Deaf man convicted in child-porn case

A deaf defendant was convicted Friday of more than 90 counts of sexual abuse of children involving possessing pictures of youngsters as young as 7 in sexually explicit poses.

Sakuna Ganbari, 60, of Rutledge disputed that he had been sufficiently advised by authorities of his rights through sign language interpreters, when he signed a statement in April 2009 admitting the child pornography was his, according to defense attorney Denis Leonard.

“Without that statement, there is no case,” Leonard told the jury.

Assistant District Attorney Joseph Lesniak countered that two witnesses also testified that Ganbari admitted to them that the child pornography was his and the statement corroborated what they said.

“It is not a victimless crime,” Lesniak said in his closing argument to the jury. “Each of these images is of children being exploited by an adult. (Ganbari’s) possession is the continuation of that exploitation.”

During the trial, as the pictures were being shown, one of the jurors appeared to be visibly upset.

The panel deliberated less than two hours before finding Ganbari guilty. He seemed to wince as the verdict was announced.

A 9-year-old child had innocently seen the folder containing the child pornography several years ago and told Ganbari’s wife, according to testimony. His wife did not come forward until last year when she reported it to authorities. They are now divorced….Read more

News Flash – Gallaudet closing after 83 years!

It’s been part of the St. Louis public school system for 83 years; now the Gallaudet School for the Deaf is closing.

It’s one of six city schools to be shuttered as the district tries to save money. After more than 80 years the Gallaudet School for the Deaf is being shuttered and its 69 students will be attending other schools.

There were lots of “goodbyes,” “good lucks” and tears. Assistant principal Carrie McDaniel admits it was a tough day.

Joe Hall, 13, said he’ll miss Gallaudet. Hall liked his teachers, his principal and his friends.

And as McDaniel packed up her office, she talked about what the school means to her. McDaniel has been using sign language to communicate with her mother and father, both of whom are deaf, since she was a little girl.

“I’ve always been a big advocate for the hearing impaired,” McDaniel said. “So to come into a place where I can make a difference in children’s lives and inform parents of their rights was what I was born to do.”

St. Louis public school officials say this is not just about dollars and cents, but about a better future for children who attended this school….Read more

Soccer World Cup of South Africa to broadcast reports in International Sign Language

For the first time, FIFA.com will be broadcasting reports from the month long soccer tournament in International Sign (IS).  The Federation Internationale de Football Association will be holding the 2010 FIFA World Cup of South Africa which will run from June 11th through July 11th.  This will be the first time that the FIFA World Cup is held on African soil, which is a great source of pride for the continent..

Football, the international name for what Americans call soccer, has the largest global following of any sport. Given the worldwide fan base of football, FIFA will provide reports on all 64 matches during the month long games. …Read More!

Girl goes Deaf, Mom Sued Teacher

The mother of a Secunda pupil is claiming R2.1 million in damages from the Mpumalanga MEC for education, after her daughter went deaf in one ear when a fellow pupil shouted near her with a megaphone.

Judith Broodryk said in papers before the Pretoria High Court that the teachers at the Oranjegloed Primary School in Secunda had a duty to take care of pupils during school hours.

She blamed the accident on them, claiming that they failed to keep the children under control.

Broodryk’s daughter, also named Judith, was 13 when the incident occurred in February 2005.

She said a boy, who was either permitted or given control of a megaphone, shouted into it near her daughter’s ear….Read more

Scandal of 100,000 deaf people pushed to margins of public life

Writing in The Scotsman today, Jeff McWhinney said the barriers for a deaf candidate, such as the need for interpreters for British Sign Language (BSL), prevented proper representation of issues important to 100,000 Britons.

And experts said Scotand and its proportional representative list system would allow such a potential politician to break through for the first time.Mr McWhinney was chief executive of the British Deaf Association from 1995-2004. He is now managing director of Significan’t, a social business which provides a video interpreting service for deaf people.

