First Woman Executed in the U.S. in Five Years

AP

This 2007 file photo provided by newsPRos shows Teresa Lewis, 41, is scheduled to die by injection Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010 for trading sex and money in the hired killings of her husband and stepson in October 2002.

JARRATT, Va. -- The first woman executed in the United States in five years was put to death in Virginia on Thursday for arranging the killings of her husband and a stepson over a $250,000 insurance payment.

Teresa Lewis, 41, died by injection at 9:13 p.m. Thursday, authorities said. She became the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly a century. Supporters and relatives of the victims watched her execution at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt.

Lewis enticed two men through sex, cash and a promised cut in an insurance policy to shoot her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis Jr., and his son, Charles, as they were sleeping in the couple's mobile home in October 2002. Both triggermen were sentenced to life in prison and one committed suicide in 2006.

Lewis appeared tearful, her jaw clenched, as she was escorted into the death chamber. She glanced tensely around at the 14 assembled corrections officials before being bound to a gurney with heavy leather straps.

In the moments before her execution, Lewis asked if her husband's daughter was there.

Kathy Clifton, Lewis' stepdaughter, was in an adjacent witness room blocked from the inmate's view by a two-way mirror.

"I want Kathy to know that I love her and I'm very sorry," Lewis said.

Then, as the drugs flowed into her body, her feet bobbed but she otherwise remained motionless. A guard lightly tapped on her shoulder reassuringly as she slipped into death.

More than 7,300 appeals to stop the execution -- the first of a woman in Virginia since 1912 -- had been made to the governor in a state second only to Texas in the number of people it executes.

Texas held the most recent U.S. execution of a woman in 2005. Out of more than 1,200 people put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, only 11 have been women.

The 41-year-old woman, who defense attorneys said was borderline mentally disabled, had inspired other inmates by singing Christian hymns in prison. Her fate also had drawn appeals from the European Union, an indignant rebuke from Iran and the disgust of thousands of people.

The Lewis execution stirred an unusual amount of attention because of her gender, claims she lacked the intelligence to mastermind the killings and the post-conviction emergence of defense evidence that one of the triggermen manipulated her.

Lewis' supporters also said she was a changed woman. They pointed to testimonials from former prison chaplains and inmates that Lewis comforted and inspired other inmates with her faith and the hymns and country gospel tunes she sang at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women where she was long held.

Hours before her execution, Lewis met with family, her spiritual adviser and supporters at the Greensville Correctional Center.

Her spiritual adviser, the Rev. Julie Perry, stood sobbing as she later witnessed the execution, clutching a religious book.

Throughout her life, a faith in God had been a seeming constant for Lewis -- whether it was the prayer with her husband or her ministry behind bars.

But by her own admission, Lewis' life has been marked by outrageous bouts of sex and betrayal even as she hewed to the trappings of Christianity.

"I was doing drugs, stealing, lying and having several affairs during my marriages," Lewis wrote in a statement that was read at a prison religious service in August. "I went to church every Sunday, Friday and revivals but guess what? I didn't open my Bible at home, only when I was at church."

Her father said she ran off to get married, then later abandoned her children and ran off with her sister's husband. Then she had an affair with her sister's fiance while at the same time having an affair with another man.

Lewis' life took a deadly turn after she married Julian, whom she met at a Danville textile factory in 2000. Two years later, his son Charles entered the U.S. Army Reserve. When he was called for active duty he obtained a $250,000 life insurance policy, naming his father the beneficiary and providing temptation for Teresa Lewis.

Both men would have to die for Lewis to receive the insurance payout.

She met at a Walmart with the two men who ultimately killed Julian Lewis and his son. Lewis began an affair with Matthew Shallenberger and later had sex with the other triggerman, Rodney Fuller. She also arranged sex with Fuller and her daughter, who was 16, in a parking lot.

On the night before Halloween in 2002, after she prayed with her husband, Lewis got out of bed, unlocked the door to their mobile home and put the couple's pit bull in a bedroom so the animal wouldn't interfere. Shallenberger and Fuller came in and shot both men several times with the shotguns Lewis had bought for them.

Outside the correctional center Thursday evening, those opposed to the execution protested with signs and banners on a grassy knoll. Critics said they were repulsed by Virginia's killing of a woman.

"Tonight the death machine exterminated the beautiful childlike and loving spirit of Teresa Lewis," said her lawyer, James Rocap.

