NEW YORK — There is a new surprise in the mysterious story of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark. It turns out that she signed two wills, the first one benefitting her family, the second one cutting out her family altogether. And she signed them one after another, within six weeks.

Despite years of pleading from attorney after attorney, Clark reached age 98 without directing who should inherit one of America's great fortunes from the Gilded Age, estimated to be at least $400 million. She made no plan for her $100 million oceanfront estate in Santa Barbara, Calif.; her $20 million country house in New Canaan, Conn.; her three apartments on New York's Fifth Avenue, worth up to $100 million; her precious paintings by Renoir and Monet, or her doll collection worth millions.

Then, within six weeks, she signed two wills, right about the time that her family says her attorney stopped putting through their phone calls.

It appears both wills are genuine. That is to say, both were presented by her executors, who are her attorney and accountant. The second will was already filed in court by the executors in June, a month after her death in May at age 104. The first will was turned over by the executors voluntarily to her family, which filed it in court Monday morning along with a motion to enter the case.

This is the first step in a family effort to wrest control of Clark's fortune away from her attorney and accountant, who remain the subjects of a criminal investigation.

The family's motion accuses Clark's attorney and accountant of "plundering" her fortune.

"Before the court are substantial and gravely serious issues," the family attorney, John R. Morken, wrote in a sworn statement to the court on Monday, "of alleged deceit, undue influence and exploitation of a very elderly and extraordinarily wealthy woman at the hands of two professionals who, with the help of certain others, took control of her life, isolated her from family, and ultimately stripped her of her free will, as well as millions of dollars." (Document: Read the family's motion.)

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On March 7, 2005, in her spartan hospital room at Beth Israel Medical Center on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Clark signed a will leaving $5 million to her longtime nurse Hadassah Peri, and everything else to her 21 closest relatives, who are descendants of her father from his first marriage, according to documents filed Monday morning in a New York court. The relatives are not named in the documents, but are referred to only as her "intestate distributees," legal jargon for the people who would inherit her money if she didn't have sign any will at all. You can read that first will here from NBC News.

On April 19, 2005, in the same hospital room, Clark signed a second will. This time her family got nothing. The nurse's share jumped to an estimated $34 million. There was half a million for her accountant and half a million for her attorney, who drew up both wills. Her doctor received $100,000. And the largest share went to a charitable foundation, controlled by the attorney and accountant, to set up an art museum in her California mansion, known as Bellosguardo. You can read that second will here from NBC News.

Both wills are typewritten, with what appears to be her signature in a firm hand.

She also had two earlier wills from the years 1926 and 1929, when she was 19 and 22 years old. Both of those wills left everything to her mother, who died in 1963, so in effect those wills would also, under state law, have left everything to the relatives making a claim now.

What happened during those six weeks?
And so begins what could be a long, expensive battle for her fortune. The case may turn on the answer to these questions: What happened in those six short weeks to turn around the fate of her fortune? Did her attorney and accountant exercise undue influence on her decision? Did she have the mental capacity to know what she was signing? How close was she to her relatives? Will the judge allow her attorney to serve as an executor, and to be a beneficiary, after he drew up the will — the same attorney whose family benefitted from nearly $2 million in gifts from Clark? Will the judge allow her accountant, a convicted felon, to be an executor?

The relatives maintain in the new court documents that they were much closer than her attorney has portrayed. Though the Clark family was spread from California to New York to France, several family members were in regular contact with her over many years, exchanging holiday greetings and letters and having phone conversations arranged through her attorney, even as she secluded herself in a hospital room, hiding her location from even these relatives, according to the sworn statement by attorney Morken, who represents 19 of the 21 relatives.

"Despite her reclusive life style," wrote attorney Morken, "Huguette remained true to her family and her all too important family name, by remaining in contact with certain of her relatives over the years, sharing events in their lives. Indeed, she well knew and was proud of the fact that she was a Clark, and her family was integral to who she was. She therefore remained close to them, but from a distance, simultaneously preserving her desire to communicate with her relatives and her need for seclusion and solitude."

Relatives have said that Clark's attorney cut off those contacts without explanation, just before the wills were signed. "Suddenly in or about 2004/2005, phone contact ceased, and relatives who were speaking to Huguette on the phone were no longer able to," Morken wrote. "Thereafter, in 2008, on at least one occasion when relatives sought to visit their Aunt Huguette to check on her well-being, they were prevented from doing so by" her attorney. Several of these relatives asked a judge last year to appoint a guardian for her, based in part on the information in the msnbc.com articles, but that case was rejected without a hearing.

The second will tells a different story, attempting to foreclose any claim by family. "I intentionally make no provision in this my Last Will Testament (sic) for any members of my family, whether on my paternal or maternal side, having had minimal contacts with them over the years. The persons and institution named herein as beneficiaries of my Estate are the true objects of my bounty."

The fact-gathering in this case is expected to be extensive. Prominent lawyers have been retained to represent all sides. Testimony should shed light on her contacts with family and what changed during that six-week period in 2005.

Though she inherited one of the great mining fortunes of the 19th century, Huguette (pronounced "oo-GET") Marcelle Clark lived quietly into the 21st century, secluded under fake names in a hospital room for more than two decades despite being in relatively good physical health. Intensely shy, she was almost entirely alone, aside from her private nurse, other helpers and occasional visits by her accountant. One of her former attorneys represented her for 20 years without meeting her face to face, instead talking to her through a closed door.

In the last year of her life, after her three empty mansions drew the attention of a reporter for msnbc.com in late 2009, she became a subject of public fascination, a trending topic of searches on Google and Yahoo, pictured on the cover of the New York tabloids, with fan pages on Facebook, a biography on Wikipedia, and her story read by tens of millions — though the last known photograph of her was made in 1930.

Huguette Clark was married only briefly and had no children. Her only full sister died at age 16 and had no children. Her mother had no other children. Under state law that leaves 21 "intestate distributees" — the relatives who would inherit her estate if she left no will or if the court chooses to uphold the earlier will instead of the later one. Those 21 relatives are descended from three of the children from Sen. Clark's first marriage: 13 half-grandnieces and half-grandnephews (and their children), and eight half-great-grandnieces and half-great-grandnephews (and their children). Counting all the children of these relatives, there are about 50 living descendants of Clark's father, former Sen. William Andrews Clark of Montana.

Criminal investigation continues
The estate fight is beginning two blocks away the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., whose criminal investigation of the actions of her attorney and accountant in handling her finances is continuing. A state grand jury issued subpoenas for documents, and a forensic accountant and police officers have been chasing leads. Both wills would grant large sums to the attorney and accountant. As executors, each would receive about 2 percent of her estate, or $8 million to $10 million each. Under the second will, they also receive the $500,000 apiece as beneficiaries and have a nearly unlimited ability to draw fees and salaries as trustees of the art museum.

