When is doing your best good enough?

Sometimes putting you best foot forward is never enough. When it is dealing with Child Support Courts, no matter what state it is in. These opinions that your best is never good enough, blows me away! "Your honor that is all I make, my company went out of business, and I just don't make the money that I used to". Then these judges with their smart ass answers well "I suggest that you get another job, and try harder". The nerve of some of the SOB's kills me, for they will lock a man up quick, fast, and in a hurry if he falls behind on payments.

I understand that some men do fall behind and just can not pay... I hate the fact that they are labeled a dead beat dad! Somethings are beyond his control, but if he makes contact with his children and tries what more can he do? Although if he is making the money and is not paying give him that label that he has earned, "DEADBEAT".

Why is it the ones who owe $15 k and more are sill running the streets but the guy that owes $1k is sitting in jail waiting to go to Court? Go figure that!!!

Michael Savage is in rare form

Michael Savage is in rare form he went out on a limb and made a statement that Glen Beck would be off Fox within 6 months. Savage says that he can see the writing on the wall and that he was certain that Beck would either be fired or give some lame excuse as why he is leaving his show. Savage never seems to surprise me with his brash rants of people places and things. A couple of months ago he was banned from Britain because of his radical views. It really is a surprise how these radio host scream bloody murder when you back them to the wall with something they said.

Unfortunately as much as I like Savage open door policy he is a tool and every now, and then jerk can go with it. I think that there has to be limit to what can be said, hey wait a minute if we limit his first amendment right, then we limit my own... Never Mine!

Tracey Morgan so deep

I will be the first to say that I thought that he was just a silly ass individual. He took my perception to another level of understanding with his intense thinking. I tip my hat to this man he really impressed me!!!

Mary Murphy reveals the spousak abuse that she suffered

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- TV dance judge Mary Murphy said singer Chris Brown's attack on his girlfriend, Rihanna, prompted her to talk publicly about spousal abuse that she says she suffered first as a teenage bride three decades ago.

Mary Murphy says she was abused by her ex-husband during their nine-year marriage.

Murphy -- the vivacious judge on Fox TV's "So You Think You Can Dance" -- told CNN's Larry King that she wants other victims to learn from how she endured, but escaped, domestic violence.

Discovering her talent with dance eventually changed her life and helped her flee the relationship after nine years, she said.

Her ex-husband strongly denied that he ever physically or mentally abused Murphy, whom he married in 1978 soon after they met as teenagers in college.

"I did just tuck it away and just buried it and went on with my life and I thought that, you know, I could leave it there and I wanted to leave it there until my father died a couple years ago," Murphy said. Watch Murphy discuss abuse in her marriage »

Discussions with her dying father led to him apologizing for not being "my knight in shining armor" by intervening, she said.

But Murphy said seeing a photo of singer Rihanna's bruised face, taken soon after Brown's admitted attack last February, convinced her to go public with the story.

"I still had no intention to talk to anybody until I saw Rihanna's face and seeing that just brought it all up."

"Abuse, it just survives and thrives in silence," Murphy said.

US Weekly magazine's current issue offers a detailed version of Murphy's revelations in its cover story.

Don't Miss

Murphy tells the magazine about a whirlwind romance that began in 1977 when she was a 19-year-old Ohio State University student -- swept off her feet by an 18-year-old who was "extraordinarily handsome."

She told King that the marriage began "getting out of control" after just three months when her husband's jealously triggered fights.

"It increased until we started to have just horrible fights," she said. "And then at the time, after a fight in which I didn't want to have sex, it just escalated to the point that he literally had to rape me in order for me to have sex."

When a neighbor called police to her home, Murphy said she was too frightened to press charges.

"I looked at him and with the look on his face, I said 'absolutely not' and went back in my room and just laid there and cried," she said.

Murphy said she left her husband several times over the nine-year marriage, but "there weren't the shelters that there are today."

"I did try to leave, and I was having a hard time making it, and he would sweet talk me and I would go back" she said. "It was back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And I don't feel really proud of that."

Murphy discovered her talent and love of dance several years into the marriage when she took a summer job at a dance studio while her husband was away for several months running the family's business in the Middle East, she said.

