Marine sentenced for urine video

21 December 2012 Last updated at 01:13 GMT One Marine was heard saying: "Have a good day, buddy." A US Marine has been sentenced to a reduction in ranks after he admitted at a court martial urinating on the body of a dead Afghan combatant.

Staff Sgt Joseph Chamblin was also told to forfeit $500 pay after admitting to wrongful desecration, among other charges.

He was initially given 30 days in jail but will not serve the time because of a plea deal with military prosecutors.

Video footage of the incident shocked the world when it emerged in January.

Three other Marines have already been disciplined for their role in the incident, and another is facing court martial.

Adding to tensions

The three other servicemen who were disciplined in August all pleaded guilty.

One admitted "urinating on the body of a deceased Taliban soldier", another said he posed for a photo with human casualties, and a third admitted lying to investigators.

In the video, someone can be heard saying: "Have a good day, buddy."

The incidents are believed to have taken place during a counter-insurgency operation in Afghanistan's Helmand Province on or around 27 July 2011, the Marine Corps said.

The footage surfaced at a sensitive time for US-Afghan relations, as American officials attempted to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

One month later, violent protests broke out in Afghanistan after it emerged US troops had incinerated a number of copies of the Koran.

The holy books had been confiscated from prisoners, amid claims they were being used to pass secret messages.

The ensuing unrest claimed 30 lives and saw two US troops shot dead.

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Forced labour family sentenced

19 December 2012 Last updated at 12:49 GMT Members of the Connors family were found guilty after a three-month trial. Pictured clockwise from top left: William, Brida, Miles, James and John Five members of a traveller family who kept their own private workforce have been jailed.

They were found guilty at Bristol Crown Court of beating their victims and forcing them to work for as little as £5 a day.

William Connors, 52, Brida (Mary) Connors, 48, sons John, 29, and James, 20, and son-in-law Miles Connors, 24, were convicted on Friday.

The court heard their victims were homeless drifters or addicts.

William Connors was jailed for six-and-a-half years and his wife Breda was sentenced to two years and three months.

Their son John was jailed for four years, while their other son James was sentenced to three years in a young offender institution. Their son-in-law Miles was sentenced to three years.

Their crimes were committed in Gloucestershire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, the court was told.

Controlled by violence

The Connors family enjoyed top-of-the-range cars and expensive holidays at the expense of their victims who lived in squalid caravans on traveller sites as they moved around the country working on their paving and patio businesses.

Some of the victims were ordered to perform humiliating tasks, such as emptying the buckets used as toilets by their bosses.

William Connors speaking to a worker at Beggars Roost caravan park in Staverton, Gloucestershire

Many were beaten, hit with broom handles, belts, a rake and shovel, and punched and kicked by the family.

Their work was monotonous, arduous and unrelenting, and they were controlled by discipline and violence, the court heard.

They also had to scavenge for food from rubbish bins at supermarkets as they were given so little to eat.

In contrast, the Connors were overweight and had gone on holidays to places such as Dubai and Cancun in Mexico as well as on a Caribbean cruise.

They also had more than £500,000 in their bank accounts.

The family was caught after being placed under covert surveillance by police following the discovery of the body of worker Christopher Nicholls, 40, in 2008.

They said the workers were able to come and go as they pleased and William and Mary suggested they acted as "good Samaritans" by providing them with food, work and accommodation.

'Unrecognisable friendship'

Passing sentence, Judge Longman said the workers had "outstanding qualities of resilience, basic decency and loyalty" and had considered themselves as being "better off" working for the Connors than on the streets.

The Connors family owned the Willowdene caravan site in Staverton, Gloucestershire

"All were vulnerable in some way and it was this vulnerability which was exploited by the defendants for their own commercial gain," he said.

Judge Longman added: "Although some workers spoke of their bosses as friends, the status of the workers as compared to the bosses was so inferior as to render the relationship between them unrecognisable as friendship by normal standards.