Israel confirms US put assurances in writing

JERUSALEM The Palestinian president warned on Sunday that he would not accept a U.S.-backed proposal for resuming peace talks unless Israel stops building homes for Jews in disputed east Jerusalem.

Mahmoud Abbas' position complicated already troubled American efforts to restart peace talks. Israeli hard-liners say they won't accept the proposed 90-day moratorium on new settlement construction in the West Bank if it also includes east Jerusalem.

The Palestinians say there can't be peace talks if Israel continues to build homes in captured territories where they want to establish an independent state. And in Cairo on Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said any construction freeze must include east Jerusalem "first and foremost."

"If the moratorium does not apply to all Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem, we will not accept it," Abbas said after consultations with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

In other news Sunday, an Israeli military court handed down three months' suspended sentence to two soldiers convicted of using a 9-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during last year's Gaza Strip war. The soldiers were also demoted.

The military bars troops from using civilians as human shields, and the soldiers' conviction last month was the most serious yet in connection with the war. It appeared the sentence was light as the soldiers had reportedly faced up to three years in prison. The men will serve no jail time if they stay out of trouble for the next two years.

The court said the soldiers asked the boy to open bags in a building they took over, fearing explosives were inside.

Israel has faced widespread criticism that it failed to properly investigate alleged wrongdoing by troops during the three-week military operation. Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed, including more than 900 civilians, according to Palestinian figures and international human rights groups.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for a future independent state.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian government in the West Bank broke down just weeks after they began with the expiry of an earlier, 10-month building slowdown in the West Bank.

With the fate of Mideast peacemaking hanging in the balance, the U.S. has been pushing Israel to impose a new moratorium to draw Palestinians back to the negotiating table. As an incentive, Washington has offered Israel a fleet of next-generation stealth warplanes and promises to veto anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations.

But the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, which holds the swing votes in the inner Cabinet that is to vote on the moratorium, has demanded a written assurance from the U.S. that construction in east Jerusalem not be affected. The U.S. has agreed to provide a written statement detailing the moratorium's deals, but Shas said Sunday that the statement had not yet arrived.

Israel claims east Jerusalem, captured in the 1967 Mideast war, as an integral part of its capital. Palestinians hope to establish their future capital in east Jerusalem.

A Netanyahu spokesman refused to comment on the state of talks with the U.S. The initial moratorium did not apply to east Jerusalem, though in practice, construction was curbed there, as well as in the West Bank. A total of 500,000 Jews live in both areas.

Netanyahu also faces criticism within his own Likud Party, where several ministers have endorsed a settler campaign against construction limitations. Hundreds of Jewish settlers many of them youths who skipped school demonstrated against any construction limits outside Netanyahu's office on Sunday.

"We came here as a part of our campaign to prevent the great damage that the renewal of the moratorium and submitting to American pressure can do to Israel's self interest," said Dani Dayan, a leader of the settlers' umbrella council.

Netanyahu was set to meet with Likud's parliamentary faction and with opposition leader Tzipi Livni of the Kadima Party. Livni, a former foreign minister, could potentially join his hard-line coalition as a dovish counterweight.

A Netanyahu spokesman characterized both meetings as "routine."

The U.S. hopes a renewed moratorium will allow Israel and the Palestinians to make significant progress toward working out a deal on their future borders. With borders determined, Israel could resume building on any territories it would expect to keep under a final peace deal.

A former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Kurtzer, had harsh words for the dealmaking. He accused Washington of preparing "to reward Israel for its bad behavior."

Writing in The Washington Post on Saturday, Kurtzer also warned that America's commitment to Israel's security once insulated from politics would become "merely a bargaining chip with which to negotiate what Jerusalem will or will not do to advance the peacemaking."

______

Associated Press reporter Maggie Michael contributed to this report from Cairo.

First Chevy Volt Sold for $225,000 to NASCAR Team Owner

GM

What do you do after winning five straight NASCAR titles? Buy a Chevrolet Volt, of course.

Rick Hendrick, owner of the NASCAR Sprint Cup team that runs the car of five-peater Jimmie Johnson - along with those of Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. – purchased the first Volt built for sale. And he picked it up for the low, low price of $225,000 dollars.

Hendrick purchased the Volt – which carries as sticker price of $41,000 - in an auction held to benefit science, math, technology and engineering studies in the Detroit Public Schools System, which will receive the proceeds from the sale.

“This was an opportunity to own a piece of history while giving back to the community,” Hendrick wrote in a press release. The longtime Chevrolet dealer opened for business in 1976 and got involved in the top tier of stock car racing in 1984. His team currently fields Chevrolet Impala race cars.