"It made me feel beautiful instead of how I was probably really feeling inside, totally ashamed and dirty," she said.

Their marriage ended only after she and her husband renewed their vows in a wedding ceremony in front of his family and friends in Amman, Jordan, in 1985.

She learned he had a girlfriend -- to whom he was engaged -- in the Middle East. It was his infidelity that convinced her to divorce him, she said.

Her former husband -- who spoke to Larry King off the air -- said he was "totally shocked" by Murphy's account of their marriage. "I never harmed her," he said.

"If all of these allegations are true, she could have had me deported," he said. He is not a U.S. citizen.

He questioned if her motivation was "more fame or sympathy."

Still, he said he is "very, very proud" of her.

Murphy told King his response is what she expected.

"I think a lot of men out there, by the way, that when they do get married they feel like this is their right to do whatever they want to do, and it's not," she said. "And I was a scared, frightened person."

Murphy said she is still afraid of her former husband.

"I'm not going to lie to you that he still scares me," she said. "I still live in fear that he will do something to me, that I will go missing."

Fear of not being able to make it on her own still drives her today, she said.

"I put this behind me, went out and worked like I've never worked before," she said. "And I still work today like I could still be homeless."

76 year old man arrested for fighting

Two Florida men were arrested last week after they got into a fistfight at a St. Petersburg, Florida City Council meeting.

Council members were discussing, of all things, whether or not to privatize a city sidewalk outside a local shopping plaza. Police say after the Council voted to approve vacating the sidewalk, the disturbance erupted involving the men, one of whom is a councilman's brother.

Police say 76-year-old Frederick Dudley and 51-year-old Ronald Deaton confronted each other, and things quickly escalated into some pushing and shoving and punching.

Officials stepped in and defused the situation.

Both men were arrested for disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, and taken to the Pinellas County Jail where they were kept overnight and released the next day on bond.

I can only look at this video and LOL, OMG this is to funny!!!

A plot to kill discovered

• Tarek Mehanna, above, is charged with lying to the FBI in December 2006 when questioned about the whereabouts and activities of Daniel J. Maldonado.

A 27-year-old Massachusetts man conspired to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, federal prosecutors said Wednesday as they announced his arrest.

Tarek Mehanna of Sudbury sought - but never received - training in terrorist camps and worked with others from 2001 to May 2008 on the conspiracy to "kill, kidnap, maim or injure" people in foreign countries and the politicians, authorities said.

The politicians were members of the executive branch who are no longer in office, authorities said. They refused to give their names.

Mehanna, who was living in a sprawling house with his parents, is charged with lying to the FBI in December 2006 when questioned about the whereabouts and activities of Daniel J. Maldonado, a former Methuen resident who was suspected of training at an Al Qaeda terrorist camp to overthrow the Somali government, The Boston Globe reported in November 2008.

An FBI affidavit unsealed in federal court in Boston Monday alleges that Mehanna told agents on Dec. 16, 2006, that he had known Maldonado for three or four years and that when he last spoke to him two weeks earlier, Maldonado was living in a suburb of Alexandria, Egypt, and working for a Web site, according to the Globe.


Prosecutors said Mehanna conspired with two other men: Ahman Abousamra, who authorities say is now in Syria, and an unnamed man, who is cooperating with authorities in the investigation.

The three men discussed their desire to participate in "violent jihad against American interests" and talked about "their desire to die on the battlefield," prosecutors said.

Mehanna had "multiple conversations about obtaining automatic weapons and randomly shooting people in shopping malls," Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Loucks said. Their plan was thwarted when they could only get handguns, not automatic weapons, he said. Prosecutors would not say which malls had been targeted.

I wonder how long does it really have to take for the someone to start acting on informant information, why does it take 2 years to discover these idiots terrorist plots?. 9/11 was not something that was discovered on that day of September 11, 2001, in fact, it was years in advance. The weird thing is that no one believe that it could happen. Now that we have saw the results of lax behavior, what are we going to do? We have one of two choices, we either cowboy up and move swiftly like a thief in the night, or are we continue to sit on our hands and wait for the messenger of death...

