HOUSTON — A Texas woman who repeatedly drove over her cheating husband, killing him in a jealous rage, has been ordered to pay her in-laws millions of dollars.

They’ll be dividing-up $3.75 million after winning a wrongful-death lawsuit against Clara Harris, 48.

Harris ran down her husband, David Harris, 44, in her Mercedes in 2002 after finding him on a hotel parking lot with his mistress.

Harris was convicted of murder in 2003 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Gerald and Mildred Harris sought $5 million in their wrongful death lawsuit. Gerald Harris said the jury heard their story and returned an equitable decision.

Clara Harris took the stand, but repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Her attorney, Dean Blumrosen, said he didn’t want to risk having her say anything in the civil trial that might endanger the appeal of her 2003 murder conviction.

Blumrosen said Clara Harris isn’t upset about the money, she expected the lawsuit and expected to pay.

Tuesday January 16, 2007

You’ve pledged your love to each other, written mash notes and insisted this time it’s for real. Welcome to the world of broken hearts, where all those promises get blown away in the blink of an infidelity.

If you’re in that boat, Pam Seatle has details on how you can stay afloat during the mutiny and the high tech help that’s available for those tracking a cheating heart. To see her report, click the video links.

Here’s what the experts say are some ways to tell if your spouse is running around on you. Remember, not every clue is an indicator in itself. But the aggregate weight of all these factors could be telling you something.

Watch for:

-Someone spending excessive time in online chat rooms

-Frequent “I have to work late” excuses.

-Sudden emotional distance.

-Sudden decreased interest in sex.

-Things being hidden from you (a separate bank account, a secret mail drop)

-Car passenger seats constantly being readjusted to a position you wouldn’t use.

-Increased wrong numbers or call hang ups from blocked numbers. (Try redial and see who answers). Also: quick and furtive whispered phone calls.

-Perfume/lipstick/hair that’s not yours on clothing.

-Unexplained ATM withdrawals

-Accidentally left behind credit card slips for hotels, jewellery, or purchases you’ve never seen.

-Uncharacteristic findings – like cigarettes stubbed out in an ashtray and you don’t smoke or they’re not your brand.

-The ‘visiting a sick friend’ ploy.

-Sudden interest in appearance or clothing where none existed before.

-Suddenly and repeatedly bringing you flowers (sign of a guilty conscience).

-Unexplained mileage on the car.

January 15, 2007

BY BRIAN DICKERSON

FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

In a ruling sure to make philandering spouses squirm, Michigan’s second-highest court says that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.

“We cannot help but question whether the Legislature actually intended the result we reach here today,” Judge William Murphy wrote in November for a unanimous Court of Appeals panel, “but we are curtailed by the language of the statute from reaching any other conclusion.”

Advertisement
“Technically,” he added, “any time a person engages in sexual penetration in an adulterous relationship, he or she is guilty of CSC I,” the most serious sexual assault charge in Michigan’s criminal code.

No one expects prosecutors to declare open season on cheating spouses. The ruling is especially awkward for Attorney General Mike Cox, whose office triggered it by successfully appealing a lower court’s decision to drop CSC charges against a Charlevoix defendant. In November 2005, Cox confessed to an adulterous relationship.

Murphy’s opinion received little notice when it was handed down. But it has since elicited reactions ranging from disbelief to mischievous giggling in Michigan’s gossipy legal community.

The ruling grows out of a case in which a Charlevoix man accused of trading Oxycontin pills for the sexual favors of a cocktail waitress was charged under an obscure provision of Michigan’s criminal law. The provision decrees that a person is guilty of first-degree criminal sexual conduct whenever “sexual penetration occurs under circumstances involving the commission of any other felony.”

Charlevoix Circuit Judge Richard Pajtas sentenced Lloyd Waltonen to up to four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to two felony counts of delivering a controlled substance. But Pajtas threw out the sexual assault charge against Waltonen, citing the cocktail waitress’ testimony that she had willingly consented to the sex-for-drugs arrangement.

Charlevoix prosecuting attorney John Jarema said he decided to appeal after police discovered evidence that Waltonen may have struck drugs-for-sex deals with several other women.

Cox’s office, which handled the appeal on the prosecutor’s behalf, insisted that the waitress’ consent was irrelevant. All that mattered, the attorney general argued in a brief demanding that the charge be reinstated, was that the pair had sex “under circumstances involving the commission of another felony” — the delivery of the Oxycontin pills.