The Volt has been named the best car of the year from both Motor Trend and Automobile Magazine, and is a finalist for the 2011 North American Car of the Year award, which will be announced at the Detroit Auto Show in January 2011.

The vehicle, described by Chevrolet as an “extended range electric car” can travel up to 50 miles on battery power before needing to turn on its internal combustion engine and operate as a hybrid for longer journeys. General Motors expects to sell approximately 15,000 of the vehicles worldwide in 2011, before increasing production to 45,000 the following year.

NY senator pleads not guilty to embezzling charges

NEW YORK A New York state senator who was the Senate's Democratic leader and his son have pleaded not guilty to charges they embezzled more than $500,000 from their New York City health clinic.

Sen. Pedro Espada and his son Pedro Gautier Espada entered the pleas Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn. Bond was set for each at $750,000.

Federal and state authorities have accused the pair of raiding the clinic's coffers to spending spree that included Broadway shows and a down payment on a Bentley automobile.

The clinic is a federally funded not-for-profit in the Bronx known as Soundview, which the senator founded 30 years ago.

The elder Espada was the Senate majority leader, but was stripped of the title after the indictment was released. He lost his re-election bid in the fall.

Kentucky con man receives 2 life sentences for killing Wisconsin couple in 1980

JEFFERSON, Wis. JEFFERSON, Wis. (AP) An aging con man who confessed to killing five people over 20 years and wrote an autobiography detailing his life of crime was sentenced to two life terms in prison Monday, his second such sentence in as many weeks.

Edward W. Edwards sat quietly during the hearing, handcuffed in his wheelchair about 20 feet from his victims' family. The 77-year-old did not address them and showed no emotion, spending much of the hearing with his head drooped, facing the ground.

The victims' family members cried as relatives talked about their pain and grief since the 1980 murders of 19-year-old Wisconsin sweethearts Tim Hack and Kelly Drew.

"You are a lying, evil murderer and God is saving a special place in hell for you," said Drew's mother, Norma Walker. She told Edwards he deserved to be hanged.

Kelly Drew's sister, Wendy, said she wanted him to suffer.

"I'm glad that Wisconsin doesn't have the death penalty because I want this despicable piece of garbage to fester in prison as long as possible," she said in a statement read to the courtroom.

Edwards also has confessed to killing a couple near Akron, Ohio, in 1977 and was sentenced 10 days ago to two life terms in that case. In a jailhouse interview with The Associated Press last week, he said he had killed a fifth man a 24-year-old he considered to be his foster son. He said he was talking about the killing because he wanted the death penalty. Ohio has the death penalty; Wisconsin does not.

Edwards, of Louisville, Ky., was arrested in July after DNA connected him to the deaths of Tim Hack and his girlfriend, Kelly Drew, who disappeared from a Wisconsin wedding reception in August 1980. Their bodies were found weeks later in the woods. Investigators believe Hack was stabbed and Drew strangled.

Edwards agreed to a plea deal earlier this month in which he admitted to both the Wisconsin murders and the killing of Judith Straub, 18, of Sterling, Ohio, and Bill Lavaco, 21, of Doylestown, Ohio. He shot each of them in the neck in a Norton, Ohio, park.

He was sentenced to two life terms for those slayings and under a plea deal will serve his prison time in Ohio. Ohio has the death penalty, but Edwards wasn't eligible for it because a U.S. Supreme Court ruling invalidated the punishment between 1974 and 1978. It is unclear if he could receive it for the fifth slaying; he has not been charged, and Ohio juries must find offenders guilty of a serious secondary offense such as rape, arson or aggravated robbery in addition to aggravated murder.

Edwards spent much of his life running from the law, landing on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list in 1961. In his 1972 autobiography, "Metamorphosis of a Criminal," he wrote he spent the 1950s and early 1960s drifting across the country, stealing cars, robbing banks and gas stations and seducing women he met along the way.

Report: NASCAR May Send Points System to the Scrap Heap

Reuters

Jimmie Johnson makes a pit stop in the final laps as he won the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship at the Ford 400 race in Homestead, Florida November 21, 2010.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. –  NASCAR is considering scrapping the points system it has used since 1975 in favor of a simpler method that awards points per finishing position, The Associated Press has learned.

The overhauling of the system is one of a handful of changes NASCAR is considering implementing before the season begins next month. Series officials have been detailing their ideas in individual meetings with teams, a person who attended one of the briefings told The AP on Monday.