An Arkansas 10-year-old says he won't pledge to the flag until gays and lesbians have equal rights.

What does one say when this kid makes that kind of stand for liberty and justice for all? My first question would be, why is he worried about gays getting married? Where does he get this concept to make a protest of this kind. Maybe if he took on a issues of racism he might have a chance then, but lets be fair and impartial... The concepts of thought of a simple protest is cute but it is not going to change the minds of millions, so dream on little man and keep sitting!

My bright ideal to make money on the Internet

Two years ago I came up with this bright ideal that I was going to make money on the Internet. So little did I know at the time, that making money online is not easy. Joel Comm was my introduction to making money with Adsense. Joel gave a wonderful spill how he made it and how easy it would be if you followed his plan, hey he even had testimonies! Of course I figured if he could make money like that, I could do it as well. Now I've learned a couple of things over the years from guys who market on the net, when they are ready to share with you their secrets to success, it really is not a secret any more. Please understand they will help you to succeed but they share old secrets and when they figure out another technique they are always willing to give you the older technique a cut rate price. Some people have made money going at it that way. I did not want to follow old techniques, I knew that my ideals would help me rise to the top. You never know how foolish you are until you come up with a plan and realize that 10,000 other people have already thought of that ideal and you are late! I have learned that when you make your first internet dime that will be the hardest money that you will ever earn in your life. I worked 6 or 8 hours a day for 6 months before I made sixty cents. I worked hard and would email my friends to look at my site. Believe this, I did generate traffic, but it was not paying any bills. I was disappointed after my first week and I understand why people fail so miserably. Through all the success stories that you hear, none give you the true grit of what they had to go through to make it to the top! So that is where I come in at, its not easy and believe me when I say this that only the Strong survive in this business!
So just like a carpenter needs tools to become success, so do you... These are the tools that you will need to create successful on the net.

1. You need to have knowledge. There will be terms and abbreviations that you need to understand to make it in the blogger world or the online selling world. Now I recommend that you dedicate time and effort to not only study terms but understand how it effects you, or you will never achieve your goal on the net, to make money! Please realize that search engine optimization is very important!

2. Now you have to understand that traffic is the key to your success on the net. The more traffic that you generate the greater opportunity for you to make a steady income online. The more relevant the material the more likely you will have an opportunity to have someone start following you.

3. The Realization that there is no topic in the world that has not been introduced to the Internet. What does that have to do with you, picture this you want to blog about "ducks unlimited". So before you start blogging about the ducks, first go to Google and type in "ducks unlimited" Now what that tells you is this, 781,000 have written on that topic. So what you say? Let me break it down so that you can understand, If I could click 3,000 times in a day guess where I would never get to???

4. With out patience in the Internet world you will do what many people do, they give up and try something else... You need thick skin and all the attributes listed above to succeed. Remember that Rome was not built in a day, and if you were going to eat a whale how would you do it? One bite at a time! Take your time, learn while you go and the rest will happen for you!

A Tale of Two Pebbles

Think About This

In a small village a farmer owed a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender was old and ornery and fancied the farmer's beautiful daughter.

He said he would forgo the farmer's debt if he could marry the daughter. He suggested they let providence decide the matter. He would put a black and white pebble into an empty bag. Then the daughter would have to pick one pebble from the bag. If she drew the back pebble she would become his wife and her father's debt would be forgiven. But if she drew the white pebble she would not have to marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven.

And if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown in jail.

As they were standing on a pebbled path the moneylender bent over and picked up two pebbles. The sharp-eyed daughter noticed that he picked up two black pebbles and placed them in the bag. He then asked her to pick a pebble.

She drew out a pebble. Without looking at it she let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path, where it became lost among the other pebbles.

"How clumsy of me, but never mind. If you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked," she said to the moneylender.

The remaining pebble is black, so it must be assumed she picked the white one. The moneylender dared not admit his dishonesty, and the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an advantageous one.

Moral? Most complex problems do have a solution. We must think, "What are my options?"

What are you waiting for?

Think About This
Are you waiting for the economy to turn around before you start that business you've always wanted?

