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"Chemical castration' isn't end for rapist

 
Published Nov. 28, 1998|Updated Sept. 14, 2005

Years after a convicted rapist agreed to go through a highly publicized "chemical castration" as part of his probation, he has pleaded guilty to new sex crimes and police are investigating him in connection with up to 75 more.

Joseph Frank Smith _ dubbed the "ski mask rapist" when he was convicted of raping the same woman twice in San Antonio, Texas, in 1983 _ agreed to impotence-causing injections as a condition of his probation.

He moved to the Richmond area after his conviction and appeared on television's 60 Minutes in 1984 as a success story for chemical castration.

Officials at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, where he commuted for his treatments, said at the time that chemical castration suppressed the sexual appetite of offenders and made it easier to treat them.

But now authorities think Smith, 45, is responsible for as many as 75 more sex-related crimes since 1987. He has been charged and convicted in two cases.

Foes of managed-care overhaul spent $60-million

WASHINGTON _ Insurance companies and their allies in the fight against new regulations for managed health care spent an average $112,000 per lawmaker to lobby Congress in the first half of this year.

The $60-million lobbying outlay was four times the $14-million-plus spent by medical organizations, trial lawyers, unions and consumer groups to press for passage of the so-called Patients Bill of Rights, disclosure reports filed with the secretary of the Senate show.

Not all of the money went for lobbying on managed care, because many groups opposed to the changes also talked to members of Congress about other issues.

But the $60-million lobbying tab is 50 percent higher than the $40-million that tobacco interests spent between January and June to kill legislation to raise cigarette taxes to curb teenage smoking.

The figure does not include $11-million spent on advertising against the managed care legislation, nor millions of dollars in campaign contributions that opponents of new regulation made in the just-concluded congressional campaigns.

Police arrest mom of teen who died at 15 pounds

JANESVILLE, Wis. _ A woman was jailed on suspicion of child neglect after bringing her emaciated 15-year-old daughter to an emergency room, where the girl was pronounced dead. Officials said she weighed barely 15 pounds.

Karen Kuffer, 50, was in the Rock County jail Friday pending a court hearing today, said police Chief George Brunner. Police charged her with child neglect and recommended that prosecutors file formal charges.

The woman brought her daughter, Kay Kuffer, to Mercy Hospital Wednesday night. The girl was pronounced dead on arrival, Brunner said. Hospital officials told police the girl, who suffered from cerebral palsy, weighed 15 pounds, 1 ounce.

Hospital officials declined to comment, referring all questions to police.

Investigators think the girl was dead when she was brought to the hospital.

Army airlifting fish to feed Alaskan sled dogs

FAIRBANKS, Alaska _ The Army is stepping in to airlift tons of fish to isolated communities so that villagers can feed the dogs that do much of the hauling and other heavy work there, though bad weather has slowed the effort.

A poor salmon run along the Yukon River watershed left supplies short in 13 isolated Indian villages, spread across a 400-mile area north of Fairbanks.

Salmon was donated from a Valdez hatchery, and an Anchorage processor flash-froze the supplies, about 200,000 pounds worth. Army officials say that besides helping the dogs and the villagers, Operation Fish-Ex is good training for the troops.