There are other parties besides her family and the attorneys for the executors. The New York attorney general has entered the case, representing the interests of charities that could be helped or hurt by the decision —those include the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, which is named in the second will to receive one of Monet's "Water Lilies" series of paintings, and the yet-unborn Bellosguardo Foundation, the art museum to be set up at her California home under the second will. And the public administrator, a county official, has been named as a third temporary executor to serve alongside, and to monitor the activities, of her attorney and accountant. The judge took the unusual step of requiring that all actions by the temporary executors be unanimous, in effect giving the public administrator veto power over handling of her accounts for now.

Msnbc.com reported last year that her wealth was managed by her attorney, Wally Bock, now 79, of Queens, N.Y., and her certified public accountant, a felon named Irving H. Kamsler, now 64, of the Bronx, N.Y. Kamsler pleaded guilty in 2008 to attempting to distribute indecent material to 13- and 15-year-old girls in an AOL chatroom, where he went by the handle "IRV1040." He remains a registered sex offender in New York.

Msnbc.com also reported that the attorney and accountant took over ownership of the New York City apartment of another elderly client, a lawyer at Bock's firm who had been Clark's attorney. The apartment was bequeathed to them after the man's last will and testament was revised six times during his last years, a period when his family and neighbors said he suffered from dementia.

Her attorney, Bock, confirmed in court documents that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he had solicited a donation from Clark of more than $1.5 million, which she gave to a West Bank community where his daughter is a settler. Bock said that she gave the donation freely of her own accord. New York ethics rules prohibit lawyers from soliciting gifts from clients "for the benefit of the lawyer or a person related to the lawyer."

The attorney and accountant have not been accused of a crime in the handling of the Clark finances. Bock told the court he has safeguarded Clark's health, safety, welfare and privacy. He said she chose to live in the hospital, even when she was well. He denied controlling her affairs and access to her, saying he has merely carried out her wishes. "Ms. Clark has explicitly instructed me on many occasions that she does not want visitors and does not want anyone — including her relatives — to know where she resides," Bock wrote.

A recent accounting of her finances by Bock and Kamsler show $126.3 million in spending by them from her accounts during her last 15 years, and another $43.3 million that was transferred into her personal account, apparently to cover her own spending, ending in early 2009. The total of $170 million works out to $1 million per month for a woman who never left her hospital room during that time.

The family calls the accounting "a chilling report of the mishandling, misappropriation and mismanagement of Huguette's assets."

"The interest of the family members is not just financial, although that is of course considerable," wrote family attorney Morken. "Even of greater concern to them is the family's heritage. That a very significant member of their family should have fallen victim, it appears, to the greed of persons who had put themselves in a position of trust with their great-aunt, and with the apparent assistance of others, had violated that trust, is something that requires an exhaustive review of every transaction which they engineered: in other words, full and complete accountability."

An independent attorney's perspective
A prominent estate attorney in New York not involved in the case, Sanford J. "Sandy" Schlesinger, addressed in an interview several of the issues that he said the judge, Surrogate Kristin Booth Glen, might look at closely, depending on the evidence presented.

The close timing of the two wills, signed within six weeks, could raise a hurdle for the relatives, if they argue that Clark was not competent to sign the second will. "How can you argue," Schlesinger asked, "that she was competent in March but not competent in April?"

But the relatives may have more traction with a claim of undue influence, Schlesinger said, giving them the opportunity to knock out both wills.

The dual roles of attorney Bock raise several questions. Schlesinger said it is generally frowned upon in New York for an attorney who drafts a will to be a beneficiary; the burden of proof is on the attorney to show that he did not exercise undue influence on the client. The court would probably take into account, Schlesinger said, that the $500,000 bequest to attorney Bock is relatively small, in comparison with the $400 million estate. On the other hand, the size of the gift benefitting Bock's family, nearly $2 million, raises additional concerns. he said.

It's more common, but still not always accepted, for an attorney who drafts a will to serve as an executor, which puts the attorney in line for an executor's fee of roughly 2 percent.

As for the accountant, Kamsler, the court can decide whether to allow him to serve as an executor. Generally a felon cannot serve, but the sentencing judge granted Kamsler a "relief from civil disabilities," allowing him to keep his accountant's license. That makes it possible that the surrogate court will allow Kamsler to serve, Schlesinger said. It may make a difference, he said, that Kamsler's guilty plea to attempting to distribute indecent material to minors, documented in the court record, was not a financial crime, no matter how sordid.

And it's too soon now to know the result of the criminal investigation by the district attorney.

"When you put the whole picture together, it seems there are some real questions to be answered," Schlesinger said. "But I wouldn't rush to judgment. Nobody's  proved nothing yet."

The second will's plan to set up a charity for the artwork could sound plausible, Schlesinger said, though the fact that it could provide unending fees and salaries for the attorney and accountant may raise more questions. The court could approve the charity, but not put it under the control of those two men. "You don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater," Schlesinger said. "You can just throw out the bathwater."

In the end, this sounds like a case that could eventually get settled, Schlesinger said.

"There's plenty of money here to pay everybody."

A quiet life
Huguette Clark was born in Paris on June 9, 1906, the youngest child of U.S. Sen. William Andrews Clark of Montana (1839-1925), known as one of America's copper kings. When she was a child, her father was described by The New York Times as either the richest or second-richest American, neck and neck with John D. Rockefeller. W.A. Clark made a fortune in copper mining in Montana and Arizona, and owned banks, railroads, newspapers, sugar, tea, timber, real estate and many other investments. He served one full term in the Senate as a Democrat from Montana, from 1901 to 1907, despite having to give up the seat earlier in 1900 in a scandal involving bribes paid to legislators. The 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which removed the election of senators from the hands of legislators and gave it to the people, is a backhanded tribute to his legacy.

While serving in the Senate in 1904, the 65-year-old widower shocked the political and financial world by announcing that he had secretly remarried three years earlier, and that he and his 26-year-old wife already had a 2-year-old daughter, Andrée. A second daughter, Huguette, was born in 1906. When Huguette was about 4, the family of four moved into a 121-room house at Fifth Avenue and 77th Street in New York City, stuffed with the senator's collection of French paintings.

Her father the senator died in 1925. Huguette inherited one-fifth of his estate, which in today's dollars would have been worth about $3.6 billion -- her share being about $700 million in today's terms. She also inherited nearly all of her mother's estate in 1963.

The Clark name was largely forgotten, except to the occasional question on Jeopardy! and to historians in Montana and Arizona, and in Nevada, where his railroad spawned the city of Las Vegas and where Clark County is named for him.