Waiting for the right circumstances so you can go back to school and get the advanced degree you'd like to have?

Waiting for things to slow down at work or for the children to get older so you can write the book that's inside of you?

Waiting for (fill in the blank) before you do something about your weight and health?

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Now is NOT the time to WAIT!

The sooner you take positive action the faster you'll be on the road to rising above the recession or anything else that's holding you back.

Things are tough for some people right now, and they may be getting even tougher.

But that's EXACTLY why today, more than ever, you need a little something extra. You need an edge... you need an advantage unlike anything you've ever had before.

We've got that edge --- and a chance to put it to work in your life!

The year is only half over, which means you've got a full half year ahead of you to make some big things happen IF you don't wait any longer!

Finance Beyond Success works, try it... If it does not cost anything, what are you waiting for? You determine your destiny, It will not happen unless you step out on faith and believe!. http://tinyurl.com/yg4v2rn

Girl Sells sex to get money to go shopping

Girls sell sex in Hong Kong to earn shopping money

Most girls who engage in compensated dating don't view themselves as prostitutes, a social worker says.

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- She doesn't want to be identified, except by her nickname "Sze," and she has a secret past. Her father doesn't know what she did as a 16-year-old, and she hopes he never finds out. But Sze, now 19, wants young girls to hear her story so they never make the same mistake.

"My first customer was an ordinary man in his 40s. We skipped the dinner part and went straight to the guest house for sex," Sze recalled. "Actually, I was a bit scared, but I knew this was the only way I could get money. This customer wasn't bad, though. We just had sex, he paid, and then he left. I thought this was easy money, and that's why I continued doing this kind of thing."

For a year and a half, Sze was part of a growing social phenomenon among teens in Hong Kong called "compensated dating," a practice in which a young woman agrees to go on a date with a man for a fee. More often than not, the date involves sex.

Sze said she started compensated dating because many of her classmates at an all-girls school were doing it. She says she became jealous when she saw the designer clothes, bags and cosmetics they bought with the money they earned through compensated dating. Sze wanted the same for herself, so her classmates introduced her to Internet chat forums where she met male customers.

The practice can have deadly consequences. Last year, a 16-year-old Hong Kong girl was killed in a gruesome murder after she went to a 24-year-old man's apartment for a compensated date. The man, Ting Kai-Tai, killed the teenager, dismembered her body and flushed the remains down the toilet. A jury convicted him of murder and sentenced him to life in prison.

Sze told CNN she knew a compensated date could go horribly wrong. She would set ground rules with clients on the phone first. She charged them $350 for a date and clarified how many times she would have sex with them.

She said sometimes the customers would stray from the rules, asking for more sex or refusing to wear a condom.

"Sometimes, I did feel shame. I kept asking myself why I had to do this kind of thing to make money. But the feeling didn't stay long. I would relax when I wanted to buy something. I just thought I could always quit after a short time or whenever I wanted," Sze said.

Most girls who engage in compensated dating don't view themselves as prostitutes, said social worker Chiu Tak-Choi.

"For the girls, they don't think so because they think they can quit anytime. The girls -- even though they post their details on the Internet -- they think they can quit. Even if they encounter the guys, if he is not good-looking, she can quit and say 'I don't do it.' They think they have a lot of power to control whether they do it or not, so they think of it very differently from prostitution."

Chiu, the social worker, is currently working with about 20 girls who are trying to leave the world of compensated dating. It is hard to quantify how big the problem is in Hong Kong because the business is conducted under the radar, he said.

Chiu believes the problem is getting worse because his caseload has doubled in the past two years.

Prostitution is illegal in Hong Kong, and legal experts say that compensated dating is a form of prostitution. "The law prohibits soliciting for immoral purpose," said Stephen Hung, a criminal litigator with Pang, Wan & Choi. "When a court looks at sentencing, the greater the age difference, the more serious it (the sentence) is."

Why do young girls get involved in compensated dating? The reasons vary from an unstable home life to a desire for material goods, Chiu said.

