11 SEP 08: JOSE, DON'T YOU SEE?

This day means a variety of things to many people. It can even mean things which have nothing to do with terrorist attacks. For one Columbus businessman, it's the anniversary of a public confession. And for a refreshing change, this has nothing to do with local car lots....

This BLOG EXCLUSIVE is the result of a recent e-mail - one which had amazing timing:

Richard. I came across your blog while doing a Goggle search for "Jose Ricci". Oddly (but not surprising) it looks like the guy was indicted for embezzlement or something to that effect. However, I could not find anything on your blog or the ledger enquirer site saying what came of the charges. Do you know what happened?

The reason for my "Search" was to find the guy's phone number as he seems to be hiding from me regarding a business matter. Luckily for me, no services or money exchanged hands so I'm just out some time and aggravation.

As it happens, today marks one year since Jose Ricci pleaded guilty to "theft by taking" in Muscogee County Court. But we've learned Ricci has yet to go to jail for it, and he has yet to repay all the money he stole. So Ricci may not be hiding from our writer - it may simply be a matter of first-in first-out accounting.

For those who came in late: Jose Ricci was a rising star in Columbus's Hispanic business community. He started "Ritmo Latino Radio" long before Viva 1460 came along, and had a nightclub and monthly newspaper to go with it. Ritmo Latino even was singled out for praise by former Mayor Bob Poydasheff in a city annual report. Then Ricci was arrested, and Poydasheff didn't make that mistake again.

Jose Ricci also worked in the catering side of the Columbus Civic Center - and he was indicted in 2004 on charges of taking more than $323,000 from Aramark. Court records show Ricci later remembered only taking about $150,000. If that's true, that's still a pretty large gratuity....

We checked the Muscogee County court records Wednesday, and found more than two years of procedures passed before Jose Ricci entered his guilty plea last 11 September. Several times attorneys assured judges Ricci would enter a plea, but some sort of details had to be worked out first. Finally one key detail was resolved - when Ricci pleaded guilty in English.

"It was a bad decision," Jose Ricci told Judge Bobby Peters in entering his plea last September. He wanted to accept a business proposal, and banks told him he would need to wait 60 to 90 days to gain approval for a loan. So in the old-fashioned cooking tradition, we can say Ricci needed the dough - so he reached out his hands to grab it.

Defense attorney Stephen Hyles said Jose Ricci had repaid about $55,000 of the $150,000 he has stolen. Judge Bobby Peters was unimpressed, commenting: "So he probably has a 100 in a drawer.... still." Well, maybe not - not if Ricci hasn't repaid the balance by now. And especially not if he had investments in sub-prime housing.

The assistant prosecutor handling the case asked for Jose Ricci's sentencing to be deferred, while he tried to repay the remaining $95,000. Judge Bobby Peters was skeptical of this as well. It sounded to him like the District Attorney was willing to trade restitution for jail time. Yet that usually works well in the game of Monopoly....

So the sentencing of Jose Ricci was deferred last 11 September - and it's still deferred today. Assistant District Attorney Shelley Faulk told your blog Wednesday he still hasn't repaid all the money. Faulk was not at liberty to tell me the exact amount Ricci owes. After all, that might change the mysterious amount of city reserve funds.

Shelley Faulk says with several major criminal cases resolved, the District Attorney's office plans to turn its attention back to Jose Ricci. She told me a motion for a new sentencing hearing should be filed within a couple of weeks. The patience of prosecutors has run out - long after most people would have applied for an appearance on TV before Judge Joe Brown.

The District Attorney's office apparently was willing to show mercy toward Jose Ricci. But the idea of paying your way out of a jail sentence may not sit well with some people - such as the construction workers who hope to win the contract for jail expansion.

E-MAIL UPDATE: We stopped by federal court as well Wednesday - because of how one reader responded to a recent investigative series in the Ledger-Enquirer....

Looks like Columbus High administration is in a mess for not reporting to police the relationship between the teacher and his students If the principal didn't report her suspicions to the police and DFCS why didn't the assistant superintendent make the report? The heat needs to be shared..I wonder if there is a civil suit in progress?