Neither of the wills signed by his daughter leaves any money to those states.

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If you have information on the Huguette Clark mystery, use the links below to contact Bill Dedman. Add your comments to this story at the bottom of the page.

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Documents (PDF files)

Family motion to intervene in the estate case, Nov. 28, 2011

Huguette Clark's last will and testament, signed April 19, 2005

Huguette Clark's previous will, signed March 7, 2005

Family's petition seeking a guardian for Huguette Clark, September 2010

Attorney Bock's sworn statement to the court, September 2010

Judge's ruling rejecting her family's guardianship petition, September 2010

Kamsler letter informing Clark of his guilty plea, February 2009

Kamsler's criminal court file and investigator's report

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Previous stories in the Huguette Clark mystery on msnbc.com:

Archive of all stories, photos and videos

Photo narrative, "The Clarks: An American story of wealth, scandal and mystery," Feb. 26, 2010.

Printable version of the photo narrative, Feb. 26, 2010. 

Clark family notes and sources, Feb. 26, 2010.

Investigative report, part one, "At 104, the mysterious heiress Huguette Clark is alone now: Relatives are kept away. Only her accountant and attorney visit. Who protects Huguette Clark, with 3 empty homes and no heirs?" Aug. 19, 2010.

Investigative report, part two, "Who is watching Huguette Clark's millions? Reclusive heiress's assets are sold by two advisers, one an accountant with a felony conviction. Another elderly client signed over his property to the same accountant and attorney," Aug. 20, 2010. 

"Criminal probe begins into the finances of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark: Manhattan DA's Elder Abuse Unit is on the case. The same unit prosecuted the Brooke Astor case — though Clark has about four times the wealth," Aug. 24, 2010. 

"Report sparks welfare check on heiress Huguette Clark," Aug. 25, 2010. 

"Generosity of an heiress: four homes for a nurse, gifts for attorney's family," Sept. 1, 2010. 

"Huguette Clark, the reclusive heiress, has signed a will, attorney says," Sept. 2, 2010.

"Family of copper heiress asks court to protect her from attorney, accountant," Sept. 3, 2010.

"Attorney for 104-year-old heiress defends his handling of her finances," Sept. 7, 2010. 

"Judge leaves pair under investigation in control of heiress Huguette Clark's fortune," Sept. 9, 2010. 

"Huguette Clark, the reclusive copper heiress, dies at 104," May 24, 2011.

"Family excluded from Huguette Clark burial," May 26, 2011.

"The 1 percent of the 1 percent: How Huguette Clark's millions were spent," Nov. 19, 2011.

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., has resigned amid controversy surrounding a memo he allegedly drafted shortly after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in May.

The memo requested U.S. intervention to prevent a military coup and protect the civilian government in exchange for granting the U.S. heavy influence on matters of national security in Pakistan. 

Dubbed “Memogate,” the affair has dominated headlines in Pakistan for weeks before apparently claiming its first victim on Tuesday.

A statement issued by Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's office said Haqqani has been asked "to submit his resignation so that the investigation can be carried out properly." 

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Haqqani flew back to Islamabad this weekend to explain his involvement – if any -- in the scandal to President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and military and intelligence officials, tweeting on Nov.  19th that he was "Heading back to the motherland."  He reportedly offered his resignation then, but it was not accepted at the time. 

"Memogate" is centered on a memo that Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz says he delivered to then-chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, at the behest of Ambassador Haqqani in the days immediately following the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan. The memo, which is unsigned, states that there had been “a significant deterioration in Pakistan’s political atmosphere” and indicated that the civilian government feared that factions within the military were planning a coup.

Read the full memo 

Retired U.S. Gen. Jim Jones, President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser, has confirmed that the memo was delivered to Mullen.

The existence of the memo was revealed in an October op-ed by Ijaz for the Financial Times. Ijaz told NBC News he typed the memo as dictated by Haqqani, and only revealed its existence in the article to lend credibility to the policy case he was making. Haqqani has denied any involvement in requesting or drafting the memo. But opposition leaders in Pakistan pounced, equating the memo to "treason" and demanding that heads roll.

Members of the Pakistani press have been digging into the scandal for the last few weeks, including publishing Blackberry messages allegedly exchanged by Haqqani and Ijaz as the memo was being drafted, and afterward.  

U.S. officials tell NBC News they are watching with "great interest" how this is being handled by the Pakistani government, but say they are not involved in the investigation.

Haqqani, who has been described as a "seasoned political operator," is well-liked within U.S. government circles, and enjoys a strong reputation for managing to remain effective in a treacherous political climate. He remains in Islamabad at this writing.

In Tuesday’s statement, Gilani ordered an investigation to be "carried out fairly, objectively and without bias."

“As a result of controversy generated by  the alleged memo, which had been drafted, formulated and further  admitted to have been received by Authority in USA, it has become  necessary in the national interest to formally arrive at the actual and  true facts,” the statement said. 

Haqqani turned back to his Twitter account following the announcement of his resignation, writing, "I have much to contribute to building a new Pakistan free of bigotry & intolerance. Will focus energies on that."

Fakhar Rehman of NBC News contributed to this report from Islamabad.

By Myron Levin, FairWarning.org

Federal health officials are calling for protective measures at job sites where workers may be exposed to erionite, a cancer-causing mineral similar to asbestos that is found in rock and soil in at least a dozen western states.

An advisory published Tuesdayby the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommended a series of steps to prevent employee exposure to eronite fibers at sites such as gravel quarries and road projects. The NIOSH alert noted that erionite was responsible for "remarkably high" rates of mesothelioma, a lethal form of cancer that devastated several Turkish villages where erionite was concentrated in rock and soil.

Erionite fibers pose an inhalation hazard similar to asbestos, but available research suggests erionite is more dangerous.

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As reported in October by FairWarning and msnbc.com, authorities have long known that erionite is widespread in the West but haven’t investigated the potential risks, apparently believing there was little chance of human exposure.

As a result, amid an expansion of roads, pipelines, and power lines in remote areas, erionite remains unregulated, and federal agencies until now have failed to alert land-use officials, developers and residents so they might take precautions.

About 30 officials and scientists from federal health and environmental agencies last month held a day-long erionite workshop in North Carolina. "At a minimum, we can begin to start to educate the public and policymakers," said Dr. Aubrey Miller, a senior medical advisor at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who chaired the meeting. "I certainly don’t want to count bodies later."

The steps recommended Tuesday by NIOSH, though purely voluntary, are a first attempt to address potential occupational risks.

"From the evidence at hand …it’s prudent and it’s reasonable to approach controlling exposures as one would control asbestos,"said NIOSH spokesman Fred Blosser.

