Published: June 25, 2006 11:29 pm            

Hood expands cyber crime training

MERIDIAN — Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood was elected in November 2003.

Prior to his election he was District Attorney for the Third Circuit Court District in North Mississippi.

As District Attorney his accomplishments included publishing a 40-page victim’s manual. For his efforts in victims’ rights, Hood’s office received the 2003 Justice Achievement Award from the Crime Victim’s Compensation Program.

Hood also secured funding for a special prosecutor for cases involving violence against women and children. He has published a merchant’s booklet on bad checks, produced a crime prevention video for school children, produced a children’s crime prevention video showing stark scenes of prison life, established a jail tour program for alternative school students, and established a pretrial diversion program for young first-time offenders.

He served as an Assistant Attorney General for five years, heading the Drug Asset Forfeiture Unit.

Hood recently met with The Meridian Star’s Editorial Board.



The Star: A recent Associated Press story about the anniversary of the three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi more than 40 years ago said some people believe the nine men still living, among the 19 originally indicted on federal charges, should be prosecuted. Are there any other investigations that can follow?



Hood: We presented every fact — good, bad and ugly — on that case on everybody who was living. The Grand Jury chose to just indict one (former Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen who was convicted of three counts of manslaughter last year).

All prosecutors proceed under the same policy that if you present a case to a Grand Jury and show them all the evidence and they don’t indict, unless there is new evidence or a new witness comes forward, the case is over. It is not presented again, unless there is new evidence. We haven’t obtained any new evidence. It will have to be up to someone with a conscious to come forward and tell something they didn’t tell before.

A lot of times people may not understand all the facts. One of those people — who owned the land where they (civil rights workers) were buried — cannot be prosecuted. He was acquitted in Meridian’s civil rights federal case. We had a written statement from a witness given to an FBI agent that said something to the effect of, “I think I saw him up there at his garage after we had buried them.” That man’s deceased. He never testified, so his testimony was not preserved. You can’t call the FBI agent because that would be hearsay. So there’s nothing in that evidence that can be used to convict that person. Those are the kinds of things you encounter when you’re actually getting the facts, reading the files.



The Star: Are there other cases from the civil rights era that may re-emerge?



Hood: We’ve worked with the federal government on some Southwest Mississippi cases. Some of our prosecutors in the attorney general’s office are assisting the district attorney in review of documents in the Emmett Till case. But the DA there will handle the case, unless she wants us to help her out.



The Star: In a previous Editorial Board with The Star, you talked about the Cyber Crimes Unit. Update us on that.



Hood: U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran gave Ole Miss Law School $10 million and they established a cyber crimes training program and hooked up with Mike Moore, who was attorney general then.

We train all the assistant AGs and some other prosecutors from around the nation at Ole Miss as part of this project and we established a cyber crimes unit with funds from this money. That unit is a good example for other states to look at and follow as an example of how well we have cooperated with federal authorities, postal, treasury, etc.

Since I’ve been in office, we’ve expanded that and are moving into a new building when it’s finished. We’ve got the whole floor wired, FBI agents will be in our office. We’ve put together a state task force. That’s a perfect area for state and federal agencies to work together because a lot of it is across state lines, and we need help with extraditions, interviews in other states.

We’ve also implemented a program with Mississippi State University, which has an excellent computer forensic training center. They are going to send us their best interns — master’s and doctorate degree students — for the unit where the FBI and our people will be located. That’s a good co-operative effort.

In the future, MSU will train our law enforcement officers — investigators on how to work these cases. Ole Miss will train the lawyers and the prosecutors. We also have a co-operative effort with Jackson State University for students to come in and work.

The third thing we’ve implemented in that regard of policy is that we’ve been around the state training law enforcement for several years how to bag and tag a computer (seizing a computer for forensic use in court for child Internet pornography cases, for example).

We’re also expanding into financial crimes or theft over the computer. We’re working with the Identity Theft Unit in the Consumer Protection Division of our office to work a lot of those cyber-type crimes of financial theft. That’s where the future of crime is going.



The Star: Tell us about the Friendly Nursing Home Visitors Program your office has started.



Hood: It is a cooperative with AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) in which volunteers are trained on what to look for when visiting a nursing home. It does three things: It encourages the AARP member to visit nursing home residents; it helps those residents to know people care about them; and it helps us in our Medicaid Fraud Unit — it lets us know if there’s any financial fraud (someone taking money from an elderly person), neglect or abuse.

It allows us to have eyes and ears in the nursing homes, and if they see something they call us and we go check it out. We do routine checks at these facilities, but it’s something extra.



The Star: Explain the lawsuit you brought against several insurance companies to force them to pay storm-surge coverage following Katrina and tell us what the status of the lawsuit is.



Hood: Many places just have a homeowners policy, which covers whatever. On the Coast, they have to have two policies — a homeowners policy and what’s called a windstorm policy, but it has hurricane written all over it. It’s not a rider, it’s a separate policy. These homeowners are paying for two policies and yet this hurricane policy doesn’t cover 80 percent of the damage from a hurricane, which is storm surge. Yet, it doesn’t exclude storm surge.

So if people were told the policy doesn’t cover storm surge, they would have known that they only have part of a policy — 20 percent — and would have questioned if they needed something else. That’s where the confusion comes in.

We’re waiting for the federal judge to kick back the case to state court. I think once that’s done, within a week we’ll have a judgment against them. They’ll appeal it, but at least it will bring them to the table. Maybe we can re-establish some funding for those homeowners.



The Star: What other programs has your office started lately?



Hood: One we have just posted on our Web site is a School Violence Booklet we’re putting together. We realize that there’s also a profile of potential violence outside the workplace and we’re working with the Department of Education to create a booklet.

Once published, it will help teachers evaluate students, and create a protocol for kids to report possible incidents, such as if they know a kid is coming to school the next day to fight or with a weapon. We’re also working with CrimeStoppers, who has agreed to allow us to use their 800-number for kids to post possible incidents and actually receive some reward if there is a conviction.

We’re also establishing a guide for parents to educate their kids on possible sexual offenders or Internet sexual predators, and how to determine if their child is abusing alcohol, drugs or if they are suicidal. These should be available by the time school begins in the fall. And we have a publication on identity theft, particularly financial crime on the Internet which is growing nationwide.

All of these publications also will be available on our Web site at www.agjimhood.com.

        

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