JOIN USIIT alumnus gets jail for hate mails
Buddhi’s father B K Subbarao on Saturday sharply reacted to the verdict, saying the trial was unfair and a “total miscarriage of justice”. Subbarao, a lawyer and former Navy Captain, also said the 38-year-old PhD student of Purdue University will appeal against the ruling.
“The sentence has come without a straight trial and without any valid indictment because essential facts were not stated in the charges,” Subbarao said, terming it a “total miscarriage of justice”.
“As the indictment was invalid, he should not have been sentenced. Buddhi, who is defending himself in a US court, will now file an appeal in the appellate court in Chicago.”
Buddhi was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison and an additional three years of supervised release by a US court for posting hate messages in 2006 against Bush and calling for bombings of American infrastructure.
Subbarao said the US criminal Procedure laws required essential facts of the offence to be stated in the charges, which was not done in his son’s case. He said the first charge against Buddhi states “on or before December 30, 2005 Vikram Buddhi knowingly and wilfully threatened to kill George Bush in violation of section 871 of title 18 US code.”
“But nowhere in this charge it was stated how he had threatened. The essential fact was missing, and the indictment was invalid. As such, the trial was unfair and sentence should not have been pronounced,” Subbarao said. Subbarao said only during the trial the prosecution had brought before the court the Internet messages in question.
“The Supreme Court of the US has laid down that whenever the essential fact of the offence is not stated in the charges, no additional document can be brought to support the indictment,” he pointed out. Therefore, in the opinion of the US Supreme Court, the indictment must stand or can fall on its own. In the case of Buddhi, it fell because the essential fact was missing in the charge, he claimed.
Subbarao hoped that Buddhi would get justice in the appellate court.
Three plead guilty to health care fraud
A physical therapist, a money launderer and a patient recruiter trio, including two people of Indian origin, have pleaded guilty in connection with multiple health care fraud schemes in Detroit, reports IANS from Washington.
The three, Baskaran Thangarasan, 37, Sandeep Aggarwal, 38, and Wayne Smith, 47, pleaded guilty this week before two district court judges in Michigan, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced on Friday. Thangarasan and Smith face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine; Aggarwal faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine, it said.