Erionite, a member of the zeolite family of minerals, is formed from volcanic ash that has been weathered by water. Like asbestos, it is harmless until it is disturbed, and the microscopic, needle-like fibers waft into the air.

Until the late 1970s, when the mesothelioma epidemic was first reported in Turkey, asbestos was thought to be the only cause of the rare cancer. But erionite was found to be the culprit. In the hardest-hit villages, where 40 percent to 50 percent of all deaths were caused by mesothelioma, erionite was abundant in soil and rock, and was used to build homes.

Animal studies showed erionite to be 100 to 800 times more carcinogenic than asbestos and, according to a scientific paper, "almost certainly the most toxic naturally occurring fibrous mineral known."

The NIOSH alert acknowledged the paucity of data on erionite risks in the U.S. According to co-authors David Weissman, director of the agency’s division of respiratory disease studies, and Max Kiefer, director the NIOSH’s western states office, "little is known about exposures currently experienced by U.S. workers." But it said there is some evidence of health effects among road construction workers exposed to erionite-containing gravel or soil.

It cited studies in North Dakota. In 2005, it was revealed that erionite-laden gravel mined in the western part of the state had been used to cover hundreds of miles of unpaved roads.

Mesothelioma develops decades after initial exposure, and no proof has emerged of high rates of the disease in North Dakota. However, air sampling along the gravel roadways and in vehicles, including inside school buses, revealed erionite level similar to those in some stricken Turkish villages. And a preliminary health study found that two road maintenance workers had mild lung scarring consistent with breathing mineral fibers.

In the absence of clear risk data and regulations, however, use of erionite-containing gravel has continued in the state. The North Dakota Department of Transportation has banned its use in state road projects, but some local governments and private companies rely on it still.

Complicating the picture, the state is in the midst of one of the greatest oil booms in U.S. history, with a huge spike in truck traffic tearing up unpaved roads and increasing the need for maintenance. To use only erionite-free gravel to patch the roads would mean hauling from 40 miles away, which is “cost prohibitive,” Reinhard Hauck,  the auditor and treasurer of Dunn County, N.D., told FairWarning. Local officials are "behind the 8 ball constantly trying to figure out how to maintain the infrastructure we have."

Scott Radig, director of waste management for the state Department of Health, said the agency has provided advice to energy companies and construction contractors on controlling dust and avoiding gravel with erionite content. But Radig said such steps are purely voluntary, and he doesn’t know how many companies comply.

The NIOSH advisory listed more than a dozen measures to control potential hazards, including employee training and determining if erionite-containing material is present before beginning work.

Other steps included wetting soil and rock to reduce dust; using respirators and other protective equipment; showering and changing clothes before leaving work; and ensuring work clothes and boots are left at work to prevent hazardous fibers from being brought home. 

FairWarning is a nonprofit, online investigative news organization focused on public health and safety issues.

Pennsylvania state prosecutors filed a secret motion to hold The Second Mile children’s charity in contempt in July after the organization failed to turn over expense records of founder Jerry Sandusky in response to a grand jury subpoena, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

The contempt motion, filed under court seal, was withdrawn in October after some of the  missing Sandusky records were found and produced, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But the charity’s new lawyers are still looking for the rest of the subpoenaed material and seeking to determine whether the missing records were destroyed or removed in an effort to impede the investigation into Sandusky’s relationships with The Second Mile children, said the source, who has been briefed on some of the details of the investigation.

The move to hold The Second Mile in contempt, which has previously not been reported, is the latest indication that the investigation into the Penn State sex abuse scandal may have widened to include obstruction of justice. Asked Monday if obstruction was a focus of Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly’s investigation, her spokesman, Nils Frederiksen, declined comment, citing rules covering the secrecy of matters before the grand jury. “This is a comprehensive, active and ongoing investigation,” he said.

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The New York Times reported last week that some The Second Mile board members were alarmed to learn that Sandusky’s travel and expense records for the years 2000 and 2003 were missing from an off-site storage facility. The material had been subpoenaed by prosecutors in an effort to piece together which children in The Second Mile programs may have attracted Sandusky’s attention and received gifts or been taken on trips by him, the paper reported. The Times said that the expense reports  for one of those years had apparently been misfiled and were later located, but that the rest of material was still missing -- a development that one unnamed investigator was quoted as calling “suspicious.”

The Second Mile was founded by Sandusky in 1977 to help troubled children in central Pennsylvania. It expanded over the years into a statewide organization that raised millions of dollars from major corporations and attracted high profile honorary board members, such as Arnold Palmer and NFL Hall of Famer Franco Harris. State prosecutors say that Sandusky met each of the eight alleged victims he is accused of abusing through The Second Mile programs. Sandusky has denied the charges.

At the time that Sandusky’s expense records were subpoenaed, the lawyer representing The Second Mile was Wendell Courtney, who for the previous 15 years had been general counsel of Penn State University. Courtney previously told NBC News that he had been retained by The Second Mile in 2009 to represent the organization  in its dealings with state prosecutors after the charity was first notified about the investigation into Sandusky. “I am not commenting further on this matter at this time,” Courtney said in an email Monday when asked about the contempt motion filed against the charity.

Courtney is no longer representing The Second Mile. The charity last week announced that it had hired Lynne M. Abraham, the former Philadelphia district attorney, to conduct an internal investigation into what executives at The Second Mile knew about Sandusky’s activities. The charity also announced that Jack Raykovitz, its longtime executive director, had resigned.

Related story: Second nonprofit sent kids to Sandusky charity

There were other signs Monday that the investigations into the scandal could widen. A New York based charity, A Better Chance, confirmed to NBC News that it  sent about 30 children to a residential program run by The Second Mile between 1988 and 2001.

Founded in 1963, A Better Chance places talented minority students in high performing public and private schools around the country. One of its leading benefactors is Oprah Winfrey, who has donated over $12 million and served as its  national spokesperson.

 

By Hannah Rappleye and Lisa Riordan Seville, NBC News

A New York-based charity sent about 30 children to a residential program run by The Second Mile, the charity founded by Jerry Sandusky.

The nonprofit, A Better Chance, was founded in 1963 to provide better learning opportunities to young people of color. The program places talented minority students in high schools around the country. A Better Chance is a favorite charity of Oprah Winfrey -- she donated over $12 million and has served as its national spokesperson.

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While many Better Chance scholars are placed in private boarding schools, the charity also sends children to communities around the country with high-performing public schools. The Second Mile program was among the organizations that hosted such kids. Sandusky himself has no known connection to A Better Chance.

A Better Chance has not reached out to Pennsylvania authorities regarding the relationship between the two organizations, said A Better Chance spokesman Michael Paluszek.