The Attorney General’s Office got a whole lot more than it bargained for. The Court of Appeals agreed that the prosecutor in Waltonen’s case needed only to prove that the Oxycontin delivery and the consensual sex were related. But Murphy and his colleagues went further, ruling that a first-degree CSC charge could be justified when consensual sex occurred in conjunction with any felony, not just a drug sale.

The judges said they recognized their ruling could have sweeping consequences, “considering the voluminous number of felonious acts that can be found in the penal code.” Among the many crimes Michigan still recognizes as felonies, they noted pointedly, is adultery — although the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan notes that no one has been convicted of that offense since 1971.

Some judges and lawyers suggested that the Court of Appeals’ reference to prosecuting adulterers was a sly slap at Cox, noting that it was his office that pressed for the expansive definition of criminal sexual conduct the appellate judges so reluctantly embraced in their Nov. 7 ruling.

Murphy didn’t return my calls Friday. But Chief Court of Appeals Judge William Whitbeck, who signed the opinion along with Murphy and Judge Michael Smolenski, said that Cox’s confessed adultery never came up during their discussions of the case.

“I never thought of it, and I’m confident that it was not something Judge Murphy or Judge Smolenski had in mind,” Whitbeck told me Friday. But he chuckled uncomfortably when I asked if the hypothetical described in Murphy’s opinion couldn’t be cited as justification for bringing first-degree criminal sexual conduct charges against the attorney general.

“Well, yeah,” he said.

Cox’s spokesman, Rusty Hills, bristled at the suggestion that Cox or anyone else in his circumstances could face prosecution.

“To even ask about this borders on the nutty,” Hills told me in a phone interview Saturday. “Nobody connects the attorney general with this — N-O-B-O-D-Y — and anybody who thinks otherwise is hallucinogenic.”

Hills said Sunday that Cox did not want to comment.

The Court of Appeals opinion could also be interpreted as a tweak to the state Supreme Court, which has decreed that judges must enforce statutory language adopted by the Legislature literally, whatever the consequences.

In many other states, judges may reject a literal interpretation of the law if they believe it would lead to an absurd result. But Michigan’s Supreme Court majority has held that it is for the Legislature, not the courts, to decide when the absurdity threshold has been breached.

Whitbeck noted that Murphy’s opinion questions whether state lawmakers really meant to authorize the prosecution of adulterers for consensual relationships.

“We encourage the Legislature to take a second look at the statutory language if they are troubled by our ruling,” he wrote.

Hills declined to say whether the Attorney General’s Office would press for legislative amendments to make it clear that only violent felonies involving an unwilling victim could trigger a first-degree CSC charge.

“This is so bizarre that it doesn’t even merit a response,” he said.

Meanwhile, Waltonen has asked the state Supreme Court for leave to appeal the Court of Appeals ruling. He still hasn’t been tried on the criminal sexual conduct charge. His attorney said a CSC conviction could add dozens of years to Waltonen’s current prison sentence.

Justices will decide later this year whether to review the Court of Appeals’ decision to reinstate the CSC charge.

The appeals court decision is available at http://courtofappeals.mijud.net/resources/opinions.htm. Search for Docket No. 270229.

Contact BRIAN DICKERSON at 248-351-3697 or bdickerson@freepress.com.

(CBS) LOS ANGELES A young woman who alleges she was duped into playing a cheating spouse in a Spanish-language reality television show sued the director and the station that aired the show.

Elizabeth I. Anderson filed her lawsuit Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Among the defendants are Hearst-Argyle Television Inc., the owners of Spanish-language KCRA, and Alejandra Duque, producer/director of the series “Secretos.”

Anderson alleges fraud, misrepresentation, negligent supervision, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation and assault and battery.

She is asking for unspecified general, medical and punitive damages.

“Secretos” is about a team of private investigators led by J.C. Uribe who track down unfaithful spouses and friends to uncover their secrets. Uribe also is named as a defendant.

Anderson’s suit alleges the series implies that the cast members are real people who cheat on their spouses. In reality, the show is scripted, and the characters are actors who have no idea they will be on “Secretos” and portrayed as they are, the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles because scenes involving Anderson were filmed in the city, including a “confrontation” on Melrose Avenue in which Anderson was assaulted and suffered a concussion, according to the lawsuit.