If there is a civil suit involving former Columbus High School teacher James Cypert, we couldn't find out Wednesday. The computer for checking records at the federal courthouse had crashed. Maybe if Columbus High School's principal had used an excuse like that....

James Cypert is serving a one-year sentence for sexual assault. But the newspaper's series reveals Columbus High principal Susan Bryant was nearly arrested as well last year, for not reporting rumors about Cypert's conduct to police. A two-year time limit on those cases had expired - a "statute of limitations" matching how long most high school graduates remember algebra equations.

We've also heard again from the reader who inspired our current Big Blog Question -- and read what we wrote Monday about it:

Dear Blogger,

Would you prefer we use the words: "Women's Movement"? We like the term "Women's Liberation" because it is the last surviving remnant of the pure intentions to remove the shackles women have faced. And, btw, women need liberation from the fight as Palin fights it, because she is still caught up in the male vs. female model of progress. "Tough Girl" is not the model we need young girls to emulate. The VP candidate, redneck-beauty queen, looks like a guitar and a beer are just waiting for her at the logger's bar. She could do Hollywood with her perfect timing/pitch and her self described "pit-bull" attitude.

However, Britney and the Hiltonesque aside, she is almost an embarrassment to the gender as an historic prototypic leader. Oh, well, such is the lot of women, always accepting second best- just more of the same.

From "The Female Eunich" to Helen Girlie Brown's Cosmopolitan view of the world, with her slam dunk of virginity, we think there is a more refined method of dealing with leadership within the female gender--a womanly way- not a manly way. But, the "Female Mystique" has encountered gamesmanship in the Republican Party, with its catapult of the "Sacred Blood" through a new cycle. The GOP has taken our chance to shine and thrown it away in a dice throw with a Redneck Smart Alerk ----She at one, and the same time, uses her gender & traditional platform to get elected "with lipstick, hockey mom, and pit bull references" --- All are based on traditional values, while she is exhibiting the opposite. She places her vulnerable pregnant 17 year old on the world stage, at her most vulnerable time, rather than sheltering her. The first prototypic female leader, VP candidate, whose life is a contradiction of traditional values----i.e., the exhibition of the pregnant daughter at the convention, and the refusal to stay with and nurture a special needs infant--preferring instead to meet a selfish ambitious goal, leaves us old world feminists to say, the fight has progressed but she is in a time warp sna-fu.

The potential new VP, who has such an appetite for blood sport, may carry out political escapades with public favor and party pport, but her blood thirty attitude, with all of its vulgar implications, will not inspire gentle refinement for our young girls as they break their glass ceilings.

Perhaps I'm seeing things the wrong way, but I see plenty of liberated women these days. As in two Columbus Councilors, at least two state representatives with Muscogee County in their districts -- not to mention the single women who feel liberated by not dating me.

Some of the points in this e-mail were suggested to us as possible Big Blog Question last week. In fact, if we had posted every proposed question, we would have been asking about nothing but Sarah Palin until Election Day. I'll leave that sort of fixation for magazines like Cosmopolitan....

A lack of time (and perhaps a measure of good sense) keeps me from commenting further on this - and we need to wrap up a busy Wednesday in the news:

+ Synovus announced it will cut more than 600 positions company-wide. Chairman Richard Anthony says at least 100 Columbus employees already are aware their jobs will be cut - but I think Wachovia Bank will have enough good sense to avoid putting out banners welcoming their checking accounts.

(Did I hear it right - the Synovus cuts are part of a program called "Project Optimus?" I heard at least one person suggest that title was a bit too - well, you know - too optimus-tic.)

+ Capital One announced its Greenpoint Mortgage customer center near Bradley Park Drive will close by the end of the year, with a cut of 220 jobs. What's in THEIR wallets? Maybe some small debit cards as parting gifts?

+ Circle K officials explained gas prices jumped sharply this week because the company's costs suddenly went up 30 cents a gallon. I didn't know that many tanker delivery trucks were running on bald tires....

+ Atlanta's Mayor showed off new "homeless meters" to be installed downtown. They're like parking meters, except you put money in them for charities instead of giving handouts to beggars. I can see the next step in this battle now - panhandlers standing around the meters, offering to put coins in the slot for you.

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