“The information about the past relationship is public knowledge and A Better Chance has had no involvement with the foundation since 2001,” according to a statement from A Better Chance.

Sandusky, 67, faces 40 grand jury charges of sexually abusing eight young boys over 15 years. He retired as Penn State defensive coordinator in 1999 and is alleged to have met the boys through The Second Mile, which he started in 1977. He has denied the charges.

A Better Chance began sending students to a residence run by The Second Mile in 1988. Palusek said none of the A Better Chance kids lived with the Sadusky family.

However, one A Better Chance student was quoted in a news article as saying he attended a went to a Penn State event that Sandusky was at in 1997. 

The relationship between the two charities continued for about 13 years. Bright young teenagers, many from inner cities, moved from as far away as Philadelphia and New York City to the Second Mile residence near Penn State. They attended local schools in the State College area and received tutoring. Many stayed multiple years.

Paluszek said that approximately 30 kids from A Better Chance lived under The Second Mile’s care over the years.
“A Better Chance did not participate in the operation of oversight of that Community School Program,” he said.

The Second Mile spent between $62,000 and $78,000 a year hosting kids from A Better Chance, according to tax filings from between 1997 and 2001. The money also provided assistance and services to foster families not related to A Better Chance.
A Better Chance stopped sending children to The Second Mile in 2001, when the latter ended funding for the program, Paluszek said.

“We have not had any involvement with the Second Mile Foundation in the past 10 years, nor have we received any complaints or inquiries from any of our students who attended their Community School Program,” he said.

Related story: Sandusky charity weighing options, including closing

A Better Chance is not the only charity associated with the Sandusky family. Last week, NBC reported that the Sanduskys may have hosted up to six children from the Fresh Air Fund program from the 1970s until the mid-1990s. The Fresh Air Fund connects New York City kids from disadvantaged neighborhoods to families in rural and urban communities.

The Fresh Air Fund later confirmed the Sanduskys hosted at least one child from the Fund. Unlike A Better Chance, The Fresh Air Fund alerted Pennsylvania authorities when it learned Sandusky may have hosted children from the program

iWatch News from the Center for Public Integrity

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has taken some heat from his fellow Republican presidential candidates for having signed a controversial executive order that mandated vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) for sixth-grade girls in 2007, an order the Legislature later overturned.

It turns out that isn't the only medical procedure Perry has ordered. Two years later, in 2009, Perry quietly signed a health insurance mandate that some experts say could waste vast sums of money and provide little medical benefit, according to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), a nonprofit investigative group:

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The 2009 measure, the Texas Heart Attack Prevention Bill, requires insurance companies to pay for CT scans and ultrasound tests that can detect heart disease. The companies must reimburse middle-aged and elderly citizens up to $200 for these tests, if they are either diabetic or at intermediate or higher risk of developing cardiovascular illness. They need not have any actual heart problems.  

Nearly 2.4 million Texans fall into this group, estimates Dr. Amit Khera, a professor at Texas' Southwestern Medical Center. If one fourth of them had the appropriate insurance and took advantage of the benefit only once, insurance companies would be required to spend $120 million. There is no data on how many people have actually used the benefit. 

Yet there is little evidence that the tests can improve people's health, some experts say, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of health experts, does not recommend the tests for routine screening.

CPI reports that the measure was promoted by a medical group with a history of ties to Pfizer Inc., which makes the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor. Campaign finance reports show that Perry received more money from Pfizer than any other political candidate nationwide over the last six years.

CPI said a spokesman for Perry declined to address the issues raised by Pfizer's support, but he has previously dismissed assertions that he solicited funds from donors who sought special benefits as "ridiculous."

You can read the full iWatch News report here.

iWatch News is the website of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to investigative journalism. 

By Lilly Fowler, Fair Warning

Just over a decade ago, hospitals around the country began spending millions of dollars to buy automated defibrillators to save the lives of more patients who go into sudden cardiac arrest. The purchases were spurred by a recommendation from an American Heart Association committee that decided the new equipment would bring patients speedier emergency medical help.

But today the costly equipment switchover increasingly seems to have been a mistake. The latest, most extensive research suggests that the new gear, now found in nearly all U.S. hospitals, saves fewer lives than the old, lower-tech defibrillators.

By one estimate, the shortcomings of the automated equipment mean that close to 1,000 more hospital cardiac arrest patients die every year in the U.S.

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A FairWarning review of the decision that prompted the switch reveals that the pivotal committee recommendation was made without clinical research answering a crucial question: Did the new devices, when used in hospitals, produce better results than the old equipment?

Instead, committee members endorsed automated defibrillators largely on the unproven theory that they would improve response times because even less-skilled hospital staffers could operate them.

“I think they jumped the gun,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “Why would we want to dumb things down to a level of having a machine do the thinking for us?”

Or, as Dr. Roger D. White, who was on a heart association subcommittee that provided expert advice on automated defibrillators in 2000, put it: "We just assumed that we were going to make a difference."

White, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., added, “What we thought would work, hasn't worked so far."

What’s more, more than a quarter of the members of the heart association committee that recommended the automated defibrillators had business ties with manufacturers of the devices.

The heart association said its policies in place at the time “prevented undue industry influence on its guidelines recommendations.” A science editor for the heart association, Mary Fran Hazinski, who was a member of the key decision-making committee in 2000, added that the recommendation was “very carefully considered and based on the evidence available at the time.” 

Move made sense, in theory
In theory, getting the new defibrillators made sense.  Committee members were alarmed about the amount of time it took at many hospitals to provide shocks to patients who went into cardiac arrest. A big part of the problem was that, although critical care nurses typically knew how to work the traditional defibrillators, many nurses in general wards did not. The devices, using pads placed on a patient’s chest, deliver a shock that can restore a heart’s normal rhythm.

The new equipment, which provides step-by-step voice instructions, figured to be easier for more people to operate.

And the cost was modest, by hospital equipment standards. The basic models of the automated devices begin at around $1,600. The dual mode equipment -- which can run automated or manually, like the older generation devices – can cost more than $10,000.

In crafting the recommendation in 2000, the committee itself acknowledged that research had not yet proven that the new devices improved survival rates for hospital patients. Instead, committee members said, they acted based largely on evidence that the simpler version of the new devices – often known as automated external defibrillators, or AEDs – saved lives in non-hospital settings such as airports.

In its recommendation, the committee scolded hospital administrators for failing to stock up on the new generation of defibrillators. “An unacceptably high percentage of hospitals,” the heart association’s 2000 guidelines read, “have not made significant attempts to improve the availability” of automated defibrillators.