One 14-year-old girl told him she started compensated dating when she lost her cell phone. She said her parents wouldn't buy her a new one, so she thought she could earn some fast money with paid sex. She had her eye on an expensive cell phone. When the money from the first compensated date didn't cover the cost for the new phone, she went on a second paid date.

Girls involved in compensated dating don't necessarily come from poor families, Chiu said. They are from all levels of socioeconomic classes, he said. Improved family communication is one solution to preventing girls from becoming involved in compensated dating, Chiu said.

"The family has to do its part. I think caring for children is very important. Whenever they have problems, they can ask someone for help."

Sze said she was saved by a social worker who stepped in on her behalf. After a pregnancy scare and a number of unpredictable customers, Sze said her self-esteem plummeted. The social worker helped her get back on track.

"She helped me understand that making money respectably is actually not that hard in Hong Kong. I finally realized that it was wrong to make money by selling my body. It just wasn't worth it."

Sze now works at a hair salon to earn a living. She has tried to talk her old friends out of compensated dating, but they are not listening, she said.

"They felt annoyed when I talked to them about this. I'm now reluctant to get in touch with them. They just tell me they're different. Maybe they have more serious family problems or some other burdens. I know I can't control their thinking, so I just stopped trying to help them."

NAS; Open Letter to Young Warriors.

What a shame that he had to see a death to realize that what he used to rap about created death! The Reality is this plain and simple, if no one steps up, how do you expect to step in? We were fortunate enough to have a cell phone that recorded the death, but why does no one really want to stand for whats right?

Violence Condemned at Funeral of Beaten Teen

If you have no passion from this, you are probably not fogging up the glass.

New Born Baby Raped And Beaten By Father

Unbelievable that this young sicko would do such a thing. I don't think that the time of a trial should be wasted on this low life. I mean they should castrate this individual and leave him jail for the rest of his natural life...

Family Needs Assistance

Family Needs Assistance

I am the only one working, my wife's job closed. She is currently drawing unemployment but still cannot afford to buy medication or go to the doctor. Since then she has had to go to the emergency room twice, between the two trips we have added $1,200 dollars more to our debt. We applied for assistance and was told we made to much money. We are a family of five(5) and we are barely making it. We are job hunting, but to add insult to injury one of the cars is broke down.

We asked the church for help and they did give us a small donation. I am glad I work at pizza place so we do eat every night

We are days away from foreclosure and to be we need help. Please help if you can.

Video helps police capture the boys that committed the beating

CHICAGO (CBS/AP) Fenger High School honor student Albert Derrion's beating death was brutal. But the murder is made all the more painful for family and friends by the presence of a cell phone video which captures Derrion's final moments.


Photos: Derrion Albert Beating Death Video

Albert's grandfather Joshua Walker said he hasn't seen it and never will. "I don't think I'll ever watch it," Walker told CBS' The Early Show. "I wasn't there to protect my grandson so I'll never watch that tape."

Even the mother of one of the alleged killers refuses to see it, even though she has defended her son, Silvonus Shannon's, alleged role.

"Silvonus is not a bad kid," Tamaray Shannon told the Chicago Tribune. "He was protecting himself. Silvonus is not what they are making him out to be."

Screen Cap Shows Beating Death of Derrion Albert.

The cell phone footage, which has been distributed widely across the Web and television, clearly shows a group of teens viciously kicking and striking 16-year-old Albert with wooden planks. When Albert tries to get up he is hit again with wooden plank. Then a crowd of young men gathers around him, delivering vicious blows.

Albert was dragged away from the melee, but too much damage had been done. He died in the hospital.

As painful as the video is to watch, it has been a boon to investigators, who have now arrested who they believe are the four teens directly responsible for Albert's death.

Prosecutors charged Silvonus Shannon, 19, Eugene Riley, 18, Eric Carson, 16, and Eugene Bailey, 18, with first-degree murder, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office.

The violence stemmed from a shooting early Thursday morning involving two groups of students from different neighborhoods, said Simonton.