He said he would happily “put my money where my mouth is” by supporting potential candidates in any UK elections or by-elections.He said: “Deaf people have been marginalised, ignored and unheard for decades. Perhaps if there were deaf MPs, or at least deaf candidates, the parties would take notice of the issues that dominate their daily lives. “Last week, in its programme for government, the new coalition government at Westminster said that it ‘will introduce extra support for people with disabilities who want to become MPs, councillors or other elected officials’.

I hope this includes interpreter support for deaf candidates..”Mr McWhinney cited the example of Liberal Democrat candidate for Lewisham East in the 2001 General Election, David Buxton, who faced £500-a-day costs for interpreters. He said: “Since good interpreters do not come cheap, he soon reached his limit. Because he is deaf he was automatically put at a disadvantage.”Significan’t would be prepared to pay the deposit for any deaf BSL user standing as an independent candidate in any British constituency at a by-election or general election.

“Professor Graham Turner, director of the Centre for Translating and Interpreting Studies in Scotland at Heriot-Watt University, said a number of developments with BSL have taken place in Scotland. And he said there were precedents for elected politicians who were deaf in other countries, such as Hungary and Canada.

He said: “The list system in Scotland would create a potential opening that does not exist south of the Border. We know it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility, though the first-past-the-post voting system works against a deaf candidate.”A proportional representation system would be the only way you could imagine people putting support behind a deaf candidate.

” Good news in any language SIGN language expert Tessa Padden “says” the offer is good news for deaf people in Scotland. She signs, from top: “good”; “news”; “deaf person/people”; “Scotland”.The thumbs-up gesture is recognisable to everyone as representing something good; “news” is signified by the letter “N” – created by placing two fingers on the palm – then two fingers just below the ear signifies “deaf”; the sign for “Scotland” involves a mime of playing the bagpipes….Source

How a Collar Could Help Deaf People “Hear” Music

Most of us assume deaf people can’t register sound, let alone enjoy Rachmaninoff. Wrong. A conceptual device from German designer Frederik Podzuweit taps into the deaf’s ability to feel music. Most of us assume deaf people can’t register sound, let alone enjoy Rachmaninoff. Wrong. A conceptual device from German designer Frederik Podzuweit taps into the deaf’s ability to feel music.

Music for Deaf People is a collar that converts auditory input into vibrations, triggering the same sound-processing brain regions in those with full hearing. So instead of listening through your ears, you effectively listen through your skin. The collar has a special membrane substance, which responds to electricity, dispatching the vibrations of whatever you’re playing–be it Sinatra or Sepultura–to your neck, shoulders, and collarbone. Adjustable, it fits snugly around your neck so you could theoretically wear it jogging or at the gym–never mind that it looks like something straight out of a Stormtrooper’s closet. (Nerds probably think that’s a good thing.)

To the uninitiated, it might seem like a nonstarter, a pointless gadget resigned to the annals of air-conditioned T-shirts and ShamWow! Why would deaf people want to “hear” music? The answer, of course, is for the same reason everyone else does: Music is one of life’s enduring pleasures….Read more

Video captures officer kicking deaf man!

There is no closed caption or subtitles but you can see this Deaf man getting kicked by a cop!

“When I look at the video, I see angry police officers that are using a high level of force,” attorney Michael Maddux told 10 Connects.

The video was captured in February following the Gasparilla Knight Parade.

It shows the moments after a group of people were kicked out of Gaspar’s Grotto because of an argument with bouncers.

It shows about three plain-clothed officers trying to subdue a man on the ground, who Maddux identifies as his client, 26-year-old Jacob Cowie.

A uniformed police officer is then seen walking up to the scene, trying to help and the kicking the man twice.

While the officers write in Cowie’s arrest report that they used force to gain compliance after repeatedly telling him to stop resisting, Maddux says his client never heard the commands.

“All of their screams we’re literally falling on deaf ears,” said Maddux.