"Workers spoke of violence being meted out by certain bosses against workers on different occasions but the evidence did not suggest that violence was regularly used against workers and rarely during the indictment period.

"I am, however, satisfied, that such violence as there was not only helped to define and emphasise the unequal relationship between bosses and workers but also served to ensure that the workers knew there was a line that was not to be crossed."

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Man sentenced for hacking celebs

Actress Scarlett Johansson was among the celebrities victimized by "hackerazzi" Christopher Chaney.Christopher Chaney, 36, stole nude photos, info from celebs' e-mailFederal judge sends "hackerazzi" defendant to prison for wiretapping guilty pleas"It just happened and snowballed," Chaney says of his celeb e-mail hackingGuard your passwords and information, a prosecutor warns

Los Angeles (CNN) -- A Florida man who said he became addicted to spying on celebrities must spend the next 10 years in a federal prison for hacking their e-mail.

Christopher Chaney, 36, stole nude photos, scripts and personal information from the e-mail accounts of 50 entertainment industry figures, including movie stars Scarlett Johansson and Mila Kunis and singer Christina Aguilera, prosecutors said.

The FBI's Los Angeles office busted Chaney last year during its "Operation Hackerazzi," which looked into computer intrusions targeting individuals associated with the entertainment industry.

During a hearing Monday in Los Angeles, U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero sentenced Chaney to 120 months -- 10 years -- in prison and ordered him to pay $66,179 in restitution. Otero pleaded guilty earlier this year to wiretapping charges and has been in custody since March. Without a plea deal, he could have faced 121 years in prison if convicted on all 26 charges, the U.S. attorney said.

"Mr. Chaney is responsible for causing dozens of illegally obtained, private photographs to be posted on the Internet, where they were available for all to see," said U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. "This case is a sobering reminder that cybercrime poses a very real threat to every American, and everyone should take steps to safeguard their identities and personal information on the Internet."

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"What I'm most sorry about is that I had to drag my mom into all of this, and my family and my neighbors, and they just want to live their lives," Chaney told reporters.

Chaney told a reporter that he had became "addicted" to the intrusion and "didn't know how to stop."

"I know what I did was probably one of the worst invasions of privacy someone could experience," he told CNN affiliate WAWS/WTEV in Jacksonville, Florida. "And these people don't have privacy to begin with. And I was in that little sliver of privacy they do have."

A nude photo of Johansson that was circulated online last year was part of the investigation, Birotte said.

Chaney allegedly "also took financial information, movie scripts and conversations that the celebrities believed to be private," Birotte told reporters.

Chaney said the hacking "started as curiosity and it turned into just being, you know, addicted to seeing the behind-the-scenes of what's going on with these people you see on the big screen every day."

"It just happened and snowballed," he said, adding that he wishes it had never begun.

Chaney said he felt "almost relieved months ago" when authorities seized his computer because "I didn't know how to stop doing it myself. I wasn't attempting to break into e-mails and get stuff to sell or purposely put it on the Internet. It just -- I don't know."

Authorities allege that Chaney distributed the photos he obtained illegally and offered them to celebrity blog sites. Some of the files, including private photographs, were posted online "as a result of Chaney's alleged activities," authorities said in a statement.

Chaney admitted when he entered his guilty plea that he hacked e-mail accounts by clicking on the "forgot your password?" feature to re-set passwords. His research of celebrities' personal information helped him to correctly answer their security questions.

"Once Chaney gained exclusive control of the victims' e-mail accounts, he was able to access all of their e-mail boxes," the U.S. attorney's offce said. "While in the accounts, Chaney also went through their contact lists to find addresses of potential new hacking targets."

While inside the accounts, he changed the settings to forward a copy of each e-mail to his own inbox, the prosecutor said. "Most of the victims did not check their account settings, so even after they regained control of their e-mail accounts, Chaney's e-mail address remained in their account settings."

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