Purchases of the devices zoomed after those guidelines were released. U.S. hospitals bought close to 100,000 of the basic automated models between 2000 and 2010, according to the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. 

The firm projects that sales of those basic models to hospitals will keep rising 9 percent to 12 percent annually through 2013. 

Soon after the recommendation came out, however, product quality flaws began to emerge, a major problem even if it wasn’t the biggest issue hospitals faced with the defibrillators.  

An assessment published in August in the Annals of Emergency Medicine found that more than 1,000 cardiac arrest deaths between 1993 and 2008 were connected to the failure of the automated devices in hospitals and other settings. In many instances, the devices failed to turn on, or they turned off unexpectedly. Manufacturers have recalled tens of thousands of the devices.

An industry group, the Advanced Medical Technology Association, said that companies are working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to improve the safety of the devices. But it added that the agency “continues to advocate the use of external defibrillators and is not recommending any change to current use practices for these devices.”

Related story: Bad batteries in defibrillators tied to cardiac deaths

For hospitals, an even worse problem than the equipment failures is that automated defibrillators often appear to be poorly suited for many of their patients.  That issue was spotlighted by a broad analysis completed last year by Dr. Paul S. Chan, a cardiologist with St. Luke’s Health System in Kansas City, Mo.

His critical study, funded by the heart association and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, tracked 11,695 patients in 204 hospitals who suffered cardiac arrest between 2000 and 2008.

Cardiac arrest causes the body’s electrical pump, the heart, to abruptly lose function, much like a house that suddenly loses power when struck by lightning. In the population at large, an electrical shock, or defibrillation, often is the only cure.

Monitoring crucial for in hospital use
But Chan noted that hospital patients who suffer cardiac arrest tend to be sicker than the average victim, and may have complex medical problems that are interfering with their heart. They are more apt to suffer “non-shockable” cardiac arrest – in other words, episodes that can’t be fixed with the electrical shock delivered by a defibrillator. 

To treat those patients, a defibrillator still may be needed to provide readings on how a patient is responding to CPR. Ordinarily, CPR is applied, and then periodically interrupted so that the defibrillators can provide those crucial readings. 

A big drawback to the automated machines is that they require longer interruptions – or “hands off” periods – to make those readings, and the lost seconds of CPR can make the difference between life and death in some cases. 

On top of that, Chan said, statistics show that hospitals equipped with the new defibrillators have failed to achieve one of the major aims of buying the equipment – delivering the first shock to patients in cardiac arrest more quickly. The hospitals failed to foresee that many less-skilled nurses apparently find it intimidating to operate defibrillators, and balk at using even the simpler, newer machines.  

They have "psychological and emotional” barriers, said John Stewart, a Seattle-area nurse and resuscitation specialist. 

All told, Chan calculated that cardiac arrest patients treated at hospitals with automated  defibrillators survived only 16.3 percent of the time. By comparison, the survival rate was 19.3 percent over the same time period when hospitals used  manual equipment to shock patients. 

Given that  automated defibrillator equipment is used in about one in six of the approximately 200,000 annual cases of cardiac arrest in hospitals, the lower survival rate would translate into about “965 fewer patients potentially who may be alive” every year in the U.S., Chan said. 

For Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a health policy expert at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, the bottom line is clear: “It is extremely unwise to be spending all this money on intervention that may not prove to be of benefit, and may actually be doing more harm than good.”

Manufacturers and others counter that research shows that patients at individual hospitals, particularly those with a shortage of staffers with the training to use manual defibrillators, benefit from the automated devices. They say that the advantages of automated devices will grow as new, faster-working versions come out.

“I think it would be a mistake to throw out a blanket statement hospitals shouldn’t be using an AED,” said Dr. Dana Edelson, a board member of the nonprofit Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation and an assistant professor at University of Chicago Medical Center. “It depends who is there in the middle of the night.”

Interviews and documents show that at least three people on the 11-member committee  that recommended the in-hospital use of automated defibrillators had ties to device manufacturers: 

• Dr. Richard E. Kerber, chair of the committee and currently a University of Iowa medical school professor, said in an interview that, at the time, he was receiving defibrillator research support from Agilent Technologies, which used to make the devices.
• Dr. Peter J. Kudenchuck, committee vice chair and a medical school professor at the University of Washington, disclosed at the time that he had conducted research for Medtronic.
• Dr. Richard O. Cummins, a science editor for the committee and a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Washington, said in a 1995 article published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine that he had received research support from Physio-Control, Zoll and other makers of automated defibrillators. He also disclosed he had received honoraria and travel and accommodation compensation from automated defibrillator manufacturers for participating in conferences. Cummins was also compensated for testifying for Laerdal Medical Corp., another automated defibrillator maker, in a federal court trial.

Kerber and Cummins said they no longer have records indicating how much money they received from the industry, and Kudenchuck failed to respond to repeated email and telephone requests for comment.

In an email, Cummins dismissed the idea that financial considerations could have influenced his thinking. "Certainly didn't occur with me ," he said, adding that "I still endorse the idea."

Most of the financial support for the heart association’s 2000 emergency cardiac care conferences also came from makers of automated defibrillators. The association declined to indicate how much it received from the companies.

Committee members, however, say the impetus for recommending the automated defibrillators stemmed from the sometimes prolonged delays in reaching cardiac arrest victims, documented by a 1995 analysis, as well as other studies showing that more nurses could be trained to use the automated devices.

The heart association, which updates its guidelines every five years, will have the chance to revisit the issue in 2015. The association isn’t offering any clues on whether its posture will change, but indicated that it doesn’t consider the Chan study persuasive enough by itself to warrant revisiting the issue.  

 “Guidelines,” the association said, “are based on the entire body of evidence.”

FairWarning is a nonprofit, online news organization focused on safety and health issues.  

By Robert Windrem, NBC News senior investigative producer

Some old hands may recall reports that President Ronald Reagan preferred to have his intelligence delivered in the form of videos rather than as documents. It was said he preferred it that way, being an actor and a creature of movies and television.

The CIA last week released seven of the videos. The videos declassified and released by the CIA last week are entitled, "The Soviet Space Program," "Afghanistan: the Gallant Struggle," "Andropov Succession," "Soviet Internal Propaganda," "The Soviet Media's Portrayal of America," "The Chernobyl Accident," and "The Moscow Summit."

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The videos along with papers, declassified documents, etc., were made available for a Nov. 2 program on "Ronald Reagan: Intelligence and the End of the Cold War," held at the Reagan Presidential Library.

In the lead paper, on Reagan as a consumer of intelligence, CIA Historian Nick Dujmovic suggests the president's reported reliance on videos were part of the myth of the "insubstantial president," suggesting that there were only a small number of videos produced (each of which took a month to put together). Dujmovic adds that the idea did not come from Reagan or the White House but from the CIA, which in the summer of 1981 suggested some videos already in production might be "helpful for Reagan."