So disappointing that a fight leads to death. Unfortunately these Einsteins of the world had no ideal when giving someone a beat down, does have a limit! To beat someone to death is over the top. The extreme violence that is associated with most games is what fuels the passion for violence with our kids today... When is enough going to be enough? If its not the cowardly actions of a drive by shooting, now its this??? To be honest I don't think that these kids really grasp the true concepts of death. To make matters worse when they are going to be sentenced to 60 or 70 years in jail, and several will have a dumbfounded look on their face, "like what did I do to get this"?

The Law of the Garbage Truck

Think About This

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of the parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly. So I asked, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the Hospital!" This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, "The Law of the Garbage Truck."

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so... Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't.

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!

Have a blessed, garbage-free day!

Married man refuses to pay prostitute child support

No support ... the accidental dad said he'd had "a consumer transaction" with the child's mother.

• Man paid prostitute for sex
• She gave birth to his baby
• He is refusing to pay child support

A MAN who paid a woman for sex is resisting child support requests after the prostitute had his baby.

The married Melbourne man argues the child is potentially a breach of the Trade Practices Act.

He told a federal magistrate he shouldn't have to pay for the inadvertent offspring given the circumstances of the conception, the Herald Sun reports.

The accidental dad - who can be referred to only by the pseudonym Mr Lilley - told magistrate Grant Riethmuller he'd had "a consumer transaction" with the child's mother.

Mr Lilley argued an implied term of the "contract" between clients and sex workers was that women would take measures to avoid pregnancy.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

Mr Lilley told the court he was not disputing paternity.

The prostitute - known only by the pseudonym Ms Logan - did not appear in court, and details of her employer were not publicly revealed.

The magistrate heard Mr Lilley initially contributed about $100 a week towards the infant's upkeep under an informal arrangement with Ms Logan. The matter spilled into court in June after he lost his $140,000-a-year job and fell behind in the payments.

Mr Riethmuller heard the man already had a child with his ill wife, and was struggling to support his family financially after taking a hefty pay cut in a new job.

The man used the legal action to question whether the sex worker and the Federal Government's Child Support Agency had any right to chase him for money.

In an affidavit, he argued the woman's basis for seeking support was "fundamentally flawed" given her job.

But in a ruling issued this week, the magistrate said the circumstances of the conception made no difference to the child's entitlements under the Child Support Scheme.

The man was ordered to keep paying $100 a week until a likely appeal to the Social Securities Appeal Tribunal.

The magistrate noted the door might be open for the dad to launch legal action against the owners of the brothel or escort service - or the mother individually - for damages.

Sex without a condom is illegal in licensed Victorian brothels and escort agencies.

I totally agree with the concept of a contractual agreement for sex and only sex. Think of it like this, if you jumped into a taxi cab and paid to go out of town, completed the journey and paid the fee, and the car broke down. It would not be your responsibility to fix that car. When you paid the fee to get to your destination you released hired that individual and the car getting fixed is his obligation! The exchange of money for sex terminates all rights of a woman to make a claim.

To make a man pay for this child opens up Pandora's box. Which in turn creates more problems for the man and woman in the long wrong. There would always be a situations where women would be getting pregnant on purpose. With the intent on getting what she can get.

Think About This

Think About This

Give Some Happiness

"The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up." Mark Twain

"A laugh is the shortest distance between two people." Victor Borge

"A smile is a curved line that sets things straight." Unknown Author

"Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important." Janet Lane

"There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness." Lady Blessington

"The best vitamin to be a happy person is B1." Author Unknown

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." Buddha

"Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow." Swedish proverb

"Whoever is happy will make others happy, too." Mark Twain

Man pleads not guilty in 24 charges of mortgage fraud

SACRAMENTO, California—A federal judge has denied bail for a 28-year-old Sacramento man who was returned to California after an international manhunt.

Garret Griffith Gililland III remains behind bars after pleading not guilty to 24 charges alleging he participated in a $100 million mortgage fraud ring.

Gililland had requested bail, even though authorities said he fled the country with at least $250,000 in cash in June 2008.

He fought extradition after his arrest in Spain for a year until he was returned to Sacramento last week.

His bail request was denied after a hearing Wednesday in Sacramento federal court.

The Internal Revenue Service says Gililland and two others defrauded investors and mortgage companies in deals involving 500 homes and condominiums in California and other states.