The person spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity because NASCAR has not finalized its upcoming changes.

The sanctioning body wants to go to a scoring system that would award 43 points to the race winner, and one point less for each ensuing position down to one point for the 43rd-place finisher.

NASCAR is also shying away from wholesale changes to its Chase for the Sprint Cup championship format.

NASCAR chairman Brian France floated the idea last July of shaking up the Chase to create more drama to the 10-week series that determines the Cup champion. Among France's suggestions were widening the 12-driver field, instituting elimination rounds, and adding any other drama that could create "Game 7" type moments rivaling those from other professional sports leagues.

But teams have been told NASCAR is leaning toward keeping it a 12-driver field, with one caveat: The top 10 drivers following the 26th race of the season would qualify for the Chase, while the remaining two spots would go to the drivers with the most wins who are not already eligible for the Chase.

NASCAR officials have also told teams they aren't leaning toward adding eliminations.

Preseason testing begins Thursday at Daytona International Speedway, and NASCAR president Mike Helton and vice president of competition Robin Pemberton are scheduled to discuss some of the changes planned for 2011.

But the major announcements aren't scheduled until next week when France makes a presentation during Charlotte Motor Speedway's annual media tour.

France and his top officials found themselves in a precarious position at the end of last season, which was marked by the closest championship race in seven years. France had already publicly toyed with the idea of changing the Chase, which was implemented in 2004 to spice up NASCAR's championship system.

"Right now every sports league, or almost every one, is looking at what they need to do to change their formats a little or a lot, depending on who they are, to make sure their playoffs or their championship runs are what they want them to be," France said two days before the November season finale.

Three drivers went into the season finale eligible to win the championship. It went to Jimmie Johnson, who overcame a 15-point deficit to Denny Hamlin in the final race to win his record fifth consecutive title.

Because the system seemingly worked as the Chase played out last season, sweeping changes did not seem necessary.

The points system, though, apparently is a different matter.

NASCAR legend claims the current system was devised on a napkin over drinks at a Daytona bar in 1974 and implemented the next season. The complicated scoring method gives 175 points to the winner, and decreases in increments of five points and then three points down to 34 points for the last-place finisher.

Five-point bonuses are awarded for leading a lap, and to the driver who leads the most laps.

NASCAR is still debating how to award bonuses under a straight points system, and ideas being considered are for anywhere from one to three points being given to lap leaders and race winners.

Martinique man convicted of making racist remarks

FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique –  A court has found an 84-year-old businessman guilty of condoning a crime against humanity for praising slavery during a TV interview and sentenced him Wednesday to pay a fine of nearly $10,000.

Alain Despointes made the comments at a moment when the French Caribbean territory was convulsed by protests over high prices and low wages and by resentment that the primarily white, "beke" descendants of slaveholders control much of the local economy.

Despointes, one of the beke elite, also criticized mixed-race marriages during the interview aired in late January 2009 and said he wanted to "preserve his race."

He is the first man in Martinique found guilty under a 2001 French law that declared slavery a crime against humanity.

Defense attorney Dinah Rioual-Rosier said she would appeal the ruling and described Despointes as "a great humanist" who "has deep respect for man."

Despointes had argued that his comments were taken out of context in the documentary on Martinique's bekes.

"Historians exaggerated the problems a bit. They talk above all about the bad aspects of slavery," he said in the documentary. "But there were good aspects, too ... There were colonizers who were very humane with their slaves."

Despointes is a well-known businessman in Martinique whose case was followed closely. He oversees more than 500 workers as a major bottler and distributor of products including Coca Cola and Yoplait. He also is a member of the Legion of Honor, a French order whose members include military officials, entrepreneurs and renowned athletes.

Frantz Lebon, an attorney representing one of three civil rights groups that filed a complaint, said the conviction "is a warning to all those who want to take the same path," though he called the penalties "timid" and "purely symbolic."

In addition to the fine, Despointes was ordered to publish a letter detailing the case and to give more than $3,000 to a local civil rights organization.

The court dropped a separate charge of provoking and inciting racial hatred.

Prosecutor Xavier Hubert had asked for a yearlong prison sentence that could be suspended if Despointes built a memorial dedicated to slaves.

Awaiting a verdict on similar charges is Ghislaine Joachim-Arnaud, one of the leaders of the violent 2009 protests, who wrote a slogan in Creole at the time stating that Martinique belonged to the black majority and accusing the bekes of being thieves and freeloaders.