Dujmovic is careful to state that "no one should exaggerate the significance of the video intelligence Reagan consumed, especially compared with the great quantities of printed intelligence he read. If Reagan had watched every video prepared for him during his presidency, he would have watched an average of one video every two months."

He also says that the belief that Reagan received his daily intelligence briefings via video is a "myth." "A daily or even a weekly PDB (Presidents Daily Briefing) would have been impossible, given the minimum production time of three to four weeks for each video," writes Dujmovic.

Among the videos produced were "scene setters or advanced travelogues for presidential trips, including side travel by Mrs. Reagan," he writes.

Dujmovic quotes a Reagan note from October 1982 on a Soviet space program video: "Back at W.H. Saw a C.I.A. classified movie on Soviet Space Prog[ram]. They are much further ahead than most people realize and their main effort has been military."

Want to look at the videos? They're on the CIA's YouTube channel, where the videos are listed in (unfortunately) alphabetical order. They're fairly straightforward and not particularly sophisticated.

Here are links to some of the videos:

The Soviet Space Program

Afghanistan: The Gallant Struggle

The Andropov Succession

The Moscow Summit

The Chernobyl Accident

Soviet Internal Propaganda

The Soviet Media's Portrait of America

 

Federal officials will investigate whether Penn State officials violated federal law by failing to report alleged sexual abuse by the school's former football defense coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for Education Secretary Arne Duncan, confirmed to NBC News that the department was launching a probe into whether there were possible violations of a federal law called the Clery Act. It requires colleges and universities to publish and distribute information about criminal offenses -- including sex offenses -- that are reported to school authorities.  

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Penn State officials were formally notified of the investigation in a letter received Wednesday, officials said.   

"If these allegations of sexual abuse are true then this is a horrible tragedy for those young boys," Duncan said in a statement. "If it turns out that some people at the school knew of the abuse and did nothing or covered it up, that makes it even worse.  Schools and school officials have a legal and moral responsibility to protect children and young people from violence and abuse."

In an interview with the Associated Press this week, Duncan called reports about the school's handling of the allegations "absolutely devastating," adding: "The fact that this was allowed to go for so long is mind-boggling to me."

U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Penn., called Tuesday for such a probe in a letter to Duncan after a grand jury report charged that two senior school officials had failed to report allegations that Sandusky had sexually abused a young boy in the locker room of a school athletic building in 2002.  

Sandusky was arrested on Saturday and charged with molesting eight boys over 15 years. In addition, Tim Curley, Penn State's athletic director, and Gary Schultz, the university’s vice president of business and finance, were charged on Monday with failing to report the 2002 incident to the campus police and with perjury. Lawyers for all three men have denied the charges.

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in the 'Isikoff Files'

According to a grand jury report, a graduate assistant at the school had witnessed an incident in March 2002 in which Sandusky sodomized a naked 10-year-old boy in the locker room shower. He reported the incident to Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who later relayed information about the matter to Curley and Schultz, who oversaw the campus police. But neither of the two men -- or Paterno -- reported the incident to the campus police or to local authorities. The grand jury report quotes Schultz and Curley as acknowledging being told about an incident that Curley described as "horsing around" in the locker room, but both men denied being told that the incident involved anal sex.  

Federal officials view the Clery Act as a lever to prod schools to be more aggressive about investigating and prosecuting crimes on campus. Last March, Virginia Tech University was fined $55,000 for waiting too long to inform students about a gunman on the loose during a 2007 shooting rampage that killed 32 people at the school. Although violations of the Clery Act are punishable by civil fines, officials say schools worry most about the damage that publicized violations can do to their reputations.

The Justice Department has gotten the message from journalists, interest groups and government watchdogs and has decided to withdraw its proposal to allow federal agencies to lie to people seeking sensitive documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Currently, if a requested document is so sensitive that it would be dangerous to acknowledge its very existence, the government is allowed to tell you that it can neither confirm nor deny whether there is such a document.

Last month, the Justice Department proposed a rule revision that would let government agencies tell requesters there is no such document — even if there is. According to the proposal, which was retrieved by the nonprofit investigative project ProPublica, agencies would be allowed to "respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist."

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(You can read ProPublica's original story here and — assuming you want to plow through all 9,000 words of it — the entire DOJ proposal here.)

The proposal drew together an odd assortment of Washington types in opposition, collecting Republicans like Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas with Democrats like Sens. Pat Leahy of Vermont and Mark Udall of Colorado under the umbrella of the American Civil Liberties Union, which uncovered the proposal.

Grassley sent a letter to the Justice Department last month demanding an explanation. (As the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he can feel fairly certain that his letters get read by top officials there.) He said in a statement this week that "the Justice Department decided that misleading the American people would be wrong, and made the right decision to pull the proposed regulation."

Laura Murphy, who runs the ACLU's D.C. operations, said putting an end to "lies about the mere existence of documents is one step toward restoring Americans' trust in their government."

NPR has a good explanation of the background to the dispute here.

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Alex Johnson covers breaking news, projects and technology for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MAlexJohnson and on Facebook at MAlexJohnsonMSNBC.

The suicide bombing last weekend in Mogadishu – allegedly by a Somali American from Minnesota – has highlighted the important role played by U.S. citizens in the operations of al-Shabab, the Islamic terrorist organization battling the government in the war-torn east African nation.

If it is confirmed that Abdisalan Hussein Ali was one of two suicide bombers who attacked an African Union base, killing themselves and eight others, it will have been the third suicide bombing carried out in Somalia by Americans since 2008.

And U.S. officials tell NBC News that at least two members of the al-Shabab hierarchy are American-born, 20-something college dropouts, one of whom may be in the group’s “inner circle.”

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U.S. officials and counterterrorism analysts estimate there are at least 40 Americans fighting with al-Shabab in Somalia, as well as another 200 with passports that would permit them to enter the U.S. without a visa.  

Many of the al-Shabab soldiers are Somali-Americans, many of them from the Minneapolis area, like Ali. The two leaders are not. They are Arab-Americans who traveled to Somalia in the latter part of the last decade and began rising in the ranks of the al-Qaida-linked terrorist group.

One — San Diego-native Jehad Marwan Mustapha — is believed to be part of the group’s senior leadership. The other, Omar Hammami, is a unit commander.

Hammami's role has long been known. The 27-year-old from a suburb of Mobile, Ala., was profiled in the New York Times Sunday Magazine last year and has appeared in a number of al-Shabab videos, including one where he rapped an English-language recruiting pitch.

