered there were 54 such classes, all but nine of which were taught by Julius Nyang’oro, the longtime chairman of the African and Afro-American Studies Department. In each course the students were given one assignment, such as writing a term paper, and told to turn it in at the end of the summer term.
Bubba Cunningham, the current athletic director hired since the scandal took place has said that he is troubled by the news. “I just think this has uncovered some information that quite frankly, the university, we’re not proud of,” he said in an interview. “But we’ll continue to work to ensure that it doesn’t happen going forward.”
The issue began as a result of an investigation into the summer pay Nyang’oro received for the AMFAM 280 course. The search uncovered evidence that the university had paid the professor the standard fee for such a course, $12,000, but that it was contingent on the course being taught in lecture format. Nyang’oro decided to change the course to an independent study. The school is now trying to get the money paid out to the professor back.
Nyang’oro resigned as chairman of the department last September as UNC began an investigation into numerous independent studies and other suspicious course offerings in his department. He had been the department’s only chairman and earned as much as $171,000 per year.
It is a crime-solving tool, it is a means of deterring particularly young offenders, and it helps to prevent unnecessary jail/prison overcrowding for minor offenses. There is also the added benefit of being able to map out where crime is taking place based on the location of the monitors, which, according the police, outweighs the occasional “monitor-cutters on the run.”
An “extraordinary event” is defined in the code as “a large-scale special event of national or international significance and/or an event expected to attract a significant number of people to a certain portion of the city.”
On average, it takes the team about 19 hours from the beginning of the team’s investigation to make an arrest. Their speed prevents the alleged criminals from fleeing the jurisdiction. Winterhalter believes that some of their success is attributable to the police department being more efficient at identifying suspects. He said, “The department is responding to the incident a little bit differently. There’s increased number of resources put into the initial investigation, different bodies from within organization are helping.”
In December 2007, Edwards, along with Young, issued a statement to the press in which Edwards denied that he was the father of Rielle Hunter’s unborn child, saying that it was Young who was father. According to Young, Edwards was to tell the press the real story once the baby was born. Young testified that he and his wife were no longer happy about letting Hunter live with them in an attempt to keep the press away from her.
Earlier this month, the 6-year-old received media attention when it was reported that after she had a temper tantrum at school, the police were called and she was handcuffed. According to reports, the girl refused to comply with her teacher’s rules and began throwing things off of the teacher’s desk. She sent the student to the principal’s office where she continued her tantrum. The student threw things off of the principal’s desk and turned over a small shelf that fell on the principal’s leg. The principal tried to calm her down, but she resisted. At that point, it was decided that the police should be called. The Milledgeville Police Department responded and placed the 6-year-old in the back of a police car and transported her to the police station. Police procedure required that anyone placed in the back of the patrol car be handcuffed.
The technology allows police to track not only the calls made by a cell phone user, but also the phone’s location, and by implication, the location of the cell phone’s user. The problem is that the police can obtain that information from the cell phone service provider without the knowledge or consent of the cell phone user. This lack of knowledge or consent prompted the ACLU to conduct a study of the process and procedures that law enforcement officials use to obtain cell phone records. The study revealed a disturbing trend.
The initial investigation by the Sanford, Florida police department did not result in an arrest of Zimmerman. Since then, Martin’s death had received national media attention and now the case is under investigation by the Florida State’s Attorney’s office and the Justice Department.
After the incident, the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan suffered even more. Many of the Afghani officials wanted Bales to be tried in Afghanistan, but since Bales allegedly surrendered immediately after the incident, the United States quickly transported him off of the battlefield and his wife and two children were moved onto the local military base closest to their home for their protection.
Residents are beginning to consider moving to different areas of the city to avoid the potential dangers.