Win $25k for your school and an iPod Wii for you!

$25,000 is free for the taking for the winner of American Family's Safe Driving Challenge.

A safe driving challenge by American Family Insurance could land Colorado schools a cool $25,000 smacks. The second and third runner ups get $10K and $5K, respectively. Participating students can walk away with a Nintendo Wii! All it takes to enter is a simple push of a computer button!

In the scheme of things an extra $25,000 might not be the lottery for a large school district. Still, a cash strapped school will certainly find a place for the funds. Better yet, for parents and teens who participate in the program, there are plenty of prizes to be won!

Here is how it works. Go to the American Family website located at http://www.teensafedriver.com/pledge and sign up. The school with the most signups as a percentage of the student body wins the big bucks! Parents can win one of the 90 iPod Shuffles or one of 200 pairs of iTune cards! Teens can win one of 14 Nintendo Wiis!

Of course, the bigfest winner is the teen that, if it were not for the program, finds himself on a country road racing at 100 miles an hour. When he wipes out he takes lives with him. Then there is the teen who avoids a deadly wreck with a drunk driver because he is practicing safe driving techniques when the drunk barrels by. American Family Insurance has found teens who take the Safe Drive Pledge, as they call it, understand how to avoid common mistakes and distractions that lead to accidents, which is the number one cause of teen driving deaths.

Several Colorado high schools are participating already. Here are the high school rankings so far:
Madison Junior High School is #1;
Jackson County Central High School is #2;
Eisenhower High School is #3;
Westminster Christian High School is #4;
Lincoln Lutheran High School is #5;
San Luis High School is #6; Forrest Lake High School is #7;
Burnsville High School is #8;
and Columbine Senior High School and William Henry Harrison High School are tied for #10.

It is not too late for losing candidates to get moving on their enrollments. High schools with non-participating student bodys have a prime opportunity to give themselves, their parents and their school a Christmas Present. Heck, why not bring a couple of laptops with Internet cards to the next student concert and sign up half the school?

Why would an attorney give you this advice? Teens in trouble can make up a fair amount of some attorney's practices. When it comes to unsafe driving and lives at stake, who would not cheer participants along? After all, attorneys are on the road with everyone else. Advocating for safe driving practices is the responsibility for everyone!

Tim Paynter is a Colorado attorney, civil rights leader, protector of the poor and disadvantaged. He can be reached at 720 951 1700.

Be Careful What You Do In the Bathroom - New Hidden Cam will surprise you!

Be careful what you do in the bathroom these days. There is a new hidden spy cam that could catch you on your haunches, so to speak.

The tiny spy came made by Omejo is concealed in a toilet brush. This is a cool little digital video recorder (dvr) which does not need to be plugged in to work. Nor does it need an external memory device as the 8MG built into the camera is adequate for up to 4 hours of recording.

Omejo says the unit is perfect for police, CIA and detective work and is only available by 'special offer'. I suspect the CIA has more things to do than watch you poop, but in these times, one never knows.

The camera uses the AVI video format which is more difficult to work with than other video formats. It runs until the memory is used up then shuts off. It has an internal, rechargeable battery which is a popular item for consumers. I am not sure what they are going to say to the kids when they have a toilet brush connected to the computer, but I am sure they will think of something!

Depending upon how the spy cam is used, owners can expect one or two felony counts. The first is for invasion or privacy. It is illegal in most states to take pictures of people when they have the "expectation of privacy" offered in the bathroom. If the unit is used to record conversations, a second felony may be committed, as it is illegal in some states to record conversations unless both parties to the conversation are in agreement about the recording.

I am not sure how the law would view recording other noises common to toilet rooms if there were no human conversation!

Running from the law to Mexico ain't what it used to be!

If you have broken the law and are on the run, you might think twice about crossing the border to Mexico. The US Marshal's Service has had great success in locating and extraditing fleeing felons to our friends on the Southern border recently.

Take the case of Fermin Pucheta-Temich. According to allegations, Pucheta-Temich sexually assaulted a child he was baby sitting. While the victim was in the bathroom, Pucheta-Temich forced his way in and sexually assaulted the victim.

After having his way with the victim, Fermin decided he might find better hunting grounds in Mexico. He also likely figured running would give the guys in the federal penn less of a chance of hunting him! No matter the motive, Fermin fled accross the U.S. border and made his way to D.F., Distrito Federal, also known as Mexico City.

Finding anyone in Mexico City, the largest city in the world, is no easy task. According to news reports, the California Fugitive Task Force of the US Marshal's service went to work. In cooperation with Mexican police agency Agencia Federal de Investgacion, the Marshals Service caught up to the man who alledgedly does ugly things to widdle children.

The San Francisco Police Department also assisted in the apprehension according to US Marshal spokesperson officer Rocha.

Fermin, age 32, was extradited December 4th. He was booked into the San Francisco County Jail with a $2,000,000 bond. Running to Mexico is not only risky, it is expensive!

If you are going to murder someone don't talk about it!

Any attorney worth his salt will advise his client to 'exercise his right to remain silent'. That especially applies in murder cases.

Fortunately for law enforcement, and for you and me too, the average crook or murderer blabs before he ever get to law enforcement. That is what happened to drug lord and murder suspect "Cross", a member of a Mexican cocaine trafficking cartel.

According to testimony, Cross, whose real name is Christopher Perez, murdered a fellow member of the cartel, Miguel Angel Chaidez-Esparza, who is also known as Noe Alfredo Castro-Loera, or "Noe". Unfortunately for Noe, 70 Kilograms of cocaine disappeared in transport. That adds up to a lot of money and Cross wanted to know where the dope went to. He and other members of the cartel kidnapped Noe and asked him a few questions about the whereabouts of the cocaine.

From a Mexican drug lord's perspective you can imagine what 'asking a few questions' really means. Let's just say that Noe would rather have been someplace else. After the questioning was finished, or perhaps as part of the questioning, Noe was suffocated with duct tape.

Unfortunately for Cross, the ego of drug lords is usually at it's zenith. Smuggling drugs and getting away with it makes one arrogant when it comes to law enforcement. So here is Cross, plain proud of being a drug lord and a cold blood killer, talking to one of his 'associates'.

I guess you can't trust anyone these days. The associate turned out to be an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Cross found himself indicted for the murder of Noe. Both he and his attorney likely wished he had exercised his right to silence long before meeting law enforcement.

Since Cross is not my client I can clearly say, hooray for the DEA. These guys work hard putting trash where they belong. They take a lot of personal risks in doing it. We are lucky to have the DEA on our side, and not the other way around!

I don't recommend you kill anyone one. If you just can't help yourself then don't be stupid enough to talk about it. If you get caught and you are not my client, I hope you don't get off as easy as Cross did. The death penalty is what he should have gotten, not 30 years. But then the death penalty isn't what is used to be, and at least it is not duct tape which suffocates.