Hammami, whose father is Syrian, joined al-Shabab in late 2006 and took the name “Abu Mansoor al-Amriki,” or Abu Mansoor the American.

Photoblog: Threatening vengeance for bin Laden's death

He was interviewed in October 2007 by al-Jazeera, which identified him as a spokesman for the group, then indicted two months later by a federal grand jury on charges of material support for terrorism. He has since released four video and audio messages, most recently in April, when he mocked reports of his death and made his hip-hop recruiting pitch.

Mustapha, 29, is less well-known and has a less public role in al-Shabab, but is likely more influential in the terrorist group, according U.S. officials and Evan Kohlmann, an NBC News terrorism analyst.

“Though his name is perhaps lesser known than that of American national Omar Hammami, Jehad Mustapha is nonetheless reputed to be among the very top leaders of the foreign jihadists fighting alongside Shabab al-Mujahideen in Somalia under the banner of al-Qaida,” Kohlmann said.

One U.S. counterterrorism official, who like the others in this article spoke on condition of anonymity, referred to Mustapha as a “pretty bad dude” who has been with al-Shabab for “several years … long enough to be a significant commander … a senior player in the organization.”

Al-Shabab recently released video of a heavily masked, blue-eyed man speaking in American-accented English at a charity event in southern Somalia, and identified him as a representative of al-Qaida. Officials believe that the man could be Mustapha, who was indicted in the U.S. in August 2010 on charges of providing material support to terrorists.

In Somalia, Mustapha served under Saleh Nabhan, a senior al-Qaida and al-Shabab operative killed in a Navy SEAL operation in September 2009. 

There are conflicting reports on whether he had contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, the late New Mexico-born leading member of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in September.

Mustapha lived in San Diego through his late teens, when al-Awlaki was preaching in the city and is known to have had contact with other young jihadists, including two 9/11 hijackers, before leaving San Diego in 2002.

One U.S. official who spoke with NBC News said there is evidence to suggest contact, while declining to characterize it. A second official said he was unaware of any such connection.

Kohlmann said he also had no information indicating a connection, but added, “It’s not the most far-fetched thing I've ever heard.”

Before he was radicalized, Mustapha was working through his way through the University of California, San Diego, by manning the front desk at an auto repair shop.

By all accounts the son of working-class parents was responsible and easy-going. He was interested in business, majoring in economics.

Then, after marrying a Somali woman, he picked up and headed for her homeland. Now, say U.S. officials, when suicide bombers are dispatched to carry out their attacks, it's likely Mustapha is aware of it.

No, thousands of "crackheads" aren't going to start flooding America's streets Tuesday.

That's just one of several myths that have surrounded the U.S. Sentencing Commission's vote in June to make federal sentence reductions retroactive for current prisoners convicted of crack possession or use.

What happens Tuesday is that some eligible federal prisoners who have petitioned for reduced sentences under rules Congress passed last year can begin being released. Those rules sought to address a disparity that meant crack offenders were given the same mandatory five-year minimum sentence as were offenders in possession of 100 times as much powder cocaine.

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Since the so-called 100:1 ratio was imposed in 1986 — shortly after the cocaine-related death of college basketball star Len Bias — it has come to be widely regarded as racially discriminatory. That's because the great majority of those convicted of crack possession are African-American — about 84 percent, according to Justice Department statistics. By contrast, African-Africans make up only about 30 percent of those convicted of possession of powder cocaine.

In June, the Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to redress what it called the "fundamental unfairness" of the old law by allowing prisoners convicted before it was changed to seek to reduce their sentences to be in line. 

The new policy applies only to those convicted in federal court — the tens of thousands of crack cocaine convicts in state prisons aren't affected. And it effectively applies only to those federal prisoners convicted after 2007, when the Sentencing Commission similarly allowed federal crack prisoners to seek retroactive reductions after a different adjustment of the guidelines.

That's a narrow subsection, comprising prisoners convicted in federal court of crack possession since the last adjustment. The commission projects it covers about 12,000 inmates in 116 federal prisons across the country.

Not all of those 12,000 prisoners will have their sentences reduced. For one thing, there's no way to know how many will actually seek reductions, particularly those who are near the ends of their sentences anyway. 

And the reduction isn't automatic; prisoners must go before federal judges, allowing for potentially dangerous or violent offenders to be screened out. When the courts went through the same process three years ago, they rejected more than a third of petitioners. 

The average reduction is projected to be about three years. Even with that reduction, the average sentence will still be about 10 years; that means many of those who win sentence reductions will still have several more years to serve.

• U.S. Sentencing Commission statement on new guidelines (.pdf)

All told, projections are that between 1,000 and 2,000 prisoners across the country will be eligible for immediate release when the policy takes effect Tuesday.

History does tell us that at least some of them will re-offend. But if the 2008 release is any indication, it won't be because they were let out early.

In May, the Sentencing Commission published its analysis of what happened to the approximately 16,000 prisoners who went free when their sentences were reduced after the earlier policy went into effect in March 2008. It compared their outcomes against those of a similar number of crack cocaine offenders who completed their sentences.

Over the two-year period, 30 percent of the early releases were arrested again for a new crime, the statistics show.

And what about the control group? More of them — 33 percent — were arrested again. 

It's tempting to say the statistics show that early release makes crack offenders less likely to re-offend, but in fact the difference is within the statistical margin of error. What it does show is that there's no appreciable difference in recidivism between the two groups. (See chart above.)

• Read the entire U.S. Sentencing Commission analysis (.pdf)

(Regardless of whether they are released early or not, crack offenders are about half as likely to be arrested again as are federal criminal offenders overall, 59 percent of whom the Justice Department says are re-arrested within two years of release.)

More reality check: The new policy doesn't, in fact, wipe out the disparity in cocaine sentencing. It's the result of a compromise as Congress debated the new sentencing guidelines last year. True, the crack possession-to-powder possession isn't a whopping 100:1 anymore. But it's still 18:1 — meaning you can have 18 times more powder cocaine than crack in your possession and still wind up with the same minimum sentence. 

There's one last misperception, perhaps the biggest of them of all. It's the persistent belief that the 1986 law disproportionally cracking down on crack was passed because Len Bias died after a night of crack-fueled celebration over his having been picked second in the NBA draft. His death came at the peak of the 1980s concern over crack and its role in drug gang violence that drove homicide rates into the hundreds a year in several major cities.

But Len Bias did not die from smoking crack cocaine.

At their annual seminar on sentencing, federal prosecutors reported last year: "Ironically, Len Bias's death was later shown to have been from a powder cocaine overdose — not a crack cocaine overdose as initially believed."

The paper is titled "Still Haunted by Len Bias." (.pdf)