Officials with Hearst-Argyle were unavailable for immediate comment.

According to the lawsuit, Anderson, who is fluent in Spanish, was hired for an acting assignment by the defendants in January 2005 when she was 20 and a recent graduate of New York University. She was not told she was going to appear in an episode of “Secretos,” the lawsuit stated.

The first scenes were shot at the home of a friend of Duque, where Anderson and a male actor were told they were going to act out an implied sex scene in which she would remove the man’s shirt, the lawsuit stated.

But when the cameras started rolling, Duque and the cameraman started telling Anderson to take off her clothes, the lawsuit stated.

Anderson objected and started to walk off the set, but Duque apologized and persuaded her to stay, the lawsuit stated.

A rehearsal for the next few scenes occurred on Melrose Avenue, the lawsuit stated. There, Anderson and the same male actor were met by three “Secretos” investigators, according to the lawsuit.

Another male actor who was playing Anderson’s jealous husband then attacked the man she was walking with, the lawsuit stated. Anderson was hit in the face and head and fell unconscious to the ground, according to the lawsuit.

The “Secretos” crew members told Anderson to stop crying and gave her $60 to see a doctor, the lawsuit stated.

Anderson was so traumatized she quit acting and moved away from Los Angeles, the lawsuit stated.

Long ago, in the land of happiness and bliss you were both so in love that you both seemed inseparable. All seemed well in paradise, but after a few years, you have come to realise that things are not like they used to be.

You begin to argue a lot, sometimes your partner does not come home or when he/she does, they go back out and only to return in the wee hours of the morning. Maybe you need to sit and analyse the situation carefully. It may just be that your partner is changing or is under a great level of stress, or maybe he/she is just plain cheating. But how are you to tell for sure? Before any confrontations or jumping to any conclusions, get to the bottom of the problem. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does he/she call you less often?

2. Does he/she make excuses to not see you when you used to be inseparable?

3. Is he/she not where you are told he/she will be?

4. When you call, is he/she not at home?

5. Has he/she become very distant or more affectionate than normal on the rare occasions that you are together?

6. Have other people noticed the strange behaviour?

7. Have other people seen him/her with somebody else?

8. Does he/she seem distracted when he/she is with you?

How to prevent cheating

If you answered ‘yes’ to four or more of the above questions, there is a good chance that your he/she may be cheating. Dr. Sidney McGill, sex therapist, give some tips on how to prevent cheating.

1. Be a helper and encourager: Understand that you might have strengths that your spouse might not have. Complement your spouse wherever he/she has a deficiency. Rather than judging, encourage he/she to become a better person.

2. Keep romance alive: It is often implied that it is the male’s duty to act romantic or initiate intimacy. However, women need to understand it is a joint responsibility.

3. You need to be creative, adventurous and have sex regularly to keep the bond alive.

4. Be forgiving: Try not to keep a list of faults or mistakes.

5. Show unconditional respect: Despite what he/she has done, be respectful.

6. Be a good listener: Participate in intimate discussion with your spouse and be compassionate to each other’s feeling.

7. Try to change unhealthy attitudes: Instead of being ungrateful, be thankful. Focus on the good things rather than the bad.

8. Instead of being controlling, be flexible: Let people make and learn from their own mistakes.

9. Let the difficulties you face in the relationship act as character builders.

10. Accept and work with each other’s differences – don’t expect him/her to be like you.

How to deal with it

If it so happens that your spouse is cheating on you, there are some tips from Dr. McGill on how to deal with such a situation.

1. Recognise and identify what you are going through, for example, feeling hurt, disappointment or anger. Try to stabilise yourself, never confront your spouse in the heat of the moment because that will only compound the situation.

2. Consider why he/she cheated and get a third person to intervene with possible questions that need to be answered.

3. If you discover that he/she has a lifelong cheating problem, then it can only make the situation more difficult. But if it is a case where the offender is willing to change, then you need to seek professional assistance.

4. Try not to tell the whole world because it will only increase your sense of embarrassment. First, speak with a pastor or therapist before seeking therapy for both parties.

5. Take necessary precautions: Get tested for HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases.

6. After the grieving process, take steps towards healing and regain control of your life.

If you or anyone you know is a victim of cheating, sex addiction or any other sexual related condition you can consult Dr. McGill at 972-1805 or e-mail: fccjam@yahoo.com.