Maddux says his client is hearing impaired.  He also tells us Cowie did not realize the plain-clothed officers were police officers because he was approached from behind…Source

Here is what some a*s*shole is saying on this forum –

I mean, it ruins everything when you see some people in front of you doing it. Makes you feel uncomfortable, doesn’t it? Awkward as well you can say, no? I don’t know about you, but it’s almost like a crime in society. How do these people manage to live, anyway? Especially without friends or anything? ……What do you think? Source

Deaf Archive: Deaf Lesbian accused of murdering rival

The trial in South Dakota of a deaf, black lesbian accused of murdering a rival and dismembering her with a chainsaw has shocked the rural midwestern US state.

Daphne Wright, 43, could become the first woman sent to death row in South Dakota, which has not executed a prisoner in more than 60 years.

Wright is accused of kidnapping and murdering a heterosexual deaf woman, Darlene VanderGiesen, 42, whom she thought was spending too much time with her girlfriend.

Emotional testimony and gruesome exhibits filled the first week of her trial, and worse is to come: prosecutors are expected to show jurors a video of a pig being dismembered with the same type of chainsaw Wright bought two days after VanderGiesen disappeared.

VanderGiesen’s mother sobbed and stepped out of the courtroom as jurors passed around her daughter’s charred brassiere on Thursday.

But she managed to sit stoically as a maintenance worker described finding her daughter’s head and navel wrapped in bags and bed sheets that other witnesses linked to Wright.

Flecks of VanderGiesen’s bone and tissue were found hidden under a coat of fresh paint in Wright’s basement, where the smell of petrol lingered days after VanderGiesen’s charred remains were left in a nearby dumpster and in a steep ravine 30 kilometres away, police testified.

Prosecutors said a vengeful Wright persuaded VanderGiesen to meet her and to enter her car on February 1, 2006. Wright then killed her with either a blow to the head or by suffocation, according to prosecutors.

After two days spent scrounging up money to buy a chainsaw, Wright chopped up the body at the knees and navel and disposed of the pieces, prosecutor Dave Nelson said in opening statements last week.

“The reason for this murder? Jealousy,” he told jurors.

Police were led to Wright after VanderGiesen’s sister showed them several insulting emails Wright had sent to her rival a week before she disappeared.

Wright acknowledged to police that she thought VanderGiesen was trying to destroy her relationship with girlfriend Sallie Collins, but said they reconciled after a confrontation.

She denied harming the woman, though her story changed several times while talking to police.

Public defender Traci Smith told jurors the state had no evidence that Wright kidnapped or murdered VanderGiesen, and said police had failed to follow leads pointing to other suspects.

She said the emails were not evidence of a motive for the horrific slaying…Source

School District Bans Girl From Using Sign Language on Bus

School officials have threatened a hearing-impaired girl with suspension if she uses sign language to talk to her friends on the school bus, the girl’s parents say.

Danica Lesko and her parents say sign language is the only way to for the 12-year-old to communicate, especially while riding to school on a noisy bus.

But officials at Stonybrook School — which is not a school for the hearing-impaired — and district officials in Branchburg, N.J., apparently believe signing is a safety hazard. They have sent a letter to the Lesko family ordering Danica to stop using sign language on the school bus or risk a three-day suspension.

The March 30 letter from her principal that said Danica was “doing sign language after being told it wasn’t allowed on the bus.”

The Leskos may file a lawsuit over the sign language ban, claiming officials are violating Danica’s civil rights and violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“She has a hearing problem, and now she’s being punished for using sign language,” Mary Ann Lesko, Danica’s mother, told The Star-Ledger of Newark. “It’s absurd.”

Danica’s parents told the paper that other students who rode to school with their daughter made fun of her, and refused to stay in their seats as they teased other girls who were using sign language. They said school officials are singling out Danica and not addressing those who should really be reprimanded.

Schools Officials: Safety First

In a statement released through the school district’s attorney, David Rubin, the Branchburg Board of Education refused to discuss the details of Danica’s case, saying only that its version of events differs from the parents’ version.

However, the board insisted it has not violated anyone’s rights and is only trying to protect other students who must ride on the school bus.

“The Board is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to all students with disabilities, and is satisfied that there has been no violation of that policy in this case,” officials said in the statement. “The Board is also committed to assuring the safety of all students who travel on District buses, and will continue to take appropriate steps to accomplish that goal.” Source